kennethamy wrote:

TuringEquivalent wrote:

wayne wrote:

TuringEquivalent wrote:

wayne wrote:

TuringEquivalent wrote:

There is no free will. I am sorry kids. The world is deterministic, and it is governed by laws. What free will cannot be is some process that breaks from the laws that govern our world. Whatever, it is, it must obey the law, or else, it is just wrong.

I don't understand how you make the jump from the restriction of freewill, by the governing laws of reality, to the non-existence of freewill.
Freewill could very well exist within restrictions, no one said freewill need be omnipotent.

Well, most people i think imagine free willing as something that breaks with the laws. If this conception is true, then there is obvious no free will.

OK , that works fine, I can't say whether or not most people think that, but it doesn't matter. It is true that freewill must exist within the framework of laws governing existence, if it exists at all. I feel the same about miracles.
So far as I can see, though, there is no reason freewill cannot exist within those restrictions as a limited ability, relative to choice.

Perhaps you agree with this "John is not free, but john thinks he is free".

Well, it would depend on the circumstances. John might think he was free to marry Esmeralda or not, as he chose. But he really might be under the power of a powerful hypnotist, who is making him want to marry Esmeralda. In that case, he is not marrying Esmeralda freely.

But, on the other hand, if John met Esmeralda at a ball, and fell in love with her because of her beauty and her kindness (and the fact that her father is the CEO of Walmart's ) then he is marrying Esmeralda freely, because he wants to, and he is not compelled, then if John thinks he is free to marry Esmeralda (or not) he is (of course) right.

So, as I say, it depends.

This is gold! Why can ` t you replace the demon with the laws of physics? If you do, then by the very reasoning you use here would suggest, John is not free at all.

Jesus fucking christ, can you idiots cut out this crap of quoting the entire fucking conversation. Reading what you add to the discourse doesn't justify scrolling past the meaningless repetition.

U. I really worry about you and your extreme emotions about little things. How is your blood-pressure?

kennethamy wrote:

U. I really worry about you and your extreme emotions about little things. How is your blood-pressure?

1) you know nothing about my emotions
2) my blood pressure kicks shit
3) congratulations on the imaginative derail.

the term is also applied to scientific laws which describe (or so as not to beg any questions) supposed to describe what are called, "causal necessities" such as that heating metal causes metal to expand. And here, the view is that the strict Humean view that such a statement describe only a regularity, namely that the heating of metal is regularly followed by the expansion of the metal, is too weak to describe the relation between the heating of the metal and the expansion of the metal. That although it it is true that the heating is regularly followed by the expansion, to say this is not enough to describe what is really going on. There is a sense in which the expansion not only does regularly follow the heating, but that it must do so. Not in the logical sense of "must" which is logical necessity, but in a different physical sense of "must" which is the "must" of physical necessity. It is not simply an accident or a coincidence that the expansion follows the heating, but a sense in which (in normal circumstances) the expansion must follow the heating. And this "must" is not merely something located in the mind where Hume located it as a kind of subjective expectation, but rather is something located in the world and is objective.

On page 84 of this thread, you said the following about the term "prescriptive laws":

kennethamy wrote:

the term is also applied to scientific laws which describe (or so as not to beg any questions) supposed to describe what are called, "causal necessities" such as that heating metal causes metal to expand. And here, the view is that the strict Humean view that such a statement describe only a regularity, namely that the heating of metal is regularly followed by the expansion of the metal, is too weak to describe the relation between the heating of the metal and the expansion of the metal. That although it it is true that the heating is regularly followed by the expansion, to say this is not enough to describe what is really going on. There is a sense in which the expansion not only does regularly follow the heating, but that it must do so. Not in the logical sense of "must" which is logical necessity, but in a different physical sense of "must" which is the "must" of physical necessity. It is not simply an accident or a coincidence that the expansion follows the heating, but a sense in which (in normal circumstances) the expansion must follow the heating. And this "must" is not merely something located in the mind where Hume located it as a kind of subjective expectation, but rather is something located in the world and is objective.

But you now say (page 91):
"The man-made laws are prescriptive laws; the laws of nature are descriptive laws."

Can you clarify this point, please. Do you believe in physical necessity? And does physical necessity imply the existence of laws that are prescriptive in the sense referred to in the above quote?

