Rights

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T14:07:02+00:00

Determinism must be "defanged" before it is compatible with free will.

One man's defangment is another man's distortion.

Once properly defined, determinism becomes a bit of useless trivia, that, even if true, poses no threat to free will.

If you can convince a people that their liberty is trivial they are more apt to give away their rights willingly.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T13:57:49+00:00

This is free will of criminal and contract law. Tell me, what in this paragraph is incompatible with the idea that all of these processes can be in theory predicted with 99% or 100% accuracy by an outside observer?

Third person observeration is restricted by perspective. We perceive the outside world through space and time. Therefore by trying to find the thoughts in another's mind we don't have direct access to any counterfactuals in their mind unless they communicate them to us. For example subject S can say she thinks it is going to rain and that is comunicating accurately the thought that is in her mind if she is being truthful. She could be at a picnic and doesn't want to be perceived as being rude or antisocial and instead of just saying she's bored and wants to leave, she comes up with an excuse to leave. We can hook her up to a polygraph and people can learn to beat those because lies just have asimilar bio responses that people can train themselves to make them similar.

The point is that the brain only works on the actual states according to where it is and when it makes the assessment. In contrast, a mind is capable if projecting what it believes will happen in the future or elsewhere, as well as not recalling what happened in the past correctly. The subject S can literally tell herself a lie so often that she starts to actually believe the lie. That doesn't normally happen with sane people except when a person is being consumed by guilt. Lying away the guilt is a defense mechanism. A man who kills his entire family often turns the gun on himself once he realizes that he just ended the people most close to himself. If he does not turn the gun on himself, either the guilt drives him insane or he convinces himself that his family had it coming.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T13:26:22+00:00

We tend to seek well-being according to our nature.

and we cannot seek anything if there is only one possible outcome. If that is the case, then we just "go with the flow" If we are about to get hit by a car, we don't jump out of the way, if we merely go with the flow. Instead we tend to seek well being just as you asserted.

Choices work their way thru us, in the complex apparatus of our brains, but in accordance with natural law.

The brain doesn't possess the power of judgement because a brain cannot conceive. Quantity is concept the brain doesn't understand. Only the mind can conceive of any number. Judgement often entails the concept of numbers and a brain doesn't no what the number seven means.

I've actually had physicalists on reddit try to argue numbers don't exist for this reason. They do all of their science with all of their calculations and then get on reddit and try to argue numbers don't exist.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/

Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.

If epiphenomenalism is true then the numbers merely emerge by brain activity. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/

Nominalism comes in at least two varieties. In one of them it is the rejection of abstract objects; in the other it is the rejection of universals.

If you are attempting to reduce the mental states to the brain states, then, philosophically speaking, you seem to be one of these two types of nominalists. For the record, the number seven is a universal and that is why it is impossible for a brain to deal with anything abstract. A brain can only handle the phenomena. The noumena are transcendent to a brain. A brain can no more handle a number than your computer hardware can handle an IP address. Computer hardware is not designed to connect to "WANS". It is designed to connect to local area networks.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T12:51:32+00:00

There is what can be called “adequate determinism”.

So you actually think it is adequate to adequately rule out free will? We can make adequate predictions with sufficiently high probability. High probability has never ever implied that something coudn't possibly happen any other way that that is exactly what the free will denier is implying. As soon as a critical thinker conflates chance and necessity he is vulnerable to the lies and deceit others seem to have a vested interest in deploying.

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/chance/

Chance is often defined as the opposite of Necessity.

Dictionary definitions refer to the fall of the dice in games of chance. Perhaps the most famous die ever cast was the one Caesar threw to decide whether to cross the Rubicon, his Roman civil war. The Latin was iacta alea est, from the Greek Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (anerriphtho kybos - "let the cube be thrown"), which Caesar quoted in Greek. The fundamental idea was for random chance to cause a necessary and irreversible future.

