Determinism Fails to Grasp Freewill (Or Should I Say a Determinist or Two Does?)

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Determinism Fails to Grasp Freewill (Or Should I Say a Determinist or Two Does?) · When Watching the Same Video · New blog on the kid: In Defense of Freewill and Logic

After all, according to himself, he's not a self, he's a bundle of Determinism, so, is it polite to adress him as a person or as an -ism? Determinism being what he self identifies as?

Free Will - Debunked
Rationality Rules | 17 Nov. 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Oyi1T-HmU

Before watching the video:

So, you claim free will is an illusion.

Now, the normal claim of freewill does not say, "man, confronted with an exclusive or absorbing stimulus, is free to resist it indefinitely" ... but it says man is normally free to chose what stimuli he exposes himself to.

Likewise, the normal claim of rationality is, man is free to chose what arguments he confronts. Inter alia, he is free to confront arguments that come from anywhere, not just his immediate experience, and from anyone, not just from his own side.

Obviously, in both of these realms, the freedom to consider is key. If it doesn't exist in choices, so that free will is an illusion, then it also doesn't exist in arguments, so that rationality would be an illusion. But if rationality is an illusion, we are not free to debunk either freewill nor rationality, rationally.

Also before watching it myself, into a discussion I did not start:

Evrim Ağacı

@evrimagaci

Many neuroscientists shrug this idea off: First of all, the accuracy of prediction is only about 55-70%, barely more than o coinflip; not like 99.9%. Second of all, they say, "Of course you will measure activity in areas that will align with the final outcome. That is already expected. No one ever said the conscious decision had to coincide with the underlying neural activity with no latency. However, if you can still change your decision during that process, these results mean nothing."

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount

The change in decision comes from things outside of your control.

LaserShark

@Lasershark666

That “change in Decision” was predetermined, it either was determined that you would change your mind half way through or you were influenced by something that had determined that you wouldn’t change your mind and so you had to prove it wrong. It’s not free will not matter which way you look at it. And yes you can argue “well what if I decide to not prove it wrong” well then you proved it right

Matt OToole

@XiagraBalls

That's just trying to kick the can down the road. Ah, well, there's still a ghost in the machine pulling levers and reading screens. So does that GITM also have FW and a smaller GITM?

Peter Phillips

@peterphillips4340

You're right. Anyone in the know about this subject will tell you the question is far from settled.

The idea of free will or no free will comes with a ton of ideological baggage. I'd bet the answer is somewhere in between that irritates everyone.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

Peter Phillips You are talking about compatibilism. The way i have seen it explained it does not make much sense. I think the answer is clear, as long as you define free will as most people think of it, that it does not exist. I can see a scenario in which earth can possibly be flat, i can not see a scenario that could include free will, and i have spent a long time thinking. It boils down to; Everything either has a reason or has no reasn, in case 1 the reason controls you, in case 2 it is randomness.

Fabian Kehrer

@fabiankehrer3645

@azrielazriel8305 Exactly, its either cause and effect so the outcome is determined or it is random and the outcome is not able to be influenced.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

Fabian Kehrer Exactly, but also true randomness does not seem to apply on a macro level. We know determinism exists because classical physics work, quantum physics work on macro level in some cases, and quantum physics supposedly effects things like birds orientation, but even if the consciousness has what some may call "free will" because of quantum reactions forming it at its base level, the choices you make can either have a cause or be Random.

NowAndrew

@nowandrew4442

AZRIEL AZRIEL nonsense. Until we understand the nature of consciousness it's impossible to make such assertions.

Take the simple case of a choice between two objects that you cannot see or infer. I.e. tell someone to choose between two unknowns, A or B, or better yet, make up two randoms sounds to represent the choices - smoop and flinkle. You can argue that your decision is determined by previous conditions but that's only possible [to claim] if you fully understand all current influences. Which you cannot, without understanding the nature of consciousness.

Aryan Gupta

@AryanGupta-ld4eg

@Lasershark666 then that's unfalsifiable and pretty pointless, you can never test the validity of your claims. I honestly think there's no way of testing whether or not this kind of determinism is true therefore I don't take it as an absolute truth

Hold up Hold up

@troy3456789

It's impossible to say what the world, what humanity would be like if free will was real. There's simply no way anyone has it, and would not make sense that anyone could have it. First off, there is no self to have it.

