Determinism or Free Will?

[Mr. Nobody]

The future is not predetermined. You live in different levels of consciousness and re-act to stimuli from your environment. Free will can over ride all levels of self awareness. But it is your choice to exercise free will. When hunger drives you to buy a hot dog, who is to say that you can't change your mind at 11:59 and buy a sandwich instead. Or they had no hot dogs, or you met a hot girl and decided to take her out instead of woofing down that lousy hot dog. As a matter of fact, you can still give back the hot dog you bought at 12:01. Reason: It tasted like crap and it was your discission.
don't mistake reaction to the environment as a lack of free will. We all are on auto pilot until we are called upon to use our consciousness to decide between choices based on free will.

BTW the Einstein spacetime loaf does not exist, since no one can view spacetime from without, it is only a useful analogy to illustrate relativity from within

[Guille]

The future is not predetermined. You live in different levels of consciousness and re-act to stimuli from your environment. Free will can over ride all levels of self awareness. But it is your choice to exercise free will. When hunger drives you to buy a hot dog, who is to say that you can't change your mind at 11:59 and buy a sandwich instead. Or they had no hot dogs, or you met a hot girl and decided to take her out instead of woofing down that lousy hot dog. As a matter of fact, you can still give back the hot dog you bought at 12:01. Reason: It tasted like crap and it was your discission.
don't mistake reaction to the environment as a lack of free will. We all are on auto pilot until we are called upon to use our consciousness to decide between choices based on free will.

BTW the Einstein spacetime loaf does not exist, since no one can view spacetime from without, it is only a useful analogy to illustrate relativity from within

I would like to believe the universe is not predetermined, but the arguments for hard determinism is very strong and hard to fight:

1. All events are caused.
2.Our actions are events.
3. All caused events are determined by the past.
_______________________________________________
Therefore:
4. Our actions are determined by the past.
5. If our actions are determined by the past, then we have no power to act other that we do indeed act.
6. If we have no power to act other than we in fact do act, then we have no free will.
_______________________________________________
Therefore:
7. We have no free will.

If someone has a consistent argument against this, let me know. To fight this, we must deny one of the starting premises (which are all right, actually). The best argument I have seen is:

1. If hard determinism is true, then we have no free will.
2. If we have no free will, then we are not responsible for our actions.
3. We are responsible for our actions.
_______________________________________________
Therefore: Hard determinism is false.

[QuantumGhost]

" 1. All events are caused.
2.Our actions are events.
3. All caused events are determined by the past. "
-Guille

If I am not mistaken, you are basing the 3rd fact on the reasoning you used in the hot dog post. If so, I disagree. In the post, you made predicting the future a simple procedure based on the events that occured ONE MINUTE AGO. That is not predicting the future, but predicting what will probably happen. As Mr. Nobody pointed out, John P. could easily have changed his mind before buying the hot dog. This shows that even though it would be most probable for him to buy the hot dog, it is still not 100% certain. This disproves that past events cause future events. If something as simple as buying a hot dog can change so easily, then predicting the future is impossible.

The fact that the future is predetermined might still be true, but as for how to determine it, IMHO, that's impossible.

-QuantumGhost

[Guille]

" 1. All events are caused.
2.Our actions are events.
3. All caused events are determined by the past. "
-Guille

If I am not mistaken, you are basing the 3rd fact on the reasoning you used in the hot dog post. If so, I disagree. In the post, you made predicting the future a simple procedure based on the events that occured ONE MINUTE AGO. That is not predicting the future, but predicting what will probably happen. As Mr. Nobody pointed out, John P. could easily have changed his mind before buying the hot dog. This shows that even though it would be most probable for him to buy the hot dog, it is still not 100% certain. This disproves that past events cause future events. If something as simple as buying a hot dog can change so easily, then predicting the future is impossible.

The fact that the future is predetermined might still be true, but as for how to determine it, IMHO, that's impossible.