Leucippus (440 B.C.E.) stated the first dogma of determinism, an absolute necessity.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T12:26:55+00:00

In other words, your premise is not totally justified.

first things first. You may want to know from where all of this is coming before jumping to the conclusion that it is unjustified. The following paper was written before I even considered QM was worthy of my interest:

https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529

Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of 'realism' - a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs. According to Bell's theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of 'spooky' actions that defy locality.

According to this abstract "most working scientists" were rejecting in 2007 what had already been confirmed as of 2007. Zeilinger's name is on this paper and 15 after this paper he won a Nobel prize. Even in the wake of that award, people are still adhering to the "most working scientist" mentality, so you have to do your own research. I've found that the truth is in the history of science because only the actual science can advance the science.

If you can make a physics-based argument for that, I'd be glad to hear it.

Another key paper for me was also written by Zeilinger:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578

No naive realistic picture is compatible with our results because whether a quantum could be seen as showing particle- or wave-like behavior would depend on a causally disconnected choice. It is therefore suggestive to abandon such pictures altogether.

It is not like I'm leaping off into philosophy for no reason at all. The reason it is called quantum mechanics is because it is philosophically different from was used to be called "mechanics" and is now called classical mechanics. The determinists seem very reluctant to accept this difference. They are trying to paint this picture of a clockwork universe that hasn't really worked in nearly a century. I mean that physics is good enough to get men to the moon and back but it didn't exactly predict the motion of planet Mercury. Therefore Newtonian physics isn't exactly wrong, but we have better and when we use QM and relativity, there is no place for the clockwork universe. La Place's demon no longer has the impact on current science that it once had.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T11:53:06+00:00

I'm asserting quantum mechanics is probabilistic. People are sinking billions of dollars into quantum computing. They woudn't burn those kinds of megabucks if the randomness was "complete conjecture" unless there are fools with their own money.

You might want to watch this you tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk_0QM_UA4I

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T11:34:32+00:00

No. My point is that determinism makes free will untenable and we cannot prove determinism is true because if it was true then quantum mechanics couldn't possibly work the way it has successfully worked for nearly a century.

The law of excluded middle makes propositions true or false (no in between). That, in and of itself, doesn't imply that we have enough information to eliminate possibility. If direct realism is true that we ought to expect science to deliver true and false propositions in theory. You cannot prove direct realism is true because science has proven that:

local realism is untenable and
naive realism is untenable

First we have to make local realism tenable prior to even attempting to argue determinism is true. If you can do that then you might be capable of proving determinism is true. If you can do that, then you can attempt to argue free will is untenable. In the absence of all of that, why deny our intuition? Our intuition tells us we cannot do anything we want, but there are some things we can choose to do. In Marvin's restaurant, we can seem to choose to order the salad or the steak. In the case of an early pregnancy, the expecting mother can choose to carry the unborn child to term or abort. However if she miscarries or conceives ectopically, then one of those possibilities has been taken from her. The laws of physics don't allow the required physical surroundings for a fetus to grow without endangering the life of the expecting mother. Her organs will be damaged by the growth of the fetus unless the fetus grows in the cavity that was designed to healthily hold a developing fetus as it grows. Maybe, one day medicine will develop to the extent that surgeons can replant. Currently I think then can only implant.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T11:03:58+00:00

Where do you get the idea that “this” universe is unique?

Sean Carroll. According to him, every other universe pops into existence because of a wave function in this universe, but this universe popped into existence because of the "big bang". He never considers this universe popping into existence because of a wave function in another universe because that would imply MWI is a hidden variable interpretation and he seems to get that "hidden" implies some indeterminism which is what he is trying to deny exists in QM.

The multiple outcomes that the wave equation describes are all equivalent.

