Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?

Not the process, the freedom. This has been explained to you, and others, repeatedly. Yet you seem to see the word "illusion" and run amok with it.

That is indeed where the flexibility is, but there is no freedom within it - and the issue is whether there is freedom in that process, not whether the process exists or not. So no, the issue is not with the process but with the nature of the freedom within that process.

Mwa ha ha ha!! Seriously? After all the countless times you have tried to use that example you are now saying that I was the one who posted it? Oh, wow, you just get funnier each day! Search for "traffic light" in the search function above and see who first used it in these threads.

That situation has been dealt with over and over again. No key detail was changed, although key details were identified that you perhaps missed. No basics were screwed with.
And you accuse me of denying things in front of me! Oh, the irony!

There is zero question begging, as explained to you many times, and as you yourself have amply demonstrated each time you have tried to show it as an assumption and failed (other than with your dishonest reformulation).

I haven't defined anything as supernatural. It certainly is concluded as not possible in a deterministic universe. But I guess if I define "freedom" to be something else, maybe we can get comfortable that it indeed exists. Shall we do that? Oh, wait, you already have.
Just a pity that I don't see any freedom in your definition. And just as you say that the definition originally used was not granted, yours certainly isn't. Deal with it and move on. If you want to discuss your notion, go for it. Noone is stopping you.

No, I try to treat his words as he intends them, and debate him on that.

So despite I, and others, clarifying again and again and again, what we mean by "illusion" in this context (i.e. along the lines of appearing to work contrary to the impossible), you (and others) continue to use it differently. So while I and others consider the freedom in our free will to be illusory (because it appears to offer the freedom that is concluded as being impossible in a deterministic universe) such things as the observer, conclusions, determinism, are not illusions. There is no appearance of what has been concluded as impossible. That is why QQ's comments to Baldeee in that regard are simply wrong, and nothing more than an exercise in avoidance.
For you to also argue the same, despite the numerous explanations of the use of the word in context, shows how little you have actually been paying attention to the conversation over the various threads.

I could consider them to be about who will win the upcoming Rugby World Cup, but that would be as fallacious. As said, I will wait for QQ to actually explain his theory, his position, his arguments, in a manner that I can understand and that makes sense to me. Until then, if I see a contradiction I will raise it with him. If I think he has misunderstood something, I will tell him. If I think he has muddled his thinking, I will point that out. If his house is built on quicksand, it is not for me to insist he move it to a place he might not want it to be. It is up to him to recognise on what he has built his house and to move it. Maybe for him it is not quicksand. Maybe it is just a thin layer of shifting sands but sound bedrock underneath, and he actually knows what he's talking about. But to tell him what he should be thinking, how he should be formulating what he is trying to get across? No, you're not here to discuss with QQ.

 

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I look forward to it. Only you've offered nothing thus far. And you've simply been wrong, and dishonestly so on occasion.

The exclusion is only concluded, not assumed. Even you have failed (your dishonest attempt aside) to go from the two premises to the exclusion without reaching it as a conclusion. If one defines Socrates as a human, and all humans to be mortal, surely that is also simply defining Socrates as a mortal, right? And thus to conclude that Socrates is a mortal is simple question-begging, right? In fact, every single valid argument, according to you, would be question begging, because the conclusion will be within the premises.
Three threads I've had to endure your pointless fallacious prattle about this. Three threads. And you accuse me of being obsessed!

Once again, you can only conclude that to do other than one must is supernatural once you have concluded that within the universe in question it is impossible to do other than one must. So no, we have not assumed no supernatural actions. What is it about this most basic of logical syllogism baffles you so, that you confuse conclusion for assumption.

And Socrates was defined as human. Hello!

OMG! You now accept that the conclusion was arrived at. That it has been visible to readers from the get go. Including you. And STILL you accuse me of assuming it. WTF is wrong with you? For you to keep insisting that the conclusion was assumed within the definition is, given that you have here openly admitted that it is actually a conclusion and that you knew this from the outset, just simply gobsmacking in how dishonest you have been.
But hey, for someone who must think it question begging to conclude that Socrates is mortal, maybe it is just stupidity on your part. But stupidity that has steamrollered through three threads.

