Isn't it obvious that, even from our own point of view, our choices are deterministic?

You choose based on your preferences, how you feel, and on the set of alternatives.

If your feelings are subconscious, and you don't know their reasons,you're still going by an assessment of the situation..

Sometimes you make some sort of intuitive, rough "game-theory" (in quotes because it usually isn't explicit, mathematical, or even conscious) assessment of a situation. Whether that game-theory assessment is intuitive or mathematical doesn't matter. You're still acting based on your predisposition, feeling, and assessment of the situation.

Even from your own point-of view, your choices are deterministic.

Compatibility? Does it make any sense to quibble about whether deterministic responses, resulting from external situations, and our predispositions, are free-will? I'd call it a meaningless question, but if a Y/N answer is needed, isn't "No" the one that seems more reasonable?

Michael Ossipoff — Michael Ossipoff

Then your post itself is like a rock falling to the ground under the pull of gravity.

What I a writing right now is an effect of antecedent causes and was going to happen no matter what.

It makes it all meaningless, including your own words.

Yet, you expect your own words to be treated as something more than a rock falling to the ground under the pull of gravity.

Not consistent.

I doubt that the earliest scientists intended for their practice to be used to subjugate and/or dominate people and nature in the name of "progress".

I doubt that the founders of any religion intended for their tradition to be used turn people into pawns in political chess matches. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

What happens is that particular economic interests pick and choose and the promote ideas (religious, philosophical, fabricated scientific) that further their interests. Well known philosophers are not well known because their ideas were particularly fantastic. They are well known because they could be used to promote certain interests. Science and particularly medical science promotes the idea that we are slaves of some supernatural forces which only science has particular insights and control over. It is all a fabrication other than straightforward chemistry (not biology) and physics.

Your & my posts like rocks falling? You catch on fast, Wisdom!

I used Roomba analogy, but mousetrap or thermostat will do.

But no, what you write isn't inevitable "no matter what". It depends on your extrnal circumstances. (...in addition to your predispositions).

For you that makes life meaningless? Then enjoy your angst!

Fine. Don't take anyone's words seriously. ... because they're said for a reason? :)

You'd need to be a lot more specific about what you think is inconsistent.

Michael Ossipoff

Mr. Wisdom:

Human utterances have something in common with falling rocks: Both result from physical causes.

(... though you're primary in the physical system that is your life experience possibility story.)

But I didn't like us to falling rocks. I likenened us to such purposefully responsive devices as Roombas, mousetraps, & thermostats.

Michael Ossipoff

"YOU" are making choices. Those choices are based on your learning and experience, and are therefore determined by them. You cannot be free of yourself, there is no freely made choice in the terms outside the determinism of reality.

On course I am making choices, all of the time. I can choose vanilla or chocolate ice cream, or which side of the sidewalk to walk on, , or which piano piece I play. I can't believe that people have been so indoctrinated by a mechanistic school system that they go through life denying all of the choices they make. You decided to write a message and what to write, not some mysterious supernatural force that posseses you. Embrace your creative capabilities. It is always your choice.

The mysterious supernatural force is the one by which you believe that you act independently of your predispositions and surroundings.

Michael Ossipoff

If your choice is free it is worthless. Unless it is determined by your present condition; your motivation; your education; your experience, none of these things are of any worth to us. If we choose freely in spite of all these things then why learn at all?

of course I use experience while navigating through life and then I make choices. Every time I paint I make tons of choices which of course are affected by experience and constrained by the size of my canvas and the paints I use.

Michael, I am not sure what mysteriously force is compelling you to write but can you have can heart to heart with it and tell it that there is no reason to.

In any case you can hardly fault me for very taking my position, now can you? I have been possessed by the Great Natural Laws of Nature.

No matter, whether God exists or plain naturalism is true, the term "free will" is rather inconsistent. Either my volitions are thoroughly connected to other events in reality or I am at least partly a random generator. Is something that is just stochastic really "free"? Confer my essay "Believing veraciously" at "Internet Archive".

There is nothing random nor determined in our lives. It is probabilistic.

We have memories (including habits) that affect our choices and there are other constraints and forces that affect our choices, but ultimately we make choices and observe what happens. We make constrained movements, our choices, via will. Up, down, left, right, inward, outward. These choices are the creative aspects of our lives and we are continuously exploring and learning from these choices. This is the essence of life.

So then you talk to your disembodied, distributed, Sheldrake morphogenic, holographic, quantum Mind-repository.

Does it tell you what to say?

I guess it won't become a dangerous problem until it starts telling you what to do.

