Free-will is a product of human intellect and creativity.
Not Out.
All in.
- Obviously Determinism is an Epistemological thesis, except things “not as yet fully determined” does not equate to “undeterminable”. Already covered, many times over. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: Argument From Ignorance fallacy.
- Obviously Determinism is relative - already covered many many times, except it can predict the action of organisms/animals “sufficiently” - just not “necessarily”: Modal Fallacy.
That grave you keep digging yourself can never be deep enough, keep going.
Like I said:
It’s fucking groundhog day with this goldfish.
Entirely agreed. My position all along as in my former debate with Ecmandu - I’m also intrigued by the idea I planted in my own head about the possibility of Determinism being replaced by something superior, like Determinism entirely did to Free Will.
I think if anywhere, such a thing would be at least born from Indeterminacy, to become who knows what. Are you familiar with the Chaos Theory concept of “order emerging from chaos” - examples I gave in said former debate were the “Lorentz attractor” and Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot”? I’m intrigued by the possibility of reality as fractal (non-integer dimensional), which interestingly is relative to perception - in the absence of absolute existence - as all improvements in knowledge frameworks are turning out to be. Nothing in the world is ever truly Euclidean.
Back to Square One? Not my fault…it’s yours.
Free-Will is falsifiable; Determinism is not. The core fallacy of Determinism is Post Hoc. “It must have always been despite what humanity can possibly know.” If you can’t figure this out by now, who is the goldfish???
If there is a lack of certainty in terms of what is “Determined” then it’s not Determined, and especially not Pre-Determined. Let’s analyze “Determinism”. What does it mean to be “Determined” except by Whom? Determined, according to what or who? Silhouette will say “Determined by Physics/Science”. This is another fallacy (Appeal to Authority). Scientists do not “Determine” reality. Scientists try-to “Determine” the rules, laws, and patterns of Reality. This is not to say that Science is Pre-Determined, because it’s not.
Science relies on experiment, falsifiability, records, and replication of results. If a test cannot be replicated then it is not Scientific per-se.
Can existential “Determinism” be replicated? No it cannot. Grand Theories of the universe are only that and nothing more, A Grand Theory. Could it be wrong? Yes, and it almost certainly is wrong. So to Silhouette,
You’re wrong a thousand more times.
3
I get what You are saying , but between the in and out there are more than burgers. There exist all kinds of categorical assumptions nothing that pits anyone in or out absolutely. Logically, yes. Bit the logic of language depletes phenomenally reduced items , objects, drastically at times, whereas it can also blow them out of proportion.
One may need a clever geometrician which form or modeling fits best on application.
Application may determine both usage and preception; and at times it is gross presumptive ideas , benefiting the ideal state of being , which not only should determine it, but there may not be any choice for those who stick to the language as it is applied.
The word did not originate familiarly or in families , but through real wars , the through slow evolutionary traits of approximating an advance or a pull back.
And animals used this meta logic , and it has since a few hundred years, reappeared as a recurrent idea.
Where the line or border is drawn, has left in it’s wake a gravitational pressure of loss of symbolic content.
Thanks guys , but topical interpretations ofnthe phenomenological current use of those kinds of typical currencies currencies, involve very stretched out logical notions, where aesthetics preempt the autonomously determined , prior state of understanding.
I will understand Your passing this poi t up, since it feels absurd on it’s immediate face.
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The realistic imminance of the unquantified present, has this power to disqualify any other approach.
Sorry , the above comment only reiterates conventipnalllt types of arguments.
It is not that it is wrong, but it’s meaning has to change corresponding to where the entry and exit position are noted.
Erasing this perfectly well positioned observation, may enhance or detract from the thesis or the anti thesis which looms between will and determination.
I ommitted ‘free’ , because freedom , well, is just another word.
Therefore determinism and indeterminism are like being and nothingness, one exists and the other is defined as the negative of the other.
That separate discussion also still rages on.
But I have been presuming way too much here, and ask in total honesty to respond only if there is any merit in it, as far as You can see.
If not, then that will serve me with the idea that I out stayed my welcome, here in philosophy, . . Thanks
Not at ILP but in this forum.
