Free Will Vs Determinism

[Skwim]

Bell test experiments - Wikipedia

So just what event do you claim has been shown to be without a cause?

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[shunyadragon]

From a Wikipedia article on Freedom Evolves, which says "Dennett describes the book as an installment of a lifelong philosophical project, earlier parts of which were The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained and Elbow Room.

"Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist – the view that, although in the strict physical sense our actions might be pre-determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved. Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make decisions without duress (and so is a version of Kantian positive practical free will, i.e., Kantian autonomy), as opposed to an impossible and unnecessary freedom from causality itself. "
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All of which implies Dennett recognizes the truth of determinism and the folly of free will as commonly perceived. If he needs to redefine "free will" fine, but then he's no longer playing in the same ballpark.

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Dennett's philosophy is not the only proposition for Compatibilism.

From: Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Compatibilism
First published Mon Apr 26, 2004; substantive revision Wed Feb 25, 2015
Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem, which concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

Read on . . .

 

[shunyadragon]

And I suggest you learn to take an analogy for what it is and not pretend it's something else.

Analogy
noun,
plural a·nal·o·gies.
a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based.

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Your simplistic math analogy just simply does not work.

 

[Skwim]

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Dennett's philosophy is not the only proposition for Compatibilism.

From: Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Compatibilism
First published Mon Apr 26, 2004; substantive revision Wed Feb 25, 2015
Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem, which concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

Read on . . .

As pointed out in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, in light of the damning consequences of determinism compatiabilism was conceived as a necessary condition to save moral responsibility. A lofty ambition, but one with sorry results. However, if you think any of the proposed solutions has merit please present your case. I'm eager to see what you have and to show you where it fails. Just keep in mind what the SEP article recognizes,

". . . here is a rough, non-technical sketch of the the [Consequence] argument:

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

According to the Consequence Argument, if determinism is true, it appears that no person has any power to alter how her own future will unfold.

This argument shook compatibilism, and rightly so."

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and the Classical Formulation of the Free Will Problem:

1. Some agent, at some time, could have acted otherwise than she did.
2. Actions are events.
3. Every event has a cause.
4. If an event is caused, then it is causally determined.
5. If an event is an act that is causally determined, then the agent of the act could not have acted otherwise than in the way that she did.
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Your simplistic math analogy just simply does not work.

I believe it works far too well. So much so that you're driven to deny it.

/

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[shunyadragon]

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As pointed out in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article, in light of the damning consequences of determinism compatiabilism was conceived as a necessary condition to save moral responsibility. A lofty ambition, but one with sorry results. However, if you think any of the proposed solutions has merit please present your case. I'm eager to see what you have and to show you where it fails. Just keep in mind what the SEP article recognizes,

". . . here is a rough, non-technical sketch of the the [Consequence] argument:

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

According to the Consequence Argument, if determinism is true, it appears that no person has any power to alter how her own future will unfold.

This argument shook compatibilism, and rightly so."

​

and the Classical Formulation of the Free Will Problem:

1. Some agent, at some time, could have acted otherwise than she did.
2. Actions are events.
3. Every event has a cause.
4. If an event is caused, then it is causally determined.
5. If an event is an act that is causally determined, then the agent of the act could not have acted otherwise than in the way that she did. ​

A 'a rough, non-technical sketch of the the [Consequence] argument:' from a highly biased source does not work.

Far to selective and simplistic of the reference I gave, and you have failed to acknowledge that there is a range of possible choices, and it is not necessary that in all actions the person cannot have acted otherwise in a range of possible choices.
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I believe it works far too well. So much so that you're driven to deny it.

View attachment 33321​

Belief that something works, such as simplistic 'grocery change' math that does not work is even worse.

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[Shadow Wolf]

So just what event do you claim has been shown to be without a cause?

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Is not up to me go through such an evaluation. I only pointed out that the things we call effects, out in nature they don't necessarily need a cause.

 

[Skwim]

Is not up to me go through such an evaluation. I only pointed out that the things we call effects, out in nature they don't necessarily need a cause.

Hey, it was your claim and no one else's. If you can't back it up so be it.

