Metaphysical and empirical freedom in libertarianism
The classical theory of freedom views it as free will which further on is the ability/right to freely choose. This principle can be transferred to the metaphysical level, discussing if there are metaphysical causes adverse to free choice. Metaphysical entities are not obvious and we can only speculate if they have or don't have real effect on our choices. Empirical causes are obvious and our free or forced choice is evident to every person. So my question is, which point of view is more important in libertarianism. Should libertarianism be metaphysical or empirical. How this distinction is related to the question of religion, and is it necessary for libertarians to be atheists. The opposite to freedom empirically is dependence, slavery. Are we slaves to God as well? Is it good or we should rebel?
Comments (110)
I don't understand how you're using the terms "metaphysical" and "empirical." It doesn't seem to resemble how I use those terms or what I'd say conventional usage is in an academic context.
My usage should be obvious - there is a physical world and a metaphysical one. The physical world is sensory, or empirical, whereas metaphysical is supersensory. Philosophers argue what these two realities are, but, in a broad understanding, empirical is what we see, hear and feel and metaphysical is the unseen. Causes may be empirical that is seen, heard and felt and metaphysical arising from deeper layers of reality. These deeper layers are soul, God, entities etc. So free will can be fettered by obvious empirical causes and there could be invisible shackles. Therefore if we, for instance, believe that we empirically are not constrained, we may be not free in a deeper sense. The discussion would be, if this deeper understanding of freedom is important to libertarianism. Or should we be satisfied by illusion.
That's not actually the academic philosophical usage of "metaphysics" by the way.
But okay, so you're using "metaphysics" in some kind of mystical "beyond physics"/"transcendental" sense.
So what does it mean to say that we can "transfer" something like the freedom issue to "the metaphysical level," and what would metaphysical causality be (in other words, what would a specific example of it be)?
Freedom, I think, is an inherent property of consciousness that could be defined as a relation between an area and a line drawn through it. Our consciousness is information transformed into a surface or a picture, representing reality. Our body moves in it as a line. Freedom is the ability to choose a trajectory in the area, which is based on our will. The area could be not only space, but also possibilities, an abundance of which makes us choose one or two, however we cannot choose everything at once. Therefore, here too we have a certain trajectory of choices in our life. This is freedom if we are not made or forced to choose certain trajectories. However, choices are influenced not only by external empirical factors, but also by internal, metaphysical ones. Firstly, because choices are constructs of our deep brain. Thus a question arises if they can be considered 'free'.
Here's a recent post of mine explaining the standard academic philosophical definition of metaphysics, by the way:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/317325
Simply put, there are two general types of causality - energy shifts and will. Energy can have a simple form or a complex structure processing information and computing. The shifts in energy manifest in forces that act on one another. The other case is will, which is a psychological construct which may have some underlying energy structure. So beyond the empirical reality we have unseen forces that have not only a simple form, but also a more complex one. Especially, if there are living entities that are some sort of transcendental wills. So we may have unseen circumstances around us like a multivector of forces of energy and unseen willing subjects like in religion God, gods, demons, spirits, souls etc. if we believe in them. We are parts of the whole and the question is what's the relation between them, determined, free or mixed.
So where, in your opinion, these first principles reside? Has being or existence layers that are beyond physics? Doesn't theology discuss things that ar 'supernatural' in a mystical/mysterious way? My question about freedom asks about its first principles, its existence and its relation to God in a theological manner. This is metaphysics of freedom, as opposed to the empirical one, which is related to violence, control and surveillance in modern society.
I'm probably not going to understand this, because I'm a physicalist/materialist who doesn't buy any sort of nonphysical stuff, mystical stuff, "transcendental" stuff etc. It all seems incredibly incoherent to me.
With that in mind though, you're positing some sort of "metaphysical" energy?
I don't even buy that there can be energy "on its own," by the way. Energy obtains via the relative motion of physical objects.
(And as another "warning," most "information" talk strikes me as a bunch of gobbledygook.)
Quoting lepriçok
Personally I don't buy that anything like that obtains extramentally. I'm an antirealist on logic and mathematics, with respect to the standard ways those fields are instantiated. I think there are real relations, and that to some extent is what the foundations of logic and mathematics are based on, but those real relations are not identical to logic and mathematics, which is a mental construction we create.
Quoting lepriçok
I like to warn against conflation with the discipline of physics per se. What I'd say is that there's nothing beyond the physical. "The physical" is not the same thing as the discipline of physics, although obviously there's a connection there.
In that case, what is your opinion from your point of view. What is free will, if we have one. Is it important? Do libertarians talk nonsense, especially, the 'metaphysical/religious' ones? What are we?
Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic. The standard view in the sciences, by the way, is that the world is not strongly deterministic, where that's been the standard view for over 150 years now, but somehow the message isn't getting through. In online forums like this, everyone still seems to think that it's the early 1800s and they're supporting Laplace for president. (See "Laplace's demon" if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
(The above isn't to suggest that the standard view in the sciences is ever correct because it's the standard view. The idea is rather than the "there is no free will" crowd always wants to appeal to it being a standard view or implication of the sciences that there is no free will. That's wrong, though. The "there is no free will" crowd should have looked at what was going on in the sciences after the mid-1800s.)
So free will is will phenomena--the phenomena of conscious "directedness," decision-making, etc. (consciousness being properties of brains), where we're able to exploit the fact that the world isn't strongly deterministic by biasing probabilities of one option we're considering versus other options, in a dynamic way, until at decision-point, we bias the probability we're going with at 1 (or 100%).
This reductionist view is rather weak for my liking. There are lots of arguments, but simply put the structure is 1(entire reality 2(our knowledge, constructs and suppositions)). For 1 - it is my 'meta', for 2 - your reductionist materialism. If 1 and 2 is 100%, 1 would make 70% and 2 would make 30%. Our scientific 30% is a load of delusions and wrong speculations, despite that they may be effective. While the first part, the unknown hides all the answers to the mystery of reality, of which science understands nothing.
That's because it completely is the standard view of the sciences, when it comes to brain function.
I believe libertarianism should be about physical constraints to liberty, ie chains and shackles, but also about threats to liberty, ie. coercion. Religion would fall under the latter, even if there is no physical impediment to liberty.
@NOS4A2
I reject any kind of coercion - science and atheists also use it. Isn't the ideology of absolute truth a coercion? For instance, many scientists believe that they are 100% truth.
I think “libertarianism” (personally, not a fan of the label) should assume all of it, at least insofar as liberty and freedom is the guiding principle beneath the ideology. Freedom, I think, is appropriate in every setting, from politics to metaphysics, because in its absence is always some form or other of slavery.
How is coercion (even if there is no physical impediment) count as a threat to liberty when speech has no causal effect?
