Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?

No.
It is a suggestion that the issue runs deeper than you might think.
Indeterminism can only be reconciled using probability.

In other words, our incapacity to precisely determine outcomes, ( as per Heisenberg's imprecision principle) forces us to make use of probability to ascertain likely hood of those outcomes. ( is my understanding)
Am I wrong? If so how?
I would be seriously interested in what JamesR would say to the above....

 

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Why do so many here have such an odd manner of speaking?

 

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And yet all describable physical phenomena - including everything describable as a cause or an effect - emerge (eventually) from a substrate of quantum interactions.
And the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is held to be inviolable - deterministic.
And nothing in a universe that rests on quantum level interactions can do other than it must - thereby being defined as "deterministic", by the posted definitions in these threads.
And human decisions, including those leading to willful action, are macroscopic events bound by cause/effect - unable to do other than they must.

So that we have assumed a deterministic universe, for the sake of the argument, throughout, without losing anything of relevance.

 

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You don't have a girlfriend, do you?

 

That is not the definition of deterministic in the argument; that is the definition of what it means to be free. Determinism means determinism. A property of a deterministic system, when one understands what it means, is that there is no room to do otherwise. It doesn’t mean that if you have something with the property of not being able to do otherwise then it is deterministic.
You are only confusing the issue, and others, if you continue to push indeterministic processes (such as probabilistic ones) as being deterministic.

Yet you are not abiding by it.

Specific outcome as in the one observed. And what is the cause of that specific outcome from a probabilistic process rather than any other specific outcome. A probability function won’t be it, as that is just a description of the frequency of outcomes over an infinite number of replays. What actually causes one specific outcome rather than another? In a probabilistic process there is no cause, otherwise known as random, even if the outcomes adhere to some probability function.

Please drop this semantic nonsense. Your efforts to try to paper over your misunderstanding of what determinism is are now boring.

You need to distinguish between laws of chance due to subjective lack of information, and inherent probabilistic nature of the universe. The former is quite acceptable in a deterministic universe, the latter is mutually exclusive with a deterministic universe. You shouldn’t really need to be informed of this. It shouldn’t be news to you.

He did, but is backtracking in his own inimitable way. Yet your understanding of what was agreed to is flawed.

Not if it relies on probabilistic nature of your “deterministic universe” (and I put it in quotes as I no longer believe you are talking about an actual deterministic universe).

Nope, nothing overlooked.

States aren’t illusion, and I have never said they are. Your straw man. What could be illusory is how they appear to us. If they appear differently to us than they are, and specifically if they appear to offer the opposite of what they can offer, I would classify those interpretations as illusory. As already explained. Multiple times.

There’s no losing track, but thanks for your concern. If you think we have been then it may be that you haven’t quite been keeping up. Might explain a few things.

And all you have done so far is subsume conclusions into assumptions, or maybe taken subsequent arguments that build on the initial conclusion, seen it now stated as a premise, and cried foul, ignoring, as you tend to do, why your claim is fallacious.

You mean the occasions when you’ve had to reformulate arguments to make your point? Or reworded quotes to do so? Or simply taken subsequent arguments that do use them as premises, you thereby ignoring that they are themselves already conclusions.

And that’s a different argument, starting from the nature of a deterministic interaction. It doesn’t start with the assumption that there is no freedom in a deterministic universe, as you accuse. There is scope in that argument, specifically by questioning premise 2, to argue that a system built from deterministic interactions can be free, even if a specific interaction is not.
But instead, rather than actually seize on this to examine the question of complexity, and whether that gives rise to freedom, you once again try to use it, fallaciously, to claim an assumption of supernatural freedom. You’re obsessed with it, and can’t seem to help yourself. Every example you raise is either dishonestly altered or simply doesn’t do what you think it does.

 

Quantum interactions are inherently indeterministic (unless one goes for the “hidden variable” interpretation) and as such their nature is excluded from the universe we are considering.

You are mixing definitions. Again, no wonder you are accusing left right and centre of “supernatural freedom” if you do that. The definition of deterministic is not “can not do other than it must”.
The conclusion reached was that in a deterministic universe one can not do other than one must, but that does not mean the definition of determinism is that. Just because a beach ball is spherical does not mean that everything spherical is a beach ball. You are simply affirming the consequent here.
Simply put: your understanding of determinism is wrong, and you are not using any definition of determinism posited here, by anyone.

That is the conclusion, yes.

Yet your understanding of the deterministic universe is wrong, you are using a definition no one has posited, and in as much as you example and rely on inherently probabilistic matters in any rebuttal, such rebuttals are irrelevant. Because we are not talking about our universe, or any universe in which there is inherent probability, but a deterministic universe. Which you accepted as a premise.

 

I pick this choice as my preferred universe. lol

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Really, I think this makes the most sense.

 

They're lecturing

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and a human MUST self determine or die trying....

 

This is puzzling...
You use the words "inherent probability"... in a strange way...
The universe doesn't have inherent probability.

 

Not according to your definition of deterministic. (The probabilities, your source of confusion, determine them).
Nothing at the quantum level can do other than the equations say it must.

Which is determined by the interactions.

That's not how probability works in quantum theory. That's how it is introduced, heuristically, in an introductory class in probability and statistics.

