JerryL
Well-Known Member
This seems like an understanding of how the objective becomes the subjective.
Seems we can, at some level, re-create it A Worm's Mind In A Lego Body
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free will vs natural determinism
- Thread starter Iti oj
- Start date
This seems like an understanding of how the objective becomes the subjective.
Seems we can, at some level, re-create it A Worm's Mind In A Lego Body
1) Unless you have access via paid subscription to the OED (which currently exists only online) then you are confusing some oxford dictionary with the OED.
2) I didn't quote the definition. I noted that the OED (again, the actual OED which is generally regarded as the best dictionary in the world of any language) categorized "free will" as a noun, not an adjective plus a noun.
3) I also noted that online dictionaries did so as well.
I would never rely on a dictionary (which is intended to give a sense of usage(s), not to define) to define something that philosophers, physicists, psychologists, etc., have argued about since the sciences began, and before that by natural philosophers, and before that ancient philosophers.
Yes, but not because of determinism. You posit that given something happened, it did and necessarily did which isn't deterministic as it is acausal or uncaused. Your argument is a tautology (albeit illogical, as it depends on propositions that have no truth values) that you defined into existence by removing determinism as a possibility just as you have free will. In your model, neither can exist (see below).
So what? There's a reason that linguists, even those that still posit a strict dichotomy between lexicon and grammar, admit into the lexicon "phrases" as units when two or more lexemes cannot be decomposed into their constituent lexemes. I'm not going to waste time on this point. I can refer you to 2-3 of the most important papers on this matter as their importance guarantees I can find them scanned on some university website. The point is that "free will", while a native speaker can understand how the individual meanings can give rise to the meaning of the singular unit, it is still a singular "unit" grammatically.
I would be quoting definitions from the literature, not dictionaries, which is why I didn’t quote the definition.
And in doing so, you’ve made determinism impossible as well. In fact, everything is uncaused in your pseudo-tautological definition.
Far from it. I have been trying to give you a chance to work causality in some form into your argument in order for it to be other than nonsense. You refuse. Ergo, nothing is caused. You claim determinism but you define it out of existence.
It would be deterministic if you could say that effects are caused in some way. There have to be causal mechanisms for a deterministic model or for determinism, and by side-stepping these to the point of effectively denying they exist (things “necessarily” happen because they do, not via causes) you erase determinism.
You might be able to make that argument if I had asked you describe all the mechanisms or to give an account of how these mechanisms completely determine everything. I am not. I am asking you to incorporate an essential aspect of every deterministic model, worldview, philosophy, etc.: causality.
In other words, even if the “actual mechanisms” are irrelevant, that there BE causal mechanisms is essential. As soon as you open the door to allow these, your entire argument falls apart, because then I need only posit a single mechanism of my own and define free-will into existence as easily as you have defined it as impossible. I need only claim that it is the thing by which my actions, decisions, & choices are necessary.
Yes, “free will” isn’t a form of “will”, because nobody has “non-free will” or “semi-free will”. And the two word argument just betrays a lack of understanding of the nature of language.
I rather bored going over how little your knowledge of physics is as it isn’t necessary until you make your “thought experiment” or “model” anything other than trivially true such that all effects are necessary without causality. Simply stating that causality isn’t part of your argument is just a way of saying that you are asserting certain things about effects (i.e., they are either random or necessary) independent of causes, and therefore necessary effects are necessary by being so, and there are no causes (otherwise, they would be necessary because of those causes).
Yes, I’m familiar with Aristotle’s sea-battle argument, but fortunately we’ve come a long way from a single ancient Greek philosopher (possible worlds and modal logics were developed partly to deal with this kind of argument as in classical logic there is no way to determine the truth-value of a statement when that truth-value doesn’t exist at that time. Modal logics allow us to deal with “mights” and “possiblys”. Your proposition has no truth-value (it is neither true nor false).
Every appeal you make to Laplace’s determinism (given initial conditions and enough knowledge about causal mechanism or physics (if the former is reducible to the latter, as Laplace believed) is an appeal to a model of causality. You are arguing that things happen necessarily while arguing that the causal mechanisms are irrelevant. Only without causality, there’s no determinism. When your definition doesn’t erase the possibility of determinism along with free will, then this might get somewhere. At the moment, everything necessarily happens in your view because it does (and if it didn’t, then it would necessarily happen in a different way because it would). No incorporation of causality, no determinism, no argument.
JerryL
Well-Known Member
That would be your mistake then. When discussing something with someone how the word is used is rather important.
