E. R. Olovetto: Labeling it with libertarian dismisses the need to explain any further, as we know we are talking about a person that has free-will and strives to universally honor that inherent capability. This is attaching Libertarian values to the epistemic fact though. All I know is how Phys. defined LFW is exactly now mountains of texts define simply "free will".
Labeling it with libertarian dismisses the need to explain any further, as we know we are talking about a person that has free-will and strives to universally honor that inherent capability.
This is attaching Libertarian values to the epistemic fact though. All I know is how Phys. defined LFW is exactly now mountains of texts define simply "free will".
I understand what you mean. It might simply be a preference of Phys. for some reason, but that's not for me to elaborate upon anymore as he brought it up.
E. R. Olovetto:Re: AC (sorry not much time), libertarianism or voluntarism doesn't prohibit "voluntary government" or primitive communal societies. It is more than just the negativity attached to the words. It is separating personal values from legal doctrine.
I see what you're saying. By adding 'libertarian' it plausibly construes a personal value onto what could simply be called 'free-will' in legal doctrine.
Physiocrat:Now since I've cleared up the confusion could you justify how determinism allows for the possibility of the knowledge of truth?
just as determinism allows for the possibility of a gazelle to run away from a lion, so does it allow for the possibility of you knowing some truth that is there for you to know it.
Physiocrat:Also why is it not worth having?
The freedom worth wanting is the freedom to make decisions, which is the freedom we have. its really an 'ability' to make decisions.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
FYI those of you lurking or contributing that may be scratching your heads about LFW, "Libertarian" in the field of metaphysics has a distinct meaning from "Libertarian" in the field of political philosophy ( even though there are historical reasons for the sharing of the name it is a danger to equivocate (not saying anyone is!))
nirgrahamUK: Physiocrat:Now since I've cleared up the confusion could you justify how determinism allows for the possibility of the knowledge of truth? just as determinism allows for the possibility of a gazelle to run away from a lion, so does it allow for the possibility of you knowing some truth that is there for you to know it. Physiocrat:Also why is it not worth having? you cannot claim to have a coherent self that makes decisions, if the these decisions come willy-nill with no cause, i.e. if you or anything about you does not in anyway cause these decisions. The freedom worth wanting is the freedom to make decisions, which is the freedom we have. its really an 'ability' to make decisions.
Which is why I said previously that reason harmonizes with will-power. Will of reason is determinate. Will of will-power is determinate. There is no choice, this is what a human does. The harmonizing comes into play when will (cause) is meeting with the rest of the world (effect). How an individual harmonizes, ie. brings into agreement, their individual will with the rest of world involves a singular/individual act of choice. Yes the choice, as I said, is determined as the individual has no choice to make the choice because humans make choices whether they feel like it or not. What I contend is that some are too involved with determinism to take note of the content of choices that a person is determined to make. Maybe the determinist see too much use of the term free-will and believe that the free-will speaker isn't recognizing the determinate aspects. Thus why I said 'harmonize'. For I don't see how either free-will nor determinism are null or void.
edit: And by 'harmonize' I argue that categorically means 'reality'. because the two are playing out in the field of reality so I see them harmonized. Both are real and neither is better than the other and neither is false.
wilderness:Which is why I said previously that reason harmonizes with will-power.
Perhaps I've been thinking of a strawman when thinking of "determinism" as some kind of absolute view where all actions, all choices, are already pre-determined somehow by the causes that lead to them. Certainly, we are all constrained by the nature of reality, but within those contraints, there are still a variety of ways of satisfying reality and continuing our actions and existence. It is there, within those natural constraints, that we are capable of using free will and choosing among the courses of action that are available to us.
As an example, humans need food to survive. However, there are a wide variety of foods that we can choose to eat, and a variety of ways of acquiring those foods.
Your choices are determined both by your desires and available information. This is what it means for an individual to be a utility maximizing agent. The 'strawman' you oppose is actually correct. The concept of choice that is not determined by a selection mechanism and driven by fundamentally irrational desires is logically invalid. Compatiblism and other 'soft' determinist views are not really any less deterministic. The determinism of Dennett and Hofstadter is still absolute. They simply use language that is more palatable to most people. They say 'there is freedom of choice', but they are using 'freedom' and 'choice' in very different ways than you are. There is no homunculus, no Cartesian Theater in libertarian determinism.
