I found an article that neatly describes my problem with libertarian free will

https://www.georgewrisley.com/blog/?p=47

In this post I will argue that libertarianism cannot actually explain or make rational why an agent chooses one course of action over another. I will do this by arguing that though libertarianism seems to be able to explain why an agent acts the way she does at some given moment in time, even though the action is not causally determined, libertarianism cannot explain why the agent does that action instead of some other action. I find this troubling, since I believe humans have free will and I believe that compatibilism is not a tenable position on free will because it collapses into hard determinism.

The main issue in the free will debate is whether or not and in what sense humans have free will. That is, are human choices or actions free, and if so, in what sense are they free? Both the hard and soft determinists endorse determinism, which is the view that all events (including human choices) are causally determined (necessitated) by antecedent conditions. Humans do what they do, make the choices they do, according to both these views because of factors outside of the agent’s control, e.g., upbringing, physiology, and interactions with others. On both views, if time were rolled back any amount and allowed to play forward again, the exact same events would occur. The hard determinist takes this to imply that there is no free no; the soft determinist says that free will is compatible with determinism. The libertarian position, on the other hand, denies that determinism applies to the realm of human agency. A person’s will is causally undetermined. According to libertarianism, if the clock were rolled back, then radically different things could happen than what happened the first time. This is because humans could choose differently the next time around even though all antecedent conditions including beliefs and desires remained the same.

One objection that libertarianism faces is that if our wills are causally undetermined, then how can we make sense of the choices that a person makes? The hard and soft determinists both make sense of human choice in relation to the desires and beliefs of an agent. Bob desires to read a book and he believes there are books on the bookshelf; so he goes over to the bookshelf. On both determinist views Bob’s desires and beliefs cause him to go to the bookshelf; the same goes for all of his other choices. But the libertarian denies that Bob’s will is causally determined by anything; so how do we explain why Bob chose to go the bookshelf? For we want to maintain that Bob’s choices and actions are rational—they don’t occur for no reason or randomly or arbitrarily.

The libertarian response is to say that Bob’s actions are explicable in terms of his reasons. Here the libertarian makes a distinction between reasons as causes and reasons as goal directed intentions. We can ask for the reason the rock fell off the cliff and we expect a causal explanation. But we can also speak of a person’s reasons for acting in terms of her goals. Bob goes to the book shelf in order to fulfill the purpose or goal of getting a book to read. Nevertheless, Bob could have also chosen to ignore the goal of getting a book to read.

However, the above response does not really save libertarianism. Imagine two parallel worlds: W1 and W2. At time T1 both worlds are exactly the same in all respects, e.g., same histories, same people, objects, etc. Bob exists in both worlds; so we have Bob1 and Bob2. Assume libertarianism is true. At time T2 Bob1 goes to the bookshelf and gets a book. We explain that choice by saying that Bob1 had the goal of reading a book and believed books were on the bookshelf. At time T2, Bob2 goes to the kitchen and gets a glass of water. We explain that choice by saying that Bob2 had the goal of quenching his thirst and believed water was available in the kitchen. So Bob1’s and Bob2’s actions are seemingly explainable under libertarianism, despite the fact that they aren’t causally explainable, since the actions were not causally determined.

Despite the above appearance of libertarianism being able to adequately explain a person’s actions, there is the following problem for libertarianism. We cannot make sense of why Bob1 went to the bookshelf at time T2 and not the kitchen, and Bob2 went to the kitchen at time T2 and not the bookshelf. At time T1 both Bobs have the same exact set of beliefs, desires, emotions, etc. Now we can appeal to Bob1’s goal of reading a book to explain why he went to the bookshelf and Bob2’s goal of quenching his thirst to explain why he went to the kitchen. However, given the details of the example, Bob1 must also have the goal to quench his thirst at time T1 and Bob2 must also have the goal to read a book at time T1. According to libertarianism, each Bob is free to choose which goal to try to achieve. However, since Bob1 and Bob2 have all of the same goals, beliefs, etc., there is nothing different between them to which we can appeal to explain why Bob1 chose to go the bookshelf at time T2 and Bob2 chose to go the kitchen at time T2. Their individual actions are explainable, but libertarianism cannot explain why one choice is made instead of another.

The libertarian might say that Bob2 decided that quenching his thirst was more important than reading a book, and vice versa for Bob1. But in virtue of what did Bob2 make that decision? And the same question applies to Bob1? Their beliefs, goals, desires, etc., are all the same. So, neither Bob can appeal to beliefs, desires, etc., that the other does not have in order to explain the different weight given to the goals chosen, goals which are meant to explain their actions. So under libertarianism, the decision to do one action over the other ends up being arbitrary after all. Thus, libertarianism cannot actually explain or make rational why an agent chooses one course of action over another.

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Quoting tim wood

I'd argue that determinism only makes sense if chance is eliminated.

Determinism isn't really the alternative here.

The two alternatives at play, as far as I can tell, are "libertarian free will makes sense" and "libertarian free will doesn't make sense". The reasoning in the linked article is why I believe libertarian free will doesn't make sense - even if we live in an indeterministic world.

I think neither determinism nor randomness have anyrhing to do with free will; they are both equally conducive or non-conducive to it. The concept of free will in its prima facie conception makes absolutely no sense when you try to place it in the framework of any kind of scientific framework. The only kind of "free will" that makes sense is something that is kind of trivial like the psychological experience of agency or choice-making under regular psychological conditions.

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[quote=George Wrisley]In this post I will argue that libertarianism cannot actually explain or make rational why an agent chooses one course of action over another.[/quote]

I used to always have tea at breakfast, but I have changed my habit and nowadays I always have coffee. Not being able to explain such things is integral to the freedom one has.I changed my mind. And that, I would suggest, is a freedom that one always has, but does not always exercise.

But I would say that it is not by an act of will that one exercises one's freedom, that is rather a contradiction, 'will' being a determining factor in the sense that to be strong willed is to be determined.

Can anyone else change their mind, or are you all determined to be determined? A determined mind is a programmed mind, and freedom is what allows the mind to be responsive. To a determinist, the mind is a mere epiphenomenon, because it has no known cause or effect.

Reply to unenlightened You haven't engaged with the reasoning presented in the article.

Quoting flannel jesus

You haven't engaged with the reasoning presented in the article.

That's true. I have presented another position, with other reasoning.

In short, I agree that 'free-will' is incoherent; that is the extent of my engagement. I then propose that 'freedom' is not incoherent.

Quoting tim wood

Then neither does determinism. It would seem both are incomplete models.

They're not models, and they're not incomplete. They're categories. For any system that evolves in time, you can categorise that system as deterministic, or if it's not deterministic you can categorise it as indeterministic.

For people who believe in libertarian free will, they would say that if you can categorise the system that is Our Universe as deterministic, we can't have free will - libertarian free will believers posit that we have free will, and that we must live in an indeterministic universe in order to have that.

But the problem that the article points out is, if you drill in to any individual indeterministic choice - which is to say, a choice that has a non 0 percent chance of happening differently under the exact same conditions, and an ontologically real chance, not just a chance based on ignorance - then if we do watch it play out differently, that different result can't be attributed to the agent.

Determinism doesn't have that struggle because determinists don't say "we only have free will if we can ontologically, really do a different thing even under the exact same circumstances".

Quoting tim wood

And it could be that having Bob1 and Bob2 as identical in all respects is just plain not possible - indeed, how could it be?

just fyi, literally nobody is talking about it being actually possible for us to set this up in real life. Nobody thinks we can -actually- do that. The entire post you're reading is a thought experiment, and it can never be more than a thought experiment. He's thinking through the consequences of indeterminism, as a thought experiment.

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Reply to tim wood I don't know what you're trying to say.

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Quoting tim wood

The argument you cite in your OP seems categorical in its conclusion, but that conclusion seeming based on what-if reasoning.

Yup, the history of philosophy and science is full of people doing thought experiments without the ability to immediately conduct those experiments in reality. I'm comfortable with thinking about ideas, even if I can't physically test them.

If you don't like thinking about ideas you can't physically test, perhaps this post won't appeal to you much. That's okay.

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Quoting tim wood

Amen. Just some care is needed in affirming them and how they're affirmed. And recognizing what can and cannot be tested.

Ok, so now that you know it's a thought experiment, and not a real experiment, and nobody thinks it's a real experiment and nobody is suggesting we conduct it in physical reality, you're invited to actually think about the ideas he presented, in regards to Bob1 and Bob2, or... not. You may just wholesale decline the invitation.

Quoting flannel jesus

But the problem that the article points out is, if you drill in to any individual indeterministic choice - which is to say, a choice that has a non 0 percent chance of happening differently under the exact same conditions, and an ontologically real chance, not just a chance based on ignorance - then if we do watch it play out differently, that different result can't be attributed to the agent.

In short, if the outcome is random no libertarian free will' if the outcome is causally determined again no libertarian free will. The article (and I grant I haven't taken my time in reading it) completely forsakes teleological reasoning and teleological determinacy (actions determined not by efficient causes but by the telos intended).

Indeterminacy comes in many different varieties, basically solely signifying not-causally-deterministic-in-full.

Furthermore, in lived experience (and not inferential guesswork) we only make choices in times of psychological uncertainty and never when we hold full psychological certainty as to what is to be done. In certain ontologies, this very psychological uncertainty as to which one of two or more alternatives are best can then overlap with ontological uncertainty in regard to future possible realities.

To make this somewhat more concrete, suppose you intend to go to the store to get some food. You thereby get into your car and start driving on the most direct streets toward the store - getting there with minimal waste of time being the telos which determines that you so drive (rather than taking a leisurely walk, for example). At the first stop-sign, though, there's an unexpected car accident that prevents you from following your initially planed course. At this juncture only, you will then have alternatives to choose between: say, going back home and purchasing supplies later, going left toward the store rather than straight ahead, or going right toward the same destination. Now suppose you take time to conceiously deliberate (weigh the pros and cons of each alternative). You don't have full psychological certainty of which alternative best satisfies your more distant telos: that of not being hungry. In this deliberation, you figure that because going right will lead you the fastest to the store on the available streets despite likely heavier traffic, and so you turn right. This decision, choice, is then that of a libertarian free will, for as far as you know going left, despite taking longer to drive on streets, might have been the fastest path on account of far lesser traffic. The choice was ultimately (under libertarian free will) yours as an agent. It was neither random nor fully determined by efficient causes. And you could have chosen differently under the same exact circumstances (both external and internal: beliefs, thoughts, etc. in a time of psychological uncertainty as to which alternative best satisfies one's telos). Responsibility for what happens then is yours as an agent.

This isn't meant as any kind of logical proof for libertarian free will, but it is intended to at least illustrate its possibility.

Quoting javra

In short, if the outcome is random no libertarian free will' if the outcome is causally determined again no libertarian free will.

yup

Quoting javra

The article (and I grant I haven't taken my time in reading it) completely forsakes teleological reasoning and teleological determinacy

Thank god for that

Quoting javra

This decision, choice, is then that of a libertarian free will, for as far as you know going left, despite taking longer to drive on streets, might have been the fastest path on account of far lesser traffic. The choice was ultimately (under libertarian free will) yours as an agent. It was neither random nor fully determined by efficient causes. And you could have chosen differently under the same exact circumstances

And why is that fact - that the choice could be different if everything were the same - relevant? Would you still have made a free choice even if, in that moment, you were guaranteed by the facts of the circumstance to make that choice, no matter how many times we replay that scenario?

Quoting flannel jesus

And why is that fact - that the choice could be different if everything were the same - relevant? Would you still have made a free choice even if, in that moment, you were guaranteed by the facts of the circumstance to make that choice, no matter how many times we replay that scenario?

As to the second question: Some previously made choices in my life, most certainly not - not due to what I know of their outcomes but due to changes in character with which the choice was made to begin with. Other choices, most likely yes.

As to significance, because that's what librarian agential free will signifies.

Quoting javra

As to the second question: Some previously made choices in my life, most certainly not - not due to what I know of their outcomes but due to changes in character with which the choice was made to begin with. Other choices, most likely yes.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Most certainly not what - can you be explicit please? Are you saying the choice would be free even if it was guaranteed by the circumstances and the state of your mind?

Reply to flannel jesus Yes, I've currently got my mind in two places at once, so to speak. And need to take off soon enough. Misread the quote to read something along the lines of "would you have chosen differently than you did in the past given the same exact contexts". My bad, obviously, for having misread, but it is to that misreading that I replied.

Quoting javra

"would you have chosen differently than you did in the past given the same exact contexts". My bad, obviously, for having misread, but it is to that misreading that I replied.

I see, I thought your repsonse sounded like that kind of tthing.

No, we can all agree that if you're in a similar circumstance at a completely different point in life, that you're likely to make a different decision. That's not part of the debate.

That's part of wha tI like about the article that I posted - it's very clear about that. Before the choice bob1 and bob2 are *exactly* the same and in the *exact* same situation. That's what the conversation revolves around. Because again, everyone agrees that you'd make a different choice if you're no longer exactly the same person as you were the first time you made that choice.

Reply to flannel jesus

Yes, but again, you are presuming a forced choice between randomness and causal determinacy - with a "thank god" attitude for not entertaining teleological reasoning of intentions.

Why doesn't 1 + X = 2 irrespective of whether one equates X to 0 or to 2? Because it cant.

I'm off for now.

Quoting javra

Yes, but again, you are presuming a forced choice between randomness and causal determinacy -

It's my understanding that they're mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive. I've never been given a coherent reason to think otherwise, and I don't currently think there is a coherent reason to believe otherwise. I'm actually inclined to think it's basically tautologically true that, for any given evolution of a closed system from one state into another state, either that evolution is deterministic or it involves some randomness.

The argument in the OP, though, doesn't invoke randomness. We don't even have to bring up that word in this context.

Have fun doing whatever you're up to.

Quoting flannel jesus

Have fun doing whatever you're up to.

Visited my father's gravesite with other to commemorate his death. Not exactly what I take ought to be fun. But thanks anyway.

Quoting flannel jesus

It's my understanding that they're mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive. I've never been given a coherent reason to think otherwise, and I don't currently think there is a coherent reason to believe otherwise. I'm actually inclined to think it's basically tautologically true that, for any given evolution of a closed system from one state into another state, either that evolution is deterministic or it involves some randomness.

On what grounds do you justify this rather stringent opinion?

As I previously alluded to, I disagree with it on grounds that I take the teleological reasoning of intentioning to be ontically occurrent and hence real. And it can neither be efficient causation nor randomness.

At any rate, glad you're aware enough of your own convictions.

But, to be honest, I'm mainly replying due to not then understanding what you intend by the word "will" other than something which lacks an ontological referent, as in this sentence:

Quoting flannel jesus

... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will.

To be clearer, if will, volition - be it conscious or unconscious - has nothing to do with intentioning and hence with teleology (succinctly, the movement toward ends such that the not yet actualized ends pursued to some measure determine the actions taken in the present), then what is "the will" to you?

Quoting javra

To be clearer, if will, volition - be it conscious or unconscious - has nothing to do with intentioning and hence with teleology (succinctly, the movement toward ends such that the not yet actualized ends pursued to some measure determine the actions taken in the present), then what is "the will" to you?

None of that looks to me like it has anything to do with what I said. I never said any of those things at all, I don't think.

Quoting flannel jesus

None of that looks to me like it has anything to do with what I said. I never said any of those things at all, I don't think.

It's based on best interpretations of this comment:

Quoting flannel jesus

The article (and I grant I haven't taken my time in reading it) completely forsakes teleological reasoning and teleological determinacy — javra


Thank god for that

How else ought this comment of yours be interpreted, especially when taken into context of what I was expressing about intentioning's teleological reasoning and determinacy?

Reply to javra I thought you said "theological" lol.

Quoting flannel jesus

I thought you said "theological" lol.

Oh. OK

Reply to javra the "thank god" was meant to be a joke

Reply to flannel jesus Yea. I got that much.

Reply to javra Anyway, the article lays out a clear scenario - a Bob1 and a Bob2 who are both entirely the same as each other and in entirely the same circumstances before some decision. Then, that decision comes up and, despite the fact that they're perfectly the same and in entirely the same scenario, they choose something different from each other. Bob1 choose a different thing from Bob2 in that moment.

Now, the reasoning in that article is pretty crystal-clear as far as I'm concerned: if we're accepting that Bob1 and Bob2 are the same, then the explanation for why Bob2 chose something different can't be found inside Bob. Because nothing inside Bob2 was different from Bob1. Right? Does that make sense? Like, even if you don't think it's true, do you at least understand the reasoning there?

Quoting flannel jesus

Right? Does that make sense? Like, even if you don't think it's true, do you at least understand the reasoning there?

Yes. I do understand the reasoning. And it's that very non-teleological reasoning that I initially replied to. Somehow feel like we're going about in circles. So I won't repeat the summarized argument I previously expressed.

Do you still maintain that there can be no teleological reasoning or determinacy? If so, unless you can provide rationally justification for excluding the very possibility of teleological reasoning and determinacy, I'll maybe call it quits. I'm not intending to argue against unjustified affinities toward certain metaphysical outlooks that others nevertheless prefer to maintain - this despite their lack of justification.

Quoting javra

Do you still maintain that there can be no teleological reasoning or determinacy?

I don't think I even know what you mean. What I love about the op article is how remarkably clear and unambiguous it is. I don't think you're making yourself nearly as clear as that.

Maybe take it 1 step at a time, talk me through why teleological reasoning means that the explanation for why Bob2 did something different from Bob1 is sourced in bob himself, despite them being perfectly identical. Pretend like you never said anything before, start from the beginning. Really from the beginning, pretend I don't even know what the word teleological means.

Reply to flannel jesus Can you please answer my question first. It still applies.

Reply to javra I would love to but your question doesn't make sense to me.

I can't maintain that if I don't understand what your teleological reasoning is.

Reply to flannel jesus

Are you at all familiar with the notion of final causes?

In today's terms and commonly accepted metaphysics they're considered to not be causes but explanations. I term the process "teleological determinacy" to hopefully explicitly emphasize that intents/teloi/ends can and do in fact determine present motions - in the content of the OP, this as regards will.

If you're not at all familiar with this notion of determinacy which is more commonly termed final causation, then I get why the question makes no sense to you.

Reply to javra No, not familiar with any of it, that's why i'm asking you to explain it from the beginning my bro.

Reply to flannel jesus

Ok. There's an intent, a goal, a not yet actualized end which you want, or desire, to make real at some point in the future. It could be a classic example of having made a statue, or it could be that intent os satiating one's hunger or thirst. Whatever it is, that's the end pursued.

So lets say you have a statue in mind as final product which you want to actualize. For as long as you move toward this - in this example - distal (or distant) end/telos you will likely make certain choices between alternatives (each being its own potential and more proximal end/telos) that best satisfies the accomplishment of you distal end.

The distal end, in effect, then to some significant degree determines which proximate alternative you will likely choose in your efforts to actualize the distal end.

The not yet actualized future actualized statue is then the final cause of your current actions, say chiseling a block of stone. Hence, the telos/aim/goal/end you actively hold in mind teleologially determines your current activities toward it.

So far so good? Or do you have objections?

Reply to javra it's very jargon heavy. "Distal end" sounds like a fancy way of saying end goal. Is that right?

What does "not yet actualized future actualized statue" mean? That's a very difficult phrase to parse.

Honestly it just sounds like you can skip all the jargon and say,

You've imagined a statue that you want to make. It becomes your goal to make it. You make choices to achieve that goal. The desire to achieve your goal is part of what determines your actions, while you still haven't achieved it yet.

Is that right? Is that it in a nutshell? I'm gonna get lost in the sauce if you try to force in a whole new vocabulary, especially if there's no benefit to the vocabulary over just normal words.

Quoting flannel jesus

"Distal end" sounds like a fancy way of saying end goal. Is that right?

Sure, but the "end goal" is almost always relative to context. For most any end goal invisions, there is almost always a more distant or abstract end goal to which the first plays a more proximate part. E.g., you're aim is to satisfy you're hunger, but this in itself can have the further down the line end goal of staying alive. Etc.

Quoting flannel jesus

What does "not yet actualized future actualized statue" mean? That's a very difficult phrase to parse.

OK, not written as good as it could be. End is a not yet actualized statue that you intend to actualize at some point in the future - otherwise you actualizing the statue you have in mind will not be a personal aim you actively hold (say you're only imagining a statue for the fun of it with no intention to bring about any such thing in reality at any point in your life).

Quoting flannel jesus

You've imagined a statue that you want to make. It becomes your goal to make it. You make choices to achieve that goal. The desire to achieve your goal is part of what determines your actions, while you still haven't achieved it yet.

Is that right? Is that it in a nutshell?

That works. But to me it excludes things that are themselves important. Such that each alternative one chooses between, at the time of the choice making, is of itself a goal, or aim, one then chooses between.

Reply to javra mate, I can't do these crazy sentences. It seems like you're going out of your way to make the most basic concepts sound as complex as possible. You've just said a sentence that basically amounts to "each alternative you choose between, you choose between". My dude, I'm going to actually go crazy if your wording is going to stay like this.

You make choices to achieve your end goal, and some of those choices are themselves smaller goals. Is that it?

Reply to flannel jesus Alright. Maybe I'm tired and it shows in my expressions. Maybe you could bother to look into the rather basic wikipedia page of final causation I've linked to to better understand it. It's terminology and concepts that have a history of two millennia. Though not often addressed in today's materialist metaphysical understandings.

Thing is, teleology can easily reduce to basic concepts, yes, but - to my best current appraisal - to grasp the implications of teleology in the context of free will requires more than just today's basic concepts of causation and randomness. It's like discussing what fitness means in the context of evolutionary biology without any comprehension of the basic biological paradigm, a little like debating the issue with someone who replies "but the animal fits just fine in the box over there, so what do you mean it has no biological fitness if it never reproduces? And why can't you use ordinary language rather than a specialized meaning for 'fitness'. It fits in the box after all."

As I've said, maybe I'm largely at fault in my expressions, but I've got no problems in letting things be as they currently are, lack of common understanding on the subject though we currently have.

Reply to javra you really don't think I've captured just about everything you've said, much more succinctly and clearly, in my plain language paraphrasings? Dang dude. If I can't paraphrase it then I definitely am not understanding it.

Reply to flannel jesus

This page seems to give a good overview of teleology, but is considerably longer than this page, which also give an adequate overview. Notice that I'm not linking to articles that further these concepts in jargon such as "distal", etc., but simple to understand Wikipedia pages written from as broad an audience as one can get.

A "final cause", aka "telos" is far more than what you've succinctly and clearly expressed in plain language paraphrasing - with the latter being only one subsection of the former. And I'm fairly sure that without understanding what a telos is it's going to be more pointless than not to engage in discussion regarding how free will can be neither deterministic nor random.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry dude.

Reply to flannel jesus

However, since Bob1 and Bob2 have all of the same goals, beliefs, etc., there is nothing different between them to which we can appeal to explain why Bob1 chose to go the bookshelf at time T2 and Bob2 chose to go the kitchen at time T2.

There are plenty of differences. Two different worlds, two different Bobs, two different positions in space and time, etc.