Have a good day.

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[Shadow Wolf]

Hey, it was your claim and no one else's. If you can't back it up so be it.

Have a good day.

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I did back it up.

 

[ratiocinator]

All of which implies Dennett recognizes the truth of determinism and the folly of free will as commonly perceived. If he needs to redefine "free will" fine, but then he's no longer playing in the same ballpark.

The point really is that "free will as commonly perceived" is incoherent - it's just logically impossible. We can have "free will" in the sense of being able to do whatever one wants to do (practical considerations aside) within the confines of determinism.

Anyway - I'm not going to try to make the argument here - if you don't think that is "real" free will then that's fine...

 

[ratiocinator]

Because there would be no differences in people with the same experiences then. An example. If will was a result of influences exclusively. Every child abuse victim would become an abuser themselves. While some abuse victims become victimizers not all do.

No, that doesn't follow at all. What influences a choice would (potentially) include all of a person's nature, nurture, and experience, as well as the immediate circumstances.

No two people can possibly have exactly the same experiences, let alone experiences plus nature (genetics or genetics plus whatever characteristics a new "soul" might have, if you believe there is such a thing).

 

[dfnj]

What does this all mean then? It means that we can never do any any differently other than what we are caused to do. Our actions are caused (determined) by previous events and intervening outside events (also causes) and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it is. We have no will to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, free will does not exist, nor does choice, etc..
This, then, is my argument---a bit shortened to keep it brief---against free will as it stands in opposition to determinism.
Thoughts?

Well, the problem is scientific evidence has shown hard determinism and the clockwork Universe simply does not exist. Google "Debunking materialism". Now this may seem very counter-intuitive to most people. Observers cause reality to be realized. And this effect bubbles up to the macro World as experiments in quantum mechanics have shown. What we know based on the evidence is God does play dice. Or God is the IT the decides something has been observed in any double slit type experiment. The point is because we are part of the reality we are experiencing we cannot determine cause and effect at every level of observation. This is because our act of observing changes what is happening.

Another problem with hard determinism is the nature and limitations of human language. Our words are a map of reality. Although we experience measurements of reality, our measurements are human constructs that only exist in a specific context of measurement. We then use mathematics to represent or model the behavior of reality. The problem is the map is not the reality it represents. There is always more detail in reality than what shows up on the map. Unless scientists can predict exact moments of experimental error or the exact moment radioactive decay will occur then we will always have a problem with accuracy and completeness in our models.

Reality is more wave-like than it is object-like. Energy in reality is like waves on an ocean. Every now and then waves converge in such a way creating a huge rogue wave. Energy is the same way. Reality is layers and layers of energy, at every possible frequency, vibrating in every direction with rogue waves making it impossible to thoroughly understand cause and effect accurately and completely. The analog nature of reality is not represented well in the digital mindset of human language. The moment of radioactive decay is probably caused by a rogue wave of energy coming from a depth of frequencies beyond our capacity to measure.

Another argument against hard determinism is that it is not practical. It is not practical in the same way you cannot find true parallel lines in reality. Just like parallel lines are perfect in our mental idea of it, hard determinism and cause and effect are the same way. So think of it this way. In order to determine cause and effect we would have to take every measurement possible in order to determine all the causes and calculate all the effects. The problem is reality is happening so fast, it is not possible to take enough measurements fast enough to model reality. In other words, if we think of reality as a computer, reality is executing the program at the fastest possible speed. Since we cannot match or exceed this speed the program is executing, we cannot simulate what the program is actually doing. Hence, there is really no way to determine if hard determinism is real. As a mental construct we can imagine we can take all the measurements necessary and at the necessary speeds to have accuracy and completeness in our model. But in reality we are limited by our own participation in reality. In reality, since we cannot take measurements fast enough or process all the information fast enough. The amount of information in reality is so great it can only be stored in reality. And since reality is happening so fast there is not enough time in the Universe to simulate it all that is happening. Reality is the only computer fast enough capable of doing all the processing necessary for validating hard determinism. So there is no way to know we have hard determinism other than to assume it exists as part of our belief system.

