The issue lies with the 'ray of light' term, that is, I can accept for the moment the assumption that light is measured at speed c by all observers.

In this instance

If a ray of light be sent along the embankment, we see from the above that the tip of the ray will be transmitted with the velocity c relative to the embankment

This is all well and good.

w is the required velocity of light with respect to the carriage, and we have
w = c-v.

There are no laws of nature broken here. All measurements are taking place in the embankment frame of reference. What Einstein is referring to is the 'closing speed' that is, the calculated difference between the speed of light of the carriage and that of the ray of light.

Then he goes on to say:

But this result comes into conflict with the principle of relativity set forth in Section V. For, like every other general law of nature, the law of the transmission of light in vacuo [in vacuum] must, according to the principle of relativity, be the same for the railway carriage as reference-body as when the rails are the body of reference

What exactly comes into conflict with the principle of relativity? Subtraction? Remember that the speed of light is never observed from the carriage as being less than c.

Whenever the example is given that two beams of light are travelling relative to each other at more than the speed of light, this is always explained away as being 'closing speed'.

I agree with you. "One thing to note is that terrorism is largely born of failure". In a sense, all violence is born of failure, it's not hard to understand the motivation once you understand the frustration and how it can lead to a justification. I am willing to bet that any terrorist would prefer that their demands are met than to carry out their terrorist act. While this may seem like blackmail, what I mean is that it's not a comfortable situation for the perpetrator not the victim.

See this article: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-causes-of-terrorism-3209053 I would add, that terrorist is an act of violent protest. Perhaps the reverse is also true.

We have fulfilled the dreams of our futurists and the nightmares of our prophets.

How well each person does in life is a personal thing, we may travel further and meet more people, but we have never fulfilled the dreams of the founders of any great world religion. If we did we would have progressed.

It's an oversimplification to say that there have not been bubbles of progress here and there for certain times, certain communities but these seem to burst. Progress cannot be averaged, but if it were, technological progress yes, spiritual progress: no.

To me, free will something we feel we have. Whether we actually are determining the course of a nonexistent future or discovering the scenery on a set of railroad tracks to the future depends on how the universe has been constructed. I believe that God created the universe and has set us all on His train to the future, everything preplanned, pre-known. That does not change how I feel except to know that there are things beyond by control, like the fact that I learned to write in English.

There's a chart of terrorist acts here:

Are terrorists insane? If they are not, then maybe one should reduce the motivating factors, is there a terrorism triangle similar to the 'fraud triangle'? In fact the fraud triangle is a good analog.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_deterrence#/media/File:Fraud_Triangle.png

If the world has progressed, then what it has progressed to is hopefully not the end point, I hope the present state of the world is not the pinnacle of human progress.

Countries with the highest technological and social development - refer the typical 'best countries to live in' have seemed to have taken a step backwards in some respects. Developing nations wonder if they will suffer the same fate if and when they 'develop'.

Yes, indeed, and in the context of criminal law some of those degrees of responsibility are codified as levels of mens rea. — Pierre-Normand

The link you mentioned has this interesting idea ""the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty". I am not sure how it impacts the free will / determinism argument.

OK, so like a tree growing leaves and branches to where there was nothing before. Is the Dao then all knowing or timeless, or outside of time?

Daoism does embrace creative evolution (the evolving intelligence that permeates the universe). In this c respect, it is similar to the philosophy of Heraclitus (the evolving Lagos), and most recently the Creative Evolution of Henri Bergson. — Rich

So the question is, is this predetermined (according to Daoism?)

If was not familiar with the philosophy community, however I was really happy to listen in on this discussion. To answer deep philosophical questions on a radio discussion, and to give instant replies is not an easy task I would think. The discussion covered many aspects of the debate, seems like they talked about everything.

For some reason, the spoken word is much easier to understand that the written word, for me at least.

Here is another video which is quite thought provoking to say the least "you don't determine your thoughts'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fecQUZ-ehKQ

BBC discussion covers a lot of ground:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z5y9z

The cause and effect chain had been entirely laid out by an immutable non-evolving force.

With the non-deterministic view, everything is real. Intelligence is real. It was there at the beginning (the Daoist view), we are really making choices, and we are really learning and creating. This is the actual experience of every day life. — Rich

I am not sure if there is a distinction between the future being 'laid out' and unknowable to us human beings, and a future that is not already pre-determined. Is it an academic (or is this what is meant by ontological) difference?

I am also puzzled by the statement that 'free will is an illusion' - if it is, it is an illusion which can never be found to be an illusion or not, and something we will never know. Also our world would not look any different. It is different from a magician's illusion where we can say that the magician makes it look like
he is levitating, for example, but we find that in reality he is being supported by an invisible support.

