Mojo
Mostly harmless
Oops! You have an "if" at the start of that sentence. That means that if the rest of the sentence is to stand, you have to prove that there is no such thing as true randomness.Iacchus said:
Evidence?
Irrelevant, and not true.
Just because you can't understand how this can have arisen without a designer, it doesn't mean that it can't have happened. You have just advanced an argument from ignorance (an unlimited resource, I believe).
I would tend to agree with Jan's position.jan said:
Because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, for any of us to predict our next behavior would be futile. We are victims of how we are, not masters of who we are. With such explanation, free will is the expression of the complex workings of our own minds (with or without spiritual influences). It is deterministic by virtue of natural laws by which it abides. It is "free will" by virtue of our inability to predict the behaviors.
I believe it is necessary to point out that deterministic behavior is not "fated" behavior. We are affected (altered) by the environment. In turn, we affect (alter) the environment. As a result, our behavior is a dynamic dance with our partner being the environment. The Uncertainty Principle prevents exacting predictions. The more complex the machinery and interactions with the environment, the poorer the predictability.
In the end, because of the Uncertainty Principle, the best guidance system is a "control system" whereby we attempt to maintain ourselves within certain boundaries. In humans, the control system is seated in the hypothalamus atop the brainstem. As we receive feedback from our behaviors, the results are compared with the constraints of our "personality and character" (the "set points" or "reference signals). As circumstances disturb our "personality/character" (a "bad" feeling), we invoke behaviors intended to return our "personality/character" back to an optimum setting (a "good" feeling).
Finally, I believe that most people would prefer a determinsitic basis for "free will". Deterministic implies "systematic". In other words, you can count on your personality and character traits to stay intact throughout your lifetime. If this were not true, you could be an avid Christian one day and a "born again" atheist the next. These could alternate daily in a "Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde" fashion. Similarly, all of your interests would become volatile. There would be nothing that would be internally consistent about who you are. Your personality/character would be a rollercoaster of dramatic changes from year to year, month to month, day to day, hour to hour, even moment to moment. You would become unreliable to anyone including yourself.
We want to be able to rely on ourselves. We want something to be internally consistent. And to be reliable, to be consistent, there must be something systematic at some level within our being. And anything which is systematic, can be called deterministic.
Mojo
Mostly harmless
No, it's to do with radioactivity.Iacchus said:
Obviously.Obviously I don't know enough about it.
jan said:
What non-causational events am I observing?
Thank you for the explanation. That was my assumption of what the idea was, but is it actually random which of the multiple realities we actually end up in, or does it only seem to be from our perspective?
Well, what better perspective to know how to prove the existance of a god than to be a god? I wish that he would use his godly powers to help us understand his point of view though!
No, you are correct. Not completely independent, but yes independent. In other words, external circumstances might influence a decision, but not determine it.
Because the freedom to make choices requires that there are different choices to make and different possible outcomes from which one chooses freely. In a completely deterministic system, the outcome is completely determined by prior causes so there is only one possible outcome.
I'm not sure that I would notice a difference, but yes I think that I would prefer to have free will. It's sort of like that scene in "The Matrix," where the guy says that even though he knows the steak doesn't exist, he still prefers it to reality. But in this case reality and the illusion are exactly the same. If the experiences are identical, I would probably prefer to actually have free will rather than just the illusion of having free will. There is some scientific evidence that our brains are hardwired to believe we have free will, so it's very possible that my desire to have free will is completely beyond my control. The theory is that the belief in free will might be necessary to our survival, even if it's only an illusion.
Perhaps. But because much of our society assumes free will, it's certainly something worth thinking about. Scientific evidence of free will is scant, but our judicial system assumes free will.
As I attempted to explain above, decision-making (intelligent or otherwise) cannot be deterministic. Decision making requires choices, and if determinism is true there are no choices.
No fair! Now you're using a different definition of "unpredictable." The very definition of determinism is that a certain cause always has the same predictable effect. Yes, determinism can be complex, and can appear to be free choice, but it isn't free choice.