I think there is another possibility to consider different than your OP. And that is there is no hard determinism and we have no free-will.

I've explained why we do not have hard determinism. Here is why we do not have free-will. We are free to choose from a list of choices we have no control over. However, unless we have control over our choices nobody truly has free-will. Unless we have omnipotent powers, so we can define what our choice are, then we can only choose from choices that are presented to us. Sometimes we are forced to make choices from a list of choices we would prefer not to make. Although the choices presented to us in real life cannot be predicted, we still have no control over what our choices may be.

 

[atanu]

Several years ago, eight to be exact, I posted my reason for dismissing the idea of free will and adopting hard determinism. Because the topic of free will vs determinism hasn't been discussed in some time and a lot of newcomers have come on board RF I thought I'd bring it up again. The following is taken from my original post.



Discussions about free will usually center around an affirmation and/or a denunciation of it. Very interesting thoughts on both sides have come out of such conversations, many well thought out, others not so much. Whatever the case, there's frequently been a problem with what is meant by "will" and "free will," so much so that the issue can quickly become mired in misunderstanding. To avoid this I've found the following definitions to be on point and helpful.

Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires.

Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences.


The notion of free will is important to many because without it would mean each of us is nothing more than an automaton, a machine that performs a function according to a predetermined set of instructions, which is anathema to the notion personal freedom. If people lack freedom of choice how can they be blamed for what they do, or be deserving of any praise laid on them? For Christians this has the added consequence of robbing the concept of sin/salvation of any meaning. So most people are loath to even entertain the idea of no free will. Free will is almost always regarded as a given.

Any exception to free will is regarded as temporary constraint. "I am free to to do this or that unless someone/thing comes and prevents it. Of course this isn't what the free will issue is about at all. Free will is about the idea that, aside from any external constraints, "I could have chosen to do differently if I wished." So I think another valid way way of looking at free will is just that: the ability to do differently if one wished. "I got a haircut yesterday, but I could just as well have had a hot dog instead."

Those who most ardently disagree with this are the hard determinists, people claiming that everything we do has a cause. And because everything we do is caused we could not have done differently---no, you could not have chosen to have a hot dog--- therefore it's absurd to place blame or praise. A pretty drastic notion, and one rejected by almost everyone. So whatever else is said about the issue of free will ultimately it must come down to this very basic question: Are we free to do other than what we chose or not? I say, No you are not. Free will is an illusion. But before going into why, we first need to get rid of the term "choice" because it assumes to be true the condition under consideration, freedom to do what we want. So no use of "choice" or any of its cognates.


Here's how I see it.

There are only two ways actions can take place; completely randomly, or caused. By "completely randomly" I mean absolutely and utterly random, not an action which, for some reason, we do not or cannot determine a cause. This excludes things such as the "random" roll of dice. Dice land as they do because of the laws of physics, and although we may not be able to identify and calculate how dice land, it doesn't mean that the end result is not caused. This is the most common notion of "random" events: those we are unable to predict and appear to come about by pure chance. The only place where true randomness, an absolutely uncaused event, has been suggested to occur is at the subatomic level, which has no effect on super-atomic events, those at which we operate. And I don't think anyone would suggest that's how we operate anyway, completely randomly: what we do is for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So that leaves non-randomness as the operative agent of our actions. We do this or that because. . . . And the "cause" in "because" is telling. It signals a deterministic operation at work. What we do is determined by something. Were it not, what we do would be absolutely random in nature: for absolutely no reason at all. But as all of us claim from time to time, we do have reasons for what we do. And these reasons are the causes that easily negate randomness.

So, because what we do obviously has a cause, could we have done differently? Not unless at least one of the causal determinants leading up to the event in question had been different. If I end up at home after going for a walk it would be impossible to end up at my neighbor's house if I took the exact same route. Of course I could take a different route and still wind up at home, but I would still be in the same position of not ending up at my neighbor's. To do that there would have had to be a different set of circumstances (causes) at work. But there weren't so I had no option but to wind up at home. The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determined where I ended up. So to is it with our decisions. We do what we do because all the relevant preceding cause/effect events inexorably led up to that very act and no other. We HAD to do what we did. There was no freedom to do any differently.

