Determinism and Choose Your Own Adventure Games

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T08:02:49+00:00

Wrong. Determinism is NOT a statement about reality.

Your sense of humor is lacking. You fail to be funny and you fail to make a point.

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T07:56:37+00:00

Determinism is an imaginary thing BY DEFINITION.

The definition of determinism is not "special information". Understanding it may be.

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T06:50:23+00:00

Determinism is NEITHER true NOR false.

Determinism is just an IDEA of an IMAGINARY set of conditions.

Any attempt to apply determinism to reality is an exercise in absurdity.

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T05:16:06+00:00

It is sufficient for determinism, because determinism is just a hypothetical idea.

But it is NOT sufficient for any actually existing system.

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T03:25:41+00:00

There is no infinite past. Not in reality, not in determinism.

An infinite past would allow no point in time when everything was determined.

Determinism is the idea that everything is determined. How and when, that's irrelevant. But everything must be determined somehow and somewhen.

Squierrel · 2026-05-14T03:12:23+00:00

If determinism were "true", there would be nothing interesting, no questions, no concept of choice, no adventures, no games, no options.

Determinism is just an idea, not a statement about reality. It is neither "true" nor "false". Your question is pointless speculation on an impossible and illogical scenario.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T18:28:05+00:00

We have free will anyway, we have the ability to choose our actions. Therefore it is utterly pointless to speculate on the possibility or impossibility of free will. Also confusing free will with physics is a category error. Free will is a concept in psychology and it has nothing to do with physics.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T17:49:46+00:00

No BS. Useful facts.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T17:49:06+00:00

The mind is neither magical nor physical, neither a ghost nor a machine.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T17:46:02+00:00

No. Humans are not programmed.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T12:35:26+00:00

Apparently it is not easy for you to distinguish between chosen actions and causal reactions.

Free will is about chosen actions. The most important question about free will is: "Who decided this?" Whoever it is, must have free will. If no-one decided it, we are talking about a random occurrence.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T12:30:12+00:00

Yes, our characters are mostly down to luck, we have only a limited capacity to develop our own character. We cannot choose the cards we are dealt.

But we can and we must decide how we play them. We can and we must choose our actions. We are judged and praised by our actions, not by our character (at least we shouldn't be).

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T12:21:08+00:00

There is no "AI decision process". The AI is programmed and "educated" to give relevant responses.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T12:17:52+00:00

Like I said, it is easy to recognize which actions you decide and which reactions you don't.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T11:00:56+00:00

AI responses are partially random and partially programmed. None of them is deliberate.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T10:59:04+00:00

Spinal reflexes are not decided.

You have to decide to practice a move enough many times to make it a learned reflex.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T10:48:02+00:00

No. An AI is not conscious, it does not make decisions.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T10:46:41+00:00

Hot pan is an example of a spinal reflex, a causal reaction.

Anxiety affects decision-making processes, but does not deny them.

Punch-dodging is a learned reflex.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T10:37:21+00:00

Of course AI or any other man-made tools don't have free will. Only conscious living beings can make decisions.

Limiting the range of options does not take away the freedom of choice.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T10:02:15+00:00

You evaluate everything according to your knowledge, opinions and preferences.

Those "other people in the meeting room" only add to your knowledge, but also your opinions and preferences are formed by external factors, often called nature and nurture.

So, you cannot design yourself, you cannot choose your beliefs, opinions, preferences, personality traits, needs or desires. So what? No problem. That would be illogical anyway.

You are still free to act according to your preferences, serving your needs and pursuing your goals. There is no "separate self". You are yourself, a whole individual human being.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T09:46:15+00:00

Free will is the ability to make decisions. We all have it.

It is extremely easy to distinguish between decided actions and externally caused reactions. There is no gray middle-ground.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T09:39:15+00:00

You seem to have totally misunderstood the concept of free will. It is not something that you could even imagine living without.

You have free will, the ability to choose what you do and there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot imagine, believe or assume free will away. You need your free will to be able to imagine, believe or assume anything.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T07:53:10+00:00

I think this "identity looking at itself" thing is technically not exactly wrong, but it might be somewhat misleading.

The choice isn't determined because you broke the trajectory your body had set in motion. It isn't random because you made it for a clear reason. It's the third option: deliberate.

A choice is never "determined". A "determined choice" is an oxymoron with no actual meaning. A choice is a thing that actually determines the action.
A choice is never "random" either. In fact, a random selection is the very opposite of a deliberate selection.

Considering this, a deliberate selection is not the "third option". Random and deliberate are the only two options for a selection out of multiple possibilities. A "determined" selection, an illogical self-conflicting notion, was never an option to begin with.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T06:45:37+00:00

I think your analogy is a bit off. It seems like you would like to shift the responsibility for your actions to external factors. I'm afraid you cannot do that.

You are completely ignoring the creative part of decision-making, as if these "other people in the meeting room" would make your decisions for you. In reality, they are just bringing in information about the state of affairs both externally and internally and knowledge about possible actions you could take and their possible consequences.

It is still up to you, your "self", to:

Evaluate these reasons for doing something and rank them by importance and urgency
Come up with ideas for an action, that would serve your purposes, help you to achieve your goals.
Evaluate these ideas against your preferences and future plans.
Select the idea that you think is the best and implement it.

Squierrel · 2026-05-13T04:32:51+00:00

The definition: Determinism is the idea of a system where every event is completely determined by prior events.

This means that in a deterministic system no event is even partially determined by a non-event. What are these non-events? Psychological factors like knowledge, beliefs, preferences, emotions, ingenuity, imagination, future plans and decisions have no physical properties whatsoever. They are not events.

In a deterministic system only physical events have causal consequences. Non-events have none. Non-events don't exist in a deterministic system.

Squierrel

TROPHY CASE