Compatibilism is impossible
I think we can agree on the fact that brain is a set of neurons which they interact with each other. Any mental state, physical state of brain, leads into another mental state by following laws of physics. This is a deterministic chain of causality. Free will in another hand is the ability to initiate or terminate a chain of causality. This is true since we are dealing with two options in an undecided situation which this requires an agent to choose one of the options and initiate a chain of causality. This, initiating or terminating a causal chain, is impossible in a physical/deterministic world. Therefore compatibilism is impossible.
Comments (273)
What causes this?
Agents follow from causes too.
Your conclusion is not warranted. Compatibilism is a deterministic picture which recognises the idea of free-will as caused and causal agency. It does not posit an agent that can act regardless of causality. It's a matter of perspective, and answers the problem of apparent acts of will.
That is not correct. What does initiate a chain of causality if even the agent follow causality too?
Quoting charleton
What is your definition of free will? I cannot comprehend what you are trying to say here.
Quoting charleton
This means that the agent is not free.
Quoting charleton
Apparent? It is not apparent at all.
Are you saying that individual human agents are free from necessity?
The chains of causality are not initiated except by the big bang, and maybe not even then.
I do not understand your objection.
??? Are you trying say there are no acts of will? Or that they are not apparent, but real?
No. I am saying given a situation which is defined by a set of options an agent can decide and choose one of the option only if he can initiate a chain of causality.
Quoting charleton
Therefore we are not free given the definition of free will.
Quoting charleton
I hope that it is clear by now.
I am saying that act of will is impossible in a deterministic world. Therefore compatibilism is wrong.
You mean that an agent is free from necessity!
Quoting bahman
Yes. we are not free of necessity.
This is where the perspective of compatibilism comes in. We observe people making apparent acts of will all the time. Since we can never be party to the causal chains in side a person's brain, these acts of will are deterministic, but appear to be freely made.
Did what I say not clear? Of course we are bounded with many things but we might be free given the definition of free will in OP.
Quoting charleton
But we should be able to initiate a chain of causality otherwise we are not free.
Quoting charleton
Appear? I am arguing against compatibilism.
You realize that there is zero evidence for either of these statements. Your "fact" it's a belief.
Have you any reason to suppose that what we see in nature does not also apply to us?
The assertion of the idea that necessity; the rule of cause and effect is ubiquitous is an inductive truth that has never been demonstrated to be false.
No - you are misconceiving it.
What exactly do you see in nature? I see change/evolution.
What "rule" of cause and effect are you referring to? The one at the quantum level?
What do you believe? What is the use of brain?
Could you please elaborate?
I use my brain.
Come on. Please elaborate.
And what is mind?
It's what is exploring, creating, and communicating. It's us.
Is it brain dependent or is something separate like soul?
It's just there.
Come on. You just have two options.
What is the third option in this case?
No, I meant in the regards to question I asked: Is it brain dependent or is something separate like soul? You don't have third option.
That doesn't make any sense.
To me it does, but I've spent many decades contemplating it.
However, the issue I was trying to point out is that your OP describes certain beliefs as facts which calls the OP into question.
You reject compatibilism, but you are actually rejecting the concept of non deterministic free will.
A compatibilist is a determinist.
Compatibilists often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had freedom to act according to their own motivation. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." WIKI
Compatibilism is a moral stance which accepts that actions are determined, and accepts free will as an instance in which a person acted according to his own (determined) motivation, but was not forced by outside forces to act in that way.
For example you have become determined by experience to be a thief, and you steal. Had you been coerced by another then you would not have been free to act.
Compatibilism is a moral stance. Punishment is delivered to the person who is determined to transgress the law. Such a person can enter into consideration mitigating circumstances, and a judge my consider them. But the judge passes sentence upon a man caused to act contrary to law.
It is not a metaphysical proposition. Compatibilism is a social proposition.
We know this is false. The human brain is a universal computing device, which can be arbitrarily programmed.
According to science Schopenhauer was wrong.
I don't think so. I am aiming compatibilism. Free will and determinism are compatible under Compatibilism. One need to show that is however possible. I am showing that it is impossible.
Quoting charleton
I agree.
Quoting charleton
These are just wrong statements considering OP.
Quoting charleton
Well, lets put morality and society aside.
Please define compatibilism and I can show you how you have misunderstood the idea.
I'm afraid you cannot put morality aside as compatibilism is designed to answer the free will problem of moral responsibility
The problem with compatibilism is that on the assumption of universal determinism the distinction between human and natural agency is not rationally justifiable; it is a human prejudice, an expression of inevitable ignorance.
No, if we assume everything before you said is true, then libertarian free will is impossible. Libertarian free will is an incompatibilist position.
Quoting bahman
This is the libertarian free will definition. Not compatibilism.
Right, the compatibilist redefines "free will" such that what "free will" signifies is something which is compatible with determinism. All that this indicates is that the compatibilist rejects the traditional understanding of "free will", in favour of a different understanding of "free will". This does not make the traditional understanding of "free will" compatible with determinism, it just makes the compatibilist a determinist.
Yes, Compatibilism doesn't make sense.
There isn't free-will. It has been famously said that we do what we will, but don't will what we will.
Our actions depend on our preferences and inclinations, and our surroundings.
That's a good thing. It unloads from us the burden of "our" choices.
Michael Ossipoff
That's exactly right. But proponents of compatibilism will say the libertarian conception of free will is incoherent. I don't believe that, but I do think that no explanation of free will is possible in the usual causal terms of science, because if decisions were explained as being determined (as distinct from merely influenced, mediated or constrained) by anything beyond the will then the decisions being explained could not be thought of as freely willed decisions.
The problem with compatibilism, as I already suggested above, is that under its assumption moral responsibility is not rationally justifiable, but is merely something we cannot help feeling, and thus imputing to ourselves and others.
According to science, we can change what we will. Also, it seems apparent that people do this all the time. It's not as if we can be genetically determined to be astrophysicists.
Just as libertarian free will is incoherent, and therefore an illusion, to the compatibilist, so moral responsibility follows into the same category. As freedom of choice is something we "feel" that we have, but is not understood rationally by the compatibilist, so is moral responsibility.
Quoting Janus
Free will is a complicated subject, requiring much study. It's a lot easier to say that it is incoherent than it is to understand it.
The problem is that our explanations of how things work, and how they are possible, are comprised by the kinds of causal explanations that science consists in, and no such explanation of free will is possible. In the 'human' sciences we also give explanations in terms of what people decide to do based on reasons; but this still leaves entirely open the question of whether the actors are truly free, in the strongest libertarian sense, to decide what to do.
I take the view that freedom is inexplicable, just as experience, knowledge, truth and even being itself all are. All of these are simply presupposed by all our doings and discourses; and on that basis are axiomatic, and must be accepted without rational foundation; they are themselves the foundation of rational explanation. No explanation of any of these can be given that does not presuppose what it purports to explain. This is simply the human condition
What falsifiable, tested and long-unfalsified scientific theory says that?.
A person can train himself/herself to not want so much high-calorie food. ...if s/he already wants to do so.
When I said that what you do is determined by your preferences and inclinations, of course that includes hereditary ones, and acquired ones too, including ones that you'd set out to train yourself to (because you wanted to).
Sure. That's the goal of dieting.
There's obviously a hereditary component, for the talent for such things, just as there is for Sumo wrestling, bodybuilding-competitioin, etc. No amount of wanting and effort would have qualified most people for Sumo wrestling or international championship bodybuilding. People are born with predispositions and ability, including, but not limited to, physical ones.
It's common for long separated identical twins to both be in the same occupation.
Michael Ossipoff
We don't have free will in the sense that in a deterministic world, what we choose is based off our brain state at that moment and we aren't ultimately free to choose our brain states. Even if you decide that you will decide to train your brain so that no longer like pizza and it works, the decision to train your brain was due to your brain states at the moment when you made your decision. And if you want to keep going through a chain of causality and say that your brain states at any moment in time were due to past decisions you made (saying "he ended up like his friends but he still originally could have chose other friends"), you would eventually end up theoretically going back to a "first decision" which lead to everything else. And that "first decision" was caused by your brain state at the point in time which you couldn't have had control over.
Compatibilism isn't impossible because compatiblists change the definition of free will to acting on your motives without being "coerced" in some sense. There is obviously a difference between choosing pizza over carrots because you like pizza and choosing pizza over carrots because there is a gun pointing at your head. But when compatilists redefine free will in this way, I think it misses the point. Sure you may be free to express the decisions of your brain state at the moment without your brain state being altered by someone holding a gun to you, but you still don't ultimately control your brain state at that moment. We are a product of the complex interplay of nature and nurture. Genes, brain structure, other people, diets, etc. are constantly interacting and changing one's brain states.
It is a bit more complicated than this. In a deterministic world EVERYTHING is determined. Every single particle (including quantum particles, which is a different story entirely) is determined. The "brain" holds no privileged position. So, somehow in some totally unexplainable manner, all particles are coordinating in such a way as though it appears (to the particles) that they are making decisions. "Brain states" and the status of brains in human physiology are illusions that mysteriously arise out of the Big Bang. Permit me to be skeptical of this fabricated story.
Also, this was all assuming determinism as I stated in the beginning. However even if quantum mechanics somehow were to go against determinism because they actually were random (which we haven't proven yet, we just don't understand them at all), that still wouldn't leave room for free will. There is no combination of determinism and randomness that will give you free will in that sense.
Quoting Rich
I gave this perspective in another thread
Quoting SonJnana
Your discussion of brain states is irrelevant as far as determinism is concerned. You might as well talk about toenail states. There is only a universal state that miraculously maintains illusionary forms for the amusement of itself.
Determinism is a hard act to follow. If anyone believes religion stretches creduity then they should be totally blown away with determinism.
Quantum mechanics is certainly not random. If it were it couldn't predict anything. It is probabilistic and is consistent with decision processes that could include choice, as Bohm demonstrated.
When I am saying brain states I mean that the way the brain is at a certain point. So if you went through a traumatic experience, the physical state of your brain would be altered and now you would make decisions based off of the state of your brain now rather than before the traumatic experience. That's all causal and very relevant to determinism.
Quoting Rich
I was just saying that regardless if particles had determinism or hypothetically randomness to them, no combination of those two would give free will.
You are mixed up. The brain doesn't make any decisions and I have no idea what "you" is. There is no trauma. It's all last illusion that determinists see through. I sometimes wonder why the Laws of Nature maintain the illusion that brain surgery has any meaning. The brain is not doing anything other than what is already determined.
Determinism makes everything meaningless including this discussion. It is quite a philosophy.
