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Oh no not another free will thread.
#41
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
There are interpretations of quantum mechanics that are totally deterministic, like MWI and that ad hoc Bohmian interpretation. I personally subscribe to the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation), and if true, this means that my actions have no control whatsoever in shaping the world I'm. Things just are, and you can't control shit. Logically and mathematically, MWI makes the most sense out of QM, but I always hope it isn't true, and continue living as if it's not.
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#42
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:35 pm)SaStrike Wrote: How would this question be answered?

The question there was rhetorical. If the universe is in exactly one state then all the causes are the same so you will do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons. To change the outcome you have to change the causal universe. This is all assuming determinism is true, remember. That's why we're talking about a being knowing the future, because it's another way of thinking about the same sort of thing.

As for indeterminism, then the answer is even simpler. If it's not determined... you didn't determine it.

(April 22, 2018 at 9:39 pm)Lutrinae Wrote:
(April 22, 2018 at 9:35 pm)The Industrial Atheist Wrote: I think I get what Lut is saying. The concept that you chose what you wanted to, but it's also what's predicted. The god or whatever may know what you would do, but it didn't make you do anything. But maybe Khem and Hammy are seeing this purely through what the possible outcomes are.

Sort of.  An impediment to free will, the freedom to choose, means that there is no choice whatsoever.  There is always a choice, however, for there is no instance in any moment of our daily lives where we don't have the option to choose what we are going to do or say or act or behave or wear or drink or eat.  A being knowing what we will do in no way cancels out free will.  Rather, it probably reinforces it.

You do get the concept that a choice requires more than one possible outcome though, right? If the only thing that you can possibly do is X... what kind of choice is that?

If a being knows with absolute certainty that you will do X... how could you do Y?

(April 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm)Lutrinae Wrote:
(April 22, 2018 at 9:42 pm)Hammy Wrote: He doesn't have to make you do anything though. It just means that because he knows you will do it, you will do it.

Which alone does not cancel out free will.

If there are no alternative outcomes and you have no alternative options, where's the free will? A choice between A and B is a choice. A choice between A, B and C is a choice. A choice between A and A is not a choice.
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#43
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm)Hammy Wrote: You do get the concept that a choice requires more than one possible outcome though, right? If the only thing that you can possibly do is X... what kind of choice is that?

If a being knows with absolute certainty that you will do X... how could you do Y?

Here's where I think your logic fails.

Being knows I will choose X over Y.
What precisely is preventing me from choosing Y over X?
Anything?
No, nothing.

A being's knowledge is not certainty. It's merely a reflection of what could be.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#44
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
The way I've seen this view, and understood this way it makes sense to me, if you had all the possible relevant details you could predict anything. Say we could analyze the chemicals in Kits brain to know what mood he would wake up in, and how that affects what color shirt he chooses, or whatever else makes Lut choose a color shirt.

Or say we were analyzing a sports game, which can be notoriously difficult to predict. If we understood all the players tendancies, how conifident they are, what physical shape they are in, just all the relevant details, we could predict the outcome with high, or perhaps, absolute accuracy.
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#45
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm)Grandizer Wrote: There are interpretations of quantum mechanics that are totally deterministic, like MWI and that ad hoc Bohmian interpretation. I personally subscribe to the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation), and if true, this means that my actions have no control whatsoever in shaping the world I'm. Things just are, and you can't control shit. Logically and mathematically, MWI makes the most sense out of QM, but I always hope it isn't true, and continue living as if it's not.

IMO even the most indeterminisic interpretations just means that that interpretation sees the quantum world as even more unpredictable.

I can't think of any interpretation that would suggest the universe wasn't philosophically deterministic. Philosophical determinism just says that ultimately there is a cause to everything, even if we're unable to find those causes. It seems more parsimonious and makes more sense to me to say that we can no longer find any more causes, once things get very very complex on the quantum level, than to say that suddenly there's no more causes or that the whole world is ultimately acausal.
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#46
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:15 pm)Lutrinae Wrote:
(April 22, 2018 at 9:10 pm)Khemikal Wrote: @Lut
To paraphrase a wise man (E. Scrooge), are these things that will be, or things that can be, maybe?  

The former rules out classical free will.  The latter, maybe not..and it;s usually the grist for the mill on stories about people who change their destiny (so to speak).  There's a subtle difference in precognition in mythological stories between characters and traditions.  We have cassandra, for example..cursed to see a future that will be but that no one will believe.  Countless seers and sorcerors that see things that can be, maybe. 

Omni god belongs to the first category. Not some rando seer who divines potential futures from pig entrails....but a being that knows the actual future. You do what it knows you will, every time. You can do no other, or it never knew to begin with.

Knowing the actual future still does not eradicate free will.

Just because the being knows that you will choose the blue shirt over the green shirt does not mean there still wasn't a choice and that you still did not have the free will to choose between the two colored shirts.

A true absence of free will is an absence of choice. The being did not alter the future in any way to make you choose one colored shirt over another; rather, the being simply knew which colored shirt you would choose.

Lol, THANK YOU!!

I've tried to explain this so many times on here.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#47
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
I heard an analogy a little while ago, just to add something to think about in the conversation.

A voting machine is rigged, so that no matter who is voted for, the machine will record Trump. A person goes into the booth, and votes for Trump. Now there was no possible way, that they could have voted otherwise (remember the machine is rigged). Did the persons inability to vote otherwise, effect their free will choice to choose Trump?
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man.  - Alexander Vilenkin
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire.  - Martin Luther
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#48
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:49 pm)The Industrial Atheist Wrote: The way I've seen this view, and understood this way it makes sense to me, if you had all the possible relevant details you could predict anything. Say we could analyze the chemicals in Kits brain to know what mood he would wake up in, and how that affects what color shirt he chooses, or whatever else makes Lut choose a color shirt.

This is the kind of thinking that makes me think determinism is more parsimonious and makes more sense than randomness. I believe all forms of randomness, even quantum randomness, is ultimately pseudo-randomness. Eventually things get so complex scientists become unable to predict them with accuracy, I don't think that means the causes are no longer there, they're just too complex and strange to figure out. After all, we haven't evolved with the senses to understand and appreciate things on a quantum level... and of course, every tool we use, including microscopes, telescopes, equations, mathematics... they're ultimately all tools that require our senses. Even thought comes in the form of our senses: We think in pictures, sounds, words, etc. Even thought appears to be mirroring our senses. We live through our senses. Even with ourselves, we see ourselves, feel ourselves. Literally all of our experience... comes down to our experience! I mean duh! Lol.

I think eventually things become too alien for us to figure out causes in the world, I don't think that means those causes don't exist.
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#49
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
(April 22, 2018 at 9:49 pm)Lutrinae Wrote: A being's knowledge is not certainty.  It's merely a reflection of what could be.

There it is.  You consider the specific knowledge to be what could be, not what is or what will be. The knowledge being invoked by the omni god (and by the knowable future conjecture) is knowledge of what is, what will be...not what could be.
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#50
RE: Oh no not another free will thread.
Catholic_Lady, I think you would be wrong if you tried to explain that because it attacks the conclusion of the following argument and not the premise.

1. To choose freely, there has to be more then one possible outcome to choose from.
2. If future is known, only the known future is the possible outcome.

Therefore if future is known, to choose freely is impossible.

What Luntrinae did was attack the conclusion. And just deny it.

You can't do that to an argument. You have to attack the reasons.
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