thoughts on determinism

[iambiguous]

Pictures and Nonsense
Mark Jago looks at Wittgenstein’s first theory of language, in the Tractatus.

The Tractatus ends on a mystical note, a term Wittgenstein did not shy from (unlike many analytical philosophers). Traditional philosophical problems such as the will, the soul, God and scepticism, cannot be resolved by appealing to the facts of our world. This is why they are mystical. In fact, it is not even correct to call these ‘problems’, for only issues that can be settled by appealing to the facts, such as the problems of physics or psychology, should be counted as problems to Wittgenstein.

Like this will stop the moral objectivists among us from insisting their own facts regarding conflicting goods have allowed them to embody the One True Path to Enlightenment. Or, for others, acquiring immortality and salvation.

The logical positivists of the Vienna Circle were attracted to the Tractatus. They too held that metaphysical propositions are meaningless, and agreed with Wittgenstein that philosophers should demonstrate that such speculations are nonsense.

This, however, gets really, really problematic, really, really fast. After all, how on Earth did Wittenstein and those in the Vienna Circle actually demonstrate that metaphysical propositions are meaningless? And that philosophical speculation regarding them is nonsense. What, they are exempt from The Gap and Rummy’s Rule?

Who can provide us with all of the facts regarding questions of this sort:

Why something instead of nothing?
Why this something and not something else?
Where does the human condition fit into an understanding of this particular something itself?
What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the Matrix?
What of the multiverse?
What of God?

Still, there is always the possibility that these questions can be answered objectively. But what are the odds that they will be before we are all dead and gone?

But according to Wittgenstein, any allegiance to the logical positivist’s verification principle – which says that only those sentences that can be verified count as meaningful – is itself meaningless. The logical positivists wanted to align philosophy with scientific method, but Wittgenstein would regard this as misguided.

And in particular from my own frame of mind “here and now” are human interactions that revolve around morality, politics and religion. Here even science has been stumped.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy stack exchange

Somewhat similar, the Jansenist argument that man is indeed a machine, chained to the wheels of determinism just like any animal is, but unlike animals man has access to God’s grace that can occasionally “save” the man machine from its machinery. In this view, a compatibilist is someone who leaves no room for God in this world, who fails to see that only God can solve the contradiction between determinism and our natural sense of agency.

On the other hand, Jansenism was but one of many, many Christian denominations: The Definitive Guide to Christian Denominations

Then the part where Christianity itself is but one of countless other religious liturgies.

I am one who believes it’s not for nothing that God and religion are often broached here. Why? Because in a No God universe, where are the souls which are said to be the very font for autonomy?

Finally, the part where God is deemed by many to be omniscient, yet “somehow” that itself is reconciled with human autonomy.

The indeterminist argument, primarily put forth by Popper, states that determinism is probably false, or “not even false” (i.e. metaphysical), and thus that it is unwise and unphilosophical to accept it mechanically or uncritically as is so often the case since Spinoza and Leibnitz.

At least the speculation here revolves around things said to “probably” be true or false. That’s an acknowledgement, in my view, that The Gap and Rummy’s Rule are such that it is very unlikely that the philosophical arguments will be able to go beyond probability. At least not in our own lifetimes.

From that perspective, the need for compatibilism does not arise. Compatibilism is just another (silly) way to accept determinism uncritically.

Again, whatever that means “for all practical purposes” given the profound mystery embedded in, among other things, the existence of existence itself.

[iambiguous]

Best arguments against compatibilism?
Philosophy stack exchange
Olivier5

The moral argument, that says in essence that compatibilism makes not enough of a difference between men and animals: the compatibilist argument could be used to prove that dogs and birds have free will.

This is where things can get particularly convoluted. As with human beings, all other animals must subsist. And in order to do so, like us, they must feed themselves, quench their thirst, secure shelter, defend themselves and, for the species itself to continue, reproduce.

And yet over and again we note that, unlike human beings, other animals are not held responsible for what they do. And certainly not morally responsible. Why? Because it is presumed that for them biological imperatives – instincts – are ever and always the bottom line.

Now, some of us insist that with human interactions, genes are, in turn, the bottom line. There are natural behaviors they tell us. And even though they are unable to actually demonstrate this much between their philosophical assumptions, that’s all that is ever necessary to prompt some of them to start thinking in terms of, say, eugenics? Or, for others, even final solutions to weed out the inferior among us.

Thus…

But then why don’t we consider dogs or birds morally responsible for their acts? They are just following their instincts, desires and fears, but we humans are supposed to do better than that: to examine our desires, to put our instincts in check, to control our fears. This is the essence of freedom, not just following our proclivities as the compatibilists argue (at least, I suppose, some of them).

