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Free will

satricion said:
I mean...basically you're just assuming free will is true and using that to dismiss the impossibility of the conditions necessary for free will as irrelevant. None of your posts really argue for free will at all...you just take it as self evident.

Not quite.

I am saying that the arguments against free will (supporting determism indirectly) are false as they don't take accepted scientific theory into account.

The self-causation paradox is misconceived - relativity and the impermanence of the universe do not permit it. This misleads one to think free will is false.

The thought experiments 'revisiting a moment in time' are irrelevant, as they are not based in reality either - again, relativity doesn't permit it.

Finally, deterministic theory suggests conclusions that do not line up with everyday experience (I am not free to sponteneously choose and act).

Free will is true because:

(1) Conscious awareness exists and is self-evident in the waking state. This is clearly true, otherwise our senses and mind would be useless. Human life would be like deep sleep - disconnected from the world. It would be essentially pointless - like living alone forever in vast empty space.

(2) Free will stems directly from the self-evidence of consciousness - where free will is the exertion of consciousness to use the tools it's directly connected to - the body and mind.

(3) Conditioning and genetics limit one's range of free choice and action, but free choice and action happen within those limits. This applies to animals as well as humans.

(4) Fortunately we can overcome restrictions of free will due to conditioning under certain conditions - allowing the possibility of miracles. There is no space for miracles in determinism.

The other two options are false:

Determinism = false, as it fails to explain the whole picture. It attempts to explain human behavior 'outside-in' - ignorant of obvious inner processes.

probabilitistic theory = false, as humans don't act randomly (ie without a purpose) by default - they can though by choice.
 
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SmC said:
Determinism is just a theory, I don't know why you keep talking about it like its fact. If I didn't feel like I had free will there would be no point in existing,.

Why?

Why does existing demand my interfering with it?

On what basis is my existing as a casual observer, watcher, experiencer or enjoyer of reality pointless?
 
Dyno_oz said:
Finally, deterministic theory suggests conclusions that do not line up with everyday experience (I am not free to sponteneously choose and act).
You aren't understanding this...
 
BollWeevil said:
That isn't what was meant by the quote. It's clear that he is saying there isn't a free will.

Well thanks for the correction man. It's clear that I wasn't trying to regurgitate what he meant in my own words, I was simply stating my own perception and thoughts about it.
 
^Well, I wasn't sure. It looked to me like you were trying to imply something else.

No offense meant.
 
satricion said:
Oh and also I really don't see why people in this thread can't see the validity of the determinism/indeterminism argument.

In any possible reality determinism is either true or false, those are our only options. But free will is incompatible with both of these options. In one scenario our actions are predetermined by physical laws, and in the other they are completely random, and neither of these allows free will.

So it doesn't matter whether or not you think our brains are like computers. If they are then free will is false, and if they're not it's still false.

The only way to argue for free will is basically to say that there is some 'soul' inside human beings that just magically produces free will and can get around the self-causation argument, and the determinism/indeterminism argument.

Good luck! :p

you're saying that it is either one or the other. when there are an infinite amount of options that can be drawn up. like you said, if we aren't different than animals then we are just like machines. however i disagree that we are the same as animals. i know that in itself brings up a whole other discussion.

but atleast i can see where it can be proved or disproved in the different beliefs.

to me saying that if things CAN be random means that we as humans can't impact it doesn't make sense. if it is a "random" world, we would be able to choose anything we wanted to, and it would be a toss in the dark as to what the outcome would be. only an all knowing being could predict it.

i don't understand how you can say that if things can be random, humans can't have an effect on the outcome.
 
DarthMom said:
there have been many fast decisions i have made on whims, that could have gone either way. and i do not believe i would have done the same thing if it was able to be repeated over and over.

Yes, but this time around you have the gift of hindsight, of knowing precisely what would be the result of a decision, and that would more than likely subconsciously influence your "whim". You might be able to convince yourself that you'd do something another way given the choice a second time, without being biased with the knowledge of the eventual turnout, but in reality you just can't do it - much like the repression of an unpleasant memory. Only a theoretical (mathematical or computer-based) approach could come close to such "emulation" of decision-making.
 
doesntmatter said:
i don't understand how you can say that if things can be random, humans can't have an effect on the outcome.
no one implied this in any way whatsoever. you are missing the entire point of determinism

when a human has an effect on the outcome, it is because he decided to do something. when he decides to do something, his decision comes from his brain.

his brain is an information network composed of matter and energy following natural laws. therefore, whether randomness is permitted or not by these laws, either way the person's decisions are not based off of any supernatural or magical agent that enables 'free will,' his decisions are based off of computations ran by his neurological apparatus, which is mechanical in nature.

thus A. his decisions can be predicted and B. he only 'feels' free will as an illusion,

and its just as silly as saying that a worm 'chooses' to move forward when something presses against its back, causing a nerve to send a signal to all hte motor neurons and the worm moves forward. the worm didnt choose anything, it happened naturally, harmoniously
 
DarthMom said:
there have been many fast decisions i have made on whims, that could have gone either way. and i do not believe i would have done the same thing if it was able to be repeated over and over.
what factor would be different the second time around, causing your decision to change?

