Destiny and Free will

[Thermal]

The whole point of a thought experiment is to examine something that cannot be tested otherwise. The framework I presented is perfect for examining what might drive our choices. And examining all the possible outcomes is part of the exercise. That's why I posited both a case without divergences, and a case where there are divergences based on the subjects' choices.

But it's not perfect; it's not even passably plausible to consider.

Your model bakes in identical universes and asks us to draw conclusions about the nature of choice and will. We can't, because we have no information to begin the thought experiment.

You get that, right? Your experiment leaves us with dead zero to draw from to arrive at a conclusion. "Imagine the nature of the unimaginably impossible so we can figure out reality" is a self-negatting premise.

In the case with divergences, we can speculate on what could cause identical people in identical situations to make different choices (even using your many worlds interpretation). You just don't want to think about it, because you know the only thing that makes sense is some sort of randomness, like the "random" or "probalistic" decay of an atom, which isn't free will either.

Youre asserting baldly again. Your speculation absolutely requires you to commit to determinism to arrive at an answer. The whole idea of "identical universes" demands it.

And I answered anyway. if they were identical, that would probably be chance that they occured at all, and chance could easily result in any sort of diversion within them, now or later.

If you think something else could make the timelines (i.e. choices) diverge, let me know.

If you conclude what the leprechaun and tooth fairy's kid would look like, I'm all ears to examine your reasoning there, too .

 

[Thermal]

@Olmstead : I totally get why you find your thought experiment unassailable. If everything were identical in the two universes, it would continue to be so, thus proving determinism. But it doesn't. The thought experiment is negated by the impossible premise. You are kind of leap-frogging over that because you are entranced with the answer you arrived at.

But my answer wouldn't be the same. That pisses you off, because your assumption is that it has to follow because they are identical universes. Translation: you assume determinism,so determinism would naturally play out.

 

[Olmstead]

But it's not perfect; it's not even passably plausible to consider.

Your model bakes in identical universes and asks us to draw conclusions about the nature of choice and will. We can't, because we have no information to begin the thought experiment.

You get that, right? Your experiment leaves us with dead zero to draw from to arrive at a conclusion. "Imagine the nature of the unimaginably impossible so we can figure out reality" is a self-negatting premise.

You're being unnecessarily dismissive just because you don't want to engage with the idea. In the philosophy subforum.

Youre asserting baldly again. Your speculation absolutely requires you to commit to determinism to arrive at an answer. The whole idea of "identical universes" demands it.

And I answered anyway. if they were identical, that would probably be chance that they occured at all, and chance could easily result in any sort of diversion within them, now or later.

I'd suggest adjusting the experiment to meet your parameters (which are somewhat pedantic), but the mindbending impossibility of it all might just be too much. I'll try anyway:

It's one universe, then it gets copied perfectly at the instant before the subject makes an important choice. We're not assuming determinism, so they diverge, i.e. different choices. What caused the two perfect copies to make different choices?

If you conclude what the leprechaun and tooth fairy's kid would look like, I'm all ears to examine your reasoning there, too .

Irrelevant nonsense.

 

[Thermal]

You're being unnecessarily dismissive just because you don't want to engage with the idea. In the philosophy subforum.

I'd suggest adjusting the experiment to meet your parameters (which are somewhat pedantic), but the mindbending impossibility of it all might just be too much. I'll try anyway:

It's one universe, then it gets copied perfectly at the instant before the subject makes an important choice. We're not assuming determinism, so they diverge, i.e. different choices. What caused the two perfect copies to make different choices?

Irrelevant nonsense.

I understood the attraction this has for you the first half dozen times you described it.

Fantasizing about how free will/ determinism.would work in impossible scenarios (literally requiring you to have the answer in advance) is not particularly illustrative.

No, it's not a slam dunk thought experiment. You can't even run it unless you buy into determinism wholesale. You are still leap-frogging that fatal flaw.

The answer to your query is "who the hell knows?". To which you say "I do! Because I accept determinism as a precondition!"