And all of this may well be the case. We may “somehow” have acquired autonomy as a species. Either as a result of a God, the God, or Pantheism, or for reasons deeply embedded in The Gap and Rummy’s Rule. In other words, for reasons that “here and now” neither, philosophers, scientists nor theologians are able to provide us with.

Do we “examine our desires”, “put our instincts in check” and “control our fears” of our own volition? Sure, that’s always possible. Given the astounding mysteries built into the very, very large and the very very small, none of us are attempting anything other than existential leaps of faith

[iambiguous]

Pereboom’s Four Case Argument against Compatibilism
at Philosophical Disquisitions

I have recently been working my way through some of the arguments in Derk Pereboom’s book Free Will, Agency and Meaning in Life. The book presents the most thorough case for hard incompatibilism of which I am aware. Hard incompatibilism is the view that free will is not compatible with causal determinism, and, what’s more, probably doesn’t even exist.

Click.

From my frame of mind “here and now”, the very first thing those who argue for hard incompatibilism should acknowledge is this…that if hard incompatibilism is in fact the case, how could it not include those who argue that it is in fact the case? In other words, if someone standing right next to them argues instead that libertarian free will is inherently embedded in human interactions, they are interchangeable given the only possible reality. If neither one was ever able to freely opt to argue other than that which their brains compel them to argue…?

You do the metaphysical math. Though that effort in turn may or may not be accomplished autonomously.

That argument rests on a series of four thought experiments, each assuming the truth of compatibilism, each involving an agent making a decision, and each provoking an intuitive reaction to that agent’s responsibility. Consequently, the argument is sometimes referred to as the “Four Case” Argument against compatibilism. In what follows, I want to present the argument in as clear a way as I possibly can, and offer some critical reflections.

And yet however carefully and however clearly any arguments are made, they are still arguments that were never able not to be made. Same with our reactions to those arguments. However critically we might reflect on them, it can never be any more or less critical than our entirely material brain impels us to.

Ever and always, it comes down to the profound mystery embedded in the human brain itself. In particular, given a No God universe. The evolution of matter into minds able to grasp the evolution of matter into minds? Try to imagine it…a teleological universe?

On the other hand, for me, it always comes down to all the trials and tribulations, all the terrible pain and suffering endured by human beings day in and day out. That is apparently also embedded in whatever created and sustains the existence of existence itself.

[iambiguous]

Pereboom’s Four Case Argument against Compatibilism at Philosophical Disquisitions

Compatibilism and Manipulation Arguments

Compatibilism is the view that free will exists and is compatible with the truth of determinism. In other words, compatibilists hold that whether a decision is to be judged free (or not) does not depend on whether the decision was causally determined.

But then the part where we understand this in different ways. After all, what [and how much] is encompassed existentially and experientially given a decision that was causally determined?

How do you yourself go about making this distinction pertaining to, say, posting here? What part of that behavior is autonomous and what part is autonomic? And how would you go about demonstrating this beyond the theoretical assumptions that are made in “worlds of words” philosophically?

This raises the obvious question: if causal determinism has no bearing on the matter, what does? The answer is that a certain type of causal sequence is associated with free and responsible decision-making. If the actual causal sequence leading up to a decision fits this type, then we are entitled to say that the decision is free.

Well, if you have convinced yourself that you are entitled to say that your decision to post here is free, you’re still stuck with demonstrating this empirically, experientially and experimentally. Then those here who seem to embrace hardcore determinism but only if it can “somehow” be reconciled with their own argument being the most rational. Or, perhaps, the least irrational?

[promethean75]

Alright, I’ve got a new freewill theory for you guys to try out. It’s Spinozean but goes further than Spinz. Or rather, it explains what he means.

Okay. Freewill does exist, and we exercise it only in saying ‘no’. When Spinz says something like ‘freewill is having the knowledge of causes’, he’s being cryptic and hinting at the mind transcending the body by not engaging… by not becoming an effect… or rather, by not being moved by an external cause and becoming its own causa sui therefore. This is in direct contrast to his thesis that improvement comes from increased capacities to act, to engage the body.

Freewill is then the active striving for one’s annihilation by disengaging the material world of cause and effect and refusing to be moved. Another way to say it is that freewill happens when movement stops or is reduced by degrees. Conversly, if you are moved, you are affected by a cause and therefore not free.

Could this be what Choong Su Lin meant when he laughed at his pupil and said “how can you be free? You are walking around the garden!”