I don't claim that there's energy on its own, energy is a state of matter - kinetic and potential, which materializes in motion. Information is also much more than 'gobbledygook', it also is a state of matter, like transfer of form through space, processing of morphisms, their representation etc.
Will is a state of mental matter, which is made of information processing, decision and physical action. I don't consider it serious to claim that the speculative subatomic/atomic/molecular theory of matter is sufficient and exhaustive. It is rather lacking in many respects, as it doesn't explain many phenomena fully and satisfactorily, like consciousness, mind, genetic processes, qualities of perception.
If we assume that qualities are more fundamental than quantities, all quantitative science is rubbish. This would imply that the path mathematics+physics and everything they derive is wrong, as it distorts the true nature of our reality. Freedom is more correctly understood through empirical observation, and some sort of metaphysical/religious interpretation, which implants entities rather than numbers into the concept of matter. Matter as a swarm of bits and units is unrealistic, this view is not productive discussing free will and freedom. The concept of probability doesn't help here a bit.
Huh? :razz:
Every claim there seems very confused and/or incoherent to me.
If only that were what I was referring to (for one).
Also, if only the idea were just about quantum mechanics.
Yet another moronic response from you that demonstrates an inability to read/comprehend what you're reading very well.
Again huh? That doesn't seem "simply put." It seems like pretty gobbledygooky with a bunch of assumptions (including re just what I'm claiming) that aren't justifiable.
Oh dear. Its never not about you and your ideas is it? Read my post and tell me where my response has anything whatsoever to do with what your crazy ideas are or are not about.
The threat of jail or punishment is not the same as being thrown in jail or punishment, but it no less indicates a possible future.
What a dumb response. You quoted me and responded as if you were disagreeing with what I said. But your comment didn't actually address what I said.
This time put squarely, I can tell you what's really gobbledygooky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equations_in_quantum_mechanics
A pretty load, huh?
Can you justify that? Or somebody told you? I know there's 'probability'...
So what. It can't be an actual imposition on liberty because is has no causal effect. It's only a imposition on liberty if I believe the threat, so why don't I just not believe it and then no problem. Seems like it's all the fault of the listener constraining their own liberty by choosing to believe threats.
I literally quoted the bit I was responding to, which was a claim about the beliefs of the ""there is no free will" crowd", specifically that they consider causal determinism with regards to decision-making capacities in the brain to be the standard scientific consensus when it isn't.
I am one of the "there is no free will" crowd and I don't believe in causal determinism with regards to brain activity simply because I haven't looked at anything which has happened in science since the 1800s. I believe in causal determinism with regards to brain activity because it is a widely held view among a large proportion of modern scientists that the elements involved in brain activity are large enough to be treated as classical objects, as specified, word for word, in the quote I cited. Classical objects are those for which
Good point. The listener essentially gives up his liberty to preserve his life. You don’t have to believe the threat if you don’t want to, you can still say “so what” and do nothing, but the threat is evidence someone might use force on you.
So why do you think libertarianism should be about threats to liberty when such threats do not in any way constrain the liberty of the listener?
It really depends on whether there exists a list of forbidden behaviours. For example:
Some right-libertarians consider the non-aggression principle to be a core part of their beliefs.
That sounds very much like defining a forbidden behaviour. A moral system that has just one rule is pretty much surely incomplete. In such trivial system, it will not be possible to determine for any possible behaviour if it is moral or immoral. Therefore, you can expect the users of such trivial moral system to fall back on a real moral system that will be lurking somewhere in the back and that will be the true source providing answers in morality.
For example, you will find that atheists in the West tend to implicitly fall back on rules provided by Christianity. So, what they believe in, is not really "no rules" or "atheism" but some badly-defined, crippled system of implicitly-assumed but not well-understood Christianity. The real stuff tends to be more consistent. Still, I personally admire the incredible consistency of Islamic law which in my opinion defeats the much, much weaker consistency of Christianity.
Quoting lepriçok
Only if you choose to be.
Still, choosing not to be, has consequences.
Someone will make the rules, and if it is not God, then it will most likely be a mafia cartel of banksters that controls the local legislature by hacking and subverting the voting circus. In that case, you will inevitably become the slave of that bankstering mafia. At that point, being a slave to God does not look so bad anymore. On the contrary, God won't suck you dry by requiring you to hand over evermore taxes to be used by the indebted State for evergrowing interest payments to the bankstering cartel.
Quoting lepriçok
If you rebel against God by rejecting his law, then the alternative will invariably be even worse. Still, you are perfectly allowed to do that. You can happily enjoy the misery of your own choice, why not?
I personally like quite a few principles of libertarianism. I have a profound distrust for State power and the State in general. I am an avid user of bitcoin. Furthermore, I only use free (and open-source) software. I am a tor user, and I am deeply invested in cryptography. However, I still recognize that libertarianism is not a complete moral system. It is not the complete answer.
Maybe it's a language issue. I still don't know what you're saying. Why are you asking "can you justify that" for example?
Nope. Not what I said. And yet you even quoted it.
By the way, that strong determinism hasn't been the consensus view in the sciences for over 150 years isn't just about quantum mechanics. One only thinks that when one gains all of one's knowledge about this stuff from message boards.
In my opinion, the principle of non-aggression is rather sufficient, even though to some it might seem empty and lack content. In other words, it forbids trespassing without consent. If it was just consent it would not be enough, and the principle of setting limits to action is a broad and acceptable regulatory principle. If we would like to infuse some substance into the principle of non-aggression, the main pillars are obvious: the respect of life, liberty, property and dignity. These notions are also present in libertarianism and are implied in the requirement of non-aggression, because they are the 'objects' of usual immoral trespassing.
There's no necessity to fall back on anything, because libertarians use common sense morality, not based on any metaphysical doctrine. This would be the empirical part. The question why, and what happens if you show aggression, requires metaphysics, or doesn't if there's no why and nothing happens beyond the legal punishment. You don't burn in hell, your soul doesn't perish etc.
Quoting alcontali
It is an interesting question, because it's not clear if moral principles apply to God him/her/itself. Can God be immoral, if he does, why doesn't he choose to be immoral. How do we know if God should value our life, freedom, property and dignity as objects that make the core of human existence. If I am God's slave, God is immoral.
Quoting alcontali
I think that libertarian ethics are optimal for modern times, because other systems just add other unnecessary objects of transgression and forbidden types of action that are too restrictive to have a comfortable, yet pacifist life. This implies that there's only empirical obvious harm, which is forbidden and no eternal harm to soul. Bad actions are not wanted because of social utilitarianism in such a case.
It's a 10% language issue, and 90% ideology issue, roughly. So, never mind.