 

[Olmstead]

I understood the attraction this has for you the first half dozen times you described it.

Fantasizing about how free will/ determinism.would work in impossible scenarios (literally requiring you to have the answer in advance) is not particularly illustrative.

No, it's not a slam dunk thought experiment. You can't even run it unless you buy into determinism wholesale. You are still leap-frogging that fatal flaw.

The answer to your query is "who the hell knows?". To which you say "I do! Because I accept determinism as a precondition!"

I don't accept determinism as a precondition. You're simply wrong about this. I even adjusted the concept to remove the pedantic criticism that only deterministic universes would be identical. Now it's on you to explain how the thought experiment presupposes determinism, because it doesn't.

The reason the thought experiment inevitably arrives at determinism, or its randomized equivalent, is that it's the only logical answer to this particular question of free will. You're the one who presupposes free will, so if logic shows that it's impossible, you just retreat to the rationalization that it's unknowable. It is not.

 

[Thermal]

I don't accept determinism as a precondition. You're simply wrong about this.

Ya you're totally on the fence. Comes across swimmingly.

I even adjusted the concept to remove the pedantic criticism that only deterministic universes would be identical.

You misunderstood. I didn't mean the universes would have to be deterministic (although they probably would). You should know this because I literally already said that their very existence would have been chance, hence divergence could happen at any time. What I was saying is that your foregone conclusion could only be deterministic, not the universes themselves.

Now it's on you to explain how the thought experiment presupposes determinism, because it doesn't.

It's still not a thought experiment. It's a speculative fantasy. There is a qualitative difference.

The reason the thought experiment inevitably arrives at determinism,

It does not.

or its randomized equivalent, is that it's the only logical answer to this particular question of free will.

It is not. "We don't know" is the only logical answer.

But fleshed out, for giggles: the choices made would likely be similar, if not identical. Genes and experiences are strong-ass influencers. But is it an inevitability? No, we have no reason to think that.

Another way to phrase your 'thought experiment' is to say: we have these identical universes. Now, what determines how they make their decisions?

That's very literally what you are asking, and it is nothing more than restating the main theme.

You're the one who presupposes free will,

I do not. I observe what appears to be free will, and see nothing to contradict the accuracy of the observation.

so if logic shows that it's impossible,

It does not.

you just retreat to the rationalization that it's unknowable. It is not.

I'll concede this much: in your goofy fantasy speculative 'thought experiment', determinism is at least as likely as any other speculation. The problem is, it is no more likely than a divergence point. You assume (randomly) that there would be no divergence. I don't.

 

[Chanakya]

I don't accept determinism as a precondition.

Ya you're totally on the fence. Comes across swimmingly.

Can't speak for O, and he can respond with whatever he has to say: but, reading this, O's meaning (or at least, one interpretation of what he's been saying) reads, to me, differently than how you read it. In saying he doesn't accept determinism as a precondition for no-free-will, he isn't, as you seem to think, saying he's therefore ambivalent about his position: but merely that for there not to be free will, determinism must therefore be the case.

Like I'd said briefly upthread: The determinists of old posited an either-or scenario, and went with determinism. But in the world we live in, nothing is actually deterministic, given randomness that obtains in QM (as I understand it, and I could be mistaken, I'm no expert on QM). That is: you don't have free will, but that doesn't mean your "will" is deterministic either. Is how I read this.

(Does quantum randomness cancel out at our scale of existence? I don't know! No one, after all, would claim that the laws of mechanics are not deterministic, just because quantum randomness obtains. The scale makes all the difference. Likewise, it is possible that in case of free will, as well, quantum randomness cancels out, for all practical purposes, at our scale. Someone better versed with QM than I am, can speak out on whether that's right, that canceling out at our scale thing, as well as whether quantum randomness is actually random or merely something whose mechanism we don't understand yet.)


eta:

Another way to phrase your 'thought experiment' is to say: we have these identical universes. Now, what determines how they make their decisions?

That's very literally what you are asking, and it is nothing more than restating the main theme.

Fair.

