Forum:The determinism vs free will debate

So, this seems to be the debate of the decade if not the millennium. If we are or aren't in control of our own minds. For sake of simplicity so we don't have 26+ groups beating the crap outta each other and leading to a more mind screwy then needed discussion I'm putting Determinist & those against free will in one group and those for free will in the other corner (compatibilist, despite believing in a mostly determined world, would go here since they believe free will is an apart of it)

This is an important question, since not only would it affect laws, freedom, and our sanity, it would also affect the very meaning of what the hell it means to be "rational". Why would living in a deterministic or free will world affect what it means to be rational? Well if we're living in a absolute deterministic world (hard determinism as it were), we WOULD NOT have any control over what we're doing, but rather outside forces are controlling what we're doing, and what that means for rationality is that we have no choice and whether or not we're going to be rational. Instead, we just do what everything else tells us to do 24/7. Of course, if we do happen to live in a Indeterministic/libertarian world, that would throw causality out the window, which is one of the fundamentals of modern science as we know it which would also screw a good chunk of rationality as well to what I know about.

This debate is also ripping up an otherwise organize movement, the so called New Atheism movement, namely between Daniel Dennett (for compatibilist free will) and Sam Harris (against free will). Sadly, it getting late now, so I got to get off, but before I do, I will leave some stuff on the topic.

http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/determinismandfreewill.html

http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/blog/freedom_and_free_will

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html

http://www.nature.com/articles/459164a.epdf?referrer_access_token=UUlZSY6DNMX-tOSLlCNzR9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OXDE8roeIS_uxmdFF6rqrRcRGW- eIqgbONX_nFFRUL0NFjgSobGdXcUPDPjD1CIgjDGMn0BFKGt39qQfgZbfxlzA8LGNQf5YZaXhFw9gtpmYGEoqxiyxU5WRP3b3Tm0kx8pOLnQoODh1OsczE2in3b&tracking_referrer=www.nature.com

I will try posting a better response tomorrow if procrastination doesn't get me frist. --Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 05:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Your estimation of how big this debate is in circles seems a tad high, from my experience. People are more concerned with day to day issue,s not the concept of free will. --"Paravant" Talk & Contribs 06:19, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm back


 * @Paravant: People may only worry about day to day issues, but if the person think it either though Free Will or determined, it would change how the day to day was done.

For example- If the world is determined, you'll probably won't try to do anything without an outside force telling you to do so. That being the case, the very idea of democracy would be dead, since all you're doing is doing what another man tells you to do. The best government then would be a Totalitarian one, where you're told what to do by some outside force. Personally, I don't think Totalitarian governments are good (understatement), but if the world is determined, then they are since they get rid of any idea of self control, which you won't have if it a determined world.


 * If we have free will though, It could give some idea that we don't need order of any sort, which would also be problematic. There is also the problem of causality.


 * Personally though, I'm a compatibilist on this --Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, the thing that makes human freedom possible is the fact that we have preset desires, needs, and personality traits that we were born with.  Nobody told us to have them or taught them to us.  They often contradict human laws, rules, and preferences, which we disobey because we like to.  "Freedom" is only possible because humans have behavioral presets that aren't that tractable to change.  - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 20:24, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * This all depends, of course, on what people mean when they talk about "free will" and such. Suppose the universe is fully deterministic. The causal nexus of why we do most things lies within us (brain states, biochemical feedbacks, etc.), so "we" do them whether or not a faculty of "will" is invoked. Now suppose the universe is non-deterministic somehow. What has changed relevant to the consideration of "free will"? It's not clear to me that anything has. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 08:14, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That's part of the point: actual freedom doesn't require free will, and free will is in fact in many ways contrary to it. The kind of free will people imagine they want, in which they have a rational mind or an ego that is exercising voluntary control over their thoughts and actions, is fairly easy to falsify.  Then again, you don't really want that kind of free will anyways.  It feeds the ideology of punishment, in which people can be forced to change their behavior.  Ironically, the fact that you have a human nature you can't change and limits beyond which you can't be pushed is what makes the actually desirable versions of freedom possible. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 01:59, 24 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I just did the Free Will challenge and consciously didn't thought about it (one can never truly know what the subconscious brain thing is thinking at this moment in time to what I know about...). Then again, I've already have learn about the "Don't think about elephants" trick before, I don't like apples, have HFA(High Functioning Autism), and was commanded to not think about apples, so it might not of been my choice to not think about it as ironic as it sounds. I could of, if I choose to, though about the apple because I liked apples or I dislike you and didn't want you to tell me what to do. I could also rationalize a decision that may have been or may not had free will behind it and have it rationalized as determined later on.