The definition, yes, but the conclusion that it is impossible remains the conclusion. In and of itself that definition of freedom is not impossible. In a deterministic universe it is impossible, as concluded. In a universe in which there is no "must" it is not, for example. So FFS enough of your bs already! Go argue with someone else about how one question begs that Socrates is mortal! Because that's what you're doing. That's what you've openly admitted you're doing given that you've admitted that it was a conclusion arrived at, and a conclusion visible to all readers from the get go.

There is argument. I suggest you go back and read them. The logic of it was accepted rather early on, and given that we have since been talking about deterministic universe almost exclusively, and it had been concluded from such an early point that such freedom was impossible within a deterministic universe... well, you get the picture, I'm sure.

Two reasons: 1. the definition is neutral with regard whether it exists or not. It is only when coupled with a deterministic universe that one can conclude that it doesn't exist in such. So there is no reason to justify the definition as a supernatural ability, because it in and of itself is not. 2. the supernatural doesn't exist! Why identify something that doesn't exist as being supernatural? The freedom, as defined, is concluded as not existing, and that is as far as one needs to go. If it is concluded that it doesn't exist then it doesn't exist.
But you then bring up that we're saying it is therefore supernatural. This whole issue of the supernatural is nothing but an utter red-herring you have perpetrated in each thread.

 

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It is not neutral with regard to whether freedom is supernatural. It directly defines freedom to be supernatural. That is the supernatural assumption. It is not granted. It's a bad, unworkable, medieval presumption.

There is another way: you can assume that within the universe in question it is impossible to do other than one must. That's what everybody here did - including you.
We have all explicitly assumed your definition of a deterministic universe, remember? Your definition of a deterministic universe is an assumption of every post in this thread by everyone.

Yes, we have. You and everybody. It's your definition of a deterministic universe that we agreed to assume.

Pointing to your assumptions is dishonesty?

? I was gently - sort of - mocking you for obliviously "arriving at" a conclusion you had first built into your definitions and assumptions.

Apparently, I'm being too polite to people who can't read English or follow simple arguments - it just confuses them.
I will try to be more clear, in the future.

My example was clearly posted.
Your various attempts to change it, in every single response to it you posted

- from a driver approaching a light of unknown color to a driver stopping at a red light, for example above, which you are apparently too fucking stupid to even notice is a major change involving the central issue -

are all documented.

You have never - not once, anywhere - dealt with that example as posted. Neither has Baldee, Write, or any of the naive materialist cadre here.
(And bizarre as this sounds, we are gradually being forced to recognize that this may be because they simply don't comprehend it. It doesn't register. The issues involved are invisible to them. They don't know what it's an example of, or why it was posted. The supernatural assumption has shorted their brains somehow. I did try to make things simple, but responses like this comical knot-jamming keep showing up - this is just lately, dozens of posts and three threads in, and look at it:

Whatever the roots of that comedy, they aren't in having followed the argument or considered the examples. You appear to have forgotten even which assumption you don't want to admit having made (hint: it wasn't nonexistence of freedom).

Built into the definition - which we did not agree to, which was not granted, and which was and remains a central undecided issue.
That form of argument is called "assuming the consequent", and it is a logical fallacy.
That approach - pretending to settle an argument by reframing it, defining the terms to suit yourself - is essentially political.

You have posted that deflection several times. Do you remember the routine correction?

Here it is again: Freedom is supernatural only - by definition, by assumption - in your posts. You make that assumption.
Meanwhile, in all the arguments here, your definition of a deterministic universe has also been assumed.

So you have made two assumptions, in your argument: that freedom is supernatural only, and that nothing supernatural exists. The second was granted, the first is a central issue of debate and argument on this thread.

If the question at hand were whether or not all men are mortal, or whether Socrates was a man, then yes - of course, that argument would beg the question. Just as yours does here.

Not the process or the freedom, in that sentence: the capabilities.
It's a short sentence, and "capabilities" was the only object noun in it. You can't have missed it.
The contents of my posts are not interchangeable with whatever screwed up shit pops into your head. When I point out that you have also denied the entire process on occasion, and you have most diligently and repeatedly denied the freedom involved, I will use those terms - count on it.
Remember the situation you have yet to address: "The driver approaches a traffic light- - - - "
It overlaps QQ's aberrant "self determination" setup. Consider the driver as a "self", and what the driver determines as the effects of what they do - to their self or anything else in the universe.