“Elections are Futures Markets in Stolen Property.” - H. L. Mencken
zefreak:libertarian determinism
nirgrahamUK: zefreak:libertarian determinism is this an established or a novel term vis metaphysics?
I'm sorry for any confusion, I was referring to compatibilist interpretations of determinism such as Dennett and Hofstadter.
nirgrahamUK: FYI those of you lurking or contributing that may be scratching your heads about LFW, "Libertarian" in the field of metaphysics has a distinct meaning from "Libertarian" in the field of political philosophy ( even though there are historical reasons for the sharing of the name it is a danger to equivocate (not saying anyone is!))
The thread is off the chain with activity among a lot of veteran Mises posters. For the casual observer the first question that comes to mind is what is the energy driving the thread about this topic?
Anyway there are a lot of big terms and concepts being thrown around the thread by very smart people. Can someone suggest an article or write a post that dumbs down the discussion a tad so a casual observer can understand the point of the discussion?
the energy: personally it was fun.
what was being said: I think that's what everybody was trying to find out that was involved in the discussion.
that particular post of Nir's: lol, yes he let his intellect run free on that one. that was a good time-out, let's breath post.
how to know these concepts: Some time ago, I had to look them up in the dictionary, and search on the Mises cite for some reoccurring categories and concepts. If there's anything in particular that you may want to know about, pm me and I may be able to help you out or point you in a direction to somebody that seems more keen in a certain area than I.
wilderness: the energy: personally it was fun. what was being said: I think that's what everybody was trying to find out that was involved in the discussion. that particular post of Nir's: lol, yes he let his intellect run free on that one. that was a good time-out, let's breath post. how to know these concepts: Some time ago, I had to look them up in the dictionary, and search on the Mises cite for some reoccurring categories and concepts. If there's anything in particular that you may want to know about, pm me and I may be able to help you out or point you in a direction to somebody that seems more keen in a certain area than I.
Just trying to find out if a common definition of free will is in contention... control of actions, decisions, or choices.
the part about is free will free... well that is semantics and useless outside of an academic context conversing with joe blow on the street.
the part about determinism just seemed to be a discussion about logically refuting it.
I want to point out that free will wouldn't be true if ther was no basis for it even if determinism wasn't true. What makes free will true or valid is the fact that the human animal is an animal of knowledge more than he is an animal of raw biological imperative. What I mean by an animal of knowledge is the fact that a human being is born without the contents of his mind, he is truly empty, but with an active capacity to be less empty as he learns of the world and himself.
It is this knowledge that fills his mind that defines him, determines his actions, and for which he is privy to change. To say he can change his actions is as absurd as saying you can unbreak an egg you just dropped; time works one way, it's not symmetrical, and so does action. A man can choose to think otherwise and un/learn. That is his degree of freedom, that is his free will as it were. It may not be free of circumstance, but it is free to allow the man to change in character and knowledge. No other creature on Earth (other than Man) seems to show this quality. If this isn't free enough for the determinist, then frankly said determinist can screw the pooch for all I care.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
Live_Free_Or_Die: wilderness: the energy: personally it was fun. what was being said: I think that's what everybody was trying to find out that was involved in the discussion. that particular post of Nir's: lol, yes he let his intellect run free on that one. that was a good time-out, let's breath post. how to know these concepts: Some time ago, I had to look them up in the dictionary, and search on the Mises cite for some reoccurring categories and concepts. If there's anything in particular that you may want to know about, pm me and I may be able to help you out or point you in a direction to somebody that seems more keen in a certain area than I. Just trying to find out if a common definition of free will is in contention... control of actions, decisions, or choices. the part about is free will free... well that is semantics and useless outside of an academic context conversing with joe blow on the street. the part about determinism just seemed to be a discussion about logically refuting it.
the determinist in this thread really haven't explained themselves very well in my opinion. But then again Dennet may do a better job and that's all good. I really don't know what unique thing the determinist were trying to point out. I mean reality constrains human action, I mean even that is an axiom and therefore is unavoidable, so I don't know what all the hub-bub is about. I was trying to probe and figure it out myself during the discussion.
