Determinism: the holy grail of Academia.

[Curious George]

And I haven't failed to mention it in that context.

However, randomness is wholly within physics, and contradicts rather than implies freewill, so it's of no use to your argument.

Excepting the fact that it undermines any reasoning to assume our reality is deterministic.

Or quantum randomness.

Again just proof that reality is not deterministic

But if spacetime is a property of energy then all that needs to exist is energy, and time, space and the zip fastener follow from that.

I think you are working with some very esoteric definitions here. So an ability to do work existed infinitely and this ability has qualities such as spacetime?

You seriously doubt the existence of cause&effect? You say it has to be assumed?

Yes.

Ah (as my French sister-in-law once put it) you are being humoristic!
Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems (Hamlet to Gertrude).

i agree, freewill is.

We act because of chains of cause&effect run through our neurons, result in nerve signals, activate body movement or speech &c. No mystery, no alternative way we choose or we act.

as i said you are just inserting "cause and effect" and calling it an explanation.

WHAT, exactly might have been there? On what basis do you claim it?

The basis that we have control and taking away that control takes our basis for understanding away. In other words because like cause and effect, freewill must be assumed.

Now you're resorting to cheap shots in areas you should have checked. Here's W! on Global Workspace Theory, the leading hypothesis regarding consciousness when last I looked into such things.

Implies control, therefore implies freewill.

Except randomness.

Everytime you say randomness, I hear "a reason to accept our reality is not reliant on cause and effect"

My energy-is-prior hypothesis would deal with first causes.

No it wouldn't. Invoking randomness could. But that is all.

And that will sound credible when you describe the manner in which this control is effected without chains of cause&effect, and if relevant, randomness.

The conscious focus. Cause and effect relationships are 100% predictable. Random relationships are not. To the extent that our consciousness affects outcomes, we must acknowledge that their is interplay. What we disagree with is whether or not we can influence that consciousness or if consciousness completely outside of our control. I think. It is that simple. You blame my thinking on a causal chain of which science cannot offer an account; I blame my thinking in part on a causal chain and in part on my ability to influence that causal chain. I accept that science cannot offer an account of the causal chain or my ability to influence it but I assume what is necessary. Causal chains and my ability to influence them.

Just describe a 'different factor' and talk me through its having influence, and what you've said might make sense. Meanwhile it's just wishing, no?

No. It is not a different factor that I need to describe. It is merely a different phenomena. Cause and effect is the assumption that everything is 100% predictable. Randomness is probability without method or consciousness. Freewill is then probability with consciousness and method.

These three phenomena exist. You would have us assume that the last phenomena is just a consequence of having not discovered the cause. I would have us acknowledge that it is the consequence of freewill which is something which we all believe exists already.

 

[Repox]

You have been asked MULTIPLE times to describe how your version of freewill works since you deny human consciousness arises from the biochemical reactions of the brain, a physical organ subject to all the laws of physics that all other matter and energy adhere to. The truth of the matter is that you prefer your supernatural belief system over reality. Determinism is a direct threat to your dogma that insists that people's decisions are not influenced by ANY outside factors, so your genocidal god can claim innocence of any wrong doing. A strange thing for a deity who shamelessly embraces a might makes right mentality to worry about. Another truth is that you avoid answering certain questions because you don't have answers for those questions, yet, instead of honestly saying "I don't know" you attempt to tap dance around the subject like we can't see your full of it. All the avoidance and mental gymnastics do is destroy your credibility. If it's obvious you're not interested in having an honest discussion/debate no one's going to take you seriously.

I find this a lot on the internet, people who can't read. They just get emotional and fire away. If you had read my postings you would know the answers. Others on this thread also have a difficult time reading postings. "It makes you want to weep." I got that from a WWII film (Battle of Britain). To begin, you stated, "you deny human consciousness arises from the biochemical reactions of the brain." I never said that. I have acknowledged consciousness is connected to the brain. You would have to be really stupid to say otherwise. I have challenged anyone to present evidence for brain determinism. I get nothing but, well, prove free will! Then, I have repeatedly said, just as there is no proof for brain determinism, there is no proof for free will. Then, I have presented numerous examples of free will. And what do I get, no reply, or don't want to admit there may be free will. I think that sums it up. READ POSTINGS.

Oh, I need to add. I will continue to present evidence for free will, it is real. I don't want to start a "believer verses atheist" war, just want to get the facts. Oh, I will continue to stress the importance of free will for God's creatures.

Have a good day.