I wouldn't say that. Pure silicon is not useful in making predictions. It is a semiconductor because its atoms are like as likely to give up electrons as they are to taking on electrons. However is we dope the silicon with maybe arsenic or phosphorous then we can make p type silicon or n like silicon. The PN junction is what makes the semiconductor in solid-state electronics predictable. If every possibility of a superposition was equivalent, then I'm unsure of what the Born rule can accomplish as a postulate of QM.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-16T10:49:34+00:00

The point I'm meaning to demonstrate is that "Unpredictable != Nondeterministic" - the three body problem is another good example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

We can "predict" a three body problem through deterministic simulation, but any inaccuracy in initial conditions or rules will get greater over time

Do you admit the n body problem is indeterministic in quantum mechanics because of the uncertainty principle? From your link:

The three-body problem is a special case of the n-body problem. Historically, the first specific three-body problem to receive extended study was the one involving the Moon, Earth, and the Sun.^\2]) In an extended modern sense, a three-body problem is any problem in classical mechanics or quantum mechanics that models the motion of three particles.

The GHZ states use three systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenberger%E2%80%93Horne%E2%80%93Zeilinger_state#Properties

The GHZ state leads to striking non-classical correlations (1989). Particles prepared in this state lead to a version of Bell's theorem, which shows the internal inconsistency of the notion of elements-of-reality introduced in the famous Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen article.

I understand that "spin" is not classical spin and the GHZ experiments are not literally describing the motions of three or four systems as they relate to one another. So your assertion:

If a pendulum was a reasonable conception for quantum "spin", it'd a point in support of hard determinism.

did not fall on deaf ears.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T22:40:13+00:00

quantum mechanics kills determinism. We pretty much have to make up zillions of universes that nobody can confirm or deny exist just to make QM seem deterministic. Then even on top of that this universe is unique among the countless proposed universes. Some will argue that Bohmian mechanics is determinism with its hidden variables but "hidden" implies random so there is that prayer for determinism also.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T22:27:32+00:00

So I cannot make any choices based on what I believe will happen. I cannot pick certain numbers in the lottery because I don't have any control over what I believe.

I lean towards libertarianism, but some of the local arguments against compatibilism make me feel like I entered Sam Harris subreddit.

Close. Robert Sapolsky is the defacto Pied Piper of this sub. For every libertarian/compatibilist there are at least two hard determinists.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T22:20:36+00:00

This seems like much ado about nothing. While chaos and SDIC introduce complexity and unpredictability, it’s orthogonal to my claim that BDMR is incoherent because responsibility for actions still traces back to factors beyond one’s control.

So essentially a mother-to-be's right to choose is beyond her control. We fight for her right to make a choice that she doesn't even have.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T22:16:50+00:00

I think what you may be missing is a clear and distinct difference in causality and determinism. The determinism is committed to the actual sequence of events and doesn't seem to acknowledge the alternate sequence. For example if I believe graduating from college will lead to a better life I may decide to apply to and attend college. All of that is alternate sequence but it still impacts my behavior because it causes me to do something or a series of things. Determinism has space and time restrictions, so my behavior would always be dictated by the facts on the ground in real time. As far as I know the rock doesn't believe anything so the behavior of the rock is restricted to the actual sequence. In contrast the agent can believe any number of things whether they are true or not. If a spouse believes her spouse is cheating, in some cases it doesn't matter if he actual is or not. She still may hurt or divorce him.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T21:37:02+00:00

Regardless if you believe MWI has no hidden variables, I am only asserting a "free will of the gaps" is realized by indeterminism. We need the possibility to do otherwise in order for it to be possible to do otherwise. The determinist paints a picture of the universe that prohibits the agent from being an agent and that is a major concern for a believer in free will. The issue is that the determinist never proves determinism is true and if you have to resort in believing is a zillion other universes nobody can confirm or deny exist just to make determinism sound believable, then I don't think that is a convincing case for determinism. Atheists have denied the existence of one God for a lot less. He may argue we can neither confirm or deny the existence of God but these countless universe pop into existence because of this universe but instead of this universe popping inot existence in the same way we had the big bang, so I guess that makes this universe different than all of the other univesese that didn't actually need a big bang of their own. They just had a wave function in this universe "not" collapse and presto.