The limitation of knowledge applies to any epistemological thesis so to single out determinism is no more than special pleading and confirmation bias
Regardless of how much knowledge is accumulated over time there will always be much which remains unknown given that omniscience is impossible
If determinism cannot predict actions to a sufficient degree then a precise definition of that word is required
Because without this it could equally be claimed that determinism does predict actions to a sufficient degree
The word sufficient is therefore meaningless in this context without a rigorous scientific or mathematical application
The same also applies to the use of relative which in this particular context simply means anything less than absolute
Determinism is specifically susceptible to Confirmation-Bias because, as proved through these long arguments, it is Scientifically Un-falsifiable. Most if-not-all other Epistemological theses can have pragmatic use/utility even if postulations are unknown, or could never be known (like does Gravity act the same on the other side of the Galaxy or on the opposite side of a Black Hole). Some postulations don’t need to be known, or could never be known. Most of the time, such postulations regarding the otherwise Absolute-Unknown, are meaningless.
Then so too is Determinism, meaningless.
Freedom, however, is known and practical. Even infants and small children understand the difference between being mobile (free), and being tied up (restricted). Cognitive life, evolved intelligence, understands Limits vs Un-limited.
The main problem here is people like Silhouette and Promethean who either deny the obvious to make a point, or, pretend as-though “Science is on my side” concerning Natural/Universal Laws, which don’t even apply to Determinism anyway. If these two cannot understand the simplest aspects of ‘Causality’ then they don’t really have anything convincing to say regarding Determinism as well. Just because there is a cause here, to this event, doesn’t mean that it is set in stone (Hard-Determined) and that any human knows “all there is to know” about such causes and effects. Because they don’t.
And because Silhouette, Promethean, and other Hard-Determinists, cannot make sufficient or convincing cases on behalf of ‘Causality’, which is necessarily the core-component to their “Deterministic Universe” theses.
If, as you say, a refutation of determinism is so easily made, and the thesis of freewill so obvious, why would countless contemporary freelance and academic thinkers, intellectuals, and philosophers faaaaar above your pay grade, still endorse the thesis of hard-determinism? Think about it. You’ve managed to refute determinism from your bedroom computer in three posts… and yet these guys have written volumes on the subject. What is it that they’re missing? Or, maybe, there’s something to this subject that it not fully within your intellectual grasp?
As a side note; don’t always believe that because someone doesn’t respond to you, they can’t respond to you. The onus of the irony might very well be upon you, dear sir. Perhaps they have come to the conclusion that you are unable to ‘unlearn’ what you think you know.
Shit man, if I had a dollar for everytime some knucklehead thought because I dropped out of an argument, it meant he was right, I’d be straight pimpin’ right now.
The irony is, you just described free will.
This is why these discussions are never going to get anywhere.
Here’s that very same “different definition of Free Will” that’s been pushed incessandly by one side, that isn’t the definition being used by the other.
Talking past one another.
Without every one using the same definition any discourse is simply not possible so unless
there is some consensus on what free will means it will just get bogged down in semantics
You’re mistaking me… my goal as a teenager, from a young age, was never to become merely A philosopher. My goal was to become The Philosopher. And I am. You have the pay-grade backward. The scientists answer to me, not me to them. Those who are best at what they do, who are phenomenal, don’t do what they do because they get paid to do so. They do it because it is within their Nature, and it is the product of their Excellence. I mentioned this with Freedom as well.
Why can an Olympic athlete high jump over 8ft??? Why can Astronauts fly into space? Why can an army General command a million soldiers?
You’re thinking too small, is your problem, Prom.
“What is it you’re missing”? Consider the investments. Not only you, and Silhouette, but there 2000+ years of investment into Hard-Determinism/Christianity. In fact let’s just cut to the chase right here. “Hard-Determinism” = Secular Humanism = Post-Christianity = Abrahamism. It’s The Bible, minus God. The Universe was created. By Whom? By What? I don’t expect answers out of you. But that’s the implication behind Prima Causa, First Cause. You, and Silhouette, pretty much are Secularists. That means that “all causes come from previous causes & effects”. So, “Determinism” suffers from Infinite Regress. If you believe there is a “Cause to Everything” especially if those causes are unknown to humanity, then there must more previous causes, and more previous causes, and more previous causes, forever. What is the Ultimate Cause? Creationism.
“The Big Bang” = Secular (per)version of (Christian) Creationism. Same thing. If you believe in “The Big Bang”, you (and Sil) are both spawned into the ‘Christian’ paradigm.
I never, ever admitted to such. I never accepted it. To me, the universe, space & time, is infinite, without beginning and end. So it’s not a contradiction to me. But to you and Sil, or other Hard-Determinists, it is. It is very contradicting, to admit to any possibility of Freedom.