A god stepping in and making a decision on your behalf doesn't take away your free will. It only takes away your freedom to make that decision. Free will isn't the same as freedom. You don't have the freedom to fly, but you still have free will (i.e. the ability to make choices), just not the particular choice to fly (i.e. your choices are constrained). If you lock someone in jail, you remove their ability to move about freely (i.e. their freedom), but you don't remove their free will (i.e. their ability to choose). The Greeks believed in free will, but also that the gods had the ability to constrain their freedom.
Nor am I. Many religions believe that God knows the choices you will make (i.e. can see the future and knows what choice you will make) but doesn't constrain those choices.
Perhaps! Please clarify what you're suggesting might be a lack of imagination on my part.
Your argument seems to assume that the absence of determinism is randomness. Is that correct, and if so why?
What do you mean "better dealt with" and what do you mean by "verbal decoration?"
I don't know. However, I would imagine that it if were known to everyone that everything is completely deterministic, then it would be a valid defense to say that you killed the guy because you had no choice. In our judicial system, we don't punish people for doing things they have no control over and to do so would be inethical. So if there is no free will, then our system of justice is inethical by its own definition!
-Bri
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Iacchus. Who else?Bri said:
Upchurch said:
Thanks, I'll check it out. I will admit now that I have been corrected on the general acceptance of quantum theory compared to causation/determinism!
Does the Many Worlds interpretation rely on true randomness, and if not is it considered causational?
That was my understanding also. Which is why "causation" is defined as "a certain cause will always have the same predictable effect" which would distinguish it from randomness (which allows the possibility of producing a different effect regardless of the probability of the different effect occurring). It sounds as though Many Worlds might actually be causational though. Is that your understanding?
BTW, thanks for your post, it was very informative.
-Bri
JAK said:
I will admit that I'm not familiar with the Uncertainty Principle. Are you saying that we are currently (because of our inability to know all the variables and calculate all the effects of all of the causes) unable to predict our next behavior or are you saying that our next behavior is truly unpredictable? In other words, are you just saying that it's very complex, or are you saying that it's random?
Determinism dictates that a certain cause will always have the same predictable effect, which in effect does seem to mean "fated." Randomness would perhaps make it something other than "fated," but would preclude determinism. Neither allows us to make actual choices.
Not necessarily. You would have the ability to become unreliable, but free will doesn't mean that you would necessarily fall apart. You are still influenced by your environment, and you still store information internally, and there is still internal consistancy.
Determinism means that an effect is 100% determined by a cause, not just influenced by it. There is a difference between determinism and influence. Choice doesn't preclude influence, but it does seem to preclude determinism.
How does systematic mean deterministic, and why can't something be systematic without being deterministic?
-Bri
Bri, I am going to bed, so don't expect any further replies today. And don't expect the replies below to be very thought-through...
See my reply to Iacchus on the same subject. Uh-oh, just kidding. You see radioactive decay. And there is no way to predict radioactive decay. It may be caused, but the cause would have to be a metaphysical one. That's why I said "random as in quantum mechanics randomness".
In each world, there is one Bri asking "why did I end in this world, and not some other?"
I would say you have a very rigid definition of freedom. Basically it seems to be the same as the ability to entertain free will ("ambitious brand"). I tried to use "freedom to make choices" as a term that does not entail free will.
Imagine a chess computer that is completely deterministic. If you have a copy of the computer, you can predict its moves (by looking how this twin decided). Nevertheless, there is a certain meaning of "freedom to make choices" that could allow us to apply this notion to that computer: we are not forcing the computer at gun point to make this or that move. There is no external force, outside its box, that forces the computer. Admitted, the computer is forced to behave as the currents on its main board dictate, so the computer is not free in another sense of that term. Obviously, this computer doesn't have free will.
But if the experiences are the same, then what is the actual difference?
Sounds interesting. Do you have a link at hand?
I give you some choice. You choose. But if we look close enough, we see that your choice wasn't real, it just appeared to be a choice, like the aforementioned chess computer only appeared to make choices.
But then, why should we look that close? If we have to resort to the behavior of single atoms, we will never be able to say anything at all about your mode of decision-making, since this level is much too fine-grained.
I would say it is reasonable to say that the chess computer makes decisions. It is very cumbersome always to add "it appears to make decisions, but you know, it's all just wires and current".
That's why I said "quite unpredictable", and not just "unpredictable". But I agree that I could have been clearer. The thing is, given the complexity of the human brain together with quantum fuzziness, it is likely that it will never be able to predict the calculations of the human brain, even if there is no free will. So if it is just unpredictability that you want, you already got that.