I'm generally in agreement with Olmstead's position of no free will, and for more or less the same reasons he discusses. (We've discussed this, you and I, some months back, years maybe, sometime I remember although I don't remember when.) And my reasons for thinking that have less to do with the Libet experiments and similar, and more to do with simple top-down reasoning.

Not that I've changed my mind on this, but absolutely, your argument makes sense. I mean, in a similar discussion, I may, myself, well have suggested just such a thought experiment myself: without seeing, as you point out, that the very framing of the question/thought experiment is a question begging thing. Nice catch! (Not that I've changed my mind on the broader question, like I said: but I'm less completely-sure about my reasons now, and therefore just a wee bit less completely-sure about my conclusion.)

 

[Thermal]

Can't speak for O, and he can respond with whatever he has to say: but, reading this, O's meaning (or at least, one interpretation of what he's been saying) reads, to me, differently than how you read it. In saying he doesn't accept determinism as a precondition for no-free-will, he isn't, as you seem to think, saying he's therefore ambivalent about his position: but merely that for there not to be free will, determinism must therefore be the case.

Like I'd said briefly upthread: The determinists of old posited an either-or scenario, and went with determinism. But in the world we live in, nothing is actually deterministic, given randomness that obtains in QM (as I understand it, and I could be mistaken, I'm no expert on QM). That is: you don't have free will, but that doesn't mean your "will" is deterministic either. Is how I read this.

(Does quantum randomness cancel out at our scale of existence? I don't know! No one, after all, would claim that the laws of mechanics are not deterministic, just because quantum randomness obtains. The scale makes all the difference. Likewise, it is possible that in case of free will, as well, quantum randomness cancels out, for all practical purposes, at our scale. Someone better versed with QM than I am, can speak out on whether that's right, that canceling out at our scale thing, as well as whether quantum randomness is actually random or merely something whose mechanism we don't understand yet.)


eta:


Fair.

I'm generally in agreement with Olmstead's position of no free will, and for more or less the same reasons he discusses. (We've discussed this, you and I, some months back, years maybe, sometime I remember although I don't remember when.) And my reasons for thinking that have less to do with the Libet experiments and similar, and more to do with simple top-down reasoning.

Not that I've changed my mind on this, but absolutely, your argument makes sense. I mean, in a similar discussion, I may, myself, well have suggested just such a thought experiment myself: without seeing, as you point out, that the very framing of the question/thought experiment is a question begging thing. Nice catch! (Not that I've changed my mind on the broader question, like I said: but I'm less completely-sure about my reasons now, and therefore just a wee bit less completely-sure about my conclusion.)

Off my chest: I'm not really against determinism. It's as plausible as any other explanation. I'm against strong confidence in it. Whenever someone is super duper confident in a gray area, I usually find they are way off base, foundationally.

 

[Olmstead]

[...]

You assume (randomly) that there would be no divergence. I don't.

The whole point of the exercise is to assume that there will be a divergence and then speculate on what causes it. The rational answer is that the divergence would be caused by random or probalistic forces.

The irrational and frankly paradoxical answer, which you seem to prefer, is that there's some sort of soul or "super will" behind the materialistic structure of the person, and this "super will" is different for some reason. And it can't just be different randomly, because that just runs into the same free will issues as a randomly decaying atom. It has to be different for some meaningful reason, which is just another paradoxical absurdity required by the free will concept.

ETA: Your concept of free will requires that there is "something" that is only influenced by genes and environment and the chaos of the universe, but also in some way independent of them, which is absurd. But even if something like that existed, for your concept of free will to work it couldn't just be randomly or non-randomly granted, because that's equivalent to genes being "granted". It also couldn't be developed by the person, because if they don't already have it, then the only thing that can emerge is something determined by genes and the enviornment. And if they do already have something apart from genes and the environment, it was obviously granted from somewhere. It's just absurdity piled on absurdity.

