Determinism: the holy grail of Academia.

[Indagator]

Oh... determinists are so cute... claiming that determinism is true yet at the same time saying that they are pre-determined to think that way.

Btw, academia is full of idiots and angry nerds.

 

[Grandliseur]

We all know the brilliance of academicians. They know things others don’t know because they have specialized knowledge. To learn about academic bias or assumptions, one must have insight into the academic enterprise. We all know it is about truth. In the halls of higher learning, most academicians believe we have no freewill. In academic studies, we learn there may be so many variables as to negate reasonable explanations. However, “educated people” assume everyone’s behavior is subject to deterministic circumstances.

Testing a hypothesis or research question, most academicians string variables like a well-tuned musical instrument, therefore proposing determinist relationships. Taking the same set of variables, some academicians may propose actors making freewill choices. How can we find the real answer? One Academician finds nothing but deterministic relationships, while another academician finds people making freewill choices. In the academic world, the most likely winners for proposing explanations are “determinists.” To make matters even more complicated, it is difficult to argue for positions other than determinism. How can one prove a freewill choice? One person thinks, “I made a choice.” Another person thinks, “I had no choice, circumstances made me do it.” Is that what happens when the murderer pulls the trigger? As for survival in the academic world, one may find their career in jeopardy for proposing freewill choices.

For the deterministic model, there are serious implications for theology. If God determined Satan to be rebellious, there is no sin or evil. Moreover, how can there be holy and obedient angels if they have no freewill choices? If human behavior is determined, good equals evil insofar as actions are concerned. Therefore, the murder is not guilty; circumstances made him or her do it.

With the Bible and logic, it is clear that with the two, free will makes the claim that God is omniscient about all future events - false. If in fact God is totally omniscient about future events, then we live in a rerun movie set in stuff harder than diamonds.

As you point out, then satan has no sin and is not evil if that is true; likewise, all evil points straight back at God as the one from which evil has its origin. This being the case, this teaching is obviously coming from satan to try to whitewash himself.

It may be understood from the Bible that God's knowledge of the future is such that it compares to a city that wants to build new roads. They plan ahead, buy the land, do the work, and finally when time comes, the road is there. All this while the citizens went about their business as they wanted to. Similarly, God makes come to be what he wants by planning, power, and time, while we may choose to exercise our free will to the extend that it exists.

 

[shunyadragon]

By what methodology can you prove a person's thinking doesn't direct neuron activity for individual outcomes? Humans are different than other species, they use their brains to think objectively about ideas, situations, and possible outcomes.

Again, again, and again science does not 'prove' anything.

You will need to clarify the above concerning what 'human thinking' controls?' Are you advocating 'Substance Dualism.' There is no objective verifiable evidence for Substance Dualism.

Humans are only different from other species by degree and not in any absolute sense.

 

[shunyadragon]

With the Bible and logic, . . .

Famous last words for 'Begging the question big time.'

it is clear that with the two, free will makes the claim that God is omniscient about all future events - false. If in fact God is totally omniscient about future events, then we live in a rerun movie set in stuff harder than diamonds.

Logic does not follow.

As you point out, then satan has no sin and is not evil if that is true; likewise, all evil points straight back at God as the one from which evil has its origin. This being the case, this teaching is obviously coming from satan to try to whitewash himself.

If God is truly in charge, omniscient, and omnipresent, therefore God determines everything including evil and its origin.

It may be understood from the Bible that God's knowledge of the future is such that it compares to a city that wants to build new roads. They plan ahead, buy the land, do the work, and finally when time comes, the road is there. All this while the citizens went about their business as they wanted to. Similarly, God makes come to be what he wants by planning, power, and time, while we may choose to exercise our free will to the extend that it exists.

Your conflating God's plan with God's knowledge. Does God know the future?

 

[blü 2]

Why have none of you free-willers explained to us automatons how you make decisions independently of chains of cause&effect, independently of your neurons?