 

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And so you chose to argue against the weak presentation, in which QQ not only used aberrant and confusing definitions of terms such as "self-determination" but (crucially) agreed to accept the supernatural assumption, the "definition" of freedom you use as a logical premise: that freedom in a deterministic universe means - by definition - the ability to contravene natural law, break the causal chain, do other than what one must do. (Notice that QQ - who has made the same assumption - thinks that Sarkus has not posted any clear definition of freedom. That assumption seems to be lethal to reason).

Freedom is thereby defined/assumed to be supernatural, only, by QQ and you, and since we have assumed the supernatural does not exist (we assumed a deterministic universe) the bogus "conclusion" follows.

The stronger form, in which QQ's observation of the ability of the universe to produce a "self" that includes self-referential determinations of event makes the degrees of freedom possessed by such an entity significant, you simply and arbitrarily ignore.

It is observed, along with how it works. Adjust your definitions/assumptions accordingly, in a science based forum.

Your definition is not neutral with respect to whether freedom is supernatural. It directly defines it to be supernatural.

 

well stated...

 

At this point in the “debate” I am surprised that anyone other than Iceaura can be blinkered enough to still think it is an assumption, despite demonstrably being a conclusion (unless one dishonestly reformulates the argument, of course).

Fallacious argument, but thanks. Your willing or otherwise, your claimed lack of patience, is irrelevant. And if you claim it is not intended as an argument, then why post it. Appeal to emotion, perhaps? Clearly, if you’ve lost patience then you must be right, I guess?

You mean once you ignore everything else they have said,

Now, Sarkus has spent most of his time in this thread complaining that his conclusion (3) is not an "assumption" but a real conclusion. This is the case, he insists, because he requires the two premises (1) and (2), and not merely premise (1). And he's right in this purely logical sense.[/quote]While that is my conclusion, it is not my argument. Or at least not in its entirety. You see, I never started with (1) as the premise. That is your mistake. It is iceaura’s mistake, the one he has repeated ad infinitum it seems (other than when reformulating the syllogism entirely).

Try reading the thread, JamesR, rather than what you think are the highlights. I have been stressing not the truth of premise (2) (because it is not true) but merely that it is the premise, and only in situations when it is apparent that one is trying to assert something else. For example when QQ is trying to sneak in indeterminism.

Yet since you are dishonestly analysing an argument that is not mine (you have simplified it so as to wrap up a previous argument into your premise (1)) it is not surprising you are reaching the conclusion you want to reach.
Premise (1) as you call it is a conclusion that stems from the definition of freedom and the nature of determinism. To thus wrap that up as a premise, and to think it is considered an axiom of all things, is simply deliberately fallacious on your part.

None. Neither of us consider it axiomatic (although I hope I am not doing Baldeee a disservice by saying as much on his behalf).

…
This, I believe, is a fair summary of Sarkus's and Baldeee's argument against free will, such as it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong.[/quote]Sure, you are wrong. Correct in parts, though. It actually all stems from the definition of freedom: along the lines of “ability to do otherwise”. And from the nature of determinism, where it can be shown that there is no such ability to do otherwise, hence predetermination etc. If you want me to unpack how determinism does not allow the ability to do otherwise then let me know, but that much I would hope should be accepted with minimal fuss?
So:
P1: Freedom is the ability to do otherwise
P2: A deterministic system does not allow the ability to do otherwise
C: A deterministic system is not free

See, the issue is not whether the process of freewill exists. It does. It is a question of whether that process is free.
And if we assume that the will is a deterministic system then from C above...

I have also been quite clear that if one takes another notion of freedom then one can reach different conclusions. Presumably you are omitting that from your analysis?