 

[Curious George]

I find this a lot on the internet, people who can't read. They just get emotional and fire away. If you had read my postings you would know the answers. Others on this thread also have a difficult time reading postings. "It makes you want to weep." I got that from a WWII film (Battle of Britain). To begin, you stated, "you deny human consciousness arises from the biochemical reactions of the brain." I never said that. I have acknowledged consciousness is connected to the brain. You would have to be really stupid to say otherwise. I have challenged anyone to present evidence for brain determinism. I get nothing but, well, prove free will! Then, I have repeatedly said, just as there is no proof for brain determinism, there is no proof for free will. Then, I have presented numerous examples of free will. And what do I get, no reply, or don't want to admit there may be free will. I think that sums it up. READ POSTINGS.

Oh, I need to add. I will continue to present evidence for free will, it is real. I don't want to start a "believer verses atheist" war, just want to get the facts. Oh, I will continue to stress the importance of free will for God's creatures.

Have a good day.

I am an atheist, i believe in free will. Free will is not contibgent or determinitive of a god belief.

 

[Repox]

I am an atheist, i believe in free will. Free will is not contibgent or determinitive of a god belief.

Oh, I never really thought about that position. I think the evidence is clear, people exercise freewill.

 

[George-ananda]

I am an atheist, i believe in free will.

What are we other than matter following natural laws?

 

[Curious George]

What are we other than matter following natural laws?

Information for one. Consxiousness for two. Both of which cannot be considered wholly deterministic.

 

[Curious George]

Oh, I never really thought about that position. I think the evidence is clear, people exercise freewill.

I think that freewill is necessary for us to say anything about the evidence.

 

[George-ananda]

Information for one. Consxiousness for two. Both of which cannot be considered wholly deterministic.

Good answer. I have found most atheists here to be followers of materialism and consider consciousness to be just brain operation and the brain consisting only of matter/energy following natural law. So when pinned down, this leads to determinism.

Is it correct to say you hold consciousness to be something mysterious and not fully explainable as material actions?

 

[Curious George]

Good answer. I have found most atheists here to be followers of materialism and consider consciousness to be just brain operation and the brain consisting only of matter/energy following natural law. So when pinned down, this leads to determinism.

Is it correct to say you hold consciousness to be something mysterious and not fully explainable as material actions?

Mysterious is one word I would tend to avoid, but i suppose it fits.

Consciousness is not fully understood therefore it is mysterious. Can we better understand consciousness? Yes. Can we umderstand consciousness through the lens of natural laws, I would anticipate so. But does consciousness arise from material? No. Information is not material either. That does not mean it does not follow some natural law. It does not mean that we can not describe consciousness. And it does not mean that consciousness is supernatural.

The next part of your sentence that I would question would be fully. Fully is to a degree a valuation. What fully describes one system can be pointed to from another perspective as lacking. Take for instance the uncertainty principle. I imagine and believe we will be able to describe consciousness scientifically. I think there will necessarily be a degree of uncertainty and we will be able to describe that uncertainty. But just because a graph has a point that is undefinied does not mean the graph cannot be "fully" described.

 

[George-ananda]

Mysterious is one word I would tend to avoid, but i suppose it fits.

Consciousness is not fully understood therefore it is mysterious. Can we better understand consciousness? Yes. Can we umderstand consciousness through the lens of natural laws, I would anticipate so. But does consciousness arise from material? No. Information is not material either. That does not mean it does not follow some natural law. It does not mean that we can not describe consciousness. And it does not mean that consciousness is supernatural.

The next part of your sentence that I would question would be fully. Fully is to a degree a valuation. What fully describes one system can be pointed to from another perspective as lacking. Take for instance the uncertainty principle. I imagine and believe we will be able to describe consciousness scientifically. I think there will necessarily be a degree of uncertainty and we will be able to describe that uncertainty. But just because a graph has a point that is undefinied does not mean the graph cannot be "fully" described.

The key point is that there would have to be something more to consciousness than the known matter/energy and natural laws to escape determinism.

 

[blü 2]

\

In order to establish determinism as an explanation for human behavior we need evidence.

You have not once addressed the reasoning behind determinism that I've set out for you at least three times.

You have not once offered an explanation of how your imagined 'freewill' makes choices without using chains of cause&effect (and if relevant, randomness.)

Your assertion above is untrue and without foundation, merely your woolly wishful thinking, and you should drop it and start understanding what you're being told.

Due to the lack of scientific methodology for proving human brain activity for either free will or determinism, one must study social data.

Self-serving, total, uncomprehending, untenable rubbish.

I have presented numerous examples of people making free will choices.

And never once explained how they made their choices without using the chains of cause&effect by which their brains operate.

Not once. Nothing at all. Total silence.

in the biological and physical sciences we have higher levels of significance in research studies.

All you're talking about is statistics.

Yet again you have no concept of how.

Yet again you offer nothing that addresses the question of determinism, let alone casts doubt on it.

 

[Curious George]

The key point is that there would have to be something more to consciousness than the known matter/energy and natural laws to escape determinism.

