I guess I did think that the terms were interchangable. In my mind they seem to refer to the same thing. If you see a difference could you point it out?

I was not angry and I do not think I was rambling. I was addressing your points. Granted I jumped to a conclusion about your assertion:

but if I erred it is an easy victory for you. You need simply provide your reasoning or reference as the case may be.

Again, I was not venting. I was not irritated at all at this point. You do seem eager to truncate the discussion. Were I to jump to a conclusion again...

No, I will just let things stand as they are. I will keep my conclusions to myself.

Determinism (in the broadest sense) is the position that given a set of conditions, only one outcome is possible. Physical determinism is the positon that (in our universe) all future events is governed by past events.

These are not interchangable, though physical determinism implies determism - the opposite is not true.

The reasoning is fairly simple. "X is false" implies that given a set of conditions, X must be false. It also implies that given identical conditions, X must be false.

Thus "false" is a wholly deterministic construct.

Thanks for the answer.

OK. Still not sure I understand the difference, but I do not think it important. I am always limiting my comments to (in our universe) as I have no opinion about any others.

Radioactive decay is a counterexample to determinism. If I take 1000 C14 atoms, wait 5000 years and count the number that have decayed I will get some number around 500. If I repeat the experiment with an exactly identical set of C14 atoms (and I mean literally "exactly" the same) I will get a number of decays that will almost surely be different. Still near 500, but by no means constrained to be the same number.

Thus determinism is false.


But my statement does not mean that there are no systems that can be determined. Determinism is the statement that the same outcome must always happen. Falsifying that statement does not require that the same result never happen. Only that it sometimes does not happen.

Thus determinism is false. If I test the premise again, determinism will still be false. Thus false does not require that determinism hold. It only requires that indeterminism (defined that given an initial situation, the same outcome never happens) not be true.

But I never claimed that the test of initial condition versus outcome never held. Only that it sometimes did not hold.

The difference is very important. In physical determinism a) all events take place chronologically ) b) all conditions are determined by past conditions. It corresponds to the idea of "causal determinism", but in addition limits itself to making claims about our universe. Determinism however, isn't necessarily neither causal or chronologic. How a set of conditions cames to be, or what the outcome of these conditions will in itself lead to isn't necessarily neither answered nor claimed to be fixed.

Personally, I find this entire discussion to be irrelevant. Like the god of the gaps, it is a discussion that to conclude we must attribute unknowns with values. It is impossible to know if the universe is "free-willed" or "deterministic", so I see no point in holding a view about it.

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However, what is not irrelevant is that our systems of understanding is based around determinsm. Our languages (speech, maths,text, drawings) are all based on deterministic components; That given identical conditions we get identical answers.

If we go around making claims that "the universe is not deterministic" we must also accept that these systems can not make true statements. It isn't necessarily the biggest hurdle in the world (for many merely a reflection on lack of objectivity), but it does mean making claims that "determinism is false" becomes very problematic. At the very least the act of using (any) language to make a claim means accepting that determinism is at worst a good approximation.

I see the conversation has gone ahead but we were talking about metaphysical (causal) determinism. If you want to say something like logical inferences are instances of a broader type of determinism be my guest*, but that's certainly not what I was asking him.

* On second thought don't be my guest; if not technically wrong, that way of using the term is unhelpful at best.

You're right that figuring out whether the universe is (causally) deterministic or indeterministic at bottom is irrelevant, but it's not problematic to entertain the possibility that it is or it isn't. "If the universe isn't deterministic" entertains a possibility about the universe, not about us making statements about the universe. If the universe isn't deterministic, it doesn't matter one way or the other if our statements about the universe might become randomly true or false.

Yes, I see that now from the OP. My apologies to RLK.

I'll refrain from posting more then, as the question becomes trivial and uninteresting:
Anything that exists in a causally deterministic system must be causally deterministic.
Free will is not causally deterministic.
Free will does not exist in a causally deterministic system

The only away around this is to claim free will is causally deterministic. This would be a very weird exercise.

Whether it's weird or not is the incompatibilist/compatibilist debate in a nutshell.

Why would it be weird? How are you defining "free will" and why?

Determinism implies that given identical conditions, the outcome is the same.

Causal determinism (which the OP has set as a condition, and also specifically wrote was the only thing he wanted his thread to be about) in addition implies that any event is caused by a precedent and leads to an antedecent, basically that the universe is "chronologically fixed" - it will only play out one way.

No meaningful definition of free will holds that it is causally deterministic.

.

As I've brought up many times now

a) 2 out of 3 contemporary philosophers disagree with you, and believe there are meaningful definitions of 'free will' that are compatible with determinism.
b) The majority of ordinary people in empirical studies believe free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism.
c) Our legal systems define free will in a way that does not presuppose incompatibilism e.g. when a judge asks "Did you sign this of your own free will" she is not asking "Is determinism true?" but "Were you coerced or not of sound mind" which has nowt to do with determinism.

Given these facts I'm going to need more that just an assertion that you don't think non-theological definitions are meaningful. Do you have an argument for that position?