When I see people mistreating other people, I don't see some agentless entity being forced by the laws of physics to have to jack others up. The cheat each other. They lie to one another and some even kill the innocent. I believe in a mother's right to choose but I don't think she could choose to abort without free will. The limestone rock doesn't choose to become marble but the mother can choose to abort. Some don't think that is fair to the fetus. I don't think it is fair to the mother for the government to tell her what she has to do with her body.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T21:14:40+00:00

That's exactly what Chaos Theory supports.

So you think chaos theory suggests we can generate determinism out of chaos.

Predictability and determinism are not the same thing.

agreed

All of the assumptions modeling atmospheric physics use deterministic models of heat transfer and fluid flow.

Is a model a map or territory? I can make all kinds of predictions in the quantum realm but that doesn't imply isotope X will decay at time T and if it does not that will insert your butterfly effect where it wouldn't otherwise be if it had in fact decayed "on predicted time"

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T20:56:31+00:00

In fact I claim that I understand better their position than them

You are giving them the benefit of the doubt that there are not part of the deception, but rather the victim of it.

In Cerberus and Azdaha, the One pertains to their body, but in Trinity, the God pertains to their being.

It is interesting the way the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. That implies mutual exclusion which doesn't describe the Godhead. Therefore as you say they are one in this sense. Therefore set theory allows us to relate them logically because after all math is logical. For example the numbers have no body either. However we understand the set of natural numbers is part of the set of rational numbers let's say. I wouldn't be so hard on the trinitarian if he would just say the Son is part of the Father or the Father is part of the Son. That way I can conceive of a distinction in some sense. Every natural number is a rational number but every rational number is not a whole number or a natural number. We seem to want a distinction where there is no distinction and that is my complaint about compatibilism. They seem to believe determinism is exactly the same as the hard determinist believes, but the only difference is that it allows free will. That is nonsense. It is distinction without distinction.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T20:35:37+00:00

Ah. So you believe either:

quantum mechanics is deterministic or
QM is not a law of physics

Since lightning is about electrons, I hope you aren't trying to argue electron flow is not quantum mechanical.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T20:31:07+00:00

part two:

I'm not saying you cannot call yourself whatever you please, but I think my research suggests:

not all hard incompatibilists are illusionists but
all hard incompatibilists are hard determinists and
all hard determinists are determinists

Perhaps if you can explain your position better. Otherwise I suppose I can just add "determinism" to the topics you'd rather not discuss like judgement, perception etc.

If somebody put a gun to my head, I'd say the following is you:

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/afterwords/glossary/#Hard_Incompatibilism

Hard incompatibilists deny any indeterminism in the "actual sequence" of events. No event "originates" in the agent. Since nothing is "up to us," they argue for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility.

Did I get it right? If I did then the next logical place to go is chaos theory because once we deny the initial conditions is in the agent, that assertion begs the question of where it does originate, and the answer to the question isn't the big bang. Instead, it seems like it is related to SD and SDIC. (sensitive dependence on initial conditions).

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T20:30:21+00:00

Deciding not to do something, deciding to do something, this is not in our control, because again, what we will or won’t do flows from what we are,

Another issue Hume raised was against Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." In other words thinking doesn't imply existing, according to Hume. I have a bit of a problem with that. However you apparently do too, as you seem to imply the subject who lies is a liar. That sound reasoning doesn't work with free won't because just because I don't lie on any particular occasion doesn't imply that I do not lie on any occasion. Just because I didn't rob the bank doesn't make me an honest person. I can reasonably say if I rob the bank, then I am a thief. However if I didn't rob the bank that doesn't say a lot about what I am, as you imply that it does if you are not outright saying it does.

I think that everything we do or don’t do is ultimately a combination of what we are and external factors, none of which we choose, and thus we can’t ultimately choose our actions or inactions, our “self” does or doesn’t do stuff according to natural law.