-QuantumGhost

But if indeed John P. changed his mind and decided to have a romantic lunch with his wife, instead of the hot dog, that decision happens a prior to when he buys the hot dog, and it is an event. If it is an event, then we can still measure from the one planck time before he made the decision, that he would made the decision. Probably because even though he wants to eat now, he wants to be with his wife and relax from work. Or any other cause. Don't be confused, I'm not a determinist myself, at all, but their arguments are harder than that to fight.

I propose that we decide that not all actions are events. For example, the action of readiong is not an event, what is an event is what occurs due to it: I buy a book, my eyes move throuh words, I cross pages, I smile in the jokes... But itself reading is not event, it's not something that happens itself. So in that premise, although all events are caused and predetermined by the past, it is not as such with our actions: they are not neccesarilly caused by the past, and we have special causal powers. This is the position called Libertarianism. There are problems with this theory also: if our actions are not caused at all by the past then they get into the status of miracles, for they change the natural order of cause. This means that we can't explain free will, for miracles are unexplanable things. Also, libertarianism bases on the dualism that agents are thosde that have both body and mind, but this theory leads to an even harder problem.

[subversion]

Is there any noticeable difference between "indetermined" and "determined but unpredictable"?

according to science no, but according to philosophy yes. Something sounds incomplete to me.

[subversion]

I don't believe in any pre-determinism. I believe in evolution. If you can reverse the increase of entropy within your local domain, then you will be able to pass on this information to create and shape your future within the evolved and established rules

But if you believe in evolution then you should know that evolution brings about the TOE, and therefore it is predetermined. How we come to the TOE is variable, but that evolution tends towards the TOE is inevitable and a facet of destiny.

[subversion]

The future is not predetermined.

This statement is unprovable. Moreover, it is not in line with the Law of Laws and therefore it is not only morally corrupt, but scientifically unjustifiable.

[subversion]

" 1. All events are caused.
2.Our actions are events.
3. All caused events are determined by the past. "
-Guille

If I am not mistaken, you are basing the 3rd fact on the reasoning you used in the hot dog post. If so, I disagree. In the post, you made predicting the future a simple procedure based on the events that occured ONE MINUTE AGO. That is not predicting the future, but predicting what will probably happen. As Mr. Nobody pointed out, John P. could easily have changed his mind before buying the hot dog. This shows that even though it would be most probable for him to buy the hot dog, it is still not 100% certain. This disproves that past events cause future events. If something as simple as buying a hot dog can change so easily, then predicting the future is impossible.

The fact that the future is predetermined might still be true, but as for how to determine it, IMHO, that's impossible.

-QuantumGhost

I have a good scenario for all of you. What if this hotdog was incredibly incredibly dense such that when John P got too close to it it's gravitational field sucked him in? Now obviously he wouldn't be able to lift the heavy hotdog, let alone eat it, but would he be destined to come into contact with the preserved meat due to the shere strength of its gravity? Does gravity then represent a force which can make certain outcomes incontrovertible? Does destiny then represent a pure and invisible force of gravity and visa versa? What choice does a particle have on the event horizon of a black hole?

[Mr. Nobody]

You have to make a distinction between what is within your power to change and what is not. The future as my immediate and controllable environment is not pre-determined. I am in charge of my actions and I am responsible for the consequences of these actions. Should a large meteor head our way and all the astronomer agree with their calculations, then chances are it is going to hit us and there is nothing we can do (forget Armageddon the movie). In that way, it definitely appears as though the future is predetermined. Further measurement made some corrections to the course of the space rock and now all the astronomers agree that it will miss us. Hallelujah, all that praying actually saved us, Pat Robertson said so.
So, how do we interpret that? What was pre-determined?
We measure and predict based on measurements. These predictions are only predictions and not certainties, but they are good enough for the macro world. The micro world includes quantum fluctuations and it goes back to the uncertainty and wave nature of all tangible.
So, it may be true that there are probabilities for certain events, but nothing is 100%. The future remains undetermined

[Mr. Nobody]

Because the future includes the micro world which is described in propabilites and not certainties