Defense of Freewill Against Determinism

@Amperage,

Amperage;146303 wrote:

experiments can tell us what MUST happen(in some cases) if we presuppose there ARE laws of nature which are set

can you agree to that?

You're trying to prove there are laws of nature. Presupposing what you're trying to prove is called begging the question.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146307 wrote:

You're trying to prove there are laws of nature. Presupposing what you're trying to prove is called begging the question.

how about a hypothesis?

You didn't answer the question.....IF we presuppose there are natural laws then, yes, experiments can tell us what must happen in certain experiments....Yes or No?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;146304 wrote:

And experiments can tell us what physically must happen.

No, they can't, for the reason I explained already. Experiments only tell us what physically does happen not what physically must happen.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146311 wrote:

No, they can't, for the reason I explained already. Experiments only tell us what physically does happen not what physically must happen.

That seems to be a mantra. But the question is whether the mantra is true. And I argued that if it were true there would be no point in conducting controlled experiments. If you don't agree, then please explain why controlled experiments are conducted. What is their point?

@Amperage,

Amperage;146310 wrote:

how about a hypothesis?

You didn't answer the question.....IF we presuppose there are natural laws then, yes, experiments can tell us what must happen in certain experiments....Yes or No?

Your question is irrelevant until you can prove there are laws of nature.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146311 wrote:

No, they can't, for the reason I explained already. Experiments only tell us what physically does happen not what physically must happen.

OK lets play a hypothetical game....are you ready?

let's assume that somehow someway it could be proven 100% unequivocally that there were indeed laws nature..

are you with me so far?

now with that in mind....if we knew without a doubt that there were laws of nature, don't you think we could conduct an experiment and at minimum show what something cannot do??

I will continue on if you can grant this....if you can not I don't see the point of continuing the debate

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;146313 wrote:

That seems to be a mantra. But the question is whether the mantra is true. And I argued that if it were true there would be no point in conducting controlled experiments. If you don't agree, then please explain why controlled experiments are conducted. What is their point?

Controlled experiments are conducted so that we can make sure we are detecting the regularity we think we are.

If I try to find a regularity in people being able to detect water with a stick then I better be testing that and not the regularity of the ideomotor response. That's why I need a double blind test.

Amperage;146317 wrote:

OK lets play a hypothetical game....are you ready?

let's assume that somehow someway it could be proven 100% unequivocally that there were indeed laws nature..

are you with me so far?

now with that in mind....if we knew without a doubt that there were laws of nature, don't you think we could conduct an experiment and at minimum show what something cannot do??

I will continue on if you can grant this....if you can not I don't see the point of continuing the debate

Again, this discussion is about you trying to prove there are laws of nature. I refuse to just assume it's true because anything that follows could not possibly be relevant to this discussion.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146241 wrote:

If you write down every possible string of 100 coin flips on a separate slip of paper:

THHTHTHTHHT...
THTHTHHTHTH...

Then one of those pieces of paper will also contain a string of 100 heads in a row. Also a string of 100 tails. Also a string of alternating heads and tails.

HHHHHHHHHHH...
TTTTTTTTTTT...
HTHTHTHTHTH...

In post #233 you said that science is about making predictions. But if something is truly random, like your coin flips, it is impossible to make any reliable predictions. You cannot predict from a string of 100 heads in a row that the next flip will be heads. The possibility of that is still 50%. And the possibility of the next 20 flips being heads is about one in a million.

So why do you believe that science makes, and will continue to make, reliable predictions? What grounds have you for believing that some things (as you said earlier) "will never happen"? It is no use saying that science has regularly made such predictions in the past. That is no guide to the future if the universe is random.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146319 wrote:

Again, this discussion is about you trying to prove there are laws of nature. I refuse to just assume it's true because anything that follows could not possibly be relevant to this discussion.

I disagree because the normal way something works is you assume it's true and then conduct experiments. If the data seems consistent then it's reasonable to conclude that your presupposition was correct. You can even go one step further and begin with a different presupposition and re-conduct the experiment....if the data is not consistent then your presupposition must have been wrong.

