Rolling Philosophy

Chill, you're both right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

Yeah they touched on that, tbh im not for soft-pedalling on this

there's plenty of threads about this where you can explain how you think uncaused causation is possible

Aint this one of em? It could be the thread where you explain ow causation applies to consciousness

free will in the strong sense you seem to be claiming would involve something - a brain, a soul, the will, call it what you want - that is capable of making us take actions which impact on the physical universe and its laws of cause and effect. but in order for that brain/soul/will to be "free" in this strong sense it would have to be unaffected by any causation itself. if it's affected by causation then it isn't "free" in this strong sense. i think this means it would have to be a non-physical entity. i can't imagine what a non-physical entity capable of affecting physical bodies would be like.

thou speak'st of the Divine!

Ineffable!

*retires to box*

yeah, i'm sure Darragh is arguing for the existence of the metaphysical

nah bruv I meant your final sentence

that's my point!

i think there's a range of "soft" versions of free will that are far more defensible but to quote: "im not for soft-pedalling on this"

well I concur that we are all Reflections of Stimuli, we are Reactions to Information. but then do we have a Choice as to which Information we view & How we choose to Reflect it? and is this Free Will?

explain what this "we" is that sits outside of the process and makes decisions please?

my world-view here is probably closest to "some version of determinism is the case but it absolutely doesn't matter. because of determinism."

the idea of a Self is a violent perversion of the interconnected wholeness of Reality, sure

but then I mean 'we' as the Interconnected Whole, the Carnival of Atoms, whether Rebounding in Brownian Abandon or Deciding to take a Stroll in the Park

ok "we" in a Shiva sense i can get behind

my own Religion & Philosophy, as outlin'd in my Novel, is Asymptotism - there is an unreachable & divine Limit to which all Knowledge, Wisdom & Achievement can Tend with an Infinite Closeness but never Attain - the act of Worship is the Approach itself, the Striving with No Eternal Result. I believe that we as Reflective Organisms are all Ordain'd a supernormal (i.e. non sequitur) Task by dint of our Exposures - these perhaps the Deterministic Element of the Synthesis - but we may choose whether & how to Carry Out that Task - the single act of Will that Defines us

aw do i have to be on lj's side

(so the Task, then, is is the single faint Accession to the Divine we are able to Etch into our fleeting Reality - the Moment of Partial Exaltation)

you okay with this D?

nv so otm. free will exists because god.

Opto ergo sum

"in order for that brain/soul/will to be "free" in this strong sense it would have to be unaffected by any causation itself. if it's affected by causation then it isn't "free" in this strong sense."

couldn't one try to argue that there's a difference between "affected" and "determined" though?

I mean you could say that the contingent fact of things as they are at time t defines a kind of template upon which the thinking free subject can project possible courses of action as it hovers in its free deliberation- insofar as this free subject is given that template and not others, the virtual array of possible actions from which they freely choose is affected by the external contingencies that precede that free decision, but that capacity to be "affected" doesn't mean that they are not freely choosing between A, B, C and D (which are all possible but as yet un-acted upon responses to that contingent array) insofar as even if they do eventually choose D at time y, before time y they could just have easily have chosen B. What they were not free to choose was X or Z, because those were not possible choices given the contingent state of affairs against which their freedom is defined. That is, it seems like at least in theory you can have restrictions and impacts upon freedom and still call it freedom.

Descartes to Princess Elisabeth, January 1646

I move to the difficulty your Highness proposed concerning free will, the dependence and liberty of which I will try to explain by a comparison. If a king who has prohibited duels and who knows very certainly that two gentlemen in his kingdom, living in different towns, are quarreling and are so worked up against one another that nothing could prevent them from fighting one another if they were to meet; if, I say, this king orders one of them to go on a certain day toward the town where the other is, and he also orders the other to go on the same day toward the place where the first is, knowing quite assuredly that they would not fail to meet each other and to fight each other, and thus to violate his prohibition, he thereby does not compel them. His knowledge, and even his will to determine them there in this manner, do not alter the fact that they fight one another just as voluntarily and just as freely as they would have done if he had known nothing of it, and it was by some other occasion that they had met. They can also justly be punished, since they violated the prohibition. So what a king can do in this matter concerning the free actions of his subjects, God, who has infinite prescience and power, does infallibly concerning all those of men. Before He sent us into this world, He knew exactly what would be the inclinations of our will. It is He Himself who put them in us. It is also He who disposed all the other things outside of us, in order to bring it about that such objects are presented to our senses at such and such a time, on the occasion of which he knew our free will would determine us to such and such a thing. And he wills things this way, but he does not will thereby that our will be constrained to choose a certain way. As one can distinguish in this king two different degrees of will, the one by which he willed these gentlemen to fight one another, since he made it so they would meet, and the other by which he did not will it, since he prohibited duels, so do the theologians distinguish in God an absolute and independent will by which he wills that all things happen such as they happen, and another which is relative, and which is related to the merit or demerit of men, according to which he wills that they obey his laws.

