Which best captures your view? For the purposes of the thread I'm using the definitions of "free will" and "determinism" from SEP:

I appreciate that depending on your particular views you might think that these definitions are too simple, but if you disagree with them just go with your own definition and post it in the thread. What I'm interested in is the fact that certain philosophies on the subject appear to have more than one truth table open to them, and which one's people pick.

Here's the truth tables that correspond to the options in the poll:

I'm going with "free will is inconsequential." The reasoning is that in assuming free will or lack thereof in the observation, we must also apply this to ourselves in the reasoning regarding the observation.

+1 for philosophically correct options (I voted impossible regardless, sometimes/usually called pessimistic incompatibilism)

+2 for keeping all these fw threads out of smp, poor horse is so pulverized over there there's hardly anything to beat

I've found conflicting definitions for this position, but think the distinction between it and standard hard determinism is worth unpacking. I've also found it interesting that following the truth table logic it seems there are four mutually exclusive ways to deny free will and three mutually exclusive ways to affirm it (one less because "free will is impossible" + "we have free will" is a contradiction).

Aye, we know what most philosophers believe

I voted for the first option, then I realized I don't think it's possible for determinism to be false...even in theory. So I think all of these are false choices, since they all allow for the possibility of determinism being "false", whatever that would even mean

How could free will be impossible if determinism is false?

also, how could anyone possibly believe that determinism is false based on your definition above?

I don't really know much about the history of the terms, (I think soft/hard determinism comes from James), but there is definitely a distinction worth unpacking (between hard determinism and hard/pessimistic incompatibilism*). If one accepts only hard determinism and is agnostic/no opinion on free will if determinism is false then she is only half way (if that) to the thesis that free will is nonsense / that moral responsibility is incoherent. It seems like a historical half-way position from the times when determinism dominated; now that (last 80 years) genuine indeterminism is a live option again, it seems incomplete to accept only hard determinism.

* Don't really know what the difference is if any between hard incompatibilism and pessimistic incompatibilism. The first I associate with Pereboom, the second with the second Strawson, although there are many others.

Most are compatibilists and by a big margin (according to that one survey).

Why isn't it possible for determinism to be false? I used to think this, and then I had a Humean moment and realized that's metaphysical prejudice.

Without "a deterministic component", the term "false" isn't really very meaningful.

To be clear, for Determinism (as a philosophy) to be false one would only need a single example of true randomness. I don't think anyone denies that determinism (as a explanatory model with a domain of applicability) is false.


One can make the argument that if determinism was completely false - if NO event was caused by its antecedent events- then our decisions would be entirely random and therefore not "willed" therefore no free will. I think people who ticked that option on the poll would be making the mistake I outlined just above (thinking that 'determinism is false' = 'nothing is determined') but tbh, I made the truth-tables to exhaust all possible responses and therefore wanted to include it for completeness.

This is kind of an interesting subject, but I will make one point.

Strictly speaking, determinism is false. There are events that are unknowable no matter how much is known about the system before the event occurs. Radioactive decay is an example. It is fundamentally and theoretically impossible for that event to be determined. Put another way, God is much more likely than strict determinism.

Of course, there is a way to confuse yourself about this point.

From wiki:

The fact that the behavior of an ensemble is predictable does not change the fact that there are events that are not.

I hope that helps.

Our actions being probabilistic rather than strictly determined would functionally be the same problem for free will.

Of course I agree. I do not believe the issues of free will and determinism have a hard link. I picked the 4th option in the poll. My comment on determinism was in the nature of an aside.

The larger challenge of free will vs. determinism vs. probabilistic (aka "random") is in the area of moral responsibility. But that topic is not where Zumby appears to be heading in this thread.

Why is an event not determined, just because it is not known?

NB: There is some disagreement about this

Chiefly because it is very esthetically pleasing for those who don't like determinism.

Also, you can't build logic arguments of this nature without a deterministic component, so the entire thing flops belly-up regardless. "True" or "false" require determinism.

That can be artifacts of our language of course, and bear no relevance to some assumed "reality" - but that doesn't matter, because if we can't talk about it - we can't discuss it.

Careless wording on my part. It is theoretically impossible to know when the decay of a radioactive atom will occur no matter how much information is known about its state prior to the decay. That is just quantum physics.



It has nothing to do with whether I like determinism or not. It is quantum physics. I have provided a very clear example of the failure of determinism so it is "false". There is no paradox.

"False" is meaningless without determinism, or maybe more aptly without a deterministic component, that's your dilemma.

Why is "false" meaningless? The decay of a radioactive atom is random, unpredictable by any physical laws or properties. Thus, physical determinism is false. How does this fact render the concept "false" unusable?

In this post you are using the term "physical determinism" (whatever that might be), which was not the words used in your original post.

I take it this means you eithered wrote your original post too quickly, or that you have now changed argument? Either way, your question here becomes moot.

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And for what it is worth, the decay of a radioactive atom is very predictable. Randomness is only a problem for predictability when we have few events. And even in the case where we have few events, radioactive decay is still predictable - it's not like anybody thinks pink bunnies are suddenly going to pop out of nowhere as a result of it.

Didn't post 10 cover this?

My argument has not changed. You have not mooted anything with this comment.

This was my op.

I assumed I was making a clear point that was relevant after post #10 since radioactive decay is an example of a truly random event.

This is simply false. The decay of a radioactive atom is unpredictable and totally random. A very large ensemble of radioactive atoms will behave in an approximately predictable manner, but the exact number of decays in a period of time will still be random.

The problem with your entire argument is clear.

The bold part of your post is false. Thus your arguments are false.

The unbolded part is indeterminant to me at this point. You would have to define "deterministic component" because that does not really mean anything to me. If you mean that the ability to predict average decay rates in a large number of radioactive atoms is an example of a "deterministic component", then I agree that deterministic components do exist.

I still think that you have not made any connection between the existence of either determinism or "deterministic components" and the concepts of "true" and "false".

My first thought is that it is something that you made up because it sounded clever but cannot actually justify so you are attempting to establish it by repetition. Unfortunately, repetition is not proof.

If you have a rationale for your point, please present it or reference the post where you established it as true. If you read it somewhere, can we get a reference for that. Otherwise, you can stop repeating it now. You have achieved all that repetition can accomplish.

Ok, so when you suddenly go from "determinism" to "physical determinism", you haven't changed anything. This regardless if these two terms are not interchangable. Nor was it an error. Instead we have to know that this is implied, or else we will be subject to angry rambles like this one. Good to know.

I see no point in replying to this - you seem to be looking to vent more than anything else.

Would you mind elaborating on "false" being meaningless without determinism if I ask instead? I'm curious about that.

Assuming some correspondence theory of truth, X is true if X corresponds to a real state of affairs. That doesn't seem to depend at all on how that state of affairs happened to come about, at least in principle. Non-correspondence theories of truth would seem to depend even less on determinism.

My guess is that what you have in mind is something along the lines of saying that in a non-deterministic reality it would be impossible for decision procedures to be reliably carried out, so that there would be no means of determining truth and thus truth would be meaningless. Am I on the right track?

If I am, it seems like a possible criticism of that argument would be that it conflates determinism being wrong because some events are undetermined with determinism being wrong because all events are undetermined. But the idea is interesting to me.