Quoting Rich
Just because I acknowledge that I care about my family because of the way my brain state is, which is just a part of a chain of cause and effects, doesn't mean I don't care about my family or that they are meaningless to me. That's kind of silly lol. Determinism may make things meaningless in an ultimate sense, but we can still value things. In fact it may even give more meaning. I can reflect on the fact that hormones and neurotransmitters go off when I see my family as a cause and effect so I can be more in tune with the fact that I care about them.
You have made the mistake (as if such such things actually exists), of thinking you are thinking. Determinism has already determined everything that was and will be. You may think that you care only as long as determinism determines you should care. It may halt this illusion whenever it sees fit. Having graciously been allowed to see through the illusion by the feministic laws, I can assure you that everything is quite meaningless having already been determined.
Remember, Hume was a compatibilist - and this wasn't coincidental to his understanding of the problem of induction and his solution of it. It pays to look closer at what we mean by something "being determined", and when we closely inspect this concept in light of the fact that none of our universally quantified inductions are rationally or empirically determined, we discover that determinism, whether physical or social, is implicitly defined in terms of our normatively driven decision-making.
Hence the free-will vs determinism debate is nonsensical; for the ability to consider something as "being determined" already involves active choice on behalf of the cognizer.
So what? In a non deterministic world, there's always a chance that I develop a brain trauma and stop caring about people anymore. Or die. Just because it could end eventually doesn't mean that I don't care right now.
Quoting Rich
Haven't you ever gotten into a movie and enjoyed it even though you know it's determined? In a deterministic world, I can still eat ice cream and enjoy the experience. The ice cream has meaning to me, I value it. It is important to me because I like eating it.
It involves the person thinking that the universe is determined. But it could also have already been determined that the person would be thinking that the universe is determined. So I don't really see why that wouldn't work.
Can you explain this transcendental notion of "determination" that is over and above our practical judgements that something is determined?
What does judging that some event is determined consist of? Does it involve a raw appraisal of information that tells us the event [I]is in fact[/I] determined? Or is it more pragmatic, that we take the event [I]as being[/I] determined, perhaps unconsciously and as a matter of course, for some intended purpose?
When we judge something to be determined, first we look at a finite amount of evidence, then we jump to a conclusion and then we produce some sort of behavioural response. But if no amount of finite evidence can justify our conclusion on logical or empirical grounds, then our conclusions are merely part of our behavioural response which is arbitrary in relation to our understanding of the evidence.
The theory is quantum mechanics, which is falsifiable, tested, and long-unfalsified. The principle the theory adheres to is the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle, not to be confused with the Church-Turing thesis.
The deduction is that the human brain can be arbitrarily programmed; the Mind instantiated on the brain can be changed. This is a basic physical fact.
We already have several techniques for altering Minds, some rudimentary, some relatively sophisticated.
In order to erect a barrier to us being able to alter our minds as we choose, you will need to come up with a falsifiable, tested and long-unfalsified scientific theory that says we can't. Over to you!
You could even use the term SUPERDETERMINISM to emphasize that even quantum mechanics provides no loophole to escape the conspiracy theory that is Reality.
Anyway, an amusing corollary is that the theory of Evolution is false, and that we were indeed created.
Why?
Quoting darthbarracuda
What is compatibilist definition of free will?
Like the "forever looping" computer program, scientists who mention determinism aren't saying anything about nature, they are merely expressing the fact that their science customs do not contain the stopping-condition for their obsolescence. Talk of determinism isn't talk of positive epistemic facts, it is merely the expression of intending to do the same thing until interrupted.
There is no I in a deterministic world. It is all an illusion. Enlightened Determinists realize that they are not enjoying anything. All is without meaning.
There is no "I" in any form of Determinism. There is only the state of the universe which is all caused by the Big Bang. Any attempt to assert an "I" merely displays a misunderstanding of Determinism and the illusions it creates.
No, there is not one single definition of free will.
Since we are want to employ the idea of free will commonly, the Compatibilist simply says what free will REALLY is, and from a deterministic perspective. Free will in normal parlance simply means not coerced, and that is a legal definition.
Philosophers do not own the language. If you were asked in court whether or not you freely made a choice, as a determinist you are able to say yes without obfuscation. Try and tell a judge that all acts are deterministic and therefor I was not free to chose not to steal the car!!!
How does this correlate?
As you know, determinism works both ways. What if the final conditions of the universe require agent freedom to have come into existence?
I mention this because perhaps determinism as it operates in reality, is not what you think it is.
I find it strange that those who deny free will in the face of determinism, because the two really aren't compatible, baulk at the notion that evolution is therefore also incompatible.
The case for the incompatibility of determinism with evolution is actually much easier to make. Determinism really means there are no chance events. Evolution requires chance to exist as a ontological ultimate.
Darwin actually wrote about this in the last chapter of his "The variation of animals and plants under domestication."
God either plays dice or he does not.
I is the word given to a group of matter that is experienced. Meaning can be given to things through experience even if they don't mean anything in an ultimate sense. Just because there may be no ultimate meaning to a table, doesn't mean I can give meaning to it based off of how I experience it. This is practical knowledge and practical meaning.
You believe in determinism, yes?
Determinism as I understand it is that for every event there exist conditions that could cause no other event. Therefore the event of one making a decision would be due to past conditions that could cause no other event, yes?
The only argument that I've come across with compatibilists in the past is that they redefine free will as a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will. Hume also redefines free will this way (you can correct me if I'm wrong about that).
However that misses the whole point of what hard determinists mean when they say there is no free will. If you redefine free will that way, you aren't taking a different position than hard determinists in their argument. You are forming a completely different argument because free will has been redefined. I doubt many hard determinists would argue that there isn't a clear difference between a decision where eat pizza because you like it and a decision where you eat pizza because there is a person holding a gun to your head telling you to eat pizza.
I'm not sure I understand your position on this so could you clarify?
I really think you are clueless here.
Determinism just means that for each effect there are causes. True there is no such thing as chance in an absolute sense. But that does not in any sense invalidate evolution. Chance in a deterministic world just means we've not enough information to predict all outcomes in a complicated world.
There is no problem here.
A dice is not random; its landing is determined by the throw, and other causal factors, that are not easy to measure.
OK, let's hope you aren't going to make a fool of yourself.
Quoting charleton
Is that all it means? Causes? OK, given quantum entanglement, how does that work out for you?
Quoting charleton
Heavens Above!
Quoting charleton
OK "chance" is epistemological.
Quoting charleton
Wow!
As I said Darwin wrote about this. He admitted his theory requires chance as an ontological ultimate.
As for meaning, it is all about illusion. Hence, an enlightened Determinist realizes that life has no meaning because they are able to see right through the illusion.
It's amazing that there are grown adults who actually believe all this.
Determinism acts in both ways and all ways, because it is more of a religion than a philosophy. All one has to do is assign whatever attributes one wishes to the mystical, omnipresent, omnipotent Laws of Nature and bingo, you have your story. One can appeal to the power of God in the same way.
Although you don't understand how determinism works in Reality, it doesn't matter, because those who deny Free Will because of determinism, but advocate Evolution, don't either.
The Laws of Nature act in mysterious ways and it is not for us to understand them - not that understanding had any meaning anyway.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Quoting tom
Incorrect. Quantum mechanics doesn't say that we can change what we will.
But yes, I admit that, at philosophy forums, quantum mechanics has a big pseudoscientific mystique.
And I also admit that there are some people here who are all confused about the difference between, and the boundaries between philosophy and science (quantum mechanics is particularly popular in that regard).
Anyway, I didn't say we can't change what we will. Dieters do that all the time (some of them succeed).
What I said was that a person's actions are the result of their preferences and inclinations--hereditary and acquired.
You can go on a diet, if you already want to. Ultimately, your wants, preferences and inclinations trace back to your heredity and environment.
I'm not saying that the criminal isn't responsible for his actions. He still did it because he wanted to...regardless of the ultimately hereditary and environmental reasons why he wanted to.
I'm not saying that QM doesn't have any philosophical relevance. A recognized authority, a physicist specializing in QM, wrote that QM lays to rest the notion of an objectively-existent physical world.
Quoting tom
As I said, your actions are the result of your preferences and inclinations--hereditary and acquired-- and your surroundings.
And I (and others) said, of course people can sometimes train themselves to have or not have a preference or inclination.
As I said, that's what people do in dieting.
The do that because they already want to.
"We"? :D
See above.
You haven't read the previous postings to this thread, have you.
Have you ever tried to reduce your craving for some nutritionally-undesirable kind of food?
People often train themselves to have or not have some preference or inclination.
Oh wait, i already said that, didn't I, in a previous posting :D
...as have others as well.
By the way, why is there QM?
Because life, our kind at least, requires stable atoms, and specific, consistent kinds of them. That requires discrete-valued quantities. A way of achieving that is via standing-waves.
Hence wave-mechanics, matter-waves.
...because, upon investigation and examination, physicists of course unsurprisingly find things that are consistent with our existence.
Michael Ossipoff
.
As I mentioned earlier, this type of determinisn - SUPERDETERMINISM - turns Reality into a conspiracy theory.
However, the type of determinism that really exists is quite different!
So, let me repeat myself. The testable theory that was asked for is Quantum Mechanics. The Guiding Principle is the CTD-Principle, which is proved to be respected by QM.
The CDT-Principle enjoys the same status as the Principle of Conservation of Energy.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
OK, pseudoscientific, mystique. Provide references.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I suspect those are the people who have no sincere interest in philosophy or science.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Ah, the eponymous Recognised Authoritaaaay.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed by the depth of the arguments on this forum!
The biggest problem with determinism it's that there is absolutely zero evidence for it. Other than that, it is a nice story of how the Laws of Nature (God) determines everything.
The biggest contribution that QM has had on philosophy is that it finally put to rest the possibility that there could actually be a deterministic universe.
I don’t think it’s that mysterious. Matter interacts with other matter and energy. We can see this at the less sophisticated forms of life like bacteria. A lizard is also dependent on matter and energy. A lizard is more sophisticated than bacteria so it can interact in more complex ways. But it is still just a bunch of chemical reactions and physics. Many mammals can take it a step further where because of the way they happen to be, they will react to more social cues because through evolution it was useful. And Humans have taken it all a step further where we’ve evolved to be able to react to our own reactions in the sense that we can think about our own thoughts. More of an internal awareness. But it’s all just reactions.
Do you believe in a soul? If so, I ask why. From my studies, there is nothing in psychology to suggest that psychology is anything but biology. Biology is chemistry, and chemistry is physics.
Quoting Rich
Can an “enlightened Determinist” honestly doubt to themselves that eating something causes electrochemical messages to their brain that they experience as tastey? (in the practical sense that we use the word tastey).
Quoting Rich
Chill lol
Except that our deepest theories of reality are deterministic, and have been tested to extraordinary accuracy. No violation of Unitarity has ever been discovered.
Quoting Rich
You don't know the first thing about QM.