My contention, but this might only be considered a set back by the determinist, is the seeming avoidance on their part of the term 'free-will' and then to replace it with 'determinism'. Yet from what I've gathered they haven't rid the reality of 'free-will' but only have clothed it in the name 'determinism'. I don't know maybe it is a short-cut. Instead of saying free will and determinism and explaining the natures of both those phenomenons it seems that 'determinism' is an effort to combine those two realities into one term and they arbitrarily choose 'determinism', I don't know, maybe because most of the world is 'determined' so by default quantity gets the upper hand.
Then again some are saying the 'determinism' term they are using isn't the same as the common vernacular use of the term. I mean I don't have a problem with that either. But I don't see what any of this changes as I've pointed out. There is a real thing called free-will and a real thing called determinism. Why it needs to be restated in a different way? I have no idea. But I haven't read Dennet and find my interests at the moment to be elsewhere as knowing Dennet doesn't seem worthwhile.
I guess that's what I got out of it. As I pointed out a couple times: cause mediated by free-will into some kind of effect - this happens and harmonize is the goal of any truth minded person, as knowledge is fallible, still doesn't deter such a person from desiring to avoid errors.
P.S. I noticed some links, at least on the first page of this thread that Conza gave and Nir too, and Lilburne wrote down some Mises quotes, so that might be a good place to start for anybody that may want to delve into this more. I haven't read all those links and I went in accord with my current knowledge during the discussion.
Also, I forgot to note there is a difference between epistemological and metaphysical determinism. In this case, I hinted at it when talking about there being a world where there is no free will but no determinism. It's equally true that the universe on the whole can have no deterministic pattern to it and the human mind could operate by some rules leading to predictible behavior. But any case, I see no argument for traditional free will nor for metaphysical or 'natural' determinism.
ladyattis:Also, I forgot to note there is a difference between epistemological and metaphysical determinism.
What's that being used interchangeably throughout the discussion? If so, then that's one mark in the confusion category.
ladyattis:In this case, I hinted at it when talking about there being a world where there is no free will but no determinism.
What would that be?
ladyattis:It's equally true that the universe on the whole can have no deterministic pattern to it and the human mind could operate by some rules leading to predictible behavior.
Rules of the human mind only? Imposition as opposed to reflectional notions on what reality is as conveyed by a human?
ladyattis:But any case, I see no argument for traditional free will nor for metaphysical or 'natural' determinism.
Meaning there are no good arguments for either of these? What's traditional free-will, meaning, is there a modern version or unique version?
Traditional free will is simply the freedom to do otherwise in the same situation. For example, you're at a lunch buffet and deciding between two deserts: icecream of your favorite flavor, and a baked pie or cake that's also your favorite. In Libertarian (metaphysical) free will you could've chosen either so long as the alternative exists. Alternatives in this case isn't merely a set of choices, but a definitively claim that you can will otherwise. Some have taken this to literally mean you can even alter reality at some fundamental level (I think George Berkeley thought so...I can't be sure...). Others have taken that in all possible worlds you can choose at random and it would still be your choice.
The problem with the latter (I don't think the former is worth discussing here) is that if choice is random in all possible worlds then how can one claim it's your will? It's just assigning a dice roll to the selection process. A determinist can take this argument to its end, showing the absurdity of Libertarian free will, but the same case can be applied to compatibilism too, meaning neither Libertarian nor Compatibilist arguments for free will make sense.
But determinism makes equally no sense as it assumes not only a forward cause/effect chaining, but as implication a backwards chaining of effect/cause (where only a set of effects can ever be made by a set of causes). Nature doesn't exclude any other possible combination of cause/effect chains nor does it exclude the probability of causeless effects (like in quantum mechanics, brownian motion, and etc). This means determinism at a metaphysical level can't be argued even if an epistemological basis can be (this form of determinism can be called predictive determinism).
What this all simply means is that free will as defined makes no sense and using determinism (which has no basis in scientific fact for the whole of Nature) to argue against it is equally ridiculous. The best answer is that either free will exists on some phenomena or basis in Man or does not. It shouldn't include anything regarding that which is not Man (such as Nature or physics).
I'm sorry, but quantum indeterminacy exists in the map, not the territory. Quantum indeterminacy is not equivalent to causeless, the very fact that we can model quantum behavior (albeit probabilistically) should make this very clear.