And if it is just the ability to be convicted to jail, well, innocent people have been convicted to jail as well. You don't need free will for that.
It seems I failed to make my point clear. Please read the Euripides quote I provided on page two.
Helen has two possible lines of defense. She can say that she was raped, that Paris forced her to come to Troy. That would mean that she had free will, but not freedom.
The other possible line of defense is to say that she had freedom (Paris didn't force her), but no free will, because Cypris moved her heart and made her to want to go to Troy. And that's the line of defense she actually chooses.
She is able to make that distinction, since she says: "Still, from hence thou mightest draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and Earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what I fain had done; yea, and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for oft they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements; but there was that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off by force to be his wife against the will of Troy."
So, this time, she had her free will, but not the freedom to do as she wanted to do. But notice that she only has free will when the gods are absent; and they are absent if no important decision is at stake. That is, she has free will with regard to minor decisions, but no free will about the real big issues. As Homer has Menelaus saying it: "Then thou camest thither, and it must be that thou wast bidden by some god".
You say that if there is free will, it must be given by some god. But if there is free will, there could be thousands of reasons for it. You would have to show that a god is the only possible source of free will.
For example, if I could prove to have an immortal soul, that wouldn't prove that there is a god. That would require to show that gods are the only possible sources of immortal souls.
Perhaps it is just a lack of imagination on my part. If something doesn't obey laws, how should we call it? I would say JAK said some interesting things about this.
If your purpose is to maximize happiness, it seems more or less inevitable to put some people in jail, since the net effect of them being free and unpunished on the overall happiness is negative. But maybe they are "innocent" in the sense that there is no free will.
I'm not sure if I want to argue that way. I just mentioned it to show that there are several possibilities. I would prefer to argue that you are, in an admittedly limited sense, able to make decisions even without genuine free will, and that's enough to make the concept of responsibility work.
After all, responsibility seems to be a matter of degree. It's not that drugs switch of your ability to make decisions completely. It's just that those decisions you make while drugged might become unlike the decisions you make while being sober. And if you commit a crime while on drugs, it sounds reasonable to request from you to abstain from drugs in the future. Ad even force you to. Even if you are considered to be innocent.
Perhaps there is no free will, and we do punish people, although the laws of physics made them behave like they behaved?
Bri said:
See my reply to Iacchus on the same subject. Uh-oh, just kidding. You see radioactive decay. And there is no way to predict radioactive decay. It may be caused, but the cause would have to be a metaphysical one. That's why I said "random as in quantum mechanics randomness".
In each world, there is one Bri asking "why did I end in this world, and not some other?"
I would say you have a very rigid definition of freedom. Basically it seems to be the same as the ability to entertain free will ("ambitious brand"). I tried to use "freedom to make choices" as a term that does not entail free will.
Imagine a chess computer that is completely deterministic. If you have a copy of the computer, you can predict its moves (by looking how this twin decided). Nevertheless, there is a certain meaning of "freedom to make choices" that could allow us to apply this notion to that computer: we are not forcing the computer at gun point to make this or that move. There is no external force, outside its box, that forces the computer. Admitted, the computer is forced to behave as the currents on its main board dictate, so the computer is not free in another sense of that term. Obviously, this computer doesn't have free will.
But if the experiences are the same, then what is the actual difference?
Sounds interesting. Do you have a link at hand?
I give you some choice. You choose. But if we look close enough, we see that your choice wasn't real, it just appeared to be a choice, like the aforementioned chess computer only appeared to make choices.
But then, why should we look that close? If we have to resort to the behavior of single atoms, we will never be able to say anything at all about your mode of decision-making, since this level is much too fine-grained.
I would say it is reasonable to say that the chess computer makes decisions. It is very cumbersome always to add "it appears to make decisions, but you know, it's all just wires and current".
That's why I said "quite unpredictable", and not just "unpredictable". But I agree that I could have been clearer. The thing is, given the complexity of the human brain together with quantum fuzziness, it is likely that it will never be able to predict the calculations of the human brain, even if there is no free will. So if it is just unpredictability that you want, you already got that.
