Has determinism ever bothered you?

[TheDonk]

Does the whole free will uncertainty bother anyone? I like talking about it and I would like to have free will but have any of you ever been bothered by the possibility of not having free will? This has never bothered me and I don't think it ever will. For what reason, I don't know... Maybe because I feel free.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

well of course you feel free because there isn't someone sitting over you with a poker telling you what to do. you arent in shackles or a cage. you think you are free to make up your own mind.

it doesn't bother me because I've grown with this. the realization of it is just kind of a shock for some people because, your entire life, you're told you're free to make your own decisions. but after learning this, you look back in your life and try to think up a situation where this doesn't apply and you really cant. or at least, i cant. I've challenged my friends and family to think up situations where this doesn't apply and they can't either. you just have to accept it i guess...

 

[NeutronStar]

If determinism is true then no one is responsible for their actions. People who murder, rape or pillage are just as innocent as anyone else because they have no control over their own actions.

Personally I don't believe in determinism. At least not in the sense that all acts are predetermined. Now I do believe in another type of determinism. For example, it's been determined that we will have a free will and we have absolutely no control over that. So we have no free will to stop having free will.

Believing in determinism can be a bad thing. For one thing, if a person believes that everything is predetermined then a person could go out and do anything at all imaginable and not feel the least bit guilty about it. After all, it must have been predetermined right? In other words, it wasn't really their free choice to do whatever they did.

I personally don't believe that. I believe that people can genuinely choose how they will live out their lives.

Besides, I thought that with the discovery of quantum randomness indeterminism was the "in" thing.

Why would anyone believe in determinism? Didn't that go out with Newton's clockwork universe?

 

[Aquamarine]

It is difficult to have an omnipotent, omniscient God without determinism. Obviously such a God knows and has decided how everything will be in the future. Also, if you don't believe in determinism, how can you be absolutely sure of a life after death, just judgement and heaven?

On the other hand, if you believe in determinism and God, why has he decided that there should be evil and unhappiness in the world?

If determinism is true then no one is responsible for their actions. People who murder, rape or pillage are just as innocent as anyone else because they have no control over their own actions.

On the other, a world not deterministic seems to imply randomness. If evil act are due to randomness, how anyone be responsible?

Besides, I thought that with the discovery of quantum randomness indeterminism was the "in" thing.

There are many interpretations that allows determinism.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

 

[russ_watters]

Does the whole free will uncertainty bother anyone? I like talking about it and I would like to have free will but have any of you ever been bothered by the possibility of not having free will? This has never bothered me and I don't think it ever will. For what reason, I don't know... Maybe because I feel free.

It has never bothered me either, and for a similar reason: if you believe you are free, you are.

It is difficult to have an omnipotent, omniscient God without determinism. Obviously such a God knows and has decided how everything will be in the future. Also, if you don't believe in determinism, how can you be absolutely sure of a life after death, just judgement and heaven?

Just because he can decide how everything will be doesn't mean he has. Most religions these days aren't even deterministic, despite how a great many people see it. Freewill is an essential part of Christianity, for example.

 

[Aquamarine]

It has never bothered me either, and for a similar reason: if you believe you are free, you are. Just because he can decide how everything will be doesn't mean he has. Most religions these days aren't even deterministic, despite how a great many people see it. Freewill is an essential part of Christianity, for example.

God does not escape responsibility by being passive and voluntarily giving up omnipotence and omniscience. Either God lies to himself or he knows that he is at least allowing the possiblity of evil. And passively allowing the possibility of evil is not much better than actively causing evil, when one has the choice of totally preventing it. And saying that God accepts evil because free will is more important will not work:

No matter how successful this response, it can only explain evil caused by human free will. It does not explain any catastrophic horror that has nothing to do with human choices. Think of earthquakes, floods, and disease—so-called 'natural evil' or 'acts of God'. We cannot confront a paralyzed, demented, and blind Tay-Sachs child and his despondent parents and then chalk up the entire wretched scenario to free will. No one chose it. Healing that child wouldn't tread on anyone's freedom. At its best, the value of free will is relevant to, and can only excuse God for, a mere portion of the evil we find. Whether of not we call that 'evil', we must stick with the evil that we humans freely create—so-called 'moral evil'.