Quantum Mechanics and Godel's Incompleteness are the two most misunderstood and abused concepts in science. Whenever someone references either in discussions that lie outside of mathematics or physics, a little red flag should pop up.
Free will is simply a confusion that stems from ones intuition (see Hofstadter or Metzinger for an explanation of why this intuition is so strong, while incorrect) combined with folk psychology and dualism, none of which are tenable positions.
ladyattis:brownian motion
Brownian motion (named after the Scottish botanist Robert Brown) is the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid (i.e. a liquid or gas) or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, often called a particle theory.
emphasis mine.
nirgrahamUK: ladyattis:brownian motion Brownian motion (named after the Scottish botanist Robert Brown) is the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid (i.e. a liquid or gas) or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, often called a particle theory. emphasis mine.
Exactly, and chaos theory has been very successful in elucidating the underlying causes of such dynamic systems. It is entirely non-mysterious.
I don't know what anybody calls it, but I can make a choice. And it doesn't necessarily have to be forced on me, not even by nature. I still have choice even if such a choice is given by nature. I mean this seems to be the reality of living and all these other explanations seem to be efforts to elaborate on this. What more meaning all of this is that I'm doing when I get up to either do preference 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.... all the theorizing on that fact looks like fun and interesting. But way over my head at this time. So if anything derives out of the current science that common sense isn't already doing, in other words, a scientific finding that in turn may alter common sense I'm all ears!
zefreak:'m sorry, but quantum indeterminacy exists in the map, not the territory. Quantum indeterminacy is not equivalent to causeless, the very fact that we can model quantum behavior (albeit probabilistically) should make this very clear.
Then why can't anyone induce the Quantum Zeno Effect? If you can do this, there's a prize by a Swedish central bank with your name on it, along with every physicist on Earth wanting to pick your brain as to how you did it. ;)
It's still purely random in terms of actually predicting every possible movement in question. No equation can encapsulate them. It's much like the many body problem, you can only know after you observe it, until then you're purely guessing.
thats a technological issue, it does not mean that the motion of a molecule is not definitively determined by the collision of its bundle of atoms by other atoms with whatever trajectories they have. If it is random it is random from our epistemic position vis predicting precise outcomes, however it is not as though what will happen might depend on anything other than what has happened. even if we doubt, at least at this scale, the universe does not doubt.
ladyattis:It's still purely random in terms of actually predicting every possible movement in question. No equation can encapsulate them. It's much like the many body problem, you can only know after you observe it, until then you're purely guessing.
I think you're conflating randomness with chaos.
Grayson Lilburne: ladyattis:It's still purely random in terms of actually predicting every possible movement in question. No equation can encapsulate them. It's much like the many body problem, you can only know after you observe it, until then you're purely guessing. I think you're conflating randomness with chaos.
I didn't say it was chaotic. I said it was purely random.
nirgrahamUK:thats a technological issue, it does not mean that the motion of a molecule is not definitively determined by the collision of its bundle of atoms by other atoms with whatever trajectories they have.
Actually it does in one context mean that. Being that molecules in terms of their behavior has no determinant that is reducible to a single atom.
nirgrahamUK:If it is random it is random from our epistemic position vis predicting precise outcomes, however it is not as though what will happen might depend on anything other than what has happened. even if we doubt, at least at this scale, the universe does not doubt.
The Universe is not a rational being therefore it can't doubt anything, it just is.
ladyattis: Being that molecules in terms of their behavior has no determinant that is reducible to a single atom.
ladyattis:The Universe is not a rational being therefore it can't doubt anything, it just is.
ladyattis: Grayson Lilburne: ladyattis:It's still purely random in terms of actually predicting every possible movement in question. No equation can encapsulate them. It's much like the many body problem, you can only know after you observe it, until then you're purely guessing. I think you're conflating randomness with chaos. I didn't say it was chaotic. I said it was purely random.
I know. But your argument for randomness refers to chaos. Chaos is purely deterministic, just not predictably so. Randomness is unpredictable, AND indeterministic.
ladyattis: nirgrahamUK: ladyattis:brownian motion Brownian motion (named after the Scottish botanist Robert Brown) is the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid (i.e. a liquid or gas) or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, often called a particle theory. emphasis mine. It's still purely random in terms of actually predicting every possible movement in question. No equation can encapsulate them. It's much like the many body problem, you can only know after you observe it, until then you're purely guessing.