And that is about it. The rest is a magical mystery tale, conjured up by atheists so that they have their own God to worship. It is really quite amazing to observe. Basically it demonstrates that everyone needs their own God whatever the name they choose to use.
There is only one deep theory about nature and that is QM which is totally probabilistic. Other than this, you have the Laws of Nature which is not a theory but a Pagan God.
Quoting tom
It's a probabilistic wave. Period.
Oh yeah!! Where it that? "Ontological Ultimate" is not an expression uttered by Darwin. SO who are you kidding?
Chance is a deterministic proposition; pure randomness is not.
Why don't you actually read what I have to say and explain what about it and why it is you disagree with it rather than dismiss it and make condescending statements? Are you just a troll? lol
Where is it that you draw the line so I can understand your logic? You agree that matter interacts with matter so if acid is put in water it will dissociate to make an acidic aqueous solution. Do you agree that a virus is also a bunch of reactions that are more complex? And what about bacteria then?
You want me to take the story seriously? Ok, I realize all religions want to be, demand to be taken seriously. The Laws of Nature are sacred. Everything depends upon believing in them and all that they (He) can do.
You've agreed that matter interacts with matter and energy. Is the case of a virus and/or bacteria also just matter and energy interacting with matter and energy. Chemistry and physics? Yes or No?
Also, do you have any reason to believe that anything in our universe is independent from cause and effect? Yes or no?
You can answer these questions so we can have a productive discussion. You can also just dismiss them and go on with your condescending statements in which case I'll just laugh at myself for realizing I engaged with a troll for so long.
You have to fill in the Huge blank between "matter interacts" and EVERYTHING. Even the Bible had more than this. Basically the story is the Laws of Nature did everything as opposed to God did everything. Nice story.
This is false, there is no legal definition of "free will", it is a philosophical term. And philosophical terms often have a meaning in common vernacular which is quite different from their meaning in philosophy, as is the case with many terms which are proper to a particular field of study but have been adopted into common speech.
Quoting charleton
This is a philosophy forum so I think it is only proper that we be discussing the meaning which "free will" has in philosophy. If you see a particularly good reason why you think that free will should be given another meaning, then you should offer up a good argument. But to say that "freewill " ought to be given another meaning because this will make it compatible with determinism, and I am determinist but it would make me feel better if I could believe that I have free will as well as being determined, is nonsense.
Quoting charleton
It just so happens, that the entire legal system is based on the assumption that free will is very real. So the claim, I am determinist and therefore I am not responsible for my actions, doesn't go over very well in court.
You say that I have to explain it. And when I attempt to explain it you ignore the questions I had asked and dismiss my attempt. Anyway I'm not wasting my time anymore on your self-righteousness LOL
Our whole discussion started when you quoted half of my sentence in a post where I had said assuming determinism. Then you went on to say in a deterministic world there would be no meaning and that humans couldn't give meaning to anything to which I refuted. Then you tried to refute that by saying in a deterministic world there could be no way that experience the way humans experience it could arise to which I was trying to refute. But instead of reading what I was saying you dismissed it and acted self-righteous.
And now you're completely changing the argument and saying "well oh you have to demonstrate determinism." But I never even claimed that determinism is true. I don't have to demonstrate anything. I was just saying that your logic is flawed when you say that determinism can't be true because humans experience things.
Actually, I think it's the other way around. Once we realize that determinism is wrong, this puts us on the right track toward understanding the universe.
That one's will determines one's actions. Whether or not one's will is determined is irrelevant (to the compatibilist). As Schopenhauer said, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."
Edit: I missed @charleton already saying exactly this.
Like I said, you know nothing about QM.
You would have to be quite the disingenuous sneak to claim that I anywhere quoted Darwin directly, or claimed those were his exact words. I told you which chapter, of which book, I was referring to, and gave the conclusion of his arguments.
Darwin not only requires ontological chance for his theory, he knows this, and defends his view in the chapter of the book I referenced. He also made this his final statement:
So there you have it. Darwin knew that his theory is as incompatible with determinism as is free will.
Maybe his theory is incompatible with determinism, but it doesn't then follow that evolution is. Evolution is a fact, and according to you so is determinism. Therefore they must be compatible.
Because I believe in free will, and for the reasons discussed already, I believe free will is incompatible with determinism.
Quoting Michael
To say that one's actions are determined by ones will is a rather meaningless and irrelevant statement. It says nothing about free will, nor does it say anything about determinism. So it does not actually provide a definition of free will.
It does provide a definition of free will: "to have free will is to have one's will be responsible for one's actions".
I don't see why it's meaningless. There's some thing which is the will, and it is causally responsible for one's actions. This is something that even the libertarian might agree with. The difference is that the libertarian wants for the will to be free from prior influence whereas the compatibilist doesn't think it matters.
That just means that randomness is not globally allowed. You still can have local randomness.
Your definition states what it means to have "will". It doesn't state what it means for that will to be free. It just states that if one's will is responsible for one's acts, that person's will was necessarily free. So your definition would not be good in legal situations, because even under duress, coercion, and force, a person's will is responsible for one's actions.
What people have are choices in direction of action that are constrained. The legal system actually had it about right differentiating between premeditated actions and actions that are spontaneous (instinctual), though it is darn difficult for a jury to determine almost all of the time. Yet, the basic understanding is sound. Free will is a hopeless phrase created by philosophers for bantering purposes. It has no value and never had.
So compatibilists don't care about determinism? Moreover what is the definition of will?
It doesn't. One can have a will but it might not be responsible for one's actions (e.g. perhaps if this is correct). In such a case one wouldn't have free will, but would have a will. It is only when the will is responsible for one's actions that one has free will.
It wasn't as precise as it could have been, but it's easy enough to understand that it excludes these situations.
They might care about determinism; they just don't think it poses a problem for free will.
Motivation? Conscious decision-making? The self? Probably a tricky question for anyone to answer, whether compatibilist or not.
Will is energy that the mind applies to move the body in a specific manner. Outcomes are unpredictable because of innumerable constraints. The legal system recognizes all of this. Only science refuses to recognize mind and its ability to exert will. Quite an amusing situation I would say.
Are you arguing for interactionism, then?
OK, so a person has a free will sometimes, but not all of the time. Sometimes the person's will is free, sometimes it is determined. We still don't have any principles for compatibility here, only an alternating back and forth between free and determined. What kind of principles could be used to judge whether one's will is responsible for one's actions, or one's environment is responsible for one's actions?
Quoting Michael
OK, so under those described situations, duress, and coercion, a person does not have free will, according to your definition. I think that this is false, because some people will fight back, rather than be coerced. So the person must actually decide whether to be coerced or to fight the coercion, and under my understanding of free will, a decision is only possible if there is a free will. How do you account for the possibility that a person might fight the coercion? Is the will of some people more free than the will of other people? What if some people have no free will at all, and are just puppets?
One's actions are always determined, and one's will is always determined by some external influence. So there's no alternating back and forth. There's just the common-sense understanding of coercion, intoxication, or doing what one genuinely wants to do when in an ordinary state of mind. The latter is what it means to have free will, irrespective of the (meta-)physics of the mind.
I have free will if I do what I do because I want to do it. I don't need some infinite regress of choosing to want what I want to be free.
If one's will is always determined by external influence, how can one ever be responsible for one's acts?
Because one is one's will, and one's will is responsible for one's actions. Therefore, one is responsible for one's actions.
But, of course, one's will isn't responsible for itself, which is why we don't hold people responsibile for what they want (only what they do).
There is zero evidence of this and pretty much universally rejected by law because it is counter to everyday experience of life. So why is it adopted by certain sects? Because some people have to believe that some external force is guiding their life. "God made me do it" just doesn't hold water except maybe in the Dark Ages of witchcraft and its latest reincarnation, Determinism.
Which contrasts with a libertarian conception of free will, which would seem to entail the legitimacy of something like thought police.
You said that in the case when one's will is not free, that individual is not responsible for one's actions. You are now saying that one's will is always responsible for one's actions. Or do you have a double standard of responsibility? An individual is always responsible for one's acts, because one is one's will, but in some cases the person is not responsible because one's will isn't free. That doesn't make sense.
I'm excluding cases of coercion, intoxication (to an extent), etc.
That is pretty nonsensical. Evolution requires ontological chance/randomness. If biodiversity has happened as a deterministic inevitability from the initial conditions of the Big Bang, then the process that has occurred is not Evolution.
Darwin's exact words on this were:
You mean like local randomness for local people? Who is allowing this?
Are you actually trying to deny evolution because determinism is the case? That's a very strange argument to make.
You should read some Darwin, particularly the book and chapter I have been referencing.
Darwin clearly states that if the variations are determined, them natural selection and survival of the fittest are superfluous.
Darwin thought deeply about this issue, and for a very long time. If you don't understand him, at least show him some respect.
Quoting Michael
Perhaps you should re-read my posts.
He can say what he likes, but it's still wrong to deny evolution on the grounds that determinism is the case.
You've said that determinism is the case and that determinism is incompatible with evolution. Therefore the logical conclusion is a denial of evolution (unless you want to argue for an actual paradox?).
So, your argument is that Darwin's words on the matter are irrelevant, and that he is wrong about his own theory.
I am suppressing laughter.
I could expand that the Modern Synthesis and Darwin are in concordance on this matter, but I suppose your retort would be that the MS is irrelevant and wrong also.
I didn't say he's wrong about his theory. I said that evolution happened, even if determinism is the case. You seem to equate Darwinist theory with the fact of evolution, which would be wrong. Darwin wasn't right about everything, e.g. pangenesis.
Although from a brief reading I think you're misunderstanding him. In his own words, "I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations—so common and multiform in organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree in those in a state of nature—had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation." And from the SEP article it would seem that he didn't mean to contrast chance with determinism but with design.
This is difficult to explain but I give it a shoot. What I am trying to say is that there is no randomness in the whole if determinism is true. Determinism is not true in a part which interact with the rest of whole. That is true because there is only one chain of causality which dictates how the whole should evolve. There is no chain of causality for the part therefore local randomness is possible.
Quoting tom
This is just happening as a matter of fact.
Why do you believe in free will?
Quoting Michael
I don't understand. You seem to have a double standard of responsibility. In the one case you said: "One can have a will but it might not be responsible for one's actions...". In the other case you said: "... one is one's will, and one's will is responsible for one's actions." In this latter case you made exception for coercion etc..
So an individual is inseparable from one's will and this is why the individual is responsible for ones actions. But in cases of coercion etc., the person is separated from one's will, so that the will is not responsible for one's actions, something else is. You know that doesn't make sense, because either the person is inseparable from one's will, or not. If some things can separate a person from one's will, then why not other things? And since we're all different, anything in principle could separate a person from one's will. So it's questionable whether a person could really have a will, and it might be just a fiction used to hold people responsible.