For a variety of reasons this approach is fraught with problems, and the reasons explain why philosophers of science mostly prefer to drop the word “causal” from their discussions of determinism. Generally, as John Earman quipped (1986), to go this route is to “… seek to explain a vague concept—determinism—in terms of a truly obscure one—causation.” More specifically, neither philosophers' nor laymen's conceptions of events have any correlate in any modern physical theory.[1] The same goes for the notions of cause and sufficient cause. A further problem is posed by the fact that, as is now widely recognized, a set of events {A, B, C …} can only be genuinely sufficient to produce an effect-event if the set includes an open-ended ceteris paribus clause excluding the presence of potential disruptors that could intervene to prevent E. For example, the start of a football game on TV on a normal Saturday afternoon may be sufficient ceteris paribus to launch Ted toward the fridge to grab a beer; but not if a million-ton asteroid is approaching his house at .75c from a few thousand miles away, nor if the phone is about to ring with news of a tragic nature, …, and so on. Bertrand Russell famously argued against the notion of cause along these lines (and others) in 1912, and the situation has not changed. By trying to define causal determination in terms of a set of prior sufficient conditions, we inevitably fall into the mess of an open-ended list of negative conditions required to achieve the desired sufficiency.

More specifically, neither philosophers' nor laymen's conceptions of events have any correlate in any modern physical theory.[1] The same goes for the notions of cause and sufficient cause.

1.) Regarding determinism: You believe all the other sources we have cited in this thread are mistaken, and the only source that is relevant and accurate is the one you keep citing. Is this correct?

2.) I have read most of the article you linked, and I would like to quote a tidbit from section 2.1 that seems relevant to your viewpoint:

Stanford Encyclopedia wrote:

For a variety of reasons this approach is fraught with problems, and the reasons explain why philosophers of science mostly prefer to drop the word “causal” from their discussions of determinism. Generally, as John Earman quipped (1986), to go this route is to “… seek to explain a vague concept—determinism—in terms of a truly obscure one—causation.” More specifically, neither philosophers' nor laymen's conceptions of events have any correlate in any modern physical theory.[1] The same goes for the notions of cause and sufficient cause. A further problem is posed by the fact that, as is now widely recognized, a set of events {A, B, C …} can only be genuinely sufficient to produce an effect-event if the set includes an open-ended ceteris paribus clause excluding the presence of potential disruptors that could intervene to prevent E. For example, the start of a football game on TV on a normal Saturday afternoon may be sufficient ceteris paribus to launch Ted toward the fridge to grab a beer; but not if a million-ton asteroid is approaching his house at .75c from a few thousand miles away, nor if the phone is about to ring with news of a tragic nature, …, and so on. Bertrand Russell famously argued against the notion of cause along these lines (and others) in 1912, and the situation has not changed. By trying to define causal determination in terms of a set of prior sufficient conditions, we inevitably fall into the mess of an open-ended list of negative conditions required to achieve the desired sufficiency.

First, what are the reasons? The author says that there are reasons that thinking of determinism in local, causal terms is fraught with problems, but then doesn't explain what those reasons are. Seemingly he believes that quote from John Earman justifies his position. Or, is the only reason that, "By trying to define causal determination in terms of a set of prior sufficient conditions, we inevitably fall into the mess of an open-ended list of negative conditions required to achieve the desired sufficiency"? Can you explain what this means?

Next, I'd really like some evidence for this:

Stanford Encyclopedia wrote:

More specifically, neither philosophers' nor laymen's conceptions of events have any correlate in any modern physical theory.[1] The same goes for the notions of cause and sufficient cause.

There's certainly much more we have to go over, but let's start with this. And, to be honest, I'm starting to think you're the one that made the substantive revision of this article in January (). Don't you find it odd that almost every other source speaks of determinism in terms of causation?

But again, there are two issues. One is a factual one: to what extent do reputable sources agree that determinism is understandable in terms of causal laws, and to what extent do they not? According to my reading, and now according to yours) although U. claimed you agreed with him that they did not) they overwhelmingly believe that determinism is understandable in terms of causal laws. That is one issue.

The second issue is, of course, whether it is true or false that determinism is understandable in causal terms. The argument I have read, and the arguments U. has offered that determinism cannot be understood in terms of causation, are, it seems to me extremely weak. But I have to confess that I have only a dim understanding of them. Especially U's. And that is a second issue.

Even if we followed your logic that everything that is obvious needs no explanation (which is clearly false), how is everything being mathematically reducible obvious? Isn't it more obvious that, for instance, I can choose what I want for dinner tonight?

Does this make sense to you at all? It is not that complex.

Of course, as many use, "it is obvious" it is just a way of trying to persuade others that what follows should not even be questioned.

kennethamy wrote:

Of course, as many use, "it is obvious" it is just a way of trying to persuade others that what follows should not even be questioned.

It seems to me that using "of course" to begin a sentence, like you often do, and just did, is another way of trying to persuade others that what follows should not even be questioned.

We call what just happened here ironic.

Back on topic, have you read the article that Ughaibu posted?

What makes you say that the arguments are weak? Can you be more specific?

If Ughaibu is really the only one here that understands the arguments, and we all have trouble understanding him, then it appears we have a problem. It doesn't help either that the author of that particular article is difficult to understand as well. We need another source that can more clearly explain the matter.

You are assuming that this distinction between determinism and causation makes sense (whether it is true or false). I don't.