Yeah, whatever. I'm quite happy to engage in a discussion, any time you feel like actually advancing anything beyond posturing, but I'm not going to play "guess what the fuck Terrapin is talking about". If my post doesn't address what you've said, then either explain what you've said better or ignore it. There's no discursive value to you just making personal judgements about how stupid everyone is who doesn't interpet your laconic pronouncements in exactly the way you meant them to be interpreted.
Threats are evidence liberty may be constrained, or worse. I see no reason to conflate threats to liberty with the denial of liberty.
The term "common-sense morality" creates the impression of referring to something rather undocumented. If it is not worth documenting, why use it in the first place? If it is worth documenting, then why hasn't it been done already?
A collection of basic rules will collectively form a system, i.e. a theory. How can you possibly know if a particular conclusion is a theorem in that system if you fail to document the basic rules of such system?
Quoting lepriçok
Well, how was Russell's paradox eventually addressed? Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves, contain itself? The 1905 Russell's paradox has a long history, but I have rarely run into anybody who actually feels like learning from it. That represents 100+ years of progress in dealing with paradoxes thrown out of the window ...
Quoting lepriçok
So, according to you a functioning system of rules is not needed because that would be "too restrictive"? What about systems of arithmetic, such as Dedekind-Peano, Robinson, Presburger, or Skolem's systems? Are their rules also "too restrictive"? These systems may be considered relatively "hard" but that is a feature, and not a bug.
Reasoning outside the confines of a system that imposes strict rules may look remotely attractive, because that is indeed "easier", but that is also rarely how progress is made.
I personally believe that it makes more sense to simply bite the bullet, learn the system -- even if doing so is hard -- and then produce much more meaningful results. It is exactly because logical reasoning within complex systems is hard that mathematics is a respected field. If you want respect for your work, you will have to do what it takes, even if it is hard to do that. The same holds true for morality. If the only reason why you think that it does not need to be a complete (and even complex) system, is that you are looking for an easy way out, then I must reject that approach as worthless.
Systems tend to be indeed difficult to learn, but I learn them anyway. I have always handsomely benefited from that view.
There's no need to guess. Learn how to read. Your reading comprehension sucks. You demonstrate that repeatedly.
It has nothing to do with reading comprehension. You said...
Quoting Terrapin Station
Those are your actual words, right? So Your claim is that it is wrong that the standard view or implication of the sciences is that there is no free will, and that this is wrong on account of some development in science that happened after the mid-1800s. That is literally what you claimed.
I posted a quote from an article describing the standard view of neuroscience as being that quantum indeterminacy has no effect on brain processes, which can be treated a classical objects. You said that had nothing to do with it. My quote certainly represented the view of 'the sciences' with regards to quantum indeterminacy and free-will, so the only other option to explain its supposed irrelevancy would be if you were not talking about the discoveries of quantum mechanics, but instead some other scientific advance from the mid 1800s which supports free-will.
So I look at the previous part of your post to get some context. Here you say...
Quoting Terrapin Station
Brilliant, so now I have the context I'm looking for. Determinism, and Laplacian determinism at that. The claim is made in this paragraph that it is now the standard view (that term 'standard view' is exactly the one used in the paragraph I'm trying to comment on) that the world is "not strongly deterministic". There's also reference to this being the case since the mid 1800s, the same "mid 1800s" as is mentioned in the paragraph I'm commenting on.
So now I have my context - the "standard view" referred to in the paragraph I'm concerned about must be the view that the world is not strongly deterministic, and "what was going on in the sciences after the mid-1800s" refers to undermining Laplace (you even helpfully suggest looking up Laplace's demon if we're unsure what you're talking about). So I do that.
Wikipedia has a helpful section under 'Laplace's demon' listing all the arguments against it (which is what we're looking for). Thermodynamic irreversibility, Quantum mechanical irreversibility, Chaos theory, Cantor diagonalization. The first is not the scientific consensus, it's one man's opinion and there are counter-arguments, so that can't be the argument we're looking for. The second is quantum mechanics and I've been told my quote about quantum mechanics not affecting the brain is not relevant, so that can't be it. The third and fourth are explicitly not about how things function, they're about how much we can predict them - free will is not about our ability to predict what actions will result from the state of the universe, it's about whether they are causal or not, so that's not it.
So Wikipedia is obviously insufficient to find which developments (other than quantum mechanics) are contrary to Laplace with regards to free-will.
So we try something more in depth. The SEP doesn't have an article on Laplace's demon, but it does has one on causal determinism which mentions Laplace's demon.
The first part is all about the confusion between determinism as a state of affairs and determinism as in 'predictability'. This is the only context in which Laplace's demon is mentioned. But since the debate about free-will is about a state of affairs, not our ability to predict that state, this must be irrelevant to what you're getting at. Plus, you mentioned that "standard view" of the sciences - so we can skip the sections on epistemology (that's not a view of the sciences). Next we come to "The Status of Determinism in Physical Theories". Great - herein we must surely find the "standard view" (that's not about quantum mechanics) to which you are referring, the one which the "there's no free will" crowd have neglected to take account of...
First we have "the trajectory of an object that is accelerated unboundedly" - no relation to brain processes there.
Then we have "multiple-particle collisions" - difficult to see that being related to brain processes either, but maybe.
Then, the issues with "infinite numbers of particles, infinite (or unbounded) mass densities, and other dubious infinitary phenomena" - hopefully we're not getting into that one.
An issue with a model "created by John Norton (2003)" - so not that (we're looking fo the view that's been standard for the last 150 years but isn't quantum mechanics).
Another is "a form of indeterminism first highlighted by Earman and Norton (1987)" - so not that.
Finally, "ordinary black holes" obviously don't have anything to do with brains, nor do white holes, although still "most white hole models have Cauchy surfaces and are thus arguably deterministic".
And there my research ended.
So I'm struggling to see how it is my reading comprehension which has field to yield the "standard view" of science which counters Laplace but which is neither quantum mechanics, nor about predictability and which yet affects the "classical objects" of the brain.
So perhaps you could now enlighten us as to what these views are?
I believe there's the following gradation of moral sense in men. Morality inherent in human nature (not in everyone), natural law, morality of reason, theories (philosophy, ethics), institutionalized secular law, Church law, God's law. As libertarians usually are very distrustful of big organizations, like the State, the Church, they tend to rely on common sense, libertarian philosophy, natural law and to a lesser extent institutionalized law in libertarian communities. Everyone, guided by the main libertarian framework, can document their moral principles themselves. The duty to document their moral standards falls on every community separately, with the political libertarian guidance.
Quoting alcontali
The lower sets have no choice in this logical paradox, only the extreme one has a choice to 'double' itself. That is to be inside itself or outside itself. So only one set would be really free.