Hold up Hold up

@peterphillips4340 It's settled. There's absolutely no rationale for hating anyone. Yes, put violent dangerous criminals into prison, and protect yourself from them with force, deadly force if necessary, but there's zero reason to hate them. They are very unlucky, even as they create unlucky victims.

epicbehavior

@epicbehavior

@Lasershark666 It doesn’t have to be “predetermined”, it can be truly random (if such a thing exists), meaning that if the universe could have played out differently.

The problem with “free will” is way more fundamental than that. There’s no place for a self to gain control of anything because everything is just happening.

The problem with free will can be looked at like this:

The past - you can’t control what happened, because it already happened and it’s a memory
The present - you can’t control what is happening because in some sense it’s already happening
The future - you can’t control the future because in order to do so you would have to control the present

comptonG***B***

@comptonG***B***

dude are you somehow implying there is some certain power within humans that is not governed by the laws of nature such as cause and effect?

Nic S

@nics4967

@azrielazriel8305 That would be a false dichotomy. God would seem to have enough power to hold your will such that you have free will.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 Yeah, well a flying omniscient Dorito told me there is no free will and since the Dorito is omniscient it logically is right.

Unless you have a better proof of gods existence and omnipotence than I have of the Dorito.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305

"If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow. In Flanders fields."
John McCrea

You seem to be trying to prove you are a rock or rabbit, not a man. That your mind is not moved by truth freely. Nor is it moved by truth at all seems your claim. But by considerations of which truth is at times an obstacle. Yet you have faith (trust) in it! Curious confusion. You seem to claim that sapience is an illusion that seems to be the logical end of atheism.

You seem to like strawmen. However, for the sake of argument. What proofs do you have for this Dorrito? Is it simple? Composed of parts? Etc

You also think you get to make a claim about free will based on saying x is and y is not. Therefore, our "changes in decision" are determined by outside causes. In that, there is it seems a lack of sense. A rock doesn't decide. Without the burden of proof. That is a massive leap of faith that seems to have no rational grounds to it.

When the Creator is forgotten, it seems man becomes unintelligible.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 Are you trying to prove you can not be a freethinker?

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 No. I have proven you cannot be a free thinker. It is logically and scientifically impossible without the intervention of a supernatural X factor in the equation. Trust me, I spend every day running through possibilities. You are left with either bring controlled by causality or chaos.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 Thanks for the reply,

You have proven naturalism?

You have shown it's logically impossible to be a free thinker without the supernatural?

We are in the same boat. However, if your thinking isn't free such that it can aim at truth. Then there is no reason to accept your thinking. You seem to cut the branch you sit on (mind) and continue on like all is good.

If I understand you correctly, you argue that (true) sapience means God exists.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 When can we trust minds that are not free to tell us the truth?

Do you have a mind capable of logically eliminating the supernatural? A cosmic ur mind of any definition?

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 Again, you're the one who's argument was failed by your burden of proof, who's argument is illogical and invalid. Your argument is literally impossible to justify by logic.

There are two options, your decisions happened for a reason or for no reason. A third option requires a supernatural factor above logic and physical reality.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 I am the creator. I was never remembered to begin with it would seem. I am the God you speak of. And the only hope you have for saving your free will.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 Reason is above nature. Are you saying you don't believe in reason and reasoning?

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 Does reason cause all your decisions?

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 Does chaos cause all of them?

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 If the human mind can not fit in naturalism. We have 2 options sort of we can say so much the worse for the human mind. Sounding like madmen or so much the worse for naturalism.

You seem to say your theory of mind has no burden of proof. You can not assume reason and then formulate 2 possible theories of mind that are both unreasonable and call that proof. If you are unable to show a reasonable theory of mind on naturalism, then reason leads to supernaturalism being true.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305
So you claim. There is a big difference between x is the Creator or a claim of it, in this case you. Vs. there being a Creator and a big difference between saying x isn't the Creator and there is no Creator.

If humans don't have free will, neither do you. But then I can not trust your mind to know the truth. A mind must be freed up from nature in order to know truth accurately. If yours is not, then I can not trust it.

I can only reasonably trust minds free from a nature that is either chaos or deterministic and that determinism is not aimed at truth.

Nic S

@azrielazriel8305 When you appeal to someone by reason, it seems logically part of it that you are appealing to their free will.

I don't try to reason with rocks.

Nic S

Or rabbits.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 You are welcome, thank you too for the argument and whatever food for thought it might provide.

I don't think that aiming for truth requires free thinking. I think knowing certain truths is beneficial for survival, so people wish to know the truth. It is gathering intelligence.