Something more is where the hangup is. Do you mean something more fundamental? That is posssible but a non sequitur. Do you mean something more as in emergent properties? That is possible as well.

 

[blü 2]

Excepting the fact that it undermines any reasoning to assume our reality is deterministic.

As I've already said, that's fine. It doesn't affect my argument as to how we think, and it doesn't help whatever your alternative may be when you get round to saying what it is ─ unless, of course, you're saying it's random.

In future I'll try to remember to write 'deterministic/r' so as to include any potential quantum randomness expressly.

I think you are working with some very esoteric definitions here. So an ability to do work existed infinitely and this ability has qualities such as spacetime?

I make no claim about 'infinite'. I've never seen a theory of how work may be done without transfer of energy. E=mc^2 ─ all matter may be expressed in terms of its energy. The forces exist and operate by transferring energy or holding it in stasis. The 'vacuum' ─ even the remotest spaces between the galaxies ─ is not empty but has energy. This is the general background to my hypothesis.

Information for one.

When you say 'information', do you mean anything other than 'data'? Or do you intend the usual meaning 'that which informs (brains)'? Or what, exactly?

Consxiousness for two. Both of which cannot be considered wholly deterministic.

In what sense can consciousness be considered not wholly deterministic/r? Talk me through an example.

 

[George-ananda]

Something more is where the hangup is. Do you mean something more fundamental? That is posssible but a non sequitur. Do you mean something more as in emergent properties? That is possible as well.

Well either one would qualify as something more than currently understood. I understand your point.

 

[Curious George]

As I've already said, that's fine. It doesn't affect my argument as to how we think, and it doesn't help whatever your alternative may be when you get round to saying what it is ─ unless, of course, you're saying it's random.

Yet it does. You cannot make an argument that consciousness is deterministic because evrything seems deterministic, when A) everything is not deterministic and B) everything does not seem deterministic

In future I'll try to remember to write 'deterministic/r' so as to include any potential quantum randomness expressly.
I make no claim about 'infinite'. I've never seen a theory of how work may be done without transfer of energy. E=mc^2 ─ all matter may be expressed in terms of its energy. The forces exist and operate by transferring energy or holding it in stasis. The 'vacuum' ─ even the remotest spaces between the galaxies ─ is not empty but has energy. This is the general background to my hypothesis.

Excepting the fact fact that E=MC^2 no more describes our reality than Euclidean Geometry.
You can take generalizations and then make conclusions regarding those generalization, but it is not a logical way to proceed.

When you say 'information', do you mean anything other than 'data'? Or do you intend the usual meaning 'that which informs (brains)'? Or what, exactly?

That which informs (not just brains though).

In what sense can consciousness be considered not wholly deterministic/r? Talk me through an example.

In that a system can be informed in a way that is not predictable. Deterministic means completely predictable. Not correlation, causation. It relies on the assumption that if we had all of the information we could predict with 100% accuracy. This is not true. We can not predict what someone will think. How this would work then is even if we had all the information we still could not predict what someone would think. All that is required is that another possibility exist such that given all other information within the system my conscious decision would not be predictable with 100% accuracy.

We see evidence of this phenomena in reality when not dealing with consciousness. All that is required is that this same phenomena occur with consciousness.

And I would say we do have evidence. No scientific experiments dealing with consciousness show 100% predictability. None show causation. We only have correlation.

So we have evidence of probabilities existing when dealing with human consciousness and choice.

 

[osgart]

you could have chose not to respond, and that would be an exercise in free will.

nothing determined your remarks but your own will, and with will there is choice.

the unconscious mind is the sum total of all past experiences, choices, and learned behaviours. prove it is not so. when the opportunity to make a free will choice comes up, it is solely your choice to autonomously respond, or choose another direction by will.

self examination is where free will is evidenced.

some wills become weaker, and some wills become stronger in their freedoms, but the choice to choose elsewise always remains.

it is true that many people get caught up in determined ways, and are never truly awake to their free will. addiction for example. or a dead end job.

but one always has the option to choose an entire else or new way. just because free will is totally enslaved in determinism for many, many people doesn't mean they can't wake up to a better choice in the future.

but if you want to discard your free will that you have that is entirely up to you. many do just that.

what I don't like is people bullying determinism into people as absolute truth, when the contrary is true, and can be learned if only people would enlighten themselves to this simple fact.