This is not true, an equation CAN encapsulate a chaotic system like brownian motion. For example, Lorenz discovered that the chaotic movement of a properly designed waterwheel will never repeat itself. The Lorenz attractor is a model of such deterministic, non-repeating systems, and is entirely determined by a set of three equations. However, 'working backward' from an observed chaotic system to said equation is in practice impossible.
As for your previous post about the Quantum Zeno effect, I admit to not being familiar with it, although a quick wiki search shows that there has been experimental success in inducing it, so perhaps a Nobel is in one of their futures? Regardless, you are asking for too much. Something that is possible in principle does not mean it must be technologically feasible or currently understood to the degree necessary. The current failures of AI does not mean that all computational theories of consciousness are false, etc.
I. Ryan: Physiocrat: With regards the Mises quote he seems to have created a false dichotomy: either everything is determined or everything is random. I think it is possible to retain some uncaused elements without reducing the world to chaos; with man's free will one can still give reasons why he acts as he does such as is desires but that his desires do to not cause his act. If you change it to that "[m]an cannot even conceive the image of an undetermined" section of anything, I think that it becomes clearer.
Physiocrat: With regards the Mises quote he seems to have created a false dichotomy: either everything is determined or everything is random. I think it is possible to retain some uncaused elements without reducing the world to chaos; with man's free will one can still give reasons why he acts as he does such as is desires but that his desires do to not cause his act.
With regards the Mises quote he seems to have created a false dichotomy: either everything is determined or everything is random. I think it is possible to retain some uncaused elements without reducing the world to chaos; with man's free will one can still give reasons why he acts as he does such as is desires but that his desires do to not cause his act.
If you change it to that "[m]an cannot even conceive the image of an undetermined" section of anything, I think that it becomes clearer.
I still fail to see why. It seems experientially odd but it's logically valid.
I. Ryan: Physiocrat: Incidentally I believe determinism also suffers from the regression fallacy which is one of the reasons I'm a theist (Christian more precisely) Why is it a fallacy? Ludwig von Mises: Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.[...]Causality leads to a regressus in infinitum which reason can never exhaust. Teleology is found wanting as soon as the question is raised of what moves the prime mover. So I do not see why adopting a teleological view of it helps. Neither of them allows you to escape the regression.
Physiocrat: Incidentally I believe determinism also suffers from the regression fallacy which is one of the reasons I'm a theist (Christian more precisely)
Incidentally I believe determinism also suffers from the regression fallacy which is one of the reasons I'm a theist (Christian more precisely)
Why is it a fallacy?
Ludwig von Mises: Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.[...]Causality leads to a regressus in infinitum which reason can never exhaust. Teleology is found wanting as soon as the question is raised of what moves the prime mover.
Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available.[...]Causality leads to a regressus in infinitum which reason can never exhaust. Teleology is found wanting as soon as the question is raised of what moves the prime mover.
So I do not see why adopting a teleological view of it helps. Neither of them allows you to escape the regression.
We are essentially getting onto the subject of time. Firstly let me define this problematic concept as: that which is necessary for action.
Now when did time exist? Well there's a two possibilities: it has always existed or it came into being.
The first I believe is incoherent since it rests on the assumption of the cogency of actual infinites. Infinity, as conceived by Aristotle, was essentially considered as an ongoing process which never reached a final point. Now with the advent of set theory, by Cantor I believe, he argued that actual infinites were possible since there was a set which contains all sets and as such actual infinites were possible. I think Russell then pointed out the paradox that a set couldn't contain itself and so this didn't hold. Russell did believe in transfinite numbers but I'm not sure on his justification. My history in this area is sketchy so any help here would be great.
Anyway, I believe one can so the absurdity of actual infinites rather easily. I here I'm shamelessly stealing Hilbert's Hotel.
Imagine a hotel with countably infinitely number of rooms all of which are occupied. Then a new customer arrives. One may think there'd be no room but all that needs doing is to move the guest in room 1 to 2 and the guest in room 2 to 3 etc and one can accommodate a new guest. This process can continue with every new guest who arrives. So we have the situation in which all rooms are occupied but we can still accomodate new guests; it is both full and not full at the same time.