 * I will however say that "It feeds the ideology of punishment, in which people can be forced to change their behavior." actually sounds like a argument against determinism, or at least not to believe in it. If I have at least have some voluntary control, I can't be as manipulated (forced) compare to if I didn't. Absolute Determinism, in which you have no free will, would mean "people can(and will)be forced to change their behavior." to the group without any choice in the matter to do so. That can easily fit in a totalitarian state. Won't your "freedom" be anything but if you can't control yourself? You'll be bounded by anything except yourself.


 * To put it bluntly, If we get some, say a charismatic master manipulator, and he gets the right supplies and men, which won't be too hard for him, he can theoretically take over multiple countries by spreading his voice across the land, may it be radio, newspapers, televisions, internet, etc. The people won't have any choice but to follow him unless some unpredicted event puts a monkey-wrench in his plan. Nazi Germany was such a place.--Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 00:02, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I associate the notion of free will with the ideology of "personal responsibility", the notion that people can be somebody other than the person they were born to be if only they suck up and try harder. This, to put it simply, is the ideology of the Punishment Club, and it leads to the war of all against all.  You can either have this, or have divine grace.  I choose grace, which is why I accept predestination. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 05:48, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So you don't think the organisms we call humans can be conditioned? Of course they can; and punishment can be part of that conditioning, though reward is often more effective And that people aren't really in full control of their actions doesn't mean that there's a God who's predestined everything. False dilemma much? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:58, 25 October 42015 AQD (UTC)
 * @Anon-I'm not saying humans can't be conditioned, I'm asking if 'we' even have any sort of control in it and or are world (Compatibilist- which I am) or that we must be affected constantly by events that determine what were doing and have no choice in what were choosing, fated as it were (Determinism). Can we though are own will power unconditioned ourselves if we ever so wanted to without an outside forces unconditioned one thing for another


 * If we do actually live in a absolutely determined world, if or if not there is a god, there might as well be one. Why you ask? Well, isn't 'god', after you get rid of the mythos and the stories, just the concept that there's a forces that has predestined everything you have and will do and you have no say in the matter? That why I never did quite figure Sam Harris, the man simultaneously denounces religion and say we have no self yet at the same time has a buddhist-esque belief of everything that happen or will happen is predestined by an might as well be god force and gives serious thought about spirituality.


 * @Tlön- Is it not irony to think that the early christian sects given the idea of Free Will a name yet here an atheist fighting for free will and an christian fighting against it? --Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course humans can be conditioned. But generally, conditioning works only in the environment where the schedule of rewards and punishments is constantly enforced.  Let the conditioners' attention lapse, and behavior will revert to baseline.  And humans are clever enough that just about any such system can be gamed by them.  - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 00:52, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * @Tlön- Was that a case for or against free will?--Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 02:44, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

It's another attempt to show that you don't need free will to have freedom. People can be conditioned to change their behavior, and will conform to enforced norms while being watched. It boils down to a matter of how much surveillance you're willing to tolerate and how many people you intend to die by the violence necessary to enforce the rules. That's the sort of thing meant by freedom -- the ability to live according to your preferences, and it doesn't need anything as metaphysically extravagant as 'free will' to exist. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 04:09, 27 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Free will metaphysically extravagant? It a core tenet of many philosophy, including existentialism (which I'm apart of of), If the will of freedom does not exist, how can you be truly be free? We would be chess pieces in other's games. I know you're ok with that, but at the same rate you also believe an ethereal-being that controls everything and you're ok with that as well.
 * I personal don't, which was why I choosed to use the free will I think I have to leave that cult, but now here I'm am looking at this new to me concept that can't as easily be refuted that basically is the demiurge with another name.
 * Yes, metaphysically extravagant. One perennial problem with free will is the simple question of how it works.  The human mind appears to be situated in a human brain that appears to be unremarkably made of nerve tissue and is affected by hormones and other chemistry.  It's a physical object bound by causality, in other words.  Other such objects do not exhibit free will, which instead must either be located in a mental or spiritual entity that somehow interfaces with the brain, or is an emergent property of the brain.  Either of these involve rather difficult metaphysical problems.  Determinism avoids them. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 15:05, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm going to first point out the obvious that you believe in a god, A big man up stairs that is seeing everything your doing and has a special plan for you and is going to give you a lot in heaven and you call free will metaphysically extravagant.
 * I will also say that Determinism is actually has bigger metaphysical problems, as Kevin Valson Jacob stated here https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-problems-with-the-argument-for-hard-determinism