What does this all mean then? It means that we can never do any any differently other than what we are caused to do. Our actions are caused (determined) by previous events and intervening outside events (also causes) and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it is. We have no will to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, free will does not exist, nor does choice, etc..

This means that blame and praise come out as pretty hollow concepts. As I mentioned, if you cannot do other than what you did why should you be blamed or praised for them? To do so is like blaming or praising a rock for where it lies. It had no "choice" in the matter. Of course, we can still claim to have free will if we define the term as being free of external constraints,but that's not really addressing free will, and why free will exists as an issue. The free will issue exists because people claim "I could have done differently if I had wished." Problem is, of course, they didn't wish differently because . . . .

This, then, is my argument---a bit shortened to keep it brief---against free will as it stands in opposition to determinism.

Thoughts?

Free will is an oxymoron. You cannot freely will what you will. At another level, where there is freedom there is no will. IOW, for those who assume doership of deeds the results are causal. This is the case for most of us. But for those who are mere ’Seers’ of the doings of nature, there is no binding to cause effect chain.

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[sun rise]

List says "there is no support for a deterministic picture of psychology," as if there's support for a free will picture of psychology? If there is I fail to see it.


And sorry, but Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It is just to dense and long to bother with. Have you actually read it all?

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I did not read it all. I read enough to decide that the question of free will vs determinism is not clear-cut enough for me to assert that neither one nor the other has been proven.

 

[Willamena]

Free will is an oxymoron. You cannot freely will what you will. At another level, where there is freedom there is no will. IOW, for those who assume doership of deeds the results are causal. This is the case for most of us. But for those who are mere ’Seers’ of the doings of nature, there is no binding to cause effect chain.

...

Free will is ultimately about ownership. The ego "I"--that placeholder representing the subject--has ownership (or possession) of those things that I "will" take responsibility for. The freedom entailed contrasts with other things being assigned that responsibility, such that they own that action. For instance, if I move my hand to slap my face, I own it, but if someone else owns that action--reaches in to move my hand for me--then it was not freely done. Free will is not free of causation--I'm not sure where that comes from, as most dictionaries will point at self-determination, which certainly isn't causelessness.

 

[Skwim]

Well, the problem is scientific evidence has shown hard determinism and the clockwork Universe simply does not exist. Google "Debunking materialism". Now this may seem very counter-intuitive to most people. Observers cause reality to be realized. And this effect bubbles up to the macro World as experiments in quantum mechanics have shown. What we know based on the evidence is God does play dice. Or God is the IT the decides something has been observed in any double slit type experiment. The point is because we are part of the reality we are experiencing we cannot determine cause and effect at every level of observation. This is because our act of observing changes what is happening.

As an agnostic, essentially someone who doesn't believe god exists, your argument fails right out of the chute.

Another problem with hard determinism is the nature and limitations of human language. Our words are a map of reality. Although we experience measurements of reality, our measurements are human constructs that only exist in a specific context of measurement. We then use mathematics to represent or model the behavior of reality. The problem is the map is not the reality it represents. There is always more detail in reality than what shows up on the map. Unless scientists can predict exact moments of experimental error or the exact moment radioactive decay will occur then we will always have a problem with accuracy and completeness in our models.

Our inability to predict an event has nothing to do with the fact of the event.

Reality is more wave-like than it is object-like. Energy in reality is like waves on an ocean. Every now and then waves converge in such a way creating a huge rogue wave. Energy is the same way. Reality is layers and layers of energy, at every possible frequency, vibrating in every direction with rogue waves making it impossible to thoroughly understand cause and effect accurately and completely. The analog nature of reality is not represented well in the digital mindset of human language. The moment of radioactive decay is probably caused by a rogue wave of energy coming from a depth of frequencies beyond our capacity to measure.

Silly balderdash.