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Humans do what they do, make the choices they do, according to both these views because of factors outside of the agent’s control, e.g., upbringing, physiology, and interactions with others. On both views, if time were rolled back any amount and allowed to play forward again, the exact same events would occur.

If this is true, isn't [I]everything[/I] outside of the agent's control? If we have all the thoughts we think, and do all the things we do, because of all those things, what is [I]in[/I] our control? And what is the nature of that control?



Quoting flannel jesus

The reasoning in the linked article is why I believe libertarian free will doesn't make sense - even if we live in an indeterministic world.

If the choice of book or water, or even which book, is not determined, and it's is not the result of free will (whatever that is), then how does the one happen instead of the other? Is it random?

Reply to tim wood That's not what the article in the op is about

Quoting Patterner

Is it random?

In my view, yeah, that's really the alternative to determinism. If we have a system evolving over time, it seems to me that any given change in that evolution must either be determined or be at least in part random.

Quoting flannel jesus

In my view, yeah, that's really the alternative to determinism. If we have a system evolving over time, it seems to me that any given change in that evolution must either be determined or be at least in part random.

This issue, spelled out in more details in the short essay that you linked to in you OP, is commonly recognized in the literature on free will, determinism and responsibility. Robert Kane dubbed it the Intelligibility problem for libertarianism. He himself advocates a sophisticated form of libertarianism that purports to evade this issue. His account doesn't fully satisfy me, although it has some positive features, but I also endorse a form of libertarianism, myself, albeit one that doesn't posit free will to be inconsistent with determinism (and causal closure) at the micro-physical level where the material realization of our actions and (psychological) deliberations are realized. This means I am not a rollback-incompatibilist. I don't believe free-will, and correctly understood alternate possibilities for an agent to have acted otherwise, require that, if the universe would be rolled back to an earlier stage in its history, its evolution could have unfolded differently. So, my account doesn't suffer from an intelligibility problem either.

Reply to Pierre-Normand what makes your view libertarian, instead of compatibilist?

Quoting flannel jesus

what makes your view libertarian, instead of compatibilist?

Excellent question! I don't believe microphysical determinism to entail universal determinism. Mental events aren't physical events, on my view, even though they are the actualizations of cognitive abilities of rational animals (human beings) who are entirely made out of physical stuff, and mental events can be acknowledged to supervene on the physical. I think it is almost universally agreed among philosophers and scientists that microphysical determinism and supervenience (thereby excluding dualism) jointly entail universal determinism. But I think this is wrong and it overlooks the fine-grained structure of rational causation in the context where cognitive states and rational activity are multiply realizable in their physical "substrate" and it is the general form rather than the specific material constitution of those states (and processes) that is relevant to determining what the causal antecedents of human actions are. This is all very sketchy but spelling out intelligibly the details of my account required much space. I wrote two unpublished papers on the issue, and have explained many features of it to LLMs mainly to help me clarify my formulations, most recently here. (As a follow-up to this background material.)

Reply to Pierre-Normand It sounds like you think, given the same state, the same future will follow. And it sounds like you believe we have free will anyway. I guess, to me, that just tautologically looks like what it means to be compatibilist. I accept that you interpret it differently though.

Quoting flannel jesus

It sounds like you think, given the same state, the same future will follow. And it sounds like you believe we have free will anyway. I guess, to me, that just tautologically looks like what it means to be compatibilist. I accept that you interpret it differently though.

I think rational agents have the ability to determine, by means of practical deliberation, which one of several alternative possibilities will be realized whereas the prior state of the "physical universe," characterized in physical terms, although it is such that knowing it precisely would in principle enable someone to predict with perfect accuracy what action the agent will actually choose to do, fails to make it necessary that the agent would chose to perform this action. I acknowledge that this claim sounds counterintuitive but maybe I could challenge someone who hold the opposite (and very commonly held) view to demonstrate its validity. Jaegwon Kim (with his Causal exclusion argument) and Peter van Inwagen (with his Consequence argument) have tried, for instance, and failed in my view. Furthermore, the demonstration of the flaws in their arguments are richly instructive in highlighting the peculiar structure of rational causation whereby it is sensitivity to rational norms of practical deliberation that primarily explains human action, and this sensitivity consists in the acquisition of cognitive abilities that are irreducible to law governed material processes.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

whereas the prior state of the "physical universe," characterized in physical terms, although it is such that knowing it precisely would in principle enable someone to predict with perfect accuracy what action the agent will actually choose to do, fails to make it necessary that the agent would chose to perform this action.

Wait, it could be predicted with perfect accuracy, but it isn't necessary? Are you sure this isn't a distinction without a difference?

If something has 100% chance of happening, to me, that's what it means to be "necessary". I don't think there's a difference between those two things. If Y follows from X 100% of the time, that's the same as saying Y necessarily follows from X. No?

Quoting flannel jesus

If something has 100% chance of happening, to me, that's what it means to be "necessary". I don't think there's a difference between those two things. If Y follows from X 100% of the time, that's the same as saying Y necessarily follows from X. No?

When you perform an action for good reasons after having correctly deliberated about it, then your performing this action isn't something that "happens" to you. It is something that you make happen. Among the many things that you considered doing, only one of them was done because (maybe) you deemed it (though exercising your powers of practical reasoning) to be the right thing to do or the only reasonable thing to do. In that case, the past physical state of the universe (P1) didn't make you do it. A (universal) determinist might argue that P1 deterministically caused P2 to occur and since the choice that you actually made, M2, supervenes on P2, we can say that P1 caused you to do M2. In that case, the physical past and the laws of nature precludes you from seeing to it that you don't do something else, such as M2*. For M2* to have occurred, the physical past would have had to be different—P1*, say—such that P1* deterministically causes P2* and P2* is a material realization of M2*. That is true but all this means is that if, counterfactually, P2* had been the case, then you would have seen to it that M2* is the case. And that's not because P2* would have "made you" do M2*. It's rather because, since M1* intelligibly rationalizes your doing M2*, you would have seen to it that, whatever antecedent physical state P1* realizes M1*, P1* would necessarily cause some P2* to occur that realizes a mental state (i.e. a decision to act) M2*.

Likewise in the actual sequence of events, P1 didn't cause you to do M2. It is rather because P1 happens to realize M1, and you saw to it that, in light of M1, M2 should be done, your deliberation ensured (thanks to the proper formal/functional organization of your cognitive processes) that whatever P2 would be deterministically caused by P1 to occur would be such as to realize M2. So, it is you (by means of the free exercise of you rational cognitive powers) that ensured that you would do M2. P1 only had the physical power, as it were, to determine that P2 would occur, but not that P2 would be such as to realize some action M2 that is intelligible in light of M1.

Note: You'll find below how Grok 3 proposes that I reformulate my response above for the sake of clarity.

[hide="Grok 3's enhanced phrasing"]When you perform an action after carefully deliberating and choosing it for good reasons, that action doesn’t just “happen” to you—you make it happen. Among the many options you considered, you selected one because, through your powers of practical reasoning, you deemed it the right or most reasonable thing to do. A standard compatibilist might argue that the past physical state of the universe (P1) deterministically caused the subsequent state (P2), and since your chosen action (M2) supervenes on P2, P1 ultimately caused M2. They’d say that the physical past and laws of nature ensured you couldn’t have done otherwise—say, M2*—because M2* would require a different past, P1*, leading to P2* that realizes M2*. That’s true as far as it goes: the physical chain sets the stage.

But here’s where my view diverges: P1 didn’t force M2 upon you. While P1 deterministically causes P2, it’s your rational deliberation—starting from your mental state M1 (e.g., your beliefs and reasons)—that ensures P2 realizes M2, the action you judged best. Consider a counterfactual: if your mental state had been M1*, rationally justifying M2*, your deliberation would have ensured that whatever physical state P1* realized M1*, it would lead to a P2* realizing M2*. In the actual case, P1 happens to realize M1, and through your reasoning, you determine that M2 should follow. Your cognitive processes then ensure that P2, caused by P1, aligns with M2. So, it’s you—via your rational agency—who ensures M2 happens, not just P1.

Now, to your challenge: you’re right that if Y follows X 100% of the time, Y is necessary given X—in a physical sense. If P1 guarantees P2, and M2 supervenes on P2, then M2 was inevitable once P1 occurred. But for free will, the question isn’t just whether the action was physically necessary, but whether you determined it through reasoning. In my view, the physical necessity (P1 ? P2) provides the mechanism, but your deliberation decides that P2 realizes M2 rather than some alternative. This makes the action a free choice, not a mere physical outcome.

Thus, P1 has the “physical power” to ensure P2 occurs, but it doesn’t dictate that P2 realizes M2 specifically—that’s your doing. The physical chain makes something inevitable, but your rational agency makes it a meaningful, chosen action rather than a forced event. This, I think, marks the difference from standard compatibilism: your freedom lies in shaping the action’s rational content, not just in its alignment with your desires or its predictability from P1.[/hide]

Reply to Pierre-Normand I think we just have a difference in vocabulary, because my beliefs are really similar to yours, but I just call it compatibilism.

Quoting flannel jesus

I think we just have a difference in vocabulary, because my beliefs are really similar to yours, but I just call it compatibilism.

There is an important distinction between my (and possibly yours as well) conception and standard compatibilist stances. According to standard compatibilism, beliefs and desires when you begin deliberating are such as to determine (through some high-level psychological laws or regularities, maybe) that you would perform some specific action. If this process isn't psychologically alienating (on Frankfurt's 'deep self' account, for instance) then the action is 'free' (as opposed to it being coerced or impeded). Crucially, though, it's the agent's antecedent psychological state that do the causal work, as it were.

On my view, by contrast, the antecedent psychological states fulfill the exact same causal role as the antecedent physical states. There are mere enablers of your agentive rational powers. It is the intelligibility of M2 in light of M1 (in light of rational norms that you apprehend), and not the deterministic causation of M2 by M1 (allegedly explained by psychological laws) that ensure that M2 occurs. You are making M2 occur through the ongoing disclosure of the intelligibility of this action, in light of the rational content of M1, in the progressively unfolding present moment. This contrast sharply with the view that it is your past psychological states that are the causal antecedents of M2, and that are such that you have no power to see to it that anything else could happen except what had been determined by the past.

Yet again, Grok 3 improved significantly the clarity of my poorly phrased argument above by rephrasing it thus:

Grok 3:

"You’re right that our views may have a lot in common, and it might seem like we’re just using different words. But I think there’s a deeper difference in how I see agency, and it goes beyond vocabulary. Let me explain.

In standard compatibilism, when you deliberate, your beliefs and desires at the start—your antecedent psychological states—determine what you’ll do. Through some kind of psychological laws or patterns, those states cause a specific action, like M2. If that process reflects your “deep self” (say, per Frankfurt), it’s free, and no coercion was involved, your actions are free. The key, though, is that your past psychological states do the heavy lifting: they set the action in motion, and you couldn’t have done otherwise given those states and the laws.

My view is different. I see those antecedent states—both psychological (like beliefs) and physical (like brain processes)—as enablers of your rational powers, not as causes that fix your action. They give you the tools to deliberate, but they don’t pull the trigger. What ensures you do M2 is its intelligibility in light of your current state, M1, guided by rational norms you grasp in the moment. These norms aren’t deterministic laws predicting what you’ll do; they’re standards of what you ought to do—like choosing what’s coherent or good based on M1. For instance, if M1 is a desire to act kindly, rational norms guide you to help someone (M2), but you could still choose otherwise—norms don’t force you.

Take an example: Imagine M1 is your hunger and memory of a great cake, and M2 is eating it. Standard compatibilism says your past hunger and memory cause you to eat, end of story. In my view, you eat because, in the present, you reason it’s fine to indulge—your deliberation, not your past, makes it happen. The past sets the stage, but your agency lies in how you reason now.

So, when you choose M2, it’s not your past states determining it through some causal chain. It’s you, in the unfolding present, making M2 happen because it makes sense given M1 and the norms you follow. That’s why I don’t call it standard compatibilism: your freedom isn’t about the past locking in your action—it’s about your reasoning shaping it right now."

Reply to Pierre-Normand I conceive of compatibilism as quite general, not any specific way of framing the process of choice making. Compatibilism is a classification of a set of beliefs, rather than a specific belief.

A compatibilist belief in free will is one that satisfies this criteria: whatever free will you think we have, you would think we have even if we live in a deterministic extended casual system - regardless of the specifics of how you actually believe our extended casual system works, and also regardless of if the casual system we're in is actually deterministic.

An extended casual system is deterministic if it evolves to the future in a singular way, where given a particular state at t1, you will always arrive at the same t2. Regardless of how that evolution works, regardless of how you choose to frame that evolution - whether you choose to invoke agency or choice or even souls, or you just stick to physics - if t2 will always follow from t1 no matter how many times you replay t1, then it's deterministic.

And I think everything you've laid out fits within that criteria.

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Reply to tim wood because your will is the same. How can you attribute a difference to something that was the same?

Let's say one little kid grows up to be a great athlete, and another little kid grows up to be a serial killer, despite similar upbringings in a similar environment. "Why did they turn out so different?" one asks. "Well," tim wood answers, "they had rich parents."

What do you mean?

Well the person who grew up to be a great athlete had rich parents, that's why he did that.

And the person who grew up to be a serial killer had rich parents, that's why he did that.

You see the problem with that as an explanation? It's... not. It's not an explanation. Their parents being rich can certainly be PART of an explanation for why they each went down the paths that they did, but it can't be the explanation as a whole - in order to explain a difference, you must appeal to a difference. To explain why one kid did something different from another kid, you have to explain it with a difference. This kid did something different because of this different thing he experienced in his life that the other kid didn't, or something.

Likewise with Bob1 and Bob2. Their will was the same prior to the choice, so to explain the difference, you have to find the source of the difference - you have to find a difference. And given that Bob1 is perfectly the same as Bob2 prior to the choice, that difference doesn't come from Bob himself. Because he's the same.

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Quoting flannel jesus

?T Clark I'm a compatibilist,

(From another thread.). I had never heard the term [I]compatibilism[/I] before coming to this site, and can't say that I have much of a handle on it. You say these things;Quoting flannel jesus

The reasoning in the linked article is why I believe libertarian free will doesn't make sense

Quoting flannel jesus

I'm actually inclined to think it's basically tautologically true that, for any given evolution of a closed system from one state into another state, either that evolution is deterministic or it involves some randomness.

Quoting flannel jesus

Is it random?
— Patterner

In my view, yeah, that's really the alternative to determinism. If we have a system evolving over time, it seems to me that any given change in that evolution must either be determined or be at least in part random.

It doesn't sounds like you think there is free will, which, from what I'm reading, is a part of compatibilism.

Or is it that you think there is free will, but not libertarian free will?

Reply to tim wood I don't think it's strictly logically impossible that Bob2 would do something different. I just think it makes no sense to attribute that difference to him if he's the same as Bob1.

Btw, in the thought experiment, just how exactly do Bob1 and Bob2 act differently?

Bob1 gets a book, Bob2 goes to the kitchen, in the linked article.

Quoting Patterner

Or is it that you think there is free will, but not libertarian free will?

That's right.

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Reply to flannel jesus
Cool. Can you tell me what kind of free will you have (pardon the pun) in mind? I understand (more or less?) the determinism and randomness, but not the free will.

Reply to tim wood ?randomness?

If you account for all facts between world one and world two, and all relevant facts about both worlds are precisely the same, then the difference between those worlds must not be sourced in some fact about those worlds. A casual force that isn't sourced in any existing fact, to me, is exactly what "random" means.

I'm not saying randomness really exists, I'm saying IF this thought experiment goes through as described, that's what randomness would be.

Reply to Patterner I am a decision making machine. I'm free, perhaps in a trivial way, to do (or try to do) the things I want to. The things I, as a decision making machine, decide to.

You should definitely read the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy article on compatibilism. No doubt my concept of compatibilism is not universal among compatibilists.

Quoting flannel jesus

In short, if you maintain that if you were to set the entire world state back to what it was before a decision (including every aspect of your mental being, your will, your agency), and then something different might happen... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will.

If you set the world back to just before the decision point, all the factors that led to the decision would still be present - even mental factors that may operate independently of the deterministic universe. I don't see how a different decission could ensue- unless it's due to some randomness. Randomness doesn't seem a reasonable basis for libertarian free will.

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Quoting tim wood

How do you have that in a deterministic world?

The conversation is about indeterminism. So the answer is, you don't. I think you've possibly misunderstood what's happening here.

Quoting flannel jesus

?Patterner I am a decision making machine. I'm free, perhaps in a trivial way, to do (or try to do) the things I want to. The things I, as a decision making machine, decide to.

In the Book vs. Water scenario, which action is a thing you want and are free to do, and which is the result of the machinery? I don't suspect you mean book is one and water is the other. Perhaps you are free to choose to get a book, but the machinery decides which book you will pick? Or the other way around?



Quoting flannel jesus

You should definitely read the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy article on compatibilism. No doubt my concept of compatibilism is not universal among compatibilists.

Yes, I've started that. Thank you.

Quoting Patterner

In the Book vs. Water scenario, which action is a thing you want and are free to do, and which is the result of the machinery?

That's not two separate things. The machinery --is you--.

Or at least a physical instantiation of the abstraction of "you" maybe. But probably simpler to leave that out and just say the machinery is you.

Reply to flannel jesus
I could certainly have misunderstood what you are saying.

In what way are you free, if only in a trivial way? I would think a decision making machine just crunches numbers. Or, rather, the neurological impulses, which all came about due to previous impulses, all guided by upbringing, physiology, interactions with others, etc., interact with one another until a final arrangement (in regards to the books, although that becomes part of the next group of impulses that interact when future choices are made) is reached. Just as the arrangement of everything at the bottom of a mountain after an avalanche is the ends result of many interactions. (And that arrangement becomes imput for future events, such as erosion and the presence of animals.) I don't understand what freedom exists.

Quoting flannel jesus

https://www.georgewrisley.com/blog/?p=47

This has been my issue with libertarian free will for maybe decades. I've worded it in various ways myself, but I think this guy puts it pretty well.

In short, if you maintain that if you were to set the entire world state back to what it was before a decision (including every aspect of your mental being, your will, your agency), and then something different might happen... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will.

This is a well-known objection to libertarian free will. It even has a name in the literature - the Luck Objection. Naturally, libertarians are well aware of it and try to address it in various ways.

The author of the blog post articulates the argument pretty clearly, but he is misrepresenting some key terms. For example, he conflates libertarianism with incompatibilism, and he presents compatibilism as a variety of determinism.

I would suggest reading an introductory article on the subject, such as Randolph Clarke's SEP article Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will

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Reply to tim wood sure. When he's talking about world 1 and world 2, Bob 1 and Bob 2, that only makes sense in an indeterminist context. In a determinist context, Bob 1 and Bob 2 will behave the same way because they are in the same conditions. Only in indeterminism can you start in the same state and end up doing something different.

Quoting SophistiCat

For example, he conflates libertarianism with incompatibilis

He does? I missed this. I don't think he said incompatibilism at all in his article. Libertarianism is a subcategory of incompatibilism, and that's what he's talking about.

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Reply to tim wood I believe in free will my dude

I'm not sure what you mean by "do likewise for indeterminism"

Quoting flannel jesus

He does? I missed this. I don't think he said incompatibilism at all in his article. Libertarianism is a subcategory of incompatibilism, and that's what he's talking about.

Well, it's not. Libertarianism and incompatibilism often go together, but they are neither identical nor subcategories of one another.

Reply to SophistiCat Oh, I've never heard someone take that position. Wikipedia says

In particular, libertarianism is an incompatibilist position[2][3] which argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe. Libertarianism states that since agents have free will, determinism must be false.

Why do you think libertarianism isn't a subcategory of incompatibilism?

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Quoting flannel jesus

Why do you think libertarianism isn't a subcategory of incompatibilism?

It can strongly depend on what one makes, how one interprets, determinate state of affairs. This, for one example, can hearken back to the possibility of teleology determinacy - as one of many examples. Something that today's notions of determinism denies. Yes, I get that this outlook is by no means common nowadays, but I can find nothing to evidence the metaphysical, to not mention logical, impossibility of such forms of determinacy. But since teleological mechanisms are generally speaking jargonish to you, I'll skip the details. All the same, yea, I for one am a libertarian compatibilist. Have been ever since I read David Hume (maybe a different issue). So liberarianism is not necessarily a subcategory of incompatibalsim (namely, a lack of compatibility between libertarian free will and deterministic processes). One could also think of this stance as a form of "semi-determinism" - one which thereby endorses indeterminism (in the sense of today's notions of causal determinism) but denounces the notion of incompatibilism (again, between libertarian free will and determinacy).

I duly grant it isn't a common outlook nowadays, but it does illustrate the case when it comes to logical possibilities regarding libertarianism and incompatibilism.

Reply to tim wood I succinctly said what determinism is? Can you copy and paste the thing I said that you think is the succinct definition of determinism? If you do that, I suspect there's a really nice way to modify that definition - by adding in a well-placed 'not' perhaps - to produce a good definition for indeterminism. After all, the prefix in- means "not" - not determinism.

Reply to javra So wikipedia got it wrong you think, interesting. And I see people across the internet getting it wrong the same way (perhaps they're all just bouncing the misinformation from wikipedia amongst each other). How do you think that happened? Why is it so common that people think that, pretty much -by definition-, libertarian free will means incompatibilist free will?

-edit- I even see Stanford Encyclopedia saying the same thing. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#LibeAccoSour

second paragraph: "and ‘incompatibilist’ or ‘libertarian’ accounts of source and self-determination"

And phil papers: https://philpapers.org/browse/libertarianism-about-free-will

"Libertarians believe that free will is incompatible with causal determinism"

And this notre dame philosophy department https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/libertarian-free-will-contemporary-debates/

"Libertarianism is the view that (a) agents are sometimes free and morally responsible and (b) free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with causal determinism."

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Reply to tim wood That's much too opaque for me, sorry. I try to read between those lines, but I don't see anything. Can you spell out for me what you're trying to get at?

I replied to your request already: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/975134
If you're not just repeating the same request, I don't know what you're doing.

Quoting flannel jesus

Why is it so common that people think that, pretty much -by definition-, libertarian free will means incompatibilist free will?

-edit- I even see Stanford Encyclopedia saying the same thing.

In a nutshell: because people today - both academic and otherwise - have been habituated into believing that determinacy can only apply to a conflux of material causation / determinacy and efficient causation / determinacy - this to the necessary exclusion of teleological causation / determincay and formal causation / determinacy. But this is patently wrong.

To anyone who believes that it is not patently wrong to so exclude, please logically evidence how the latter two types of causes / determinacy must be logical impossibilities within metaphysics at large (or at least point to someone who so logically evidences).

Reply to javra I don't see why you think they're excluding goal-based determining factors. There's nothing, not one iota as far as I can see, of these definitions of determinism that makes it all about material causation or precludes all non-material causal factors.

Yes it's true that many individual determinists are also materialists/physicalists, but that doesn't mean the *definition* of determinism is so tight.

Reply to flannel jesus

Don't now have time to look for more in depth references. There's this for starters.