I have lately come to believe that there is some relationship between the Western and Eastern religions, for example Christianity and Taoism in that the Christian doctrine teaches of a more personal, 'human - like ' deity although I would think Christian theologians would be the first to admit that God's actual nature transcends all understanding and imagination, perhaps like the concept of Dao?

An essential characteristic that governs the Dao is spontaneity (ziran), the what-is-so-of-itself, the self-so, the unconditioned. The Dao, in turn, governs the cosmos: “The ways of heaven are conditioned by those of the Dao, and the ways of Dao by the Self-so.”

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daoism

Are these the possible chains of causation we are discussing? Just to clarify.

a) (Beginning?) Unknowable quantum event > Unknowable quantum event > (End?)

b) (Beginning?) First Cause > Resultant Causes > Resultant Causes > Resultant Causes > End

Note: all events are not knowable.

c) God as first cause > > Resultant Causes > Resultant Causes > Resultant Causes > End

All events, causes known by God 'in advance' and in retrospect therefore God knows in advance everything that will happen, and this has to be limited to one set of events, which in turn means it is deterministic.(Theistic Determinism?)

I view humans as intelligence. This intelligence makes choices. It is responsible for its choices despite the issue that outcomes are always unknown until they manifest. But there is an intelligence making choices (this is more or less the Bergson model). — Rich

OK, say I agree to this:

Now, compare this to the deterministic model. There is no choice, it is an illusion. There is no responsibility, it is an illusion. There is not even a being, since that must also be an illusion. (Let us put aside for the moment the Miracle that out of nowhere created all these illusions, a Miracle that puts all if Genesis to shame). — Rich

I see what you mean. It is not out of the question for robots to assign responsibilities to themselves. However, assuming the situation where I exist as a being, and acknowledge I have responsibilities as a free agent, as a soul or something that cannot be determined in material terms alone, then it will be difficult to say that clockwork robots can have the same properties. There are some unstated assumptions involved I think. But no matter, I get the model.

Precisely what would be taking responsibility for anything in a deterministic world? The inanimate quanta? In other words, how does the concept of responsibility arise? If we play the deterministic game, we play it to the hillt. Nothing means anything anymore and every concept magically arises out of quanta. — Rich

I find this line of reasoning somewhat puzzling. I sometimes use the device of thought experiment in the form of 'if there were an universe where.." to sufficiently remove me from any uncomfortable conclusions relating to the world we live in, and to make it easier to conceptualize.

If there were an universe which was inhabited by completely deterministic beings, either biologically or mechanically, ie robots, would they not have a word for responsibility? Could such a society survive without the same sort of communal ethics or groupthink morality that some earthly societies had? Responsibility can be seen as one assuming oneself to be the first cause of something. Why cannot this be assumed?

Indeed. These are importance questions. I sense however, a great deal of intellectual nervousness about discussing the topic of determinism without any reference to moral responsibility. The 20th century has its share of intellectual disasters, I would imagine or "Frankensteins Monsters" of thought, where a particular school of thought led to wars and worse. For example Darwin's book was entitled "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." It could be argued that this idea fostered imperialism.

I don't see why each of the theories of morality is incompatible with determinism, except the maybe (4) and (5)

http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/gender/MoralTheories.html

"Free will is ontological freedom in conjunction with will phenomena."

I am not sure I understand this concept.

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. — Wikipedia

One can be both a physicalist and a free will advocate, as I am. How? Simply by not buying the view that physical things are wholly deterministic, not buying the view that physical things operate in that "clockwork" way through and through. On this view, we are machines, so to speak, but machines are not completely deterministic. — Terrapin Station

One can be a physicalist and a free will advocate? OK. Not subscribing to the view that physical things operate as "clockwork". Well you may not subscribe to that view, but isn't' science based totally on that view? Quantum mechanics may be the exception, is this your "way out"?

What is the theory behind machines that are not totally deterministic? Is the decay of an radioactive substance random?

"Radioactive decay is a stochastic (i.e. random) process at the level of single atoms, in that, according to quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay..."

I just watched both videos and they are quite good — Pierre-Normand

I'm glad we agree on this. Of course there are the simplifications and errors that you pointed out, however for my purposes it served me quite well.

The initial question was why does determinism rule out free will. From what I understand from the videos, determinism holds the view that we live in a clockwork universe where events follow a set course. The idea of free will is that we are not machines, and we are 'something else' agents or whatever, not reducible to mechanical or biological machines. This other thing, the mind or the soul or whatever it may be cannot be defined in physical terms, it is assumed, so is not part of the deterministic process.

