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Originally Posted by durkadurka33
HAH, I have a publication in that journal.
From my quick survey of that paper, his arguments do not apply. No one is denying counterfactual possibility: had things been different, then things could have been different. Even the hard determinist can accept that (Dennett's "I Could Have Done Otherwise...So What?" article is all about whether someone could or could not have done otherwise is not sufficient to determine whether they're responsible). So, that paper that you're referencing really has nothing to do with our current discussion!
No one is denying counterfactual possibility? So in that case,
it is possible. I could have chosen differently.
You've been saying it's "not possible" for me to take the toast, which without qualification I take to mean "it is a necessary falsehood that I will eat the toast," "there are no possible worlds in which I will eat the toast," and so on.
Now you're saying that there is some sense in which it is possible that I will eat the toast. According to the definitions we've been working with, that's enough to establish a "choice."
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I have suggested that determinism rules out all sorts of metaphysical possibility which we consider to be a necessary condition for choice.
Wait, we consider metaphysical possibility to be a necessary condition for choice? I never got the memo. But even so...
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Basically, as a simplification, there is NO sense in which it is possible for you to choose the toast except as a counterfactual: had the conditions of the universe or the laws of nature been different, then in THOSE possible worlds, you could choose the toast. But, we're not in those worlds and in the actual world, it is impossible for you, in a week, to do anything other than eat the bagel.
Well, my footing here isn't what it could be, but
SEoP paints a more nuanced picture. And it describes metaphysical possibility under exactly the heading of possible worlds ("Φ is metaphysically possible if and only if Φ is true in some metaphysically possible world").
Wiki agrees, and describes the type of possibility you're talking about as "temporal possibility." In fact, none of the accounts on either page seem to agree with what you're saying here - maybe I'm missing something. And
some of the accounts listed under the SEoP entry clearly contradict your position.
Regardless, it's not at all clear that free will changes things. If we're not talking about a multiverse, then there will only be one actual future. Either I will choose the toast or I will choose the bagel. There is only one
reality. Ultimately, there is only one "real" choice, only one choice I'll end up making, if there's only one actual reality. Whether that choice is realistic or not doesn't change the fact that I will make it. So temporal possibility deals with an alternate "possible world" (in which I make the choice that I didn't actually make) just as much as any counterfactual possibility, putting it firmly in that category.
So the only basic difference I can see in possibility between determinism and indeterminism is in
epistemic possibility, in that an indeterministic event is by definition impossible to predict (and ergo an indeterministic choice always involves epistemic possibility), however in determinism it is possible
in theory to actually predict the future perfectly, and so we can't 100% rule out the epistemic impossibility of my choosing toast. On the other hand, this is somewhat weak as even though it's possible
in theory to predict whether I'll eat toast, that doesn't imply that I (or anyone else) actually know what I'll have for breakfast until the moment the decision is made. That means that it can be epistemically possible for me to choose the toast in a deterministic universe.
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It's a very weak move if your account of responsibility avows the determinist thesis and is forced to awknowledge that in the actual world you couldn't have done otherwise -- and that we can perfectly predict and retrodict future and past actions, respectively, based on full knowledge of the states (and microstates) of the universe and the laws of nature -- and that the only sense that you can have 'choice' is that, well, in other possible worlds, had things been different, then I could 'choose' the toast.
I define "couldn't have done otherwise" logically as "did otherwise in some possible world." Therefore, according to how I use the terms, "couldn't have done otherwise in the
actual world" is nonsensical. I view "could" and "couldn't" as references to possible worlds. To my knowledge, this is a fairly standard approach to modality. Metaphysical possibility is even defined as such in that link. Are you telling me otherwise?
I say that, at a minimum, your position depends on your particular interpretation of modalities.
I suppose if you claim that it is
necessarily false that I will eat the bagel in a deterministic universe, then you are justified in claiming that free will and determinism are contradictory. Otherwise, I would argue that while you may, based on your own assumptions about possibility, rule out the possibility of compatibilistic free will in your own beliefs, you do not have a basis for concluding that compatibilistic free will is self-contradictory.
Either way, there is no reason to believe that someone adhering to another of the many differing approaches to reasoning about possibility will accept your conclusions. Also according to some definitions of "could choose otherwise" and "is possible to choose otherwise" (namely those referencing counterfactual possibility, if nothing else), determinism clearly is compatible with choice (and the definitions of choice and possibility that I use fall under that category - which may give us a purely semantic disconnect or a more substantive disagreement, it's not obvious to me right at the moment which it is).