Determinism is the philosophical view that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable.[1]

Both formal causation and teleological causation directly contradict this proposition. Why? To express it briefly, and I acknowledge imperfectly: Because if these two forms of causation do occur, then some things are necessarily determined by determinants other than (efficient) causes per se. This such that some efficiently causal chains, or webs, can be (or at least in certain metaphysics can be viably upheld to be) altered via the two alternative forms of causation that are excluded. Which would then annul determinism (as it is specified in the quote). (Whereas material causes can be accordant to determinism as just specified.)

Most of today's compatibilitsts are so called soft-determinists. They uphold the determinism specified in the quote and further interpret "free will" in non-libertarian manners to conclude that there is compatibility between determinism and free will.

Therefore, most (at the very least I as one exception) will then conclude that libertarianism necessitates an incompatibility between libertarianism and determinacy - this on grounds of today's compatibilitsts being in fact determinists (who, again, reject the very possibility of both formal causation and teleological causation, basically to uphold the coherency of determinism thus understood as fully constituted of events made fully inevitable by efficient causes).

Quoting javra

Both formal causation and teleological causation directly contradict this proposition. Why? To express it briefly, and I acknowledge imperfectly: Because if these two forms of causation do occur, then some things are necessarily determined by determinants other than (efficient) causes per se.

I don't see why you think that quote excludes those types of causation. It certainly doesn't look like those types of causation are explicitly excluded. It doesn't specify any specific types of causation at all, in fact. Seems like it allows for any type of causation you can imagine.

Reply to flannel jesus Oh, shucks. I provided reasoning for what I upheld and yet uphold.

Go to the Wikipedia website linked to and click on the term "causally" and you will indeed see for yourself that it does strictly address efficient causes (wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect - this is not the case in either teleological causes or formal causes (in both of the latter, the determinant occurs, and can only occur, at the same time as that determined).

Reply to javra I think you're interpreting those words as narrowly as you can, so as to exclude the types of causes you're interested in. I don't interpret them so narrowly.

The last sentence of the first paragraph on the "causally" page is a nice entry point for non efficient causes, if I'm reading and understanding correctly.

The cause of something may also be described as the reason for the event or process.

Are teleological and formal causes the *reason* why some things happen? If so, they are not excluded from what I would consider to be a properly generalized concept of determinism.

Reply to flannel jesus Man, read the first two sentences of the second paragraph

In general, a process can have multiple causes,[1] which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future.

and then read the last sentence of the third paragraph:

Of Aristotle's four explanatory modes, the one nearest to the concerns of the present article is the "efficient" one.

And then reread what I previously said. (I feel like I'm spoon-feeding, and I don't like doing so.)

If you then still disagree, give some reasoning or references for so disagreeing. Please.

Quoting flannel jesus

Are teleological and formal causes the *reason* why some things happen?

They are merely "reasons" when one denies their ontological occurrence as determinants. And, once again, if they are ontologically occurring determinants, then determinism (as expressed in my linked to quote) fails.

Reply to javra an extremely unnecessarily narrow view of determinism fails, perhaps.

Quoting flannel jesus

an extremely unnecessarily narrow view of determinism fails, perhaps.

OK. I'll nevertheless repeat myself once again, if teleological causes and formal causes ontically occur, then one cannot logically maintain that everything is causally inevitable. Period.

So this broader view of determinism is not what is referred to by the term in today's philosophical literature. This broader view of determinism is instead logically contrary to it: thereby, in today's lingo, being in fact an in-(non)-deterministic metaphysics.

Reply to javra this conservation started with you saying

liberarianism is not necessarily a subcategory of incompatibalsim

and you used yourself and your beliefs regarding teleological causation as an example, going as far as to call yourself a "libertarian compatibilist"

but now we've come full circle and you're now saying that your particular brand of libertarian free will IS in fact incompatibilist.

Quoting flannel jesus

but now we've come full circle and you're not saying that your particular brand of libertarian free will IS in fact incompatibilist.

No. Please take the time to read what I post, as in this post here.

That initial post says it better, but to recap: libertarian free will can be an indeterminsim (as per the official meaning of the term "determinism" today in philosophical circles - with "indeterminism" then basically saying that at least some things are not causally inevitable) that is nevertheless compatible with determinacy (determinants and that which they determine). Ergo, libertarian compatibilism (for otherwise it would be soft-determinism compatibilism, which denies the possibility of libertarian free will).

After all, in a number of agentially libertarian forms of free will, the agent of itself is the efficient cause of the decision taken as effect - such that, despite potentially being influenced this way and that, it as cause to the decision as effect is at that juncture not predetermined in what it will decide by any other cause whatsoever. It's not determinism (everything is causally inevitable), but it is of itself a form of determiniacy - thereby fully compatible with a cosmos composed of determinants (again, of the four Aristotelian kinds).

Maybe you are confusing "indeterminism" with "incompatibilism" as terms?

I'll check in later. Spent enough time today at doing this.

Quoting flannel jesus

Why do you think libertarianism isn't a subcategory of incompatibilism?

I am going to take back what I said. While not everyone frames libertarianism as a species of incompatibilism, some do, and that includes some prominent proponents of libertarianism, such as Robert Kane:

Robert Kane:Those who are convinced that there is a conflict between free will and determinism, for these and other reasons, are called incompatibilists about free will. They believe free will and determinism are incompatible. If incompatibilists also believe that an incompatibilist free will exists, so that determinism is false, they are called libertarians about free will.

Others characterize libertarianism by what it means more generally, rather than by what it implies for determinism specifically. On that account, libertarianism and incompatibilism simply answer different questions.

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Quoting tim wood

What is it about indeterminism that makes it that way?

That's just the actual distinction between a deterministic system and an indeterministic one. In a deterministic system, the future states follow from past states, precisely and without variation. In an indeterministic system, they kinda semi loosey goosey follow from past states but with some wiggle room - a sprinkle of randomness.

Quoting tim wood

From the article and the thread I cannot find the sense of it.

Is this the first time you're reading about these terms? Determinism and indeterminism? If it is, I wouldn't recommend you try to learn everything you know about them just from one extremely short article and this thread.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/indeterminism

I find it useful to think of determinism from a programming point of view also. In programming, a function is deterministic if its output only depends on its input, and its output is the same every time you give it the same input. See here. Given a view like that, you could frame a deterministic system as a function of sorts, where the input is the current state and the output is the following state. An indeterministic function, thus, would be described by a function where, at least for some inputs, if you repeatedly call the function many times with that same input the output will sometimes be different.

Quoting SophistiCat

Others characterize libertarianism by what it means more generally,

What does it mean more generally?

For me, "free will" alone, without the term "libertarian" attached, is the general term. Attach "libertarian" and you're talking about the subclass of free will ideas which are not compatible with determinism. Apparently that's consistent with how the word was coined:

The first recorded use of the term libertarianism was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to necessitarian or determinist views.

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Quoting tim wood

But beyond that simple fact, this tells us nothing about indeterministic systems and certainly nothing about will, free or not.

What do you mean by "this"? What tells us nothing?

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Quoting tim wood

then we still don't know anything about them.

Other than the definition of what they are, which I wouldn't call "nothing".

Now that you know what distinguishes determinism from indeterminism, do you care to reread the scenario in the linked article in op about Bob1 and Bob2?

Quoting flannel jesus

For me, "free will" alone, without the term "libertarian" attached, is the general term. Attach "libertarian" and you're talking about the subclass of free will ideas which are not compatible with determinism. Apparently that's consistent with how the word was coined:

The first recorded use of the term libertarianism was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to necessitarian or determinist views.

For what it’s worth, as pertains to the history of ideas, the concept of compatibilism was developed by David Hume (see for example this SEP article) within the following context of ideas: free will and the necessity of determinacy are not only not mutually exclusive but in fact require each other to in any way work and make sense of the world.

With that in mind, here’s a simplified explanation of a libertarian compatibilism.

Working definitions:

Libertarianism: it is metaphysically possible that one could have chosen otherwise than what one chooses at any juncture of choice making.

Compatibilism: it is metaphysically impossible that any event, including that of choice making, can occur in fully undetermined manners; i.e. all events, including that of choice making, must be in some way determined by necessary determinants.

Premises:

P1: There can be no free will, libertarian or otherwise, in the absence of intentions.
P2: There can be no intentioning in the absence of at least one intent (i.e,, goal) which one seeks to actualize.
P3: The intent of any conceivable intentioning will always determine the actions one takes so as to actualize the given intent.
P3.1: An intent one pursues is thereby always a determinant of one’s actions, including those mental actions taken during moments of choice making.
P3.2: An intent is thereby always a subspecies of final causes, aka of teleological determinants.

Conclusion:

C1: Were libertarian free will to occur, it would necessarily be at all times minimally, but thoroughly, determined by teleological determinants.
C2: Using the working definitions provided, libertarian free will shall thereby at all times be necessarily determined by determinants if it is to in any way occur, thereby mandating a libertarian compatibilism: such that libertarian free will cannot possibly occur in the absence of the necessity of being itself determined.

In other words: no such thing as undetermined libertarian free will can occur, which (given the working definitions provided) would then be classifiable as a species of thought as “an incompatibilist libertarianism” – again, specifying a libertarian free will that is in no way determined by any determinants.

Quoting javra

Working definitions:

Libertarianism: it is metaphysically possible that one could have chosen otherwise than what one chooses at any juncture of choice making.

Compatibilism: it is metaphysically impossible that any event, including that of choice making, can occur in fully undetermined manners; i.e. all events, including that of choice making, must be in some way determined by necessary determinants.

Are those your definitions?

Quoting flannel jesus

Are those your definitions?

What fault can you find with them?

Reply to javra I think you've given the definition of determinism and called it "compatibilism".

Quoting flannel jesus

I think you've given the definition of determinism and called it "compatibilism".

OK, it was laconically written and so incomplete: add to it "and free will does occur". (I thought this would be implicitly understood.)

But, again, today's meaning of determinism is that "everything is causally inevitable" - so the definition I provided is not equivalent to determinism as understood today.

Reply to javra did you know you don't have to be a determinist to be a compatibilist?

Quoting flannel jesus

did you know you don't have to be a determinist to be a compatibilist?

I don't get the question. The possibility of indeterminst compatibilism is what I've been arguing for, after all.

Reply to javra I thought you were arguing for libertarian compatibilism.

Reply to flannel jesus Yes. And liberarainism can only be indeterminist by today's semantics. Hence: an indeterminst compatibiliism.

Reply to javra it can only be, yes, but that doesn't mean they mean the same thing. A square can only be a rectangle, but you can't just call things "squares" whenever you should be calling them a rectangle, and vice versa. The words still mean different things.

Reply to flannel jesus Yes, sure. But I didn't intend to say they are the same thing. To restate more explicitly: a (type of) indeterminist compatibilism.

But then again, given that compatibilism signifies a compatibility between free will and the necessity of determinants, what do you have in mind as a non-libertarian form of indeterminist compatibilism?

Mispost

Reply to javra someone who believes in libertarian free will believes the following 3 things

1. We have free will
2. Indeterminism is true
3. Indeterminism MUST be true for us to have free will

It's that third belief that's crucial there. You can be an indeterminist without believing 3. You could even be an indeterminist without believing 1.

Compatibilism, on the other hand, is more or less these 3 things

1. We have free will
2. Maybe we live in a deterministic universe, maybe there's some indeterminism (some compatibilists are unambiguous determinists, some are agnostic, and some are unambiguous indeterminists)
3. It doesn't matter if indeterminism is true or not for our free will

So an indeterminist compatibilism is just someone who believes we have free will, that we live in an indeterministic universe, but that if they happened to find out that we didn't live in an indeterministic universe, their understanding of free will would remain in tact.

Quoting flannel jesus

So an indeterminist compatibilism is just someone who believes we have free will, that we live in an indeterministic universe, but that if they happened to find out that we didn't live in an indeterministic universe, their understanding of free will would remain in tact.

How do you figure that when a non-indeterminstic universe can only equate to a deterministic universe, which in today's parlance can only equate to "everything is causally inevitable". What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable?

Quoting javra

How do you figure that

Because that's what compatibilism means. Compatibilism in this context literally means, my concept of free will is compatible with determinism.

Quoting flannel jesus

Because that's what compatibilism means. Compatibilism in this context literally means, my concept of free will is compatible with determinism.

Yes, but you specifically specified - or attempted to - the definition of an indeterminsit compatibilist.

Reply to javra uh huh. And I stand by that. An indeterminist compatibilist is an indeterminist whose concept of free will is compatible with determinism.

Reply to flannel jesus This is a jumble of words without definition and can potentially be as meaningless as would be "the black rainbow is both white and purple"

So it would really help out if you could answer this question as pertains to what you're attempting to argue:

Quoting javra

What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable?

Reply to javra every single word there has a clear prior context of meaning in this conversation, so I don't know why you think it's a jumble of words with no definition.

We know what it means for someone to be an indeterminist.

We know what it means for someone to be a compatibilist.

An indeterminist compatibilist is quite simply someone who is an indeterminist, and a compatibilist. Of course it is, why would it not be? A black horse is a creature that is a horse and is black. A rapping Asian is a person who is Asian and is rapping. An indeterminist compatibilist is an indeterminist who is a compatibilist.

I don't see which part you think is a jumble of words.

Quoting flannel jesus

An indeterminist compatibilist is quite simply someone who is an indeterminist, and a compatibilist. Of course it is, why would it not be? A black horse is a creature that is a horse and is black. A rapping Asian is a person who is Asian and is rapping. An indeterminist compatibilist is an indeterminist who is a compatibilist.

I don't see which part you think is a jumble of words.

You don't see that an indeterminist concept of free will is logically contrary to a determinst's concept of free will - even when either will claim their own versions of compatibilism. Given the span of this discussion on this topic, don't know what more to say then.

Maybe that is why you don't address this question via reasoning or examples. Again:

Quoting javra

What is "I could have chosen otherwise"- this being indeterminist free will (the many potential details and varieties aside) - in a universe where everything is causally inevitable?

I'll reply if you do address this question with some sort of explanation. Otherwise I won't. No biggie.

Quoting javra

You don't see that an indeterminist concept of free will is logically contrary to a determinst's concept of free will

My description of an indeterminist compatibilist didn't involve an indeterminist concept of free will.

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Quoting tim wood

Anyway, to complete the argument of the OP, an impossible thought experiment is set up, which itself is self-contradictory. In it, B1 and B2 have to perform the same action, but it is acknowledged that they do not. And that blows up that imaginary world.

They HAVE TO perform the same action? I'm not sure we're reading the same article. Why do you say they have to? The author didn't say that.

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Reply to tim wood the article isn't about determinism

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Reply to tim wood would you briefly paraphrase what you think the argument is in that article, and what the conclusion is? I'm really curious where you're at.

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Reply to tim wood the entire scenario with the 2 bobs is laid out assuming INDETERMINISM is the case. Not determinism. So that's why I didn't really understand why you're saying they have to do the same thing. If indeterminism is the case (and we're assuming it is, at that point in the article), then that enables Bob2 to do something different from Bob1.

Without going further into what I think of the rest of the argument, can you understand that at least? That the article takes indeterminism as an assumption, not determinism, and that therefore it's not the case that Bob2 has to do the same thing as Bob1.

There's a point in the article where he says this: "But the libertarian denies that Bob’s will is causally determined by anything". From that point on, for at least the next couple of paragraphs, and certainly while talking about the two bobs in the two worlds, he's talking about indeterminism.

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Quoting tim wood

Without some rigorous definitions, even if just tentative, nothing coherent can be stated or established

You don't even have a tentative definition of indeterminism?

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Reply to tim wood what I believe about free will is way more difficult to express than the ideas in this article. And they don't matter in regards to a thread about the argument in this article, so I would prefer not to do that here.

I'll just briefly say that my belief in free will can be summarised by "emergent compatibilism". If you want to read about that sort of idea from someone much more intelligent then I, check this out. If you want to talk more with me about it, I'd request you start a new thread.

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Reply to tim wood The universe being indeterministic doesn't seem to give any more room for free will than if it were deterministic.

Quoting flannel jesus

The universe being indeterministic doesn't seem to give any more room for free will than if it were deterministic.

Especially in light of statements such as this, for the life of me i don't understand your reasoning. I'm presuming the best here, and am earnestly trying to understand. In then going back to this:

Quoting flannel jesus

You don't see that an indeterminist concept of free will is logically contrary to a determinst's concept of free will — javra


My description of an indeterminist compatibilist didn't involve an indeterminist concept of free will.

If your description of an indeterminist compatibilism does not involve an indeterminst concept of free will, what on earth kind of free will can your description of an "indeterminst compatibilism" possibly entail?

(I can so far only assume it then mandates a determinist concept of free will. But then how does one get a determinist concept of free will - i.e., a free will whose doings are causally inevitable in all conceivable cases - to in any way cohere with an indeterminist compatibilism???)

Quoting javra

your description of an indeterminist compatibilism

I didn't describe an indeterminist compatibilism. I described an indeterminist compatibilist - a person who is a compatibilist, who happens to be an indeterminist.

The two positions aren't related. It's just a person who holds both positions at once..

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Quoting tim wood

Which cries out for defining all these terms. I have pointed out above that the article's mention of non-D was at least incomplete/inadequate and either thereby incoherent or itself already incoherent.

Why? Why is mentioning a term that tim wood doesn't know the definition of incoherent? Is it incoherent any time anybody says a word you don't know? Determinism is defined on wikipedia, or Stanford philosophy encyclopedia. It's not a complicated definition either - well, maybe it is to some I guess, it seems pretty straight forward to me. You not knowing the definition of a word doesn't mean anybody who uses that word is being incoherent.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

Quoting flannel jesus

your description of an indeterminist compatibilism — javra


I didn't describe an indeterminist compatibilism. I described an indeterminist compatibilist - a person who is a compatibilist, who happens to be an indeterminist.

The two positions aren't related. It's just a person who holds both positions at once..

Right. Glad you made the correction you made. Still. True. You didn't describe indeterminsit compatibalism, you described a person who upholds the position of indeterminist compatibilism: ergo, you described a indeterminst compatibilist.

All this being a difference that makes absolutely no difference whatsoever in respect to this:

Quoting javra

If your description of an indeterminist [s]compatibilism[/s] compatibilist does not involve an indeterminst concept of free will, what on earth kind of free will can your description of an "indeterminst [s]compatibilism[/s] compatibilist" possibly entail?

(I can so far only assume it then mandates a determinist concept of free will. But then how does one get a determinist concept of free will - i.e., a free will whose doings are causally inevitable in all conceivable cases - to in any way cohere with an indeterminist [s]compatibilism[/s] compatibilist's view???)

I don't much like sophistry, considering it a waste of time, and your response sure as fuddle so far seems to me to so be.

So, to get to the point: What the heck is a non-indetermistic notion of free will that can in any coherent way (i.e., any non-double-think or otherwise insane way) apply to an indetermistic compatibilist's views?

Quoting javra

what on earth kind of free will can your description of an "indeterminst compatibilism compatibilist" possibly entail?

A compatibilist one. Do you know what a compatibilist kind of free will is?

Let's break this down into two steps for you.

Step one: understand what it means for someone to understand "free will"from a compatibilist perspective.

Step two: understand why it's possible for an indeterminist to understand free will from a compatibilist perspective.

Shall we start with step 1?

Quoting flannel jesus

A compatibilist one

And what is "a compatibilist one"?

As best as I so far can tell: Either "compatibilism" is defined thus and is thereby accordant with certain forms of indeterminsim or, else, it is a compatibilism that upholds causal determinism and hence can not at any juncture uphold an indeterminist free will.

If the first, an indeterminist compatibilist can only uphold an indeterminst notion of free will.
If the second, the only logical possiblity is a determinist notion of free will - which is utterly incompatible with the indeterminism upheld by the indeterminist compatibalist.

So what other definition of "compatibiliist" do you have to offer???

Quoting flannel jesus

Shall we start with step 1?

Step 1 it is. Yes.

Reply to javra OK. So, first let me say, I'm not interested in convincing you of compatibilism. I can't do that. I don't want to do that, it's beside the point. I'm not even interested in convincing you compatibilism is *coherent*. All I'm interested in is if you're able, after this, to translate someone saying "I'm a compatibilist" into a more broken-down paraphrasing of what they're probably saying.

Luckily that's really simple.

If someone says "I'm a compatibilist", they're saying "I believe we have free will, and the type of free will I believe in wouldn't be undermined by determinism".

That's why it's compatible with determinism - because it wouldn't be undermined if, somehow, we found ourselves in a world where determinism were unambigously confirmed to be the case.

So are we past step one? Step one: understand what it means for someone to understand "free will" from a compatibilist perspective.

Quoting flannel jesus

OK. So, first let me say, I'm not interested in convincing you of compatibilism. I can't do that. I don't want to do that, it's beside the point. I'm not even interested in convincing you compatibilism is *coherent*. All I'm interested in is if you're able, after this, to translate someone saying "I'm a compatibilist" into a more broken-down paraphrasing of what they're probably saying.

I'm not interested in you convincing me of squat either. For Goddess's sake, I am a hardcore compatibilist - this of an indeterminsim ilk. Nor am I trying to convince you of anything either.

Re-read what I posted and rationally explain how a compatibilist notion of free will can make sense in the context of "an indeterminist compatibalist that does not uphold an indeterminist free will while upholding compatibilism.".

Because so far its about as irrational an affirmation as I can find.

Reply to javra so step 1 confirmed or not?

Reply to flannel jesus :roll: I give up.

Quoting flannel jesus

Others characterize libertarianism by what it means more generally, — SophistiCat

What does it mean more generally?

Libertarian free will requires agency, causal control, and most importantly, "genuine" alternative possibilities. The devil, as always, is in exactly how these requirements are cached out. My own view is that a lot of seemingly oppositional views on free will aren't as far from each other as they might present themselves.

Reply to SophistiCat interesting, would you say you can square genuine alternative possibilities with determinism? How would you describe a situation where there's genuine alternative possibilities, and yet determinism holds true?

Quoting flannel jesus

I conceive of compatibilism as quite general, not any specific way of framing the process of choice making. Compatibilism is a classification of a set of beliefs, rather than a specific belief.

A compatibilist belief in free will is one that satisfies this criteria: whatever free will you think we have, you would think we have even if we live in a deterministic extended casual system - regardless of the specifics of how you actually believe our extended casual system works, and also regardless of if the casual system we're in is actually deterministic.

An extended casual system is deterministic if it evolves to the future in a singular way, where given a particular state at t1, you will always arrive at the same t2. Regardless of how that evolution works, regardless of how you choose to frame that evolution - whether you choose to invoke agency or choice or even souls, or you just stick to physics - if t2 will always follow from t1 no matter how many times you replay t1, then it's deterministic.

And I think everything you've laid out fits within that criteria.

What distinguishes my account from compatibilist accounts is that it shares with most libertarian accounts a commitment to rational causation (as distinguished from Humean event-event causation), which is not merely indeterministic (owing to it appealing to norms of practical rationality and fallible human capabilities rather than to exceptionless laws, and hence violates Davidson's principle of the nomological character of causality) but, more crucially, also is an instance of agent causation. On that view, although actions can be construed as events, their causes are agents (temporally enduring objects, or substances) rather than prior events.