I've reconstructed a chart from the Neurophilosophy of Free Will, by Henrik Walter where he examines in detail all the arguments and presuppositions around the debate and condenses the issue into three dimensions each with three levels:



Of these, very few interpretations actually have anything to do with determinism at all: A1 and C1. And the legal/judicial use of "free will" only seems to require something like A3, B3 and C2 (requiring only C3 would ignore things like a behaviour-changing brain tumour). A strong libertarian probably must argue for A1, B1, C1, someone like Aaron (I think) argues for A1, B2, C1 and I would argue for A2, B2, C2.

You seem to be insistent on a very narrow concept of free will which is totally divorced from anything except a (admittedly popular) subset of Christian theology, and because of this it is very hard to take you seriously when you weigh in on these issues.

edit: Also, what dereds said

This isn't about determinism, it is about causal determinism.

Seriously. Read posts.

To help you out, some options open to you are:

- Argue that moderate/weak interpretations do not capture what people mean by "free will", lay out who these people are and why their opinion is what counts.
- Argue that moderate/weak interpretations do not allow for moral responsibility and that free will entails moral responsibility.
- Argue that determinism falsifies even the moderate and weak interpretations.

Er...

1) I'm the OP.
2) The definition I presented in the OP is from the SEP entry on causal determinism.
3) I said in the OP that "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."

Are you involved in some sort of prop bet?

Do you understand that causal determinism is not the same as determinism?

Firstly, determinism and causal determinism are usually taken as synonymous (see SEP entry, Wiki entry, and here. There are other versions, for sure, but the one relevant to free will is causal determinism (there's a reason libertarian free will is also called contra-causal!)

Regardless, it very unclear why you keep bringing up the distinction, since you seem to agree with me that we should be talking about causal determinism. You say its incompatible and I say it isn't. Given the post you <snipped> I can only assume you think that there is some other definition of determinism that IS compatible with free will and that definition is what everyone else means by determinism. Is this right? Otherwise your reactions make no sense whatsoever...

Since you seem to be having trouble articulating whatever point you are making, imagine I replace every instance of "determinism" in post#37 with "causal determinism". What would your response be then?

The wiki actually specifially states that causal determinism is often misunderstood for determinism. The SEP reference goes a long way towards stating that a fixed chronolocial order of events (as it the case with causal determinism) is not compatible with volition.

So, to be brutally frank: Your references lends your criticism of my posts very little strength.


To answer the question: I find it completely and utterly trivial that this is definition is not compatible with free will. If the universe only plays out one way that was fixed from long before there were any humans around, free will need not apply. I don't think there is much more to explain there - it is pretty much at the core.

This is of little consequence on the question of free will however. Causal determinism does not fit with modern physics, which is plenty reason for me to discard it.

Allow me, as someone who only recently finally understood what it was that the compatibilists were on about, try to asplain

tame_deuces, you use the phrase "free will" to mean metaphysical free will, in the libertarian sense, and you are right that it's trivial that that is not compatible with determinism.

Zumby uses the phrase free will in a non-metaphysical sense, which he alluded to when he talked about how courts define it. That courts use the term non-metaphysically is a clue that while it's obvious that metaphysical free will is incompatible, it's not obvious that metaphysical freewill (zumby's A1) is the only meaningful or coherent definition of "free will"

So you're not disagreeing about whether or not metaphysical free will is compatible with determinism, the actual conversation is about how to define "free will".

Now, about causal determinism in modern physics: There is the framework of QM in which the actual outcome is probabilistic at measurement. I think that's been discussed. Another thing that had been flitting about in my head for a while is that under relativity causality is also relative to an inertial frame of reference. I'm not sure that's been brought up in any of these threads. Is there any other goofy causal things in modern physics? The relativity thing makes my head hurt more than QM

That is not what is says at all. Given that I never intend to get someone to admit to error but only seek to influence third parties, I suggest others just click through to the article.

As above.

But this is what my <snipped> post was about. I believe there are sufficiently strong concepts of free will that are compatible with causal determinism. You have not addressed the relevant point AT ALL.

Yeah I think we have good reason to reject a fundamental causal determinism but that has nothing do with the question of whether there are sufficiently strong definitions of free will that would be compatible with causal determinism if it were true, a point you still haven't even attempted to defend.

This should have been clear from the second half of #37, but I'm not convinced he even read it, hence the pointless digression about time-symmetrical causality.

I think it is fairly obvious that (some) courts use the term free will as if metaphysical free will exists. I say some, because legal language on this matter is actually fairly different from culture to culture.

This is an inconsequential tangent either way. If we use legal standards that assume free will, but we live in a causally deterministic universe - this is causally determined. If we use legal standards that assume causal determinism, but we have free will - this is done willingly. A legal standard is still a legal standard, and a moral standard is still a moral standard.


Well, in a causally deterministic framework the only possible definition is "illusory". I take it for granted this one does not apply.

I haven't seen relativity mentioned, but it was the one I was referring. Obviously if two different time-references can view the same event differently (say the classic "flashing lights on a train" thought experiment), it can have different impact on two different agents at different times. Thus negating causal determinism fairly effectively (but not determinism).

Ok, I will not be called a liar.... so here goes (from wiki):

You seem to be missing a fairly important part:

Then it lists causal determinism, neccessitarianism etc along with the aforementioned "not to be confused with" philosophies (fatalism, predeterminism etc). That seems to be pretty suggestive that "causal determinism" is in the "meant by" not the "confused with" category. At best it doesn't state that 'causal determinism is confused with determinism' which is your claim.