when you roll a ball on the floor, you may be unable to personally anticipate exactly how it will roll, to where, how far, etc, but because of our experiences w/ observed phenomena we assume that this is a deficiency in the observer - that physical laws apply to the progress of the ball and were we able to measure every material element we could predict w/ certainty exactly where the ball will roll. such a deterministic assumption really applies to all material items such that even tho the ball could've rolled to B, C, or D, we know that it didn't choose A but was caused to go there. similarly human beings, and if you want to create a space for the human to actually choose an action free of causation (even to the point of choosing between A and D, not X or Z) you need to add some element to the mix that the ball doesn't have. metaphysics lets you choose. without it, i don't know how you can do away w/ radical determinism. (nb i think we discussed this at some length here: are you an atheist? )

Oh right god oh right then. Why think at all.

Tune is space beautifully otm

'similarly humans'

acting under what constant law? rubbish jump here, simply dreadful stuff.

xp to space tunes

i agree that some of the softer definitions of free will have more plausibility, but even distinguishing between affect and determination doesn't remove the problem of what the free subject is, does it? if it's a purely physical thing, e.g. the brain, how can it be free of external causal factors?

Fuckin philosophy

tbf darragh i don't think the free will/determinism debate has any serious consequences for how we live or act

nv Spinoza begs to differ, Spinoza otm

i'm still waiting in vain for someone to break down the phenomenology of morality/good*evil/choice for me esp in light of atheism. deems, maybe yr my guy?

i wouldn't disagree with Spinoza but that's an aesthetic decision imo

Granted nv (spinoza full of it) but if the only purpose of discussing the unproveables is in the argument itself (it is) then it beats working nonetheless

Aesthetic -decision- nv hmmmm?

Mordy- same as it is in light of faith....whatever gets u thru the day mayne

well, if you believe in free choice you can believe that a person chose to do good or evil and is accountable for that choice. if you believe in determinism, there are causal explanations for the act, but there's really no accountability. like, is some sicko like that lostprophets dude 'evil,' or a 'doer of evil' or just bc of various causes - physical, social, psychological - he acted w/out freedom or choice.

lol guess

well, if you believe in free choice you can believe that a person chose to do good or evil and is accountable for that choice. if you believe in determinism, there are causal explanations for the act, but there's really no accountability.

in the first one he is accountable and deserves to get tortured in prison. in the second one he doesn't but the torturers aren't accountable for their actions. everyone wins.

yeah, determinism doesn't undermine existing legal or ethical systems because they're also determined. in fact even your belief or non-belief in determinism is determined so

btw fuck yes

FREE WILL

mordy & the tune is space both seem OTM but I will have to synthesise their arguments

it would seem the very Act of Choosing, the Moment of Self-Nomination above the logical clack-clack of single-strand cause & effect, is the Adoption of Task, the Instant of Divine Clarity - and I do agree that a partially-accessible Transcendent is necessary for the overcoming of Inevitability - call it God, call it Conscience, call it Time in which to Think - but it is a multiplicity of Effect, a Branching-Point whose System can be echoed in the quantum chaos of atomic movement - of which the neural space of the Human Brain is microcosm -

I will add that Task is very specific & not everyday - it takes a great deal of Clarity & Effort to transcend or even consider one's Expected Reflections of the Cosmos - this is the Woolly bit, and requires Faith in a Higher State of Consideration - call it Gnosis, call it Free Will, call it Enlightenment

or indeed Epiphany

Determinism is true, compatibilism is a liberal fairy tale, free will is incoherent, good and evil are phantoms, we can have laws anyway because none of it has any bearing on how we live

Oh fuck, unintended revive, pretend I asked something interesting instead, like uh, who is everybody's favorite non-infinitarian mathematician?

What was the optimum year for sleeping with Bertrand Russel?

I agree w ur conclusions which is why I've embraced gnostic insanity: makes me feel better

Oh silby, my child

I suspect that moral culpability can be salvaged with minor tweaks even if we accept determinism. However, much more troubling to me is how to reconcile determinism with my own sense that I do have free will. I certainly seem to experience the act of exercising my own free will on a regular basis, and it would be difficult to demonstrate that it is all an illusion.