However, my account also shares with compatibilism one important feature that most libertarian accounts lack. Namely, it distinguishes between the 'predetermined' features of an agent, and of their past circumstances, those that are genuinely external constraints on their choices and actions from those that are constitutive of (and hence internal to) what they are, qua rational agents. Hence, upbringing, acculturation and formative experiences, for instance, are not things that merely 'happen' to you and that constrain (let alone settle for you) your actions "from the outside," as it were, but rather can be necessary conditions for the enablement of your abilities to rationally deliberate between alternate courses of action, and determine the outcome yourself (as opposed to the outcome being determined by past events that you have no control over).

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Reply to tim wood I read what you wrote. It still sounds like you're saying "it's incoherent because I don't know what (in)determinism means".

We talked about it already though. You say there's not even a tentative definition. I gave you one about functions - at least I think that was you. Do you recall how I distinguished deterministic functions from indeterministic ones?

You're acting like you're really trying and I'm responding in bad faith, that's not my experience of this conversation. My experience is, we've actually pretty explicitly gone through what these words mean at least in some context, and then pages later you just conveniently forget and get hostile about it because you're confused again. But we can go through it again.

Here's where I defined the difference between a deterministic and indeterministic function.

Do you want some hands on examples?

Quoting Pierre-Normand

What distinguishes my account from compatibilist accounts is that it shares with most libertarian accounts a commitment to rational causation (as distinguished with Humean event causation), which is not merely indeterministic

So, rational causation is indeterministic you say. I'm not really sure why you think that, or why appealing to "norms" would make it indeterministic (as far as I can see there's nothing in the definition of what a norm is that has really anything to do with determinism or indeterminism), but regardless....

If it's indeterministic, that means you think it's possible that Bob2 will do something different from Bob1 at T2, despite being perfectly identical in every way at T1, every way meaning including physically, mentally, spiritually, rationally - every aspect of them is the same at T1. So to engage with the argument in the article fully, I'd like to see what you posit as the explanation for the difference in behaviour between Bob2 and Bob1. They're the same, remember, so why did they behave differently in the exact same circumstance?

Quoting flannel jesus

So, rational causation is indeterministic you say. I'm not really sure why you think that, or why appealing to "norms" would make it indeterministic (as far as I can see there's nothing in the definition of what a norm is that has really anything to do with determinism or indeterminism), but regardless....

If it's indeterministic, that means you think it's possible that Bob2 will do something different from Bob1 at T2, despite being perfectly identical in every way at T1, every way meaning including physically, mentally, spiritually, rationally - every aspect of them is the same at T1. So to engage with the argument in the article fully, I'd like to see what you posit as the explanation for the difference in behaviour between Bob2 and Bob1. They're the same, remember, so why did they behave differently in the exact same circumstance?

In my view, it is indeed quite trivial that if Bob1 and Bob2 are identical, atom for atom, and likewise for their environments, and assuming microphysical determinism holds, then their behaviors will be the same. This doesn't entail that their identical pasts is causally responsible for their action being the intelligible action that it is (although it is responsible for those actions being identical).

Libertarians who believe free will require alternate possibilities for agents that share an identical past run into the intelligibility problem that your OP highlights, but so do deterministic views that also fail to distinguish among the predetermined features of agents those that constitute external constraints to them from those that enable their rational abilities (and hence are integral to their cognitive abilities). The exercise of your agentive abilities consist in you deciding and settling, in the present moment, which ones of your opportunities for action are actualized. The indeterminism enters the picture at the level of rational agency rather than physical causation. The past physical state P1 of Bob1 (and also of Bob2) may deterministically entail (and also enable an external observer to predict) that Bob1's action will be realized by the physical motions P2. But physics does not determine that P2 will non accidentally realize the intelligible action M2 since the laws of physics are blind to the teleological/formal organizational features of rational animals. It is those teleological/formal organizational features that account for M2 being intelligibly connected to M1 (the agent's relevant prior desires and beliefs as they bear on their present circumstances). But this intelligible connection isn't a deterministic consequence of the agent's past. It is rather a consequence of the present actualization of their rational deliberative skills.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

In my view, it is indeed quite trivial that if Bob1 and Bob2 are identical, atom for atom, and likewise for their environments, and assuming microphysical determinism holds, then their behaviors will be the same

If that's true for every decision in bobs life - that Bob1 and Bob2 and bob3 and... Bob? will always do the same given identical everything, then... well, that's what determinism means. There doesn't look to be anything indeterministic about any of bobs decisions. That's the very thing that distinguishes determinism from indeterminism.

Quoting flannel jesus

If that's true for every decision in bobs life - that Bob1 and Bob2 and bob3 and... Bob? will always do the same given identical everything, then... well, that's what determinism means. There doesn't look to be anything indeterministic about any of bobs decisions. That's the very thing that distinguishes determinism from indeterminism.

That's only physical determinism. Physical determinism is a thesis about the causal closure of the physical and the deterministic evolution of physical systems considered as such. It is generally presupposed to entail universal determinism (or determinism simpliciter) because, under usual monistic naturalistic assumptions (that I endorse), all higher-level multiply realizable properties, such as the mental properties of animals, are assumed to supervene on the physical properties of those animals. There is much truth to that, I think, but the usual inferences from (1) physical determinism and supervenience to (2) universal determinism are fallacious, in my view, since they covertly sneak in reductionistic assumptions that aren't motivated by a naturalistic framework.

You can't infer that when the past physical properties of an agent (that is, the properties of their material constituents) ensure that they will perform a specific action, those past physical features are thereby causally responsible for the action being the kind of action that it is. What is causally responsible for the action being the kind of action that it is (and that this action thereby reflects an intelligible choice or intention by the agent) is something that the past physical properties of this agent (and of its surrounding) are generally irrelevant to determining. Actions aren't mere physical motions anymore than rabbits are mere collections of atoms. Both of those things are individuated by their form (teleological organization) and not just by the physical properties of their material constituents. The actions of human beings often are explained by what it is that those humans are expected to achieve in the future, for instance, and such formal/final causal explanations seldom reduce to "efficient" past-to-future sorts of nomological causal explanations (i.e. that are appealing to laws of nature), let alone to mere physical causation.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

That's only physical determinism. Physical determinism is a thesis about the causal closure of the physical and the deterministic evolution of physical systems considered as such

That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm taking about determinism. Any determinism. Physical or otherwise

Quoting flannel jesus

That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm taking about determinism. Any determinism. Physical or otherwise

I know. And there is not evidence that (unqualified) determinism is true. The only purported evidence for determinism is the fact of the causal closure of the physical (and the neglect of quantum indeterminacies, that I don't think are relevant to the problem of free will anyway) plus some seldom acknowledged reductionistic assumptions. There is no evidence for determinism in biology or psychology, for instance. As I've suggested, the purported grounding of universal determinism on physical determinism—requiring the help of auxiliary premises regarding the material constitution of all higher-level entities and phenomena, and supervenience—is fallacious. So, my position is that physical determinism is (approximately) true, as is the thesis of the causal closure of the physical, but unqualified determinism is false.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

I know. And there is not evidence that (unqualified) determinism is true.

This conversation doesn't rely on it being true. It relies only on understanding what it means. What does it mean for something to be deterministic? What does it mean for something to be indeterministic? That's it. (and the meaning has literally nothing to do with any assumptions of physicality)

The article in the OP isn't an argument for determinism. The conclusion of the article isn't "and therefore determinism is true". I think multiple people are getting mixed up on that.

Quoting flannel jesus

The article in the OP isn't an argument for determinism. The conclusion of the article isn't "and therefore determinism is true". I think multiple people are getting mixed up on that.

I understand that compatibilists can be determinists or indeterminists. Likewise, incompatibilists can be libertarians (indeterminists) or hard-determinists. Some, like Galen Strawson, believe free will to be impossible regardless of the truth or falsity of determinism. Most of those theses indeed depend for their correctness on a correct understanding of the meaning of the deterministic thesis and of its implications. Which is precisely why I am stressing that the "Intelligibility problem" that you OP signals for libertarianism need not arise if one deems physical determinism not to entail unqualified determinism.

On my view, our psychological makeup, prior beliefs, and prior intentions or desires, don't uniquely determine our courses of actions although they do contribute to make intelligible our decisions after we have made them. And while it is true that, in order for our actual decisions to have been different, something about the physical configuration of the world would have had to be different in the past, this doesn't entail that the physical differences would have been causally responsible for the ensuing actions (unless, maybe, some mad scientist had covertly engineered them with a view to influencing our future decisions, in which case they would have been causally relevant albeit only proximally, while the decision of the mad scientist would have been the distal cause).

Quoting Pierre-Normand

need not arise if one deems physical determinism not to entail unqualified determinism.

I don't understand why you keep bringing up physical determinism at all. Even if there isn't a single physical thing in existence, and agents are all purely non physical things, the argument still makes perfect sense. Even if we're all floating spirit orbs, as long as we make choices over time, the argument holds as far as I can tell. It had nothing to do with physical anything, other than for the coincidence that we happen to live in an apparently physical world. That fact is entirely irrelevant to the conversation as far as I can tell.

Quoting flannel jesus

I don't understand why you keep bringing up physical determinism at all. Even if there isn't a single physical thing in existence, and agents are all purely non physical things, the argument still makes perfect sense. Even if we're all floating spirit orbs, as long as we make choices over time, the argument holds as far as I can tell. It had nothing to do with physical anything, other than for the coincidence that we happen to live in an apparently physical world. That fact is entirely irrelevant to the conversation as far as I can tell.

It is relevant to vindicating the thesis that, although one can deny determinism and defend a libertarian thesis, one can nevertheless acknowledge that if (counterfactually) an agent's decision had been different than what it actually was, then, owing to the causal closure of physics, something in the past likely would have had to be different. People generally assume that the dependency of actions on past law-governed neurophysiological events (for instance) entails some form of determinism. It does. But it merely entails physical determinism—the existence of regular laws that govern material processes in the brain, for instance. But this low-level determinism doesn't extend to high-level processes such as the exercise of skills of practical deliberation that manifest an agent's sensitivity to norms of rationality. So, those considerations are directly relevant to refuting your suggestion, in the OP, that libertarianism necessarily flounders on Kane's Intelligibility problem.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

People generally assume that the dependency of actions on past law-governed neurophysiological events (for instance) entails some form of determinism. It does. But it merely entails physical determinism—the existence of regular laws that govern material processes in the brain, for instance. But this low-level determinism doesn't extend to high-level processes such as the exercise of skills of practical deliberation that manifest an agent's sensitivity to norms of rationality.

You say that, but then you confirm that Bob2 would always do the same thing as Bob1, which is what determinism means. Even when those actions involve high level processes, skills, deliberations, you seem to think Bob2 would do the same as Bob1 given everything is the same.

So you say determinism doesn't extend there, but then you confirm the very thing determinism says.

It seems like there's a semantic reason why you don't want to call it "determinism" - and it looks like that semantic reason revolves all around the word "physical", even though determinism as a concept isn't limited to the physical - and so that's why you're confirming that Bob2 would always do the same as Bob1, but not calling that "determinism".

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Reply to tim wood none of what you're saying looks to me to even be an attempt at engaging with the actual logic of the article in the op. None of it relies on instruments or measuring or anything.

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Quoting tim wood

But only under a condition defined to make it arbitrary,

Only under a condition that is by design the sort of condition that distinguishes determinism from indeterminism. Which is relevant, because libertarians are of course generally saying that determinism is lethal to free will, and indeterminism aka for it.

Quoting tim wood

and that moreover is conceded to be impossible.

It is?

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Reply to tim wood is "it is?" a non sequitur? I don't see where in the article he concedes that's impossible.

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Reply to tim wood that wasn't very clear from your phrasing that you were talking about the experiment being impossible

"So under libertarianism, the decision to do one action over the other ends up being arbitrary after all." But only under a condition defined to make it arbitrary, and that moreover is conceded to be impossible

I thought you meant the decision to do one action or the other is impossible.

Libertarians hold that free will is only possible in indeterminism. And given that indeterminism in regards to human choice literally means "Bob's choices are indeterministic if and only if, for some choices Bob makes, Bob2 might make a different choice from Bob1 even though everything is perfectly the same about them and their circumstances", then Libertarians by extention must necessarily believe that "Bob has free will if and only if, for some choices Bob makes, Bob2 might make a different choice from Bob1 even though everything is perfectly the same about them and their circumstances"

So you say the thought experiment is defined to make it arbitrary, but the thought experiment is quite literally *the only thing that distinguishes deterministic choice from libertarian choice*. So as far as I'm concerned, if one wants to take libertarianism serious, one MUST engage in a thought experiment like that. That's what libertarianism means. It means that the exact conditions Bob is in do not gurantee his choice, ie that Bob really, geniunely could do something entirely different even if literally nothing changed.

So the writer of the article isn't just defining some silly impossible thought experiment for shits and giggles, he's taking the central claim of libertarianism seriously and looking through the implications of it.

Quoting flannel jesus

You say that, but then you confirm that Bob2 would always do the same thing as Bob1, which is what determinism means.

I’ll adopt the SEP’s definition of causal determinism for clarity: “Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature” (SEP entry on Causal Determinism). You’re right that, under this definition, if Bob2 always acts the same as Bob1 in a replay with identical conditions, determinism seems to hold. But my point is that physical determinism—the deterministic laws governing physical processes like brain states—doesn’t explain why Bob1 or Bob2 are acting in the way that they are. It doesn't provide the right causal story and so it leaves something important out of the picture.

Consider the explanation (or lack thereof) of a chance event as the encounter of two independent causal chains, which I have found to be variously ascribed to Aristotle (the general idea appears in Physics, Book II, Chapters 4-6 and in Metaphysics, Book V, Chapter 30, 1025a30-b5) or to J. S. Mill. This also has been illustrated by commentators with the scenario of two friends meeting by accident at a water well. If each friend went there for independent reasons, their meeting is accidental—no single physical causal chain explains it. But if they planned to meet, their encounter is intentional, explained by their shared purpose, not just particle movements. Intentional actions, like Bob’s, are similar: their physical realization (P2) isn’t an accident of prior physical states (P1). Reducing Bob’s action to the causal histories of his body’s particles misses why P2 constitutes a specific action, M2 (e.g., choosing to meet a friend), rather than random motion.

The determinist might argue, via van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument or Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument, that since P1 deterministically causes P2, and M2 supervenes on P2 (M2 couldn’t differ without P2 differing), M2 also is determined by P1. But this overlooks two issues. First, multiple realizability: M2 could be realized by various physical states, not just P2. Second, contrastive causality: explaining M2 isn’t just about why P2 occurred, but why P2 realizes M2 specifically, rather than another action. The physical story from P1 to P2 ensures some state occurs, but not why it’s M2 specifically that P2 realizes non-accidentally.

What explains this is the rational connection between M1 (Bob’s prior beliefs and motivations, realized by P1) and M2 (his action, realized by P2). Bob’s reasoning—e.g., “I should go to the water well because my friend is waiting for me there”—links M1 to M2, ensuring P2 aligns with M2 intentionally, not by chance. This connection isn’t deterministic because rational deliberation follows normative principles, not strict laws. Unlike physical causation, where outcomes are fixed, reasoning allows multiple possible actions (e.g., meeting his friend or not) based on how Bob weighs his reasons. So, while physical determinism holds, it doesn’t capture the high-level causal structure of agency and the underdetermination of intentional action (i.e. what makes P2 a realization specifically of M2, when it is) by past physical states like P1. What further settles not only that P2 occurs, but also that P2 is a realization of M2 specifically, comes from the agent’s deliberation, which follows non-deterministic norms of reasoning, not merely physical laws.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

But my point is that physical determinism—the deterministic laws governing physical processes like brain states—doesn’t explain why Bob1 or Bob2 are acting in the way that they are. It doesn't provide the right causal story and so it leaves something important out of the picture.

Which is why I can't stress enough that "physical" isn't particularly important here. Afaik you brought up physical determinism. It isn't mentioned in the article and I didn't bring it up. Sure, maybe there are non physical things that go into deciding future states, future choices, future actions. That's not in question. Nobody is denying that. Whether you believe all that explains how the world evolves is physical or not doesn't seem to be to have anything to do with the argument at hand.

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Quoting tim wood

Are D and non-D exhaustive of all possibilities?

As far as functions go, or systems that evolve into the future, I believe so.

Quoting tim wood

Free will, still undefined, is held to be possible only in a D world operating in a loosey-goosey way under some random influences.

By whom?

Quoting flannel jesus

Which is why I can't stress enough that "physical" isn't particularly important here. Afaik you brought up physical determinism. It isn't mentioned in the article and I didn't bring it up. Sure, maybe there are non physical things that go into deciding future states, future choices, future actions. That's not in question. Nobody is denying that. Whether you believe all that explains how the world evolves is physical or not doesn't seem to be to have anything to do with the argument at hand.

It is directly relevant to the OP's argument since it directly refutes the claim that libertarianism inescapably faces an "Intelligibility problem" (Kane). Libertarianism need not face such a problem and only appears to do so because libertarians (and compatibilists too) have traditionally analysed alternate possibilities for action in terms of rollback scenarios that focus exclusively on the physical level of description of mental processes, while they've ignored important implications of multiple realizability and of the contrastive character of causation. The argument laid out in the OP's linked article also ignores those and as a result covertly sneaks in unsupported reductionistic assumptions.

Reply to Pierre-Normand I think you're reading stuff into it that isn't there. It doesn't say any of that explicitly, and I don't believe it says it implicitly either

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Quoting tim wood

This gets tiresome. You tell me.

You criticized both me and the writer of the article for being vague, but you keep on saying completely unqualified statements that, without more specifics, are hard to judge. I don't hold free will to be that. What do you mean "are held to be"? They certainly aren't universally held to be what you said, so by whom?

Quoting flannel jesus

I think you're reading stuff into it that isn't there. It doesn't say any of that explicitly, and I don't believe it says it implicitly either

I've read it carefully. It states: "According to libertarianism, if the clock were rolled back, then radically different things could happen than what happened the first time. This is because humans could choose differently the next time around even though all antecedent conditions including beliefs and desires remained the same."

This is not entailed by my specific brand of libertarianism (although it is entailed by most other libertarian accounts, possibly with the exception of Kane's). I do acknowledge that if the clocks were rolled back, then the exact same things would necessarily happen (which shows that P2 is causally necessitated by P1 and, contrary to popular belief, fails to show that M2 is causally necessitated by P1). Therefore the premise needed for an Intelligibility problem to arise doesn't hold.

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Reply to tim wood you're asking me questions that don't matter to understand the thought experiment in question. They simply don't matter. They're as relevant as if you asked my favourite sandwich

Reply to Pierre-Normand right, and the reason, as far as I can tell, that your view doesn't have the intelligibility problem is because it actually isn't reliant on indeterminism at all. If you think it's perfectly fine to roll back the clock and see the exact same events play out every time, then you think it's perfectly fine to be in a deterministic universe. You have some unique semantic reason for calling your view "indeterminism" - it looks like that semantic reason revolves around the word "physical" for whatever reason - but I don't have any semantic reason to do the same, because I don't care about "physical". A system that evolves from the past to the future is either deterministic or not, and whether that system is "physical" or not is irrelevant. The system you described, where you roll back the clocks and everything happens the same, is the very definition of a deterministic system. That's what it means to be deterministic. Being deterministic has nothing to do with "physical", and everything to do with what you said would happen if you roll back the clocks.

So of course your view doesn't have the intelligibility problem. As far as the argument in OP is concerned, you don't have a libertarian view of free will.

Reply to flannel jesus For what it's worth, although I haven't read the article, I believe I get the argument, which seems very simple. If it were somehow possible to repeat a situation in which I made a certain choice and everything in that situation was exactly the same in every possible way, libertarian free will would entail that I could, this second time around, make a different choice.

If that is impossible, then libertarian free will cannot be the case, by definition. It follows that that free will means simply 'acting according to one's nature'. Since we don't create ourselves, this seems the most sensible notion of free will: that is a compatibilist notion.

Quoting flannel jesus

The system you described, where you roll back the clocks and everything happens the same, is the very definition of a deterministic system.

This is not the definition of determinism. It is not the definition offered in the beginning of the SEP entry on Causal Determinism that I quoted earlier, for instance. Likewise, the definition offered on the Encyclopedia Britannica website is: "determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable."

The specific characterization that you offer, and that is indeed very popular in philosophical discussions about the alleged conflict between free will (or responsibility) and "determinism" specifically focuses on the rollback scenarios that you (and the article linked on your OP) have alluded to. But the ideas of causal inevitability of actions, or of their "[necessitation] by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature", are usually justified by questionable inferences (from the causal closure of the physical and supervenience theses) rather than logical entailments from general definitions of determinism such as those from the SEP or Encyclopedia Britannica. In fact, the focus on physicalism as the ground metaphysical commitment is betrayed by the idea of rolling back the situation to a past instantaneous moment in time, where many libertarian philosophers posit bifurcations to occur, which makes sense for indeterministic physical systems but doesn't make sense when what are at issue are temporally protracted deliberative episodes and unfolding actions.

(The main problem that most libertarian and compatibilist accounts possibly share, on my view, is that their physicalist commitments blind them to the naturalistic structure of downward causation, which is not a species of Humean event-event causation, and that make the very idea of rollback scenarios irrelevant.)

Quoting Janus

If it were somehow possible to repeat a situation in which I made a certain choice and everything in that situation was exactly the same in every possible way, libertarian free will would entail that I could, this second time around, make a different choice.

Yeah, just wanted to add to this to make it explicitly, you would have to be perfectly the same too. But I think you already factored that in..

Quoting Janus

that is impossible, then libertarian free will cannot be the case, by definition.

It's actually not so much about it being impossible, but rather that it doesn't seem to give us free will in any meaningful sense if it is possible

Quoting Janus

It follows that that free will means simply 'acting according to one's nature'. Since we don't create ourselves, this seems the most sensible notion of free will: that is a compatibilist notion.

This does end up being my eventual conclusion, but isn't my immediate conclusion from the argument at hand. The immediate conclusion is just that incompatibilist notions of free will don't land for me.

Quoting Pierre-Normand

But the ideas of causal inevitability of actions, or of their "[necessitation] by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature", are usually justified by questionable inferences

I have no idea why you think that doesn't apply to your view that it would always play out the same way. Whatever semantic distinction you're drawing between your view, that it would always play out the same way given the same conditions, and the statement "it's causally inevitable that they would play out the same way"... to me they're just the same thing. I don't see a difference.

Either everything would always play out the same way or it wouldn't. If it would, to me that's determinism. As far as I'm concerned that's all determinism means. Same input, same output.

Reply to Pierre-Normand follow up to my previous post, I wanted to ask an LLM just for fun. An LLM is of course not a replacement for a human expert or an individuals thought, but when it comes to how words are used i think they can at least have interesting insights. Perhaps this is interesting, perhaps not:

https://chatgpt.com/share/67d246ea-488c-8002-9544-35fd937426e2

Quoting flannel jesus

... follow up to my previous post, I wanted to ask an LLM just for fun. An LLM is of course not a replacement for a human expert or an individuals thought, but when it comes to how words are used i think they can at least have interesting insights. Perhaps this is interesting, perhaps not:

I asked follow-up questions to the LLM you used, o1-mini (which is an excellent model) but it only generated thinking episodes and no main answer. This likely is a temporary issue with the OpenAI servers. So I asked your question again to GPT 4.5, and then supplied my follow-up questions/suggestions. I don't agree 100% with GPT 4.5's characterization of the issue, but it got the gist of it. (Its mentions of McDowell, Sellars and Brandom likely is a result of GPT 4.5 having accessed some if its stored memories about our past interactions, which is a bit weird since I had recently turned the memory feature off in the setting, but maybe this merely prevents the recording of new memories.)