Now, if I seek truth, then I am made to seek truth by things beyond my control, like my desire, instinct, nature, to seek truth.

No, there is a difference between kind and free will. I don't say we can't seek truth or think, I say we are bound to be restricted to a specific set of actions that are effects determined by causes. I think anything is either reasonless and thus random or happens with a reason, and that reason is an effect of another reason, and that way we are led further and further back in time. Nowhere in that chain of events is there space left for free will, unless we insert a supernatural factor. And a very supernatural one at that, since a mere ghost or god by itself isn't always necessarily breaking the laws of physics and logic. I might have cut the branch I stood on but I can now walk on air, for my wisdom has given me wings.

If by true sapience you mean something that requires free will outside of either randomness or determinism then yes, it requires a supernatural factor such as god, a soul, magic, basically something that doesn't follow logic and physics as we know it. Something unbound by causality. But we may not even be able to prove such a thing as our ways and minds operate on logic and causality is a basic part of it. Humans could perhaps not even imagine such a thing and how it functions at all.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 Reasoning and instincts both cause decisions, reasons for decisions seem like the only thing that can drive a decision, it may be possible for a completely random decision to be made when there are no reasons to take either actions, equal reason to take each of the actions, while there is a reason to take an action. But I can't see a scenario where you can make a decision in spite of reasons.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@nics4967 Chaos is a possible cause for decisions, but I lean towards decisions being made for reasons. Quantum randomness is just a factor used by some to try justifying free will, but randomness is not free will. And once again, logically things can either happen for a reason or for no reason. A mixture of the two would do nothing to prove free will and would be contradictive and paradoxical if it's nature is nuclear and it is a complete fusion between no reason and reason instead of one filling the gaps of the other. Do you see another option? If you pick between apples and lemons, and you probably picked apples since lemons are sawer, then it's either for a reason or for none, no? Do I miss a third option? Maybe you did it by free will, but then we just move the question one step back and ask why your free will pocked that, and were left once against with those two options. It deems like it still has to be pushed in one of those two categories. So why was your free will used to pick apples? Is it because you wanted to? Well, your desire is then a factor and one can not control their desires unless they're predisposed to and a different desire, like the one for decency, outweighed the other.

Narrativeless

@narrativeless8095

Human brain has too much latency, and the only reason it works, is because it's mostly asynchronous, but some parts have control circuits that ensure at least some synchronised behaviour

Like memory, for example

Silly Nilly

@sillynilly7513

This could mean something for those who always did grave mistakes in their lives, to avoid taking actions that they could actually say no to, by understanding that not every decision is made by him/her, it might be caused by some other factors like traumas, habits, subconcious beliefs, and everyone has a choice not to listen to their own false decision.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount What about your freedom to consider opposed reasons?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@fabiankehrer3645 "its either cause and effect so the outcome is determined or it is random and the outcome is not able to be influenced."

Is that true of your thought process too?

If so, how is your rationality not an illusion?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount "We know determinism exists because classical physics work,"

Knowing determinism on some levels exist does not equal those are all the levels or that the other have no positive "mechanism" for free choices.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@troy3456789 [Hold up Hold up] "First off, there is no self to have it."

Oh, what is doing your arguing then?

"Yes, put violent dangerous criminals into prison, and protect yourself from them with force, deadly force if necessary, but there's zero reason to hate them."

Meaning, you do every thing hateful to someone who deserves no hatred, and obviously that means, without any kind of consideration of merits.

As long as so and so is sufficiently important and considers X "dangerous" or "violent" he can be locked up indefinitely, even if the actual crime, potentially even wasn't one, and also was sentenced to a sentence you may already have quadrupled or fivefolded in practise by your "security" thinking.

"deadly force if necessary,"

Necessary to whom? You just said freewill and deserts and even persons don't exist, didn't you?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@epicbehavior "There’s no place for a self to gain control of anything because everything is just happening."

That's like saying, there is no place for the rabbit to catch up with the turtle which got a headstart, because everything leading up to it is just fractions.

Self control is exercised in the present by a decision taken in the past.
Decisions taken in the present about self control are decisions about the future.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@comptonG***B*** "there is some certain power within humans that is not governed by the laws of nature such as cause and effect?"

1) Why not?
2) Cause and effect are not an instance of "the laws of nature" it's "the laws of nature" that are an instance of cause and effect, or rather describe effect patterns pertaining to certain types of causes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount "A third option requires a supernatural factor above logic and physical reality."

A third option certainly requires a supernatural factor above physical realities, but that does not make it above logic.