 

[Darat]

...snip... Like I'd said briefly upthread: The determinists of old posited an either-or scenario, and went with determinism. But in the world we live in, nothing is actually deterministic, given randomness that obtains in QM (as I understand it, and I could be mistaken, I'm no expert on QM). That is: you don't have free will, but that doesn't mean your "will" is deterministic either. Is how I read this. ...snip...

I think in the past deterministic carried an undercurrent of predictability, that if you knew enough about all the initial conditions you could predict what will happen next. But today given what we know about the "statistical" or sum of probabilities underpinnings of our reality you can have determinism without predictability. So we live in a universe that is both deterministic and unpredictable, create two identical "me" down to the atomic level (only differenced by our positions) and we are subjected to the "same" input (same in quotes because of course it can't be the same - as our positions are different) we might react in a different way even though the probabilities would have it that we will react the same way. As times goes on and even if we are kept in "identical" environments sooner or later we will react differently (and given chaos theory that divergence can quickly become extreme).

 

[Thermal]

The whole point of the exercise is to assume that there will be a divergence and then speculate on what causes it.

Yes. I know. Everyone knows what conclusions you are Socraticly trying to lead towards.

The rational answer is that the divergence would be caused by random or probalistic forces.

The rational answer is that we don't know enough to answer. We would have to understand the nature of free will /determinism to speculate. Which we don't. That's literally the meta discussion here.

The irrational and frankly paradoxical answer, which you seem to prefer, is that there's some sort of soul or "super will" behind the materialistic structure of the person, and this "super will" is different for some reason.

Nope. You're just plugging in words that someone else said and pretending I say them. I rely on no 'soul', just a functioning mind. There is a difference that you can't accept because it shoots more holes in your assumptions.

And it can't just be different randomly, because that just runs into the same free will issues as a randomly decaying atom. It has to be different for some meaningful reason, which is just another paradoxical absurdity required by the free will concept.

ETA: Your concept of free will requires that there is "something" that is only influenced by genes and environment and the chaos of the universe, but also in some way independent of them, which is absurd. But even if something like that existed, for your concept of free will to work it couldn't just be randomly or non-randomly granted, because that's equivalent to genes being "granted". It also couldn't be developed by the person, because if they don't already have it, then the only thing that can emerge is something determined by genes and the enviornment. And if they do already have something apart from genes and the environment, it was obviously granted from somewhere. It's just absurdity piled on absurdity.

The problem you are demonstrating is that you are using logic to arrive at a valid conclusion, but I rely further on it being sound.

This 'thought experiment' fails at that point. It's not sound, hence fairly useless. We did a similar one (maybe the identical one) in Intro to Philosophy, literally in the first week or so. Logic can take you to nonsensical conclusions if the premises are not true. Yours are not true.

But let's do it again: in the 'experiment' of identical universes, let's say that we agree that it would likely result in an identical choice. Everything was the same in the past, so a choice would be made from those identical parameters, so should be the same in the future, according to your darling theory. And it sounds good, right? How could it be any other way, you ask as you stroke your beard? Therefore, our choices are deterministic, having arisen inevitably from our physical and experiential circumstances.

Then the Intro teacher explains soundness, and you realize that conclusion is not sound by any metric. Logic has had its way with you, because you only thought it partway through and didnt evaluate whether your premises held water. They didn't.

Eta: hommes. Please demonstrate that, whatever conclusion you reach from your 'thought experiment', that it is sound. That means to demonstrate that it's premises are true, which you have quite freely acknowledged are not. I ask mostly to see how you convince your way around that.

 

[Olmstead]

[...]
The rational answer is that we don't know enough to answer. We would have to understand the nature of free will /determinism to speculate. Which we don't. That's literally the meta discussion here.

We do know enough to answer as long as we don't assume a supernatural explanation (see below).

Nope. You're just plugging in words that someone else said and pretending I say them. I rely on no 'soul', just a functioning mind. There is a difference that you can't accept because it shoots more holes in your assumptions.