Quoting flannel jesus

you would have to be perfectly the same too. But I think you already factored that in..

Yes, that was what I had in mind: all conditions being exactly the same including oneself.

Quoting flannel jesus

It's actually not so much about it being impossible, but rather that it doesn't seem to give us free will in any meaningful sense if it is possible

What I meant with that is if in that 'rewind' scenario we could not make a different choice, then libertarian free will would seem to be ruled out by definition, since any consistent notion of libertarian free will requires that we could have made a different choice. The idea being that our will would not be determined by conditions but would be in some unfathomable sense causa sui.and sui generis.

Reply to Pierre-Normand

But, you know, in simple terms, if everything is happening the same way every time you replay with the same starting conditions, that is in a very straight forward way what it means for something to be deterministic, right?

ChatGPT said:

Yeah, if every time you reset the system to the same initial conditions, it evolves in exactly the same way, then in the most straightforward sense, that’s what we mean by a deterministic system.

The extra philosophical layers we discussed—about high-level properties, rational norms, and interpretation—introduce complications about how we describe and explain what’s happening, but they don’t change the basic fact that, at the fundamental level, the system itself is unfolding in a fully determined way.

Would you say, then, that the distinction you're drawing is less about whether the system is deterministic and more about whether determinism at the physical level is the right kind of explanation for high-level rational agency?

Determinism doesn't have a whole lot of criteria. It really doesn't matter to me what you wrap your concepts in, no matter how complicated you want to make it. Supervenience, norms, multiple realizability - all very worthwhile, I'm sure, for you to think about, but it doesn't change the simple criteria of determinism - if you are guaranteed the same output from the same input, then it's in the most plain straight forward way deterministic.

(I didn't get a share link when I asked before, so I just asked again. Slightly different response the second time around. https://chatgpt.com/share/67d28f66-d8b4-8002-893b-ebe19bc39430 )

The point I was trying to make is that it's not outlandish or an unfair manipulation of language when I say, the criteria of determinism is simple, it's simply, if you give it the same input you get the same output. If you start in the same state the next events happen the same too.

It doesn't matter what you want to tack on top. That criteria isn't concerned with any extra layers of analysis you'd like to do. You can do them, you can not do them, the simple criteria of determinism doesn't mind either way. If a system meets the criteria, then it's deterministic.

So if you believe free will exists in that system you described - that system where, given the same starting state you get the same events after - then as far as the logic in the op is concerned, you're not a libertarian, and it's not arguing against your idea of free will. You semantically think it is, because you call your idea "libertarian free will", and the article uses that same term too. But I personally wouldn't call your concept of free will presented here "libertarian". I would call it compatibilist. And you're right when you say it's not vulnerable to the intelligibility argument.

Quoting Janus

What I meant with that is if in that 'rewind' scenario we could not make a different choice, then libertarian free will would seem to be ruled out by definition, since any consistent notion of libertarian free will requires that we could have made a different choice

You are correct, of course, I'm just saying that's not the direction of argument being made here.

Reply to flannel jesus I'd be interested if you could succinctly explain the difference between the two.

Reply to Janus Gladly. The argument made in the OP doesn't posit that it's impossible that one could make a different choice in a rewind scenario (or, in the article linked, it would be phrased as, he's not positing that Bob2 couldn't make a different choice than Bob1). He's expressly assuming that IS possible.

But, if Bob2 makes a different choice from Bob1, while being perfectly identical to Bob1 in every way, then it would seem that the source of that different choice can't be ultimately from within Bob. Bob isn't the source himself of that difference. Because how could he be? Bob2 is the same as Bob1.

The source of the difference, as far as many of us can see, would just be randomness in such a scenario. So how is it that that's the source of libertarian freedom?

Another way to put it is:

You cannot explain a difference by appealing to factors that are identical across both cases. If Bob1 and Bob2 are physically and mentally and spiritually identical, then any difference in their choices must be due to factors not contained within Bob.

Reply to flannel jesus That makes sense. I've never thought that randomness will be any help for justifying belief in libertarian free will, because the tiny differences that might result from quantum randomness would not seem to be significant enough to lead to a different decision, Quantum indeterminism still seems to result statistically in macrophysical determinism.

And in any case even if those random quantum fluctuations were significant enough to lead to a different decision, we cannot be aware of much less control those fluctuations in vivo and hence cannot reasonably claim that our will deserves any credit for them.

Quoting Janus

we cannot be aware of much less control those fluctuations

Exactly. If there's randomness, we don't have control of that.

Quoting flannel jesus

In short, if you maintain that if you were to set the entire world state back to what it was before a decision (including every aspect of your mental being, your will, your agency), and then something different might happen... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will.

I think that’s right. I don’t like using the word “will” as a noun. Willing is the thing, not the will.

There is only one place to find freedom. In consent. Not in some pre-meditated, deliberated choice. I may never get to choose anything, but once the “choice” is made (as once any other deterministic action takes place), I can still give or withhold my consent, and claim that choice as mine, or remain consumed in a world of necessity.

I make the inevitable contingent on me by my consent or my denial, not by my actions.

If I crash my car, I can show all the ways this was determined, or I can just give my consent and say “I am the reason the car crashed, nothing else.”

We take responsibility and only then give birth to free agency. Freedom, for us, first, is an act of defiance. We have to make our will by ourselves, and make it out of necessity that encompasses and drives all else.

We don’t have a will sitting somewhere inside waiting to cause some effect. We see the effects and we claim them after the fact, and in this claim, demonstrate for the first time our will.

Another way to say this is that the “will” used as a noun does not exist until we are willing something. We are not free first - we free ourselves afterwards with our consent or our denial of the pre-determined circumstances always already in front of us.

Or if not, maybe there simply is no freedom. Which seems impossible, just as freedom is impossible to explain.

Quoting flannel jesus

In short, if you maintain that if you were to set the entire world state back to what it was before a decision (including every aspect of your mental being, your will, your agency), and then something different might happen... well, maybe something different might happen, but you can't attribute that difference to your will.

I totally agree with that point. The exact same reasoning can be used against dualism, the kind they say is incompatible with determinism. The claimed agency is not from natural causes, such that one 'could do otherwise'. Sure, but doing otherwise would be attributed to quantum randomness, not to any difference to your will, unless said naturalistic physics is violated somewhere in the causal chain. No biological element has ever been shown to do this.
They have to claim not randomness (mere indeterminism) but actual intentional physical effects that do not have any physical cause. Only this will yield choices that can be attributed to a free will thus defined.

Reply to noAxioms I don't even think that solves anything personally. Like, so what, grant them spirits and souls - it's still either the case that a particular decision is a deterministic output of the full state of everything (everything including this soul realm), OR it's in some part random.

People think souls get past the determinist/random dichotomy, I definitely don't see it.

Reply to flannel jesusYes, the argument still holds given the dualistic model. It just extends what currently is known as 'naturalism. Either way, Bob1 & Bob2 are only going to 'do otherwise' due to differences not in the Bobs. Under 'hard' determinism (I counted 5 other kinds), it is not possible for the Bobs to choose differently. Funny that they can under the other five.

Free will, as typically defined, sounds dreadful, like responsibility for choices only exists if there's randomness or demonic possession at work instead choices being rational. That's a crock.

The compatibilists have a better definition of free will, that the thing being held responsible actually had critical agency (and knowledge of the morality of the situation) in the making of the choice.

So an epiphenomenal mind cannot be held responsible since it lacks agency. It would be like me being held responsible for a murder because I watched a murder movie.
Similarly, a seagull is not much responsible for snatching my chips since it holds to a different moral code, one which allows me to wring its neck if I catch it in the act.

A soldier is not responsible for murder if the choice is mandated by his commander. The ultimate commander's responsibility lies with the morality of his participation in the conflict.

Bob contracts rabies and starts biting babies. Is he responsible for that or is the disease that has taken over his will? It's not like the disease is a conscious agent, and yet it takes over your mechanism for agency.

But "I'm not responsible, physics made me do it" is not an excuse. You had the agency, knew the consequences of an immoral choice, and chose anyway. Free will (by most definitions), physics, and determinism all have nothing to do with that.

Reply to noAxioms yeah I think for the most part I align with most of what you said

Quoting flannel jesus

I don't even think that solves anything personally. Like, so what, grant them spirits and souls - it's still either the case that a particular decision is a deterministic output of the full state of everything (everything including this soul realm), OR it's in some part random.

People think souls get past the determinist/random dichotomy, I definitely don't see it.

I agree. But I don't understand where freedom is introduced. Or perhaps I don't understand, as it says in the quote of the OP, "in what sense are they free." I am reading the SEP entry on Compatibilism. The first thing I see:
Quoting SEP

...an agent’s ability to do what she wishes in the absence of impediments that would otherwise stand in her way.

Is that what you mean? I am, say, free to pick up my coffee mug, assuming nothing prevents me from doing so? Is that free will?

Reply to Patterner is that what I mean by what?

The focus of the argument here isn't about compatibilism. Compatibilism is a related interesting side topic. I'm not even completely sure that, when I'm talking about compatibilism, what I mean when I say "free will" is the right thing to call "free will", but that's all a complete aside to the argument here, which is all about incompatibilist free will (or at least that's how I define libertarian free will).

Reply to flannel jesus
The title of the thread says you have a problem with libertarian free will. And, in this thread, you said you believe in free will, you directed me to the Compatibility entry of SEP, and compatibility is being discussed everywhere in the thread. Is it really inappropriate to ask what kind of free will you believe in? Afaict, there are many different views on it, and I'm trying to see if I can wrap my head around them.

Reply to Patterner it's not inappropriate, I just don't want this thread to center on what I think about free will.

It'd be like a thread in a basketball forum about how bad the Timberwolves are doing this season, but instead of everyone talking about the Timberwolves, the focus on the OPs favourite team. "Oh you think the Timberwolves are doing bad? But aren't you a fan of the jazz?" Or something like that.

I actually think this is the far simpler conversation to have, because compatibilism is... weird. I think it's weird. I accept it but I understand why it's unintuitive to people, but you could never convince someone of it as long as they're convinced that libertarianism makes sense. So this has to be step 1. Talk about libertarian free will in isolation, and then separately (and preferrably with a mutual understanding that libertarian free will is out of the picture) talk about compatibilism.

Quoting flannel jesus

Compatibilism is a related interesting side topic. I'm not even completely sure that, when I'm talking about compatibilism, what I mean when I say "free will" is the right thing to call "free will", but that's all a complete aside to the argument here, which is all about incompatibilist free will (or at least that's how I define libertarian free will).

Thing is, the argument linked in the OP also works against compatibilism, but only if free will is defined the same way. A compatibilist cannot claim 'could have done otherwise', so his (your) definition of free will is one that necessarily is immune to the sort of argument put forth in that paper.

I'm all about that as well. I don't get all enamored over the free will concept, so I have no drive to define it in a way that pleases me. The typical definition sounds horrible and would not be something I'd want.
But if I did need to assert I had it, I'd define it in a sort of compatibilist way even if I don't think the kinds of determinism that are relevant are the case.

My definition then? How about "the think doing the choosing is getting what it wants". That works, and means I lack the free will to fly like superman. Physics really does constrain my choices, more evidence against idealism where physics does not so constrain you.

Quoting noAxioms

Thing is, the argument linked in the OP also works against compatibilism, but only if free will is defined the same way. A compatibilist cannot claim 'could have done otherwise',

I think there's an interesting way to frame "could have done otherwise". The usual way libertarians frame it - in my experience - is in the way framed in the OP, where you really ontologically could have done otherwise, even if nothing in the preceding conditions were different. You can have other ways of framing that phrase, including compatibilist ways. Maybe I should start a thread on that, where people can pick apart my compatibilism without it becoming the central focus of this thread.

Reply to flannel jesus

I think this is a conflation between physical and motive causality: I would recommend looking into Schopenhauer's "On the Fourfold Foundation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason". In short, a libertarian is not going to grant you that free will requires that one could have done otherwise if their will is the same when time is rewound but, rather, that one could have willed differently if the physical causality were rewound.

Reply to Bob Ross yes, I've noticed this huge language disconnect. Some libertarians would actually argue that they could have done otherwise even if everything about their mind and agency was rewound too, but some do as you said and just make it about physicality. They present their idea as anti deterministic because they're convinced "determinism" means physical determinism.

But I'm not convinced of that, quite the contrary.

Reply to flannel jesus

:up:

Reply to Bob Ross just to be clear, you're imagining a scenario where someone does some action, the physical world is rewound but their mental state, which is supposed to be different from physical, is not rewound so they're like... imagining themselves remembering what they did the first time, and then imagining themselves able to choose something different the second time, right?

Reply to flannel jesus

Not quite. I was saying that willing, under some forms of libertarianism, generates new causality that originates from the will and the willing may differ even if the physical causality differs (according to this view)(such as if there is a soul or something like that). So if some person performs action, A, with intent, M, and you rewind the physical causality; then:

1. A, which is comprised of intent with physical causality originating therefrom, is only rewound in terms of having the intent and the physical causality it introduced into reality; and

2. If M is from leeway freedom, then it does not originate from the physical causality you rewound; and

3. If #2, then that person could will A for another intent, N, or intent some other action, B, with some other intent.

Quoting Bob Ross

2. If #2, then that person could will A for another intent, N, or intent some other action, B, with some other intent.

Right. Only that what is quoted here is not mandatory for libertarian free will.

The physical causality could be the exact same and the intent pursued could be the exact same. Each option toward the given intent pursued is of itself, however, a more proximal possible intent toward the here distant intent one aims to actualize.

So A within the exact same physical context, with the exact same cognitive options available to A, can intend the exact same distant intent by choosing a different alternative. So construed, there will necessarily be ontically occurring reasons for any choice (between alternatives) taken, but reality, and so one's choice, is not "causally inevitable", and neither is the choice made of itself random (hence, devoid of any actual ontically occurring reason for its occurrence).

For example, a person wants to travel form A to B; the options cognitively available to the person for so doing are X, Y, and Z; if the person chooses option X as a means of getting to B, they at this moment of choice were metaphysically unconstrained in, and only in, their in fact choosing X rather than Y or Z. Hence, they could have chosen otherwise than they did. This very much assuming that the exact same physical context, the exact same intent to travel from A to B, and the exact same options of X, Y, and Z would occur.

Reply to Bob Ross so are you or are you not also rewinding the will when your rewind the physical?

Quoting flannel jesus

so are you or are you not also rewinding the will when your rewind the physical?

No, the description seems to rewind only the physical part of the state, not all of it, thus sidestepping the argument in the OP paper. It's two different initial conditions, so of course they're likely to evolve differently.


Quoting Bob Ross

I was saying that willing, under some forms of libertarianism,generates new causality that originates from the will and the willing may differ even if the physical causality differs

How does the bold part even work. Why would new causality being generated be any advantage at all? Suppose one uses this kind of free will to cross a busy street. Generating new causality seems to be pure randomness, as opposed to actually looking and using the state of the cars as the primary cause of your decision as to when to cross.

Quoting noAxioms

No, the description seems to rewind only the physical part of the state, not all of it, thus sidestepping the argument in the OP paper. It's two different initial conditions, so of course they're likely to evolve differently.

exactly. no one diagrees with that. if the starting conditions are different, of course something different will happen.

I think some people think that libertarian free will is just another way to say they believe they have a nonphysical mind.

Reply to javra

CC @flannel jesus

The physical causality could be the exact same and the intent pursued could be the exact same. Each option toward the given intent pursued is of itself, however, a more proximal possible intent toward the here distant intent one aims to actualize.

If the intent is the exact same, then only the means towards that end could be subject to change (in principle); so it would be impossible that one has the leeway freedom to intend differently in your example here (to Flannel’s point). Javra, what you are saying here is that one can intend something differently when they intend the same thing: it’s internally incoherent.

Reply to flannel jesus

In your example we don't, or if we do it is presupposed we will will the same anyways, whereas in mine we do but we could will differently.

My point is not that libertarianism is correct but, rather, that your OP is a straw man of their position: no libertarian worth any salt is going to disagree with the idea that if you will the same then you will will the same. They are going to note that if you rewound their motives and reasons and the physical aspects of their action, then they may have had different motives or reasons and thusly willed differently. For libertarians, willing is a source of causality and not merely a biproduct of physical causality.

Quoting Bob Ross

They are going to note that if you rewound their motives and reasons and the physical aspects of their action, then they may have had different motives or reasons and thusly willed differently

I'm not sure what that means.

We take note of all causally relevant facts at T1, including all facts about the physical world as well as their motives and mind etc. then we watch what decision they make at T2. Then at T3, we rewind back to T1.

Now when we rewind, we're of course rewinding such that all those facts we took note of are all the same. Everything physical, and also every non physical fact, including motives mind etc. what do you mean, then, when you say "they may have had different motives"? May have how? Their motives are part of the thing we're accounting for in rewinding

Reply to noAxioms

How does the bold part even work. Why would new causality being generated be any advantage at all? Suppose one uses this kind of free will to cross a busy street. Generating new causality seems to be pure randomness, as opposed to actually looking and using the state of the cars as the primary cause of your decision as to when to cross.

That is beyond the scope of my critique: I am merely pointing out to @flannel jesus that it is not a valid rejoinder to libertarianism to stipulate one will will the same (and thusly the change in causality is from some other source if the causality is different at all the second or third time we rewind the clock).

They tend to believe in a soul or immaterial mind and that reality has top-down causality to some extent; which would not be random: e.g., things ordering themselves in correspondence with an idea is not random at all. The idea is that the higher-ontological things have some sway over what exists at the lower-ontological things.

I am not a libertarian, but the way I would think about it is that our brains facilitate our ability to reason and reason governs our actions; so the "top" does have influence over the "bottom" causally to some extent. The memory your brain formulates influences your decisions, which can impact how the brain organizes itself in the future. Our brains are not like mechanical domino-style robots.

Reply to flannel jesus

This is the crux presupposition in your thought:

Now when we rewind, we're of course rewinding such that all those facts we took note of are all the same

I reject this. When you rewind the clock, you are rewinding the facts which does not itself necessitate that when you start the clock again those facts will re-emerge. You haven't provided any justification for why one should believe that and it just begs the question by presupposing that causal determinism is true.

E.g., if it is a fact that I went for a run today and you rewind the clock to right before I began my run; then ceteris paribus we don't know that I am going to go for a run today. If we believe causal determinism, the loosest sense of the term, is true, then we have reasons to believe I will necessarily go for that run.

The problem is that you are claiming to refute libertarianism by presupposing causal determinism in the first place; and you are doing this by implicitly stipulating that when the facts are rewound those facts are inevitably going to happen again: that's just saying "causal determinism is true" with convoluted steps.

EDIT:

So, you end up needing to prove causal determinism to prove that your OP's argument is true; which defeats the purpose of your argument in the OP in the first place.

So, why should one expect the same outcome if we rewind all the facts?

Moreover, with respect to my original critique, what if we only rewound the physical facts?

Quoting Bob Ross

E.g., if it is a fact that I went for a run today and you rewind the clock to right before I began my run; then ceteris paribus we don't know that I am going to go for a run today. If we believe causal determinism, the loosest sense of the term, is true, then we have reasons to believe I will necessarily go for that run.

The problem is that you are claiming to refute libertarianism by presupposing causal determinism in the first place;

I think you're confused about what rewinding the clock is about. Nobody is saying "you will necessarily go for that run". In fact we're explictly allowing for the exact opposite. Nowhere in the anlysis does it say "the future will necessarily play out the same way, and determinism is the case."

Reply to Bob Ross You aren't the first person to get the impression that this is somehow an argument for determinism. It isn't. The conclusion of the article isn't "determinism is the case". It's apparently very difficult to explain to people why that's *not* the point of the article.

Quoting Bob Ross

That is beyond the scope of my critique: I am merely pointing out to flannel jesus that it is not a valid rejoinder to libertarianism to stipulate one will will the same (and thusly the change in causality is from some other source if the causality is different at all the second or third time we rewind the clock).

It is valid. The phrase 'rewind time' should never have been used. Free will is often described as 'could have done otherwise' and not 'would do otherwise if given the chance again'. To assert that one's will is not the same after the rewind is to assert that one has two different states of mind at that one time, not that the same physical scenario is presented to you in succession, just as going back to a saved state in a video game.

Quoting Bob Ross

They tend to believe in a soul or immaterial mind and that reality has top-down causality to some extent; which would not be random: e.g., things ordering themselves in correspondence with an idea is not random at all. The idea is that the higher-ontological things have some sway over what exists at the lower-ontological things.

Why have I never seen such a libertarian describe how/where in any way these 'higher-ontological things' exert any sway at all over something 'lower'? Where is the primitive in the lower part (the part accessible to empirical analysis) that is in any way sensitive to something other than physical cause?

Reply to flannel jesus

I don't think the article begs the question: I was noting your response did.

Here’s what the article says:

However, since Bob1 and Bob2 have all of the same goals, beliefs, etc., there is nothing different between them to which we can appeal to explain why Bob1 chose to go the bookshelf at time T2 and Bob2 chose to go the kitchen at time T2.  Their individual actions are explainable, but libertarianism cannot explain why one choice is made instead of another.

This has the same problem I already exposed: a libertarian is not per se committed to the idea that if Bob1 and Bob2 have the same exact beliefs, desires, etc. that they each could decide to will something different than each other—this is a straw man.

The libertarian could hold equally that two Bobs in identical universes would reason the same and decide the same while also holding that if merely the physical causality were the same in each world then the Bobs could reason differently.

It’s also worth mentioning that the article sets up a shaky distinction between beliefs and reasons that I don’t think a libertarian has to accept.

The core tenant of libertarianism is that leeway free will exists, which implies that there is free will in the sense that one could have done otherwise: they are not committed per se to the view that one can reason contrary to their beliefs nor that they cannot reason contrary to their beliefs.

Quoting Bob Ross

This has the same problem I already exposed: a libertarian is not per se committed to the idea that if Bob1 and Bob2 have the same exact beliefs, desires, etc. that they each could decide to will something different than each other—this is a straw man.

ok well it's the type of libertarianism in question here, since that's what it means for something to be "indeterministic". It means given the same exact conditions, something different might happen.

Quoting Bob Ross

Javra, what you are saying here is that one can intend something differently when they intend the same thing: it’s internally incoherent.

That’s not what I said in my post. What I expressed is that one can intend the same distant intent B by choosing a different option toward it, with each option toward the distal intent - say options X, Y, an Z - being its own possible, proximate intention toward the exact same distant intent B which one wants to actualize.

