Presuppositions and Free Will

[bumab]

So, in concept I think it can be done.....

;)

 

Wording would indeed be important if one were to attempt that. More important, however, would be the fundamental thought changes. Of course, easy and hard are also concepts rooted in a non-deterministic sense of the mind, since what happens happens, right? Ha! Never ends.... ;)

 

I still think free will exists, based on the human experience, but I definatly understand your position.

[Fishteacher73]

I would think it great for free-will to be valid, but in a naturalistic world (ie w/o devine intervention) I can find no basis to support it.

[Biochemist]

We have built a language system upon the suposition of free-will so many of the terms that we use have a "built-in" bias towards free-will.....So, in concept I think it can be done, but its almost like playing hop-scotch in a mine-filed.

Personally, I think the language we use is pretty important. I think you ought to try to live for a week without using any of the words tha impute free will in your environment. You would never make a decision, never be objective, never have a preference, never have an opinion, and never have any moral responsibility. You are just an effect of previous causes.

 

I think trying this experiement for a week or two would bring to mind all of the cases where your experience suggests that free will exists. It will make that "illusion" seem awfully unreal.

[paultrr]

;)

 

Wording would indeed be important if one were to attempt that. More important, however, would be the fundamental thought changes. Of course, easy and hard are also concepts rooted in a non-deterministic sense of the mind, since what happens happens, right? Ha! Never ends.... ;)

 

I still think free will exists, based on the human experience, but I definatly understand your position.

 

I agree and I do understand his position also even if I cannot come to that same conclusion using the same data.

[paultrr]

I might add that pure determinism is not the majority opinion in the scientific community either. Its just one of many opinions at the present.

[lindagarrette]

I might add that pure determinism is not the majority opinion in the scientific community either. Its just one of many opinions at the present.

That's simply not true! Only in the quantum realm has there been any evidence of randomness and that's mostly because of lack of understanding. Aside from that, if you can find any evidence whatsoever that could disprove causal determinism, then you should publish it, and win the Nobel prize.

[lindagarrette]

Personally, I think the language we use is pretty important. I think you ought to try to live for a week without using any of the words tha impute free will in your environment. You would never make a decision, never be objective, never have a preference, never have an opinion, and never have any moral responsibility. You are just an effect of previous causes.

 

I think trying this experiement for a week or two would bring to mind all of the cases where your experience suggests that free will exists. It will make that "illusion" seem awfully unreal.

Free will is not an illusion. It is a misinterpretation of reality. Our language reflects that in many ways because most of us do not continually analyze why we do everything. That would be similar to having an awareness of why your eye blinks.

[bumab]

Free will is not an illusion. It is a misinterpretation of reality.

 

Isn't that what an illusion is?

[lindagarrette]

Isn't that what an illusion is?

OK. You got me. I have to admit an illusion is a misinterpretation of reality. The point I was trying to make is that notions (concepts, ideas...) are attributable to events. They don't just come from no where. If you have a preference for one thing over another, then that's because or your senses, your training, your experience, the environmental factors, all sorts of things. If you made a decision without any cause whatsoever (free will), then it would be meaningless.

[Biochemist]

...The point I was trying to make is that notions (concepts, ideas...) are attributable to events. They don't just come from no where. If you have a preference for one thing over another, then that's because or your senses, your training, your experience, the environmental factors, all sorts of things. If you made a decision without any cause whatsoever (free will), then it would be meaningless.

This certainly seems circular to me. The list of words in post #2 are things that require free will to have meaning. I was not suggesting that one could not rationalize some of them in a deterministic world. I just suggested (per the question at the inception of the thread) that these words were meaningless in the absence of free will.

 

If I understand your last sentence above, you essentially said that free will would be meaningless without free will. I agree with the tautology, but that is the topic of the thread: how much do we actually give up if we assume free will is illusory?

 

I really think I make decisions without cause all of the time. I had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch. I actually do not think that was caused. Your suggestion that is was caused is pure faith since there is absolutely no direct evidence to support the position. Your hypothesis is that it must be deterministic because the physical world is. That is not evidence, it is faith supported by reason.

 

I suggest that if we think about this long enough (per my proposed personal experiment in post 20), it just seems very far afield from human experience to contend that free will does not exist.

[paultrr]

OK. You got me. I have to admit an illusion is a misinterpretation of reality. The point I was trying to make is that notions (concepts, ideas...) are attributable to events. They don't just come from no where. If you have a preference for one thing over another, then that's because or your senses, your training, your experience, the environmental factors, all sorts of things. If you made a decision without any cause whatsoever (free will), then it would be meaningless.

 

Free will, as most of us tend to use the term does not negate senses, your training, your experience, the environmental factors, etc. It simply implies that one has the ability to choose or not to choose to do something. We are either robots driven by the predetermined or we have the ability to exercise choice. Plenty of people grow up in say simular situations to those encountered by a serial killer and never grow up to become one. Not everyone makes the same choice even if all the rest was basically the same that you mentioned. Free will cannot also be found to actually violate anything as far as the laws of nature go either. Its simular to us having freedom is this country and yet, the common interest of everyone or society in general places some limits on that freedom. Free will should never be thought of as anything approaching anarchy. All acts of choice involve some cause and effects. But either we are able to think and act on our own or we are just electro-chemical robots.