Do you see what I mean? I am responsible for my actions because I am inseparable from my will, and my will is responsible for my actions. But in some cases I am not responsible for my actions because I am separated from my will. So then it's not true that I am inseparable from my will, and not true that I am responsible for my actions. There is no reason to believe "one is one's will". These are clearly distinct because one is only one's will when one is responsible. And if the individual is distinct from the will, then how can the individual ever be responsible?
I've studied quite a bit of philosophy, especially metaphysics, and I've come to realize that the same principles which make reality intelligible are also the principles which support the notion of free will. This starts with the fundamental difference between past and future which we all recognize in our daily existence.
In a causal sense you're responsible for all your actions (if your will causes your actions) but in a moral sense you're not responsible if you've been coerced or are otherwise not in the right state of mind.
Now I think understand. You, and your will, are always the cause of your actions. But this is irrelevant to morality. Whether you are morally responsible is determined by some other principles. So this is consistent with what you said earlier:
Quoting Michael
Now this brings me back to my original criticism. You have defined, or described "the will", and you have said that whether or not the will is "free" is irrelevant. If this is the case, then the compatibilist position (as described) doesn't really establish compatibility between determinism and free will, it just claims that with respect to morality, the question does not need to be resolved.
It does establish compatibility between determinism and free will because it defines free will in terms that are consistent with determinism: one has free will if one's will is causally responsible for one's actions. I've just also the noted that free will does not always entail moral responsibility. Even the libertarian who defines free will as something like "could have done otherwise" must admit that even in cases of coercion one has free will as blackmail or threats are not sufficient to make it (meta)-physically impossible to pick either of two possible options.
There is no such thing as "one", "will", "free", "responsibility" in determinism. These are all illusions that emerge (quite magically) from particles that are simply bouncing around in accordance to the "Laws of Nature". Determinism is only particles and the Laws that guide them. Any other concept pollutes Determinism with non-deterministic ideas. This is why Darwin had to concede that his whole theory was meaningless . Pretty interesting what happens to people when they actually take determinism seriously.
And your own actions have demonstrated that this is erroneous?
As I pointed out "free" here has no meaning. One's will is by your description causally responsible for one's actions. Whether one's will is free relative to a particular action is determined by moral responsibility. If the person was coerced or such, the person's will was not free.
So you cannot say that "free will" is defined in this way without equivocating with the word "free". You claim that one's will is always causally responsible for one's actions, and this is "free will". Yet when the person is not morally responsible due to coercion, the person"s will is not free. What exactly does "free" mean to you in "free will"?
As I've said already, I don't think you've defined "free will" at all. You have defined "will", and whether or not the will is free is another issue. You haven't yet defined what "free" means, because you allow that a person's will, which is the cause of one's actions, may or may not be free from duress. So you need to clear up this issue with the meaning of "free". Your definition claims that if the will is the cause of one's actions then it is a free will, yet you allow that under duress the will is still the cause of one's actions, but it is in some important way, not free.
Perhaps the solution is to remove "free" from the compatibilist's conception of will. The compatibilist has a conception of "will" which is compatible with determinism. But it would be deceptive to say that this is a conception of "free will" because the word "free" here doesn't do anything at all, except to mislead.
Supposing I insisted " Having seen five white swans, it has been determined that all swans are white". Clearly this statement only expresses my behavioural disinclination to presuppose swans of any other colour.
One might object that this example is not representative of a statement of determinism, but i beg to differ. All examples of determinism, whether physical, logical, mathematical or social are universal generalisations of this form; they consist a finite number of assertions along with a proposed rule for generating an unlimited number of similar assertions, and yet no finite supply of assertions considered independently of one's behavioural dispositions can justify even a single inference, never mind an unlimited number of them. Rather, what we call a "rational justification in response to evidence" is how we believe we should react to evidence to be successful. One might say like Wittgenstein that our beliefs are [I]groundless[/I], i.e. they have no epistemological justification except for our anticipatory feelings of success.
Universal generalisations are not empirical facts, nor are they even empirical statements. Rather they are proposed rules for generating new hypotheses for pragmatic purposes. For example, accepting my previous universal statement means that I condone the invention of a testable hypothesis such as "the next ten swans observed will be white".
Hence the notion of determinism does not describe states of affairs independent of our behavioural compulsions, rather it expresses what we [I]feel[/I] we are able to [I]do[/I] in response to our observations. Universal statements over an open domain are not truth-apt 'in themselves'. Rather to [I]take[/I] the universal statement as being true reflects one's disposition to act in accordance with it.
Quoting SonJnana
Hard determinists appear to believe that determinism is a metaphysical or physical fact of nature that is independent and separate from our conscious choices, hence as you say, they appear to reduce conscious choice to determinism as a separate, unconscious and pre-psychological notion.
In contrast I am saying that determinism expresses nothing more than the feeling of having a gun held to your held. Furthermore, I am saying that one has the choice whether or not to interpret the statements of physics, logic, and mathematics as constituting such a gun.
If you feel that what you know and think about nature determines your choices, then you are correct. But if you feel they do not, then you are also correct.
One has a will, but whether or not it is causally responsible for one's actions is debatable (see here). If it is then we have free will, according to the compatibilist, and if it isn't then we don't. Talk about the will being free isn't talk about whether or not the will is free from external influence but talk about whether or not the will is free (able) to direct one's behaviour.
One could be a compatibilist in that one believes that free will is compatible with determinism but not believe that we actually have free will (e.g. if our behaviour is determined by subconscious activity rather than conscious will as the aforementioned article suggests), so it would be wrong to say that the compatibilist has only defined "will" and not "free will".
A libertarian would make much the same claim. They define "free will" as something like "could have done otherwise", which obtains even in cases of duress. Despite the gun to my head, it is still (meta-)physically possible to disobey. So in the strict sense we do have free will even when coerced. It's just that we also have a lesser sense of "free will" that takes into account things like duress or not being in the right state of mind.
So it might be useful to distinguish between causal free will and moral free will. The libertarian defines causal free will as "the ability to do otherwise" and the compatibilist defines causal free will as "one's will being the cause of one's behaviour". And then both define moral free will as "having causal free will and being in the right state of mind and not being coerced".
I wonder if your argument is self-defeating. If there are only particles and the laws that guide them then there surely there's no such thing as an illusion (or Darwin or theories or ideas or taking something seriously, etc.)?
This is ultimately the problem with Determinism. How does it explain ANYTHING if the universe is just bouncing particles? It can't!, So it makes all of conscious and everything we experience an illusion! How does this illusion materialize, emerge? Well we get all kinds of ridiculous explanations such as the Existence of a Thermal-dynamic Imperative or Selfish Genes or whatever (totally fabricated concepts) which in themselves mean nothing.
In itself, Determinism explains nothing and means nothing. It is this idea that everything is Determined which is similar to Calvinism with the concept of Laws of Nature replacing God. And if you want to know why something is the way it is, you just refer to b the omnipotence of the Laws of Nature. Determinism is a religion, pure and simple, and scientists who believe in it are the priests.
Firstly, you seem to conflate determinism and physicalism. You can claim that the universe is just bouncing particles without claiming that they do so in a deterministic manner.
Secondly, claiming that the universe is just bouncing particles doesn't entail that you have to explain everything in such a reductionist way. A physicalist is quite capable of talking about a molecule as a single thing without having to specify that "it's actually a collection of different particles", or talking about a tree as a single thing without having to specify that "it's actually a collection of different molecules", and so on.
I find that to be a very odd set of definitions. Each of us has a will, and our wills may or may not be the cause of our actions. If the will is the cause of our actions then the will is free. That's a strange use of the word "free". Wouldn't the will be more free, if it were free to either cause our actions or not cause our actions? But instead, you say that when the will is constrained, to cause one's actions then it is free.
That's a definition of "free will" which I would designate as unacceptable. You describe the will in a free state, free to either cause or not cause an individual's actions. Then you describe a constrained will, one which must cause the person's actions, and you say that this is a "free" will. So in your definition "free" has a meaning which is opposite to what it normally means. When the thing is constrained from its natural state, it is said to be free. The "will" itself is free to either cause or not cause human actions, but it is only said to be a "free will" when it is constrained to be causing human actions.
There's a very important aspect of the free will which you do not seem to be accounting for. This is the power which the will has to refrain from activity, what we call "will power". It is through will power that we break our bad habits, maintain our resolve, allowing ourselves to proceed toward new things. This is where the original philosophical sense of "free will" comes from, in work such as Augustine's. We have the power to break away from the habits which our material bodies have established, to follow pure intellectual principles in contemplation. That is why the will is said to be "free". It is not constrained by the habits of the body, to cause those activities which have been habitualized. We can designate those habits as "bad" and the free will has the power to break them. The traditional concept of "free will" associates the freedom of the will with our capacity to prevent our actions, not to cause them.
How would you account for the existence of "will power" under the compatibilist definition of "free will"? It could not be the free will which constrains human activity, because the will is only said to be free when it causes human activity. How would you account for this capacity which we have, to refrain from habitual activities which have been determined as bad, if it's not the free will which gives us the power of restraint?
The two depend upon each other. Introducing any other concepts pollutes determinism with non-determinism. We (and all of experience) is an illusion emerging from bouncing particles. Hence, Darwin's reluctant concession that his explanation had no relevance, it is an illusion everything from a deterministic universe (as is quantum theory for that matter). EVERYTHING is subsidiary to the Laws of Nature (God).
The compatibilist probably wouldn't phrase it like that. They'd say "if the will is the cause of our actions then we have free will". In talking about the will being free you're tacitly implying a libertarian definition of "free will", and so all you're really arguing is that the compatibilist's definition is incompatible with the libertarian's definition.
Free will, for the compatibilist, isn't a matter of whether or not the will is free to choose from more than one outcome but a matter of whether or not we are responsible for our behaviour. And as I've said before, there are two different senses of responsibility: causal and moral. We're causally responsible if the will is the cause of our behaviour and we're morally responsible if we're causally responsible, in the right state of mind, and not under any unreasonable duress.
If my will causes me to turn down the alcohol then it is responsible for me not accepting and drinking the alcohol. So I don't see why we can't say that determinism allows for the capacity to prevent some action or another.
If every thing is determined then what is doing the "preventing"??
Compatibilists simply introduce an entirely new force of nature, apparently free from the Deterministic Laws of Nature, called Free Will, that can choose. Well, at this point, Compatibilism is no longer deterministic. It has become everything but. This is what the OP observes. Compatibilism is incompatible with Determinism.
I don't understand the question. Because of a deterministic causal chain, a damn has been built, preventing the valley from flooding.
No, that would be libertarianism. Compatibilists deny this.