I gave a relatively easy to understand example of this here:

Quoting javra

For example, a person wants to travel form A to B; the options cognitively available to the person for so doing are X, Y, and Z; if the person chooses option X as a means of getting to B, they at this moment of choice were metaphysically unconstrained in, and only in, their in fact choosing X rather than Y or Z. Hence, they could have chosen otherwise than they did. This very much assuming that the exact same physical context, the exact same intent to travel from A to B, and the exact same options of X, Y, and Z would occur.

If you want to disagree, please disagree using this example just quoted.

To bring this back to the thread’s subject, when construed as expressed in my previous post, libertarian free will can then be neither a) random - for, if for no other reason, it will in all cases be intentional - nor can it be b) “causally inevitable” - for the lack of metaphysical constraints (aka, the metaphysical freedom) which strictly applies in regard to what option to choose entails that the option chosen cannot so be causally inevitable.

Libertarian free will, at least when so understood, will thereby necessitate a metaphysics regarding the possibility of determinants which is different from that in which the only two ontically occurring options are either that of a) randomness or b) causal inevitability. Such that the OP’s article, which only allows for these two possibilities, thereby misses the point.

That said, whether libertarian free will ontically occurs and, if so, what the details of such alternative metaphysics which it requires might possibly be, however, are separate issues from that of what the term “libertarian free will” intends to signify.

Quoting javra

Libertarian free will ... will thereby necessitate a metaphysics ... which is different from that in which the only two ontically occurring options are either that of a) randomness or b) causal inevitability

It seems that, at least for some flavours of libertarianism, this is the case. And this is really the crux. I believe it's tautologically the case that those are the two options.

One might phrase (b) as causal inevitability, or determinism, or an instance of the principle of sufficient reason. I'm actually leaning towards that latter phrasing lately - that determinism inside a universe means everything that happens in that universe has sufficient reason to happen. And the alternative is, some things happen that don't have sufficient reason. If everything that happens has sufficient reason, that's what I call 'determinism'. If some things don't have 'sufficient reason', then that means there's some aspect of their explanation which is reason-less, because it isn't sufficiently explained with reasons, and a reason-less happening is another way of looking at something random.

So it seems I am just doomed to never understand these libertarians because this dichotomy of determinism / randomness is an inevitable consequence of the way I've defined these words. And it seems they're similarly doomed to not understand why that's the dichotomy.

Do you think there's a way around the dichotomy?

Reply to flannel jesus

Libertarian free will has been espoused in many different flavors, ture. And I personally don’t subscribe to libertarian free will being completely devoid of determinants and thereby of reasons for what it does (which could be construed in certain such variants of the concept). That said, this is to me the very crux of the issue:

Quoting flannel jesus

One might phrase (b) as causal inevitability, or determinism, or an instance of the principle of sufficient reason. I'm actually leaning towards that latter phrasing lately - that determinism inside a universe means everything that happens in that universe has sufficient reason to happen.

“Determinism” to most will necessarily entail what in former days was termed “necessarianism” and what today is coined as “causal inevitability” – in both cases, potential subtleties aside, everything that happens happens necessarily. Thereby disallowing for any possibility of libertarian free will.

It’s why I explicitly specified (b) as “causal inevitability”. Which is in no way equivalent to “everything that happens holds an ontically occurring reason for it so happening”. To exemplify this, in the libertarian free will that I sponsor, every possible decision will need to hold at the very least one intent which one intentions as the particular decision’s ontically occurring reason for its occurrence. And this intent is of itself construed to be a teleological determinant - an ontically occurring teleological reason - for the decision between options which was made. For any choice one makes, one will – at the very least when in the right frame of mind – be able to affirm why one made the choice: e.g. so as to get rich, or so as to find love, etc. All these being intents that determine that option which one chooses via one’s libertarian free will. Due to this, the principle of sufficient reason here fully applies – but it in no way translates into “the decisions I/you make are causally inevitable”.

I fully know and acknowledge that such a reality wherein the PSR holds for all choices made would be one in which all choice made via libertarian free will (as it was previously defined) are nevertheless determined by some determinant. However, when one does X for the sake of Z, Z (the end pursued) will not of itself causally determine X – but will instead teleologically determine X; this without in any way nullifying the lack of metaphysical constrains one has in choosing one of the options toward Z as intended outcome.

All this is not determinism as the term is understood today, such that it entails causal inevitability, while nevertheless yet being a reality wherein everything is yet determined by some or other determinant and, therefore, wherein the PSR holds for all events. One's of libertarian free will fully included.

Causally though, when one entertains libertarian free will, the agent in a large sense becomes an non-causally determined cause of the option chosen as effect - keeping in mind that this agent in its causing of the effect is necessarily teleologically determined by the intent which the agent pursued.

This is of course a very different mindset relative to those commonly held today: such as those wherein everything can only be either causally inevitable or else random. .

But this is the very reason why there is a pivotal difference between a libertarian compatibilism (where libertarian free will is maintained to occur together with the Principle of Sufficient Reason for all choice made), on the one hand, and a deterministic, else non-libertarian, compatibilism (where some non-libertarian understanding of free will is maintained together with the doctrine of universal causal inevitability).

One cannot willy nilly jump back and forth between a libertarian compatibilism and a deterministic, in the sense of non-libertarian, compatibilism on account of both of these being "compatibilism" - for the first mandates the ontic reality of a libertarian free will and the second mandates its very metaphysical impossibility.

Reply to flannel jesus

Indeterminism is a short-hand for physical indeterminism, I would say; but I get your point.

Reply to javra you say your concept isn't determined because things are teleologically determined, not causally determined. To me it's just 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Determined it's determined. It looks exactly the same as determinism to me, you just have some abstract reason not to call it determinism despite it walking like a duck and quacking like a duck. Determinism has a simple criteria to me, and what you described passes that criteria.

I'm not insisting you call it determinism, but as far as the reasoning in the op of this thread goes, it's determinism, not indeterminism. You can have your reasons for calling it indeterminism, those reasons just don't appeal to me, they aren't compelling to me.

Quoting Bob Ross

Indeterminism is a short-hand for physical indeterminism

There's plenty of conceptual things that are deterministic that have nothing to do with anything physical. There are plenty of conceptual things that are indeterministic that have nothing to do with anything physical. I'm not partial to this "physical" talk. We live inside a system that evolves from the past to the future, it doesn't matter if that system is 100% physical or 100% non physical or some combination.

I mean I'm sure it matters in some sense, I'd be certainly curious to know, but it doesn't affect any of the reasoning here.

Quoting flannel jesus

Determined it's determined. It looks exactly the same as determinism to me, you just have some abstract reason not to call it determinism despite it walking like a duck and quacking like a duck. Determinism has a simple criteria to me, and what you described passes that criteria.

I'm not insisting you call it determinism, but as far as the reasoning in the op of this thread goes, it's determinism, not indeterminism. You can have your reasons for calling it indeterminism, those reasons just don't appeal to me, they aren't compelling to me.

Not to be rude, but the enterprise we term “philosophy” does not revolve around your personal preferences, no more than it revolves around mine.

Can you provide even one philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing?

You’ll also notice that if the article in the OP intended by “determinism” a non-causally-inevitable reality in which the Principle of Sufficient Reason yet holds, the very problem of libertarian free will it addresses would dissolve. Not being causally inevitable, the two worlds of Bob 1 and 2 would readily allow for the possibility of different choices made, despite the PSR yet holding. As quoted from the OP's article:

Both the hard and soft determinists endorse determinism, which is the view that all events (including human choices) are causally determined (necessitated) by antecedent conditions. Humans do what they do, make the choices they do, according to both these views because of factors outside of the agent’s control

... which equates to a causally inevitable world, one that thereby precludes the metaphysical possibility of libertarian free will.

Quoting javra

Can you provide even one philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing?

I had counted six kinds of determinism.
Short summary:
1 philosophical determinism
2 Bohmian (hard)
3 MWI
4 eternalism
5 classical
6 onmiscience

Of these, 2,4,5,6 can probably be pitched as entailing causal inevitability (with full libertarian free will on #6), but #1 does not entail this inevitability, and #3 does not entail phenomenal inevitability.

Decision making probably falls under class 5 for the short term.
As for an example of something that is not obviously causally inevitable, radioactive decay comes to mind. This is phenomenally inevitable only under 2,4,6

Quoting javra

Can you provide even one philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing?

I personally don't think what you've described is fundamentally different from causal inevitability. I consider your distinction to be a word game. My conception of determinism isn't vulnerable to that word game.

Quoting javra

Not being causally inevitable, the two worlds of Bob 1 and 2 would readily allow for the possibility of different choices made, despite the PSR yet holdin

The PSR doesn't hold if Bob 1 and Bob 2 do different things.

Quoting noAxioms

I had counted six kinds of determinism.
Short summary:
1 philosophical determinism
2 Bohmian (hard)
3 MWI
4 eternalism
5 classical
6 onmiscience

The link you provide does not provide links to philosophical references regarding the term "determinism." But I grant there's a bunch of variants: biological determinism, cultural determinism, etc.

Maybe I should have specified "as pertains to the concept of free will as context".

Quoting noAxioms

(with full libertarian free will on #6)

How on earth do you rationally justify this claim? If omniscient X knows all that they will choose in the future (entailed by their omniscience) they can't have libertarian free will on account of all their future choices already being pre-established. No?

Quoting noAxioms

and #3 does not entail phenomenal inevitability.

Irrelevant to the issue of causal inevitability, which it does entail.

Quoting noAxioms

As for an example of something that is not obviously causally inevitable, radioactive decay comes to mind.

How is this in any way relevant?

EDIT: Almost forgot:

Quoting noAxioms

but #1 does not entail this inevitability

How do you figure that?

Quoting flannel jesus

I personally don't think what you've described is fundamentally different from causal inevitability. I consider your distinction to be a word game.

Well then. That's that, then. No further comment.

Quoting Fire Ologist

Another way to say this is that the “will” used as a noun does not exist until we are willing something. We are not free first - we free ourselves afterwards with our consent or our denial of the pre-determined circumstances always already in front of us.

Or if not, maybe there simply is no freedom. Which seems impossible, just as freedom is impossible to explain.

You seem to be saying that freedom only obtains conceptually after the fact. The way I see it the only freedom is freedom from oppression, repression, depression and any other forms of constraint you can think of.

I think Schopenhauer got it right when he said, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants," We are free to act according to our natures, our dispositions and desires, but we do not create our natures, our dispositions and desires.

So, I think it is clear that freedom in the sense of "freedom from" is real, but freedom in the libertarian sense is impossible to explain; on analysis the very idea seems incoherent.

Reply to javra I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to be unfair or silly with that.

I'm a programmer. In programming, a function can be deterministic or not. A deterministic function is one for which, for any given input, you'll always get the same output. So if you input w, and you get x as a response once, if it's deterministic then every time you input w you'll always get x. And if you input y, and you get z once, then every time you input y you'll get z.

And in contrast, an indeterministic function is simply a function where that isn't true - it's a function where, for at least some inputs, you'll get a different output. Maybe you input w and you get x once, and maybe you do it 9 more times you get x again, but the tenth time you get n????o??????????????t????????????x???????????? - the fact that you got a different output from the same input makes that function indeterministic. Even if it only happens sometimes, rarely.

You've brought in all sorts of fancy ideas like teleological reasons as opposed to causal reasons, but when we simplify everything you've said into a system that takes an input and produces an output - well, the input is the set of all relevant facts before Bobs decision, and the output is Bobs decision a few moments later, and since you said Bob will always choose the same, then it really doesn't matter if you choose to use the word "causal determinant" or "teleological determinant". It doesn't matter what types of facts you use in the function that takes the input and turns it into the output. You can call it whatever you want, you can call it causal or teleological or Susan if it makes you happy, but if the output is always the same from the same input, then what you have on your hands is a deterministic function.

You're semantically convinced that determinism and teleology are somehow opposed, that if teleology is involved it can't be determined. I, on the other hand, see no reason why teleology can't be part of a deterministic function. In fact what you described is explicitly a deterministic function that uses teleological reasons to produce an output. Teleology and determinism are perfectly compatible.

I don't expect you to agree with any of that, but I'm writing this in the hope that you might at least understand why I'm calling that determinism.

To go into more detail on why the PSR can't hold if Bob 2 does something different from Bob 1:

First of all, I recognize that my take on the PSR that I'm about to give is not necessarily standard, and is potentially contrary to what the standard view is. I'll argue for it nonetheless.

Everything is the same about bob and his entire universe in both worlds before Bobs choice. And since everything is the same, all possible reasons are the same. So if Bob1 makes some choice, that means there's a sufficient reason why Bob 1 made that choice. And since everything is the same preceding the choice, then there must be a sufficient reason for Bob2 to make the same choice. And yet he doesn't?

And instead he does something else. Something that didn't happen to Bob1. And if it didn't happen to Bob1, that means the preceding state of the world wasn't such that there was a sufficient reason for that choice to happen. So Bob1 didn't have a sufficient reason to make that choice, and given that all facts are the same before the choice for Bob1 as Bob 2, that means it also doesn't have sufficient reason to happen in bob2s world. And yet it happens anyway?

So if Bob2 makes a different choice from Bob1, and you insist the Psr holds, we have an action that does have sufficient reason to happen and yet doesn't happen anyway, and an action that doesn't have sufficient reason to happen and yet does happen anyway.

Now you might retort, no, actually both actions have sufficient reason to happen in both universes. Action 1 and Action 2 were both given sufficient precedent in both universes, and so either one happening matches the PSR. To which I would reply, touche...

But then we'd still need a sufficient reason for the difference. What's the sufficient reason for why Bob2 did something different from Bob1? It looks to me like the only possible answer is "just cause". Bob1 had sufficient reason to do action1 or action2, and he did action1 "just cause". And Bob2 did action2 "just cause". Just cause they could. There's no reason why one did one and one did the other, other than they could. So why did they do something different? To explain a difference, you must appeal to a difference, and since there's no difference between bob1 and bob2 prior to the choice, there's no explanation, there's no sufficient reason.

I think so anyway. I could easily be wrong, I'm not infallible. That's just the way I see it.

Reply to flannel jesus Does the thought experiment of the two Bobs provide a strong argument against free will, or does it only show that there is no definitive argument in favor of free will?

Because if it's the latter, then on a philosophy forum it should come to no one's surprise that definitive arguments are hard to come by.

A clever mind can come up with an objection to literally anything.

Reply to flannel jesus
If a decision is based on a reason, then that decision is not free.

Quoting javra

The link you provide does not provide links to philosophical references regarding the term "determinism."

The SEP article on the subject is the best I can do, and it opens with using #1 as its definition, and touching on some of the others.

I got into philosophy precisely due to the lack of any articles from people that know their physics. So I learned the physics myself and payed little attention to any philosopher that wasn't aware of physics up to about a century ago.

What is 'biological determinism'? Sounds like biological things operate deterministically, but robots don't.

Maybe I should have specified "as pertains to the concept of free will as context".

All of them pertain.

(with full libertarian free will on #6) — noAxioms

How on earth do you rationally justify this claim? If omniscient X knows all that they will choose in the future (entailed by their omniscience) they can't have libertarian free will on account of all their future choices already being pre-established. No?

If you read my linked post, I ask exactly that. You have to ask those that assert the omniscient god also granting us (and only us) free will. There are articles about this one since the contradiction is so obvious. They wave hands almost as hard as the people trying to rationalize the Millennium Falcon being so fast that it "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs" which is a unit of distance, not time.

and #3 does not entail phenomenal inevitability. — noAxioms
Irrelevant to the issue of causal inevitability, which it does entail.

Sort of. If the initial state is far enough back, you choose both vanilla and chocolate. You do otherwise. Both are causally inevitable.

As for an example of something that is not obviously causally inevitable, radioactive decay comes to mind. — noAxioms
How is this in any way relevant?

It (along with double slit) are flagships of hard determinism vs randomness. The former says that the decay will happen at time X. Quantum theory gives only probabilities of when it will decay (a half life). Most interpretations consider such decay to be totally uncaused, just like where the photon gets detected after passing through the double slits.

but #1 does not entail this inevitability — noAxioms
How do you figure that?

#1 is a synonym for naturalism, meaning that will is a function of natural physics. It stands opposed to supernaturalism (dualism) where this is not the case. Most modern incompatibilist proponents of free will presume dualism. Anyway, naturalism does not necessarily imply inevitability. As I said, quantum theory (very much part of naturalism) is empirically probabilistic.


Quoting MoK

If a decision is based on a reason, then that decision is not free.

By this definition, any free choice is irrational.

Quoting noAxioms

By this definition, any free choice is irrational.

Call it whatever you like! We have the ability to do otherwise even if it is against reason. Moreover, free decision is necessary in many situations when we have no reason to prefer one option over another. For example, think of a situation in which you have two options where you don't know the future outcomes of the options. We would be stuck in such a situation if we were not free.

Quoting Tzeentch

Does the thought experiment of the two Bobs provide a strong argument against free will

I interpret it to be a strong argument against any type of free will which opposes itself to determinism. If you say "free will requires determinism to be false", to me that means "free will requires that Bob2 can actually sometimes behave differently from Bob1", but it doesn't seem that bob2s different behaviour can be explained by anything other than randomness.

Reply to flannel jesus You find this a strong argument against free will, in face of a shared experience between countless human beings throughout the ages, who all experience(d) free will on a daily basis?

Reply to Tzeentch "type of free will". Not all free will, just some types. That's why I used the word "type"

Reply to flannel jesus Doesn't our experience of free will oppose itself to determinism?

Whether we choose to have a glass of water or a cup of coffee, it feels like we make a choice that could have gone both ways.

Quoting Tzeentch

Doesn't our experience of free will oppose itself to determinism?

That's very debatable. My experience of my decision making process doesn't feel like it involves randomness, and I understand randomness to be the alternative to determinism. Our experience of free will certainly involves us not knowing what we're going to choose, but not knowing the future is not opposite to determinism.

Reply to flannel jesus Determinism implies the outcome of our choice was already decided beforehand, agreed?

But that is not what we experience; we experience agency in that very moment, where our 'free will' seems to make the difference.

Is it not a fair assessment that the libertarian idea of free will corresponds with an almost universal human experience?

Quoting noAxioms

The link you provide does not provide links to philosophical references regarding the term "determinism." — javra

The SEP article on the subject is the best I can do, and it opens with using #1 as its definition, and touching on some of the others.

Are you sure you provided the correct link? To be clear, as it stands, this forum post (which your link takes me to) does not reference any SEP article. Nor does it specify six determinism types. Nor does it address why omniscience cannot hold librarian free will.

I searched SEP again, and the only entry that stands out is this one, which defines causal determinism in the same old way: in short as entailing causal inevitability.

Can you link to "the SEP article on the subject" you had in mind?

Quoting noAxioms

What is 'biological determinism'? Sounds like biological things operate deterministically, but robots don't.

Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism,[1] is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning

Quoting noAxioms

(with full libertarian free will on #6) — noAxioms

How on earth do you rationally justify this claim? If omniscient X knows all that they will choose in the future (entailed by their omniscience) they can't have libertarian free will on account of all their future choices already being pre-established. No?

If you read my linked post, I ask exactly that.

Again, I read nothing in the linked post to that effect. But then, if we agree on this, then #6 as specified in the parentheses does not apply to the issue at hand. Period.

Quoting noAxioms

and #3 does not entail phenomenal inevitability. — noAxioms
Irrelevant to the issue of causal inevitability, which it does entail.

Sort of. If the initial state is far enough back, you choose both vanilla and chocolate. You do otherwise.

No. You don't do otherwise. You by entailment do both in causally inevitable manners, each being done in a different world, with no ability to do otherwise to speak of.

Quoting noAxioms

As for an example of something that is not obviously causally inevitable, radioactive decay comes to mind. — noAxioms
How is this in any way relevant?

It (along with double slit) are flagships of hard determinism vs randomness. The former says that the decay will happen at time X. Quantum theory gives only probabilities of when it will decay (a half life). Most interpretations consider such decay to be totally uncaused, just like where the photon gets detected after passing through the double slits.

These "interpretations" are irrelevant to what the metaphysical stance of determinism signifies.

Quoting noAxioms

but #1 does not entail this inevitability — noAxioms
How do you figure that?

#1 is a synonym for naturalism, meaning that will is a function of natural physics.

Again, provide a link to reference this.

I did a internet search on "philosophical determinism" and nothing came up to this effect, with all results specifying the same thing; again, in short, causal inevitability.

Quoting Tzeentch

Determinism implies the outcome of our choice was already decided beforehand, agreed?

"already decided beforehand"... mmm... kinda yes kinda no. Not "decided". Not "beforehand". Not necessarily. It just means that the outcome follows from the preceding conditions. It's not like Zeus is sitting up there in the heavens writing what he wants to happen, and then observing it happen, which is what "decided beforehand" feels like.

Quoting Tzeentch

Is it not a fair assessment that the libertarian idea of free will corresponds with an almost universal human experience?

Some certainly think so! But my decisions don't seem random.

Quoting flannel jesus

"already decided beforehand"... mmm... kinda yes kinda no. Not "decided". Not "beforehand". Not necessarily. It just means that the outcome follows from the preceding conditions. It's not like Zeus is sitting up there in the heavens writing what he wants to happen, and then observing it happen, which is what "decided beforehand" feels like.

Determinism implies we never have a choice. Is that a better way of putting it?

But we certainly experience having a choice.

Or how would you put it in plain English?

Quoting flannel jesus

But my decisions don't seem random.

As far as I know, the libertarian idea of free will doesn't imply that they would have to be.

Quoting Tzeentch

Determinism implies we never have a choice. Is that a better way of putting it?

Not necessarily that either. You can still have choices, it's just that your choices follow from... well, follow from YOU, follow from the state of you. If you made a choice at t2, determinism just means that choice was necessarily going to follow from the state of your world, and the state of you, at t1. And that's what you want out of free will - you want the state of YOU to be the thing determining a choice. And if it's true that the state of you at t1 determined the choice at t2, then you "made a choice", and it doens't conflict with determinism.

Quoting Tzeentch

As far as I know, the libertarian idea of free will doesn't imply that it would have to be.

But for determinism to not be the case, something must be random. So when someone says "we can only have free will if detreminism isn't the case", they're saying "we can only have free will if there's randomness".

Of course, many people seem to disagree. Which is why the randomness / determinism dichotomy has to be the first thing we talk about if we want to get anywhere.

Quoting flannel jesus

If you made a choice at t2, determinism just means that choice was necessarily going to follow from the state of your world, and the state of you, at t1.

The outcome was already determined, therefore the sense of choice was merely an illusion.

However, that's is not what we experience.

Quoting flannel jesus

But for determinism to not be the case, something must be random.

How so?

The possibility of multiple outcomes preceding a choice doesn't have to imply randomness, but the weighing of the options by the will - which is what we experience.

Quoting flannel jesus

Of course, many people seem to disagree.

Vastly more people seem to agree, though. Every person I ever met acts as though free will exists. Societies are structured around the notion of a free will.

The only exception I can think of of people acting as though free will doesn't exist, are the mentally ill.

Of course, some people may say they disagree with notions of free will, but they continue acting in every way as though they do believe in free will.