When you put 2000 years into a failed premise, a failed investment, do you think people are just going to “give it up”??? Or, won’t they, because they dug their holes too deep, may as well keep digging to the other side of the planet??? That is the situation of “Hard-Determinists” such as Silhouette. He’s too invested. He, and most other Secularists/Post-Christians, haven’t given up on their invisible God. And rather admit any mistake or doubt, will double-down and down and down.
Until their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren are slaves. Hence, the Post-Modern Era.
So are humans truly “born free”? Or aren’t they slaves, pretending to be free? The Protestant movements have failed, more than anybody realizes.
Yes they will keep digging until they reach the realisation that planet earth is shrinking exponentially.
Then they will hit rock bottom BEFORE digging through to the other side , and the astounding choice will become obvious that they have to choose between blood diamonds or, the Diamond Sutra.
one problem i have with the thesis of indeterminism is what i consider a negligible distinction between necessary and sufficient antecedent causes. the thesis maintains that if y followed x, x was the cause of y (necessarily), but that y need not result from the presence of x.
here i think indeterminists are confusing the fact that because logically alternate possibilities can be imagined to happen (z might follow x instead of y, next time), this therefore means that at time-1 there were two or more simultaneously existing futures. but this inference is made at time-2, post hoc, and is mistaken as a report of the conditions existent at time-1. but see there aren’t ever two or more futures, only one future, the necessary result of what happens presently. the ‘arrow-of-time’ argument supports this position.
the indeterminist’s position replaces a metaphysical truism with an observational idiosyncrasy. the same confusion exists in what is typically conceived of as ‘chaos’. due to the inability to directly observe necessary causation, the absence of repetition, predictability and sequenced pattern is mistaken as an indication of a lack of causal order. another observational idiosyncrasy that is embedded in our ability to conceive of alternate outcomes before they happen. so for example, we observe two identical systems. in each system we change an initial condition at time-1, and then observe the extraordinary differences that result in the systems at time-2. now it would be implausible to say that ‘order’ did not pervade throughout each system uniformly simply because the systems are completely different. rather, at the moment of the initial changes, the systems were no longer identical and therefore cannot be compared to reach the verdict that complete order was lacking. ‘aha!’, says sil. instead you now have two different systems producing unique contingencies within the necessary causal conditions in which they exist.
simply said, ‘chaos’ is a perceptual phenomena, not an ontological phenomena.
nonetheless, philosophers love to tinker with the word chaos without the slightest inkling that they’re talking nonsense.
in any case i’m not sure there is a third possibility somewhere between determinism and indeterminism. having ruled out indeterminism, i’d entertain the notion that determinism might function at a much more complex level than we are currently aware of. perhaps there are imperceptible forces that act causally on what is perceivable (poly-dimensional branes and whatever effecting each other), and even vice-versa, but i’d wager my very soul that causation is absolutely real, however it works. this of course excluding any substance dualism, as well. i’ve ruled agent causation out completely.
I believe in free will, not only for sentient animals like raccoons and ravens, but for nonlife forms too.
Sticks and stones can move around of their own accord if they like, it’s just most of the time they choose not to.
every once in a while tables, chairs and other household items get antsy, and they do a little dance before rearranging themselves, usually when we’re not looking so as not to disturb us, a phenomenon normally referred to as poltergeist.
People have mistaken this phenomenon for ghouls and ghosts moving things about, but that’s not normally what is, the objects are just exercising their free will.
And whenever an object’s behavior deviates from our expectations, like if it bounces higher or flies further than we thought it would, it’s not a miscalculation on our part, that too is objects exercising their free will.
Scientific materialists had to admit the quantum world is partly free and so is the macroworld, spontaneity is just subtler and rarer in the macroworld.
everything is animate and alive on some level.
Right , it goes to reason.
Now this discussion is finally getting somewhere. Progress.
How unfortunate, because Agency is the very source of “Causation”.
Is the universe and existence “caused” without subjective interpretation, without life present, without a person around the woods to hear the sound of trees falling down?
The universe doesn’t need to be caused, hence why there are sufficient antecedents. Rather it is life, humanity specifically, that try to impose its own ‘Cause’ onto everything-else.
The “Beginning” of Life is no different than the “Beginning” of existence or the universe. It doesn’t need to be.