A. Any agent, x, performs an act a of x's own free will iff x has control over a.
B. x has control over a only if x has the ability to select among alternative courses of action to act a.
...
Both the compatibilist and the incompatibilist will accept A. The disagreement is over B. The compatibilist will argue that control over a does not require having the ability to select among alternative courses of action; it only requires that x's will/volition is responsible for a.
So perhaps:
B. x has control over a only if a wouldn't have happened had x not willed it.
This counterfactual is consistent with determinism.
Right, it is the Laws of Nature that are guiding EVERYTHING and they create the illusion that a good is being prevented. The concept of "prevention" had no meaning in a universe guided by the emotionless Laws if Nature.
Under Determinism, there is no Will and there is most certainly no Compatibilist Free Will, other than the illusions that emerge from the Determined, morally inert Laws of Nature. Determinists want the Universe to be a computer, they got it. As the OP suggests, Free Will of any sort is incompatible with Determinism and Compatibilism is just another illusion from a Determinist perspective. Actually Compatibilism is just another description of a Mind exerting Free Will, so went academic philosophy categorizes it as a variation of Determinism is beyond me.
You can say it like that if you want, that in talking about the will being free, you're tacitly implying a libertarian definition, but I don't see it the way you're saying it. I don't accept the libertarian definition either, I'm more of a traditionalist. So I'm not implying a libertarian definition, you're just misinterpreting.
What I think, is that the word "free" has a certain range of acceptable usage, and to use it outside that range is unacceptable, even dishonest, because you know that the reader will think that "free" has its normal meaning, but you are really using 'free" to signify something completely different.
Quoting Michael
See, you define "free" with "responsible". But free means not under the control of another, and responsible means to be liable to be called to account for. So these terms are really incompatible, almost even contradictory because to be liable implies that you are bound by another. When you say that the person, or person's will, is free, what you really mean is that the person is liable, or bound, to be called to account. That's not freedom at all. And I think it's a deceptive use of "free", because if you told a person you are free to do want you want, when what you really meant is that the person is bound to be called to account for whatever is done, I would call that deception.
Quoting Michael
You still haven't provided any principles for dealing with the will's capacity to cause inaction. All you have done is described a particular instance of inactivity as an action, ("turn down the alcohol"), in order to avoid the issue, furthering your tactic of deception.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A Google search for define:free gives "able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another.". It seems to me that this is consistent with the compatibilist's definition: I pick the red ball because it's what I want to happen, not because it's what someone else wants to happen (contrary to my wishes).
It's also consistent with this incompatibilist argument, which defines having free will in terms of having control over one's behaviour.
I really don't understand what you mean here. Sometimes I will not to do something (e.g. to not drink alcohol), and because of that will to not drink alcohol I don't drink alcohol. I don't see how this is deception.
What utter nonsense!! You have made a tragic error of the most basic type; a complete glaring non sequitur.
Do some research.
Read up on Stanford. They explain the origin of compatibilism.
But you defined "free" with "responsible". If your will is responsible for your actions, then your will is free. Accordingly, a person (or one's will) is only free in so far as it is responsible for activity. Freedom of the will is defined by you as the will being "responsible" for activity. My point is that "responsible" is not compatible with "free" in the normal usage of "free". To be able to act as one wishes is not compatible with being responsible for one's actions. Responsibility is what curtails one's freedom. For example, a person can freely choose to be irresponsible, even break the law etc., but the desire to be responsible inspires the person to choose otherwise.
So we don't define "free" with "responsible", as you do. Free is unbounded whereas responsible is bounded. We may define responsible in relation to free, as responsibility is what bounds our freedom, but we do not define free in relation to responsible as if freedom necessarily entails being responsible. The free person is not necessarily responsible. Likewise, a free will may choose inactivity over activity, therefore the defining feature of the free will cannot be "responsible for activity", because the will's freedom extends beyond the bounds of activity, to inactivity.
Quoting Michael
OK, this is a less deceptive way of stating it. So let's say that you will not to drink alcohol. Compare this with your definition of "free will". Your definition of "free will" is such that your will is free if it is responsible for your actions. In this case there is no action, you are not drinking alcohol. According to your definition it cannot be a free will which is responsible for this inactivity. But let's assume that it is in some sense "the will" which is responsible for this inactivity. I conclude that this is therefore a constrained will which is responsible for the inactivity. What is it that is constraining the will? Is it another will? There is a free will which is responsible for activities, but do you think that there is another will which constrains the free will in order to produce inactivity?
As I explained earlier, in the traditional definition of free will, the free will is the means by which we refrain from activity. The important aspect of the free will is the capacity to refrain from activity, what is commonly called will power. By defining "free will" as a relationship between the will and human activity such that the will is only free if the human being is active, you produce an unwarranted separation between free will and will power. And it is through demonstrations of will power that we prove that the will is not causally determined.
Quoting charleton
Actually I did a quick search to see if there was a legal definition of "free will" before I made my post, and found none. I am not inclined to use Stanford because I generally dislike the narrow minded physicalist perspective which they put forward. But if it helps you, then be my guest and refer to Stanford to produce your "legal definition" of free will.
Risible.
What illusion? It's just us.
What a funny way to look at life? Particles are admitting illusions? I guess for some people it is fun thinking of themselves in this manner. Who am I to question such?
The illusion that you said there'd be if determinism was the case.
Quoting Rich
Dude, I don't even believe in determinism myself. I'm arguing against you because your arguments are fallacious and you've misunderstood the concepts of determinism and physicalism.
Sure, for anyone who adopts Determinism as their philosophy everything is an illusion - including Determinism. It's rather Hindu in nature.
Quoting BlueBanana
I understand it very well. It's just hard to believe that people actually believe in it, but then again, we are dealing with the human mind.
Interesting point. Declaring causality to be an illusion is certainly a thing that has been done, but it's not a part of determinism. If consciousness is illusion, then knowledge and information must be as well, and that would lead to concepts being illusions. However, the concept represents something. What people understand when the word determinism is used would be an illusion according to determinism, but what the concept represents, what the word determinism refers to, would not be an illusion.
Quoting Rich
Looking back, mistake would've been a better verb to use. As Michael pointed out, you've been arguing against physicalism - the conclusions of yours can't be drawn from determinism alone.
Determinism naturally leads to Hinduism but of course it is not going to be taught this way, for it would undermine the "scientific" aspects of Determinism. It's funny that Darwin was forced to admit his whole theory falls under this illusion (it being meaningless) as would all if science. Science Burris itself in its self-made illusion. Such irony.
Quoting BlueBanana
A true Determinist ultimately has to succumb to the inevitable that if the mind is an illusion so it's their whole existence and experience. Rather dismal prospects. This is Hinduism at its finest. Maybe scientists will have to take up ascetic mediation to break through the illusion (Maya).
People do still have experiences of the reality outside them, and as long as those experiences do not deny the possibility of one's experience of self, those experiences can be trusted to represent the reality, even if they are an illusion. This means that at least according to the current scientific knowledge what you describe is not necessary.
The bouncing particles are supposedly creating the illusion of mind. Of course, one has to question the illusion being created by the particles since it is all an illusion. What is reality then? That is what the Hindus have been trying to figure out. Mediation is one approach. Does Dennett meditate?
That which is an Illusion (Mind) cannot be depended on to provide Reality.
They become meaningless much to the chagrin of Darwin. It harkens back to the days of old where all of the universe were mere puppets of the gods (bouncing particles). Compatibilism was a desperate attempt to bring some meaning back into life.
But heck, if people want to feel that they are just illusions created by bouncing particles, no skin off my teeth.
Why? Your claim that an illusion is less reliable than a not-illusion has no basis.
Illusions that we call perceptions and that appear to us as perceptions. Determinism and physicalism don't make those perceptions any less real or reliable.
Quoting Rich
Since when are they not? What? Why? :s
Debatable; I can agree if you stuff the word "objective" somewhere there.
Quoting Rich
Does not follow from anything. The meaninglessness and lack of reliability of illusions are false premises that you don't derive from anything.
At least the Hindus are honest about their philosophy. Materialists want to pretend Illusions are Scientific. Whatever.
The moment any philosophy resorts to illusion all is finished. Now one can meditate for the rest of his/her life with the hope of breaking free of illusion. Lots of people spend their life that way.
Why would you do that? The illusion is an accurate representation of the reality and it's not like you're meditating to break free of your experiences. That the consciousness is an illusion doesn't have to have any effect on one's life or how one lives, experiences or evaluates it. You're just misinterpreting the word illusion.
You don't exist. I don't exist. Particles don't exist. Everything is an illusion.
Actually, you have successfully turned Materialism into full-out Idealism and Illusions into Realism.
You can work out the mess. It's not to my taste.
Yes we do. Our conscious experiences are illusions (yet they exist as illusions), but we still exist.
Quoting Rich
Yes they do. We perceive them, that perception is an illusion, that illusion is accurate and true.
Ok. We are an illusion and all illusions are accurate reality. Reality are illusions. Illusions are reality. There are no particles bouncing iiffeach other and there are. You exist and you don't. I exist and I don't. I'm talking to you and I am not. As said, everything has become meaningless. No surprise. Quite Hindu.
Yes they are generalizations for generating new hypotheses for pragmatic purposes. However, as a determinist, if you are accepting those generalizations, then you are accepting that those generalizations also apply to the human. So for pragmatic reasons it would be rational to look at consciousness as though the generalizations that also apply to it. I don't see how you could interpret determinism in a way that gives you consciousness that also isn't dependent on the deterministic generalizations, unless you believe that consciousness isn't dependent on the brain (that it is some sort of soul).
I'm interested to hear this. So how do we go from our understandings of past and future to free will?
In one sense.
Not all.
No, just out perceptions of it.
On some subjective, irrelevant to the topic, level, perhaps.
Yes there are.
True.
False.
True.
False.
If we define text-based discussion to be talking, yes.
If we define text-based discussion to not be talking, no.
Maybe to you on subjective level, which I'm sorry to hear. As an objective truth, that claim is false.
Wow, what a wall that was to write. Are you purposefully making a straw man out of physicalism? It does not make the world an illusion, it doesn't make us not real, it doesn't make anything meaningless, it's not directly connected to hinduism.
It is because what we [I]do and think[/I] partly 'determines' what we [I]mean[/I] by something 'being determined'.
To see this, consider the following string, and imagine that it represents the history of a binary universe up to a present time
010101010
By definition this is currently all the information that the universe consists of. Now does it make sense to ask if this universe thus far is determined?
Imagine a determinist saying
"i can imagine the sequence oscillating forever and forever! 010101010[I]101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101...[/I]"
All i am saying is, the determinist has entirely expressed all that he means and the dots are where his determinism ends.