Another argument against hard determinism is that it is not practical. It is not practical in the same way you cannot find true parallel lines in reality. Just like parallel lines are perfect in our mental idea of it, hard determinism and cause and effect are the same way. So think of it this way. In order to determine cause and effect we would have to take every measurement possible in order to determine all the causes and calculate all the effects. The problem is reality is happening so fast, it is not possible to take enough measurements fast enough to model reality. In other words, if we think of reality as a computer, reality is executing the program at the fastest possible speed. Since we cannot match or exceed this speed the program is executing, we cannot simulate what the program is actually doing. Hence, there is really no way to determine if hard determinism is real. As a mental construct we can imagine we can take all the measurements necessary and at the necessary speeds to have accuracy and completeness in our model. But in reality we are limited by our own participation in reality. In reality, since we cannot take measurements fast enough or process all the information fast enough. The amount of information in reality is so great it can only be stored in reality. And since reality is happening so fast there is not enough time in the Universe to simulate it all that is happening. Reality is the only computer fast enough capable of doing all the processing necessary for validating hard determinism. So there is no way to know we have hard determinism other than to assume it exists as part of our belief system.

Sure it's practical. It tells us why things happen.

I've explained why we do not have hard determinism. Here is why we do not have free-will. We are free to choose from a list of choices we have no control over. However, unless we have control over our choices nobody truly has free-will. Unless we have omnipotent powers, so we can define what our choice are, then we can only choose from choices that are presented to us. Sometimes we are forced to make choices from a list of choices we would prefer not to make. Although the choices presented to us in real life cannot be predicted, we still have no control over what our choices may be.

Okay, so there's no such thing as hard determinism or free-will. So how do we do what we do?

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[Skwim]

Free will is an oxymoron. You cannot freely will what you will. At another level, where there is freedom there is no will. IOW, for those who assume doership of deeds the results are causal. This is the case for most of us. But for those who are mere ’Seers’ of the doings of nature, there is no binding to cause effect chain.

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Sorry, but not following.

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[atanu]

Okay, so there's no such thing as hard determinism or free-will. So why do we do what we do?
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Desire?

 

[Enoch07]

No, that doesn't follow at all. What influences a choice would (potentially) include all of a person's nature, nurture, and experience, as well as the immediate circumstances.

No two people can possibly have exactly the same experiences, let alone experiences plus nature (genetics or genetics plus whatever characteristics a new "soul" might have, if you believe there is such a thing).

Imo It just doesn't hold water.

I understand how nature vs nurture works, experience, etc and how those can influence choice. But it's still possible to go against all that and make a different choice than you've been influenced to. Otherwise how would people escape occults. Ones that was born into and lived in for the first 20 years of life. Yet still have an epiphany one day and leave the occult even though they've been bred, born, and groomed into the lifestyle and know nothing but that.

 

[atanu]

Free will is ultimately about ownership. The ego "I"--that placeholder representing the subject--has ownership (or possession) of those things that I "will" take responsibility for. The freedom entailed contrasts with other things being assigned that responsibility, such that they own that action. For instance, if I move my hand to slap my face, I own it, but if someone else owns that action--reaches in to move my hand for me--then it was not freely done. Free will is not free of causation--I'm not sure where that comes from, as most dictionaries will point at self-determination, which certainly isn't causelessness.

Yes. I think I understand what you are saying. Please see whether the following understanding of mine is okay or not.

Hard determinism presumes a billiard ball Newtonian mechanism in respect of self determination. But, I understand that self determination can range from pure unconscious instinctive desire driven reactions, which have binding consequences (on one hand) to self-less freedom (on the other hand). In between lie most of our actions which are governed by three factors in combination: deterministic cause-effect, random chance, and self effort.

@Skwim does not consider the effects of the 2nd and 3rd factors at all. At all stages, humans are free to employ self determination, with lesser or greater freedom.

If this freedom was not available, @Skwim should not expect that we could ever rationally agree to his arguments. If there was no freedom, then science would be meaningless.

I repeat that hard determinism considers humans to be pure mechanistic elements in a mechanistic machine called universe. The presumption is wrong in light of empirical evidences.

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[atanu]

Sorry, but not following.
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Please see post 79.