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Author Topic: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"  (Read 205648 times)

delphonso

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1695 on: November 28, 2021, 06:24:54 pm »

This is usually a pro-determinism argument: most anti-determinist arguments don't actually argue for what they want (free will), they merely argue to break down determinism (by arguing for randomness). Basically, that's because most free-will advocates are also assuming in some deity or soul which they would slot into the gap where determinism breaks down, but that part of the argument isn't entirely necessary. The point of these is just to point out that determinism isn't completely correct, and really, if a determinist resorts to saying "yeah, but that doesn't support YOUR argument," they've effectively given up on being correct.

Fundamentally, the free-will arguments are weaker, so the strategy has to be "poke holes in determinism until free-will looks preferable". If there were a major third or fourth party in this argument, they'd all benefit from it over determinism.

EDIT: Still waking up...let's try to be clearer: for the free-will supporter, it's not about randomness supporting free will - it's about randomness breaking down determinism. That's about it.

McTraveller

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1696 on: November 28, 2021, 06:42:51 pm »

The (Christian) argument for free will doesn't come from randomness or lack thereof; it comes from the theology that God didn't create puppets: where's the glory in creating devices that traverse the universe simply stating that God is awesome, simply because they have no other possible function?

Where the Christian theological conflict arises is the tension between the idea that God could create people with free will, be an all-good God, and all-powerful, yet still let some people suffer eternal damnation. The whole "problem of pain" argument about how God can't be both all-good and all-powerful if people suffer.

This is an orthogonal discussion to physical determinism in a classical versus a statistical sense (even quantum mechanics, for all its strangeness, is still deterministic in aggregate).
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Egan_BW

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1697 on: November 28, 2021, 07:05:59 pm »

But is free will deterministic, or is it random, or is it a third thing? And if it is a third thing, can you explain how it differs from either determinism or randomness?

If there is a soul or a god doesn't change the question, because a soul or a god would still have to be one of those three things: deterministic, random, or free. And if it's the third, I want to know what that means.

Perhaps free/unfree is just a different axis than deterministic/random. But in that case, determinism doesn't break down free will at all, there's be no reason for freedom believers to argue against it.
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delphonso

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1698 on: November 28, 2021, 07:25:16 pm »

Perhaps free/unfree is just a different axis than deterministic/random. But in that case, determinism doesn't break down free will at all, there's be no reason for freedom believers to argue against it.

This is compatiblism - that the two are not mutually exclusive (something that I think better captures the perceivable free will).

Free will would certainly be a third thing - that being "free", which I think is generally categorized as "deteminism up until the final point of human decision, which rests in the power of the individual (i.e., soul)" I'd have to say most free will arguments are post hoc - we all experience and believe we have free will, thus it is an assumed conclusion and all reasoning for it is motivated. That said, it is stronger than I'm making it out to be, I just haven't studied it in several years.

feelotraveller

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1699 on: November 28, 2021, 07:39:32 pm »

Pretty sure philosophical zombies take free will and determinism to be something other than merely the statement of the problems and conflicts inherent in a number of common ideological schemata.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1700 on: November 28, 2021, 07:52:39 pm »

To me, the feeling I get at the moment when I make a decision feels more compatible with determinism than with randomness. Weigh the options, consider the consequences, pick one. It doesn't feel like I've just been passed my decision from somewhere outside my brain, with no regard for how good or bad that option would be for me. Maybe that moment of decision did lie somewhere outside my skull, in some metaphysical structure, but it still feels like whatever made the final call was me, and that it was made based on how good or bad the options seemed.

So, isn't
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"determinism up until the final point of human decision, which rests in the power of the individual (i.e., soul)"
Just, determinism, and then more determinism? In order for my soul to make good decisions, isn't it necessary for it to be at least partly deterministic, with the other part being random?
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Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

delphonso

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1701 on: November 28, 2021, 07:59:12 pm »

You described free will, there - ultimate decision making was up to you (limited by deterministic conditions such as the number of options currently open).

Determinism states that the contemplation and deliberation process is an illusion and that the only choice you can make is the one you ultimately choose. Evidence does support this, too - our brains and bodies make decisions before we cognate on it, and a good portion of reasoning is backwards - justifying a pre-made decision.

Egan_BW

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1702 on: November 28, 2021, 08:15:05 pm »

What I mean is, I suppose that my intuitive feeling of how it works makes me feel like Compatibilism is true, and that being a deterministic thing and free will are one and the same. But that's not the conclusion that everybody reaches. Is this just a difference in context from being raised christian?