No, it is most definitely a conclusion, one that stems from the definition of “free” and the nature of determinism within a system. As per above.
The definition of freedom assumed does not preclude its actual existence. So one can not say, as iceaura (and you) constantly bleats, that is to assume the supernatural. It is only when coupled with the second premise (deterministic system) that one can conclude that it does not exist within such a system.
It is only when you, as you have done here, wrap up that conclusion into a following argument, and assume that to be the starting point, can one claim it to be an assumption. But that is, as clearly demonstrated here, wrong.

Alas your comments now are losing any relevance, based as they are on your incorrect analysis.
The argument is actually over the definition of “free” being used. Iceaura has claimed it to be assuming the supernatural, I disagree. And as can be seen above, I am right: it is only when combining the definition used with the nature of determinism can one assess whether something can be “free” (as defined) or not.
Of course, given that you are mixing and merging arguments it’s easy to make conclusions from one into assumptions of another, and then decry them for being assumptions.

Hopefully this will put to rest the rather ruinous focus on the fallacious claim of “assuming the supernatural”. Somehow I doubt it will.

... (to be cont’d)

 

... part 2

He has provided examples of a process at work. A process no one disputes. He has, at no stage, provided any notion of freedom within that process that is not also within a thermostat (which Baldeee, then I, badged as being a trivial notion of freedom as a result). And all he has offered by way of differentiation between the nature of freedom between the will and the thermostat is an appeal to complexity.
Despite your lengthy yet inaccurate analysis, the argument has always been about what it means to be “free”. And while iceaura (or others) simply bleats about the notion used “assuming supernatural freedom” the discussion with him will get nowhere. He has offered “degrees of freedom” as an alternative, which, as stated, leaves a thermostat being “free”, but crucially it is still unable to do otherwise.
But from the outset I have maintained that a different notion of “free” will get you to a different conclusion. So you trying to claim a higher ground for iceaura because he has offered a different notion and reached a different conclusion does bring a smile to my face.

And since your 1* is not an assumption either of us have made... your analysis needs revisiting.
It is “illusory” because it appears to offer something (an ability to do otherwise) that has been concluded to be impossible in a deterministic universe. Just as a magician’s trick is an illusion when it appears to defy physics.
No, we need to establish nothing. The logic speaks for itself. It is not illusory as a process. It is not illusory if one takes the notion of “free” that iceaura is using. It is “illusory” with regard the “free” as defined in the original argument that Baldeee put forth, and that he and I, and others, are considering, the notion that “free” is the ability to do otherwise.

No one is arguing about premises that everyone accepts. Only when the opponent appears to be wandering away from what has been accepted will those premises be reminded to them. Sometimes it is necessary to show how something they have said goes against a logical implication of one of those accepted assumptions. If you see that as wasting time, so be it. But maybe this discussion can progress without need to mention those accepted premises if everyone can abide by those premises and the logical consequences of them.

There is also no need to advance my (or Baldeee’s) argument. It is what it is. The position is clear. The flag is in the ground. It remains despite fallacious arguments to the contrary, it remains despite accusations that it assumes a supernatural freedom, it remains despite everything thrown at it thus far. Maybe the rebuttals against it can instead advance?

Alternatively, and here’s an idea I haven’t offered at least a dozen times before: maybe if people want to discuss a different notion of freedom they do just that, and stop trying to attack a position that doesn’t use that different notion. Splendid would that be, eh? People not fallaciously arguing against a position they don’t seem to want to continue discussing, and moving on to a notion they do. But instead we just get repeated claims of “supernatural assumption” and nothing new.

But on a side point, why are you, as iceaura has done beforehand, using QQ’s thread to continue a discussion that is better suited to the two previous threads on the matter? Being a moderator, are you not effectively telling QQ that the focus of the thread is no longer important compared to you and iceaura continuing your fallacious claims?

 

No disservice noted here.
I think your entire post/s is pretty much spot on.
Saves me having to rip it apart as well.