Do you recognize that things of the past (whether or not they've been observed or recorded), have a fixed, determined existence, i.e., that they cannot be changed? And do you recognize that things of the future are not absolutely necessary, that they may or may not occur, depending on whether or not they are caused to occur, and this is why we say that the existence of temporal things is "contingent"?
If you are a determinist and determinism is your way of interpreting the information/code of the universe, then you can't interpret human desires (that we don't control), which our decisions are based off of, as also not being apart of this information/coding/cause and effect of the universe. If you can say that a tree fell because it of prior causes, you must also say that the human brain wants what it wants because of prior causes.
Not to argue for determinism, but it doesn't seem like that to me. It seems more that the things of the future are necessary because they are part of the causal chain of events or else they wouldn't be the future. But yes, I do experience the contingency.
Don't you mean to say that the very assumption that a code is representative of, or is generated by, a particular underlying function is what determinism [I]means[/I] here?
To use our example, doesn't it mean that the determinist understands 010101010 as being generated by a particular function? Yet in my example, i explicitly defined that string to represent [I]all[/I] of the current information that exists in that universe. So where is this ghostly 'particular' function that is proposed to exist over and above the string and control its existence supposed to live?
Of course the string [I]was[/I] generated by something transcendental of that universe, for it was [I]me[/I] who determined it. And of course I literally exist in the same physical world as the string i wrote, hence an outsider could represent me with a binary hash number, say #Sime and crudely represent my creative act by concatenating me and the string together in some way.
But then the same problem arises as before. To what principle can the determinist now turn to, in order to interpret my act of creating the string as being representative of some transcendentally predetermined act of creation? Presumably the "laws" of physics. But then after we encode our understanding of those laws as binary information and add them to the picture, the determinist has nowhere else to turn to justify his metaphysical determinism unless he appeals to the invisible hand of god, or insists upon a hard distinction between mind and matter, thereby interpreting physics as being a principle transcendental of consciousness.
So this is the issue right here, the difference between free will and determinism. The determinist sees things in the future as necessary because they are part of a causal chain of events, and that causal chain is already in motion. The free willist experiences the capacity to interfere with that causal chain of events, to bring into existence what is desired, and to avoid what is unwanted in the future.
Now we have to account for each of these two apparently different ways of seeing reality, and this requires an ontology. We need to describe what it means to exist, what it means to be a part of a causal chain of events. The causal chain of events describes a continuity of existence, and this continuity is assumed to extend right from the past, through the future, such that the present has no real influence. The free willist sees a break in the continuity, at the present, and this allows that a causal chain of events can be started or stopped at any moment of the present, by an act of free will.
If you define determinism as just acting on what you want to do as most compatiblist say, then that's fine. I have no disagreement. However it's just redefining the word free will. If people's choices is an effect of the cause of their desires and their desires are also part of cause and effect, then their choices are still part of the cause and effect chain.
So now you are suggesting that you might not be determinist without a reason to believe in a transcendental function?
Quoting sime
What makes you transcendental?
Quoting sime
I'm not sure. That's up to the determinist if he wants to assert determinism is true. This is why I had originally said that we may not understand the universe well enough to decide if it's deterministic or not.
The point with free will though, is that the particular choice is not caused by any desire, it is caused by the will, which is free from that chain of causation. This is why the nature of time is so important to free will. The causal chain exists as a continuity between past and future. That is what we know as temporal existence. The will exists at the present, and breaks the continuity, i.e. it breaks the causal chain.
How is the will free from the chain of causation? What are you defining as the will?
The will is the cause of our free choices. It's free from the temporal existence which we know of as the chain of causation, because it is immaterial, like the soul.
What reason do you have for thinking that this will you speak of is immaterial and not dependent on the physical brain, or that there is some sort of immaterial soul?
Sort of. i am saying that the grammar of determination involves a relation between two designated roles - the determiner and the thing determined. Determinists automatically assume the presence of something transcendental or external to any given custom or state of affairs, even when it makes no sense whatsoever to speak of something transcendental, such as when discussing the history of everything that is by definition said to exist.
One of the reasons for this tendency i suggest is because determinists and their mathematical cousins the platonists tend to treat ambiguity as being the same thing as incomplete information that is representative of something non-ambiguous and external to what is present.
For example, when we were taught the 'law' of addition in mathematics, each of us was presented with only a small number of examples of addition. Yet we insist on thinking that there is a predetermined and transcendental 'law' of addition that we are assenting to and that determines the truth of our arithmetical statements.
Now of course we are expected to generalise from presented examples and we possibly share innate tenancies to answer in similar ways. Pupils who behave appropriately on a small number of additional examples when tested are said to then "know" the law of addition.
Yet there are infinitely many examples of what we might call 'addition' that the world has never calculated and never will. Each of us gives different answers to addition questions when we are presented with suitably large numbers. Who gets to decide who is making mistakes here? God? An infallible super-computer locked up in a vault somewhere? the fallible teacher or the trusty calculator? Isn't it really the case that there is no transcendental justification or particular external justification we can give for what we call our 'mistakes' and 'correct' answers?
So it only makes sense to speak of a "law" of addition in very pragmatic sense. There aren't two things, namely our custom of addition and a platonic realm of addition that justifies our practices, and our law of addition is infinitely ambiguous. The law of addition is essentially a family of precedent laws, one law for each individual, where each of us continually extends our precedent law by citing earlier cases of addition that were accepted by our shared custom, where the judge is the success of our personal applications. But Platonists find this ambiguity and diversity of the concept hard to accept, so they invent a myth, a god, in order to pretend to themselves that things [I]really are determined[/I] in a simple way for themselves and everybody else.
Are you saying that determinism requires something transcendental? and if so, what is this transcendental thing?
Or are you saying that determinism doesn’t require transcendental? And if not, then what allows the universe to be determined? It just is?
Quoting sime
I do not think this is true in any sense. Whilst is it almost impossible to describe determinism, or simply to talk about cause and effect without using transcendental ideas, that is not the same as saying that determinists rely on something transcendental for necessity of cause and effect to be to the case. Determinism is true whether of not there are determinists, or compatibilists trying to describe the universe. Clearly determinism relies on inductive knowledge. but the claim of determinism can only be described by transcending the brute reality of cause and effect to conceptualise and vocalise the findings of indiuction.
Quoting sime
This example is not relevant. The numbering system we use is analytically true, and established a priori on matters of fact devised by human cognition. Numbers are not phenomena that relate to causality, but have their own idealistic meanings.
The myth in this case are the Laws of Nature (which is both undefinable and transcendental) which are determining everything. This concept replaced God. And who is it that represent themselves as the priests who are the one and only ones that have direct knowledge of the all powerful Laws of Nature?
Bottom line, the Laws of Nature were invented in the same manner and the same way as God for precisely the same reason.
But causal necessity is neither empirically meaningful nor true by definition. There is no physical justification for causal necessity, and science has no need of the concept, for science is only concerned with describing regularity and predicting finitely ahead into the future. Indeed the history of science is nothing but a graveyard of falsified 'necessary' laws.
There is nothing mysterious about our use of the word "determinism", for it is never uttered in response to an infinite number of factual justifications. We merely use it to forcibly express our beliefs and ideals in face of under-determined and shaky evidence.
Quoting charleton
Nobody has ever provided an irrefutable example of causal necessity that does not beg the question or that does not appeal to metaphysics.
Quoting charleton
It is relevant in the sense of highlighting the platonism responsible for intuitions of causal necessity. And your description of numbers as being analytically true, possessing idealistic meanings and being 'established' a priori on 'matters of fact' sounds close to an appeal to a transcendental principle of divine certainty rather than practical custom.
I'm saying that in ordinary language, physics and in mathematics, to determine something is to make a comparison. So it only makes sense to employ the concept when relating states of affairs or parts of the universe to each other. It doesn't make sense to describe the universe as a whole as being determined or undetermined.
If you're saying it doesn't make sense to describe the universe as a whole as being determined or undetermined, it sounds like you aren't a determinist. Determinism means all events. Meaning decisions you make (which are events) are also then dependent on causes.
If you are going to be silly there is very little point continuing.
All science including those falsified laws depend on necessity. You can't get out of bed in the morning without necessity.
That fact is that science thrives on its improvement, and continual refinement. Without determinism we could never have designed a car, build a computer or landed on the moon.
The universe is such that science has show us reliable descriptions all reliant on determinism to be true.
Determinism means that with each key you press, and write this silliness you get what letter you expect on the screen. You are proving determinism with every key stroke!!
I came to learn this from my study of philosophy, many years of reading. It is a difficult subject requiring much study. Here's something to consider though. A living body consists of parts which are active, and the activity is directed. The activity must be in such and such a way or there would be no living body. The living body would not exist without these parts carrying out their specified activities. If this is the case, then a living body could not come into existence without these parts each carrying out their specific activities. Therefore the formula, or direction (and this is immaterial), as to which parts must carry out which activities, must be prior to the existence of the living body. So we can conclude that this immaterial formula must be prior to the living body. The living body is dependent on the immaterial formula, and follows from it, not vise versa.
The Mind (I should say some Minds) created Determinism (for what ever reason) and there were other Minds that created all tools and symbols necessary to get to the Moon. Such an endeavor is possible whether or not one believes their lives are fated (Determinism/Calvinism). In fact, it is probable that most people who were involved in the moon landing believed in God. Didn't make a difference.
DNA is made up of smaller parts which themselves carry out directed activity. Biologist have not found the bottom.
Why don't you address the logic of my reply rather than referring to some conflicting opinion which you hold?
I was addressing the logic.
DNA is made up of nucleotides. It is biochemistry which is just chemistry that is more directed towards biology. Chemical reactions happen. It can go down all the way to the atom, and we try our best to understand how and why molecules and the atoms they are made of react the way they do. Up to this point, it makes sense for the most part why particles do what they do. Beyond that when getting into subparticles and quantum mechanics, it gets confusing. But just because we don't know doesn't mean we never will.
At some point we could ask why physics is the way it is. We may never know. But how do we go from asking that to assuming there is an immaterial soul inside of us? And then we would ask is there then a soul in other animals? In plants? In bacteria? In viruses? In atoms? Where do we draw the line, after assuming there even is an immaterial soul inside of us?
Just to clarify, is your argument that there has to be an immaterial formula for physics?
We don't draw lines out of biases. We just observe. As it turns out, the more we observe the more similarities we find between life - as well as differences. That the Mind may function in different ways should be of no surprise it's fine simply observes the differences of opinions between humans.
