02:54
@shp999 "My point is that if you argue for any deterministic "cause->event follow-up" to be a choice, then all of them can be argued to be choices with the same argument." We're certainly not in sync here... it seems you're confusing two arguments
The argument at play here is against the notion: "if determinism is true then choice doesn't matter"... also, I get the feeling that you're constantly conflating "choice" and "free will"
@Bread "I believe free will is strictly about moral responsibility, not at all about "feelings" of control or competency." ...that's not really unusual in itself; the discussion about morality and free will often overlap... but, regarding this point and the rest of what you have here, I think I'm understanding your views a bit better and it's quite an intriguing perspective. Thank you.
@shp999 Many hard determinists nevertheless believe we make choices; e.g., if someone asks you, "want any fries with that?", and you respond, your response is making a choice. That's not really at issue; h.d.'s rather try to argue that you don't have "free will", whatever that means. But the particular thing I'm arguing about is more nuanced... it's the notion that "your choices don't matter" (the fatalist stance)
7 hours later…
10:07
@shp999 This has to be another "English language" thing... there are generally "word forms". "Communication" for example is the art of communicating; to communicate is to participate in communication. Likewise, for something to be predetermined, you have predetermination. ...
As well as these sorts of word forms, English has prefixes that can be used to change meaning. Back in the day, we had floppy disks. To actually write files onto a floppy disk, the disk had to be formatted. To format a disk, you would run a command with that name: "format" (e.g., "format a:" is a command to format the disk in the "a drive", in DOS)
This is tedious, but you could get disks that are "pre - formatted" (preformatted). "pre-" in English is a prefix that means something comes before. A pre-formatted disk was formatted before you bought it in a store.
Likewise, to pre-dict something is to say it before it happens (from the latin "dicere" "to say"; the english base "dict" means "say as in "dictate); and the very word prefix itself is pre+fix; it's something that comes in front of a word (a "suffix" comes after; "infix" is used in technical contexts)
Synonym's are different; they're just distinct words that can mean similar things. Communicating and communication aren't synonyms, they're different forms of the same word. "Like" and "desire" are synonyms.
Here we have "determine" and "predetermine", which is like the "format" and "preformatted" case... pre+determine is meant to convey that there's determination going on, but something happens before something else. So it's "supposed" to mean something a bit distinct.
That's actually baked into the concept; you don't say something is predetermined if all you mean is determined; you say that if you mean something about the determination comes before some thing.
Yes, but a different form of the word isn't considered a synonym, just a different word form (this applies to "predetermination" versus "predetermine")
pre- is more distinct; it conveys a particular type of formatting... a type that is done before something (in the particular case of preformatted, before you bought it)
In "normal" contexts (as opposed to philosophical), I might determine something in advance but "predetermine" would be the wrong word for it... for example...
If I'm playing pool, by some rules before I sink the 8 ball I have to actually indicate which pocket I intend it to go in, before I hit the cue ball. However, the act of doing so is determining which pocket I want it to go in... you wouldn't say it's predetermining it.
And it refers to before some particular thing, usually as opposed to an "ordinary" sense, otherwise there'd never be a point to having the prefix
"communication" does not have "tion" as a prefix just because I type more words after the word "communication"
It's still a suffix because it comes after in this case the main part of the word ("communicate" as the base)
What thing "pre" means that the thing it's attached to comes before isn't arbitrary; it's contextual
Not "before the current moment". You format a disk, then time passes. Then it's just "formatted". It doesn't become "preformatted."
preformat could actually be present tense. If I'm making disks and selling them, I might say to my peer, "make sure you preformat the disks"; meaning, specifically, that he formats it, before the purchaser gets it. But the request is to do that in the near future.
The general concept of predetermination in a philosophical context, especially regarding determinism, is that the (full) state of the past... before something usually held to be significant... is sufficient to determine what happens in the future
People who use the word "predetermined" use it in one of two ways: (1) to simply mean determine, in which case they're being confusing (possibly confusing even themselves), or (2) to mean "fated", in which case they actually are confusing themselves
Either way it's better to drop the "pre"; the fact that all effects have antecedent causes is already baked into the concept of determinism, but it's the chain of causes that leads a distant past state to a specific future state
I do get the impression that you're missing the ordinary English sense of the word "pre" here, so you're kind of missing out on what the conversation is about
10:57
@shp999 The entire basis of my complaint of the concept of predetermination (in this philosophical sense) is that there's no absolute distinct meaning between predetermination and just determination and that, if you think there is one, you misunderstand determinism
Let me give you a description of "fate", which predeterminism is often confused with, and contrast it with determinism... fate, by definition, is the notion that things in the future will occur a particular way no matter what
As an example, we might pose the problem of a simple number guessing game. I'm going to guess a number between 1 and 10, and you just have to predict what number I guess.