It's precisely according to logic, that freedom, both in decision and in thinking, requires a supernatural cause, that's different from the causality fire has on paper in oxygen and not too cold temperatures.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount "I think knowing certain truths is beneficial for survival, so people wish to know the truth"

Whether it's beneficial for survival or not, seeking survival will not get you there.

The kind of things natural selection (if such) can hone creatures for is not "knowledge" or "truth" but "effective reactions to stimuli, resulting in reproduction" ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount "Quantum randomness is just a factor used by some to try justifying free will, but randomness is not free will."

Quantum randomness in the brain can however * leave room for * the freewill of the soul to get exact expressions in the brain.

A sudoku has very deterministic rules, nevertheless, it happens one grid can have four equally valid solutions, which one you put depends on your freewill within the rules, not on rules or misapplying them.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@hglundahl I am not free to consider opposite reasons unless i do so. If i do so that means that i could not have done otherwise, as the absolute reality ended up, for one reason or another, leading to this outcome. Even if we insert a free will the free will collapses upon itself as logic is deterministic. So even if i add a free will to myself, and acted upon it, then my actions were restricted by how that free will is designed to work, i might have chosen to do an action, but i never chose to be the type of person who choses to do said action.

@hglundahl I believe so, unless we invoke the high supernatural. My rationality is not an illusion exactly because it exists as an algorithm that calculates a deterministic path in a fictitious probabilistic scenario. In simple words, i am rational because i explore cause and effect, and that is the way my human body has evolved to do in order to survive. I can ask you how can the reasoning if a being with free will be rational if it is free to follow irrationality by its free will. There is a reason to be rational, we want to be rational, there is a reason we want to be rational, because it provides an advantage, there is a reaosn we seek an advantage, because those who did reproduced better. In the void of reasons, why be rational?

@hglundahl But such a mechanism would break logic. My argument of classic physics is to defend the claim determinism exists, not disprove free will. So we know determinism exists and we do not Know free will does. But we know free will is illogical. Logic dictates that if there is no reason for something, there is no reason for it, so things eitehr happen for a reason or for no reason.

@hglundahl I think you misunderstand his point, the point is that things just happen and we are a product of that happening.

@hglundahl What i mean that it needs to exist above logic is because even if we invoke occult forces thsoe still seem to operate on cause and effect or chaos. They NEED to be unfathomable by the material mind in their operations, in order to grant free will.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount "If i do so that means that i could not have done otherwise, as the absolute reality ended up, for one reason or another, leading to this outcome."

And if the reason were your choice?

"Even if we insert a free will the free will collapses upon itself as logic is deterministic."

No, it's not logic allows potentials to be potentials, and freely actualised.

You are perhaps confusing logic (an art about how to deal with propositions) with your world view (which is a deterministic one).

"i might have chosen to do an action, but i never chose to be the type of person who choses to do said action."

You never are "the kind of person" who choses to do an action.

A homosexual is not the kind of person who choses sodomy, a homosexual is the kind of person who finds himself more attracted to men or herself more attracted to women.

A cleptomaniac is not the kind of person who choses stealing, a cleptomaniac is the kind of person who finds stealing exciting.

Obviously, chosing sodomy or stealing may push you to cleptomania or homosexuality, and in such cases being that kind of person is your choice.

"My rationality is not an illusion exactly because it exists as an algorithm that calculates a deterministic path in a fictitious probabilistic scenario."

You cannot on such premisses know that it is an algorithm, i e, it is still an illusion.

"i am rational because i explore cause and effect, and that is the way my human body has evolved to do in order to survive."

Animal bodies don't evolve to explore cause and effect, they evolve to explore surroundings, and a specific subset of cause and effect that directly affects their immediate well being. Humanity is strictly inexplicably from an Evolutionist perspective.

"I can ask you how can the reasoning if a being with free will be rational if it is free to follow irrationality by its free will."

Because it is then also free to follow rationality by its own free well. But you are abusively hypostatising "irrationality" as a thing opposed to rationality.

Two things are in competition with RIGHT reason. Non-rational impulses, which can, and should, be trained to support rational choices. And WRONG reason, which is an imperfection in rationality.

"In the void of reasons, why be rational?"

Because knowing is a pleasure — among others. Given your view of how rationality arose, it seems you priorise domination.

"My argument of classic physics is to defend the claim determinism exists, not disprove free will."

Where do I even start? Just because the kind of causes that physics studies are causing deterministically (on the levels we can study them!) does not mean every cause in the entire setup of reality does so.

