eh? can you please be specific?

(probably shouldn't say "literally never", i did used to be a hard determinist. i haven't said anything like that in this thread.)

I have literally never said anything like that at all.

I'm saying people experience their choices as being related to the state of themselves, as opposed to unrelated. The ice cream they choose isn't random, people generally don't choose flavours they know they hate (because "i know i hate that flavour" is part of the state of themselves), and they slightly more frequently choose flavours they like a little (because "i know i like this a little" is part of the state of themselves) and the way more frequently choose flavours they like a lot (because "i know i like this a lot" is part of the state of themselves), and some people are more daring than others so more willing to take a risk on a flavor they're unfamiliar with (because "i value trying new things" is part of the state of themselves)

In other words, it seems as though what *determines* why someone makes one choice instead of another is pre-existing states. And that's what determinism is about - determining the future based on facts that currently exist.

you experience your choice following from the state of you, including your desires and wants, which is part of the state of everything.

You don't experience your choice coming out of nowhere at all, random and unrelated to any pre existing facts about the world and facts about yourself

The possibility of multiple outcomes preceding a choice doesn't have to imply randomness, but the weighing of the options by the will - which is what we experience. — Tzeentch

Yeah, exactly, so in a choice there's no randomess, the choice follows naturally from the preceding state of everything (which of course includes the state of you), which is what you experience. No indeterminism required.

Determinism implies we never have a choice. Is that a better way of putting it? — Tzeentch

Not necessarily that either. You can still have choices, it's just that your choices follow from... well, follow from YOU, follow from the state of you. If you made a choice at t2, determinism just means that choice was necessarily going to follow from the state of your world, and the state of you, at t1. And that's what you want out of free will - you want the state of YOU to be the thing determining a choice. And if it's true that the state of you at t1 determined the choice at t2, then you "made a choice", and it doens't conflict with determinism.

As far as I know, the libertarian idea of free will doesn't imply that it would have to be. — Tzeentch

But for determinism to not be the case, something must be random. So when someone says "we can only have free will if detreminism isn't the case", they're saying "we can only have free will if there's randomness".

Of course, many people seem to disagree. Which is why the randomness / determinism dichotomy has to be the first thing we talk about if we want to get anywhere.

Determinism implies the outcome of our choice was already decided beforehand, agreed? — Tzeentch

"already decided beforehand"... mmm... kinda yes kinda no. Not "decided". Not "beforehand". Not necessarily. It just means that the outcome follows from the preceding conditions. It's not like Zeus is sitting up there in the heavens writing what he wants to happen, and then observing it happen, which is what "decided beforehand" feels like.

Is it not a fair assessment that the libertarian idea of free will corresponds with an almost universal human experience? — Tzeentch

Some certainly think so! But my decisions don't seem random.

Doesn't our experience of free will oppose itself to determinism? — Tzeentch

That's very debatable. My experience of my decision making process doesn't feel like it involves randomness, and I understand randomness to be the alternative to determinism. Our experience of free will certainly involves us not knowing what we're going to choose, but not knowing the future is not opposite to determinism.

"type of free will". Not all free will, just some types. That's why I used the word "type"

Does the thought experiment of the two Bobs provide a strong argument against free will — Tzeentch

I interpret it to be a strong argument against any type of free will which opposes itself to determinism. If you say "free will requires determinism to be false", to me that means "free will requires that Bob2 can actually sometimes behave differently from Bob1", but it doesn't seem that bob2s different behaviour can be explained by anything other than randomness.

Plato demonstrated in The Theaetetus, that "knowledge" as we know it cannot be described as JTB. This is because the possibility of falsity cannot be excluded, therefore we cannot hold truth as a criterion. In other words, the requirement of truth cannot be justified, therefore the idea that knowledge is JTB cannot itself be knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

I always thought the T in JTB was weird. I mean it makes sense, but then it makes Knowledge just as inaccessible as Truth itself. We only have access to justifications about our beliefs, there's no oracle who can tell us if that belief satisfies the T or not.

So we can only really appeal to our justifications when calling a certain belief "knowledge", we can't ever appeal to the raw T.

