In fact, the pragmatists think that there's zero difference in behaviour which makes it a pseudoproblem. The issue of free will is meaningless for the pragmatists for this reason.

Howerver, mad, please respond to my earlier questions.

For this thread I'll use the narrowest definition I can think of, "every state of the universe can be expressed as a function of every other state of the universe in some systematic and non-arbitrary way."

That's a pretty strong position, but I'm confident that it's still highly compatible with most notions of responsibility and choice (certainly compatible with control, regret, etc).

If that's too complicated, we can take a slightly broader subset that may be more intuitive:

Every state of the universe at any time t_f=x can be systematically expressed as a function of the state of the universe at any time t_i<x. That is, there is some function that, taking the values of all variables (particle positions and velocities, etc) in the universe at time t_i and the time t_f as arguments, describes the values of all the variables in the universe at time t_f.

Or in everyday terms, "everything happening now can be expressed as having been determined by past events."

I don't think this is a reasonable position to hold, but technically I'm probably not a determinist in the first place.

That is a reaonsable definition.

It means my conscious mind constructed the action. Or that the action is a result of my cognitive processes. Or that the action was selected from a range of possible actions by my mental processes. Take your pick, I think they all resolve into the same thing and I can work with any of them.

The fact that my conscious mind caused me to take an action, (instead of solely factors external to my conscious mind), is the relevant criterion.

Neither trees nor waves have cognitive processes, so the behavior of trees and waves is never caused by cognitive processes. They don't have conscious minds, so of course they can't choose to do anything (their actions cannot be caused by their conscious minds if they don't have any).

People are capable of cognition, people have minds.

That's pretty much my position (though I wouldn't call myself a pragmatist in every respect). I think that belief in free will is extremely harmful and destructive, and that a world with free will is indistinguishable from a world without free will, so regardless of whether free will exists I think we should oppose it.

But for people who think we can actually get at the truth of the matter, this isn't very convincing. I prefer to label myself a determinist because then we don't get sidetracked into irrelevancies.

So you're using it the same sense as durka's original statements.

But then I don't see how any of the observations you made in the long passage that I quoted before can "support determinism" in a way that "negates libertarianism." Here's one example.

Unless you are using libertarianism in a sense that is different from durka's, there's no argument here. You seem to be using libertarianism as some sort of non-consequentialism. All you've said here is that actions have consequences, but even a libertarian would agree with that statement.

Edit: Fundamentally, it's as if your negation of the quantifier "every" is "none" instead of simply "not every."

not a pissing contest.

Why is belief in free extremely harmful and destructive?

It doesn't negate libertarianism, but these are deterministic mechanisms. That doesn't mean they're incompatible with libertarianism, I don't think they are. I don't think anything is, one thing I agree with durka on is that this is not an empirical question (unless we can actually learn to predict human action empirically, but even then it doesn't really prove anything and it's not going to happen).

I think using a case of events determining other events and claiming it refutes determinism is silly. I think it provides "more support" for determinism than libertarianism, in the sense that a world where everything is perfectly predictable provides a lot of support, and a world in which everything is unpredictable doesn't - really the perfectly predictable world falls into problem of induction traps, and the unpredictable world could just be a matter of hidden variables, so I guess I'm really saying that I think regret et al give the appearance of determinism. That the world would appear less deterministic without regret (ie that more people would probably believe in free will without regret than do now).

But it's all highly speculative, don't get me wrong. Only thing I'm going to claim that I can do logically is refute any argument that determinism and choice/regret/whatever are incompatible.

I really don't want to go down that road because it would get waaaay off-topic. Might make a decent thread in its own right, but I don't want to get into it here.

No, it's about being reasonable and having an IQ > 70. Your assertion that I'm a theist is what's so laughable.

What you are describing is the circumstances dictating our choice. We live our lives based on the idea that we dictate our choice.

Regret does not follow from determinism, it follows from libertarianism. To regret is to believe that you could have done differently. Unless you are talking about regretting just the outcome of your "choice". But you cannot regret the choice in a deterministic frame work as it makes no sense. You don't choose between A or B, the circumstance chooses A or B and you comply.

You say "I have determined a tragic outcome", but that is a nonsensical statement in a deterministic framework, as you are not the ultimate causal agent. Everything leading up until that point (even before 'you' existed) dictated the choice you made. So how could you regret (wish you had chosen differently) if you could not have chosen differently?

Deliberation is a process where an agent decides which outcome they are going to actualize. It implies a causal relationship. I don't deliberate over whether or not I am going to allow the sun to rise because I have no causal relationship with the sun rising.

And I have never stated that past factors cannot have an effect on free will choice, only that they do not dictate the outcome.