If I'm fated to pick a number... doesn't matter which one (call it x, but imagine it's "5" or something)... then no matter what happens, that's the number I will pick. Which means, even if you tell me which number I will pick, I will still pick the number.
In a deterministic universe, however, I could use any criteria to pick the number... including, as a criteria, the number you tell me that you predict. In such a universe, it would be trivial for me to simply "pick a number that is different than the one you predict me to pick"
If I do that, then it doesn't matter how smart you are or how you get your prediction, in a deterministic universe... you will be wrong 100% of the time.
This is because the very act of you predicting that number causes that prediction to be wrong... not because anything really complicated is going on, but rather merely by the fact that I'm "spiting" your prediction.
If I'm fated by contrast, this would be impossible, given that you simply tell me the number I'm fated to pick
Many people seem to have this very type of confusion between "predetermined" and "fated". But note that nothing about this really requires a complicated human brain with mysterious machines inside it... a spiter is as simple as a logical NOT gate
Yes, in a deterministic universe, there will only be one future. And yes, it will be some specific one. But it will be caused according to the universe's semantics. And, what's more, the rule that there will only be one future is highly exaggerated in importance
If the universe weren't deterministic, for example, this would only necessarily mean that you can't use the current state to infer what the future state is; how many futures will occur can still be one. And I think most people really conceive of only one future happening (the alternative, that multiple futures happen, is a property of "multiverse" like ontologies)
Everyone who believes in "A theory of time", and that the past is fixed (and at all times this is the case), and that what happened in the past is the only past reality (and at all times this is the case), "should" by this alone believe there's only one future
There is this "PAP" concept floating around though... where the future isn't really "fixed"... that requires discarding "determinism", so it's thought, but there's a problem here. PAP imagines multiple "possible" futures... many "could" happen... but that's inconsistent with the notion that only one future "will" happen
3 hours later…
13:55
@FrankHubeny Thanks for that explanation regarding rocks, computers, etc. Definitely not what I was expecting. Seems rather far afield from what people generally speak about when they use the term "free will" (either in the libertarian/Christian way or the compatibilist way). If we are to say a rock has "free will" in some sense, then I don't know what that "free will" actually is.
2 hours later…
15:57
Here's why. Suppose we ask, "why is there cheese rather than butter?" for some particular context. Then we're presuming that within that context, there could be cheese, or there could be butter. But there could be other options as well; that presumption doesn't necessarily hold.
Regarding your rephrased question: "Why does everything exist?" ...then either that is asking a different question, or it is asking the same one, depending on what you're asking. If you're asking, "why do things exist at all", you are asking, "why is there something rather than nothing?", just phrased differently
For example, were I to ask, "why does carbon exist?" ...then the answer can actually be found in the mechanisms of stellar nucleosynthesis
The question, "why does something exist as opposed to nothing?", is not asking why there's cheese rather than butter; it's asking why things exist as opposed to nothing existing. Rephrase the question, and you're still asking that, you just rephrased the way you asked it (to become less clear?)
7 hours later…
23:33
@Chelonian I don't know what that free will would be if rocks or computers had it. One place I've looked at recently (due to my own health issues) is genes. I don't think they have free will either, but something called the "holobiome"--those microbes inside the gut, on our skin and around us in the air--may well have free will even telling us what we should want to eat. See Steven Gundry, The Plant Paradox, for more on that.
@Bread I suppose I see something similar about the universe (or some universe) always being present as you do. I tend to view God as a kind of field that is alive and personable. That is the "space" that is eternal. The problem with saying God is a field, however, is we think fields are unconscious. That word suggests the wrong idea. This field would also be conscious.
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Transcript for
Oct11
Oct '1812
Oct13
Free Will, Omnipotence, Determinism
Discussing issues of causal and theological determinism