since every factor is exactly the same the second time around, everything would happen the exact same way
 
qwedsa said:
no one implied this in any way whatsoever. you are missing the entire point of determinism

when a human has an effect on the outcome, it is because he decided to do something. when he decides to do something, his decision comes from his brain.

his brain is an information network composed of matter and energy following natural laws. therefore, whether randomness is permitted or not by these laws, either way the person's decisions are not based off of any supernatural or magical agent that enables 'free will,' his decisions are based off of computations ran by his neurological apparatus, which is mechanical in nature.

thus A. his decisions can be predicted and B. he only 'feels' free will as an illusion,

and its just as silly as saying that a worm 'chooses' to move forward when something presses against its back, causing a nerve to send a signal to all hte motor neurons and the worm moves forward. the worm didnt choose anything, it happened naturally, harmoniously

ok, so how can you predict something that is random. it defies the definition.
 
^the randomness is at a very small scale. we can predict things like a ball hiting an object, or a neuron firing

it wouldnt be a fully deterministic universe if there is such randomness at a small scale, but free will still has no place, which was my main point
 
Using neuron firing as a predictive tool (giving weight to determinism) is useless because:

For a start, noone has access to another person's live brain at neuron level.

Each persons brain would be interconnected differently as everyone has different habits, experiences and beliefs. No two people have been exactly the same. EVER. So the firing pattern would be different for each person.

Even if it was used for one particular person, it would be constantly becoming obselete, as each moment brings new experience, which in turn 'burns in' new neural patterns at the expense of others - changing the firing pattern.

Forget the idea of 'revisiting a moment in time' - it's a fantasy that relativity won't permit.

* * * * *

A man's actions are not entirely due to prompts from the environment - like the 'worm analogy' suggests. He has the option to exert proactively.

For determinsm to be true, many aspects of human nature need to be ignored.
 
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qwedsa said:
^the randomness is at a very small scale. we can predict things like a ball hiting an object, or a neuron firing

it wouldnt be a fully deterministic universe if there is such randomness at a small scale, but free will still has no place, which was my main point

so there's no free will, but it can't be predicted. even at the smallest scale, even a scale that can never be observed or measured by humans, if there is something that can't be predicted, there is never a point at which something can be accurately predicted at any level.

now you can say well we can predict with a certain accuracey that a certain event will occur. but that off chance that something else occurs proves to me that humans COULD have free will. although i believe we do, i understand how others can think differently. but your argument for either determinism/indeterminism doesn't make sense to me. in my mind nothing is black and white unless you are all knowing. which i dont' think humans can be.
 
For a start, noone has access to another person's live brain at neuron level.
no, not with current technology. maybe not for a long time. but determinism doesnt say that "right now we can predict the future" it merely states that, given sufficient data, the future can be predicted. youve said nothing that hurts the deterministic model
Each persons brain would be interconnected differently as everyone has different habits, experiences and beliefs. No two people have been exactly the same. EVER. So the firing pattern would be different for each person.
determinism would be taking into account the physical state, and making predictions based off of that. the higher level abstractions of 'patterns' of nerve firing dont matter. when you look at the electrical charges and their pathways and, after measuring the plasticity of the synapses, behavioral predictions could be made for any animal. this requires very extensive and sophisticated technology, but its possible
Even if it was used for one particular person, it would be constantly becoming obselete, as each moment brings new experience, which in turn 'burns in' new patterns at the expense of others - changing the firing pattern.
no reason why this couldnt be taken into account. in fact these 'burn ins' would be predicted themselves! (assuming you have the incoming signal data to work with)
Forget the idea of 'revisiting a moment in time' - it's a fantasy that relativity won't permit
i agree, conclusions drawn from hte thought experiment can't be supported empirically, whether for your side or mine
 
qwedsa said:
determinism would be taking into account the physical state, and making predictions based off of that. the higher level abstractions of 'patterns' of nerve firing dont matter. when you look at the electrical charges and their pathways and, after measuring the plasticity of the synapses, behavioral predictions could be made for any animal. this requires very extensive and sophisticated technology, but its possible

Any predictions using that alone will be weak indeed. You are denying the significance of the interconnectedness of the brain's neurons.

Directly observing the brains electrical activity at that level would interfere with the result and damage the brains neuronal structure.
 
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my point is for the determinist model to work you would have to know everything.
even things that humans can't know.

this doesn't disprove the theory, i know. because everything CAN be known, and COULD be predicted. just not by humans. so for us, determinism doesn't work.

thusly you would have to believe in something more than what we can think of to allow for determinism.
 
Determinism disagrees with quantum theory also:

Due to the wave/particle nature of matter - they could be anywhere in the universe at any given moment and can only be seen in terms of probabilities. So predicting any event involving wave/particles with certainty is impossible.

So determinism locks horns with relativity AND quantum theory.

So where ARE the foundations of Determinism?

Is determinism self-evident ? :D
 
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^I think it's a bit rash to say that because we can't determine it, it isn't determined.

The foundations are from observation and reasoning.

Also, I think it's funny you put relativity up against determinism, when it's formulater, Albert Einstein, believed deterministic theory...
 
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