"So we know determinism exists and we do not Know free will does."

From empiric evidence the opposite is true. We know we are free, and we know that even physical things in the concrete reality that surround us have some clear evidence of randomness.

You could argue this randomness is an illusion. But you cannot measure it is an illusion. You can if anything measure sth which escapes that randomness, but you cannot measure everything at once.

So, free will has a much better claim on our rationality than determinism has.

"But we know free will is illogical."

No, we don't.

"Logic dictates that if there is no reason for something, there is no reason for it, so things eitehr happen for a reason or for no reason."

Free choices don't happen for no reasons, they happen because a subject is chosing what reasons to attend to.

"the point is that things just happen and we are a product of that happening."

No. We are not.

"unfathomable by the material mind in their operations, in order to grant free will."

Minds are not material.

myname

[AZRIEL AZRIEL]

@hglundahl The reason ARE my choices, but what is the reason for my choices?

No. Potentials are imaginary what ifs, reality only exists in one way from what we understand. Even if we invoke quantum physics and the multiverse reality exists in one single way within this particular timeline.

Reality's "worldview" is deterministic, and you are the one confusing your own false worldview with reality.

You always are "the kind of person" who choses to do an action, or you never act, and that may be an action on of its own.

A homosexual is not the kind of person who choses sodomy, a sodomist is.

A cleptomaniac is not the kind of person who choses stealing, a shief is.

Here is the thing, we operate on reason, if you have homosexuality that is a reason for "sodomy" and in the absense of reason against it the act is inevitable. In the presence of reasons for and against it the stronger reason prevails, and when both reasons are equally strong its randomness and not any meaningful free will.

Except that is the definition of rationality, perhaps your retionality does not seek to find out the truth but that would not be rationality in my opinion.

Cause-effect is part of surroundings. If i poke a lion, humans like any other animal are utterly bound to evolution. Or at least materially, if there is a soul it seems to also operate within the constrains of instincts while it inhabits a body, before leaving it in order to enter another. Which we do have some scientific evidences for, its not like all of science rejects spirituality and there are absolutely no evidences for such things. For the most part it seems that way but there is one exception: We have a pretty good database of potential reincarnation cases.

If its free to follow rationality that means its free not to, so why would it?

Wrong and irrational are synonymous, people can act irrationally when they are ignorant, so there is not enough data to calculate the best path based on the available resources. But yet again, why should we follow rationality instead of irrational thoughts or impulses if we are free to choose? Rationality extends to emotions too, its rational to do what feels right to you. Even cases where a rational thought is rejected in favor of irrational emotions, that is still influences by which cause acts more strongly within an organism. Its literally called reason, its the path of following reasons, that is calculating potential outcome, that is determinism in action. Your action is determined by reason, your reason by data.

And seeking pleasure is deterministic. Domination is to a great degree an illusion, similarly to free will.

Its about what we have, we have data for determinism, we have no reason to exclude humans from the way we have studied that the world works. AND ITS MOSTLY LOGIC THAT CONTRADICTS FREE WILL, not any claim that we know how the world works to a perfection.

Well no, we know we are not free. Feeling a subjective choice is being made does not equal an objective reality. You can logically prove it is an illusion, if you do not invoke quantum physics. But randomness is chaos, randomness is NOT free will.

So free will has literally been debunked, maybe where you stand you cannot see it, but i see it clearly as anything. Its not a matter of belief, perhaps as a human you are inevitably bound to clinging onto such ideas, maybe your brain struggles to comprehead the true nature of reality, or perhaps your primal absolute fear that is the terror of death has led you to push towards a worldview where that event does not spell annihilation, but that is simply nature, and perhaps you have grown up in a household where you have been trained to believe in a particular sets of beliefs, thus leading to your attemt to justify them, which is nurture. Either way, in the absense of a supernatural factor operating on entirely different logic than the materium, i cannot account for free will in the calculation.

Yah we do. Logic dictates causality, something cannot be born from nothing.

What we ask here is what the reason is behind the subject choosing so, not what the reason for the action they chose is.

Yes. Yes we are.

They may or may not be material, but they use material tools for the material world, like logic, which your imaginary free will contradicts sharply and severely.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@stopYmpersonatYngmYacCount Just one:

"Reality's "worldview" is deterministic, and you are the one confusing your own false worldview with reality."

If this were true, you would not be able to consider the possibilities of other world views the way you needed to, so, your world view would be worthless.