Skimmed the rest of your post. Seems to do most of the exact same thing of setting up straw men and then hacking away at them. You haven't addressed my actual assertion, just your caricature of it.
How the word used is important. That words are polysemous, dictionaries not intended to define, and the fact that I am well aware of how "free will" has been used in various languages over the past 2,400 hundred years means your quote from a dictionary you mistook for the OED is irrelevant (not the least of which because there are various definitions given in most dictionaries here, and certainly in the OED).
Your actual position was formulated by Aristotle (only you've replaced the negation with "random" and have often expressed it in terms of the past).
Here's yours:
Here's his:
"1. There will be a sea-battle tomorrow
2. There will not be a sea-battle tomorrow
According to the Law of the Excluded Middle, it seems that exactly one of these must be true and the other false. But if (1) is now true, then there must be a sea-battle tomorrow, and there cannot fail to be a sea-battle tomorrow. The result, according to this puzzle, is that nothing is possible except what actually happens: there are no unactualized possibilities. If it was true 10,000 years ago that there would be a sea-battle tomorrow, then its truth was a fact about the past; if the past is now unchangeable, then so is the truth value of that past utterance. Thus it is necessarily true that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow. " (source)
Only
1) This argument doesn't support determinism, it makes determinism impossible. For some effect to necessarily be or not be (regardless of how you define the alternative in terms of informal notions of "random") it is fated to be, not determined to be.
2) Your position also holds that we could, given initial conditions and sufficient knowledge, at least in theory predict everything (Laplace's "intellect"). Only for such an argument to be true, you must show that things are determined. For something to be determined it must be caused.
Any argument of the form "that which happened either necessarily did so or it didn't in which case it is random" asserts that effects necessarily exist as such. They cannot be caused, because then they wouldn't necessarily be (the effects would be contingent upon causes, not necessary).
Try brushing up a bit more. Rehashing a ~2,400 year old argument makes you a little dated.
(Also, if you want to get into the idiocy of the article or your claims about it, please start another thread. I'm having enough trouble trying to address the various things you don't understand without getting into something so off topic).
JerryL
Well-Known Member
You should likely try to focus down on how it's used here. You've not. You keep putting up other definitions and hacking them down.
Speaking of definitions: 400BCE is how something *was* used. Also: "Free will" doesn't exist in various languages. It exists in English. There are, I assume, words in other languages with similar meanings; but that's begging the question (or potentially assuming the consequent).
I can say those fallacies in Latin if it makes it sound more impressive.
No. That was a side discussion *you* started us down. I merely answered.
My position is that either things are determined by conditions or they are not determined by conditions.
If they are, then they are. (no freedom)
If they are not, then you are left with a random (non-condition) element to make the difference. (no will)
Though presumably in the latter case they are not *entirely* determined by random elements; so there's a mix of the two.
I have. The problem is you are sufficiently unfamiliar with language, logic, philosophy, physics, and even determinism to understand what I am saying and why, no matter how simply I put it.
Because your argument is self-defeating:
This is where your error lies. You cannot have determinism unless you state, as above, that there are conditions that "determine" them. All I need now do is say that the condition "determining" my action is free will.
You then have a few options
1) You can assert this is still determined, but as it includes free will then we still have free will.
2) You can assert that determinism, by definition, precludes free will. But then your argument is merely that you believe determinism to be true, because your actual argument admits free will as a possible cause for contingent effects.
3) You can try to demonstrate the physical, rather than "logical", argument, but you'll fail here from the get go.
4) You can adopt fatalism instead and be left with back with Aristotle and how such statements as yours could have truth-values
5) You can learn modal logic.
As it stands, your argument does not limit the ways in which any effect can be caused. You simply call it determined because it can either happen one way or another. That isn't determinism, but more importantly there is no logical incompatibility between free will and a contingent effect. In determinism, all effects are contingent, but the causes that determine them are physics.
To argue that things necessarily happen is to argue that they are NOT determined, as determined means effects are contingent upon causes. To argue that effects are deterministic means nothing can self-determine and nothing can be closed to efficient causation.
If free will could be broken down into its parts, then we could have mostly free will, somewhat free will, very free will, etc. The fact that you can't read enough of a dictionary to get to the part where it defines "free will" as a noun isn't an excuse for this nonsense.
First tautologies, now paradoxes. Something cannot be determined by random elements.
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neologist
Member
Ten pages is a lot to catch up on. Forgive me if this has been said here already.
But our entire system of criminal justice rests on the assumption of free will.