But there is another, similar problem. Some instances of moral evil already involve violations of free will—e.g., rape. For God to step in and deny the violator his freedom would also be to protect the victim's freedom. In such cases, it all comes down to whose free will is more valuable—which instance of coercion would be worse? And it is morally implausible that the best thing to do is to respect a rapist's freedom to rape unhindered rather than protecting the victim's freedom. So, for a large category of moral evil—all moral evil involving coercion—it's automatically implausible that the value of free will can justify God's inaction. We must then narrow the domain of admissible evil yet again.

With the candidate evil suitably restricted, we can ask: Is God off the hook? Many say no. Some deny the existence of free will, and so can dismiss the entire proposal as mere fiction. Compatibilists sometimes attack the essential premise that God cannot influence our choices without thereby cancelling our freedom. After all, compatibilists believe that determinism is consistent with human freedom. And if determinism can allow for freedom, perhaps so can appropriate divine meddling with our decisions. The upshot of these challenges is that, to absolve God, we need a reason to think that he really couldn't influence our choices without cancelling our freedom. The customary theistic appeal is to a libertarian conception of free will, but such a conception is under heavy fire from its rivals.

Another challenge focuses on different ways to interfere with freedom. One way is to 'jump in' and take control of the agent, dictating its every movement and thought. This is the kind of coercion we envision in mad scientist stories. But it might also be the kind of coercion that motivates our above intuition that if God got involved, we'd all be 'robots'. We should remember that there are other, softer kinds of coercion. Look to policemen and jailers. They don't take control of an agent's decisions. They just threaten the agent with physical force and restraint, and carry out their threats if necessary. Policemen and jailers restrict our freedom, but it is a restriction we're willing to accept, for our own protection and safety. Now, return to God. If he were to get involved as a Divine Policeman, making threats and enforcing them, then would we be 'robots'? Seemingly not. Instead, we'd be citizens of a divine nation-state, and a very safe and reliable nation-state at that. But then the moral claim is dubious—it's no longer clear that God should hold back. Taking total control of our decisions would be wrong, but laying down the law might be right. So why hasn't God done it?

Several further challenges attack the idea that evil-eliminating divine interventions must cancel human freedom. These challenges suggest different ways for God to eliminate evil, all the while leaving our free will untouched—"innocent interventions". One proposal is that God allow sinful acts, but stop their evil consequences. So if I fire a rifle at your head, God allows me to make the decision, but then makes the trigger stick, or the rifle misfire, or the bullet pop out of existence. Such interventions would, happily, divorce evil choices from the subsequent suffering. Another proposal is for God to fortify humans as to render us less vulnerable to the sins of our fellows. We could be bullet-proof, invulnerable to poison, etc. That way, humans would retain the capacity for evil choices and activities; it's just that such evil behavior would be harmless to the 'victims' and futile for the evildoers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_and_the_problem_of_evil

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, that is the catch - nevertheless, that is what many religions teach. You choose the pessimistic way of looking at it (there can be no evil without freewill) and religion teaches the optomistic (there can be no good without freewill - and evil is punished later). Both are really two sides of the same coin though and both support the concept of freewill.

Also, we've been talking about religious determinism - scientific determinism works the same way.

 

[RAD4921]

The philosophy of Forrest Gump

In the movie "Forrest Gump" he ask the question of free wiil or determinism and at the end, the idiot Gump comes to the conclusion that there must be a little bit of both and I wonder about the wisdom of the movie. I agree with the other postings that if determinism is true than we are not responsible for our actions (at least in the eyes of God). Determinism would remove all meaning to life since we aould be "robots of the cosmos". If this is the case I can go out and kill 15 people in a strip mall and blame it on God because after all that is his plan. If one doesn't believe in God they could blame it on the cause and effect action of the universe.
On the other hand, if one has complete free will I should be able to live forever if I choose and walk through mountains at my choice so maybe Old Forrest has a point there.
You are correct the whole damn issue of free will and determinism gives me a headache. Asprin Please!