In any case you can hardly fault me for very taking my position, now can you? — Rich

No, there are all sorts of philosophical positions here. Some are sillier than others. I wouldn't criticize you for having silly beliefs.

But, just as a suggestion, the sillier your beliefs, the more advisable it would be for you to learn to disagree politely.

I have been possessed by the Great Natural Laws of Nature.

I don't criticize you. I only criticize your predispositions :)

Oh wait--Behaviorally, your predispositions are you.

Michael Ossiipoff

So then you talk to your disembodied, distributed, Sheldrake morphogenic, holographic, quantum Mind-repository. — Michael Ossipoff

The mind creates the body. It is one and the same.

I don't criticize you. I only criticize your predispositions — Michael Ossipoff

Please take up all of your criticisms with the Natural Laws (God) that is determining everything.

There is nothing random nor determined in our lives. It is probabilistic. — Rich

Probability is the result of an interaction of "chance and necessity". Let's take a normal dice. The regular cubical shape with the six faces determines that the result of a throw will be a number of pips between one and six. The probability for each number should be one sixth. The boundaries of the situation exclude zero or numbers greater than six. Past experiences, a person's character, his/her karma, God's predestination, etc. etc. might form an influencing framework for a decision. But if nothing determines the result within certain boundaries the remaining rest is pure fortuity. This is what I meant, when I said that volitions either depend on something or are at least partly stochastic.

Probability is the result of an interaction of "chance and necessity". — Johannes Weg

In terms of life as we experience it, probability is a result of habitual behavior (which is approximately repetitive) and an impulse (novelty) from the creative mind acted on by will.

In terms of life as we experience it, probability is a result of habitual behavior (which is approximately repetitive) and an impulse (novelty) from the creative mind acted on by will. — Rich

What is the difference between a creative mind's will and a random generator, if its decisions within certain boundaries do not depend on anything?

Do you feel that you are acting randomly in life? Random presupposes no influences. This probably doesn't exist in the universe we live in. Quanta behaves probabilistically, not randomly.

The mind learns (doesn't leave a hand in a fire) but then creates novelty or new solutions (putting a marshmallow on a stick). If one studies a child, one might notice how the baby learns and develops creative solutions to problems that are being encountered. Everyone is different but at the same time everyone is creating and learning.

Should we consider an advanced robot in future as "FREE", if it simulates reasoning by implemented logic, compassion by special fuzzy logic units and "free decisions" by an implemented random generator? (Let's suppose that such a robot would have been designed in way that it behaves in a way similar to humans. So the randomness would be limited to situations and to boundaries that all in all its behavior looks somehow human.)

Do you feel that you are acting randomly in life? — Rich

I had to think a lot about wrong decisions in my life hitherto. Retrospectively I came to the conclusion that it was "a mixture of chance and necessity" that formed my way. I consider myself as a part of a mysterious reality somehow in the sense of Buddhist "sunyata" (although I am definitely not a Buddhist).

Should we consider an advanced robot in future as "FREE" — Johannes Weg

Robots follow specific instructions created by a mind(s). Robots are as much alive as possible a nucleus throwing off quanta energy. There is novelty, but then we have to discuss the qualitative difference. It is actually quite thin and turns on the question of the differences between life and matter.

Quanta behaves probabilistically, not randomly. — Rich

As proofed by quantum cryptography, quantum effects deliver the "highest quality of randomness" technically available nowadays (cf. Nature, 540, 213–219 (08 December 2016) doi:10.1038/nature20119) Randomness always occurs within given circumstances and boundaries. Our concept of probability is based upon inductive inferences, which ist according to Hume rather a guessing based on prejudices. (In my Essay "Believing veraciously" at "Internet Archive" I discuss all the empistemological problems associated with induction and came to the conclusion that even science is inevitably based on beliefs.)

I had to think a lot about wrong decisions in my life hitherto. — Johannes Weg

Wrong decisions, right decisions. Who knows? It is the Daoist story of the Farmer and his Son. Everything is in flux. Bad today good tomorrow.

highest quality of randomness — Johannes Weg

Providing the highest quality does not mean random. If indeed it was random, one can toss Schrodinger's equation out the window. All technology depends upon probabilistic behavior. A question one may ask oneself is why, given that quantum theory is entirely developed on probabilistic behavior, is one insisting on randomness? Is it coming from experience? Does life or the universe appear to be random? What is the impetus of such an idea? Something learned in school or from a book?

I discuss all the empistemological problems associated with induction and came to the conclusion that even science is inevitably based on beliefs. — Johannes Weg

Yes, I agree. Science is constantly changing and it too is in flux.