The problem is that you cannot choose to do A. A is chosen for you by prior events. So you are in no way "controlling your outcome".

leaving work in a minute, but don't want to lose what I have already posted.

I just want to add that this thread was way worth the $5 it cost me.

I'm not even sure if you're accomplishing this.

Edit: What exactly have you refuted in your arguments?

who says this?

to be clear, it certainly wasn't me.

It's a fairly common assertion. Just scroll through the free will threads. The fact that I believe in God, and more specifically the God described in the bible, always comes up as a variable.

I specified in my first post that it might not have been your intention to imply this. Although you were implying something similar, that I hold on to my belief mainly because I am a christian. Which does not follow as not all christians believe in free will.

We do dictate our choices. This doesn't imply that our circumstances don't dictate our choices.

Many things dictate our choices. You're speaking as though only one thing can do so, but I think you're demonstrably wrong. Furthermore, you're being semantic. For example, I can say "Bob dictates my choices." I can then say "I dictate my choices." I can further say "the king dictates my choices."

Let's assume that only one person can dictate my choices (silly I think, but let's roll with it). Am I contradicting myself here?

Not if I happen to be a king named Bob, I'm not. What you're doing is similar to saying "Let's get our story straight: did we feed ducks in the park today, or did we feed mallards in the park today? Well? Which is it?"

The fact that you label "us" and "our circumstances" as two completely different things, but this is a bit of a trick. Clearly, we are determined to some degree by our circumstances, so if we determine our actions then (to some degree) our circumstances also determine our actions.

To regret is to believe that you should have done differently.

The circumstances shape you, and you make your choices. But you are the only one choosing. The circumstances can't choose (see my definition above - the circumstances have no mind, they choose nothing - only you choose your actions, and only you bear the responsibility).

I don't have to be. Nobody ever brings "ultimate" into it. I don't think in my daily life I've ever even heard anyone talk about whether their choices are "ultimate" (in any sense) or not. And nobody defines choice or control based on how "ultimate" it is. I have control over my actions. I do not have "ultimate control," in order for my control to really be ultimate I'd have to be God. You don't have ultimate control either.

In fact, according to you, you have no control - whatever makes your choice in a libertarian framework cannot have a prior existence, so your future choices can't be determined by you. The you that exists now has nothing to do with them. If the you that exists now determined your choices, that would still be determinism (albeit another form, and a form in which your soul would have to be considered as a part of the universe). The action is still determined, it's just determined by the nature of your soul instead of the arrangement of particles. Only if everything (including you) can be exactly the same and you can still make a different choice does libertarianism hold. But since you haven't changed, but the choice has, you did not determine the choice at all.

But back to logic, in order to have control I only have to be the causal agent. I don't have to be the "ultimate causal agent." Find me any definition of "control" in any dictionary that says I do.

I could have chosen differently. If I had been a different person, or if I had known then what I know now, or if I had thought it through a bit more. But I wasn't a different person, and I didn't know then what I know now, and I didn't think it through. So I didn't make the choice I should have made, instead I made a choice I regret.

When people experience regret, they usually say things like "if only I had cared more" or "if only it hadn't happened so soon" or "if only I had known..." In other words, when people feel regret they wish that the prior conditions had been different. Why would they do that if they don't believe that those prior conditions determine events?

Yeah. Or put another way, you don't determine whether the sun will rise.

The point is that the value we associate with the choice is proportional to the effect that past factors have on that choice. The rest we describe as fluke or whimsy. And we draw deterministic conclusions. For instance, if someone kills another person on a whim, we say that the person has no regard for human life. But we can't know that - unless the past factor of having no regard for human life is a necessary condition for killing on a whim. Maybe you want to say that only sufficient conditions "dictate" actions whereas necessary conditions only "affect" actions. But you haven't defined your terms and you aren't describing them logically, so I don't know.

A is not chosen for me by prior events. Prior events do not have a mind, they cannot choose. Only I choose to do A, my mind is the only mind that makes A happen. Whether my mind pops out of an instantaneous nowhere, as in your beliefs, or whether my mind has slowly developed over time based on my genes and my environment and cognitive feedback, as a determinist believes, is irrelevant to whether I chose the action. If my mind makes A happen, then I choose the action. The mechanism of my mind is a separate question. And nothing in the common-sense interpretation of choice suggests any particular mechanism (nor is anything in that interpretation inconsistent with determinism).

I doubt you can find a definition of choice for which this doesn't hold true. Your statement "A is chosen for you by prior events" is false according to every major definition, including Wiki and answers.com. Prior events don't perform selection, and certainly not mental selection.