If they're not made via cause&effect, the only other option is randomness, no?

So spell it out. Nice and simple.

Please. I'm dying to know.

 

[corynski]

Oh... determinists are so cute... claiming that determinism is true yet at the same time saying that they are pre-determined to think that way.


And religious and faith oriented people are not?

Btw, academia is full of idiots and angry nerds.

 

[corynski]

I believe it was Ferdinand Magellan who observed that he could see the mast tips and sails before he saw the ship itself, telling him that the church had mistakenly assumed the earth was flat, but from experience he knew it was round........

 

[Indagator]

And religious and faith oriented people are not?

Are not what? Cute??? Sure they are.

 

[Grandliseur]

(My claim that you say is not logical: "free will makes the claim false that God is omniscient about all future events."
Logic does not follow.

If God is truly in charge, omniscient, and omnipresent, therefore God determines everything including evil and its origin.

If you didn't see the determining word, 'false' in the sentence, I put it where it is more obvious. (I had even colored both red to make it harder to miss their being connected)
Why do you say that having free will does not prevent God from being omniscient about future events? To me it is obvious that you cannot have both free will and God being omniscient about future events.

Future
I do not believe God to be omniscient about future events. God knows the future the way we do. Our scientists claim that in 600 million years our moon will leave earth's orbit making it so that we shall have no more solar eclipses (recent news article). They use physics and math to predict this. God does the same, but better. He has, however, long ranging plans he forces into being, like we do when we have a long term project.

 

[corynski]

Are not what? Cute??? Sure they are.

Hmmm...... yes, I think I was simply suggesting that religions and believers also have their share of idiots and angry nerds.

 

[Repox]

Again, again, and again science does not 'prove' anything.

You will need to clarify the above concerning what 'human thinking' controls?' Are you advocating 'Substance Dualism.' There is no objective verifiable evidence for Substance Dualism.

Humans are only different from other species by degree and not in any absolute sense.

I disagree, humans have a big advantage over other species. It is not by degrees, it is by whole different worlds, most often refereed to as "civilization." Animals hunt prey, humans heard them into slaughter houses and methodically kill them for consumption. Animals seek shelter from stormy weather, humans build houses and large buildings to protect them from storms, floods, and all kinds of natural hazards. The list goes on and on for the differences between humans and other species. Look at the map and see large cities, farm lands, dams, bridges, etc.

In this discussion about determinism, I haven't mentioned "Substance Dualism." So, I don't know what you mean.

 

[Repox]

By pointing out that a person's thinking is a product from neuronal activity, associated biochemistry and bioelectricity, and hormones released or withheld by operation of the brain itself.

Yes, humans have evolved as the brain creature par excellence. Something like an extraordinary 20% of our oxygen intake is required for the brain, for instance, which means that in paying such a high price we must be getting extraordinary benefits from it for survival and breeding.

So our brains are remarkable, but they're not magical. They're simply the present top of the range model of the primate brain, from apes, great apes, early Homo to us, Homo sapiens sapiens (a bit of bragging there ─ 'smart smart Man').

You have brought up a very important point about freewill. If you examine the biological makeup of the human brain, you can show the path of activity as a consequence of thoughts. A human thinks and therefore acts ensue. Do the biological functions cause thoughts without willful deliberations by the human? If there is no willful effort to direct thoughts and subsequently actions, then the person is a robot, and all other humans with the same stimuli will respond in similar ways. However, in the field of social science studies, we find little or no evidence for mutuality. What we find are numerous studies showing a vast array of human differences. Even in studies of humans in the same culture with similar or the same values and norms you find a variety of individual differences, all of which supports the idea of freewill. Animals, on the other hand, do not have symbolic communication abilities. Therefore, they function with instincts, not thoughts.

 

[blü 2]

Do the biological functions cause thoughts without willful deliberations by the human?