 * The fact the determinism can not be rationally affirmed is the greatest problem of determinism.
 * Consider that you think that determinism is true. This would imply that you think that determinism is true, not because you have rationally freely chosen determinism after careful argumentation; but simply because you were determined to do so. But if so, what is the reason why anyone should hold to determinism? What is the point in trying to convince anyone else of determinism their beliefs about the truth of determinism have already been determined?-Kevin Valson Jacob
 * It for reason like the above that I was about to call it, determinism, sophism if it wasn't for scientific causation and the fact one can see at least some of human actions as involuntary.
 * Before we move on, why is there a inception button below me? I don't remember adding that.

--Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 01:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Whoa.
 * I added it in a pathetic attempt to be humorous. I thought the remark about determinism determining determinism was a lot like inception, because it is a point that blows your mind when you think about it. Feel free to disregard or delete if you want. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 01:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * OH-that ok, it can stay.--Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 02:45, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

"Magical voluntarism"
"For some time now, one of the most successful tactics of the ruling class has been responsibilisation. Each individual member of the subordinate class is encouraged into feeling that their poverty, lack of opportunities, or unemployment, is their fault and their fault alone. Individuals will blame themselves rather than social structures, which in any case they have been induced into believing do not really exist (they are just excuses, called upon by the weak). What [David] Smail calls ‘magical voluntarism’ – the belief that it is within every individual’s power to make themselves whatever they want to be – is the dominant ideology and unofficial religion of contemporary capitalist society, pushed by reality TV ‘experts’ and business gurus as much as by politicians. Magical voluntarism is both an effect and a cause of the currently historically low level of class consciousness. It is the flipside of depression [...]"

- Mark Fisher, Good for Nothing


 * What's sad is how true this is. That nothing else in life can affect your place than you, and people aren't poor...they are just temporarily disgraced millionaires working on their chance.  Odd way to name it though.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Odd, to be sure. I suspect that anti-determinism is largely fueled by vanity; people imagine they're doing themselves a favor by imagining themselves as the masters of their fates and the captains of their souls.  In fact, this is something that's been pinned on them by those who want to hurt them. - Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 16:16, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Something I've often wondered: do determinists look before they cross the road? Bicycle wheel  19:35, 6 November 2015 (UTC)


 * They have no choice bicycle, they have no choice.


 * Anyway, "magical voluntarism", hmmm, can't doubt that happen to some, or alot of people.
 * I will also say that Determinism is not better in anyway, It almost like "magical anti-voluntarism". It everyone BUT your own fault, and you can do anything about it but suffer and hope that you were not disposed to fight the unbeatable fate, almost invoked helplessness in a way. Just because your belief is opposite to the other one doesn't make it better. In determinism case, at least "Magical voluntarism", actual Free Will (whatever it may be with how loose people use the term), and volition allows for one to be happy when they do something good, but now they can't do that either if they "know" themselves determined.


 * Ironically, it was christianity that made me believe in free will, not by making me believe in god, but by showing it as an complete and utter cosmic Tyrant that was controlling me and taking away my responsibility, that caused me to leave it. Then I find myself in science and find that a lot of its experts have been seduced by the same tyrant of an idea. Guess (some) scientist and religion thumper aren't so different after all.--Steampeng MK.1 (talk) 01:15, 7 November 2015 (UTC)