Quoting alcontali
I have nothing against rules and procedures in general if they are useful, I'm against irrational choke-rules that are concocted in perverted ideologies. We have totalitarianism, communism, fascism, statism, eugenics, social Darwinism, elitism that have all sorts of ethics rules that serve only the needs of narrow groups and do nothing good to humanity.
Quoting alcontali
My take is that good things are to be learned, stupid - dematerialized.
Why doesn't one person accept the job of documenting it on behalf of everyone else? I am very wary and also suspicious of the refusal to commit to an immutable set of documentation. That practice allows people to claim a thing and tomorrow the very opposite of that thing. So, no, I am very opposed to that.
Quoting lepriçok
What these false ideologies all have in common, is that they are not documented in a firmly established system of rules, i.e. a sound theory. That is why these things are mere bullshit.
I agree with quite a few of the concerns in libertarianism. I also totally distrust the State. However, I will only adopt, in practical terms, systematic and functioning alternatives to the State. That is why I am fully committed to bitcoin. I do not trust the State's money. I do not want to hold my savings in it.
So, it is not that I am against libertarian ideas. However, abstract concepts have to be systematic for me to adopt them. Otherwise, they will create the same problem as the false ideologies (such as communism, fascism, ...) that you have mentioned. If you do not systematize and guarantee consistency then you are bound to do just the same as them. Then, it is just going to be yet another evil.
Yes, I agree. The proposition I raised that quote in opposition towards was that those appealing to the sciences to support a lack of free will were wrong because of some scientific advance since the mid 1800s, as specified in the rest of that post. I took that advance to refer to quantum mechanics, apparently I was wrong to do so but have yet to be apprised of what advance was being referred to.
As to people claiming modern science support a lack of free will being wrong for reasons other than scientific advances since the mid 1800s, yes, I'm sure there are plenty of those, definitions of 'free will' being one of them.
We have written laws, law enforcement, we have education - this is sufficient. If someone needs a more restricted code of behavior, they can have written codes of ethics in their organization. Ethics is inseparable from free will, it cannot be forced like criminal law if it is based on some tradition, belief system etc. I make a distinction between an immoral and criminal behavior.
Quoting alcontali
If a system is not written, it is difficult to discuss it, contradict or agree. But many of them are bookshit, nothing more. Hitler, for instance had "Mein Kampf", where he explained his views on aryan morality. Here he showed evident flaws in his rationality, however, this didn't prevent him to become popular.
Some old moral systems, especially the religious ones are to be reformed, because we live in a different world than thousands of years ago. Progress deniers use arguments that are out of time.
Well, it is exactly by inventing new laws that the State manages to encroach on people's freedom.
The core concern of libertarianism, i.e. the loss of freedom, is caused exactly by continuously imposing new, politically-invented laws, the primary goal of which is to create winners and losers, inevitably leading to the emergence of an oligarchy which concentrates wealth and resources. If you control the law, then you control all the money, if only, because in that case, it is you who prints the money.
Organizing a voting circus to elect law makers who will in turn invent better laws is obviously not the solution either. If the voting circus were able to address the problem, then libertarianism would not even exist as a concern today.
A central belief in Islam is that politicians, elected or not, have no authority to invent new laws because God has invented all the laws already. This makes such continuous freedom-encroachment process impossible.
Therefore, Islam, which is a complete and documented system, has a credible solution for the aforementioned problem, while libertarianism may not have one. Again, I consider libertarianism to be a legitimate concern but certainly not a legitimate system.
I already addressed this. If your reading comprehension didn't suck you'd know that.
By the way, you're also not even understanding this sentence: "The 'there is no free will' crowd always wants to appeal to it being a standard view or implication of the sciences that there is no free will."
I'm not going to explain, over a message board, how to read, especially not to someone with a personality like yours. But not only that. If I wanted to try despite the personality issues, I'd still not bother because you don't have the necessary tools when it comes to reasoning. It would help if you'd work on the personality, though.
Right. And we know it's my reading comprehension that's at fault and not the quality of your counter-argument how, exactly?
By continuous examples of you not being able to understand relatively simple sentences. If you want to try to explain supposed problems with the sentence construction instead, you're welcome to suggest that.
I'm not educated enough on Islam and Islamic law to discuss the question, but I don't really see the connection between Islamic morality and libertarianism, because I think that it is a rather strict system, which allows very little for freedom. For instance, what does Islam say about religious freedom, and by its norms, am I allowed to choose my creed, or not to believe in God at all. If Islam doesn't allow this, it has little relevance in libertarianism.
Another problem is that there could be distinguished God as the source of moral law and human reason as the source moral law. The first is very speculative, therefore easily refuted using strict logic and empirical facts, while human reason is the only trustworthy place of insights into the human nature and the needs of society, for it to prosper. The religious argument is too extreme and it is not sincere, because it includes unproved facts and lies, to be honest. And this is a huge detriment.
Unless there's something like 'liberal Islam', which I doubt.
That is obviously debatable. Still, whatever the level of restrictions exists, it cannot be increased. You do not have that guarantee when politicians are allowed to invent new laws.
Quoting lepriçok
It is not possible to know what an individual believes. Therefore, there are no rules about what you have to believe. Who is going to enforce that anyway? There may be rules about what you can publicly declare, but those exist in every society.
Quoting lepriçok
You see, propositional logic is a rule-based system that rests on exactly 14 axioms, i.e. otherwise unexplained, "speculative", and not further justified beliefs.
So, the average atheists -- just like you just did -- invariably ends up claiming that he will use a system based on 14 "speculative" beliefs, i.e. logic, to justify why you should not use systems based on "speculative" beliefs.
Every time you use a number, you drag 9 "speculative" beliefs into the fray, i.e. the Dedekind-Peano axioms. Hence, by using any form of logic, along with any form of numbering, no matter how basic, you base your conclusions on 14+9 = 23 such "speculative" beliefs.
If you oppose logic to "speculative" belief, it only demonstrates that you do not understand the axiomatic nature of the system of logic. Furthermore, there are no systems, i.e. theories, that do not ultimately rest on "speculative" beliefs. That is simply impossible.
Ah, so we know you're the one in the right this time because you also think you were right all the other times. Classic argument.
Quoting Terrapin Station
There's nothing wrong with the sentence. Sentences don't express one and only one thing. Words mean slightly different things to different people in different contexts. Expressions are even more laden with implicit meaning, contextual meaning, etc.
Your sentences are fine, I just need you to clarify what you mean by them, it's not an unreasonable request.
