Free will re-redux

Pr: Yeah, I think I'll pass on putting too much more effort into this as I think it's now been shown Philosophically / Mathematically / Empirically that Free Will is not incoherent. That at the least God can have it in a logically possible world.

QED, Resolved, however you want to say it there's no argument left for the claim that free will is incoherent that I can see...

I have no idea why you think you've shown that free will is either mathematically or empirically coherent. There has been no math whatsoever. And there have been no empirical observations about free will. What there has been is a quasi-scientific argument that a stochastic process has some basis on the current state of affairs, yet the outcome is not predictable. In the case of Brownian motion, the unpredictability appears to be due to our inability to know the positions and velocities of all the particles. 

That is it.

~~ Paul

As far as I know, there is no relation between the individual particles in a large group that has anything to do with particle decay.

~~ Paul

I think you made this up in the face of of observed phenomenon.  There are relations to wholes and parts.  If a large group of particles of plutonium is concentrated to a mass of 10 Kg, the state changes to a fully deterministic one.

boom

I think you made this up in the face of of observed phenomenon.  There are relations to wholes and parts.  If a large group of particles of plutonium is concentrated to a mass of 10 Kg, the state changes to a fully deterministic one.

boom

So you're saying that it becomes deterministic which nuclei fission at any given instant?

~~ Paul

So you're saying that it becomes deterministic which nuclei fission at any given instant?

~~ Paul

Why in world would that matter?  Critical mass and spontaneous fission are modeled with great precision given information as to the over-all state.

In my understanding the folks in charge of designing the bomb called on John Von Neumann to make the calculations.  They wanted to make sure they wouldn't blow-up the whole world.  The first computers developed at Princeton were resultant of his and his wife's diligence, with an outstanding supporting cast.

Do you think it was random events that organized the data into a working design?  Minds change real-world probabilities and the probability of a boom was increased by his and other scientist's designs.  These were created by free will choices of experiments - both physical and simulated.

I find you interesting with your firm belief in the magic of the solid particle - existing in a hypothetical isolation.

Why in world would that matter?  Critical mass and spontaneous fission are modeled with great precision given information as to the over-all state.

In my understanding the folks in charge of designing the bomb called on John Von Neumann to make the calculations.  They wanted to make sure they wouldn't blow-up the whole world.  The first computers developed at Princeton were resultant of his and his wife's diligence, with an outstanding supporting cast.

Do you think it was random events that organized the data into a working design?  Minds change real-world probabilities and the probability of a boom was increased by his and other scientist's designs.  These were created by free will choices of experiments - both physical and simulated.

I find you interesting with your firm belief in the magic of the solid particle - existing in a hypothetical isolation.

It doesn't matter to nuclear fission, but apparently it matters to the world we are trying to describe that allows free will.

Let me try to make it more formal.

~~ Paul

Let me try to make this a tad more formal.

1. A free decision is based on the current state of affairs.

2. However, a free decision is not necessitated by the state of affairs.

3. Nevertheless, a specific decision is made.

4. Therefore, there must be a factor W (for "will") that is also involved in making the decision.

5. Factor W is not a random factor in the sense of having no causes.

6. In what way does factor W contribute to the decision making?


~~ Paul

I have no idea why you think you've shown that free will is either mathematically or empirically coherent. There has been no math whatsoever. And there have been no empirical observations about free will. What there has been is a quasi-scientific argument that a stochastic process has some basis on the current state of affairs, yet the outcome is not predictable. In the case of Brownian motion, the unpredictability appears to be due to our inability to know the positions and velocities of all the particles. 

That is it.

~~ Paul

Coherent just means it could exist. Unlike Physicalism, which faces a Something from Nothing problem, there's no violation of any logical axiom for free will. In fact it is in accordance with pedetic motion.

Stephen has been discussing mathematical modeling for two threads now?

The only quasi-scientific argument has been your attempts to force a randomness/determinism dichotomy on the QM level events.

Like I said, QED.

"Pedetic motion, on the other hand, is not random at all, but instead emerges from and is influenced by other motions, just not in a completely determined way. Unlike randomness, pedetic motion is not unpredictable because it is not influenced by any other motions; rather, motion is pedetic precisely because it occurs in relation to other motions. It is the interrelation and mutual influence of matter with itself that gives it its unpredictable character. Over a long period of time, the pedetic motion of matter combines and stabilizes into certain patterns, synchronies, and relations, giving the appearance of stability and solidity, only to become turbulent again and enter into new conjoined relations."


Can you explain what you think he is trying to say here? The second sentence particularly sounds like gibberish. First he says that pedetic motion's unpredictability is not due to lack of influence, then he uses the term to try to define the term. After all, deterministic motion also "occurs in relation to other motions."

We cannot know the positions and velocities of all the particles that influence a particular particle's motion. So we might say that the particle's motion is deterministic yet not predictable. Or we might say that the entire system is therefore stochastic. But what is this third process where the particle's motion is neither deterministic nor stochastic? Or do you agree that it is stochastic and somehow infer the possibility of free will in there somewhere?



~~ Paul

Randomness means something happens for no reason at all. Pedesis happens because the relations influence the outcome in a non-deterministic way.

The data bears out his claims, as in the case of half-lives. Why would we say the particles motion is deterministic, when earlier you were saying that it was random because we couldn't find out what influences the events?

Just because you can project the claim of determinism doesn't mean that is what is happening, especially since Physicalism's idea of determinism is just randomness of a special kind.

Isn't this doing an injustice to the poor old skeptic represented in this dramatisation? A computer is deterministic, so it cannot possibly have been given as an example of a "how", can it? I wonder what sort of example a skeptic would actually propose as a suitable illustration of the meaning of the word "how"?

The example was given by Paul, and included a genuine random number generator as I recall.

I see what you did there.

OK, I'll leave it open for now, in the hope that something new is brought to the table, not merely a rehashing of that which has already been done to death. If nothing new eventuates, I'll reconsider.

I just think it's a bad form of censorship to close out a topic.

I mean it took years to learn the criteria was nothing more than personal satisfaction, which is where I think the debate about coherency largely ended.

At this point one can just quote prior posts in perpetuity as all the reasoned inquiries for coherency are concluded AFAICTell.