DNA actually provides extremely little insight and it is surprising that it still carries much weight but then again, it had become its own self-perpetuating industry.
https://www.grain.org/article/entries/375-unravelling-the-dna-myth
"The mistakes might be dismissed as the necessary errors that characterise scientific progress. But behind them lurks a more profound failure. The wonders of genetic science are all founded on the discovery of the DNA double helix – by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953 – and they proceed from the premise that this molecular structure is the exclusive agent of inheritance in all living things: in the kingdom of molecular genetics, the DNA gene is absolute monarch. Known to molecular biologists as the “Central Dogma,” the premise assumes that an organism's genome – its total complement of genes – should fully account for its characteristic assemblage of inherited traits. [5] Since Crick first proposed it forty-four years ago, the Central Dogma has come to dominate biomedical research. Simple, elegant, and easily summarised, it seeks to reduce inheritance to molecular dimensions. The molecular agent of inheritance is DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, a very long, linear molecule tightly coiled within each cell's nucleus (see diagram opposite). DNA is made up of four different kinds of nucleotides, strung together in each gene in a particular linear order or sequence. Segments of DNA comprise the genes that, through a series of molecular processes, give rise to each of our inherited traits."
"But the premise of the Central Dogma, unhappily, is false. Tested between 1990 and 2001 in one of the largest and most highly publicised scientific undertakings of our time, the Human Genome Project, the theory collapsed under the weight of fact. There are far too few human genes to account for the complexity of our inherited traits or for the vast inherited differences between plants, say, and people. By any reasonable measure, the finding (published in February 2001) signalled the downfall of the Central Dogma. It also destroyed the scientific foundation of genetic engineering and the validity of the biotechnology industry's widely advertised claim that its methods of genetically modifying food crops are “specific, precise, and predictable” [6] and therefore safe. In short, the most dramatic achievement to date of the $3 billion Human Genome Project is the refutation of its own scientific rationale."
The history of the concept of determinism is not relevant here.
I did not say that.
The development of science relies on an assumption of determinism without which we could not have reached the moon.
Belief in God is not compatible with reason; free will; or determinism. Whether or not astronauts believed in god was not important as long as they knew what buttons to press.
The real pioneers of the space program are the engineers and scientists who actually did all the work, and for them being able to DETERMINE how to get a rocket in space was what made it happen.
Regardless, even if that was true, all that would mean is that we don't understand it. It doesn't mean that we conclude there is some immaterial force that leads to why living organisms are the way they are that goes beyond our knowledge of how atoms work.
No. It most certainly does not rely on determinism. If it did we would still be denying Quantum Mechanics
What science relies on its:1) repeatabiity of certain phenomenon (call them habits of nature) 2) a symbolic language (usually created by mathematicians) to approximately describe these repeatable events. I emphasize approximate because no two events are ever three same and calculations are always approximate for all practical purposes (FAPP) a concept set forth by the physicist John Bell.
Determinists far overstate their case by proclaiming that science depends on absolute determined accuracy. Far, far from it. In all cases it is approximate.
This is a very very simplified view that does not understand the complexity of genetics. It's not "this code accounts for this trait, this code accounts for this trait." Many codes combined account for different traits and it's all very regulated. When and where transcription happens matters. Yes we don't fully understand genetics. That's not surprising, it is extremely complicated. But to assume the genetics don't account for traits because there are not enough genes is just nonsense.
As for what they teach in colleges, well they are still teaching that there are things called particles which is a concept that really ceased to exist 100 years ago. Textbooks die hard, and biologists for whatever reason are really heavily invested in DNA - as well as big industries. It actually takes enormous amount of courage for a person in the field, such as the one who wrote this article, to voice opposition. His isn't the only voice. I have read many others voicing similar critiques of DNA. I know from my own personal life experiences in many, many fields that Determinism is an empty proposition as a philosophical point of view which is why I am usually skeptical of pronouncements such as that which accompanied DNA.
I didn't read the full article, but from the quote you posted that is absolute nonsense. Science has well established that many are responsible for one trait. Combinations of codes matter. And there is such a huge amount of combinations of sequences it's mind blowing. On top of that, genes are regulated as well. And it would actually be ridiculous to think that we could have understood all of these complexities by now. It sounds like the author of that article is refuting his understanding of genetics after he learned about punnet squares in his highschool biology class.
The central dogma is a model that we created based off of what we understood. Just because genetics is confusing and we have a hard time with it, does not refute the central dogma. It may make it more shaky, but it definitely doesn't refute it.
Yes. In other words reliable understanding of cause and effect - i.e. determinism.
Some causes with approximate effects. One mustn't exaggerate for the goal seeking purpose to push a philosophy.
No. All causes with partially known effects.
The more simple the more effects are predictable. But the predictability is constant in all cases equally and reliably.
Quantum is just not yet understood. It's a failing of the way we model some aspect of reality. But does not challenge determinism; in fact it asserts its importance.
But we got to the moon without understanding it. We designed cars without understanding it and we built and even identified QM with an assumption of determinism. There would not even be any QM without that assumption.
It's not how little we know that is being questioned, rather it is the hype being projected by the scientific/industrial complex.
All causes? Nope only those that technicians feel are significant and can be measured. Again you are confusing what is adequate with absolute precision.
Really all the article is saying is that the Human Genome Project was a failure because it's approach to understanding genetics was way too simplistic. He's saying that the project doesn't take into account alternative splicing and all the other things in a cell that influence it. That may be true, I don't know the details of the genome project. But I did not see anything said that contradicts the way we learn about the central dogma and biology today. When we learn the Watson and Cricks central dogma, we assume that it is just a model to understand genetics in a basic way, but that there is way more complex stuff happening in the cell.
There is zero support or need for determinism in quantum physics. It is merely a probabilistic equation and it would take some very clever redefinition of Determinism to turn it in a probabilistic philosophy. In such a case, only the word is preserved while the philosophy is jettisoned. Is the word that important. For some, apparently it is.
Quoting charleton
The path to the Moon landing was filled with all kinds of failures including deaths. These failures are a testament to the unpredictability of things. Again, the hype should be contained.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2015/dna-020415
"Traits passed between generations are not decided only by DNA, but can be brought about by other materials in cells.
Edinburgh scientists studied proteins found in cells, known as histones, which are not part of the genetic code, but act as spools around which DNA is wound.
Histones are known to control whether or not genes are switched on.
Researchers found that naturally occurring changes to these proteins, which affect how they control genes, can be sustained from one generation to the next and so influence which characteristics are passed on.
Research avenues
The finding demonstrates for the first time that DNA is not solely responsible for how characteristics are inherited.
It paves the way for research into how and when this method of inheritance occurs in nature, and if it is linked to particular traits or health conditions.
It may also inform research into whether changes to the histone proteins that are caused by environmental conditions - such as stress or diet - can influence the function of genes passed on to offspring."
One can always hold out for some miracle discovery that will explain all of life, but it will never come because all that we discover is a manifestation of Mind and Mind is always changing. It's like the donkey chasing the carrot.
It is if no mind to my life whether people believe there lives are fated, though it bothers me when they are told by science that all is fated. That is when science turns into religion.
Science itself is not a religion. Some scientist have a hard time parting with a theory they've been working on for 30 years of their life. Does that really surprise you? We are human and some scientists have trouble letting go of what has been their whole life. It's a coping mechanism. However the nature of science is always changing to accommodate new information. And as long as we are honest, science is good.
This is the key phase. Ones eyes and ears should always perk up when "natural" is used. Just think Mind.
All it is saying is that naturally occurring changes can be passed on through generations. Natural changes can happen for many reasons depending on the conditions. And the researchers tried to mimic the changes that would naturally occur to see if they could get results. Meaning they simulated the conditions of the cell. There's nothing special about this lol
That's the important word. That's the substitution word for the action of the evolving Mind.
Natural Laws
Natural Selection
Natural Occurring changes
All are the creative, enjoining Mind. The Eastern Philosophies all understand this.
The way they are using naturally there is the same way they'd say if you drop an apple, it naturally falls. Physics is the way it is and we don't know why it all turned out the way it did. But there's no necessary reason to rename it the Mind, whatever that even means. Didn't we already try to have a discussion where I was refuting your claim that determinism is impossible? And rather than addressing it you said "well you can't prove determinism" even though I was never even asserting for determinism. You want to have the same discussion again? lol
I don't believe so. The way I'm reading it is as a "placeholder". That is, we all know we have minds but we aren't going to say it. Too much is at stake.
The reason to admit to the Mind is because it is what we experience, defines us, and is creating, learning, and evolving throughout our duration in life. It is codified into law, it is so obviously there. It really is only biological sciences that refuses to say the unmentionable word. So instead new phrases are created such as Thermodynamic Imperative, or Natural.
As I said before, there is zero support for Determinism from any source. Is it possible? Of course. The Move is very creative and continues to create new concepts. But it is simply a story, a belief and it is up to each individual to choose to believe it or not. Scientists are free to express whatever idea they wish. They are humans. But one must question their Central Dogmas when they declare a belief is a scientific fact.
You are misinterpreting what they meant then. What they mean by naturally is that how it could change (depending on conditions of the cell) without them manipulating the histone for experimental reasons.
The phenomena we refer to when we say the natural laws of physics are there. It is demonstrable, testable, noncontradictory. That is what science does, to create models to understand our universe. If you reject this, then you are a hypocrite for using all the technology you use that was created using the principles of physics. Our understanding of this is what we refer to as the law of physics. And you also believe in the practicality of this phenomena. In fact if you didn't, you wouldn't have any problem jumping off of a cliff. But you know better.
The claim of determinism seems to me more like a claim that has to do with metaphysics and is something that can't be demonstrated. I don't really see the purpose of claiming it's true or not when it clearly can't be demonstrated.
What we do have is a scientific model of how the universe works. We don't know why, but we know it does. And it's important that we understand it. We know that if you drop an apple, it falls. We know that if you react certain chemicals together, they react the way we predict. And there's no reason make metaphysical claims about the Mind whatever you even mean by it that are somehow beyond the material brain and cause and effects.
Quoting SonJnana
There is is again: Natural.
I am not misunderstanding. I understand why the placeholders are being used. The religious placeholder is God. The Eastern Philosophical placeholder is Mind. It is that which is effecting change.
That is all we mean by natural. We are making no metaphysical claims.
The only metaphysical bias of science is that the metaphysical mind has not been demonstrated. That is not the same thing as claiming there is no metaphysical mind. Science isn't making metaphysical claims, or saying determinism is true. People may use science to support their metaphysical belief of determinism, but science itself doesn't make metaphysical claims of determinism.
Science uses the word brain to describe the brain. That is different than the autonomic nervous system. Now are you suggesting the autonomic nervous system requires a metaphysical mind? I find it ironic how you claim that science is like a religion making nonsensical assertions, yet it is in fact you rather than science who are making metaphysical assertions, and still have failed to demonstrate any of it.
Of course it has. It is what is peering out the eyes. Science just used substitution words like natural and Thermodynamic Imperative, as if each of these words have been demonstrated.
The word brain is used as a substitute for Mind except where things happen outside of the brain in which case we have mind-gut, muscle memory, and if course the universal place holder "natural".