So are we just supposed to be agnostic about if any belief is knowledge? Because... well, of course if we think it's J then we think it's T, but we can't really distinguish between the beliefs we think are justified and are actually true vs the beliefs we think are justified but aren't true. I mean, if we could - if we could know, "I'm justified in this belief but it isn't really true", then we wouldn't believe it anymore.

It just feels like the J is doing all the work and the T is coming along for the ride.

To go into more detail on why the PSR can't hold if Bob 2 does something different from Bob 1:

First of all, I recognize that my take on the PSR that I'm about to give is not necessarily standard, and is potentially contrary to what the standard view is. I'll argue for it nonetheless.

Everything is the same about bob and his entire universe in both worlds before Bobs choice. And since everything is the same, all possible reasons are the same. So if Bob1 makes some choice, that means there's a sufficient reason why Bob 1 made that choice. And since everything is the same preceding the choice, then there must be a sufficient reason for Bob2 to make the same choice. And yet he doesn't?

And instead he does something else. Something that didn't happen to Bob1. And if it didn't happen to Bob1, that means the preceding state of the world wasn't such that there was a sufficient reason for that choice to happen. So Bob1 didn't have a sufficient reason to make that choice, and given that all facts are the same before the choice for Bob1 as Bob 2, that means it also doesn't have sufficient reason to happen in bob2s world. And yet it happens anyway?

So if Bob2 makes a different choice from Bob1, and you insist the Psr holds, we have an action that does have sufficient reason to happen and yet doesn't happen anyway, and an action that doesn't have sufficient reason to happen and yet does happen anyway.

Now you might retort, no, actually both actions have sufficient reason to happen in both universes. Action 1 and Action 2 were both given sufficient precedent in both universes, and so either one happening matches the PSR. To which I would reply, touche...

But then we'd still need a sufficient reason for the difference. What's the sufficient reason for why Bob2 did something different from Bob1? It looks to me like the only possible answer is "just cause". Bob1 had sufficient reason to do action1 or action2, and he did action1 "just cause". And Bob2 did action2 "just cause". Just cause they could. There's no reason why one did one and one did the other, other than they could. So why did they do something different? To explain a difference, you must appeal to a difference, and since there's no difference between bob1 and bob2 prior to the choice, there's no explanation, there's no sufficient reason.

I think so anyway. I could easily be wrong, I'm not infallible. That's just the way I see it.

I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to be unfair or silly with that.

I'm a programmer. In programming, a function can be deterministic or not. A deterministic function is one for which, for any given input, you'll always get the same output. So if you input w, and you get x as a response once, if it's deterministic then every time you input w you'll always get x. And if you input y, and you get z once, then every time you input y you'll get z.

And in contrast, an indeterministic function is simply a function where that isn't true - it's a function where, for at least some inputs, you'll get a different output. Maybe you input w and you get x once, and maybe you do it 9 more times you get x again, but the tenth time you get n̴͚̎̌ȍ̶͓͖͔̱̠̘̣̓̿̓̒̈́t̷̪̝̮̦̫͐̎̄̌͜ͅx̴͇̖̬̮͉̝̞̂̄͗͝ - the fact that you got a different output from the same input makes that function indeterministic. Even if it only happens sometimes, rarely.

You've brought in all sorts of fancy ideas like teleological reasons as opposed to causal reasons, but when we simplify everything you've said into a system that takes an input and produces an output - well, the input is the set of all relevant facts before Bobs decision, and the output is Bobs decision a few moments later, and since you said Bob will always choose the same, then it really doesn't matter if you choose to use the word "causal determinant" or "teleological determinant". It doesn't matter what types of facts you use in the function that takes the input and turns it into the output. You can call it whatever you want, you can call it causal or teleological or Susan if it makes you happy, but if the output is always the same from the same input, then what you have on your hands is a deterministic function.

You're semantically convinced that determinism and teleology are somehow opposed, that if teleology is involved it can't be determined. I, on the other hand, see no reason why teleology can't be part of a deterministic function. In fact what you described is explicitly a deterministic function that uses teleological reasons to produce an output. Teleology and determinism are perfectly compatible.

I don't expect you to agree with any of that, but I'm writing this in the hope that you might at least understand why I'm calling that determinism.

Not being causally inevitable, the two worlds of Bob 1 and 2 would readily allow for the possibility of different choices made, despite the PSR yet holdin — javra

The PSR doesn't hold if Bob 1 and Bob 2 do different things.

