Everything around us seems to follow the laws of nature and that implies the past determines the present. Why should we be an exception? — TheMadFool
The onus, it seems to me, of proving anything to the contrary lies with freewill enthusiasts. — TheMadFool
Why are we special? That's what needs to be proven. — TheMadFool
One interesting thing that I'd like your opinion on is our ability to imagine alternatives.
We get into a situation and we, rather instinctively, come up with options. We make a graded list of alternatives. People could construe this as frewill at play. — TheMadFool
By his very belief in universal determinism, the determinist, if he is consistent, cannot interpret his opponent's sentence " I possess free will" to be an actual claim to possess an objective property. This is because if universal determinism is true then the only objective meaning the determinist can ascribe in his opponent's sentences are the physical causes that precipitated them. — sime
Yes, there is only matter and the laws of physics. Your "animals" and "design" are not real. — Inis
You keep using this term, "matter". I don't know what that is. — Harry Hindu
Isn't this just Eccles's argument? If you are a determinist, then there really is no such thing as an argument that satisfies a rational agent, there are only atoms bouncing off each other. If you believe that arguments, proofs, reason, and rational agents exist, then how can you be a determinist? — Inis
Let's look at Eccle's argument. If the world is deterministic then what we believe isn't within our control. The argument assumes that rationality is not possible in a deterministic world. But we have computers - perfect rational machines - and they don't have free will. — TheMadFool
The statement that one believes a given proposition on such and such rational grounds, and the statement that one believes it because such and such processes are occurring in one's brain can, both of them, be true. The word 'because' is used in a different sense in either case, but these senses are not destructive of each other... This is illustrated even by the example of a calculating machine. The way the machine operates depends on the way in which it has been constructed, but it is also true that it operates in accordance with certain logical rules. From the fact that its operations are causally explicable it does not follow that they are not logically valid. — A. J. Ayer
If the physical world is causally closed, then truth, logic, reason, and other abstract things cannot have an effect on it. — SophistiCat
Being rational doesn't mean we have freewill. Does it? We can program computers to be rational. In fact that's all they can be. — TheMadFool
If logic, reason, etc. are physical things, then they're part of the causal closure in that case, and could indeed have an effect. — Terrapin Station
Right, that would be the identity thesis: — SophistiCat
Computers are neither rational nor irrational; they neither follow reasoned arguments nor fail to follow them, they merely execute instructions.Being rational doesn't mean we have freewill. Does it? We can program computers to be rational. In fact that's all they can be. — TheMadFool
Computers are neither rational nor irrational; they neither follow reasoned arguments nor fail to follow them, they merely execute instructions. — Herg
The conept of rationality simply does not apply to computers. Rationality requires understanding, and computers don't understand, they merely obey. — Herg
But although I disagree with your argument, I agree with your conclusion: being rational does not mean we have free will. Being rational is a matter of understanding the logical connections between ideas; free will (which personally I do not believe exists) is not a matter of understanding, but of being able to influence events. — Herg
If you claim that rational processes exist, that reason is a feature of reality, that reason is causal, then have you not already stepped out of material determinism? — Inis
Note however that this argument only shows that causal determination does not preclude rationality. The argument that determinism is self-defeating usually makes a weaker claim: that there is no necessary connection between physical causality, which produces what we take to be beliefs and other mental states, and the attributes of truth, logic, reason, etc. that we would like to claim for our beliefs. If the physical world is causally closed, then truth, logic, reason, and other abstract things cannot have an effect on it. And if so, then any correlation between the two realms is either fortuitous or due to some inexplicable preexisting harmony. So the argument goes... — SophistiCat
But isn't that assuming dualism of some kind? Reason has causal import but reason isn't an immaterial thing as of necessity. Right? — TheMadFool
This sounds somewhat like Popper's argument that says that physicalist (let's call it that to avoid confusion) ontology is too impoverished. But a physicalist need not limit herself to just the "objective" language of physical causes. At least I haven't yet seen a persuasive argument to that effect. — SophistiCat
It seems that we are still in the same predicament. Matter is made of something that we don't know what it is. We could say the same thing about ideas. Are ideas made of energy? — Harry Hindu
We explain how matter behaves as a result of what it is made of - tiny particles called atoms.We don't need to know what matter is made from, all we need to know is how it behaves, how it interacts, and why. — Inis
We do? What are ideas made of? If you don't know, then how can you say that you know they're not made of energy? and how do they establish causal relationships with matter?We also know, ideas aren't made of energy — Inis
We explain how matter behaves as a result of what it is made of - tiny particles called atoms. — Harry Hindu
We do? What are ideas made of? If you don't know, then how can you say that you know they're not made of energy? and how do they establish causal relationships with matter? — Harry Hindu
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