What Most People Fail to Understand about the Concept of Free Will

[Gambit]

Determinism, to a large degree, happens for many reasons; cultural upbringing, genetic predispositions, environment, these things have a strong bearing on who we are.
But we are not slaves to those things, we can make choices, and we are not slated for a certain fate, and destiny is an illusion.

You haven't refuted my argument. In fact, it doesn't appear that you even bothered to read the OP.

 

[Willamena]

Determinism and indeterminism are the only two logical possibilities.

I'm just curious: based on what?

 

[Gambit]

Determinism, just because something is cause by something else doesn't mean the out come is determined by that cause. So I think that is were the definition fails. Generally when consciousness is not involved, it's a matter of physics which can be pretty well predicted.

Indeterminism, I think obviously when consciousness is involved, the outcome is not predictable. So every event may have a cause or not but just because there exists a cause doesn't mean the outcome is necessarily predictable. Where consciousness is involved, I think this has to be considered a special case.

Either everything is determined or it is not. It's that's simple.

By the way, just because something is not predictable does not necessarily imply that it is not deterministic. Chaos theory is inherently unpredictable, but it is a completely deterministic theory.

 

[Gambit]

Most actions can very well be caused. The brain sets up simple routine to quickly do some tasks. We have reflexes. We also have the ability to stop actions and this is where indeterminism comes in by stopping we are allowing the causes to change we are allowing us to reflect off logic and then process information creating new information from logic and when we want we can start the action response again. All that is needed is the ability to switch off action for a period of time. Once this is switched off until it is turned on we have no cause and effect. Think of day dreaming or focused thought, where you are in the action deep thought and your wife, mother or children are trying to get your attention to no avail sometimes physically touching you.

Seems like you're describing "free won't," not "free will." But now I digress.

 

[Gambit]

I'm just curious: based on what?

Based on logic. (I said that much in my response.)

 

[jojom]

I didn't argue for or against free will in the OP. I suggest you reread it.

Yeah, I didn't figure you could answer the question. Adiós.

 

[Gambit]

Adiós.

Bye!

 

[bobhikes]

Seems like you're describing "free won't," not "free will." But now I digress.

Very good, I like it but its not really free. It is just the will to stop.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If you jettison causality, then you jettison free will with it. Because if an agent doesn't exert any causality, then he or she cannot possibly have free will.

Nobody "exerts" causality, which is a postulated property of reality that is dead-in-the-water in its classical form. As causality is shorthand for "classical causality", saying causality is dead-in-the-water doesn't mean that things can't have causal efficacy (scientists and philosophers have yet to reach a consensus on how to understand cause in an indeterministic cosmos such that there exists an agreed upon replacement; for example, counterfactual causation is a popular model of causality but fails to hold true for quantum physics).

Yeah, yeah. tell me something I already don't know.

REAL subjective probability & free will

I said it REDUCES to pure chance. Reread the OP.

Yes, you did. This doesn't make your assertion any less logically inconsistent. This would entail that even though the chances for two outcomes A & B where A is more likely both reduce to "pure chance" and thus they must have the same probability (reductio). The problem is your position that "pure chance" means anything such that in an indeterministic/probabilistic setting anything can be reduced to "pure chance", as this would require that more probable outcomes have less "pure chance" or some other similarly ridiculous notion. Nothing with a probability distribution or any other probable description is reducible to "pure chance" as probabilities limit possible chances.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm just curious: based on what?

Dogma and dogmatic assertion, it would seem.

 

[Jumi]

Logic tells us that determinism holds true or that it doesn't. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. However, some people find it very difficult to accept.

Is it difficult to accept that many people act like robots most of the time and you can predict what they do, but not all people all the time are pavlov's dogs.

 

[Nakosis]

Either everything is determined or it is not. It's that's simple.

By the way, just because something is not predictable does not necessarily imply that it is not deterministic. Chaos theory is inherently unpredictable, but it is a completely deterministic theory.

Actually it has some limited predictability according to the link you provided. Only because of it's limited predictability it's generally accepted. But more importantly this is a theory about physics not human behavior.

 

[McBell]

If we cannot agree on what constitutes logic, then we cannot have a logical discussion. Since I can clearly see that this is an "either/or" situation, there's no point in continuing this discussion with you. To do so would be nothing but an exercise in futility.

Thank you for further proving my point.
You refuse to acknowledge anything outside your bold empty claim.
Therefore an honest discussion with you on the topic will not be possible.

 

[McBell]

then you are going to play somewhere else?

You don't get out of it that easy.
Nice try though.

 

[Gambit]

Either our decison-making process is a strictly deterministic process or some element of chance is at play. (This is not intellectually difficult to grasp. But it appears to be emotionnally difficult to accept.)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Either our decison-making process is a strictly deterministic process or some element of chance is at play.

I don't get the feeling that a nuanced approach to probability, randomness, likelihood, and chance is going to help here. So I'll try a different tact. Consider a deterministic universe in which we define "determinism" to be that which is determined by anything (not just a collection of laws of physics). Thus, for example, a system's state can be determined through self-organization or top-down causation. Put simply, a system can be determined by itself (such as through coherent emergent functional processes), such that e.g., brain functions (the "mind" being one set or kind of said function) can determine future brain states through mechanisms like "choice". Then, since we are limited to your simplistic conception of determinism and chance, we have both determinism and free will. Even more simply, we can consider nonlinear or circular causality, wherein the brain state at time t is both caused by and determined by the brain state at time t. This addresses the overly simplistic "for every effect, there must be a cause" argument.

This is not intellectually difficult to grasp

Indeed, it is extremely simplistic. That's the problem. As decades of research have shown, things like probability, logic, and so forth are highly counter-intuitive. They have to be taught or learned by possibly everyone and certainly almost everyone. So if you are combining an argument that concerns both probability and logic AND is meant to characterize the entire cosmos AND FURTHER is simple, then we have a priori reason to doubt your description. This is born out by the incompatibility between your descriptions and of those whose expertise is relevant here.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Since I can clearly see that this is an "either/or" situation

A word (or adjective) that is autological is one that is self-descriptive ("the adjective 'short' is short, the adjective 'adjectival' is adjectival; the adjective 'polysyllabic' is polysyllabic"). By contrast heterological refers to adjectives which are not self-descriptive ("thus 'long', which is not a long adjective; 'German', which is not a German adjective; 'monosyllabic', which is not a monosyllabic [adjective]"). Here's the problem: either the adjective heterological is heterological or it isn't. But if it is, then 'heterological' is self-descriptive meaning it describes itself, yet that would make it autological, not heterological. And if it isn't heterological, then by definition it must be.

(example from Quine's The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays).
Other examples abound: the barber's paradise and Russell's extension thereof, the liar's paradox and Gödel's extension thereof, the sorites paradox, etc. Even the founder of classical logic, Aristotle, denied that a seemingly truth-bearing statement like "there will be a sea-battle tomorrow" actually was.