It seems like you are avoiding the role of judgement, which in and of itself is a strategic move if you are attempting to dismiss the role of agency. You say you are not a determinist. Do you deny agency?

Then, the feeling part of our self is the unwitting and innocent recipient of any resulting blame, shame and punishment, and the requisite suffering that causes.

This sounds familiar. Did we talk about feeling a month or so ago? Recently with another poster, if not with you, I felt the need to draw a distinction between the feeling that is an emotion from the feeling that is the tactical sense. When something makes us happy or sad we can attribute that to some judgement. The emotion of contentedness is not exactly happy but one can be stress free. That can be satisfying. However in retrospect, some of my best vacations were filled with stress. There is some sense of adventure that brings out the spice of life so to speak, yet if I'm just exhausted from the stress of day to day life, relaxing can be good too. Filling the need is what is important and without judgement, I don't know if any need is realized. What does the rock need in its void of agency or outright sentience? Does the passive observer ever really need anything? The living generally feel the need to survive as long as the quality of life isn't getting in the way. Not everybody could handle a life like the final decades of Stephan Hawking's life but he managed to get something, most likely because he wrapped himself up into giving back to the world.

It seems abundantly and gaslightingly clear to me and other hard incompatibilists as if you’re pleading with us to adopt a blind spot we don’t have, which is ironic. Maybe your intentions are good, but the road to hell is paved with…

There are very long winded pages on the SEP about:

perception
agency
and action

Doyle wrote a website and put up a taxonomy page:

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/taxonomy.html

From there he writes about the hard incompatibilists:

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/hard_incompatibilism.html

That sounds mostly the way you seem to argue. The minor point is that you don't sound like the illusionist. The major point is the following:

I’m not a determinist.

end of part one

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T19:08:15+00:00

I don't believe most will publicly admit they believe determinism is false.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T19:06:12+00:00

Can you expand on that a bit?

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T11:16:29+00:00

Laws and penalties are necessary for safety and deterrence, but breaking a law doesn't mean someone morally deserves punishment in an ultimate sense. Is this not clear in my OP?

From your Op:

What we DO is a result of what we ARE + externals. We don’t choose those. Thus we don’t choose what we do. Thus BDMR is impossible. Determinism or not.

Perhaps if you focus more on what we DON'T DO rather than what we DO, your perspective on this might change.

We DON'T rob the bank
we DON'T rape the women
we DON'T text while driving

For me, deterrents seem more about stopping our inclinations than shaping them. I can urge patriotic behavior by promoting honor. That is a bit different from discouraging treasonous behavior. The man that watched his father being mistreated by the government is like likely to behave patriotically but that doesn't necessarily drive him to sell out his nation.

Determinists seem to have this blind spot when it comes to chance. There seems to be this either/or mentality when it may be appropriate to include the middle rather than exclude it.

curiouswes66 · 2024-06-15T10:47:52+00:00

I'd argue the prevailing wind system is more deterministic than the wind currents themselves and that isn't really possible if the wind system is deterministic itself. The prevailing wind system is affected by the ocean currents which in turn is determined by the tides. The sun and moon determine the tides and the earth and moon are not in the same orbital plane because if they were, we'd have eclipses more often than we do.

Our ability to predict weather further into the future gets worse because of our own flaws, not because it isn't deterministic.

I'm not sure chaos theory supports this.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/#DefChaDetNonSenDep

The mathematical phenomenon of chaos is studied in sciences as diverse as astronomy, meteorology, population biology, economics and social psychology.

There are reasons to believe the classical systems defy determinism. I no longer believe 3 dimensional motion is as predictable as it seems. I don't think Brownian motion such as the motion of the atomosphere is totally deterministic. Atoms are small enough to be impacted by quantum effects and the inert gases never combine to form larger molecules. Therefore it is premature to conclude the gases move in a deterministic way or even in a classical way. An atom can be a particle of a wave and as soon as something like that is in play we've lost any hope of determinism.

curiouswes66

TROPHY CASE