Can you provide even one philosophical reference for what the term “determinism” signifies such that it does not entail causal inevitability, be it via this or similar phrasing? — javra

I personally don't think what you've described is fundamentally different from causal inevitability. I consider your distinction to be a word game. My conception of determinism isn't vulnerable to that word game.

But I still don't understand why you say you are a compatibilist if you are agnostic regarding determinism. — Patterner

Imagine the universe in a snow globe. Imagine 2 snow globes, one in each hand. In your left hand, it's a lot like this universe, but where a random-collapse quantum interpretation is true. In your right hand, it's a lot like this universe, but one where a deterministic quantum interpretation is true. My understanding of free will is such that, as long as humans and human decision making is an emergent feature, both of those universes have human beings with tthe only sort of "free will" I think means anything.

My understanding of free will is *compatible with* determinism, but that doesn't mean it's incompatible with indeterminism. Being compatible with one thing doesn't mean incompatible with another. We have free will, regardless of determinism.

Indeterminism is a short-hand for physical indeterminism — Bob Ross

There's plenty of conceptual things that are deterministic that have nothing to do with anything physical. There are plenty of conceptual things that are indeterministic that have nothing to do with anything physical. I'm not partial to this "physical" talk. We live inside a system that evolves from the past to the future, it doesn't matter if that system is 100% physical or 100% non physical or some combination.

I mean I'm sure it matters in some sense, I'd be certainly curious to know, but it doesn't affect any of the reasoning here.

you say your concept isn't determined because things are teleologically determined, not causally determined. To me it's just 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Determined it's determined. It looks exactly the same as determinism to me, you just have some abstract reason not to call it determinism despite it walking like a duck and quacking like a duck. Determinism has a simple criteria to me, and what you described passes that criteria.

I'm not insisting you call it determinism, but as far as the reasoning in the op of this thread goes, it's determinism, not indeterminism. You can have your reasons for calling it indeterminism, those reasons just don't appeal to me, they aren't compelling to me.

Libertarian free will ... will thereby necessitate a metaphysics ... which is different from that in which the only two ontically occurring options are either that of a) randomness or b) causal inevitability — javra

It seems that, at least for some flavours of libertarianism, this is the case. And this is really the crux. I believe it's tautologically the case that those are the two options.

One might phrase (b) as causal inevitability, or determinism, or an instance of the principle of sufficient reason. I'm actually leaning towards that latter phrasing lately - that determinism inside a universe means everything that happens in that universe has sufficient reason to happen. And the alternative is, some things happen that don't have sufficient reason. If everything that happens has sufficient reason, that's what I call 'determinism'. If some things don't have 'sufficient reason', then that means there's some aspect of their explanation which is reason-less, because it isn't sufficiently explained with reasons, and a reason-less happening is another way of looking at something random.

So it seems I am just doomed to never understand these libertarians because this dichotomy of determinism / randomness is an inevitable consequence of the way I've defined these words. And it seems they're similarly doomed to not understand why that's the dichotomy.

Do you think there's a way around the dichotomy?

I already discussed substance dualism to a good extent — MoK

nothing i've said is pro- or contra- substance dualism. I don't care about it either way. It just seems completely orthogonal to any point I've made.

Do you have something to say other than just bare contrarianism? If not then yeah, probably.

well too bad

I don't pretend to perfectly know how reality works, which is why I'm agnostic about if pieces of reality may be a bit random. Quantum mechanics could easily be a bit random.

of course it is. But you said "something cannot be...". Something can be

ok well I can write a program of Conway's game of life that's mostly deterministic and a little bit random so I guess I'll just go with that and stick with what I'm saying.

I have no idea whether or not anything, in reality, is determined or random.

I do have an idea, however, that the processes by which things happen are either deterministic or in some part random. That if a process isn't deterministic, that can only mean that the part of that process that isn't deterministic is random.

So you said physical means stuff that exists, but now you're saying that's not correct, and physical means something else?

This has the same problem I already exposed: a libertarian is not per se committed to the idea that if Bob1 and Bob2 have the same exact beliefs, desires, etc. that they each could decide to will something different than each other—this is a straw man. — Bob Ross

ok well it's the type of libertarianism in question here, since that's what it means for something to be "indeterministic". It means given the same exact conditions, something different might happen.