This is true only if we decide to leave out objective reality in our logic. If you base logic on what really is/occurs around you, than it is 'speculative' only to the extent you don't trust your senses and their interpretation. These are not axioms, rather basic truths of life that everyone agrees with. This solves your problem. Reason and logic must be grounded in this reality to avoid the speculative catastrophe. That is, all transcendental 'knowledge' are such implanted conclusions from axiomatic logic, and has the same problem, since the God reality is a projection of our logical constructs; whereas revelation is altogether unprovable and impossible to rationally discuss. We have to take it on blind trust. So why bother with our unprovable visions and communications, with the transcendental reflection of our logic, when we have all this in ourselves, and being honest with ourselves, accept our inner faculties in an undistorted form. There are theories that our eyes and ears are 'speculative' too, but this belief leads to extreme hallucinatory solipsism.
Because you consistently demonstrate that you didn't understand what was written. If the sentences are fine, then your reading comprehension is what's the problem.
At any rate, if you need clarification for anything how about asking for clarification rather than arguing?
If you actually read what I've written, it explains clearly that sentences are not unambiguously of one clear meaning, but that this is not a fault with the sentence, it is a feature of language. Therefore, simply the two facts (that I have misunderstood the meaning of the sentence and that the sentence has no flaws) are not sufficient on their own to justify your assertion that it must therefore be my reading comprehension that's at fault. You'll need to also explain how you think, contrary to all other language, that your sentences were of such god-like perfection that anyone capable of reading would instantly be appraised of exactly the intention you had when writing them.
Quoting Terrapin Station
For a start, I'm not about to check my understanding of every comment before replying, that would be both ridiculous and unnecessary. I wait until a misunderstanding becomes apparent. Secondly, I'm exploring this issue by way of a process of elimination as I remain convinced, as do a significant number of others who've engaged with you, that you simply take this childish "that's not what I said..." tack when someone calls you out on your egotism.
So what did you do on your SATs for the reading comprehension section?
I didn't take Sat's but in the comprehension test we did have the answer would be that I provided an answer within the acceptable range to sentences deliberately designed by the examiner to be as unambiguous as possible.
What did you do during your degree? Check your essays against the one correct answer?
You take the SAT in high school. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a degree. It has to do with getting into college/university. It's a test that among other things, demonstrates that one is capable of reading normal, high school-level writing and understanding it in a commonsensical manner. It's not "as unambiguous as possible," because you're expected to have commonsense abilities of reading comprehension, so that you could read any average magazine article, newspaper article, etc. and understand both what it's saying and what's it's not saying.
Well if SATs are at that level then the answer to your question would be that I would have answered what the question was asking and not what it was not asking. Obviously. Otherwise I would not have got into university. What a stupid question.
How does any of this prove whether my apparent (I still maintain all this is just bullshit to cover the fact that you can't defend your ideas) failure to understand what you wrote is to do with my poor reading comprehension and not your poor writing skill.
More distraction because you can't answer the actual point.
I brought you up on the point you were blatantly trying to make (that science is non- deterministic therefore can't be used to support non-free-will). You changed the subject to my apparent reading skills. I brought you up on the fact that you've no way of judging whether it's my reading skills or your writing skills at fault. So you change the subject again to comprehension testing.
Same thing happened on the hate speech thread when I brought you up on the hypocrisy of claiming to know what people are capable of tolerating whilst simultaneously claiming psychological theories were overblown. You changed the subject then too.
Now I've brought you up on your disingenuous argumentative tactics we'll get another sudden change of topic. Anything you can't answer, just change the topic.
I'm not going to waste my time with you anymore, I thought at one time there might be some intelligent discussion after you'd got over your grump at me calling you out over on the hate speech thread, but it seems not.
?? You just said you didn't take the SAT. You're not in the US apparently. Some people get relatively poor scores on the reading comprehension section. Some people get relatively poor scores on the mathematics section, etc.
I cannot disagree more. Seriously, it simply does not work like that.
A system such as logic is not the real world, and does not even try to correspond to the real world. It is an abstract, Platonic world constructed from -- and dealing with -- language expressions. Any claim that says that such abstract, Platonic world corresponds with the real, physical world is wrong. It simply doesn't.
The same holds true for arithmetic. Standard arithmetic gets constructed from 9 speculative beliefs. Anybody who says that this corresponds to the real, physical world, is basically saying that the construction logic of the real, physical world would consist of 9 rules. That is simply nonsense. We do not know the construction logic of the real, physical world.
You can use language expressions to build -- and reason within -- completely imaginary worlds that have nothing to do with the real, physical world. You can use it to construct stories in science fiction. You can describe imaginary events that never took place, in a world that does not even exist, and so on.
If you seek to establish and somehow guarantee correspondence with the real, physical world, you will need to use the principles of an empirical knowledge-justification system such as science.
Therefore, without a knowledge-justification guarantee from an empirical domain of knowledge (such as science), you are not even allowed to assume correspondence between language expressions and the real, physical world.
Quoting lepriçok
Logic has nothing to do with the real, physical world. It is an axiomatic system based on 14 speculative beliefs. You can perfectly use it to reason about imaginary worlds. In fact, out of the box, that is even all you can do. You usually add more premises, i.e. more speculative beliefs than the original 14 ones, and then draw conclusions inside this completely speculative system. Your conclusions/theorems will then be provable from the speculative beliefs in the system.
If you want to establish some kind of correspondence with the real, physical world, you will have to use an empirical knowledge-justification method such as science. Logic is purely axiomatic and does not offer such guarantees whatsoever.
You are badly confusing logic with science.
Science will demand that you experimentally test your conclusions. It will therefore demand that your conclusions are testable (falsifiable). In science, you cannot stop after declaring a few logical inferences and calculations, and then be done with it. That is not simply not allowed. In science, you must also satisfy the numerous requirements of the regulatory framework of falsification. You see, science talks about the real, physical world. Logic does not do that. Logic just talks about arbitrary premises, using some other arbitrary premises (its axioms).
Quoting lepriçok
On what other basis do you accept the 14 axioms of propositional logic, other than blind trust?
On what other basis do you accept the 9 axioms of standard arithmetic, other than blind trust?
You do not want to blindly trust, only because you are ignorant of the fact that you are doing that already. It is ignorance and arrogance.
Our actions, before we undertook them, were contingent, but after we have presented them to those around us as a fait accompli, they experience them as a kind of necessity.
I believe the fields mentioned by Popper are of propensity to individuality. It is a shame boundaries aren't often mentioned in philosophy. Those are exchange places.
I believe necessity (in an occurrence) is a special case of contingency.
Libertarianism should be viewed as having both a metaphysical and an empirical basis.
I don't understand this sentence, because contingency is literally the negation of necessity. "Contingent" means "not necessary".
Perhaps you should improve your reading comprehension skills.
See my SAT score.
So now academic achievement is a measure of relevant intellectual skills.