 

[Jikx]

If determinism is true then no one is responsible for their actions. People who murder, rape or pillage are just as innocent as anyone else because they have no control over their own actions.

And yet they will go to jail.. why? Because the act of jailing offenders will influence other pre-offenders to not offend, the offender to not re-offend, or simply remove him/her to protect society.

The those who act to jail them, will be influenced by this fact to do the jailing.. and you can see you should never think too much about this..

 

[Royce]

The simple answer is that we have limited free will just as we have limited choices.
If God is good and created goo in the universe; and, there is free will then evil must exist as there can be no free will without choice. Our choices are good or evil.
If we have free will then we are responsible for our choices and as we benifit from good choices we suffer from bad, evil, choices.
While in creating good God created the possiblity of evil the fact that some of us choose evil is our responsiblity not Gods.
How else can we learn and grow?
If all is good and there is no choice then the universe is deterministic.
What then is the point of it all if we are simply destined to play out our given rolls and die with no choices, no responsibility for our choices or actions?
That isn't life, It isn't even theater.
It's like playing a game of cards with a stacked deck. We already know what the out come is. It never changes. It never can change. Just the same old rerun over and over again. Why?
I cannot believe in an illogical, perverse, cruel, psychotic God.

 

[Rasine]

i strongly believe that we as humans have God given free will. this is so we can freely find God and believe in his awesome power. i also believe that He has set a divine path for us. He gives us a choice weather or not to follow it, but within us, our inutition (God within) leads us on that path. that divine path is not something to be constrained to, for it is the rightous path for that individual in that will make he/she the most content and peaceful.

 

[honestrosewater]

Welcome to Headache City!

Define random as "uncaused". Give an example of a random event.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

He has set a divine path for us. He gives us a choice weather or not to follow it, but within us, our inutition (God within) leads us on that path. .

but look at that as it is...if you dont follow that path you go to hell...so of course you're going to believe it.

 

[Rasine]

what is your reasoning behind the assumption that you will go to hell if you don't follow your divine path? yes you can still go to heaven if you stray away from it. that doesn't forbid you from believe in God, you just won't be as content as you would be if you followed the path.

ex: maybe God is telling you to move to chicago, but you move to atlanta instead because all of your family lives there and chicago is forgin to you. well..maybe in chicago you would have made a new friend whom you invest in and become very succussful.

choosing to move to atlanta won't send you to hell, you just would not receive the good fortune that God would have granted you.

 

[bola]

I won't comment on god, but I will put my own theory into this.
I imagine it works something like this; determinism exists, but a little different than people might imagine.

Imagine 2 balls, floating in space. They have no consciousness, as thus they do not move, they stand still all the time.
But suddenly, they get a consciousness, and ball A moves into ball B, and since determinism exists, ball B rolls backwards, then it stops.

The consciousness itself is too complex to have a level of determinism, so two levels emerge, the quantum level and the higher level.
The higher level controls where the quantum world takes them.
Basically what I'm saying is, consciousness is an entity in itself, and therefore it is fully responsible for what it does, even in a deterministic world.

You have to see the consciousness as a separate whole entity, not just a collection of electrons following determinism, because to us, it's not.

 

[honestrosewater]

bola,
Is consciousness limited in how it can interact with the physical world? When operating in the physical world, does consciousness have to obey the laws of physics?

 

[bola]

It does, but the thing is there are so many interactions that make up a consciousness that it's unbearably hard to determine anything.
And also you have to see it from OUR point of view, in that, are you ale to look into the future? Do you feel like a slave to determinism?
I don't at least.