And if it is just the ability to be convicted to jail, well, innocent people have been convicted to jail as well. You don't need free will for that.
It seems I failed to make my point clear. Please read the Euripides quote I provided on page two.
Helen has two possible lines of defense. She can say that she was raped, that Paris forced her to come to Troy. That would mean that she had free will, but not freedom.
The other possible line of defense is to say that she had freedom (Paris didn't force her), but no free will, because Cypris moved her heart and made her to want to go to Troy. And that's the line of defense she actually chooses.
She is able to make that distinction, since she says: "Still, from hence thou mightest draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and Earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what I fain had done; yea, and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for oft they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements; but there was that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off by force to be his wife against the will of Troy."
So, this time, she had her free will, but not the freedom to do as she wanted to do. But notice that she only has free will when the gods are absent; and they are absent if no important decision is at stake. That is, she has free will with regard to minor decisions, but no free will about the real big issues. As Homer has Menelaus saying it: "Then thou camest thither, and it must be that thou wast bidden by some god".
You say that if there is free will, it must be given by some god. But if there is free will, there could be thousands of reasons for it. You would have to show that a god is the only possible source of free will.
For example, if I could prove to have an immortal soul, that wouldn't prove that there is a god. That would require to show that gods are the only possible sources of immortal souls.
Perhaps it is just a lack of imagination on my part. If something doesn't obey laws, how should we call it? I would say JAK said some interesting things about this.
If your purpose is to maximize happiness, it seems more or less inevitable to put some people in jail, since the net effect of them being free and unpunished on the overall happiness is negative. But maybe they are "innocent" in the sense that there is no free will.
I'm not sure if I want to argue that way. I just mentioned it to show that there are several possibilities. I would prefer to argue that you are, in an admittedly limited sense, able to make decisions even without genuine free will, and that's enough to make the concept of responsibility work.
After all, responsibility seems to be a matter of degree. It's not that drugs switch of your ability to make decisions completely. It's just that those decisions you make while drugged might become unlike the decisions you make while being sober. And if you commit a crime while on drugs, it sounds reasonable to request from you to abstain from drugs in the future. Ad even force you to. Even if you are considered to be innocent.
Perhaps there is no free will, and we do punish people, although the laws of physics made them behave like they behaved?
Iacchus said:That's King Tut to you.
No, that's the kind of idiotic thing childish minds say when they've been caught being bad...
"I.... well... well, then I'm rubber and you are glue!"
Quite what connection you think you have with the historical boy king of Ancient Eygpt though is beyond any ability of reason to ascertain, alas.
So you admit then that if I wasn't "focusing" on Lifegazer "either", you were just telling another despicable lie...?
Gosh, who knew that behind that innocent dolphinish facade lay the heart of a wicked, wicked liar? You'll be pushed into your own oven at this rate!
Actually, no he's not... In fact, it's his blind irrationalism, his insistance that he should be treated as a Deity himself, which leads to his death.
The fact that your own link only contains the name Pentheus and nothing else shows how once more, you've no idea what it is you've actually read. You just googled the name, and assumed again you knew what you were talking about.
But tell me "cousin", if truly you are my "cousin", do you plan to lure me into the woods so the Maenads can tear me to shreds? Are you threatening me? Why, if you aren't, then there isn't a single thing in the parallel to yourself as Dionysus at all, is there?
Ahhh, so you are going to tear all the skeptics here to shreds? Quite the mass murderer, aren't you?!
Let me spell it out to you very, very slowly Iacchus.
You... cannot... lie... to... someone... and... tell... them... they... believe... something... they... know... they... do... NOT... believe.
Lifegazer I took seriously, towards the end, because he was clearly self destructively sick. You on the other hand barely register with me at all. You are just a hopelessly confused silly little child. The world's full of them, although admittedly they tend to be smaller and younger than you.
And it doesn't matter how many times you try and lie and say "You must think this!"... because I don't think that, and I know I don't. Just like telling me I am glue doesn't make you rubber, or indeed even address what your hand was doing in the cookie jar. And I can show this childish disconnect from reality to anyone else too. Which is why you dare not even take the risk of stating whether you think I believe in randomness or not. Despite you saying that you did know my beliefs. Because you know it won't stand up to adult scrutiny.