How does the fact that I'm able to see demonstrate that there is some metaphysical mind beyond the brain? That's nonsense. Natural is not metaphysical, it is just a word to describe what happens without human manipulation. I even gave you the definition. And I'm pretty sure the thermodynamic imperative is a metaphysical claim philosophers have used. Never have I seen it in a science context. Science doesn't make metaphysical claims it can't prove. Scientists may, but they aren't doing science when they do.
Quoting Rich
The word brain refers to the organ in your head. Of course it doesn't refer the gut. That's because your gut is your gut. Your gut does what it does for it's own biochemical reasons. Maybe if you actually study some biology before making these outrageous claims it'd make more sense. And in fact the brain even does have influence on the gut by sending electrochemical signals and hormones. Muscle memory is a type of procedural learning that is not separate from the brain nor does anyone claim that it is.
It's as metaphysical as mind.
The rest of your post is just substitution electrical chemical, biochemical, procedurally learning (by a muscle???), for mind. Sleight of hand. I am surprised that you didn't stuff it in a gene. Thermodynamic Impressive never used by science.
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/5463/version/1
The reason scientists don't use the word mind is because the they choose not to. Nothing is determined.
Natural is not metaphysical whatsoever, Natural is a word used to describe what happens without human manipulation.
nature - the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.
It is the phenomena. Do you reject the phenomena? Do you reject that if you jump off a cliff you'd fall? No you wouldn't. So stop being a hypocrite and trying to reject the word natural. It's only a description of what happens, it is the phenomena, not a metaphysical explanation for why the phenomena is what it is.
I actually think I misinterpreted what you meant by mind-gut earlier. I thought you were referring to the gut as in the stomach so I was talking about that as opposed to a "gut-feeling". I don't know which one you were talking about but it doesn't really matter.
Quoting Rich
I think this shows how poorly you understand biology. Muscle memory isn't some type of memory that your muscle just does by itself as if it has a mind of it's own like you think. Your brain has learned to do something with repetition so is able to manipulate your muscles (which are also now better suited to doing the task for biochemical reasons) much easier. In a sense the signals are more efficient, similar to when you can remember something better when you've repeated it multiple times. Memory neural connections are observable.
Quoting Rich
I've never seen the word imperative seen next to thermodynamics in a science context, but anyway thermodynamics is itself demonstrable. The four laws of thermodynamics are well established model for a reason. And there hasn't been evidence that contradicts them.
Quoting Rich
You are the king of repeating the same thing over and over again and without demonstrating it. Stop making baseless claims. The only thing you've said is that science denies the mind. Just demonstrate this metaphysical mind already, stop being dishonest.
Yes, as in Natural SelectionQuoting SonJnana
Muscle as some kind of memory? It's it natural?
It's not that I don't understand biology. It is just I am amused by how well they indoctrinated you.
Quoting SonJnana
Yeah, but it is the Imperative part that is so important to science, because the need a placeholder for Mind when the brain isn't there. No problem, they just make up a new word - and if course teach it as science. That's where the Thermodynamic thing becomes important. It makes the new placeholder seem so scientific.
If you choose to avoid the word Mind, no skin off my teeth. We all make our choices in life, don't we?
Natural selection is a term used to describe what is happening during evolution in the physical world. Science describes what is happening in the physical world. For me to say that an apple falls is not a metaphysical claim. Describing the physical world is not a metaphysical claim.
Quoting Rich
You clearly don't understand biology, evidently by trying to mislead with that article that you thought somehow went against our modern understanding of biology when it doesn't. If you're gonna make bold claims about science, at least make sure you even understand the science.
Science develops models that are based off of evidence, that describe the physical world rather than make metaphysical claims. Nothing in science is even set in stone. When we say this is what science says, we are saying this is the best model we have to best of our ability of understanding the universe. That is an assumption of honest scientists. While you accuse science of being a religion and yet believe in some metaphysical mind that you can't even demonstrate.
Quoting Rich
It is a word to describe a phenomena. Really how do you not understand? If I say red apple to describe what I'm eating, is that a metaphysical claim? What nonsense.
Quoting Rich
I'm not trying to force science down your throat. I just think it's ridiculous that you will quote me while I'm replying to someone else, tell me science is nonsense, and then claim you know somehow know of this metaphysical mind that you can't even demonstrate.
I hope this is a fine demonstration of Mind at its finest.
Yes, and they perform directed actions. And it is not understood exactly why they perform directed actions. My point is that there is no living body without such directed actions, so the formula which directs is prior to the body.
Quoting SonJnana
My claim is that the day of understanding comes around as soon as we consider the immaterial. Failure to consider the immaterial will likely produce the "never will" option.
Quoting SonJnana
This is why the study of philosophy is important, it gives us direction toward understanding the immaterial soul, and this is necessary to properly understand reality.
Quoting SonJnana
I don't quite understand your question. Aren't all formulae immaterial, and doesn't physics use formulae?
Quoting SonJnana
I think quantum mechanics demonstrates that there is an immaterial force behind the way atoms work. Do you understand Pauli exclusion? The concept of "force" is quite useful in physics, and despite assumptions that forces may be accounted for with material particles this approach, is enveloped in uncertainty. Uncertainty indicates flawed principles.
Causual, yet critical, observation of scientific theories reveal that science is full lot immaterial, including but not limited to, the Observer, force, quanta, gravity, energy, negative/positive, natural ..., etc. It has to be, and always will be, there, just hidden by different words.
Determinism is not invalidated by ignorance.
Perhaps you'd like to explain that!! Oh can't ?? Never mind!
Nope. Each event is probabilistic. The Schrodinger equation is a probability wave.
All QM experiments are reliably replicable and so assert a deterministic universe.
When science has worked its shit out on this matter this silliness will be silenced.
Zero support for determinism anywhere. The reason is that it is a completely fabricated story made up a few hundred years ago.
Time to request refunds for Phys101. I'll take 10%.
My oh my oh my. Someone has to redo a class.
"QM is stochastic. Determinism is out the window, but that doesn’t mean that every damn thing you can think of is in the window."
Why not just answer the question?
The landing of a single dice is stochastic too, yet utterly deterministic.
The way biology is the way it is is because of complex biochemistry. Chemistry is the way it is because of the underlying physics. If you're gonna make this argument, you have to go further at a fundamental level and then ask why physics is the way it is, which is what I think you are essentially doing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Very bold claims.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
We create formulas to describe physics. Science creates models to describe the universe. Why is physics the way it is? We don't know. But to leap frog from we don't know to assert there is a metaphysical soul, you have a lot of demonstrating to do.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quantum mechanics demonstrates that the universe doesn't act in a way that makes sense to humans as we understand the universe today. Why? Because as far as we know, we have no reason to think the universe has an obligation to make sense to us. And we didn't evolve where it was necessary to understand quantum mechanics.
The particle-waves are confusing and we don't understand them. Our model of uncertainty does not mean flawed. Flawed as opposed to what? You haven't demonstrated that it is possible for a universe to exist without uncertainty, maybe this is the only way and therefore unflawed. It just means that things seem to act differently at a fundamental level than at a more macroscopic level where it seems to us certain. Asserting that there has to be some metaphysical force to explain uncertainty just because it seems spooky and odd to humans is like saying I can't explain why A is the way it is, so it must be because of B.
You are losing me with your terminology. Let's see if we can straighten some things out. These terms, biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and physics, all refer to fields of study. Do we agree on this? These fields of study, are the way that they are, because human beings developed them to be this way. Do we agree on that? So if we need to ask why physics is the way that it is, this question is very easily approached with the answer that physics developed in this way because it is the result of human intention. Human intention is the cause of the field of study called "physics" being the way that it is. Do you agree?
Quoting SonJnana
You seem to be using "physics" here in a way which I am not familiar with. Physicists create formulas to describe the activities of the physical world. If we want to create formulas to describe what the physicists are doing (physics), then shouldn't we turn to philosophy?
You were talking about how DNA somehow gives direction. So with all the terms, I'm referring to the phenomena itself. Why is the phenomena that we study in biology the way it is? Because the phenomena of physics is the way it is. Why is the phenomena of physics the way it is? We don't know.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes I agree physicists create formulas to describe phenomena. Now it's up to you to demonstrate how we go from our lack of knowledge about why the physics is the way it is, to a metaphysical soul.
No I didn't say that DNA gives direction, I said that the physical parts of the living body are directed. DNA is a physical part, and therefore It follows direction.
Quoting SonJnana
I agree, you don't know, because you deny the immaterial. I have studied in the field of philosophy, and I do know, the phenomena is the way it is because of the active cause which is immaterial. So you ought not say "we" don't know.
Quoting SonJnana
I described this already, maybe you should go back and reread, and ask me if you have any questions about what I said..
My bad, I misunderstood.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Can you copy and paste the demonstration then? Because I don't see a demonstration anywhere.
This is what I said:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
How could a formula/direction for the universe have existed prior to the universe? You have to assume that there was a time prior to the universe. That has to be demonstrated. How can spacetime exist before spacetime exists?
But personally I don't waste my time on people promoting mysticism.
As I said, I don't understand your usage of terminology. "Physics" refers to a field of study. You claim that you use it to refer to the phenomena studied by that field. The human body is not studied by the field of physics, so your use of terminology is inconsistent to the extent of being very confusing.
Quoting SonJnana
You're going backwards. My demonstration indicates that direction must be prior to the physical activities which constitute the living body. therefore direction is prior to the existence of the body. If you want to extrapolate this, and assume that the activities within the physical universe are directed in a way similar to the activities of a living body, then we could come to the same conclusion concerning the physical universe.
But those are assumptions. And it doesn't appear to be appropriate to assume that the activities of the universe are directed in the same way as the activities of a living body, so this might not be a sound assumption. That there is formula/direction prior to the existence of the universe would be a conclusion drawn from that assumption, if you were to accept it. Whatever preconceived notions you may have concerning the universe, and spacetime, are irrelevant to the demonstration, but I think you would find that they would prevent you from making that assumption.
I told you already multiple times the phenomena we study in biology is the way it is because of the phenomena of biochemistry, which is the way it is because of the phenomena of chemistry. Chemistry is the way it is because the phenomena of physics. Therefore the phenomena of biology is the way it is because of the way the phenomena of physics is.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This "direction" of the living body you speak of is a direct product of chemistry and physics. Biomolecules work the way they do because of the properties of atoms. Atoms are the way they are because of physics. Does an apple need some sort of metaphysical "direction" before it falls? It falls because of the way physics works. So the only metaphysical "direction" you could try to argue that is necessary would be the direction of physics itself.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is that one can't say a formula for the universe existed prior to the universe because that statement itself assumes time before the universe. Therefore the assumption itself is flawed and the conclusion can't be made, just as I think you've mentioned here.