The video also emphasizes the fact the we feel we have free will, which plays an important part in this debate. I am a little puzzled by the fear that a belief in determinism will lead people to stop taking responsibility for their actions.

There is what seems to be an excellent explanation on the Free will determinism debate here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI

I understand the concepts much better now - much clearer. The next video on Compatibilism was also very helpful.

Let's see a definition of free will and how it relates to determinism:

Free-will: The free-will doctrine, opposed to determinism, ascribes to the human will freedom in one or more of the following senses:

(a)The freedom of indeterminacy is the will's alleged independence of antecedent conditions, psychological and physiological. A free-will in this sense is at least partially uncaused or is not related in a uniform way with the agent's character, motives and circumstances.

(b)The freedom of alternative choice which consists in the supposed ability of the agent to choose among alternative possibilities of action and

(c)The freedom of self-determination consisting in decision independent of external constraint but in accordance with the inner motives and ideals of the agent.

http://www.ditext.com/runes/f.html

Just for reference, let me paste here my maze scenarios:

For those who say there is free will, I am not sure which of the following apply ( broadly, there are different definitions of free will).

1. The maze exists only in my field of view. What is beyond is non-existent
2. The maze exists within my field of view and outside. The maze changes its shape and its exit point depending on my choices
3. There is no God or other being who can view the maze journey from all or any point in time, and therefore know which path I would take, or finally took, or am going to take, assuming He is viewing something real. — FreeEmotion

You said

Re free will (aka libertarianism (with respect to will)), your (2) is closest.

Re your (3), one can believe that God exists (I personally do not--I'm an atheist, but one can believe God exists). And many people see free will as compatible with God's omniscience because they see knowledge as only being about what actually obtains, including natural laws, if one believes they obtain, and this gives God some predictive powers. But free will isn't part of natural law in this view, and God can't know what you'll decide prior to you deciding it. That's not the only approach to this issue in the context of religious belief, obviously, but it is one popular approach. — Terrapin Station

There is nothing to say that a person cannot freely choose a predetermined path. Even in the case of a biological machine-brain, there is nothing to say that a person cannot choose exactly what his brain has been programmed to choose. In this case I would say that free will is compatible with determinism. I call this concurrent free will or coincident free will. Admittedly unlikely but possible.

Website on free will with links.

I think I see what you are getting at. Let's compare life to a maze. To me, I am walking through the maze, constrained by the walls, at the same time making limited choices whether to stop or go on. The exit point is pre-determined, lets' say I have some control over how long I take to get there.

This, to me is determinism + free choice. Compatibilist. This may be an imperfect example, but let's use it for now.

Now, for the determinist, I make no choices, its all pre-programmed as if I am a robot.

For those who say there is free will, I am not sure which of the following apply ( broadly, there are different definitions of free will).

1. The maze exists only in my field of view. What is beyond is non-existent
2. The maze exists within my field of view and outside. The maze changes its shape and its exit point depending on my choices
3. There is no God or other being who can view the maze journey from all or any point in time, and therefore know which path I would take, or finally took, or am going to take, assuming He is viewing something real.

Have I missed anything?

I believe there is a concrete example given above, the example with the two doors - in that case, what would the 'real possibilities' be? Is that a good example to use?

There has to really be more than one option. — Terrapin Station

So what would these options be and what would this look like?

On my view, if determinism is true, whatever the agent does in both scenarios, whether they deliberate or just go right ahead and try opening one door or the other, it had to happen exactly the way it did, and the agent didn't really have any choice in it. — Terrapin Station

I am not sure what is meant by "choice" here - does the act of choosing mean the mental act of thinking and weighting options? If that is what it means, then then occurs in either case.
Merriam- Webster:

1 :  the act of choosing :  selection finding it hard to make a choice
2 :  power of choosing :  option you have no choice

So the question is in a non-box universe, and a non- mechanical universe, where the future is non existent, does a person act as a result of a result of several interacting mechanical processes ie atoms and electrical currents in the brain, or do they act out of a result of something else, the mind, the soul, something supernatural that cannot be caused or analyzed? Is that the question? (2) seems to imply that.

Interesting test of lecture by Stephen Hawking:

http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

I am beginning to see the light here while reading the Wikipedia article on Free Will.

Different things are meant by free will and even by determinism, so it remains to me to pick which meanings of free will are incompatible with which versions of determinism,

Many times the debate is chaotic and circular due to the lack of hard definitions of free will, I think.