First, a lot of human activity goes straight to automatic ─ walking, driving, whipping your hand off the hotplate, returning Roger's serve at Flushing Meadows. So we do a lot of things totally bypassing conscious thought.

Second, we know from a rather famous series of experiments a few years back that your nonconscious brain makes your decisions up to 2 secs before it reports the result, to the conscious brain, sometimes acting on those decisions with physical commands in the meantime.

A variation on that observation is this: when you speak any statement, where are the words before you say them? They're not in your conscious, nor is their censoring eg when you go to say something then stop in time. Where are these words in the 1/20th of a second before I type them? So I know that whatever is composing my spoken or written utterances, it isn't my consciousness, isn't in that sense the 'wilful deliberation' you speak of.

If there is no willful effort to direct thoughts and subsequently actions, then the person is a robot, and all other humans with the same stimuli will respond in similar ways.

Well, maybe. It's legit to think of us as biomechanisms, but as you'll have noticed, the experience doesn't feel like that. We have a strong, central sense that we own our decisions, that they're ours, and it's so prevalent we pay it little attention.

And it's unusual for us to react in exactly the same way to any repeated stimulus. Maybe we have much the same kind of reaction, but not identical. With the nonconscious mind doing all the heavy lifting, if HQ is consciousness then in general HQ neither has a clue nor needs one some enormous proportion of the time. (I'm staying with 'wilful' when I say that. Sometimes just being awake is equated with 'consciousness',)

Animals, on the other hand, do not have symbolic communication abilities. Therefore, they function with instincts, not thoughts.

If there's one thing you can say about us, it's that we're animals. Or don't you need toilets? As for symbolic communication, all animals understand the body language of their species; and you may recall that dolphins have been taught to follow verbal cues ─ [put the] red ball [not the blue one, in the] righthand [not the lefthand] basket, for example. So that's a start. Haven't checked latest developments in chimpology, but I think some experiments showed understanding of verbal cues, not just rote learning (but I'm a bit hazy as to just where that's at).

 

[Skwim]

Oh... determinists are so cute... claiming that determinism is true yet at the same time saying that they are pre-determined to think that way.

Cute and

Btw, academia is full of idiots and angry nerds.

.​

 

[shunyadragon]

I disagree, humans have a big advantage over other species. It is not by degrees, it is by whole different worlds, most often refereed to as "civilization." Animals hunt prey, humans heard them into slaughter houses and methodically kill them for consumption. Animals seek shelter from stormy weather, humans build houses and large buildings to protect them from storms, floods, and all kinds of natural hazards. The list goes on and on for the differences between humans and other species. Look at the map and see large cities, farm lands, dams, bridges, etc.

It remains what you describe remains a matter of dgree and not substance, Yes, humans have an advantage above remains a matter of degree. Animals also build shelters and sometimes herd their prey.

The metabolic function of the brains in animals, particularly our relatives the primates functions very much the same as humans, and primates show consciousness, mourn the loose of a relative, and self awareness. They dream and some recognize themselves in the mirror.

In this discussion about determinism, I haven't mentioned "Substance Dualism." So, I don't know what you mean.

Substance Dualism is the belief that the human mind and consciousness is independent of the brain and not a product of the brain.

 

[Indagator]

umm, it would be ad homs if it was an argument, but it is not so...​

 

[Indagator]

Also i would like to add: Asking science to prove or disprove free will is like asking priest to prove or disprove God. Science is about causality, which means its going to "deny" agency, so science by its very nature is not in a position to look for free will.

 

[Repox]

First, a lot of human activity goes straight to automatic ─ walking, driving, whipping your hand off the hotplate, returning Roger's serve at Flushing Meadows. So we do a lot of things totally bypassing conscious thought.

Second, we know from a rather famous series of experiments a few years back that your nonconscious brain makes your decisions up to 2 secs before it reports the result, to the conscious brain, sometimes acting on those decisions with physical commands in the meantime.