Now, all you first grade freewillists aren’t gonna follow this one. You’ll need to let your ranking metaphysicians deal with this one because it’s rather complicated.

[promethean75]

Freewill is a post-ionization wave terminus event along an axon!

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

Choice begins by saying ‘no’ to what has been determined.
Negation is the basis of life.
Selective rejection of specific possibilities.

when we make a choice what are we doing?
We are saying ‘no’ to all but one option.

[promethean75]

“Choice begins by saying ‘no’ to what has been determined.”

Exactly! But you aren’t seeing the problem. If your ‘no’ involves an active resistance - you say no to going to the frig and remain seated - then you are still engaged in the world and are therefore determined to act as you do by antecedent causes. Now, you’ve merely been determined to remain seated and so have exercised no freewill.

Holy shit. We have to NOT choose something to have our freewill!

I’m tellin you, man, this is a radically new way to look at this monster. Philosophers have never seen anything like this except for maybe those zen master guys.

[promethean75]

What you have before you, gentlemen, is an extraordinary paradox, and i should trust that you think carefully about it.

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

You are working from an unrealistic conception of freedom.
Freedom is not independence from causality.
It is participatory, and the way life participates is by resisting. Saying no.
This is nothing radical.
It might be to those who have been seduced by the current zeitgeist.

A cellular membrane is a ‘rejection’ of possibilities.
Your skin, encompassing your organs, is a saying no to all but what you choose to not say no to.

This has always been free-will.

[promethean75]

On the genealogy of freewill. Once man was a languageless beast who never thought twice about freewill-or-not (couldn’t, in fact, because he didn’t have the brain) but experienced the same thing we experience, our power and capacity to act and how we purposely move around.

When this man bashed another man over the head, it was not until the other man made him feel guilty for what happened that he felt apprehensive about what he did. It was here when he stepped back, and his mind split into two. He saw and considered himself as something separate from the deed he now feels guilty about. For the first time, another man calls into question what he has done and says, “You should have done otherwise!” He examines it and starts thinking of alternative things he could have done. It’s this process that generates the cogito… the recognizing oneself as not an expression of what one does but instead the controller of what one does… a controller that not only could have done otherwise but should have done otherwise, in this case. Gradually, generation after generation, that split is widened, and man gains greater and greater control of himself as his brain gets more specialized. All that neurological activity going on when the other guy was shaking his finger at him started to shape the brain and create the superego… the seat where the illusion of freewill sits.

Why we so quickly feel and believe in freewill today is because we have these incredible multitasking brains and are surrounded everywhere by countless moral inhibitions. You might say the only reason why you feel freewill is because you spend three quarters of your time making sure you don’t do something wrong. Freewill is like a paranoid schizophrenia with an evolutionary advantage.

[promethean75]

https://voca.ro/1hoRAYyy2lmu

Not until you are told that you shouldn’t would you ever consider (wonder) if you couldn’t. Ah.

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

Rejection of free-will has deep psychological roots.
The choice of definition exposes a motive.

“In the beginning there was the action” - Goethe

You choose to say no to the act, and yes to the texts.

Language is how man exposes his thought processes, and his motives.
His state of mind.

What you must explore is why free-will is denied, during this period of time, and why you find it so compelling.

[promethean75]

“Rejection of free-will has deep psychological roots.
The choice of definition exposes a motive.”

Yes i know the drill. You say that and then i say that’s exactly why freewillists deny determinism, and you got it backward.

So, neither party can use that as an argument. Same kind of thing keeps happening with your homeboy Immanuel Can over at PN. He keeps pointing out that determinism is unfalsifiable but never once admits that neither is freewill.

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

Except that you deny your own willful actions, choosing to validate a definition written in text.

The act is empirical, your choice of definitions are not. They are driven only by your subjective objectives.

You choose a definition that negates an independently verifiable act.
This choice exposes your intentions relative to your own willful actions and choices.

[promethean75]

Silenus, sir, i fear either you are slipping into obscurity or i must have bumped my head recently. I will try to read the post again after i recover (if, indeed, i did bump my head. I have no recollection of doing so, however).

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

You are free to choose as you will.

My “obscurity” has nothing to do with reality.

[promethean75]

“You are free to choose as you will”

I’m afraid that is not possible. For example, even though i may choose to understand and/or believe the following statement, i may not be able to do so:

Ambient detrimental subjective property diffusion can not ascertain homeostasis if the principle of explosion in logic is true and causality is nonlinear.

[Kallikantzaros (Silenus)]

You’ve developed some formidable defensiveness.
A lot of resentment there.
At this point you can only contradict yourself, and blame it on something else.