Quoting Tzeentch

The possibility of multiple outcomes preceding a choice doesn't have to imply randomness, but the weighing of the options by the will - which is what we experience.

Yeah, exactly, so in a choice there's no randomess, the choice follows naturally from the preceding state of everything (which of course includes the state of you), which is what you experience. No indeterminism required.

Quoting flannel jesus

Yeah, exactly, so in a choice there's no randomess, the choice follows naturally from the preceding state of everything (which of course includes the state of you), which is what you experience.

Hang on, do you perceive a total state of everything, including the state of you, whenever you act or make a choice?

Reply to Tzeentch you experience your choice following from the state of you, including your desires and wants, which is part of the state of everything.

You don't experience your choice coming out of nowhere at all, random and unrelated to any pre existing facts about the world and facts about yourself

Reply to flannel jesus It's a stretch to say that's what people experience. I certainly don't.

You're essentially saying people experience determinism.

Reply to Tzeentch I'm saying people experience their choices as being related to the state of themselves, as opposed to unrelated. The ice cream they choose isn't random, people generally don't choose flavours they know they hate (because "i know i hate that flavour" is part of the state of themselves), and they slightly more frequently choose flavours they like a little (because "i know i like this a little" is part of the state of themselves) and the way more frequently choose flavours they like a lot (because "i know i like this a lot" is part of the state of themselves), and some people are more daring than others so more willing to take a risk on a flavor they're unfamiliar with (because "i value trying new things" is part of the state of themselves)

In other words, it seems as though what *determines* why someone makes one choice instead of another is pre-existing states. And that's what determinism is about - determining the future based on facts that currently exist.

Reply to flannel jesus So far, so good. But what you've said earlier suggests that you're intent on taking this argument to an extreme where people have no meaningful choice at all.

Reply to Tzeentch I have literally never said anything like that at all.

(probably shouldn't say "literally never", i did used to be a hard determinist. i haven't said anything like that in this thread.)

Quoting flannel jesus

You can still have choices, it's just that your choices follow from... well, follow from YOU, follow from the state of you.

:up:

Reply to flannel jesus Where were you taking that paragraph then? Because so far it's a somewhat convoluted way of describing how people make everyday choices.

Reply to Tzeentch eh? can you please be specific?

Reply to flannel jesus People make choices based on such things as what type of ice cream they like.

But then you insert the unquantifiable idea of a 'state of you', which includes much more than just conscious deliberation. This is where it starts to get vague.

I sort of get where you're going with this, but it'd be a stretch to say people experience their every day decisions in that way.

When you do that in the context of a 'libertarian free will vs. determinism'-type debate, I'm obviously going to be quite critical of the leaps you're taking.

Reply to wonderer1 interesting comic.

Reply to Tzeentch ok

Reply to flannel jesus
Choosing the ice cream you like is an unfree decision since you have a reason for your choice. The question is whether you can choose the ice cream that you don't like for no specific reason. If yes, then you are a free agent. Moreover, our lives are not that easy since we occasionally face options that we don't know their future outcomes yet we have to make a decision. In such a situation, we don't have any reason to choose one option over another so we have to make a free decision.

Quoting javra

Are you sure you provided the correct link?

Apparently not. Here is the correct one, and I fixed the prior post link. Hopefully I did it right this time.
The SEP article is here and is not linked by that post, but you seem to have found it below.
It matches the idea conveyed by just a google search of the word 'determinism', which seems to be an alternate term for naturalism, even thought there are natural interpretations that are not deterministic in the sense of subsequent specific states being inevitable.

The list of six is just something I came up with. You are free to disagree with any of them (especially #6).
Turns out that most people arguing for free will define determinism with #1 whereas I defined it by default to #2, causing us to talk past each other.

Quoting javra

I searched SEP again, and the only entry that stands out is this one, which defines causal determinism in the same old way: in short as entailing causal inevitability.

That's the one. It isn't crystal clear on its definition:
"roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature."
The google search yielded a similar statement:
"all events in the universe are caused by prior events or natural laws "
It says that all states evolve only from prior states per the laws of nature (naturalism), but is vague about things like quantum mechanics which seems probabilistic according to said laws of nature.
Hence it seems to be a statement more about naturalism and not explicitly 'hard' determinism.

This from Oxford dictionary entry for determinism:
"the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions."
That definition is exactly #1, just saying that the will is determined (a function entirely of) causes external to the will. No mention is made of there being one inevitable outcome from a given state.

Quoting javra

Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism,[1] is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether in embryonic development or in learning — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism

I suppose I could just have looked that up. Not sure if it belongs on my list, but while my genetics may very well determine my general nature and thus choices in the long run, it is not directly consulted when making a decision. For instance, somebody was shown to have a genetic preference for cinnamon. That general nature definitely influences choices of which foods to pick, but the gene involved here is not part of that decision. If the genes of that person was suddenly to change (all cells at once), the preference would still be there. Changing the blueprint after the building is finished doesn't change the building, but it might change the way it is subsequently maintained.

Again, I read nothing in the linked post to that effect.

Again, apologies. Better proof reading next time, eh?

But then, if we agree on this, then #6 as specified in the parentheses does not apply to the issue at hand. Period.

I'm fine with that. The correct linked post also says that only the first four are important.

#3 MWI
Quoting javra

No. You don't do otherwise. You by entailment do both in causally inevitable manners, each being done in a different world, with no ability to do otherwise to speak of.

OK. Yes, each done in a different world. Is it you doing both then? Identity is not really preserved over time with MWI, so the question is ill framed. Not only can you not have chosen chocolate, but it wasn't even you that had chosen vanilla. It was somebody else. Identity becomes an abstract concept under MWI, without physical meaning, and abstractly, yes, you chose vanilla.


Quoting javra

#1 is a synonym for naturalism, meaning that will is a function of natural physics. — noAxioms

Again, provide a link to reference this.

#1 is 'causal determinism' as opposed to 'determinism', distinguished in the SEP article. It later gives a less rough definition of the former that attempts to cover as many bases as possible.
"Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law. "
This makes a declaration and an assumption. First, it asserts the subsequent state is fixed, which is the inevitable part, even though 'inevitable' is not used this way in the article. But it also says "given a specified way things are" at some time, and that wording is a counterfactual, something not physically verifiable. Some quantum interpretations (#2 in particular) posit the principle of counterfactual definiteness. Almost all the other ones do not, rendering statements like the one above meaningless.
SEP begins to address this when it questions the phrase "way things are". It talks about speed of light and locality (not by name), but no mention is made of counterfactuals. Locality is more important to the authors, as it is with me, but omitting something relevant is a mistake.

Almost all philosophy sites ignore (assume?) that principle, but almost no philosophers know their physics enough to realize that it's important to be explicit about it, and what the implications of positing it are (such as retro-causality). Almost all the philosophers presume a classical universe despite the fact that it has been proven to be otherwise.

Hence the lack of links in my posts. Such issues are rarely discussed, and the physics people often don't know or don't care about the philosophical implications of the prevailing views. I do care, so I had to learn the physics myself, enough that I'm a moderator on a science forum (medium fish in very small pond), but I know the science only enough to do the philosophy that wasn't being done by anybody else.


Quoting javra

I did a internet search on "philosophical determinism" and nothing came up to this effect

I called it that because it's what most forum users are referencing with the word 'determinism', but 'causal determinism' seems to be the more correct term.
Most proponents of free will seem to argue not against determinism, but rather against fatalism, which is a different thing and has no place on my list any more than does superdeterminism. Their strawman notion of determinism is actually a description of fatalism, where subsequent events are inevitable even if different choices were made.


SEP mentions a Popper definition where determinism is equated to subjective predictability. That is trivially proven false and doesn't belong on my list.


Thank you for engaging with my posts. Much of it is mine, leaving you quite free to tell me I'm full of it.


Reply to wonderer1Cool comic, and leaving unclear which side to identify with since both of them seem to fail to make a distinction between choice and free choice.


Quoting MoK

By this definition, any free choice is irrational. — noAxioms

Call it whatever you like!

It's what you're saying, not me.
You assert you have free will, and then assert that will isn't free if it is based on a reason. Hence your asserted free choices are not based on any reason, which is by definition irrational.

Quoting MoK

Choosing the ice cream you like is an unfree decision since you have a reason for your choice

So freedom is only when you choose things that you don't have reasons to choose? Wowza, what a wild conception of free will.

Quoting flannel jesus

So freedom is only when you choose things that you don't have reasons to choose? Wowza, what a wild conception of free will.

Well, how your decision could be free if it is based on a reason? So we have a dichotomy: either you have a reason for your decision or not, in the first case your decision is unfree and in the second case it is free.

Reply to noAxioms :grin: No worries about the link. And many thanks for the thoughtful clarifications. I get that there can be found ambiguities in many definitions if one so intends.

As to determinism vs. fatalism, do you not find that determinism as concept entails necessitarianism. If you're not familiar with the concept, here is a synopsis:

Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessitarianism

Necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for the world to be.

I could argue this well enough via the SEP article specified: Such as via this affirmation:

Quoting noAxioms

#1 is 'causal determinism' as opposed to 'determinism', distinguished in the SEP article. It later gives a less rough definition of the former that attempts to cover as many bases as possible.
"Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law. "

If things are "fixed" (irrespective of why), then there will only be "exactly one way for the world to be".

I ask because, as far as I can see, if necessitarianism is entailed by determinism (or vice versa), then determinism is necessarily fatalistic when contemplated in terms of events occurring over time.

... but this might spin into how to then interpret "fate" or "destiny". To be clear, I don't here intend any omni-anything to have so determined. I only intend that if necessitarianism, we are then fated or else destined to do what we will do by reality at large, irrespective of how its workings get to be construed, such that the future can only be fixed and, hence, can only take one particular course of events.

Quoting MoK

Well, how your decision could be free if it is based on a reason?

You've presented such a bonkers idea that I don't even know where to start. I'm going to pass.

Reply to flannel jesus
It is not a crazy idea at all if you think about it. How are you going to deal with the dichotomy that I presented?

Reply to wonderer1
Haven't you ever had options in your life?

Reply to MoK

Sure. I'll take the option of not engaging in what I expect would be a tedious discussion. (I.e. there is a reason I choose this option.)

Reply to MoK if there isn't a reason for something that happens, it's random.

So if I ask "why did this happen?" and there's an explanation for why it happened, "it happened because of this and this and this", that's not random - or at least not entirely random.

But if I ask "why did this happen?" and there's no reason at all - not just no known reason, ontologically no actual reason - it's random.

So it's odd that people have been trying to dispel me of the notion that libertarian free will isn't about randomness, and here you are affirming the notion.

But also it means we don't have free will when it comes to very important ethical decisions. If I choose to save a baby's life, and I have reasons to do that, then you say I'm not free. And if I decide to murder a bunch of babies, and I have reasons to do that, then you say I'm not free. So I don't have free will in those moments and am not responsible for them? Weird.

Reply to wonderer1
Ok, as you please. I am glad to see that you agree that options are real and life is not a domino though.

Reply to noAxioms As an afterthought to my previous post, to bring this purely philosophical issue of determinism more into the purview of physics, to me determinism - when so understood as necessitarian - equates to eternalism, aka "the block universe" understanding of time and, hence, of the cosmos at large. Here, everything is fixed bar none.

Reply to flannel jesus

A guy chooses to eat vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate.

Instead of asking the question “was that choice free” which looks at the situation before any ice cream was eaten, I see it all from a different angle. I ask “why is the vanilla ice cream now gone”. If the guy answers “I did it - I’m the cause of the missing ice cream” then I have the starting point for digging deeper into whether there was a free choice involved - I have to ask him more questions to see if he really was the cause or if some subconscious forces or some tyrant, or other cause determined him to eat the ice cream.

In the end, it is solely up to the guy whether we find free choice was involved. At any point in the investigation into underlying causes of the missing ice cream, he can either cut it off and say “that’s enough - it’s all my fault, I are the ice cream, I am responsible.” Or we need to keep digging into the behaviorists/material causes.

That moment is the moment freedom is inserted into any otherwise completely deterministic system.

We don’t choose to want what we want. We want it, and are determined to want it by whatever we are. We choose to call what we want “my choice” - we create the character of “me” as what is known by the rest of the world by consent and by staking a claim - “that’s me - the ice cream eater.”

So my choice and my will and me in the first place are all made one and the same by simple assertion - “that’s my will”. The forces that carry us to the ice cream and force us to see vanilla as best and allow us to eat it - will isn’t found there. Will is found when one steps outside at any of these moments and says “that’s my will - I am walking myself to the refrigerator”. Or “Vanilla is better than chocolate”.

We are our wills.

This is only true when we are willing.

It’s not a complete picture.

And the only way we preserve the feeling of freedom as normally seen as free from or free to, is to see the process described above as happening instantaneously on everything we do. If I am free in each moment, I am consenting to each moment.

Quoting flannel jesus

if there isn't a reason for something that happens, it's random.

We have been through this in another thread. The decision seems random from the third perspective but not the first perspective since it is up to the person want to choose one option or another.

Quoting flannel jesus

So if I ask "why did this happen?" and there's an explanation for why it happened, "it happened because of this and this and this", that's not random - or at least not entirely random.

It does not happen to you, it is you who makes the decision. Of course, you fall into a troublesome situation looking for where this decision comes from if you believe in a monistic view, physicalism for example, so you have to assign a sort of randomness to the physical while accepting that they are deterministic. Of course, this coincidence, making a free decision, and randomness in the physical cannot be explained in a monistic view either. All the troubles are gone if you believe in a dualistic view where the mind is the observer and decision-making entity.

Quoting flannel jesus

But if I ask "why did this happen?" and there's no reason at all - not just no known reason, ontologically no actual reason - it's random.

That is the mind that makes the decision always so it doesn't happen to you.

Quoting flannel jesus

So it's odd that people have been trying to dispel me of the notion that libertarian free will isn't about randomness, and here you are affirming the notion.

Of course, the physical is deterministic. How could we possibly depend on reality if it was random?

Quoting flannel jesus

But also it means we don't have free will when it comes to very important ethical decisions. If I choose to save a baby's life, and I have reasons to do that, then you say I'm not free.

No, you can always make decisions based on reason, saving a baby's life for example. But you can do otherwise. It is exactly because of this ability that we are responsible for our choices.

Quoting flannel jesus

And if I decide to murder a bunch of babies, and I have reasons to do that, then you say I'm not free.

I say that you are free but your decision was unfree. You could do otherwise despite having a reason to murder them and that is why you are responsible for your actions.

Quoting flannel jesus

So I don't have free will in those moments and am not responsible for them? Weird.

Of course, you are responsible for your actions since you are a free agent.

Quoting javra

As to determinism vs. fatalism, do you not find that determinism as concept entails necessitarianism.

That sounds like 'hard determinism' or D2, but I notice that they use the word 'world' like there are other worlds and therefore this particular world is no more necessitated than the others.

If things are "fixed" (irrespective of why), then there will only be "exactly one way for the world to be"

Agree..#1 was causal determinism, which didn't use that word.

I ask because, as far as I can see, if necessitarianism is entailed by determinism

OK, let's compare it to my list of 6. 1 is out since it allows randomness. 3 allows (demands?) all outcomes, necessitating no particular world. 4 (eternalism) seems to fit the bill. 5 is falsifiable since the universe is not classical. 6?? Depends on how you spin it.

So sure, necessitarianism is entailed by determinism under definitions 2 and 4.

then determinism is necessarily fatalistic when contemplated in terms of events occurring over time.

No, fatalism is completely different, saying that there's one end outcome even if initial conditions are different. None of the other isms say anything like that. Fatalism says I will die eventually. This is consistent with non-determinism that allows all sorts of crazy paths to that end.

I only intend that if necessitarianism, we are then fated or else destined to do what we will do by reality at large, irrespective of how its workings get to be construed, such that the future can only be in fixed and, hence, can only take one particular course of events.

Fine. Sounds valid. I have no problem with it, and find no particular impact to the way I live if it turns out to be true or not.


Quoting MoK

How are you going to deal with the dichotomy that I presented?

Easy. By not asserting that I have the kind of free will that you define. I make decisions for reasons. You apparently assert that you don't, which I suppose explains some things, but doesn't explain how you are alive enough to post to a forum.

Quoting MoK

The decision seems random from the third perspective but not the first perspective since it is up to the person want to choose one option or another.

Making a choice based on what you want is doing it for a reason.

Quoting noAxioms

I ask because, as far as I can see, if necessitarianism is entailed by determinism

OK, let's compare it to my list of 6. 1 is out since it allows randomness

This is the principle area where I'm losing what you're trying to say (all other differences of opinion to me follow suit): If determinism, of any variety, can be said to allow for randomness, doesn't this then imply that, since its determinism, the randomness addressed must have been itself determined by antecedent givens (things, events, etc.)?

If so, then one gets randomness only in the sense of notions such as chaos theory, of the butterfly effect repute, which is itself deterministic ontologically... and so here the resulting randomness is only so epistemologically (to any non-omniscient being) but not so ontologically. Ontologically, there is no randomness. And so everything ontologically remains causally inevitable. Edit: And so completely necessary in every respect; thereby completely fixed; and thus fully equivalent to eternalism in its ontic being.

------

Maybe we should better define what "randomness" is intended to here specify. I'll start by defining it as an event within the cosmos (with the cosmos here understood to be the totality of all that is, to include multiple worlds or universes where such to occur) that as event has no reason whatsoever for its so occurring. This then to me generally conforms to this definition of randomness:

3. A measure of the lack of purpose, logic or objectivity of an event

Only that instead of being "a measure of" which holds degrees, it's taken to be a complete lack of that specified.

Do you mean something different by the word such that randomness would be something not deterministic in terms of ontology (rather than in terms of mere epistemology as just previously addressed)?

Quoting javra

1 is out since it allows randomness — noAxioms


This is the principle area where I'm losing what you're trying to say (all other differences of opinion to me follow suit): If determinism, of any variety, can be said to allow for randomness, doesn't this then imply that, since its determinism, the randomness addressed must have been itself determined by antecedent givens (things, events, etc.)?

I've encountered plenty of people that use definition 1, the one in the dictionary, which yes, doesn't seem like determinism at all to me. That D1 allows it does not in any way imply that the others do. D1 just says naturalism: no magic going on. No interfering miracles or anything like that.

If so, then one gets randomness only in the sense of notions such as chaos theory

No. Chaos theory is entirely consistent with any kind of determinism, and says only that small differences in initial conditions result in large difference later on. Determinism (D2,3,4) says that a given initial condition can evolve only one way. D5 asserts this, but D5 is demonstrably wrong. D6 paradoxically says that it will evolve but the one way, but it 'could have' evolved a different way. We could do a whole topic trying to justify that one, or have its proponents attempt the feat.

As for epistemic randomness, it is pretty trivially proven that a system cannot be predicted from inside the system, no matter the processing power of the predictor, and no matter the impossible knowledge of the initial state. As for Chaos theory, you put 3 equal Newtonian point masses stationary in a 3-4-5 triangle arrangement and let them go. We can predict that one of them will fly off at escape velocity leaving the other two in a stable orbit, but we cannot predict which mass or which speed/direction the exit takes place. Doing so requires more precision that can reasonably be achieved, but it's possible in principle since the calculation is outside the simple closed system.

Question: Can it be shown that one mass will escape under relativity theory? I think it depends on the masses, whereas the Newtonian case did not. So certainly different evolution.

Ontologically, there is no randomness. And so everything ontologically remains causally inevitable.

Correct, for D2,3,4

Edit: And so completely necessary in every respect; thereby completely fixed; and thus fully equivalent to eternalism in its ontic being.

D4 is less specific and can be single (D2) or multi-world (D3).
Is calling it 'similar in Ontic being' correct? Eternalism says that all moments in time have equal ontic status, while E2 under say presentism says that future events are inevitable, but still nonexistent, which seems to be an ontic difference.

Maybe we should better define what "randomness" is intended to here specify. I'll start by defining it as an event within the cosmos (with the cosmos here understood to be the totality of all that is, to include multiple worlds or universes where such to occur) that as event has no reason whatsoever for its so occurring.

Not 'no reason'. I mean, a neutron decay happens because there's a free neutron with a half life of say a second, but the exact moment it decays is what's random. Ditto with the photon/slits. The thing has to end up somewhere, but there's randomness to exactly where. Both are caused, but not precisely caused.

This then to me generally conforms to this definition of randomness:

I'm fine with your definition, despite my instinct to pick at it.

Do you mean something different by the word such that randomness would be something not deterministic in terms of ontology (rather than in terms of mere epistemology as just previously addressed)?

Definitely ontic since epistemic randomness is not in question.


Edit: D5 has been shown nondeterministic, hence should not be on my list at all.
Norton's dome is a demonstration of the indeterminacy of Newtonian physics.

Reply to noAxioms

First, I take it that we then agree that by randomness we are not addressing mere unpredictability but, instead, some ontic attribute of reality.

You did nitpick but then agreed with the definition of randomness I provided. It is here that I'm not understanding your premises. What, to you, then is ontic randomness?

To maybe clarify this question: Is it deterministic? Or is it not deterministic?

If deterministic, in what way is the ontic randomness not an intrinsic attribute of the ontic determinism specified per se (to which it is otherwise contrasted as something other than)?

If not deterministic, how then does randomness's occurrence not contradict the determinism otherwise upheld.

Examples of physics will be of no help here, for their metaphysical interpretation can vary considerably in this matter.

Quoting noAxioms

This is the principle area where I'm losing what you're trying to say (all other differences of opinion to me follow suit): If determinism, of any variety, can be said to allow for randomness, doesn't this then imply that, since its determinism, the randomness addressed must have been itself determined by antecedent givens (things, events, etc.)? — javra

I've encountered plenty of people that use definition 1, the one in the dictionary, which yes, doesn't seem like determinism at all to me. That D1 allows it does not in any way imply that the others do. D1 just says naturalism: no magic going on. No interfering miracles or anything like that.

You'll notice the SEP article on D1 nowhere mentions that the determinism therein addressed allows for ontic randomness (when understood as not deterministic). Randomness is not address until section "3.3 Determinism and Chaos" which, upon first reading, only presents what might be potential problems for determinism as described by the article. The section, for example, ends with this sentence:

Nevertheless, the mathematical exploration of chaos in dynamical systems helps us to understand some of the pitfalls that may attend our efforts to know whether our world is genuinely deterministic or not.

One could view D1 as equivalent to naturalism. (This being contingent on how "nature" itself is defined, but this is a different issue.) But that does not then of itself allow for ontic randomness (of a non-deterministic kind) in D1.

At any rate, rather than writing considerably more, I'm hoping you can clarify things by answer the question(s) posed at the beginning of this post. Just so you know, though I'm currently confident in my position, I'm of course open to the possibility of being wrong.

Quoting javra

First, I take it that we then agree that by randomness we are not addressing mere unpredictability but, instead, some ontic attribute of reality.

Yes. God rolling dice, as Einstein put it.

You did nitpick but then agreed with the definition of randomness I provided. It is here that I'm not understanding your premises. What, to you, then is ontic randomness?