You could try to imagine such a situation but it is your consciousness that is doing so. One cannot disentangle consciousness from any discussion or exploration-either philosophically or scientifically. A thought experiment is an experiment of the mind (consciousness). — Rich

I understand your point perfectly. I can work within such a view, though I it's a tricky area to explore, does anything happen outside my consciousness, it does, but imagining it brings it in.

For me, there is no such thing as free will. What is possible (and this is reflected in everyday life) is to make a directed (willful) choice in a particular direction. Outcome is never certain (though probabilistic) and is completely unknown until it unfolds in psychological time (the time of life). We try and we then observe what happened in memory. — Rich

I broadly agree, except for the fact that I do think I have a free will, as a passenger to this roller coaster ride.

But I think I need to get to the definition of free will itself:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/free+will

free will
n
1. (Philosophy)
a. the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined
b. the doctrine that such human freedom of choice is not illusory. Compare determinism1
c. (as modifier): a free-will decision.
2. the ability to make a choice without coercion: he left of his own free will: I did not influence him.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

I personally find the definitions here problematic and even disturbing. I think that is what brought me to the forum in the first place.

a. the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined

It's 'apparent' - illusory? Externally determined? External to what? The mind? real slippery slope here.

b. the doctrine that such human freedom of choice is not illusory. Compare determinism1

Not illusory? What would it look like if it was real? Free will is known to us by our senses - our mind, emotion, feelings. But this goes outside the human mind as it were. It relates to the nature of the universe.

If I pick up a glass of water - there I just physically did that, I am sure we all agree that there are thoughts and feelings and mental processes accompanying that event, even preceding it.

That is what I call free will.

But that is not what we are talking about here, it is like the question - do parallel universes exist at the point of each possible action?

What I meant was that there it was not necessary to imagine a universe devoid of humans but we could do with imagining (hypothizing?) a part of the universe outside the scope of human influence.

What ever is outside of observation is simply unknown an inaccessible.

I am not sure that that is this is one of the assumptions this discussion is based on. However, assuming that the observer is an active participant, and considering the world humans inhabit, I am still puzzled as to what the difference would be if we were in a world where events are determined by some giant clockwork machine.

Lets take a clockwork machine - Big Ben for example. Suppose I am a cogwheel in the clock. Suppose I want to turn at so many revolutions per hour, and I feel I am doing this of my own free will. Suppose then I decide to stop turning, and I do. At the same time, however, the clock has jammed and my intention to stop turning coincides exactly with events.

I believe this is something akin to what happens - our feeling of free will accompanies our actions. For example I may believe I have the free will to walk on water. What happens after the first step is not relevant.

Has anyone suggested this line of reasoning? I get the feeling that free will means different things to different people - could possibly free will be confused with omnipotence? If not why?

Paper : http://www.academia.edu/4309985/Epicurus_refutation_of_determinism

I understand the idea of quantum mechanics "God playing dice with the universe". The statement by Einstein has had many interpretations, I am sure, but mine is that God (let's assume one exists, or let's assume an universe in which God exists) .. God cannot be ignorant of the outcome of any event. It's not like playing dice where we have to play the dice and then read the dots. Somehow I would think that the existence of a God would imply determinism since there is only one fore-known (by God) sequence of events that takes place, will have taken place in that universe.

Also, there is no need to imagine a universe without humans - take a location far away from the earth, even beyond the distance light could travel from the times humans appeared - isn't this area purely mechanical in its operation? Yes, but I then rule out quantum mechanics. Fair enough.

Let me rephrase the switch question:

How will a purely deterministic universe be different from a non-deterministic one? Surely this is a simple enough question? My answer is that it would not look any different.

Is the past determined?

Thanks for all the replies - five pages of replies or more since I asked the question!

I have briefly run through the answers. It's difficult to deal directly with the question, so let me give an example.

In an universe without any human beings or any living things, all events can be said to be strictly deterministic, is this not correct? It appears that the principle objection to determinism is that it affects human responsibility and morality. But in an inanimate universe or part of the universe which has no humans or life in it, would be totally deterministic.

Can robots be programmed to develop morality and laws? Of course they can. This does not mean that we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility, on the contrary, if a robot steps out of line all the other deterministically programmed robots will take corrective action, and the offending robot will have to take into consideration the cost of doing 'wrong'. As an academic concept, there should be no fear in discussing the issue. So it is with us.

So the arrival of human beings in the universe suddenly changed the universe from a deterministic to a non-deterministic one? I am not sure that makes sense. That is my problem.

If there were a switch to turn the universe from deterministic mode to non-deterministic mode in an instant, would turning the switch make any difference? Would we feel any different?