 

[abitofnothingleft]

what is your reasoning behind the assumption that you will go to hell if you don't follow your divine path? yes you can still go to heaven if you stray away from it. that doesn't forbid you from believe in God, you just won't be as content as you would be if you followed the path.

ex: maybe God is telling you to move to chicago, but you move to atlanta instead because all of your family lives there and chicago is forgin to you. well..maybe in chicago you would have made a new friend whom you invest in and become very succussful.

choosing to move to atlanta won't send you to hell, you just would not receive the good fortune that God would have granted you.

the christian religion tells you that if you don't follow god you go to hell...i presonally don't even follow christianity or god for that matter because i don't believe in either of them...

how is it that god would tell you to move to another city?i thought following god was just following the religion you are in...in christianity abiding by the ten commandments and participating in the 7 sacraments are following god...are they not? I am pretty sure that moving to a different city will not affect your relationship with god.

 

[moving finger]

The concept of Free Will has been thrown back and forth in this thread, but I haven't seen anyone give a clear and unambiguous definition of what they mean by Free Will. Without an agreed definition it's pretty pointless debating whether Free Will exists or not.

Would anyone care to try defining it?

MF

 

[moving finger]

If determinism is true then no one is responsible for their actions. People who murder, rape or pillage are just as innocent as anyone else because they have no control over their own actions.

Personally I don't believe in determinism. At least not in the sense that all acts are predetermined. Now I do believe in another type of determinism. For example, it's been determined that we will have a free will and we have absolutely no control over that. So we have no free will to stop having free will.

Believing in determinism can be a bad thing. For one thing, if a person believes that everything is predetermined then a person could go out and do anything at all imaginable and not feel the least bit guilty about it. After all, it must have been predetermined right? In other words, it wasn't really their free choice to do whatever they did.

I personally don't believe that. I believe that people can genuinely choose how they will live out their lives.

Besides, I thought that with the discovery of quantum randomness indeterminism was the "in" thing.

Why would anyone believe in determinism? Didn't that go out with Newton's clockwork universe?

Quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with free will.

The assumption that determinism is true does not mean that no-one is responsible for their actions, this is a common "fatalistic" argument used to argue against a belief in determinism.

My actions today determine what happens tomorrow, and if I am a thinking, conscious being then I am responsible for my actions, EVEN IF THE FUTURE IS PRE-DETERMINED, because the "I" that is making the decisions is part of that pre-determination. Even though the future is determined it is still dependent on the actions of the present.

Think of Aristotle's famous example of the sea-battle to take place tomorrow between two fleets led by admirals A and B, the result of which will leave one admiral victorious. Assuming the law of the excluded middle, then it is the case today that either A will win tomorrow, or A will lose tomorrow. Does this mean that the outcome tomorrow is not dependent on the actions of A and B today? No, of course not. The outcome is maybe determined, and maybe it is the case that admiral A will win, but that does not mean that admiral A can relax and not worry about the battle, because the outcome of the battle depends on his actions today,and there is no way that he can know in advance whether he will win or not. So whether the future is determined or not, admiral A MUST still behave as if the future was under his control and as if he has free will, because no matter what happens, the future depends on his actions today.

MF

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.William James

 

[OutofPlace]

Quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with free will.

The assumption that determinism is true does not mean that no-one is responsible for their actions, this is a common "fatalistic" argument used to argue against a belief in determinism.

My actions today determine what happens tomorrow, and if I am a thinking, conscious being then I am responsible for my actions, EVEN IF THE FUTURE IS PRE-DETERMINED, because the "I" that is making the decisions is part of that pre-determination. Even though the future is determined it is still dependent on the actions of the present.

Think of Aristotle's famous example of the sea-battle to take place tomorrow between two fleets led by admirals A and B, the result of which will leave one admiral victorious. Assuming the law of the excluded middle, then it is the case today that either A will win tomorrow, or A will lose tomorrow. Does this mean that the outcome tomorrow is not dependent on the actions of A and B today? No, of course not. The outcome is maybe determined, and maybe it is the case that admiral A will win, but that does not mean that admiral A can relax and not worry about the battle, because the outcome of the battle depends on his actions today,and there is no way that he can know in advance whether he will win or not. So whether the future is determined or not, admiral A MUST still behave as if the future was under his control and as if he has free will, because no matter what happens, the future depends on his actions today.