A variation on that observation is this: when you speak any statement, where are the words before you say them? They're not in your conscious, nor is their censoring eg when you go to say something then stop in time. Where are these words in the 1/20th of a second before I type them? So I know that whatever is composing my spoken or written utterances, it isn't my consciousness, isn't in that sense the 'wilful deliberation' you speak of.

Well, maybe. It's legit to think of us as biomechanisms, but as you'll have noticed, the experience doesn't feel like that. We have a strong, central sense that we own our decisions, that they're ours, and it's so prevalent we pay it little attention.

And it's unusual for us to react in exactly the same way to any repeated stimulus. Maybe we have much the same kind of reaction, but not identical. With the nonconscious mind doing all the heavy lifting, if HQ is consciousness then in general HQ neither has a clue nor needs one some enormous proportion of the time. (I'm staying with 'wilful' when I say that. Sometimes just being awake is equated with 'consciousness',)

If there's one thing you can say about us, it's that we're animals. Or don't you need toilets? As for symbolic communication, all animals understand the body language of their species; and you may recall that dolphins have been taught to follow verbal cues ─ [put the] red ball [not the blue one, in the] righthand [not the lefthand] basket, for example. So that's a start. Haven't checked latest developments in chimpology, but I think some experiments showed understanding of verbal cues, not just rote learning (but I'm a bit hazy as to just where that's at).

I agree as to similarities, but it is interesting to note that when animals learn the meaning of words it is from human's teaching them and they don't form into civilized groups resembling human societies.

 

[Repox]

An excellent point of view regarding this subject I think is Marvin Minsky's response on pages 306-308 of his 1985 book 'The Society of Mind', where he concludes "Whence comes this sense of being in control? According to the modern scientific view, there simply is no room at all for 'freedom of the human will.' Everything that happens in our universe is either completely determined by what's already happened in the past or else depends, in part, on random chance........ There is no room on either side for any third alternative. Whatever actions we 'choose', they cannot make the slightest change in what might otherwise have been - because those rigid, natural laws already caused the states of mind that caused us to decide that way. And if that choice was in part made by chance - it still leaves nothing for us to decide....... But none of us enjoys the thought that what we do depends on processes we do not know; we prefer to attribute our choices to volition, will, or self-control. We like to give names to what we do not know, and instead of wondering how we work, we simply talk of being 'free'. Perhaps it would be more honest to say, 'My decision was determined by internal forces I do not understand."
Minsky is saying that decisions made back before our minds and memories have developed do determine our current decisions, but that we can't know that...... We can't know that grandma's insistence upon us saying our prayers is what 'causes' our current belief since that early age has no conscious memories. And there are no memories of how the brain structures itself, so we give it a name such as 'faith'.
We know there are laws and predictability, since we can predict eclipses, and each instant of time follows, or is the result of the previous instant of time. But how does 'free will' work, and what determines when it will supersede evolution? These questions are never answered. Instead, we create a 'god', a force which is said to control everything.
What we perceive is that our minds, and thus our societies, are structured around the concept of 'responsibility', which has evolved from the past when we had no science to guide us........
How will this be resolved? I have no idea.......... But it certainly brings the notion that 'I' am in control into serious question. Minsky is a good read on this subject as he goes into incredible detail regarding how the mind might work.......

What happened to the consequences of freewill? I agree as to Minsky's conclusions. It is based however on the consequences of freewill not preceding circumstances. Another way of analyzing those situations is to study the development of civilized societies. Where did it come from? You have to assume there was a beginning. Humans made freewill choices to do this or that (invent, create ideas, build towns, cities, bridges, dams, roads, etc.). After civilization took hold individuals made freewill choices to make it function, find opportunities, and create life styles. People aren't robots, they think and decide how to act (freewill).

 

[Skwim]

umm, it would be ad homs if it was an argument, but it is not so...​

So, what is the point of your comment? Why not "One for all and all for one" or "Chunky peanut butter sucks"?

.