 

I might add, that its rather illogical for someone who believes in total determinism to argue with someone who supports free will since the free will believer is just predetermined to believe that way. Unless of course you perhaps are just predetermined to argue with them. Actually, in accepting determinism you yourself at some point in you're life exercised free will as most of us tend to see it. Your senses, your training, your experience, the environmental factors, all sorts of things may have come into play. But boil it all down and you made the conscious decision at some point that this was the correct path. Its that choice which we tend to believe you had the fully ability to either make or not make. That's what free will by definition actually is. Now does that violate anything sacred as far as science goes?

[paultrr]

That's simply not true! Only in the quantum realm has there been any evidence of randomness and that's mostly because of lack of understanding. Aside from that, if you can find any evidence whatsoever that could disprove causal determinism, then you should publish it, and win the Nobel prize.

 

I beg you're pardon. There is no actual concise interpretational method when it comes to quantum theory. Only one view point common held, the Everett one is even considered fully local to begin with. And the Many-worlds view has yet to actually find experimental or full observational evidence in its support. Between, Bell, Everett, Bohm, the list can and does go on there is no real common agreement on how to interpret quantum randomness. If there was there would be no argument. But boil it down this world is formed out of particles that are subject to quantum randomness no matter what the real solution to such is. As such you're statement itself above lacks a full understanding of quantum mechanics itself. What comes to my mind is Richard Feynman's remarks about those who think they understand quantum mechanics or Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of the theory, who eventually in published wording concluded that it was fundamentally incomprehensible.

[infamous]

That's simply not true! Only in the quantum realm has there been any evidence of randomness and that's mostly because of lack of understanding. Aside from that, if you can find any evidence whatsoever that could disprove causal determinism, then you should publish it, and win the Nobel prize.

 

When some of the facts are not known, some of the facts are not known.

[paultrr]

When some of the facts are not known, some of the facts are not known.

 

Yes, my point exactly there. If logically it is unsound to make conclusions for science where something is unknown(Like injecting faith into the equation). Its just as wrong for scientists to make conclusions where something is unknown also. Either point of departure is pure speculation at best and unfounded upon the facts. As such either point would involve what one could term a leap of faith since both are not based upon pure facts alone. The only pure scientific statement is that there is no solid evidence say for God, there is no solid evidence of in the macro world for anything outside of determinism, and that while we have unknows at the present time that leave the subject of total determinism versus say free will open to speculation and debate, that if anything what we are able to study does appear by the facts to support cause and effect determinism. One cannot make the non-logic based jump to saying everything is pure deterministic simply because there are unknows at the present. I believe that does leave the only sound scientific position being that of agnosticism. We simply cannot study and prove out anything beyond that at the present.

 

Science is a tool to study logically and rationally Nature. Its not a tool to prove or disprove god or belief as some would like to make it out as. Nor was it designed and capable of being a tool to support christian ideas unless Christians want to make their god out to be actually nature itself which I think those who do actually believe would tend to reject outright themselves because nature is simply impersonal. I believe someone in another post made the statement of rejecting God as supernatural or beyond nature who claims to believe. That in my book, a God that is not beyond what he or she created, is not the God of the Bible to begin with which makes all the rest simply an attempt to prove his version of science and religion out against everyone elses version. It simply trying to mix the two into one which makes for a freak that's neither in the end run.

[paultrr]

The object of any hypothesis is to describe a system is a manner that consistant (within itself and other hypothesis) and since it is consistant it is predictable under the same conditions.

 

An objective decision should not be debatable. Anyone with the propper knowledge should reach the same objective decision as anyone else. Subjective decisions OTH have much more personal influence, but I do not think that given identicle backgrounds two individuals would have different subjective results. Objective decisions are independent of the one decidining. Subjective decisions depend on the one deciding to bring in certain influence.

 

I think one of the hallmarks of real free will is the subjective decision making. Objective decision does depend upon facts where the subjective can and does leap beyond facts at times. We have absolutely no objective evidence for dimensions beyond those we can directly measure. But there is subjective evidence that seems to point to such. The whole multiverse idea of modern science is based upon objective and subjective aspects. But untill such time as we have full observational and experimental evidence of such the idea of dimensions beyond the one's we can measure will remain subjective even if some of the math seems to support the logic of such.

 

Going back to before the time of Einstein if someone had suggested the multiverse idea then one would have been accused of invoking the supernatural as an explination and possible burned at the stake even further back. But in the end run its possible that what would have seemed supernatural then may turn out to have a natural explination.

[lindagarrette]

I had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch. I actually do not think that was caused.

There were a series of causes for you to eat a tuna fish sandwich. Among them, you were hungry, it was available, it was time to eat, you had not had an unpleasant experience with tuna fish, your knowledge of food and nutrition was a factor, your genetic ability to digest, chew, etc... and the environmental situation -- preparation, service, etc... Under the exact same conditions, you would do exactly the same thing.

[Biochemist]

There were a series of causes for you to eat a tuna fish sandwich.... Under the exact same conditions, you would do exactly the same thing.

Sure. Unless I was in the mood for pastrami. ;)