Your reading comprehension and reasoning problems evidenced in this post: (1) SAT is a standardized test that's taken on one occasion; it's evaluated "blindly," and by machines. Obtaining a degree is a long process that isn't standardized, and there are lots of different subjective, biased factors involved. (2) You're again suggesting that you're an Aspie, and you read everything as "literal" as possible.
Where have I said anything to the contrary?
Via conflating my comments about academic achievement and its implications for intelligence (which you're reading overly "literally") with a comment (that you also read overly "literally") about the SAT.
"Where?" was the question, not "how?". Tell me what comment gave you this impression and I can explain what I actually meant by it.
Haha, overly "literal" again. I quoted the comment in question right above the content of mine we're talking about. That's the whole idea behind quoting something and then commenting after you quote it.
Yes, I'm just asking which quote, you've quoted several. None of them seem to me to imply anything like the conflation you're suggesting. Simply saying "I've quoted it" doesn't help.
You quoted the passage that starts with this: "(1) SAT is a standardized test . . ." and asked where you said anything to the contrary.
The passage that starts with "(1) SAT is a standardized test . . . " followed me quoting a single, eleven-word sentence of yours.
Right, thank you. So the issue I was getting at was not that your talk of reading comprehension was the same as your talk of degree-level students being judgeable as 'morons'. It's about the fact that you reference paragraphs which cover degree-level topics as being understandable with SAT-level comprehension skills.
The topics we're discussing, the types of proposition used in them and the necessary context are all at the level where there is "lots of different subjective, biased factors involved" - like a degree. Yet you're claiming any misunderstandings are down to a failure of SAT-level skills, that the propositions used are of such a simple and non-contextual nature that only basic reading comprehension is required.
If you can show me a SAT paper where the test consists of correctly interpreting the meaning of a proposition about the relationship between free-will and indeterminacy in science, I'd be very surprised.
I'm not only talking about quantum mechanics. Hasn't anyone here actually studied science? Another class of phenomena that haven't been considered deterministic for a long time is (macro) stochastic phenomena. How could one have studied science and not be familiar with stochastic phenomena? And if we haven't studied science, why would we be arguing something based on science?
The whole idea is that people on message boards argue against free will based on a belief that the sciences posit a Laplacean, strongly deterministic world. They haven't conventionally posited that for over 150 years.
This would be another reading comprehension issue on your part. What are you reading the above way?
Good argument.
Quoting Coben
Where was the part where anyone said, "Hey, I have a blueprint for how free will works in terms of mechanism," or "Just in case I don't have a blueprint for how free will works, that suggests that there is no free will, even though the only support for that is a view that was popular in the sciences only over 150 years ago"? No one wrote anything like that.
Quoting Coben
That's not an issue that the sciences even addresses because the sciences don't care. Scientists typically don't want to do ontology. They want to do science, and they conventionally approach it instrumentally. They tend to see ontological questions like that as something that philosophers can do while they're also debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, hopefully someplace where they're not going to bother scientists.
Which is part of the point. The sciences haven't conventionally posited a Laplacean, strongly deterministic world for a long time.
The matter which started this whole sub-discussion. And, in fact, most of our other discussions recently, which have all followed the same pattern I've already outlined...
I call you out on something you've said which does not make sense, is incoherent, or contradicts other things you've said.
Instead of explaining why it's not a contradiction/incoherent, or heaven forbid, actually admitting that you might just be a tiny bit wrong about something, you just say that my reading comprehension (SAT-level) is at fault.
But none of the matters we're discussing contain propositions which are sufficiently non-contextual, or simple enough to be tested in that manner. They consist almost entirely of propositions which are complex enough to be judged by the subjective, 'no-single-right-answer', type of assessment made at higher levels of study.
So any misunderstanding is very unlikely, especially considering someone sufficiently versed in English to form arguments, to be to do with reading comprehension. Hence my supposition that this is just you trying to steer the discussion away from the flaws in your argument.
Because every response of yours is based on not being able to read or reason very well. I'm not going to continually respond to argumentative posts of a few hundred words that are fueled by reading comprehension and reasoning problems without commenting on that fact. Especially when I hate arguing.
Yes, this whole sub-discussion started when I asked you to support that assertion, and why you proceed with it (despite the complete absence of any unbiased evidence) instead of taking the more humble, or charitable approach that your communication skills might be at least partly to blame.
Now we're back to the beginning again with you just making a wildly unfair and unjustified assertion about my intelligence without any evidence other than that I disputed the clarity of what you've said.
So, if your only evidence that someone lacks comprehension or reasoning skills is that they question the coherence or consistency of what you say, and if you refuse to articulate your ideas to anyone who falls into that category, then who exactly is left for you to talk to? Everyone who already agrees?
Which is why I'm now focusing my posts on pointing out your reading comprehension and reasoning gaffes as they occur.
Quoting Isaac
Nope. And here's another reading comprehension and reasoning gaffe. I'll keep pointing them out for you.
Fine, if the best you've got by way of intelligent discussion is just to label every disagreement as a reading comprehension issue then there's no point continuing is there.
Not even remotely what I'm doing. Hence, another example of the problem.
Not only that, but...
1. Stochastic processes are a modelling method, no-one is claiming that they actually are random, only that one of the variable in the model is random. So whilst you're totally right to say random does not equal free-will, it's not even true that the existence of stochastic models demonstrates anything ontologically.
2. Stochastic processes are defined as a separate set of equations to those describing classical and quantum physics. The passage I quoted showed that the scientific opinion on the brain is that it acts as a classical (non-stochastic) system. When the "non-free-will crowd" are talking about determinism in science they are obviously talking about the science relating to the brain, not just all science. So the opinion of science, as it relates to the matter in question, is that brain function is best modelled as classical objects - not quantum, not stochastic.
As you say, the rest is just posturing and guff.
Yes, that's what I thought. I didn't think it was an ontological difference, but an in situ, practical way of modeling.
Even it if was a new ontological position in science, and I am assuming you are correct it is not, it still wouldn't help his position, since we'd need a way to make random phenomena a source of free choices.
I am assuming you are correct, because if it was based on a non-deterministic ontology (and further one not related to qm processes) then I think it would have trickled down to non-experts like me who do take a strong interest in science.
Again, a reading comprehension problem, as I already addressed this.
The sciences do not make an ontological commitment to "what's really the case ontologically behind stochastic processes." This means that it is not the standard view in the sciences that stochastic processes are really strongly deterministic. The sciences treat stochastic processes instrumentally instead.
Quoting Isaac
That comment was irrelevant to what I'd said, where the irrelevance was addressing a reading comprehension misunderstanding.