Folks have gone to jail because of it.
Or worse.
And for those who wonder about predestination: An all powerful God has no more obligation to view our moral outcome than you or I have to read the last page of the whodunit.
But our entire system of criminal justice rests on the assumption of free will.
Folks have gone to jail because of it.
Or worse.
And for those who wonder about predestination: An all powerful God has no more obligation to view our moral outcome than you or I have to read the last page of the whodunit.
In pre-Christian Rome, two of the largest witch-trials ever resulted in the execution of 2,000 and 3,000 accused witches (respectively). In the centuries following the first known Christian witch-trial, some 50,000-60,000 people were executed for witchcraft. All because the justice systems in most societies forbid "witchcraft" (the scare quotes are to denote the distinction between the concept as it has been understood among all societies for millennia, and the Wiccan and other witchcraft religions/spiritualties of modernity, which are fundamentally different). The fact that an institution is founded upon a belief doesn't make the belief true.
Nor have scientists writing on free will neglected such issues. See, for example, the paper Kaplan, L. V. (2006). Truth and/or Consequences: Neuroscience and Criminal Responsibility. In S. Pockett, W. P. Banks, S. Gallagher (Eds.) Does consciousness cause behavior? MIT Press. Actually, the entirety of the papers in part III of that volume ("LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY") relate to your statement.
A meaningless statement without an indication that there are moral obligations and why (Hume's making an is into an ought problem).
JerryL
Well-Known Member
I'm completely familiar with the words I am using and the underlying logic.
Which is why I know that discussions of physics and philosophy is a red herring (would you like that in Latin as a logical fallacy)
Proof by repeated assertion? Do you want it in Latin so it can sound all logic/language/philosophical?
And if that "free will" (your special definition) is deterministic, then it is not free.
And if that "free will" (your special definition) is not deterministic, then it is random.
Turtles all the way down.
But I think your "free will" (special definition) is itself a straw man that you prop up to get me to respond to it (as above) so that you can then show the errors in the special conditions that you yourself inserted.
I make no claim as to what the conditions are, except that they themselves must be either deterministic or not on the same criteria. Moving the goal posts (another form of erroneous argument, if not a formal logical fallacy) does not solve the problem no matter how often you do it.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Yup.
Not that it's pertinent to the issues in this thread, but I seriously doubt you're familiar with all of god's obligations, and non-obligations, if any at all.
1) You keep referring to "free will" as made up of two words after you mistakenly confused the OED with some online Oxford dictionary and still missed the fact that your own source defined as a noun. NOT as an adjective plus a noun.
2) If you are familiar with the logic you are using, then express it: formally. I don't care which formal system you use so long as it is a formal system
I don't care if you use non tertium datur or refer to the excluded middle, it's your basic failure to understand logic or language that matters.
Physics is central to determinism. It's why we have the word and why it didn't exist before the 19th century:
For dates and uses see the real OED entry:
"1. The philosophical doctrine that human action is not free but necessarily determined by motives, which are regarded as external forces acting upon the will.
1846 W. Hamilton in T. Reid Wks. 87 (note) , There are two schemes of Necessity—the Necessitation by efficient—the Necessitation by final causes. The former is brute or blind Fate; the latter rational Determinism.
1851 H. L. Mansel Prolegomena Logica App. 303 The latter hypothesis is Determinism, a necessity no less rigid than fatalism.
1855 W. Thomson in Oxf. Ess. 181 The theory of Determinism, in which the will is regarded as determined or swayed to a particular course by external inducements and formed habits, so that the consciousness of freedom rests chiefly upon an oblivion of the antecedents to our choice.
1866 Contemp. Rev. 1 465 He arrived at a system of absolute determinism, which entirely takes away man's free will, and with it his responsibility.
1880 W. L. Courtney in Abbot Hellenica (1880) 257 Epicurus..was an opponent of Fatalism, not of Determinism.
2. gen. The doctrine that everything that happens is determined by a necessary chain of causation.
1876 Martineau Materialism 71 If man is only a sample of the universal determinism.
1944 G. Bateson in J. McV. Hunt Personality & Behavior Disorders II. xxiii. 714 The phrase ‘economic determinism’ has..become a slogan.
1944 G. Bateson in J. McV. Hunt Personality & Behavior Disorders II. xxiii. 716 It is this sort of cultural ‘genetics’ and cultural ‘physiology’ which I have tried to sum up with the phrase ‘cultural determinism’.