As you say, the issue has always been one of the definition of “freedom”, as “ability to do otherwise/ other than what one must” or words to that effect.
This definition in itself is not an assumption of the supernatural.
As you rightly point out, it is only when an additional premise is brought in with regard the nature of the universe can one say that in such a universe that notion of freedom does not exist.
A conclusion, quite clearly.
Yet even on the question of the definition I originally began with, examples were subsequently given that were claimed to show just such an ability, which suggested all the while that the definition had been accepted.
However, when issues such as predetermination or counterfactuals where raised to highlight how the “ability” was actually no such thing and merely an appearance/illusion of the ability, and that what were they were talking about was no different than the freedom seen in a thermostat (able to switch on or off), well, I think it was clear we lost most of the room.
Ah, well.
As you highlight, it is odd that rather than simply go to another room to discuss what they want to, they keep popping in to have another go with the same already-rebutted arguments, and the same old “supernatural assumption” malarkey, irrespective of which thread it is.
Easier, at that point, to simply ignore.
You should give it a go, although I admire your persistence and patience in the matter in clearly explaining to them their mistakes and how their reasoning is fallacious.
I also find it humorous that it is expected of us to “advance their [our] argument”.

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Toward what, exactly?
A position we don’t hold?

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You can't ignore a site administrator...
I thought James post was pretty strong. Very close to the mark.

 

so true and unfortunately we are seeing a lot of it in this thread...

is the bit of reasoning they are unable to deal with unfortunately.. not for our benefit but for theirs..for their own edification.

 

Why would I do that?

It doesn’t surprise me that you do think that.
Unfortunately it starts from incorrect beginnings, and as a result the bulk of it ends up pretty irrelevant.
See Sarkus’ reply to it.
(There are a couple of places his [quoting] goes awry slightly, but it is clear enough.)

 

A deterministic system allows for ability (physical skill) to do otherwise, but does not allow you to do otherwise than what you do.

 

Clearly, but since you are just going round the houses and adding nothing new to what has been argued, and rebutted, before, I refer the honourable gentleman to the previous posts on the matter.
But to humour you on specific points:

You are continuing the same fallacy as before, despite best efforts to show you that you are wrong. It is a conclusion. It is only when you couple the definition used with the assumption of the deterministic universe can you conclude that the freedom does not exist. Or, as you and iceaure would rather say "it assumes the supernatural".
As I pointed out to iceaura, one can no more state is an assumption than one can say that defining Socrates is human is to assume up front that he is mortal. No. It is only when you combine the premises can you end up with the conclusion of that freedom not existing.
What is it with regard this that you're not able to grasp? What is it that causes you to insist, as iceaura has done before you, that it is an assumption?

In a deterministic universe we have concluded that it is not possible to have the ability to do otherwise. Period. End of story. Of course, change the definition of the notion of "free" then you can reach any conclusion you want. That much was stated at the outset.

And you'd be wrong, for all the reasons already given in the three threads on the matter thus far. Of course, you have simply stated that the person is different to a thermostat, but you have failed to do anything but beg the question you are trying to answer in doing so. A thermostat similarly already has the same notion of ability to be on or off depending on the temperature. This is trivial, and is not a matter of freedom but flexibility. A thermostat reacts to inputs in the only way it can. Similarly a human reacts to inputs in the only way it can. It can not do otherwise. What we perceive as an ability is therefore just that: a perception, an illusion.

Lack of knowledge doesn't create the ability. The action the driver takes is set in stone. So your reasoning here is a non sequitur.

Sure, he goes through a process of choice, a process that noone has denied. But the choice is just the manner of converting the input into the one output that it was always going to be, that it was predetermined to be from the outset. The person didn't know that, so if anything that merely highlights that our sense / illusion of "free" is due to lack of knowledge, not that the lack of knowledge creates an ability.

But hey, I'm just repeating what has been repeated many times before. Repeating it here won't get you any further.

I'm content to stop at saying it is not possible. No need to invoke what everyone has confirmed does not exist.

What do you not understand of such basic logic that you end up utterly butchering what I have said???
The translation you put here is simply absurd, as you can only conclude that once you have also premised the nature of the universe. Until you do that, how do you know what the laws of physics are, or how they operate (deterministically or indeterministically).
To continue this pathetic line that you are peddling is disappointing in the extreme. And you wonder why I get frustrated!

And you have adequately detailed the horrendous flaw in your thinking that led you to the incorrect analysis. Well done. Now please correct it.

Suffice it to say that you can continue your fallacious analysis all you want, but it's not going to get you anywhere, nor endear yourself to those you are conversing with.