 

[Curious George]

you could have chose not to respond, and that would be an exercise in free will.

nothing determined your remarks but your own will, and with will there is choice.

the unconscious mind is the sum total of all past experiences, choices, and learned behaviours. prove it is not so. when the opportunity to make a free will choice comes up, it is solely your choice to autonomously respond, or choose another direction by will.

self examination is where free will is evidenced.

some wills become weaker, and some wills become stronger in their freedoms, but the choice to choose elsewise always remains.

it is true that many people get caught up in determined ways, and are never truly awake to their free will. addiction for example. or a dead end job.

but one always has the option to choose an entire else or new way. just because free will is totally enslaved in determinism for many, many people doesn't mean they can't wake up to a better choice in the future.

but if you want to discard your free will that you have that is entirely up to you. many do just that.

what I don't like is people bullying determinism into people as absolute truth, when the contrary is true, and can be learned if only people would enlighten themselves to this simple fact.

What is assumed simple fact is rarely so. Asserting free will exists because free will exists is not much different than asserting determinism exists because eveything is determined (or everything is determined except for when it is random).

Doing this we get people shouting back and forth across the room. I agree that we at least percieve freewill. I would argue that everyone assumes freewill. This is from where we start. Is there reason to doubt free will? Yes. Cause and effect supplies that reason. Yet there is reason to doubt cause and effect as well. In truth, both concepts are necessarily assumed. And the destruction of one entails the destruction of the other. Without freewill we have no foundation on which to draw to assume cause and effect, and without cause and effect we have no foundation on which to assume free will. So, we are left with these two possibilities which could be illusions but are nonetheless part of our phenomenal world. We make choices. Effects have causes. As of now, we may have reason to doubt both, but not reason to disbelieve either.

Cheers

 

[blü 2]

Yet it does. You cannot make an argument that consciousness is deterministic because evrything seems deterministic, when A) everything is not deterministic and B) everything does not seem deterministic

As I said, my argument has always been that the universe is a mix of deterministic and random. You require me to be more express about this, and I'm happy to continue to oblige.

And my position, as ever, offers no support for yours.

Excepting the fact fact that E=MC^2 no more describes our reality than Euclidean Geometry.
You can take generalizations and then make conclusions regarding those generalization, but it is not a logical way to proceed.

I never pretended I could demonstrate its correctness. It's simply an hypothesis, but at least as reasonable as many others, and certainly a vastly better survivor of Occam's Razor than any supernatural stuff.

That which informs (not just brains though).

And what is non-deterministic/r about that which informs brains?

And what does information inform other than brains?

Deterministic means completely predictable.

First, it means completely predictable in principle, not that we presently (or in the foreseeable future) will have the ability to make such predictions.

Second, as I've said, I'm referring to determinism/r, not simple determinism, and we agree that can interfere with the cause&effect processes of reality.

Just not in any way helpful to your case.

So we have evidence of probabilities existing when dealing with human consciousness and choice.

None of which lead to freewill in the sense of independence from the physical operations of the brain.

 

[Curious George]

As I said, my argument has always been that the universe is a mix of deterministic and random. You require me to be more express about this, and I'm happy to continue to oblige.

And my position, as ever, offers no support for yours.

Excepting the fact that it offers reason to assume a process that is not proven to be deterministic as non deterministic.

I never pretended I could demonstrate its correctness. It's simply an hypothesis, but at least as reasonable as many others, and certainly a vastly better survivor of Occam's Razor than any supernatural stuff.

which is fine. My hypothesis, doesn't require anything supernatural, and I believe puts yours on the outs with occam's razor. I am not trying to create an elaborate explanation for a phenomena we all experience, that is the determinists.

And what is non-deterministic/r about that which informs brains?

We have no evidence that supports such a conclusion. We only have evidence that supports a probabilistic nature of how our brains are informed. You are the one claiming something outside the observed. You should be the one proving something outside of the observed.

And what does information inform other than brains?

The nature of objects.

First, it means completely predictable in principle, not that we presently (or in the foreseeable future) will have the ability to make such predictions.

Second, as I've said, I'm referring to determinism/r, not simple determinism, and we agree that can interfere with the cause&effect processes of reality.

We agree that there is no cause and effect nature of reality. We agree that cause and effect must have a place in reality as well. But nothing about reality dictates that it has a cause and effect nature.

Just not in any way helpful to your case.
None of which lead to freewill in the sense of independence from the physical operations of the brain.

You keep using that term "independence." I am not sure anything (even randomness) is independent from physical operations. But that does not mean that it is not random. Randomness is simply unpredictablility without method and consciousness. If we were to have unpredictability with method or consciousness then that would in fact be freewill.

 

[Repox]

\
You have not once addressed the reasoning behind determinism that I've set out for you at least three times.

You have not once offered an explanation of how your imagined 'freewill' makes choices without using chains of cause&effect (and if relevant, randomness.)

Your assertion above is untrue and without foundation, merely your woolly wishful thinking, and you should drop it and start understanding what you're being told.

I reject determinism based on social science research and evidence of everyday life, all of which you have ignored. I posted it!