Defense of Freewill Against Determinism

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Fil Albuquerque
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 12:21 pm
 
tomr
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 04:23 pm
@ughaibu,
Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 05:44 pm
@tomr,
tomr wrote:

Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.


Being able to predict a system doesn't prove that it's deterministic. See the previous thought experiment involving coin flips. In the completely random universe you are still able to predict the string of coin flips forever.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 05:51 pm
@Night Ripper,
Night Ripper wrote:

tomr wrote:

Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.


Being able to predict a system doesn't prove that it's deterministic. See the previous thought experiment involving coin flips. In the completely random universe you are still able to predict the string of coin flips forever.


Predictability is consistent with indeterminism, but it does not follow that predictability is not good evidence for determinism.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 06:14 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:

tomr wrote:

Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.


Being able to predict a system doesn't prove that it's deterministic. See the previous thought experiment involving coin flips. In the completely random universe you are still able to predict the string of coin flips forever.


Predictability is consistent with indeterminism, but it does not follow that predictability is not good evidence for determinism.


Again, looking at the previous example, in either universe, deterministic or random, the same pattern holds and is predictable. You could very well be sitting in the random universe and yet claim that you have good evidence to think otherwise. So, your good evidence is rather unreliable and therefore not very "good".
 
Pepijn Sweep
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 06:18 pm
@Night Ripper,
Ignore Me Ignor U
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 06:51 pm
@Night Ripper,
Night Ripper wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:

tomr wrote:

Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.


Being able to predict a system doesn't prove that it's deterministic. See the previous thought experiment involving coin flips. In the completely random universe you are still able to predict the string of coin flips forever.


Predictability is consistent with indeterminism, but it does not follow that predictability is not good evidence for determinism.


Again, looking at the previous example, in either universe, deterministic or random, the same pattern holds and is predictable. You could very well be sitting in the random universe and yet claim that you have good evidence to think otherwise. So, your good evidence is rather unreliable and therefore not very "good".


Again, you are simply repeating that predictability is consistent with randomness (or at least what you call "randomness"). But that does not meet my point that even if it is consistent with "randomness" it is excellent evidence against it. Consider this analogy: my holding a smoking gun in my hand, with a dead body at my feet, is consistent with my innocence. It is not logically impossible that I should be innocent even given the evidence. But does that mean that the smoking gun is not excellent evidence that I am guilty of the murder? That E is consistent with ~P does not imply that E isn't evidence for P. (Just as although high correlation is consistent with no causation doesn't mean that high correlation is not evidence for causation).
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 06:58 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:

tomr wrote:

Quote:
Rubbish. The denier must surely be aware that disinterested readers can see that they are misrepresenting reality, not just about the matter of primary denial but in their willingness to swear that black is white in support of that denial. You are now the third denier in the last few days to make statements which can be confirmed as false, by anyone reading these threads. This puts the credibility of your position at less than zero.


It is easy to call someones argument rubbish and say they are misrepresenting reality without any argument. You have not convinced me or anyone else that has seen that a pattern of increasing accuracy of prediction occurs with more knowledge of that system that this pattern could not be followed to the conclusion of having complete knowledge of a system gives us the ability to predict it. This is of course outside our ability if that requires infinite knowledge. But that conclusion is staring you straight in the face and all you can say is thats rubbish.

What if we had two human clones and from conception put them in as close of identical environments as possible. I would suspect that there would be a close correlation in the actions taken by the two subjects. If as the identicalness of the clones perception of their environments increases the actions of the clones become more and more similar would you then agree that human beings are determined? Or would you talk about continuous ontology and try to cast impossible conditions on top of the clear evidence.


Being able to predict a system doesn't prove that it's deterministic. See the previous thought experiment involving coin flips. In the completely random universe you are still able to predict the string of coin flips forever.


Predictability is consistent with indeterminism, but it does not follow that predictability is not good evidence for determinism.


Again, looking at the previous example, in either universe, deterministic or random, the same pattern holds and is predictable. You could very well be sitting in the random universe and yet claim that you have good evidence to think otherwise. So, your good evidence is rather unreliable and therefore not very "good".


