Durka, I have a question for you. Sorry if this has already been addressed in the thread, but there's no way I'm reading through this whole thing.

By what mechanism do we make decisions? It seems to me that if such a mechanism exists then either it is deterministic or random. Deterministic would imply no free will, so would randomness imply free will?

BTW I'm a fan of your posts in SMP, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on free will. I don't believe in free will just to let you know.

Read through the thread...there was a discussion about indeterminate =/= random.

He doesn't know what the mechanism is but he thinks there's a logical space between "indeterministic" and "random" such that whatever the mechanism is it's indeterministic and not random. If you lol at that, you are in good company (with me).

wtf that was a quick bump sir

Why do you "lol" at it exactly? (Did someone post a proof in the thread that I missed showing indeterministic = random?)

No, no one did.

How do you prove that the law is legal or that inductive arguments are reasonable? Fine, I'm not going to take the ordinary language response for granted here but I invite you to explain the metaphysics of a non-random indeterministic event. In what way can an event occur lacking a sufficient cause antecedent in time (ostensible indeterminism) and not have occured randomly? Where's the space for libertarianism there?

So your argument is an argument from ignorance?

It's an argument about what words mean. What does random (in metaphysics) mean in addition to "an event is random if it does not have a sufficient cause antecedent in time"?

All you are doing is attaching a verbal possibility (non-random indeterminism) to a definition and claiming it's legitimate because I can't prove that I'm not ignorant of some eventual exposition of it. It's trivial to attach vacuous verbal alternatives to anything and cry fallacy when you're asked to explain yourself.

That's not what random means, though. That's what indeterminate means.

So I asked, what does random mean in metaphysics if not indeterminate? It means at least indeterminate, what's the extra thing it means?

(Sorry smrk. I am feeling cranky, so I will speak for you.)

(Note: Durka said that no one in this thread had made an argument for free =/= random. He is correct that no one attempted to)

Pick away, Durka! Do me a favor and give alternatives instead of just shouting "nuh uh." And, "nuh uh, ducy" = "nuh uh" without the social skills

Either all things are caused or some things are not caused. We can probably ignore that there is the possibility that all things are not caused, since no one seems to be claiming that this is the case.

I am placing "free" within "not caused," since free requires lack of causation.

Free means "freedom from all previous external causes and all current external causal agents" right? That means, on an elemental level, that free agents/actions are not caused.

If something is not caused (is free), it is inherently unpredictable. Lack of predictability is one standard under which random lies.

Don't worry, there is more:

For an agent to be free (or an action to be free) requires a lack of cause. If you are going to take the (slightly more rational) limited case in which there is influence, but not causation for a free agent, the free part of the free act or free agent must be without cause.

An event that happens without cause is a random event. Even if you couch the freedom within boundaries (such as Durka's kayaker).

"Because I felt like it" does not qualify as free.

"Because it made sense to do so" does not qualify as free.

"Because I spent years studying and came up with the best answer" does not qualify as free.

"Because, ummm, STFU I DON'T KNOW" could qualify as free, but is not a satisfying answer.

By all means speak for me, just be prepared to answer for the 31415 imaginary fallacies you've committed in that post

Random is a subclass of indeterminate.

I understand that you think it's a subclass. What extra factor/meaning makes it a subclass and not just the class 'indeterminate'?

I counted, and there are only 5...

And I can account for them as being lazy shorthand for things that Durka should have already studied.

For one, random events tend to obey stochastic laws; merely indeterminate events need not. There's also a 'random but caused' class which is separate from 'indeterminate and not caused' or, at least, not completely caused (incline without necessitate).

Alright, although I don't think this is a metaphysical distinction, let's say that a random event is an indeterminate event that obeys a stochastic law. What's a non-random indeterminate event; an indeterminate event that does not obey a stochastic law? That's relevant how for libertarian free will?

Libertarian free will isn't determined or describable by any stochastic law. It's indeterminate but not random. It's not caused but can be influenced by causes (incline w/o necessitating). How is this not clearly relevant?

Is the free agent's action caused on any level? I mean caused, as opposed to influenced.

I believe you are in a box in which you need to argue your case to escape. How is it indeterminate, but not random?

The agent is in an essential sense a causa sui. The agent is what causes but isn't completely caused (nor random). This is the level that there is indeterminacy but not randomness.

Of course sometimes 'people' do things and they're completely determined, but the Libertarian only needs that it's possible for the agent to do something not determined and not merely random.

We can forget the cases in which an action is caused. We all agree that at least some actions are caused, right.

We are only concerned with potentially uncaused agents/actions, right?

This requires an uncaused force. Either it magically arises from within the actor, or it magically arises from the choice itself.

Explain the magic. Make it something more than random. Make it not just magic.

I don't need to explain it. I'm not trying to prove that Libertarianism is true; that can't be done. Explain to me how gravity works.

...

I'll wait.

I don't object to the incline w/o necessitating part if that's your kayaker example again, but I don't get what you gain by saying it's not describable by any stochastic law. The problem with randomness being the mechanism of choice is not that choices would then obey stochastic laws, the problem is that no choice is then sufficiently determined by a reason (or no reason is sufficiently determined by another reason). If two choices (eat the cake, don't eat the cake) can follow an agent's deliberations, then nothing about the agent's deliberations is sufficient to explain the choice; this problem is not alleviated by saying it's a non-random process.

Except that they made the choice wilfully. You're looking for something that isn't there.

Why did the agent just do that? Because they wanted to.

Why did they want to? <---category mistake This is a different kind of question than the previous one. The agent terminates the 'causal' story here (unless you want to discuss the 'incline without necessitating' influences).