You seem to be stuck on this idea that if my actions are a function of prior events, then they cannot be choices (and can't be a function of me). If that's true, then you should be able to demonstrate it with logic instead of emotional appeals. Find me a definition of choice and demonstrate that if my actions are a function of prior events, then they cannot be choices.

I doubt you can do this, because I don't think any accepted definition of choice is mutually exclusive with my actions being a function of prior events. I've given this challenge before, and only one person has ever taken me up on it (he cheated!).

Why don't you ever venture over to RGT? I would love to see you interact with some people over there.

Frankly, I don't think any well-constructed argument can be taken from anything posted in this thread. But I think I've refuted all of Jib's. Why, do you think "my actions are determined by past events, therefore my actions aren't determined by me, therefore I can't make choices" is a valid construction? Do you think Jib is making some other argument and I'm just misunderstanding?

You're affirming the consequent. The claim is that "all those who believe in libertarian free will have been influenced by Christianity." The fact that not all those who have been influenced by Christianity believe in free will is irrelevant. Just because all cars are red doesn't need to mean that all red things are cars, etc.

That is really hard for me to answer, as I believe in free will because of the reality that I perceive. I would expect that if determinism were true that we would see a much different world, one that is more reactionary like in the animal kingdom.

I don't think that deliberation and regret could exist in a deterministic world. I rock cannot deliberate nor regret (of our choices anyway)


[/QUOTE]If you want to support your point, sit down and think about how you would act if you learned for a fact, tonight, that the world is deterministic. How would it differ from how you currently act? Etc. And ideally, give some solid logical reasons why your examples make sense in a world with free will and some logical reasons why they don't make sense in a deterministic world.[/QUOTE]

As I said earlier, I cannot tell you how I would react if the I learned that determinism were true, because if determinism were true then I would be living in a different world then the one that I see now. That's like asking me how I would react if tomorrow I learned that I was actually a woman. If I was actually a woman then I would be a completely different person than I am now.

I will try to come up with a more structured way of making my point.

You are using influenced in a different way than others, more specifically the others that I am referring to.

You previously posted that you believe that Christianity has effect, if not caused, all of the current ideas of free will. I think that you would have to go back to Judaism, but it is possible that you are correct. But if you are correct, it does not speak to my point. Others are implying more of a 1 to 1 correlation. Durka may believe in free will because of the influence that the bible has had on western philosophy, but he does not believe in free will because the bible tells him it exists and he obliges (as if he is taking his cue straight from the bible).

In the same fashion I do not need to believe the bible is true to believe in free will, nor do I need to believe in free will to believe the bible is true.

I mean same world, but that whatever you call "free will" isn't really free will. Everything is exactly the same, but you know that there's no free will. (In other words, you learn that this is a world we would see under determinism.) You can still choose, you can still regret, you can still deliberate. But you know for a fact that determinism is true.

And I'm not talking about religious stuff, just day-to-day stuff.

A rock doesn't have a mind. I think within the next 200 years computers will be able to deliberate and regret. Sadly, by then we'll probably be dead and I won't win any points with that.

But this isn't about what, this is about why. You keep saying "x is incompatible with y." That's a pretty big claim. But you're not explaining why x is incompatible with y. Why don't you think that deliberation and regret could exist in a deterministic world? What kind of reasoning supports that?

When someone asks me what I'd do as a woman, I assume that I have the same personality I do now but that I am in a woman's body instead of that of a man. Some flexibility is often necessary for these types of things. You have asked me in some cases what I would do or think if there were a benevolent God. To me this is utterly impossible, so I have to let some things slide in order to answer. But I guess sometimes maybe it's not really possible to manage that. So fair enough.

Well, I agree with all that. Eh, some people are dumb, others oversimplify to get a point across, and we have plenty of both in RGT (I wish I could say more of the latter than the former).

if by "might not" you mean "didn't", then sure.

i was saying you refuse to allow for AI to have free will because of your Christian beliefs. well, you say you'll accept it if you see it, but we're not getting anywhere on that because we already discussed how both ourselves, and AI have a set range of choices to chose from given to them by their creator and you simply say "well, we could have decided differently, and the AI could not." (without any reasoning)


one thing i can say is jib pays when he says he'll pay. (even though my thread attempt was quite lame and probably against the spirit of the bet)

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (BB): $5.00
UTG: $19.95
CO: $10.55
BTN: $11.00
SB: $5.00

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with J 8
UTG raises to $0.40, CO raises to $1.80, 2 folds, Hero raises to $5 all in, 1 fold, CO calls $3.20

Flop: ($10.45) 7 A 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($10.45) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($10.45) 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $10.45
Hero shows J 8 (a pair of Threes)
CO shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Threes)
CO wins $9.95
(Rake: $0.50)