Again, you are simply repeating that predictability is consistent with randomness (or at least what you call "randomness"). But that does not meet my point that even if it is consistent with "randomness" it is excellent evidence against it. Consider this analogy: my holding a smoking gun in my hand, with a dead body at my feet, is consistent with my innocence. It is not logically impossible that I should be innocent even given the evidence. But does that mean that the smoking gun is not excellent evidence that I am guilty of the murder? That E is consistent with ~P does not imply that E isn't evidence for P. (Just as although high correlation is consistent with no causation doesn't mean that high correlation is not evidence for causation).


A dead body and a smoking gun is not analogous to deciding if the universe is random or deterministic.
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 07:43 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:
Predictability is consistent with indeterminism, but it does not follow that predictability is not good evidence for determinism.
It's been explained, many times and at tedious length, why the degree of predictability observed is not any kind of evidence for determinism. In any case, you're probably off in your own world, and not actually talking about determinism.
 
Arjuna
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 09:05 pm
Thanks Fil!

Love the tubules.
 
Fil Albuquerque
 
Reply Sun 11 Jul, 2010 09:22 pm
@Arjuna,
You welcome, glad you like it ! (agreeing or not thereĀ“s allot to think there)
 
tomr
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 03:09 am
@ughaibu,
Quote:
It's been explained, many times and at tedious length, why the degree of predictability observed is not any kind of evidence for determinism. In any case, you're probably off in your own world, and not actually talking about determinism.


Then according to you there is no evidence for anything in the world.
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 03:21 am
@tomr,
tomr wrote:
Quote:
It's been explained, many times and at tedious length, why the degree of predictability observed is not any kind of evidence for determinism. In any case, you're probably off in your own world, and not actually talking about determinism.
Then according to you there is no evidence for anything in the world.
If you want this kind of comment to be taken seriously, you'll need to explain the inference by which you arrived at it.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 06:54 am
@ughaibu,
ughaibu wrote:

tomr wrote:
Quote:
It's been explained, many times and at tedious length, why the degree of predictability observed is not any kind of evidence for determinism. In any case, you're probably off in your own world, and not actually talking about determinism.
Then according to you there is no evidence for anything in the world.
If you want this kind of comment to be taken seriously, you'll need to explain the inference by which you arrived at it.


The question is not how you would explain a high degree of predictability unless causation was the explanation, since, of course, chance is an alternative explanation, and so is manipulation. The question is, however how you would explain a high degree of predictability unless causation was the most likely explanation, especially if chance and manipulation had been effectively eliminated by for example, a double-blind study. The issue is not whether causation is the only explanation, but whether it is the most likely explanation.
 
ughaibu
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 07:31 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:
The question is, however how you would explain a high degree of predictability unless causation was the most likely explanation
The question is nothing of the sort, as we're not talking about evidence for causation, we're talking about evidence for determinism.
 
north
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 02:45 pm

what is the essence then of being determined ?
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 02:52 pm
@ughaibu,
ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
The question is, however how you would explain a high degree of predictability unless causation was the most likely explanation
The question is nothing of the sort, as we're not talking about evidence for causation, we're talking about evidence for determinism.


Yes, I know you have this weird stuff about how causation has nothing to do with determinism that no one understands. I forgot.
 
Zetherin
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 03:10 pm
@ughaibu,
I thought determinism was the view that all events are causally determined.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 03:13 pm
@Zetherin,
Zetherin wrote:

I thought determinism was the view that all events are causally determined.


Yeah. So do I and most people I know. But you see, U. has this weird thing going. This has come up several times with U. but I find it incomprehensible. But, you know U.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Mon 12 Jul, 2010 03:20 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
The question is, however how you would explain a high degree of predictability unless causation was the most likely explanation
The question is nothing of the sort, as we're not talking about evidence for causation, we're talking about evidence for determinism.


Yes, I know you have this weird stuff about how causation has nothing to do with determinism that no one understands. I forgot.


It depends on what you mean by causation. If by "A causes B" you mean that B follows A regularly then causation is consistent with randomness. If you mean something more mysterious, involving necessity, it's untestable anyways.
 
 

 
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