In quantum theory the cause(s) is described by the mathematical equations, and determines the outcome - it's true that from our macroscopic perspective we have no adequate metaphor or analogy to bring to bear, so comprehension is both difficult and limited, but that is not relevant here.

Certainly confusing you. Ok - I'll drop it. As I noted long ago, when warning it off, the muddles of quantum theory make no difference to the thread topic.

This does - we can restart here: " P1: deterministic interactions are not free" That's an assumption. It's not granted.

Bizarre. You're not joking.
Ok, square one: a driver approaches a traffic light. They have the capability of stopping, the capability of going, and the capability of choosing according to the color of the light when they reach it. That's the state of the driver, as they approach the light. None of that is "illusion", right?

They don't appear to me, the researchers who investigate them, the instruments that record them, and the entities that react to them, as anything other than observed states.

I quoted your assumptions, and pointed at them.

There is one argument under discussion here, just one, and it's not different from itself.
Meanwhile: Yes, it does. Right there in front of you. It's labeled "P1", by the poster. The P stands for "Premise", and a premise is an assumption.
James has gone into great detail on that topic, apparently thinking you are able to follow reasoning etc - me, I'm just going to repeat the plain fact of the matter whenever it seems appropriate to remind you.

It is a premise of that argument - that one argument, the only one at issue.

Never did that. You lost track of your own argument, and didn't recognize it, is all.

Your language has gone slippery, as before when you went haywire - you seem to be trying again to have me claim that someone has assumed the existence of supernatural freedom.
What I claimed - and backed with multiple direct quotes - is that you guys are assuming only the supernatural can have freedom in a deterministic system - that to be free in such a system requires doing other than one (deterministically) must. You are thereby excluding, by assumption, all nonsupernatural freedom.

As far as "examining complexity" and whether that gives rise to "freedom", the many opportunities for that - all provided by me, alluded to by James - have been dismissed by you guys as "handwaving" and compared with thermostats and declared (without evidence or argument) to be nonexistent and trivial (both, by turns, even within one post).

But it isn't too late. The months I predicted months ago have passed - intellectual growth and insight are possible.

 

Yes it does. Read up on it.

 

Yes, according to the definition of deterministic. If it is not completely determined it is not deterministic. And probabilistic outcomes are not completely determined.

Then they are not free, per the definition, but they are also not deterministic. You are confusing the definitions of free and deterministic, presumably in your obsession with the "supernatural assumption".

Not completely, hence not deterministic.

That is the definition of probability, whether in quantum theory or anywhere else.

And the specific outcome is not fully determined by that cause. It could be any number of outcomes from within the probability function. Hence not deterministic.

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Why do you think the argument posted by baldeee et al start with the assumption of deterministic universe? So no, you didn't warn it off, and you don't get any moral high-ground from it. Rather pathetic attempt, to be honest.

So you continue to be dishonest, by not starting with the original argument but one that quite obviously starts with the conclusion of the previous. You can't help yourself, can you.

No, I'm not.

That's not the state of the driver. They only have the capability of one of those things. The others are counterfactual assessments of what could be possible if the inputs to the system were different than what they actually are. But this has been explained to you, and I no longer have any intention of rehashing.

Because they are not examining things from a philosophical point of view.

Already dealt with.

That's an argument that was posted here, one subsequent to the conclusions already reached. But you know this.

Convince yourself of that if you must. The dishonesty of what you did is on record.

No slipperiness, and I never went haywire. And I don't seem to be trying anything of the sort. Your comprehension is letting you down. Yet again.

I know what you claimed, and I know what you think you have supported it with, and each time your claim has been shown to be fallacious.

You have offered nothing to support it. Nothing to support the nature of the freedom being any different than that found in a thermostat. Which to me, and others, is a trivial nature of freedom. You have suggested it. You have appealed to complexity. And... nope, that's it. In fact you've used every opportunity to simply not examine it further. Instead of heading down the route you want you spin round and return to where you don't want to be.

And yet still here you are, trying to beat down a door with fallacious claims that we're assuming "supernatural freedom". You haven't grown, and you have offered no insight, just more of the same tiresome nonsense from you.

Offer something new and I may rejoin the conversation, but until then I have some paint to watch dry.

 

sounds like it's akin to saying that the universe is inherantly mathematics.
You do realize that the mass/energy of the universe is not encoded with probability mathematics don't you?
But then again perhaps you don't...hence this nonsensical endless debate.
I am still waiting for you to support your non-caused events statement....

 

You do realize that the mass/energy of the Universe is not encoded.

 

Perhaps you know of some uncaused events that Sarkus is rerrerring to?

 

Potentially everything since the quantum world ultimately rules everything. Quantum fluctuations, radioactive decay.

No one can "know" that something caused an uncaused event or it wouldn't be "unknown".

 

So we assume that the event is uncaused because we don't know the cause?

 

Actually I was reading up on spontaneous virtual particles emerging from the vacuum and how they appear to be un-caused. Appearances can be deceiving though. All the same I shall rest my case as I have found what I am looking for...and discussing causation for these virtual particles would go no where here.

 

Assuming a cause is a religious argument, then comes God as a first cause and then what caused God? If nothing caused God, the everything doesn't require a cause and you can take God out of the conversation.

This is similar to the watch in the forest argument. It's silly.