Put it another way:
∞ + 1 = ∞Which makes sense due to the potential nature of infinity. Yet if it is actual too we can do this:∞ - ∞ = 10 = 1
Slightly odd to say the least.
Thus we must conclude time began from which it follows that a timeless being brought it into existence. You could then argue who made God but the regression ends at the beginning and the timeless being must be without beginning. NB he is not before the beginning because their is nothing to be before, he is without time and as such the question who made God is nonsensical. I'd argue though at creation (action) he exists within time which is consistent with my above definition.
In conclusion then, theism does solve the regression problem whereas naturalistic determinism does not.
Now you may argue as did Mises that if God did exist determinism would follow anyway due to God's omniscience and omnipotence. The latter is really a weak objection since it disallows the possibility that God could give free agency to anyone. Is it really impossible for God to set up a framework for a game and let people play it out how they wish too without God necessarily ordaining all their moves. It would be like saying that X pointing a gun at Y caused Y to shoot Z dead since he could stop Y killing Z dead. Rather than being a logical problem it is a moral one of why God doesn't always intervene when we may expect him to do so. The quick answer is he know more than we do and more importantly at this juncture has a bigger perspective.
Omniscience presents a bigger problem: if God knows what we will do before we do it surely then we have no choice in what we do. If God infallibly knows at T that X will choose A at time T+1 then X can do no other than choose A. The question is though is knowledge of the future possible. Id argue since it does not exist then it can't be known. Analogously we have an idea of what a Minotaur is but do we really know what one is? Obviously we can't know what it IS since it IS NOT. It is merely a potential form one could take. So as with time God knows all possibilities but not what will occur.
Obviously there are theistic variants of determinism which don't fall prey to the regression fallacy but do fail on the possibility of a person knowing truth as with other deterministic systems.
ERO: Why not just say FW or free will?
Why not just say FW or free will?
I used to distinguish it from compatabilism since most compatabilist will say there possition, like Nir's, has free will hence the distinction.
NirgrahamUK: just as determinism allows for the possibility of a gazelle to run away from a lion, so does it allow for the possibility of you knowing some truth that is there for you to know it.
Are you familiar with Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism? Supposing that the gazelle does run away from the lion this no way implies that he has true knowledge. The gazelle could believe the lion is a God so runs away from it. Even on your own terms you can't get anything better than a crude pragmatic sort of knowledge.
NirgrahamUK: you cannot claim to have a coherent self that makes decisions, if the these decisions come willy-nill with no cause, i.e. if you or anything about you does not in anyway cause these decisions. The freedom worth wanting is the freedom to make decisions, which is the freedom we have. its really an 'ability' to make decisions.
you cannot claim to have a coherent self that makes decisions, if the these decisions come willy-nill with no cause, i.e. if you or anything about you does not in anyway cause these decisions.
But of cause you do cause it- your/my will is self causing. Of course the freedom worth wanting is the ability to make decisions but your position under cuts it.
I. Ryan: To back-track a bit: Physiocrat: you could only conclude what you were determined to do which gives no foundation for truth Why does that "giv[e] no foundation for truth"?
To back-track a bit:
Physiocrat: you could only conclude what you were determined to do which gives no foundation for truth
you could only conclude what you were determined to do which gives no foundation for truth
Why does that "giv[e] no foundation for truth"?
Since there's no way of evaluating the truth of the proposition other than to say what you were determined and since you are not epistemologically infallible there's no way of telling what you were determined to say is true.
Mtn Dew: Imagine that you could rewind your life back to when you were 5 years old. If your life restarted from that point would anything be different over the course of your life? This assumes every other thing remains the same. I'm not entirely sure a single thing would change.
Imagine that you could rewind your life back to when you were 5 years old. If your life restarted from that point would anything be different over the course of your life? This assumes every other thing remains the same. I'm not entirely sure a single thing would change.
If man is free it COULD be different.
Live_Free_Or_DIe: The thread is off the chain with activity among a lot of veteran Mises posters. For the casual observer the first question that comes to mind is what is the energy driving the thread about this topic?
I need mental stimulation, ever since leaving uni I get very little. My main interest in the topic comes from a theological background and a desire to maintain the dignity and responsibility of man in his freedom of the will.
zefreak: Free will is simply a confusion that stems from ones intuition (see Hofstadter or Metzinger for an explanation of why this intuition is so strong, while incorrect) combined with folk psychology and dualism, none of which are tenable positions.