I'll give you an example of where this is done.....In my electronic circuits class I'm taking we are dealing with bipolar junction transistors and diodes.

when there are multiple diodes in a circuit you traditionally start with the presupposition that both diodes are active and begin working the problem....Now, one of the tenants of the way a diode works is that current can only flow in one direction, therefore, if after working the problem you notice you have a negative current running through one of the diodes, then your assumption is incorrect since current cannot flow in such a direction......therefore you need to make a different assumption(ie one or the other diodes is off) and rework the problem and then checking for consistency again.

this is an example of why it can be helpful to make a presupposition and then "work the problem" so to speak and check for consistencies. If we presuppose there are laws of nature we can run experiments based off that presupposition....if the experiments seem consistent then we can safely assume the presupposition was correct....and as I said if we want we can presuppose the opposite and re-conduct the experiment and see if things are still consistent....either they will or won't.

@ACB,

ACB;146322 wrote:

In post #233 you said that science is about making predictions. But if something is truly random, like your coin flips, it is impossible to make any reliable predictions. You cannot predict from a string of 100 heads in a row that the next flip will be heads. The possibility of that is still 50%. And the possibility of the next 20 flips being heads is about one in a million.

So why do you believe that science makes, and will continue to make, reliable predictions? What grounds have you for believing that some things (as you said earlier) "will never happen"? It is no use saying that science has regularly made such predictions in the past. That is no guide to the future if the universe is random.

This is not about whether or not induction is reliable. It's about the difference between these two statements.

1. Nothing ever does accelerate faster than the speed of light.
2. Nothing ever can accelerate faster than the speed of light.

I am not questioning the truth of (1). Whether or not (1) will continue to be true is not under scrutiny. My claim is that even if (1) is true, it doesn't imply (2). Furthermore, even if induction was perfectly reliable, all it could ever establish would be the truth of (1). Which, as just mentioned, doesn't imply (2).

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146324 wrote:

This is not about whether or not induction is reliable. It's about the difference between these two statements.

1. Nothing ever does accelerate faster than the speed of light.
2. Nothing ever can accelerate faster than the speed of light.

I am not questioning the truth of (1). Whether or not (1) will continue to be true is not under scrutiny. My claim is that even if (1) is true, it doesn't imply (2). Furthermore, even if induction was perfectly reliable, all it could ever establish would be the truth of (1). Which, as just mentioned, doesn't imply (2).

But if the universe is random, there is no reason at all to believe that (1) will continue to be true. But you do seem to believe this. Why?

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146324 wrote:

This is not about whether or not induction is reliable. It's about the difference between these two statements.

1. Nothing ever does accelerate faster than the speed of light.
2. Nothing ever can accelerate faster than the speed of light.

I am not questioning the truth of (1). Whether or not (1) will continue to be true is not under scrutiny. My claim is that even if (1) is true, it doesn't imply (2). Furthermore, even if induction was perfectly reliable, all it could ever establish would be the truth of (1). Which, as just mentioned, doesn't imply (2).

Yes, you seem to think that as long as it is logically possible for something to go faster than light that it is true that it is possible for it to go faster than light. But that is not true, since it is logically possible for anything to go faster than the speed of light, but yet, it is not (physically) possible for anything to go faster than light. Just as you seem to think that if it is logically possible for a person to jump 100 feet into the air, that it is (physically) possible to do so. You simply refuse to recognize a distinction between logical and physical possibility. But why, I don't know.

@ACB,

ACB;146329 wrote:

But if the universe is random, there is no reason at all to believe that (1) will continue to be true. But you do seem to believe this. Why?

That's irrelevant to this discussion, as I just explained. Though I did answer this question once before I don't feel like derailing the thread again.

kennethamy;146332 wrote:

it is not (physically) possible for anything to go faster than light

You know this how?

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146333 wrote:

That's irrelevant to this discussion, as I just explained. Though I did answer this question once before I don't feel like derailing the thread again.