Because the only world you exist in is your own imaginary one. And you know full well you can neither understand or honestly face the real world.
Which is fine by me. You'll simply grow old, and one day die, and you'll have neither touched nor wounded the real world, nor yourself, in the slightest. You are welcome to believe what ever foolishness you wish to believe in... because you are ultimately completely irrelevant. Which makes you irrelevant to me, too. I simply don't care Iacchus. I merely like occasionally pointing out just how silly you are for others, that is all.
Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
Didn't mean to beat a dead horse, it's just that I've got this degree and it's just sitting there collecting dust...Bri said:
[fquote]Does the Many Worlds interpretation rely on true randomness, and if not is it considered causational?[/fquote]That's a tough one. I'll go out on a limb and say, "I have no idea."
[fquote]Which is why "causation" is defined as "a certain cause will always have the same predictable effect" which would distinguish it from randomness (which allows the possibility of producing a different effect regardless of the probability of the different effect occurring).[/fquote]I would have to disagree with this phrasing. Causation refers to the action/effect linkage between two events. The radiation emitted from a decaying isotope may be random, but it is definitely causal. For example, the molecules randomly settling to a more stable state is the cause, the radiation emitted is the effect. Randomness refers to the unpredictability of a specific event occurring (although it does not exclude probability). For example, I predict that I will get tails on the next flip of a coin, but I can be fairly certain that I will have 50 tails out of the next 100 flips of a coin.
Just to be clear, causation and randomness are not two sides of the same coin (no pun intended), but are rather independent properties of any given event. You can have random causal events, non-random causal events, and random acausal events. I suppose there could be non-random acausal events, but I'm hard pressed at the moment to think of an example,
[fquote]It sounds as though Many Worlds might actually be causational though. Is that your understanding?[/fquote]No, because even if you have a Many Worlds situation, you will still have quantum fluctuations. In other words, in one world a quantum fluctuation will occur and in another it won't. However, in the world that it did occur, that fluctuation is still acausal, meaning there is no action preceding the effect.
[fquote]BTW, thanks for your post, it was very informative.[/fquote]Paid for the darn thing. Outta use it for something....
Both. The complexity is astronomical. Yet, even if we could get a grip on the complexity, at the lowest level, our attempt to "get a grip on it" alters the structure, alters the system, and alters the outcome. By our own meddling, we change whatever "natural" behavior would occur.Bri said:
In astronomy, there is the "two body problem", whereby the motion of two interacting celestial objects can be predicted. And there is the "three body problem" which has escaped modern mathematics in predictability. Even so, in both cases, the celestial bodies are moving according to known laws of physics. Thus, you have "determinism" in that a certain cause (known and predictable laws of physics) have the same predictable effect (on any isolated object). Yet, enough is unknown about physics to explain complex interactions. By escaping prediction, the interactions appear random to some degree.Bri said:
If I implied that "free will" would cause you to fall apart, forgive me. That is not what I intended to convey. I meant to say that "free will" is the expression of each of us as unique systems. Yet, each of us has an internal system which, though guided by laws of nature, are too complex to understand. Our behaviors, thus, are an expression of our internal make-up. In fact, our internal make-up forces the choices we make.Bri said:
Choice is made by competing neural circuits in the nucleus Reticularis Thalami (nRT), the outer "shells" of the thalamic bulbs near the hypothalamus in the brain. "Choices" are influenced by the internal state of the organism as well as the current (and past) environmental interactions. Further, the organism is dynamic (Gestalt concept of the progressive formation and destruction of perceptual gestalts).
All thoughts and emotions are effects which are caused by thermodynamical and other events in a living organism. However, some events run counter to others. Because a multitude of events happen simutaneously within the organism, each event, though deterministic in itself, is only one of many, many influences upon a final decision.Bri said:
For example, the subconscious mind normally "filters" much infomation such as the feel of your pants against your leg or your hair upon your neck or your sleeves on your arms. This is called "habituation". Nevertheless, all of these points of contact create neural signals which the brain puts into the "soup" of thought along with sight, sounds, tastes, and smells. These myriad perceptions may not be part of a "choice", but they are part of the "soup". Anyone of them may interrupt the decision-making process at any moment. The sensation of movement on your arm may be a bug, and your thoughts are diverted. A sudden smell of natural gas may alert you to a gas leak. A phone may ring. All of your senses are constantly active, but the brain filters out what it considers to be of little importance. What is left goes into consciousness. Even so, the "filters" are choices made within you - a system. And these choices are not conscious. AND these choices are not made with a conscious act of "free will".