Your definition: "an event within the cosmos [...] that as event has no reason whatsoever for its so occurring."
I would perhaps have said '... occurring exactly as it does'. A neutron decays because there's a neutron there, but exactly when could be random. Under determinism (D2,3) there's no such randomness.
D4 would not say that a subsequent state can be determined from a prior state, but it is determined in the same way that the past is fixed under presentism. I'd probably not put D4 in the classification with 2&3.

To maybe clarify this question: Is it deterministic?

What, randomness? By definition of 'not random', it cannot be, but that's not to say that a completely different definition of determinism allowing randomness.

If [randomness is] not deterministic, how then does randomness's occurrence not contradict the determinism otherwise upheld.

I don't think that in such cases the determinism is otherwise upheld, at least not by definition D2 or D3.

You'll notice the SEP article on D1 nowhere mentions that the determinism therein addressed allows for ontic randomness (when understood as not deterministic).

I'll accept that, except then I'm not sure of their distinction between determinism and causal determinism.
The oxford dictionary definition was pretty clear as it made no mention of inevitable or fixed subsequent states.

Randomness is not address until section "3.3 Determinism and Chaos"

That section seems to concern epistemology and our ability to glean if determinism is the case. I personally don't see how chaos theory is relevant to that other than it being illustrative of the incalculability of even simple systems.

Nevertheless, the mathematical exploration of chaos in dynamical systems helps us to understand some of the pitfalls that may attend our efforts to know whether our world is genuinely deterministic or not.

OK. I'll buy that. If they imply that such knowledge can every be known, I have news. They're looking at a complex chaotic classical system, when a simple double-slit will do. Prove or disprove the system to be deterministic or not. Not gonna happen.

One could view D1 as equivalent to naturalism. (This being contingent on how "nature" itself is defined, but this is a different issue.) But that does not then of itself allow for ontic randomness (of a non-deterministic kind) in D1.

It allows for it, but does not necessitate it.

Just so you know, though I'm currently confident in my position, I'm of course open to the possibility of being wrong.

I'm not sure I have a position to be confident in.

Reply to noAxioms Sorry for butting in, but if I'm reading this conversation between you and javra correctly (and I'm not at all confident I am, I would love to be corrected), you're saying that Philosophical Determinism allows for randomness, because Philosophical Determinism is somehow substantially different from Causal Determinism?

Quoting noAxioms

Easy. By not asserting that I have the kind of free will that you define. I make decisions for reasons. You apparently assert that you don't, which I suppose explains some things, but doesn't explain how you are alive enough to post to a forum.

Haven't you ever been in a situation where the future outcomes of options were unclear to you? How could reason help you in such a situation?

Quoting noAxioms

Making a choice based on what you want is doing it for a reason.

By want I don't mean that you desire an option for a specific reason but just choose an option.

Quoting noAxioms

Yes. God rolling dice, as Einstein put it.

OK, thanks of the replies. Want to point out that this example is not good, though. Given a metaphysics of determinism, though epistemically unpredictable in it's outcome, a rolling of the dice can only be ontically determinate. Else we get into issues of omniscience, which we've already agreed upon is a dud.

Quoting noAxioms

"To maybe clarify this question: Is it deterministic?" - javra

What, randomness? By definition of 'not random', it cannot be, but that's not to say that a completely different definition of determinism allowing randomness.

" If [randomness is] not deterministic, how then does randomness's occurrence not contradict the determinism otherwise upheld." - javra

I don't think that in such cases the determinism is otherwise upheld, at least not by definition D2 or D3.

If determinism and randomness are ontological opposites - as we then here agree - then, logically, how can "a determinism in which randomness occurs" yet be validly assigned the term "determinism" - this instead of now validly being termed an "indeterminism"?

This issue will only validly apply in reference to D1, due to the reasons given bellow:

----

Quoting noAxioms

Can you provide even one philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing? — javra

I had counted six kinds of determinism.
Short summary:
1 philosophical determinism
2 Bohmian (hard)
3 MWI
4 eternalism
5 classical
6 onmiscience

In having had further time to think about your initial reply, and with the definitions you provide here for D1 - D6: We already agree that D6 is a dud, so D6 does not validly count. D2 - D5, however, are all models of physics which are construed to be different types of determinism only in so far as they can each be deemed a subcategory of D1.

Because of this, the only one of the six categories listed which validly counts toward a "philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing" will strictly be that of D1.

To this effect, I for example found this article in relation to "D2":

Quoting https://philarchive.org/archive/VANWBW

Why Bohm was never a determinist

Marij van Strien

Forthcoming in Guiding Waves In Quantum Mechanics: 100 Years of de Broglie-Bohm Pilot-Wave
Theory (ed. Andrea Oldofredi). Oxford University Press, 2024.

Abstract
Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics has generally been received as an attempt to restore
the determinism of classical physics. However, although this interpretation, as Bohm initially
proposed it in 1952, does indeed have the feature of being deterministic, for Bohm this was never
the main point. In fact, in other publications and in correspondence from this period, he argued that
the assumption that nature is deterministic is unjustified and should be abandoned. Whereas it has
been argued before that Bohm’s commitment to determinism was connected to his interest in
Marxism, I argue for the opposite: Bohm found resources in Marxist philosophy for developing a non-
deterministic notion of causality, which is based on the idea of infinite complexity and an infinite
number of levels of nature. From ca. 1954 onwards, Bohm’s conception of causality further
weakened, as he developed the idea of a dialectical relation between causality and chance.

Point being, whether or not in this case D2 is a determinism is measured against D1. This as I just specified above.

--------

Quoting noAxioms

"One could view D1 as equivalent to naturalism. (This being contingent on how "nature" itself is defined, but this is a different issue.) But that does not then of itself allow for ontic randomness (of a non-deterministic kind) in D1." - javra

It allows for it, but does not necessitate it.

Your answer is unjustified. And, unless you can answer the question posed at the beginning of this post in a manner that makes cogent sense, it further seems to me unjustifiable in principle.

Quoting flannel jesus

you're saying that Philosophical Determinism allows for randomness, because Philosophical Determinism is somehow substantially different from Causal Determinism?

'Philosophical determinism' is my term, and is often the sort of determinism referenced by the dualists. It means naturalism, but that sounds good, and they don't want their stance to be 'unnaturalism', so they pick a word 'determinism' that means that your decisions are determined by natural physics and not by you (the immaterial thing they envision themselves to be). So D1 boils down to 'not dualism', and has nothing to do with the presence or absence of randomness in natural law.

I am not sure if that's the definition that SEP talks about with the term 'causal determinism'. The page is pretty vague about single or multiple evolutions being possible from a given state, but their definition of 'determinism' (not the causal determinism definition higher up) has the word 'fixed' in it, which sort of implies that.


Quoting javra

Yes. God rolling dice, as Einstein put it. — noAxioms

Want to point out that this example is not good, though. Given a metaphysics of determinism, though epistemically unpredictable in it's outcome, a rolling of the dice can only be ontically determinate.

Disagree. Given metaphysics of determinism (D2, 3 say), there is no dice rolling at all. I was defining ontic indeterminism, anything where true randomness is going on.
None of this has anything to do with predictability. A simple program running very deterministic code can be utterly unpredictable, as proven by Turing. Unpredictability is a feature of our universe. There's no getting around that, even in principle.

If determinism and randomness are ontological opposites - as we then here agree - then, logically, how can "a determinism in which randomness occurs" yet be validly assigned the term "determinism

Determinism and randomness are ontological opposites only under D2 and D3. The opposite of D1 is supernaturalism, which makes the physical universe not a closed system, open to external causes from outside. Those causes are presumably not random but rather conveying intent.

Quoting javra

D2 - D5, however, are all models of physics which are construed to be different types of determinism only in so far as they can each be deemed a subcategory of D1.

Yes, D2-5 are all naturalistic views. D6 is not.

Because of this, the only one of the six categories listed which validly counts toward a "philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing" will strictly be that of D1.

To this effect, I for example found this article in relation to "D2":

Why Bohm was never a determinist

Marij van Strien

Forthcoming in Guiding Waves In Quantum Mechanics: 100 Years of de Broglie-Bohm Pilot-Wave
Theory (ed. Andrea Oldofredi). Oxford University Press, 2024.

Abstract
Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics has generally been received as an attempt to restore
the determinism of classical physics. However, although this interpretation, as Bohm initially
proposed it in 1952, does indeed have the feature of being deterministic, for Bohm this was never
the main point. In fact, in other publications and in correspondence from this period, he argued that
the assumption that nature is deterministic is unjustified and should be abandoned. Whereas it has
been argued before that Bohm’s commitment to determinism was connected to his interest in
Marxism, I argue for the opposite: Bohm found resources in Marxist philosophy for developing a non-
deterministic notion of causality, which is based on the idea of infinite complexity and an infinite
number of levels of nature. From ca. 1954 onwards, Bohm’s conception of causality further
weakened, as he developed the idea of a dialectical relation between causality and chance. — https://philarchive.org/archive/VANWBW

Cool. I saw the interpretation not as an attempt to restore the determinism of classical physics (which classical physics never was), but to restore a classical feature to quantum physics. It is a full embrace of the intuitive principle of counterfactual definiteness, at the expense of the classical notion of locality. But I can agree that the goal never was to keep determinism. Some other (far simpler) interpretations also keep that.
Funny that Marxism held resources for any of this.

It allows for it, but does not necessitate it. — noAxioms

Your answer is unjustified.

I don't understand the question then.



Quoting MoK

Haven't you ever been in a situation where the future outcomes of options were unclear to you? How could reason help you in such a situation?.

Only if I ignore reasons for the choice. Say I am crossing the street. I can ignore reason and just choose a time to do it. Or I can look both ways and use the information about the traffic as my reason for when it is a safe time to cross.

I can eat when I get hungry instead of randomly, and even randomly, I cannot eat because my random gyrations don't result in food being ingested. Knowing where the food is constitutes a reason to reach in that direction. In short, decisions without reason result in unfitness. You'd not survive 10 minutes.

Quoting noAxioms

If determinism and randomness are ontological opposites - as we then here agree - then, logically, how can "a determinism in which randomness occurs" yet be validly assigned the term "determinism

Determinism and randomness are ontological opposites only under D2 and D3. The opposite of D1 is supernaturalism, which makes the physical universe not a closed system, open to external causes from outside. Those causes are presumably not random but rather conveying intent.

D1, as specified by you, is "philosophical determinism". Not "naturalism". And you yourself provided the SEP link to reference D1 as such. From the link to the other forum post which you provided:

1) Philosophical determinism.
I googled 'determinism' and got this: "all events in the universe are caused by prior events or natural laws ". This is probably the primary definition used when asserting a dichotomy between determinism vs free will, the latter being defined as choices made by supernatural causes.
This sort of free will is required to be held responsible by any entity not part of the natural universe (God). It is in no way required for internal responsibility (to say society).

I think this equivocation on your part between "philosophical determinism" and "naturalism" is where our disagreement might likely primarily reside. If so, and if you want to insist that they are the same thing such that they then each "allow of ontic randomness", there then is a lot more befuddlement going on than I currently care to address in regards to determinism. In which case, I'll just call it quits.

Quoting noAxioms

Philosophical determinism' is my term, and is often the sort of determinism referenced by the dualists. It means naturalism, but that sounds good, and they don't want their stance to be 'unnaturalism', so they pick a word 'determinism' that means that your decisions are determined by natural physics and not by you (the immaterial thing they envision themselves to be). So D1 boils down to 'not dualism', and has nothing to do with the presence or absence of randomness in natural law.

Ah, I don't think javra was assuming you're just making the term and the meaning of it up. I agree with @javra that calling such a concept "determinism" is very confusing, and is probably not the best name for that idea. In fact, you said it's basically just not-dualism, and that already has a name: monism. Physicalism or materialism also seem to cover it, if I'm understanding it correctly

Quoting flannel jesus

Ah, I don't think javra was assuming you're just making the term and the meaning of it up.

Quite true. I wasn't.

Quoting flannel jesus

In fact, you said it's basically just not-dualism, and that already has a name: monism. Physicalism or materialism also seem to cover it, if I'm understanding it correctly

Since monism too comes in different flavors - to include both neutral monism and idealism - it can only be a naturalism in the form of physicalism/materialism.

So, because one thus upholds, “philosophical determinism” then is “physicalism” … and since the latter, lo and behold, allows for, but does not necessitate, randomness, so too then does the former.

The style of reasoning will in some ways parallel that of roses being dogs, of dogs having three wings, and of wings being things which slither, ergo that roses can by definition slither (in part if not in whole) … or something to the like.

Not my idea of what philosophy is about. Wish I hadn't squandered so much time on this. But, hey, lesson learned.

Quoting javra

The style of reasoning

What style of reasoning is it? I just think he's (a) trying to name a concept that already has sufficient names, and (b) naming it in a misleading and confusing way. Hopefully he takes the feedback and just doesn't continue to insist on calling this "philosophical determinism". Seems like an easy fix.

Quoting javra

I think this equivocation on your part between "philosophical determinism" and "naturalism" is where our disagreement might likely primarily reside.

There are many valid definitions of various words, and that definition is the first one that comes up if I ask for determinism, definition. The adjective 'philiosophical' is something I put there to distinguish this definition from the others. The definition is real, and seems to be the one most often used by proponents of dualist free will. They don't care if physics has randomness or not. They care that the physics isn't involved in the making of the choice. Naturalism is something they deny, but they call it determinism because it means one's will is determined by causal physics. I agree it's a stupid choice of words because by their assertion, their will is 'determined' by their immaterial mind. How is that any less 'determinism' the way they're using it?


Quoting flannel jesus

Ah, I don't think javra was assuming you're just making the term and the meaning of it up.

The adjective I made up. None of the rest.

I agree with javra that calling such a concept "determinism" is very confusing

Lumping it with the others is perhaps confusing, but the word is very much used that way, and it needed to be on my list. All six of my definitions have different meanings and sometimes one can glean the definition used by context, and sometimes not.


This topic got kind of sidetracked. The argument in the OP I feel is a strong one against the libertarian (dualist) view being any more 'free' than one that uses physics, hard-deterministic or not.

Maybe we can focus on what it means to bear responsibility, and which view support and don't support that. Not sure if that discussion belongs here.


Quoting javra

Since monism too comes in different flavors - to include both neutral monism and idealism - it can only be a naturalism in the form of physicalism/materialism.

So does naturalism. If 'dualism' is actually how things work, then it's by definition natural. I can see why the dualist want to pick a different word for something they don't consider to reflect how natural things work.

How is the definition of naturalism different from physicalism? Materialism is quite controversial, but those two are almost the same, and neither is necessarily a realist position, stating only that mential processes supervene on the physical. I see no obvious distinction.


Quoting flannel jesus

Hopefully he takes the feedback and just doesn't continue to insist on calling this "philosophical determinism".

I'll find something else. Does it belong on my list of 6 at all then? When people talk about determinism vs randomness, they're not using that definition. But if they talk about determinism vs free will, they are using it.

Quoting noAxioms

Lumping it with the others is perhaps confusing, but the word is very much used that way

You said it's your term. Now you're saying it's "very much used that way". My head's spinning. Which is it? Is it in common use or is it your term?

[edit] Ignore the above, I'm happy to just let it drop given that you want to find something else.

Reply to noAxioms

In trying to presume the best here: your usage of the term does not equate to the usage of the term. If it did, then theological determinism would equate to naturalism and thereby be a physicalist stance. This conclusion then being in tune with the slithering roses motif I previously mentioned.

Reply to noAxioms

Not essential to the issue, but I'll add this to my former post just in case it might eventually come up:

Yes, the naturalistic pantheism of someone like Spinoza is a non-dualistic naturalism wherein God pretty much equates to the sum of all natural laws and their effects. It is nevertheless a theism due to a stringent affirmation of God's being, a theism which upholds theological determinism. Ought one then consider it to be a form of “theistic physicalism”?

While I couldn’t give a hoot either way, this or any other possible to conceive of exception - such as the “naturalism” of the ancient Stoics - do not nullify today’s commonly held stance that theological determinism is fully resultant from a supposed omni-creator deity - one who thereby has reputedly created both the natural laws and the causal processes that are, this so as to result in … a reality of determinism. One which can be said to preclude libertarian free will to boot.

Nor, for that matter, would any possible exception nullify the use of the term “determinism” within such contexts as that of theological determinism. Which, again - I’ll here say “typically” - is taken to be at direct odds with physicalism, or else with non-dualistic naturalism when thus understood.

Quoting javra

In trying to presume the best here: your usage of the term does not equate to the usage of the term.

Quoting flannel jesus

You said it's your term. Now you're saying it's "very much used that way"

The people that use it in the D1 way (it seems pretty prevalent) just call it 'determinism'. I added the adjective, as I said above, since it is a dictionary definition used in philosophy discussions (not all discussions) as opposed to D2-5 which are physics definitions of 'deterministic' (and also used in philosophy discussions like this one). I could have called those 'science-determinism' but there are several kinds of that.

D6 is a form, but admittedly the theology people that push that view do not call the omniscience 'determinism'. I've never seen it used that way, but it's still a form of the 'inevitability' meaning.
Izzat so? : "a theism which upholds theological determinism" in the following post. I stand corrected.

Quoting noAxioms

The people that use it in the D1 way (it seems pretty prevalent) just call it 'determinism'.

If people are saying determinism is compatible with randomness, they're doing something extremely strange. Wikipedia lists randomness as "an extreme antonym" to determinism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

A more extreme antonym of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to random chance.

Quoting noAxioms

I could have called those 'science-determinism' but there are several kinds of that.

Given what you've previously said - namely, that the opposite of "philosophical determinism" is not randomness but supernaturalism - this term of "science-determinism" would be akin to calling all scientists atheists (uniformly disbelieving in all that atheists consider to be supernatural and hence unreal). Which, to be blunt, is quite contrary to facts. It's not science (which is the sum of all that scientists do and present) which you here are implicitly referring to but scientism, a term that often enough gets used on this forum, and which need not be pejorative if it honestly reflects one's views.

As to the adjective "philosophical", determinism, being of itself a purely metaphysical stance regarding what ontically is, can only be philosophical. (That in itself threw me off a bit.)

All the same, determinism remains determinism, regardless of subspecies. This as per Reply to flannel jesus 's comment.

Quoting noAxioms

I've never seen it used that way, but it's still a form of the 'inevitability' meaning.
Izzat so? :

Yup.

Quoting noAxioms

I stand corrected.

Don't currently know of a better way to say this, so I'll just say - in as honest and humble way as I can - very cool of you to so express. Can only hope I can return the phrase to you some day.

Quoting flannel jesus

If people are saying determinism is compatible with randomness

They (the ones using the D1 definition) are not saying that about determinism defined roughly as 'not randomness'. It's a different definition than that one, different from the scientific definition given in wiki, which is (wait for it) not random.

I've edited the linked post, and removed 'philosophical' from the description of E1.


Quoting javra

Given what you've previously said - namely, that the opposite of "philosophical determinism" is not randomness but supernaturalism - this term of "science-determinism" would be akin to calling all scientists atheists

You seem to confuse science with scientist. There are plenty of theists in the science world, but science itself, since around the renaissance has operated under methodological naturalism, which is indeed the presumption of no magic. So science operates as if there is no god, true, but it makes no demand on the beliefs of the people doing the science.
Heck, I believe stuff that I know is wrong. I hold contradictory beliefs. I don't explode because of this.

I was educated in a Christian school since the public ones were in serious need of help. My school taught good science, but not all of them do.

Which, to be blunt, is quite contrary to facts.

Could well be, yes.
I'm just trying to clarify definitions, and I don't want to coin the phrase scientific-determinism, but the science glossary would give a definition that is essentially "not-random"

As to the adjective "philosophical", determinism, being of itself a purely metaphysical stance regarding what ontically is, can only be philosophical. (That in itself threw me off a bit.)

True. All six are philosophical. Maybe I should have referred to it as dictionary-determinism, but then you'd google that and still come down on me for making up how other people use the word instead of just making up names.

Can only hope I can return the phrase to you some day.

Not likely. What do I know? I've avoided opinion in this topic as much as I can, so it's not like there's anything new I'm likely to spout.

Do I believe in determinism? I find belief to be very restrictive, a door closed for no reason. The way I look at things, the word isn't even meaningful without a bunch of premises I don't presume.

Quoting noAxioms

You seem to confuse science with scientist. There are plenty of theists in the science world, but science itself, since around the renaissance has operated under methodological naturalism, which is indeed the presumption of no magic. So science operates as if there is no god, true, but it makes no demand on the beliefs of the people doing the science.

I don't think I'm "confusing science with scientist". Isn't it only via science that we can affirm things such as that ESP has no objective bearing? I'll maintain that it is. In which case science and the scientists it consist of is free to scientifically study such things as ESP. And this irrespective of whether the beliefs of the scientists' involved are pro or contra things such as ESP's validity.

BTW, in relation to this boogieman word "magic": even for a naturalistic pantheist who most can't hardly distinguish from a diehard atheistic physicalist, the whole of reality can only of itself be, in one word, magic. To disprove this affirmation one would need to find a cogent reason for being's so being. It's been tried plenty of times. No results so far.

Quoting javra

I'll maintain that it is. In which case science and the scientists it consist of is free to scientifically study such things as ESP.

Just so, and I've seen it (the study) done for water dowsing. It seemed to fail spectacularly under controlled conditions and yet it seems to work in the field. I tried it, and it worked for me (I was a kid at the time), but didn't work well. I quickly forgot how to hold the stick.
If it worked, there is probably a natural explanation for it. Maybe even ESP.
Dualism makes some really obvious empirical predictions, and yet these are never investigated AFAIK.

And yes, all that sort of falls under 'magic'.

BTW, in relation to this boogieman word "magic": even for a naturalistic pantheist who most can't hardly distinguish from a diehard atheistic physicalist, the whole of reality can only of itself be, in one word, magic.

I actually agree with that, which is why I don't label myself a realist.

To disprove this affirmation one would need to find a cogent reason for being's so being.

Exactly. The old 'why is there something instead of nothing?'. Wrong first question. Better to ask, 'is there something?', and only after justifying that one way or another go on to what follows. But naturalistic rules cannot explain being's being.

Reply to flannel jesus I am not sure if this has been proposed although javra may have been suggesting a similar notion concerning the realities of lived experience. What I want to stipulate is that Bob1 likes this book, maybe he is reading Watership Down. But then Bob2 comes along and likes Game of Thrones better as a novel. But I thought Bob1 said Watership Down was the best. Does this not point to something like the fungibility of the will. Sure, it may be conditioned by desire, but it is not set-in-stone, as it were, towards a particular, though it may be moved towards some form. We might say something like, had Bob1 read GoT, that would be his favorite book, not that he could have known better, but that it is true that he would have chosen it had he known of it. What do you think? Does this make the will free in a way that a free will libertarian would accept? Is the will in this way acceptable determined by desire and other factors consistent with the deterministic position?

Quoting NotAristotle

What do you think?

I think if Bob2 spontaneously likes something different from Bob1, then... that's random. That like doesn't seem to have come from anywhere. There's no tangible reason why Bob1 didn't like it.

Sure, could be random, that doesn't change that Bob2 likes a different book than Bob1, the source of the difference doesn't really matter, what matters is that that source that has affected Bob2 would have affected Bob1 were he made aware of it.