I never said anything is deterministic and random. You're just saying silly stuff now.
— flannel jesus
You said it in all your posts. For example, "A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random." — MoK

Deterministic and random
Is different from
Deterministic or random

"And" and "or" are two very extremely different words

you said physical means stuff that exists.

But then you said you differentiate physical from the mind.

So the mind doesn't exist?

So you have to endorse that the physical is deterministic and random! That is a contrary position though. — MoK

What I notice is that, repeatedly and imo inexplicably, you keep on talking about "physical" this and "physical" that in reply to my posts, but I don't say anything about things being "physical". I don't know why you're doing that. I don't know why you're trying to force "physical" into the conversation.

I never said anything is deterministic and random. You're just saying silly stuff now.

You are a compatibilist, so let's just accept that the physical is only deterministic. — MoK

This part

by the idea you mean free will, then there are other ways to address that without including randomness in a deterministic system. One way to address free will is to consider the mind as the entity that decides. — MoK

This part

I don't feel like going through everything. Most of it.

But I'm trying to simplify the conservation, because I realise that we'll never have any mutual understanding without starting here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/977039

we're doomed to talk past each other endlessly as long as we disagree on the determinism/randomness dichotomy.

Just say something interesting about it and your conversation partner will appear.

You aren't the first person to get the impression that this is somehow an argument for determinism. It isn't. The conclusion of the article isn't "determinism is the case". It's apparently very difficult to explain to people why that's *not* the point of the article.

E.g., if it is a fact that I went for a run today and you rewind the clock to right before I began my run; then ceteris paribus we don't know that I am going to go for a run today. If we believe causal determinism, the loosest sense of the term, is true, then we have reasons to believe I will necessarily go for that run.

The problem is that you are claiming to refute libertarianism by presupposing causal determinism in the first place; — Bob Ross

I think you're confused about what rewinding the clock is about. Nobody is saying "you will necessarily go for that run". In fact we're explictly allowing for the exact opposite. Nowhere in the anlysis does it say "the future will necessarily play out the same way, and determinism is the case."

They are going to note that if you rewound their motives and reasons and the physical aspects of their action, then they may have had different motives or reasons and thusly willed differently — Bob Ross

I'm not sure what that means.

We take note of all causally relevant facts at T1, including all facts about the physical world as well as their motives and mind etc. then we watch what decision they make at T2. Then at T3, we rewind back to T1.

Now when we rewind, we're of course rewinding such that all those facts we took note of are all the same. Everything physical, and also every non physical fact, including motives mind etc. what do you mean, then, when you say "they may have had different motives"? May have how? Their motives are part of the thing we're accounting for in rewinding

I'm going to break it down for you. Right or wrong, this is my reasoning:

1. A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random. So that's the difference between determinism and indeterminism - indeterminism has some randomness.

2. Thus any time someone expresses an idea that's supposedly "incompatible with determinism", that's the same thing as saying "this idea requires randomness"

3. When libertarians say free will is incompatible with determinism, I hear "free will requires randomness"

4. I do not believe any coherent concept of free will requires randomness (and that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists), and that's for one simple reason: if something is random, it's uncontrolled. If random stuff is happening in your brain or in your mind or in your agency, you don't control that any more than you control a fully determined brain / mind / agency (and it could be argued that the randomness gives you explicitly less control)

5. Therefore I believe that the libertarian concept of free will is incorrect (and again, that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists). At this point I can either reframe free will to be more coherent according to my understand, or reject it altogether

6. I DID reject it altogether for many years. Perhaps you think that's a more coherent position, and perhaps it is.

7. Some years ago, something flipped, I don't recall what or why, but I came to accept the idea of a compatibilist emergent decision making process. Such a process doesn't rely on randomness (again, regardless of whether randomness actually exists). Through much abstract contemplation, most of which I can't put into words, that ended up with me thinking that some flavour of compatibilism is the right way to think about free will.

It's different conversations. — Patterner

Yeah free will conversations are mostly like that it seems. One of the primary factors that creates the conditions for talking past each other is disagreement on the determined / random dichotomy. People who believe that's a valid dichotomy having conversations with people who don't usually results in talking in circles. Most people don't even realise that's a major point of difference between their intuitions about these ideas.