In essence, your brain pre-determines what is presented to your "free will". Thus, you have already made choices BEFORE your "free will" chooses. Further, if we knew which neural circuits would be involved in your decision, and knew their activation strengths, we could predict which one would eventually "win" the competition in the nRT. Your "free will", would be predictable - because it is systematic and deterministic due to laws of nature.
Yet, perhaps the strongest indication of determinism is conscious thought - the seat of free-will and decision-making (making choices). As G.A. Miller said, consciousness is the result of thinking - NOT the process of thinking. Within consciousness, visions dance and play. Words form sentences and ideas. But what "chooses" your sentence structure? What places the verbs and nouns in each of your sentences. If you think of a cat, is it sitting, walking, or sleeping? Is it black, mottled, tabby, or some other color? Did you specifically make those choices of how the "cat" will be displayed in your consciousness (free will)? Or were those choices made at some lower level of brain processes and presented into consciousness?? G.A. Miller suggests the latter. Bernard J. Baars suggests the latter. Experimental results suggest the latter. I suggest the latter. Consciousness is the result of thinking, not the process of thinking.
Consequently, conscious free will is the result of thinking, not the process of thinking.
jan said:
I won't expect any further replies today, but your replies seemed perfectly thought-through, as always.
OK, well I do stand corrected on that one, that non-causational events have indeed been reliably observed.
So there is at least one interpretation that is in complete sync with causation and may not require randomness. Interesting.
I think I'm using the common definition of free will, but we can call it "ambitious" if you like. I'm not quite sure I understand the other kind. Here's Webster's:
I'm using definition (2), which simply means the ability to make choices. Not to be confused with "freedom" which is the ability to make a specific choice (i.e. we do not have the freedom to fly). Note also that free will does not require the ability to make any choice we want (i.e. if we are locked up and cannot choose to move about, we still have have free will). It also means that for free will to exist, only one person in the world -- any person -- has to be able to make a choice -- any choice. Conversely if free will does not exist, no person in the world can ever have the ability to make any choice at all.
Exactly, the computer doesn't have free will if it is deterministic. Didn't you just prove my point instead of yours (that free will can exist in a deterministic system)?
I think I do see what you're trying to say, but you're again confusing "free will" and "freedom." Forcing someone to do something at gunpoint doesn't take away their free will (their ability to make choices), it only takes away their freedom to make a choice at that moment (actually, you're not even doing that since they could choose to be shot).
A computer also isn't a good example because a computer (as we know it) cannot have free will (it simply follows its programming and wiring but never actually makes any true choice of its own).
Everyone feels as though they have free will. When you choose the mu shu chicken, you don't feel as though you are unable to choose the kung pao instead if you wanted to. The question is whether that free will is just an illusion or not. There happens to be a decent amount of scientific evidence that it is an illusion, and scant evidence that it's real. However, to answer your question, I would prefer to have true free will rather than free will be an illusion (wouldn't you?) That's not to say that my wish has any bearing on reality, of course. The experience might be the same, but I would prefer that my experience be real rather than fake.
I'll try to scare this up. Aside from our everyday experiences that we have free will (when you make a choice, you have the feeling that you could choose otherwise if you wanted), there have been several psychology experiments involving hypnosis and brain injuries have been done that showed evidence that our brains are hardwired to believe that we have free will.
If I remember correctly, one example involved people who are implanted with a suggestion during hypnosis (such as "you will cluck like a chicken when you hear a bell, even after you are awake"). Afterwards, the subject will indeed cluck like a chicken, but will inevitably still believe that they are acting of their own free will. They will often go through a convoluted rationalization process in order to preserve the experience of free will.