My position was "You can't use a belief that science has a Laplacean, strongly deterministic view of the world as a support for determinism." And I was mocking the fact that people approach it that way, despite the fact that it would imply that they're at least 150 years out of date.
I had already told you above that it's not an ontological claim, which doesn't imply that science is really positing a Laplacean view. That ("it's really Laplacean") would be an ontological claim that isn't being made, which is just my point.
Yes, and you obviously can because determinism (in the free-will sense) is about how the brain functions, unless you are a dualist, and science is of the opinion that the brain is a classical system and therefore follows a fully deterministic model. So relevant to the topic at hand one absolutely can use a belief that science has a strongly determinist view to support determinism (with regards to free-will) because with regards to all the mechanisms that might be involved in will, science does indeed have that view.
So here's this post's first reading comprehension problem:
"a belief that science has a Laplacean, strongly deterministic view of the world"
Isn't saying something about limiting supposed ontological claims (don't miss or misread "supposed") only to comments about how the brain functions.
You said
"The idea is rather than the "there is no free will" crowd always wants to appeal to it being a standard view or implication of the sciences that there is no free will. That's wrong, though."
So either you're wrong to say they can't use sensu stricto deterministic science as support for their argument (they can, the brain is a classical object), or you're wrong in saying that the no free will crowd always want to appeal to the fact that science is strongly deterministic sensu lato. They don't. I don't know of a single no-free-will supporter here, for example, that would deny the non-deterministic nature of quantum physics.
So one, you're reading "always" like an Aspie. When people write "always" in sentences like that, they're not literally saying that in 100% of cases, with no exceptions, such and such is the case.
I can understand that that's a reading comprehension problem linked to a bigger issue, but it's still a reading comprehension problem.
I'm not talking about a few exceptions. I can't recall a single anti-free-will argument where there's anything like an explicit proposition that all of science (including outside of brains) is deterministic. Why would there be? I can't think why people talking about brains would start making propositions related to the actions of Brownian reactions or neutrinos.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And note how the above makes a claim about science's standard view's ontological position on determinism, and yet you say below.....
Quoting Terrapin Station
and, of course, you would need to show how random processes lead to free will obtaining, despite your claim that you were only...oh, jeez, I repeat myself in anticipation of your evasion techniques.
Quoting Terrapin StationOh, are you an Aspie? Do you need extra contextual evidence and labeling to show you the intentions of a comment like the one of mine you quoted? God, this is going to take so much explaining and I am so tired. Aspies tire me. Well, see, that was me pointing out your behavior. It was not me making an argument, just as your posturing was not an argument, but me not being an Aspie, I realized this and, well, got annoyed and correctly labeled it. I label your non-argument for what it is and then you have the gall to point our this labeling is not an argument.
But nice quip, well, almost.
My experience is that you can't concede anything, and while your avoidance techniques reveal an incredibly clever mind, I'm afraid I have lost interest in trying to get you to notice your contradictions or to respond to my posts genuously and in the opposite of disingenuously. So, I'll just snipe occasionally. Enjoy your rationalizations.
Apologies to Aspies, I just thought it would also be good for the gander to have his neurological patterns whined about, since he has, of late, taken a really snotty ad hom turn. In the sense of to the man.
The instrumental approach is explicitly not thoroughly deterministic. If you were to look up a definition of "stochastic processes," you'd find content such as "A stochastic or random process can be defined as a collection of random variables that is indexed by some mathematical set, meaning that each random variable of the stochastic process is uniquely associated with an element in the set."
As I've explained, it's an instrumental approach, one that doesn't make philosophical, ontological commitments. But what is the instrumental approach in question? It's explicitly that not everything is treated deterministically (a random process isn't deterministic). Hence science isn't strongly deterministic and hasn't been for over 150 years, so one can't appeal to the sciences being strongly deterministic.
Of course, you want to say that it's instrumentally non-deterministic while science "really buys" a thoroughgoing strong determinism, but there's no support for that.
Quoting Coben
No, but you clearly are, which is why you think I'm forwarding contradictions, and it's why I have to explain any of this so laboriously to you, to try to "Aspie-proof" it to your satisfaction, because you can't grok it without that . . . although it usually seems like a futile pursuit. Not being an Aspie, it's difficult for me to anticipate all of the problems that are going to emerge from their "literal" readings, especially because the notion of "literal" is ambiguous due to the fact that meaning is relative and subjective.
Quoting Coben
How could you not tell that I was responding sarcastically? Oh, right. Because you're clearly an Aspie just like Isaac.
Quoting Coben
Conceding requires something cogent and insightful to make a concession to. Not offended, bickering, reading comprehension problems stemming from not liking someone.
Of course, that you even want others to concede things is part of the problem in my view. It would be nice if we could be interested in others views as their views, where we ask questions because we want to better understand their views, as their views, and/or as an aid to them developing their views as their views, because in general we're interested in other people as unique individuals.
Quoting Coben
I think it's important to realize that the idea that academic pursuits can be strongly separated from personality facts, personal issues, personal dispositions, personal biases, etc. is bullshit.
Quoting Coben
If this implies that you're going to stop being such a yippy-dog like pest, then praise the Lord. (Note that I'm not literally praising the Lord, so don't take that as contradicting my atheism.)
Yes, and as has been repeatedly pointed out to you. No one in the no-free-will crowd has said anything like a claim that it is. Everyone acknowledges that some models in science use stochastic equations, everyone acknowledges that quantum mechanics is not convincingly deterministic.
Your claim, as @Coben, has literally spelled out to you, was that "Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic", and, as I have pointed out to you that "The idea is rather than the "there is no free will" crowd always wants to appeal to it being a standard view or implication of the sciences that there is no free will. That's wrong, though.".
These are direct quotes. Both specifically reference using the deterministic (or non-deterministic) nature of science to support/deny free-will. Not just as an isolated summary of the state of science, as a deliberate support for theories about free will.
Will is something that happens in the brain. The brain is a classical object, therefore the non-deterministic parts of science are irrelevant to it. The no-free-will crowd know this perfectly well, which is why they don't mention the non-deterministic parts of science. It's only you who are making the error of thinking they're relevant.
Good to know you've followed my interaction with all manner of different people for the past 40 years.
Quoting Isaac
No. Reading comprehension error. " "Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic" is my philosophical view. It's not claiming to be based on some scientific view. I never said that, and never suggested it. My views are definitively NOT views that kowtow to anything like conventional views in the sciences. I rather strongly disagree with many conventional views in the sciences.
Can't believe you're still trying to fudge this. You said...
Quoting Terrapin Station
So it's not a claim about anything within your personal interactions. It's a claim about this forum. Where on this forum are the arguments from "everyone [in the no-free-will crowd]" which make anything like a claim that all of science is deterministic, not just specifically those aspects related to free will?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yeah right, that's why you've been banging on about how the scientific consensus view is definitely not deterministic, because you don't care what the scientific consensus is.
