Free will and determinism

I go into this in the 65 page thread, IIRC I even made a separate sub-thread for indeterminism.

Is there any chance you could link to the posts?

~~ Paul

Is there any chance you could link to the posts?

~~ Paul

Best just to go through the whole thread. I mean you're asking questions here that were answered in replies to you there...

Also this thread has papers/interviews/presentations that weren't mentioned in the 65 page thread. Did you read/watch any of that?

I'm wondering if any of you has heard of philosopher Helen Steward and her book A Metaphysics for Freedom (2012). I saw her listed in a rank of 50 pre-eminent philosophers so far in the 21st century.

She's not coming from a position of consciousness as fundamental (as far as I know) as we discuss it in this forum. But according to this list she combines "philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of action and ontology".

Revisting her, seems like this hasn't been posted here:




(know that you've seen the post but for others, just to note Goff's paper on free will & panpsychism was posted earlier in this thread)

But where in this choosing to decide to do something else, and then doing something else, are the indeterministic decision(s)? And how are those decisions made?

After being given so many detailed answers over so many various comments... you want me to give you answers?

What can I even possibly tell you that you haven't already been told?

Absolutely nothing. I won't retread old ground for you. Do it yourself. You're intelligent, yes?

I'm entertaining both randomness and determinism because that's what we see in the real world. Particle decay is random. Computers are deterministic.

We do not see either randomness nor determinism in the real world whatsoever.

"Randomness" and "determinism" are only ever projections by us onto the world. They are appearances, nothing more. Illusions, if you will.

Particle decay is certainly not random at all. Particle decay follows known patterns. And so, it isn't deterministic either.

Computers are simply not deterministic at their basis. They are engineered to give the illusion of being deterministic, because we need them to function as if they are.

I have a degree in Computer Science, so I have some understanding of how computers work. Indeed, computers can occasionally fail due to some random external influence. But when was the last time that happened to your computer? Computers are deterministic with the occasional random failure. If you want to argue that they are random, then please give us your definition of random.

~~ Paul

Computers never fail due to "random" external influences. There is always a cause, a reason. Always. Even if it's a cosmic ray causing a bit-flip. That's still not "random", except in the appearances of such.

I've had computers appear to "randomly" fail, yes, but when I dig at the problem, it is never random. Never.

I almost have to conclude at this point, that you're almost purposefully being obtuse...

A spirit does not clearly have free will

A what ? My goodness me.

~~ Paul

In #120 above you quoted my argument but then forgot to respond to it! Here it is again:

I would argue that free will is an essential component of any scientific experiment. Take a simple experiment like verifying Ohm's law. We apply a voltage to a resistor and measure the current that flows. Then we draw a nice straight-line graph. However, we select the voltages at which we do the measurements. If we knew that the voltages had been selected by a machine, we might worry that the true relationship might be sinusoidal say. The whole essence of a scientific experiment is that the experimenters could use free will to control some aspects of the experiment so that it is reasonable to generalise from the particular set of measurements made to obtain a general law.

Thus discarding the concept of free will, really involves discarding science.

~~David

A spirit does not clearly have free will. Again, the idea of a spirit is a proposed source of free decisions. But there is nothing about the idea that explains how free decisions work. You can simply define spirits to have free will, but that is not particularly satisfying.

This is... odd. A spirit is something not bound by physical laws or limitations, so it does indeed have free will in a more absolute sense.

There doesn't have to be anything that explains how a spirit makes free decisions. They just... can and do.

Now... being able to make free decisions does not imply omnipotence. Free decisions does not mean being able to do everything and anything ~ just that the spirit is free to choose to do anything. Being able to accomplish that desired outcome is an entirely different thing entirely.

Best just to go through the whole thread. I mean you're asking questions here that were answered in replies to you there...

Also this thread has papers/interviews/presentations that weren't mentioned in the 65 page thread. Did you read/watch any of that?

Questions were indeed answered, but not my central question.

I have watched one or two. I'll continue at it.

~~ Paul

Questions were indeed answered, but not my central question.

I have watched one or two. I'll continue at it.

~~ Paul

You should check in with a philosopher like Helen Steward and/or a neuroscientist team like Tononi & Koch.

If you do let us know the replies, as I'm curious as to whether they think your "central question" - whatever it actually is - makes sense.