Why is dualism untenable?
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
"Why is dualism untenable?"
Occam's Razor in conjunction with the plethora of neurological and experimental evidence that substantiates monism. Then of course there is the fact that dualism is a black box that simply pretends to explain consciousness by postulating supernatural complex entities that are unfathomable to the human mind.
zefreak: "Why is dualism untenable?" Occam's Razor in conjunction with the plethora of neurological and experimental evidence that substantiates monism. Then of course there is the fact that dualism is a black box that simply pretends to explain consciousness by postulating supernatural complex entities that are unfathomable to the human mind.
Good old Occam's broom. Any way how could one prove via the material that the immaterial exist? The fact that we cannot exhaustively know about supernatural entities does not mean we cannot know anything about them.
Physiocrat: zefreak: "Why is dualism untenable?" Occam's Razor in conjunction with the plethora of neurological and experimental evidence that substantiates monism. Then of course there is the fact that dualism is a black box that simply pretends to explain consciousness by postulating supernatural complex entities that are unfathomable to the human mind. Good old Occam's broom. Any way how could one prove via the material that the immaterial exist? The fact that we cannot exhaustively know about supernatural entities does not mean we cannot know anything about them.
And how do you propose to learn anything about the supernatural? Divine inspiration, introspection?
zefreak: Physiocrat: zefreak: "Why is dualism untenable?" Occam's Razor in conjunction with the plethora of neurological and experimental evidence that substantiates monism. Then of course there is the fact that dualism is a black box that simply pretends to explain consciousness by postulating supernatural complex entities that are unfathomable to the human mind. Good old Occam's broom. Any way how could one prove via the material that the immaterial exist? The fact that we cannot exhaustively know about supernatural entities does not mean we cannot know anything about them. And how do you propose to learn anything about the supernatural? Divine inspiration, introspection?
I think my above cosmological style argument works pretty well. But yes introspection, natural law and divine inspiration are pretty good places.
Physiocrat:So as with time God knows all possibilities but not what will occur.
If there are things he cannot do and know, how is he still omnipotent and omniscient?
Z.
z1235: Physiocrat:So as with time God knows all possibilities but not what will occur. If there are things he cannot do and know, how is he still omnipotent and omniscient? Z.
The normal caveats as such for omniscience and omnipotence is logical possibility. I concede that God could have created an exhaustively deterministic universe and as such have exhaustive definite foreknowledge since he brings all things to pass. My point is that in his sovereignty he chose to make man free and thus cannot logically know what he will do in the future, only map all possibilities.
I hope that clears it up. I possibly should have made this clear earlier but it was in response to determinism so I framed it as such.
Even if your cosmological argument was persuasive (it isn't), all you are arguing for is some prime mover type deity. There is no justification for a spiritual, caring, personal god or even a conscious entity at that. If you define God as 'whatever it is that everything came from' then sure, you may have a point (a trivial one). Don't go and equivocate between the deism you are arguing for and your own pet theistic beliefs, where the creator of the universe loves and cares for us and sits in his castle in the sky. The God of the Gaps is a poor argument.
zefreak: Even if your cosmological argument was persuasive (it isn't), all you are arguing for is some prime mover type deity. There is no justification for a spiritual, caring, personal god or even a conscious entity at that. If you define God as 'whatever it is that everything came from' then sure, you may have a point (a trivial one). Don't go and equivocate between the deism you are arguing for and your own pet theistic beliefs, where the creator of the universe loves and cares for us and sits in his castle in the sky. The God of the Gaps is a poor argument.
Well the cosmological argument was only ever intended to to prove a prime mover deity. The purpose was to show that theism doesn't succumb to the regression fallacy. It is not however a classic God of the Gaps argument since that relies on God filling ignorance; my cosmological argument rests on logical necessity.
I could argue for a fuller conception of God but I didn't. My response of saying that divine inspiration was merely a retort to your incredulity of knowing of the immaterial I never intended that to form an argument as such just a possible way of knowing the immaterial.
Grayson Lilburne:I know. But your argument for randomness refers to chaos. Chaos is purely deterministic, just not predictably so. Randomness is unpredictable, AND indeterministic.
Nope.