Free Will - Yes/No?

[Excited Penguin]

And here I thought sound is what I feel when I play music.

How can you even conceive of indeterminism? Can you explain this further?

[LadyForCamus]

Understanding FW in the legal sense, sure I think I often have it.  Very rarely am I coerced to do what I'd rather not.  When it comes to being who I am but had no say in, I am a willing participant.  So there is no coercion there.  Put me down for FW yes with just enough determinism to make the world a little predictable and you'll have a deal.

I can't really make sense of FW in the OMG-we're-all-robots sense.  So none of that for me, thanks.

When it comes to being who you are, you're neither willing or unwilling, you just are. Your first two sentences I couldn't make any sense of, so please elaborate.

It does sound to me like you don't really care about the truth in this case, just about your preconceived notions and preferences. So, yeah, you're welcome.

Wait I don't get it.  How come not freely?  I admit I know next to nothing scientifically or philosophically about the free will argument.

You didn't control what made you want to withhold peeing.

Why not? I'm not being asshole, I just really don't get it. How am I not fully in control of making that decision?

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't have to conceive it, it would just mean that what appears to be causality isn't causality. My point is simply that causality itself isn't absolutely proven. David Hume demonstrated that: just because the sun has come up every single time doesn't mean there's any absolute proof that tomorrow it will. It is just simply ridiculous to believe that it won't and I of course believe causality exists.

There is an equivocation between "indeterminism" to mean the opposite of philosophical determinism and "indeterminism" to mean unpredictability. This whole "but quantum mechanics is indeterministic" thing is a red herring and an equivocation, it's much more helpful to speak of "quantum unpredictability" rather than "quantum indeterminism" for that very reason: to avoid equivocation.

-Hammy

[Excited Penguin]

When it comes to being who you are, you're neither willing or unwilling, you just are. Your first two sentences I couldn't make any sense of, so please elaborate.

It does sound to me like you don't really care about the truth in this case, just about your preconceived notions and preferences. So, yeah, you're welcome.

You didn't control what made you want to withhold peeing.

Why not?  I'm not being asshole, I just really don't get it.  How am I not fully in control of making that decision?

I never thought you were being an asshole.

Why did you want to withhold your pee? There was a reason, right? That reason is what takes it out of your control.

[Edwardo Piet]

And here I thought sound is what I feel when I play music.

Lol yes, that too.

-Hammy

[Edwardo Piet]

Why not?  I'm not being asshole, I just really don't get it.  How am I not fully in control of making that decision?

For us to be fully in control would require other factors beyond our control to not control our decisions, but they do. Any reasons we give for our behavior we can then ask "but what was the reason for that?" ultimately the reasons stretch back into the past beyond our own consciousness. These "reasons" being causes, being causality... it ultimately stretches back not just past our own conscious awareness, and not just before our adulthood, and not just before our birth, but back to the very beginning of the universe or in other words back to causality and time itself within existence itself, which I believe is eternal (the concept of existence itself ever being anything other than existent by definition seems entirely incoherent to me: existence itself has always existed, but time, causality and "the universe" began).

Oh and you're not an asshole at all. You're absolutely lovely and I'm happy to try and explain my own views on the matter to you

-Hammy

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

@EP and @Evie,

See, that's the beauty of my argument. It's structured to give the feel that it is right when in fact it really isn't. I could show this argument to anyone that believes in a non deterministic universe and have them believe that our universe is indeed deterministic.
When I first thought of it, I tricked myself into believing it, I honestly believed I was right but after some time I really gave it some thought and I realized I was wrong.
So my question is, have you figured out why my seemingly duh argument is wrong?

[Edwardo Piet]

@EP and @Evie,  
So my question is, have you figured out why my seemingly duh argument is wrong?

I believe it was incomplete, missing a premise and a conclusion. I responded to that. I have attempted to complete your argument which when completed I believe is fully sound. If you like you could try to explain to me why you think it isn't, because I think it is.

(There is also one more missing premise, but that's merely the definition that I am defining "free will" in the incompatabilistic sense).

-Hammy

[IATIA]

For sake of argument, we will assume causality is real.  If quantum randomness is truly random then 'this' neuron might fire before 'that' neuron which would be unpredictable.  Even though there is "cause and effect", the initiation is non-deterministic.

How does randomness exclude determinism, exactly? What does it matter that you can't predict the effect, there's still going to be an effect and you're going to be bound by it.

We cannot predict exactly which neuron and at what time a specific neuron will fire.  There will, obviously, be a statistical probability that allows us to function, but at the neuron level, for a specific neuron, there will be a certain amount of indeterminate information, only probabilities.

Here is a little information on the actual workings of a neuron.

   

Radiation is a perfect example. The half life of uranium is predictable, but exactly which atom will decay is unpredictable. Effectively, we can have a predictable outcome from an unpredictable source.

[Edwardo Piet]

There is an equivocation between "indeterminism" to mean the opposite of philosophical determinism and "indeterminism" to mean unpredictability. This whole "but quantum mechanics is indeterministic" thing is a red herring and an equivocation, it's much more helpful to speak of "quantum unpredictability" rather than "quantum indeterminism" for that very reason: to avoid equivocation.

-Hammy