I'm not puting words in your mouth, that's just the only possible conclusion. A functioning mind is a product of its genes and the environment that affected them. It will only do what the result of that development makes it do. Even if there's a spectrum of choices, who do you think picks them? It's that same mind, which is nothing else than genes and experiences. No world play will change that. You can imagine the most nebulous concepts, from emergent properties to quantum consciousness -- it doesn't matter, they all arise from the same source.

To go against that, to somehow defeat your nature, would absolutely require a supernatural explanation. Anything that blocks a person from doing something "bad" isn't somehow separate from the material brain, it's simply in a different part of it, and it was granted to them just as much as their animal lusts and appetites.

Your model requires the battle between our nature and some separate mystical "will", which you do equate with some sort of "goodness" or "worthiness", though you probably won't admit it. And some win this battle, because they have a stronger ... "will"? No, that doesn't sound right; if they already have the strength, then their win is just the natural result. Okay, it's inherent in them! ... No, no ... inherent characteristics are just something they were granted by chance ...

Okay, okay: everyone has the same "will", but in some it is impacted by their bad genes and bad experiences, but that doesn't always matter, because even though everyone has exactly the same "will" and wasn't granted a better or worse one, some people exercise it ... better? Not because of their genes or environment ... but because ... something ... for absolutely no reason ... yeah. They're just better really, like inherently. Wait no!

Honestly, you might as well say they have a better soul, but that's just another free will paradox (Why did you give me a bad soul God?). What you really need is something so supernaturally implausible that it defies imagination.

The problem you are demonstrating is that you are using logic to arrive at a valid conclusion, but I rely further on it being sound.

This 'thought experiment' fails at that point. It's not sound, hence fairly useless. We did a similar one (maybe the identical one) in Intro to Philosophy, literally in the first week or so. Logic can take you to nonsensical conclusions if the premises are not true. Yours are not true.

But let's do it again: in the 'experiment' of identical universes, let's say that we agree that it would likely result in an identical choice. Everything was the same in the past, so a choice would be made from those identical parameters, so should be the same in the future, according to your darling theory. And it sounds good, right? How could it be any other way, you ask as you stroke your beard? Therefore, our choices are deterministic, having arisen inevitably from our physical and experiential circumstances.

Then the Intro teacher explains soundness, and you realize that conclusion is not sound by any metric. Logic has had its way with you, because you only thought it partway through and didnt evaluate whether your premises held water. They didn't.

Eta: hommes. Please demonstrate that, whatever conclusion you reach from your 'thought experiment', that it is sound. That means to demonstrate that it's premises are true, which you have quite freely acknowledged are not. I ask mostly to see how you convince your way around that.

What are my premises again?

I think that both a billion divergent timelines and a billion identical timelines all prove the same thing: that free will doesn't exist. The identical timelines are probably self-explanatory, but the divergent timelines might require some comment: whether it's a billion different ones, 50:50, a billion to one, or any number of combinations, all they prove is that the subject is a victim of chance; sometimes a villain, sometimes a hero, and all of it based on absolutely nothing meaningful.

I'm guessing your criticism will be that I had already arrived at the conclusion and then modelled the experiment around it, but I don't think so. I went through similar, though probably less coherent mind games at a time when I was a staunch defender of free will, and often even horrified at the idea that it doesn't exist. But every game always pointed to exactly the same conclusion.

 

[Chanakya]

I think in the past deterministic carried an undercurrent of predictability, that if you knew enough about all the initial conditions you could predict what will happen next. But today given what we know about the "statistical" or sum of probabilities underpinnings of our reality you can have determinism without predictability. So we live in a universe that is both deterministic and unpredictable, create two identical "me" down to the atomic level (only differenced by our positions) and we are subjected to the "same" input (same in quotes because of course it can't be the same - as our positions are different) we might react in a different way even though the probabilities would have it that we will react the same way. As times goes on and even if we are kept in "identical" environments sooner or later we will react differently (and given chaos theory that divergence can quickly become extreme).

Yep. Determinism without predictability. Sums it up nicely, how "our" determinism differs from what it originally meant.