1945 K. R. Popper Open Society II. xxii. 196 Sociological determinism [is the view that]..all our opinions..depend upon society and its historical state.
1950 C. D. Darlington in Darlington & Mather Genes, Plants & People p. xvii, Mendel directed his enquiries with a rigorous determinism. He assumed that every property of every seedling was determined by something that happened in its two parents.
1957 N. Frye Anat. Crit. 6 The fallacy of what in history is called determinism, where a scholar with a special interest in geography or economics expresses that interest by the rhetorical device of putting his favorite subject into a causal relationship with whatever interests him less."
FF
No, I gave you the reasons. You just quoted the part where I introduced them and then failed to address them.
My special definition? I never gave my definition except insofar as I said it was a construction (prefab, phrasal noun, etc.; it doesn't matter your own failure to recognize the difference between the OED and your little online dictionary pales in comparison to the fact that you defeated yourself as your source likewise defines it as a noun.)
Nor did I ever say "free will" was deterministic. I simply showed that your understanding of determinism itself is so utterly at odds with the term (which you've confused with fatalism) that your argument precludes it excepting where you allow for determining factors in which case your argument is self-defeating (for the reasons I stated).
ML random? Over what interval? Stop using words when you don't understand them or the basics such that you are regurgitating arguments from Aristotle, just with less logic, more confused, and worthless.
Your argument is an expression of fatalism you've conflated with determinism. It's a confused mixture of different notions about the reasons for which things happens with fancy words you don't know much about.
If something can only happen one way or is random, then either it can happen only one way because the universe is deterministic (in which case your argument requires incorporating causality) or it doesn't, in which case we're dealing with fatalism and your argument renders determinism moot.
You haven't incorporated causality into your argument, and thus either you aren't arguing determinism or you are assuming it as a premise.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Most of us believe we have free will, but look at how many people who are addicted to food, drugs, sex, whatever, where is their free will ?.
They are exercising their will. Acting upon their desires.
Some Eastern philosophies teach a person to let go, release those desires.
Yes the choices we make are according to our willfulness and other influences. However as we let go of desires and are no longer as influenced by the external world then our choices become more and more an internal process.
I become more and more aware of the external influences that affect me and have effected my thoughts in the past. Being aware of them, acknowledging them I can choose to continue to let them affect me or not. I believe everyone has this ability to a degree. Not everyone exercises it.
This idea of "true freewill" makes no sense. Our will is a result of our desires. To take away all desire is to take away any willfulness. However a person can learn to control their desires which is evidenced by those who are able to overcome their addiction.
Not everyone is capable of making a choice to control their desires. It requires training, discipline of the mind.
Emotions as well. To choose to be angry or not be angry. Gives a person a lot of control. I become more and more free of these things which influence my choices.
Not sure where it leads. No desire no will? Or the freedom to choose your desire and therefore your will.
Slorri
Member
Key point.
If we rid desires and other causes from a choice situation the choice is no more.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Well, the choice never was there, although your desires were.
JerryL
Well-Known Member
Equivocation fallacy
Not only did you assert yours; you've just again above referenced that assertion.
I cannot assert that all things occur because of the conditions of everything (though I do believe that is that case).
If it is the case, then there's no freedom in choice. If it's not the case, then the other element (being random) is not choice in freedom (though the possibility / likelihood of it being a mix of the two is there)
You don't know logic, language, philosophy, or physics. There is no point in conversation with you. You offer nothing, can respond to nothing meaningfully, and know nothing relevant enough to make my efforts to explain things to you worth it. So congratulations. You win. We have neither free will nor determinism because you can't get past Aristotle.
JerryL
Well-Known Member
Pretty passive-aggressive of a post.
Slorri
Member
This is like a catch-22
Objectively there exist no choices, but in some situations the mind conjures up more than one option, and it, the mind, gets confused; This confusion is equal to a choice situation. The confusion is real. Hence the subjective choice was there, indeed.
When we experience a choice situation we can address it, we can get out of the confusion.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Really! Confusion = choice situation? Any such choice situation is no more real than is choice itself. Therefore it is meaningless in determining what we do and why.
Hardly..
When we experience a choice situation we can address it, we can get out of the confusion.[/QUOTE]
Interesting, but NO.
There's no such thing as choice or choosing, We arrive at a point of action by way of prior sequences of cause/effect events, all of which also determines what we'll do at that point: say, X or Y. We can do no differently than what we're caused to do. If we do Y then X was never a possibility to begin with. For all the value we may assign X, it may as well not exist in the first place.