But the question of predictability is highly relevant. If you believe that events can be reliably predicted, then you cannot consistently believe that the universe is random. The following statements are contradictory:

1. Some logically possible future events are more likely than others (i.e. the universe is predictable).

2. All logically possible future events are equally likely (i.e. the universe is random).

And if the universe is not random, does it follow that it is governed by laws, or is there some other alternative? I don't know, but I certainly think the question is relevant to this thread, and I'd like to see it discussed. Much of the discussion in this thread so far has been going round in circles.

@ACB,

ACB;146350 wrote:

But the question of predictability is highly relevant. If you believe that events can be reliably predicted, then you cannot consistently believe that the universe is random. The following statements are contradictory:

1. Some logically possible future events are more likely than others (i.e. the universe is predictable).

2. All logically possible future events are equally likely (i.e. the universe is random).

The universe can be both predictable and random. If nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light, not because there is a law but randomly, then we will be able to predict that nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light even though the universe is random.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146354 wrote:

The universe can be both predictable and random. If nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light, not because there is a law but randomly, then we will be able to predict that nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light even though the universe is random.

You are using "random" in an uncommon way. Here is a dictionary look-up. ACB is quite correct.

random - Wiktionary

random (comparative more random, superlative most random)
Positive
random

Comparative
more random

Superlative
most random

Having unpredictable outcomes and, in the ideal case, all outcomes equally probable; resulting from such selection; lacking statistical correlation. The flip of a fair coin is purely random.The newspaper conducted a random sample of five hundred American teenagers.The results of the field survey look random by several different measures.
(mathematics) Of or relating to probability distribution. A toss of loaded dice is still random, though biased.
(computing) Pseudorandom in contrast to truly random; mimicking the result of random selection. The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
(colloquial) Representative and undistinguished; typical and average. A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
(colloquial) Apropos of nothing; lacking context; unexpected; having apparent lack of plan, cause, or reason. That was a completely random comment.The teacher's bartending story was interesting, but random.The narrative takes a random course.

@Emil,

Emil;146365 wrote:

all outcomes equally probable

This is the definition I'm using. Is there a problem with it? If I randomly select from all possible universes one of those possible universes is that in which nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light.

Emil;146365 wrote:

The flip of a fair coin is purely random.

This was the example I gave earlier. Was there a problem with it? If we select from every possible infinite string of fair coin flips there is a possible string of infinite heads. That kind of huge coincidence is analogous to a universe where nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light.

@ACB,

ACB;146350 wrote:

if the universe is not random, does it follow that it is governed by laws, or is there some other alternative?

That would depend on what's meant by a law, in any case, there's no reason to suppose that a world as predictable as ours is determined.

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;146368 wrote:

This is the definition I'm using. Is there a problem with it? If I randomly select from all possible universes one of those possible universes is that in which nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light.

Why do you believe that this universe is one in which nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light, rather than one in which that is true up to the year 2010 and false thereafter?

Night Ripper;146368 wrote:

This was the example I gave earlier. Was there a problem with it? If we select from every possible infinite string of fair coin flips there is a possible string of infinite heads. That kind of huge coincidence is analogous to a universe where nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light.

Why would you believe that the present string of heads will be infinite, rather than end on the next flip?

@ACB,

ACB;146383 wrote:

Why do you believe that this universe is one in which nothing ever accelerates faster than the speed of light, rather than one in which that is true up to the year 2010 and false thereafter?

Why would you believe that the present string of heads will be infinite, rather than end on the next flip?

You're asking me why I rely on induction. The answer is because there can be no other better strategy for predicting the future.

Quote:

The pragmatic approach to the problem of induction associated with Hans Reichenbach and Herbert Feigl, that tries to show not that inductively based conclusions will be true, nor even that they will probably be true, but instead that there can be no other better strategy for predicting the future, or generalizing from evidence: induction will do well if anything at all will. An analogy is being stranded on a desert island with the opportunity to float off a bottle with a note requesting rescue: it may not be knowable how probable it is that this action will be successful, but it may be known that it will be successful if anything is, and hence the strategy is rational.

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