Except, I don't know, "determinism" kind of implies, right there, an element of 'something that can be determined', right? In theory, at any rate, even if not in practice? While here we're left with a system that cannot be "determined", not even in theory. The word "determinism" somehow seems a bit inadequate to convey this sense of the understanding that we have no free will.

 

[Chanakya]

Off my chest: I'm not really against determinism. It's as plausible as any other explanation. I'm against strong confidence in it. Whenever someone is super duper confident in a gray area, I usually find they are way off base, foundationally.

Sure, I get you.

Just to clarify: that isn't where I was coming from, though.

See my post to @Darat immediately preceding. Determinism per se seems not to obtain in reality, as science, and particularly QM, has uncovered to us so far. Which is not to suggest a case for the existence of free will, though. Not even one cloaked in ambiguity. There is no evidence for free will, nor, as far as I understand it, any reasonable mechanism suggested via which it might manifest. Other than merely that we somehow "feel" we have it. Therefore, much like God (whose presence also we sometimes, likewise, "feel" --- some very strongly), it makes sense to go with the default that there is no free will. Always with the readiness to change our mind should evidence for free will be actually forthcoming, sure --- same as for everything else.

eta:
But it's cool. I get where you're coming from, like I said in my earlier post to you. I do see, basis how you yourself argued against @Olmstead 's thought experiment, how there's an element of question-begging involved there. Which, I suppose, is another way of saying that there's an element of taking one particular option/conclusion (the option/conclusion that there is no free will) as our default, and insisting on evidence in order to go with the other option/conclusion (the option/conclusion that we do have free will). But again, where I am coming from is, that that kind-of-sort-of question-begging (in the sense that we're taking that as the default) seems reasonable to me. After all, that's the exact same reasoning we employ, as far as I can see, in arguing that there's no God.

 

[GlennB]

My two identical selves, in parallel universes, are faced with the same choice. We each roll 2 dice to determine our actions ...

 

[porch]

The Rule of So requires an extrapolation, usually a strawman. I did nothing of the kind, but kept to your quote and how it would inform our decisions going forward (your own words). A direct quote is not a RoS.^FA1

I didnt say I did. I said we should want one. Comically enough, on the heels of you saying right there about "making up words for me".^2B
Cool. M may have a more happy go luucky approach than yours truly. I'm from the Philly/NYC area and may come off as brusque, but please don't take it as aggro. We greet our mothers this way ^OIC
My only complaint is not addressing direct questions and/or changing the subject in the face of something thorny. Otherwise, I dont think I have said a peep about you personally?^OK
Ok. You said big and bold that everybody behaves as if they don't have free will. That's utterly nonsensical on it's face. Before we go on, could you clarify how, for instance, M and I behave so?^FTW

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ A-One right! Now show me my own words that said anything close to I don't see why we would want an accurate, working model of reality.

Too bad! Actually, no, that's my bad. When I reviewed my post, post-edit-window, I regretted that line. I do think that Free Will is a pretty good, working model of reality. Just not accurate. And you didn't say anything about Free Will as a model of reality, so my hypocrisy is laid bare.

Oh, I see. A tough guy, eh? No, I get it, PhillyNYC. You did throw me off with all a y'all's y'alls, y'all. Howdja care for a taste of The Maritimes, buddy?

See, I thought you started off roughhousing, then I thought you were actually getting pissy. Got it, we're cool. I like to spar, and I'm totally willing to adjust the intensity level of our training to meet my partner's tolerance level.

Okay. At this moment, right now, I'm not being combative, or evasive, or setting you up for a fall, or trying to throw you off the scent by making you do work for me, or pulling a fast one, or being snide. Or anything! I may be bad communicate some time? I feel like I have addressed all your questions in my posts, although not always in posts directed explicitly to you. But I am trying to spell out my own stance clearly, here. And I've only been posting in this thread for a couple pages now. So, please, tell me specifically what you want me to address, or discuss further, and I will.

Switching back to our previous mode, I wasn't saying you were making personal attacks. I'm saying that you have this habit of assuming the motivations for my statements and questions, and then, instead of addressing my statements and questions, you address your assumptions, and I don't want to bother addressing your assumptions, and, personally, I find it irritating.

