Co-Determinism and the Reality of Free Will

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Quantum Quack, Apr 7, 2019.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Again: freedom from natural law, already stipulated as deterministic, is not involved. Not necessary. Excluded. Nothing supernatural is included. Your assumption of necessarily supernatural freedom is not granted.

    Meanwhile: being predetermined is irrelevant. The best example here - the simplest illustration I could come up with - is a driver approaching a traffic light. We went over that in great detail. If you missed it, please review the discussion.

    And so we see that the matter of interest is the process by which all this internal human mental activity is determined, and in turn determines what follows. This is quite close to what might be called "self determination" - something you have considered.
     
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  3. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    There is no need to detail the complex mental structuring needed to self determine. Once the core principles are established those details naturally follow.

    Do you agree that the decision making you speak of is actually self determination?
     
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  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Why do think i am including the supernatural when I definitively am not?
    Why do you think that the supernatural is the only possible solution for a determinist or co-determinist such as myself?
     
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  7. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    I have asked you to provide the definition as you understand it. Please do so. Given that you have a tendency to use words in an odd manner, you providing the definition as you intend it to be understood is surely the only way to be sure your comments are understood?
     
  8. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    It is resolved, using both, by both the compatibilists and incompatibilists. It results in different understandings of the word "freedom". For one you end up with degrees of freedom, as found in thermostats, for the other you get the impossibility of anything actually being "free", since everything is predetermined from the outset. Both solutions use logic and reasoning, but both have different notions of what it means for something to be "free".
    If you have an actual argument in here...?
    Again, if you have a relevant argument to make...? Or is all you can do appeal to emotion, to consequence etc?
    And this is why your entire theory has zero chance of resolving what you think it resolves. Self-determination does not depend on one's notion of freedom. If one has a notion of freedom then "self-determination" is simply a process that has that notion within it. It does not in and of itself demonstrate the correctness of one notion over another.
    But it does have a freedom: to be on or to be off.
    Your equating of the two terms "freedom" and "self determination" seems to be the foundation of the confused mess you call a theory. It is why it doesn't do what you think it does, and why it is vacuous.
     
  9. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    but only due to external causes not by it's own volition... It has no freedom. It is fully deterministic.
    Can a thermostat refuse to switch off or on? Nope... it has no choice what so ever...

    The notion that a thermostat has self determination because it does what it is obliged by design to do is absurd... can't you see that?

    it has no self
    it has no will
    it has no choice
    it has no freedom to self determine
    it has no learning capacity to self determine
    it has no ability to reject the inputs from it's environment.
    It is a device that is purely deterministic...in nature....
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You definitely are. Here - again:
    and so forth. You are insisting that a freedom independent of causation, natural law, cause and effect, etc, be demonstrated, or no freedom exists. That is, you assume freedom to be supernatural, or not exist, in a deterministic universe.
    Here's Sarkus, making the same assumption:
    It's crippling.
    In the case of the driver approaching the light, it's a determination of the behavior of the car.
     
  11. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    No i am not.
    If the humans self determination is entirely deterministic then that self determination including it's inherant freedom is also.
    The only thing crippling is your reliance on unchanging reasoning that demands blindly, that freedom must be supernatural in nature. It is not and never has been.
     
  12. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Q: How did humans acquire the ability to learn how to self determine?
    A: It was predetermined by the deterministic universe that humans did so...
    Therefore human self determination including the inherant freedom to do so is entirely deterministic.

    It is really not that hard to grasp.
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You aren't making sense.
    These are your posts, not mine, asserting no freedom is present in a deterministic universe unless it is freedom from causation etc,
    not mine. I flatly deny that assertion. I claim degrees of freedom in human decisions regardless of their necessary causations etc.
    Yep.
    Now we need some idea of what "inherent freedom" refers to.

    There is nothing about "self" determination that makes it different from any other in being subject to natural law, after all - the self being part of the universe - and you are on record as requiring freedom in such circumstances to be freedom from causation etc.
     
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Am i ....?
    Really?
    Post a quote please....
     
  15. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    "Freedom from causation" isn't even applicable to the supernatural.....sheesh!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  16. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps,
    The freedom generated by learning to self determine is entirely deterministic.
    Because that freedom is determined by the self determiner.


    Hee heee...
     
  17. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe for you it is. It is a different perspective, sure, but no more or less crippling than any other.
     
  18. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    So is the "self". So are humans. We are talking about a deterministic universe, are we not? Do you now claim humans, the will, to sit outside that?
    That's a matter of complexity, not the nature of the freedom within. A thermostat can not also add numbers like a calculator.
    I never said that it does have self-determination. I am waiting for you to provide a working definition so that I can be clear what you understand by the term. Please provide it.
    All matters of complexity and nothing to do with the nature of freedom... unless you can show otherwise?
    Didn't you equate self-determine with freedom? Aren't you therefore saying that it has no freedom to be free?
    Matters of compplexity, not the nature of the freedom involved.
    As are humans. Or are you putting humanity, or at least the will, outside of the deterministic universe? Are you suggesting that the will, or humans entirely, are indeterministic?
     
  19. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    The freedom generated by learning to self determine is entirely deterministic.
    Because that freedom is determined by the self determiner.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Already posted three from this thread - just above, twice - second time at your request, with the key phrases bolded. How many times do you need this posted?
    Freedom from the universal causation that determines everything else, the entire natural world - your post.
    That is supernatural. That is what the label "supernatural" refers to. The language is English.
    You are the one who has ended up posting that the degrees of freedom in a thermostat circuit have the same "nature" as those in a human decision, that capabilities which are not going to be used at a given moment in the future do not now and never "actually" existed, and so forth.
     
  21. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I am going to let you think about what you have posted for awhile. Perhaps read the OP and the rest of my posts and later we can continue this rather interesting discussion.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    It's been a few years now, in this rodeo - don't wait up.
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I'll ask you for a second time... to post a quote that supports your claim ....and yes the language is in fact English...
    I just want to confirm how you always resort to lies when your use of logic is being tested,,,,
    ( this is the 3rd occasion in the last 6 months)
     

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