MF

My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.William James

I don't really believe any admiral would just sit back and relax, this would inevitably lead to losing the battle and unless he intended to lose it he would act, so maybe the existence of FREE WILL can not be determined by looking at hypotethical actions, for example like me saying so if there is Free Will i could go out and kill a few people and wouldn't be responsible for it when i very well know i wouldn't dare do anything like that.


So FREE WILL must be determined not by actions, but by the internal mental disposition of each person; what allows someone to kill or deliberately loose a battle, what forces someone not to kill or fight to win the battle. IS
IT A FREE WILL or SOMETHING ELSE THAT EXISTS IN THEM NO MATTER WHAT.

One could argue that knowing there would be consequences to actions could prevent Free Will to exist, in the sense of giving us limited choices. SO LAWS MADE BY HUMANS LIMIT OR FREE WILL, THEN AGAIN, NO ONE ALIVE HAS LIVED WITHOUT ANY LAWS AT ALL, SO THERE IS NO POINT OF REFERENCE

 

[Tournesol]

Quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with free will.

The assumption that determinism is true does not mean that no-one is responsible for their actions, this is a common "fatalistic" argument used to argue against a belief in determinism.

Then indeterminism has nothing to do with responsibility. It could
still have something to do with FW, so long as FW has nothing to do
with responstibility. This is called "semicompatiblism".

(Another sweeping nothing-to-do-with).

 

[moving finger]

Then indeterminism has nothing to do with responsibility. It could
still have something to do with FW, so long as FW has nothing to do
with responstibility. This is called "semicompatiblism".

(Another sweeping nothing-to-do-with).

hehehehe, it seems you are seeking me out my dear sunflower. this is fun!

Agreed, it is simply my opinion that “quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with free will”. You are entitled to believe otherwise. Are you suggesting that you do?

MF

 

[rygar]

i didn't read most of this thread yet, so sorry if I'm being repitious

If determinism is true then no one is responsible for their actions. People who murder, rape or pillage are just as innocent as anyone else because they have no control over their own actions.

in some respects, yes. the person who committed rape had no actual control over his actions--but neither did the person who got raped, the police officer that arrested the rapist, or the judge that sentenced him to jail. it really makes you think whether the illusion of free will is a necessity for us to have both a consciousness AND determinism, and how would our consciousness differ if we didn't have the illusion of free will?

if anyone wants to comment, i'd be interesting in hearing it...

Besides, I thought that with the discovery of quantum randomness indeterminism was the "in" thing.

i was under the same misconception just a week ago. see my thread on einstein/bohr, where selfAdjoint directly addresses this. quantum mechanics shows no evidence for free will anymore than relativity.

Why would anyone believe in determinism? Didn't that go out with Newton's clockwork universe?

i believe in determinism. in fact, i don't know of any evidence that supports a theory of free will, other than our intuitions! perhaps you can help me out.

 

[Telos]

There is a question that is far more important than the free will question, and that is the worth of a free mind.

It makes very little sense to enquire on the freedom of the will. The only really important thing is to acknowledge that there is such a thing as will and it exists - knowing whether or not it is free will not serve our understanding of it. We must ask, "what good is the will?"

The rights of the will are not as important as the rights of the mind, for the rights of the mind encompasses the rights of the will and much else. What is okay to think, and what is not okay to think? What way of thinking is appropriate, and what way of thinking is not appropriate?

Whether or not the mind is distinct from the body is also another unimportant matter - what's important is realizing that the mind governs the body and vice versa. It doesn't really matter how, just that they do.

Asking about the free will problem or the mind-body problem are only veiled attempts to ask about the real problem. What good is a free mind?

 

[Dissident Dan]

I felt very disturbed when I first thought about it, but now, oddly enough, after becoming used to the idea, I am not emotionally bothered.