◊◊◊◊ the World is what ftw means to my generation. I don't have a reason for this one, I'm just getting tired and ran out of ideas for my oh so clever theme. Seriously, I am working under the assumption that you and I, and most people, have very similar internal experiences. I also seriously think that these experiences can all be accounted for by a more or less causal model. To me, the concept of Free Will is an unnecessary addon. I have been through my own emotional journey with this, but when I came out the other side, if you will, well, I now find it hard to remember what all the fuss was about. I might make a post about my story at a future date. And perhaps entertain questions!

Like I say, I'm kind of pooped now. I imagine you there at your keyboard ramming out these posts, and I'm at a disadvantage. I'm pretty anal, and a bit adult addy haddy, and I thought replying with the superscript would be easier than one of those posts with quote unquote response and on and on. But then I had to figure out how to do it, and then I got the idea to try to be funny with it, and then I pored over my post, adjusting good grammar and bad punctuation as I codeswitched, and I have no freaking clue how long I spent on this post right now, but it was way too long.

I'm going to disappear for a little while, probably. Nothing personal; it's a lifestyle, baby! I do hope to come on back to the war. Pick up my tiny burden.

 

[Manopolus]

A thought:

In a wholly deterministic reality, free choice cannot exist. But neither can randomness or coincidence. Posing those as alternative explanations or as a "debunk" of any sort doesn't work. Neither randomness nor coincidence exists in a deterministic reality. Instead, you're proposing another alternative reality entirely where probability equals random. That's not deterministic. That's indeterminism.

I could quote somebody to get their attention, but it's more about noting the general direction of the conversation.

And to be honest, I think the difference in attribution between "choice" and "random" tends to be the degree of meaning you associate with it. Gods require a lot more antrhopomorphization than merely suggesting that a series of chemical reactions has a "choice."

 

[arthwollipot]

I've only skim-read the last couple of pages of the conversation so forgive me if I'm going over old ground, but I don't agree that in a deterministic reality randomness cannot exist.

A sequence of numbers can be predetermined, but still patternless, where the next number cannot be predicted, because we experience time linearly and not all at once. If we experienced time all at once, we would be able to predict the next number, but we don't. We call such a sequence "random". Coincidence too can be predetermined but nonpredictable in linear time.

 

[Darat]

A thought:

In a wholly deterministic reality, free choice cannot exist. But neither can randomness or coincidence. Posing those as alternative explanations or as a "debunk" of any sort doesn't work. Neither randomness nor coincidence exists in a deterministic reality. Instead, you're proposing another alternative reality entirely where probability equals random. That's not deterministic. That's indeterminism.

I could quote somebody to get their attention, but it's more about noting the general direction of the conversation.

And to be honest, I think the difference in attribution between "choice" and "random" tends to be the degree of meaning you associate with it. Gods require a lot more antrhopomorphization than merely suggesting that a series of chemical reactions has a "choice."

You are conflating predictability with deterministic.

 

[Manopolus]

You are conflating predictability with deterministic.

Um... no I'm not.

If there's a reason it was that number, then it's deterministic. If there isn't, then it's not deterministic. The effect had no cause in the second case. I'll admit that there's a difference between not knowing the cause and there being no cause, but an effect having no cause isn't allowed.

Not a problem if you study influences rather than causes (describes most of modern science), but that's no longer determinism, either. The difference is that it allows for unknown factors to also have influence. In this situation, the term "random" is shorthand for our ignorance (epistemic randomness). Ontological randomness would violate determinism entirely.

So all you're doing is removing "free choice" as a possibility from all that unknown epistemic randomness, while still refusing to address cause. That's not a rational argument for much of anything. It certainly doesn't counter the evidence that we have the first-hand experience of making decisions. We know that exists, and we also know that those decisions sometimes run counter to our best interests. The only question is whether it's "free" or not, but suggesting it isn't without naming the captor is a bit disingenuous and quite frankly disturbing.