 

Noone has defined it as having to act supernaturally. Period. Deal with it, not some butchered version you have come up with.

Why do I need another notion of freedom? Do you normally reach a conclusion, not like it, and then redefine what words mean until you get a warm and fuzzy feeling? No, I have a notion of freedom I am quite content with. And the logic concludes that it does not exist in a deterministic universe. From there we can perhaps start to understand exactly what we experience as this illusion of having a free choice etc.

Utter rubbish. I am not the one in a rut. It seems very much that you and iceaura are as you can't seem to stop coming up with fallacious analysis and reasoning by way of criticism. And who are you to determine what is "true free will"? Is it that you don't like the notion of it being an illusion with regard the notion of freedom as defined?

No it's not! It was stated in the initial argument put forward by Baldeee. It is a conclusion, plain and simple. By itself one can not claim it assumes that it exists or not. It is actually you, and iceaura, that are trying to wriggle your way out of this fallacious accusation you have repeatedly thrown around these threads about the incompatibilist position. You are trying to backtrack and now agree that it is a conclusion, but then trying to avoid having to back down in such a shame-faced manner you simply merge that conclusion into the assumptions. Disgraceful behaviour.

No, that is not a requirement, and it is disingenuous to require it for the logic to stand, and for the conclusion to stand as such. I have no idea what other indeterministic universes are capable of. But that doesn't mean it isn't a possibility. And unless you can show that it is an impossibility, you have no leg to stand on here.

You don't think a thermostat has a degree of freedom??? Note, I said that he has failed to offer any notion that is not also found in a thermostat. Degrees of freedom are. So no, I missed nothing.

I'm all for someone to show how complexity actually provides a nature of freedom that is not found in a thermostat, but all we have had are appeals to complexity, hand-waving about logical levels. Nothing else. You want to offer more, go for it.

Why? I make no assumption at the outset that free will is free, and the conclusion I reach is that it is not. Does that mean the phenomenon disappears? No. It means the understanding of it differs, that is all.

Your flippancy is pathetic. If iceaura actually manages to put together something other than an appeal to complexity, perhaps there would be something to discuss. But so far? No. And are we to just gasp at the word "complexity" and treat it as the God of the gaps in this regard? Maybe you are happy to?

It's the conclusion, JamesR. If you can't see that by now then you are in as much of a coffin in this matter as iceaura. It would be a rut, but most people can get out of those.

What is garbage, exactly, about "ability to do otherwise"? Is it only when you get to the conclusion that it can't exist in a deterministic universe that you consider it garbage?

I am not oblivious to the assumptions I have made. Nor am I oblivious to the nonsense that you are peddling, as evidenced in our conversation thus far.
But what is this "we" you are talking about? I'm not stopping people discussing such things if that is what they want to do. I have no particular intention of discussing a notion of freedom found in a thermostat, as I have already said countless times. But why does that stop other people having that discussion? All I've ever been doing is answering criticism of the position I have, and explaining why I think their analysis of it is flawed. So go and have that other discussion, JamesR, I'm not going to stop you.

The obvious one would be the "does physics disprove the existence of free will?" thread. That's the one I think already filled with the same fallacious nonsense that you and iceaura are regurgitating, so may as well just add it there.

 

We have not. and that is the point.
Only you and Baldeee and other devoted hard determinists have. ( fatalists)
We are arguing that we can have the ability to do other wise, with out "violating the laws of physics" in a deterministic universe.

Compare three statements:

1. In a deterministic universe we have concluded that it is not possible to have the ability to do otherwise. ( NOT possible -Hard determinism)
2. In a deterministic universe we have concluded that it is possible to have the ability to do otherwise. (possible - Compatibilism)
   
3. In a deterministic universe we have concluded that it is essential to have the ability to do otherwise. (Essential - Co-determinism)

WE have not agreed with your conclusion which is why there is debate.

You may be prematurely presuming agreement with your hard deterministic conclusion, when in fact it is your conclusion that is in dispute.

btw I am still trying to figure out how a hydrogen atom or any other particle... , can effect my decisions in such a devastating fashion....

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