 

[moving finger]

the person who committed rape had no actual control over his actions

I disagree that this necessarily follows. It depends on how one defines "person". It is possible to make oneself "really really small" and thus externalise everything (ie externalise all causal influences), which in a deterministic world would imply that this infinitesimally small "person" indeed "has no control over his actions". But in reality a "person" is not an infinitesimally small agent; in practice many (most?) of the causal influences of behaviour are more or less internalised within the agent that we define as the "person", and are thus related in a complex and self-referential manner with that agent's behaviour. There is no simple chain of cause and effect in an agent containing self-referential causal loops (what Hofstadter calls "strange loops"), and it is no longer true to say that such an agent "has no control over his actions".

it really makes you think whether the illusion of free will is a necessity for us to have both a consciousness AND determinism, and how would our consciousness differ if we didn't have the illusion of free will?

Before one can make any progress in debating these (very interesting) questions, one must agree a useful definition of this phenomenon that you call "free will" - would you care to offer a definition?

i believe in determinism. in fact, i don't know of any evidence that supports a theory of free will, other than our intuitions! perhaps you can help me out.

See my comment on definitions above.

MF

 

[moving finger]

There is a question that is far more important than the free will question, and that is the worth of a free mind.

Can you define please what you mean exactly by the expression "free mind" (for example, as distinct from an "unfree mind")?

Thanks

MF

 

[moving finger]

i believe in determinism. in fact, i don't know of any evidence that supports a theory of free will, other than our intuitions! perhaps you can help me out.

Discussions on "free will" are notoriously difficult, usually because most participants take sides before they even agree what they are talking about (ie participants declare "I do/do not believe in free will" before there is any agreement on the definition or meaning of "free will").

Therefore, rather than debate whether "free will" (whatever the definition) really exists, I think it is much more instructive to ask :

what do people really mean when they say that they believe they act with "free will", and are they justified in having this belief?

I humbly suggest that what most people (who claim to believe in "free will") mean when they say they act with "free will" is that they believe "their actions are not entirely constrained by external factors".

I say "entirely" constrained because I believe most of us would agree that our actions are usually some way constrained to a greater or lesser extent by external factors (eg I cannot willingly hold my breath for more than a minute or two, no matter how much I "want" to), but belief in "free will" would imply that not all of the external constraints on our actions are necessarily absolute.

This is where it becomes useful to look closely at how we define the "person" (or better still, the agent) which we are claiming has this "free will".

Paraphrasing Dennett, one can externalise everything by making oneself really, really small. Conversely, an agent can subsume many (potentially external) constraints within itself by making itself a sufficiently finite size.

What we call our "self" is not an infinitesimal point in space. It has finite physical and logical boundaries and, most importantly, it includes within those boundaries many of the causes and effects of our decisions; in fact the personal decision-making process is based on what I like to call self-referential causal loops.

If we can identify the external "cause" of a particular decision (ie an external constraint on our "free will") then we know that we are not in fact deciding freely. But for many of our decisions we are unable to unambiguously identify the "causes" of those decisions, simply because those causes are internalised in a complex and self-referential way within our decision-making selves.

Thus, it is not the case that our "free will" decisions are uncaused; neither is it the case that our "free will" decisions are unconstrained. It is simply the case that the decisions which we choose to call our "free will" decisions are largely caused and constrained by internal self-referential causal loops, of which we have (most of the time) incomplete awareness - and this is what leads us to say that we act with "free will".

Some may call "free will" illusion. I do not. "Free will" is a very real feeling that we do have, and when we understand precisely what this "free will" is in the way I have described above, then we can clearly see that "free will" is very real, and we are justified in believing that we act with "free will", even in a deterministic universe.

"Free will" is not an illusion. But it is important to understand exactly what it is, and also what it is not.

MF

 

[Telos]

Can you define please what you mean exactly by the expression "free mind" (for example, as distinct from an "unfree mind")?

Thanks

MF

Sure. A free mind is not authoritatively restricted by other minds. An unfree mind is authoritatively restricted by other minds.

What good is a free mind? In other words, what good is letting people think and do what they want?

Our current answer seems to be "very little" for children and "none" for criminals. We treat children very much like criminals.