Right, and aside from you being an Aspie in your interpretation of that, it still doesn't explain this additional reading comprehension problem (see? that's all it is with you, a long string of reading comprehension problems in post after post), because "like this" doesn't literally say ONLY ON THIS MESSAGE BOARD AND ONLY IN THIS THREAD.
Even if you're being literal about it being online, rather than that being an example, I've not only been chatting and messaging back and forth with people on the Internet since 1994, but going all the way back to about 1980 ("about"--it might have been 1979 or whatever), I was interacting with people "online" via bulletin board systems (BBS).
Even if I were saying "only on this board" for some dumb reason (why would the extent of my conversing with others about this be this board?), are you implying that you've studied every interaction I've had with others on this board?
If I can't write a phrase such as "like this" to literally denote "this is the sort of message board I'm talking about" and have it be understood by someone who is supposed to be able to understand things literally, then what could I possibly write that you wouldn't misread? And then you wonder why I don't want to get into long philosophical discussions with you?
Quoting Isaac
Oh, I'm glad you know that better than I do. Next time I wonder what exactly I'm claiming I'll check with you.
Quoting Isaac
The reason I brought that up is because it's what the "no free will crowd" always relies on (that's not literally saying 100% of the time, etc.). The reason we keep going over it is because you can't read and you want to bicker.
No, but it does mean that the behaviour is at least present here (that's a reasonable interpretation of what 'like' means in that context). I've read absolutely no such claim, ever. It's not a quibble about your use of "everyone", nor "always", I doubt you will find a single example here (I also doubt you've really had sufficient actual examples elsewhere, it's such a bizarre thing to claim, but that's not what I'm talking about right now).
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not suggesting I actually know your intentions better than you do, I'm suggesting you're making it up to wriggle out of your error. You're the one who started including the personality of interlocutors. I don't think you're being honest.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, and I don't think they do "always" rely on it, even with the most generous interpretation of "always". So if that's just me wanting to "bicker" you're basically suggesting simply disagreeing with you constitutes 'bickering'.
Oh, good you're argument is based not on scientific consensus, which you mention just after you assert this, but it's based on it being a fact. Or because if the world is not strongly deterministic, it has to be free will-istic. Despite neither deterministic processes nor stochastic processes justify free will.
You just happened to mention stochastic processes and science after you stated your 'view' now.Quoting Terrapin StationMe, I'm agnostic when it comes to free will, but over the years I have encountered the no free will crowd over and over and over saying that there are no non-deterministic processses that support free will. It's not like close the 100%, it's regular, certainly more than half the time, and this is because the free will crowd regularly brings up qm. And yes, I've seen stochastic processes mentioned before, though much more rarely. However it suffers the same problems that qm does. Often the determinists will talk about scale issues, but they are wrong about this, I think, because qm effects can change the movements of large organisms like birds. But the real problem is, yes, randomness.
But it is likely true that....
IOW that the first part of the sentence is your view.
So most of your earlier posts WERE NOT ARGUMENTS at all in relation to your own position. You were just adding on your take about how scientists think and how this is different from how determinists think scientists think and none of it supported your view. So we can all run off and look at determinists arguments and not notice that you have none for your position, which you earlier denied even having, which is a view about what you consider a fact.
People tend to bicker when you insult the people you disagree with - in the form of bemoaning their lack of your knowledge - and you think your position holds because there are problems with their position, in your view. You could both be wrong, for example, and it's hardly a sin to think you are defending your position, not merely sharing your views.
I could see saying that given that stochastic models work for very complicated systems there may be room left for free will. This would mean that the current scientific idea that there is a random element is incorrect, at least when stochastic models work well with what we might call agents. IOW scientists would be wrong in saying it is random then, because it actually has to do with free will. This means that the scientists' have been viewing the model incorrectly at the ontological level. Or they wouldn't use the word 'random'. They could create a much better placeholder term.
There's also a problem because the phrase 'stochastically determined' is a phrase used in science.
But hey, if you think free will is like Brownian motion, I think you are bending the concept of 'free will' to places most scientists, laypeople and, yes, forum members would need your definition up front for whatever unique take you have on the idea.
Of course really all this had nothing to do with your view. I think Isaac and I can acknowledge your view is your view. And also that you prefer people to be able to say whatever they want in society. And that, of course, you are not really arguing for anything, just saying why you don't want to change your view. And that's fine. I thought for a while you were supporting your views. This led to bickering.
But we haven't even gotten up into hate speech. And obviously according to you bickering cannot be immoral, so you might want to stop reacting to it in the way people do react when they think something is immoral. People might confuse you with having moral judgments about bickering. Of course you don't have those moral judgments, but word to the wise, you might come across that way.
There are easy ways to avoid bickering. At least with online people.
No, it doesn't. I'm not saying that it's not present here, but you can't glean that it necessarily is from what I wrote. "Online forums like this" simply refers to this being an example of the sorts of forums I'm talking about.
They'll express that they're dubious about quantum mechanics supporting it if someone brings up that the consensus view in the sciences isn't that the world is strongly deterministic.
Certainly some people bring up qm because that's been suggested by some a a possible mechanism for free will (Roger Penrose being the most famous example probably), but usually people bring up qm as an example of it being incorrect to say that the sciences posit that the world is strongly deterministic.
And no, I didn't read the rest of your post. I mean, come on. You just said you weren't going to bother me any longer and then you post something that looks like it's approaching 1000 words where we're just nitpicking about nonsense. Being unable to stop oneself from posting long crap seems to be another Aspie trait, by the way.
Bollocks. The context was all about the mention of free will, here on this thread, in this forum, and then you say "forums like this...".
If the no-free-will crowd here do 'always' state that the whole of science is deterministic, then you should have no trouble finding a large number of quotes to that effect from the recent free-will threads.
If, however, the no-free-will crowd do not 'always' do that here, then the other places you claim to have heard this approach are obviously not "like this one" in at least one crucial aspect absolutely intrinsic to your statement, in that they don't do the one thing your whole sentence is about.
So in addition to your reading comprehension problems, you think you know what someone has in mind better than they do.
It's easier for me to just re-post at this point.
Quoting Isaac
We can now add to that the fact that @Coben has brought you up on the fact that indeterminacy only yields randomness, and the fact that your claim about what the no-free-will crowd 'always do' is completely without support.
None of which you've answered, all of which you've just changed the subject or brushed of with unsubstantiated ad homs.
I'll just keep tab here of the list of issues you've ignored in case you ever get over yourself and want to have an intelligent discussion some time.
How about trying to not come across like an annoying asshole? Maybe that would work.