I don't see how the point at which the real decision is made or whether an illusion is involved in it changes the fact that the process is deterministic. If one part of me makes the decision, and then has to explain to the second part why it's good, then it's still me. It all happens inside my skull, or inside my soul, or passed between the two. It doesn't matter because all those things are part of me.
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delphonso

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1703 on: November 28, 2021, 08:40:11 pm »

The question comes down to options. If you reran the situation 100 times - a determinist would say the results would be the same 100 times. If you believe in any form of free will, then the results could be different. There is also a direct causal line to the beginning of time for every action, and that difference is essential for a lot of forms of morality - which give personal responsibility to actions. You can't put blame on someone if what they did was effectively prescribed at the big bang. That's meandering into subsequent arguments though.

The free will defender would like to say that you are presented with choices and choose one, but have the ability to choose others. The determinist says you aren't presented with real choices, and only "choose" whatever it is that you're going to do.

Compatibilism says that you can't choose other options, but that's fine because it is still "you" "choosing". In many ways, compatibilism is just determinism with different wording.

feelotraveller

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1704 on: November 28, 2021, 08:46:01 pm »

If you reran the situation 100 times [snip]

Okay let's do it.  :P
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McTraveller

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1705 on: November 28, 2021, 09:05:52 pm »

Sounds like we've collectively rediscovered what many have already discovered: the debate of free will vs random vs determinism is irrelevant to our everyday experience. Because we aren't time travelers, and we don't have a way to "re-run" our lives to try a different option, there is no meaningful differentiation between any of the options.

The closest it can come to having a "real life" impact is debates about legal culpability.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1706 on: November 28, 2021, 09:07:11 pm »

If you were put in the same situation 100 times, such that everything was the same- the environment around you, your body, your brain, and your soul, then if you made a different decision it was due to randomness. Which isn't part of you, it's part of the universe. If we say that souls are real, and you were allowed to be put into the same situation 100 times with your body and brain the same, but your soul allowed to change and learn, then it's not really being put in the same situation, is it?

You could say that everything was predetermined by the big bang, but that doesn't change the fact that we're inside of it, we can't predict what will happen, and what we choose to do is our own, because it can't be anything else's. If you can't put blame on someone for what they did because it was caused by the big bang, then you may as well not care about anything.
But not entirely caring isn't one of the options we have, it doesn't happen. If you're alive, you care about something, whether that's rational or not.

Well, maybe I've gone too far into arguing my position rather than asking what free will is, but I'm not left with a satisfying definition. Maybe I shouldn't need to care unless I find evidence of souls, god, or time travel.
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delphonso

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1707 on: November 28, 2021, 10:52:11 pm »

It's one of the favorite topics of endless discussion because, yes - the answer is almost certainly unachievable. Determinism has a strong foundation because causality is the basis of most of our forms of knowledge gathering. Free will is almost exclusively the realm of the theists, who struggle to define it without referencing Doctrine.

You'll find no shortage of descriptions in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It seems the major definitions are "freedom to do otherwise" - as we described being impossible to test, and "sourcehood" - which seems to be your opinion on the matter, Egan - that the action comes from us (as vague as "us" is.)

Here's an example from that same article about how you can have free will without options which I like:
Quote
Imagine, if you will, that Black is a quite nifty (and even generally nice) neurosurgeon. But in performing an operation on Jones to remove a brain tumor, Black inserts a mechanism into Jones’s brain which enables Black to monitor and control Jones’s activities. Jones, meanwhile, knows nothing of this. Black exercises this control through a sophisticated computer which he has programmed so that, among other things, it monitors Jones’s voting behavior. If Jones were to show any inclination to vote for Bush, then the computer, through the mechanism in Jones’s brain, intervenes to ensure that he actually decides to vote for Clinton and does so vote. But if Jones decides on his own to vote for Clinton, the computer does nothing but continue to monitor—without affecting—the goings-on in Jones’s head. (Fischer 2006, 38)

In my mind, the strongest account of free will (without defining it) is that everyone fundamentally believes they are in control of their own actions, thus it doesn't need proving - the burden of proof is on determinists, and as things start getting random on the quantum scale, their proof weakens (though feelotraveller's point about quantum gobbltygook being predictable at scale is a very good point).

Bumber

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1708 on: December 01, 2021, 02:22:37 am »

Free will is the ability to decide to discuss free will without being forced to.
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dragdeler

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Re: Random thoughts - On the Origins of "I Could Eat A Horse"
« Reply #1709 on: December 02, 2021, 11:09:12 pm »

I hate the stench of coffee in the morning. Second time this week I'm showing up at 6 instead of 12am. And last time I shit you not they wasted 45 minutes slurping coffee before we started. The stench of coffee will never not remind me of poorly mooded functionnaries obstructing real live under the sickly light of neon tubes... And for that shit I'm waking at this ungodly hour? I feel like waltzing in there and telling them "ey yo if you need me I'm smoking joints in my car, call me when we are goong to work. It's shame I can't in good conscience.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2021, 11:22:06 pm by dragdeler »
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