As a computer programmer, I would never say that a computer makes decisions. A computer clearly doesn't make decisions, it simply follows a program. That said, there are several reasons why we should look further at our own ability to make choices. One is simple curiosity. Another is that the feeling that we can make choices is so engrained in our psyches that it's difficult for some to father that we might not have it, which might explain certain prejudices people might have against atheists and even scientists. Still another has to do with how we react and interact with those around us. For example, if you truly believed that nobody has free will, why would you get mad at someone for hurting you (they didn't have a choice) and why would you try to punish or reward anyone for "bad" or "good" behavior when there is no such thing? For that matter, why should one who doesn't believe in free will obey a legal system that is based on free will and (if free will doesn't exist) contradicts itself by punishing people that it says shouldn't be punished?
It's true that if it's just unpredictability you want, you can have that with simple randomness. But randomness isn't free will, and it's not the ability to make choices, so clearly it's not just the unpredictability that's important. And it's true that we will very likely never know the answer to these questions, but they're still worth thinking about in my opinion. I don't personally know the answers to the questions, nor do I even pretend to believe that there is a right or wrong answer.
Yes, but we try not to jail people who don't deserve it. Obviously, our judicial system isn't perfect whether or not free will exists, but it's seriously flawed if free will doesn't exist since it's based on the assumption that it does.
Your original premise for this was that ancient people didn't believe in free will. Even if Helen ONLY had the ability to choose whether to use her blue toothbrush or her red one that morning, the ability to make just that one choice demonstrates that Helen has free will and that free will exists. I believe that the ancient Greeks believed that they had free will (whether or not they believed that sometimes the gods "took over" their freedom on occasion is another matter).
This isn't my personal belief, no. I was saying that if Iacchus wanted to attempt to prove that God exists, he would be wise to start with a premise of free will rather than causation. You are correct that it might be possible to have free will without God, however, one who is desperate to prove the existance of God could argue that whatever the object or force is that provides us with free will (the one that science currently has no evidence of but presumably would have to exist in order for us to have free will) IS God, and therefore IF there is free will, then there is also a God. In other words, it would be possible to define God as "that [currently unknown] thing that gives us free will" and you wouldn't be far from the common notion of God. So someone who wants to prove that God exists might only have to prove that free will exists, and then call the mechanism by which free will exists "God."
On the other hand, it seems that causation may actually disprove the existance of God, especially the type of God that a lot of people believe in nowadays, such as a God who granted Adam and Eve free will in the Garden of Eden. Iacchus might want to consider a different approach if he's trying to prove that God exists.
Just because it doesn't obey any laws that we know about or can currently comprehend doesn't mean that it doesn't obey laws. We don't know much about basic forces such as gravity or magnetism. In fact, we cannot observe them directly, only their effects. What if free will is simply an unknown fundamental force like gravity or magnetism, and the only observable effects of this force is our free will? Would it be causation (cause/effect)? Would that be random (cause/randomness/effect)? No, it would be something else (influence/choice/effect). Mind you, this is only a hypothetical, there is no scientific evidence of a "free will force" whatsoever. But adding it to our list of theories, we would have at least three choices, and the absence of determinism is clearly not necessarily randomness.
Your input is taken in the manner in which it is intended. As you know, there is no right or wrong answer here, and any view on this is just as valid as the next. I don't personally have the answer, nor do I necessarily believe all of the ideas I'm tossing out here.
My point was that our judicial system absolutely does assume that free will exists -- that we have the ability to make choices. If free will doesn't exist, then our judicial system would be inethical by its own definition, by punishing people who cannot choose their actions. It would therefore contradict itself, and I'm not sure that any system that contradicts itself would be valid at all. So I don't know that our judicial system uses terms like "guilt" as a "window dressing" -- I think it is completely dependent on such terms having real meaning.
All of your arguments here assume free will. If you have no ability to decide whatsoever (as is the reality if there is no free will) then can you actually be responsible for anything you do?
If that were so, then our judicial system might very well be invalid and would certainly contradict itself since it states that to punish people for something they have no control over is inethical.
But I guess as long as the illusion holds and people believe that we have free will, it wouldn't matter.
-Bri
No, I do believe "God" is the source of free will and, the fact that all things are deterministic beyond that, shows the allegience of everything (by varying degree) to the original cause. As for the notion of "multiverses," this seems like another way of spelling out omniscience which, would be indicative to the mind of God. Whereas to the degree that one is conscious (hence closer to the mind of God), one has a greater capacity of free will. Which is to say, free will is very much linked to consciousness ... whereas everything else (in the physical sense) is deterministic.Bri said: