Free Will

[met]

Couldn't a determinist apriorily reject free will in a conscious universe as he easily as he could reject it in a conscious you? Maybe you could say that the universe has no possible external influence so that it would have to be self-determining, but the determinist will come back with "Yes, it's self-determining if you define its self as its disposition, which still leaves no conceptual room for free will..."

why would a self-forming universe have any pre-existing disposition? (But this is essentially the same as my Buddha example...)

What I think I had in the back of my mind with this example was the immutability of deterministic laws. The laws of nature - eg - aren't immutable, they're just generalizations derived from observations. So they could change at any time. (Well they could change conceptually too, but I mean in in reality.) And - if there were a bunch of actual changes and they turned out to be for the better - wouldn't we tend to assume there was an intelligence at work behind that?

So what about the immutable laws of character as the determinist has them? What do they predict? And why can't a person just change their own personal "laws of character and disposition" for the better? I think the only reason we don't observe breaches of those so-called "laws" more often is because they're so tenuous and slippery and not-well-defined that they can be used to account for pretty much anything. So it's hard to argue against them.

[LogicLad]

What I think I had in the back of my mind with this example was the immutability of deterministic laws. The laws of nature - eg - aren't immutable, they're just generalizations derived from observations. So they could change at any time. (Well they could change conceptually too, but I mean in in reality.) And - if there were a bunch of actual changes and they turned out to be for the better - wouldn't we tend to assume there was an intelligence at work behind that?

If you are seriously suggesting that the laws on nature can change at any time then all scientists everywhere should just pack up and go home.

While the laws of nature are derived, they are constant, they would have to be to allow them to be derived in the first place. we are not suddenly going to see a change in the planck constant, not the least becuase if it did change we would all stop existing.

I have scanned through the other posts, not read them all so i may have missed it, but has anyone actually defined what they mean by free will? To me free will is a myth, we are not free to act in anyway we choose, every choice we make is pre determined by the chain of causality that led to that moment of choice, to suggest otherwise would be to say that cause and effect have stopped working.

[met]

What I think I had in the back of my mind with this example was the immutability of deterministic laws. The laws of nature - eg - aren't immutable, they're just generalizations derived from observations. So they could change at any time. (Well they could change conceptually too, but I mean in in reality.) And - if there were a bunch of actual changes and they turned out to be for the better - wouldn't we tend to assume there was an intelligence at work behind that?

If you are seriously suggesting that the laws on nature can change at any time then all scientists everywhere should just pack up and go home.

While the laws of nature are derived, they are constant, they would have to be to allow them to be derived in the first place. we are not suddenly going to see a change in the planck constant, not the least becuase if it did change we would all stop existing.

I have scanned through the other posts, not read them all so i may have missed it, but has anyone actually defined what they mean by free will? To me free will is a myth, we are not free to act in anyway we choose, every choice we make is pre determined by the chain of causality that led to that moment of choice, to suggest otherwise would be to say that cause and effect have stopped working.

That was in a sense what this whole discussion was mostly about.. does free will have a coherent definition? My remarks above were in that context, I was saying that the laws of nature aren't necessary & true in all possible worlds but rather derived as its possible to think of them changing. So they could -- eg -- only continue to hold by the free decisions of a consciousness. Sim'ly, then, with the so-called "laws of character."

[Metacrock]

I free left behind on the free will topic. I have very strong sense of support for it but I have not kept up. I guess because to me it's just obvious that we have it and no point in arguing because if we don't, I'm still determined to believe we do. I mean that literally, the forces that determine us puppets make me believe in free will. so if we are determined how can not accept my programing?

another thing about this discussion, you need to discuss the same thing about determinism, is it a coherent concept? what does it mean?

[met]

hi, Meta! yeah, I thought of that too...

Like.... if the rules of some closed, deterministic system are themselves indeterministic (or random) and if there's no deterministic meta-system that determines those rules, then, in the final analysis, isn't that whole system actually indeterministic? So, then what is 'determinism' and how is it ultimately any different than 'indeterminism?' ( Well, unless the determinist wants to posit something like "an infinite causal regress of deterministic meta-systems" or a multi-verse where everything that ever could possibly happen actually does. But those awkward and ungainly ideas have their own problems, no? )

But the problem is, the commonsense thing: that the world just doesn't seem indeteministic, that here seems at least to be some order. So I think (maybe) someone with enough ambition could develop a theory of free will that where "choice" itself was the actual ordering principle of the universe, the thing that allows deterministic behavior to (or at least seem to) flow out of indeterministic roots. And if you didn't specify whether that 'ordering principle' was subjective or objective - inside us or outside - it could be a very cool and very postmodern theory.

[Metacrock]

I know it may not be a fair observation, not fair to determinists but I can't help but feel that they have a psychological motive to deny guilt of sin. Of course you can't push that too far becuase it can be a cop out for not having answers for their arguments.

[met]

Well, I will be more generous and say the GOOD thing about determinism is that it provides grounds for forgiveness - "it's ok, you couldn't help it!" - and for self-forgiveness too. The bad thing is it provides an excuse for bad actions.

But I'm really not so interested in the 'moral responsibility' question, but more in wider socio-ethical concerns. Without free will, happiness is always conditional, always externally imposed, and we could never 'just be happy,' simply out of our own choice.

So that's why determinism is an essentially elitist theory......

[Metacrock]

Well, I will be more generous and say the GOOD thing about determinism is that it provides grounds for forgiveness - "it's ok, you couldn't help it!" - and for self-forgiveness too. The bad thing is it provides an excuse for bad actions.

But I'm really not so interested in the 'moral responsibility' question, but more in wider socio-ethical concerns. Without free will, happiness is always conditional, always externally imposed, and we could never 'just be happy,' simply out of our own choice.

So that's why determinism is an essentially elitist theory......

I am agaisnt determinism for many reasons. That's part of it. Then also my life long struggle to understand myself and to be myself seems pointless if it's all determined and my self understanding is illusory.

[met]

Well, I will be more generous and say the GOOD thing about determinism is that it provides grounds for forgiveness - "it's ok, you couldn't help it!" - and for self-forgiveness too. The bad thing is it provides an excuse for bad actions.

But I'm really not so interested in the 'moral responsibility' question, but more in wider socio-ethical concerns. Without free will, happiness is always conditional, always externally imposed, and we could never 'just be happy,' simply out of our own choice.

So that's why determinism is an essentially elitist theory......

I am agaisnt determinism for many reasons. That's part of it. Then also my life long struggle to understand myself and to be myself seems pointless if it's all determined and my self understanding is illusory.

After participating in this thread, and reading a whole bunch of stuff along the way, my conclusion is that 'determinism' is a social idea. It's that deus ex machina to replace the older deus ex machina so you can get rid of God without having to get rid of "God" - so you can still have that "machine" as a TS, a centering principle, right? But - probly because it's becoming clear to more and more people that this high-tech, high-consumption society has to come to an end soon anyway, one way or another - we're all less interested in centering principles, now. It's just that, in consideration of the upcoming apocalypse, they all just start seeming lame. So people become more interested in forms of indeterminism - or randomness - or uncertainty. You can see that in all the discussion about QM and its implications, which haven't really entered the public mind before, even tho the results have been known for decades. Or - as KR posted about yesterday - in xian circles, by considering the growing popularity of Open Theism and its proponents, like Greg Boyd. Open theism de-centers God's power and knowledge by giving it away to creatures, right? (And open theism is really almost conservative as Calvinism, compared to some of the stuff in the Emergent Church movement ... they really love Bonhoeffer and his 'religionless xianity'.)

So maybe indeterminism - the embrace of randomness - will soon become the NEW centering principle, and libertarians will be having these arguments with 'indeterminists.'

[Jim B.]

Well, I will be more generous and say the GOOD thing about determinism is that it provides grounds for forgiveness - "it's ok, you couldn't help it!" - and for self-forgiveness too. The bad thing is it provides an excuse for bad actions.

But I'm really not so interested in the 'moral responsibility' question, but more in wider socio-ethical concerns. Without free will, happiness is always conditional, always externally imposed, and we could never 'just be happy,' simply out of our own choice.

So that's why determinism is an essentially elitist theory......

You can be a compatibilist, which I think of as basically a kind of determinist, and still think that what we do and how we are is really ultimately up to us and our own decisions. Deterministic processes don't have to 'bypass' our conscious selves and determ'm doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as fatalism. We, our conscious selves that consciously deliberate make a crucial difference in what happens.