I would imagine an example of this would be something like language generation creating exponentially greater cultural learning which then favors a trajectory away from fixed innate instinctual mechanisms for purely learning mechanisms. In this way, the higher level language creation influences lower level instinctual mechanisms (in this case reducing its efficacy). — schopenhauer1

The key here to what I was saying, is to see language development as a freely willed activity of individuals, which is a bottom-up form of causation. We tend to think of language as a structure of rules which we must necessarily be obliged to follow, in order to be understood. But this is a false necessity. If it were true, it would render the creation of language, and its evolution, as something impossible. So we must consider the creative power of the individual, with free will, as the true essence of language, being the necessary condition which allows for the existence of language by causing the existence of language, in the sense of final cause.

There is what I would call a faulty interpretation of Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations", which assumes a "private language argument", as demonstrating the impossibility of the individual's "private language" as having a relationship with language as a whole. This is analogous to the interaction problem of dualism, the private language is portrayed as incapable of interacting with the public language. But this is a misinterpretation because what Wittgenstein's so-called private language argument really demonstrates is how it is possible for the private aspect of language to incorporate itself into, and therefore become a feature of the more general public language, through this causal relation which Wittgenstein saw as necessary to the existence of language.

So what is particular at the globally general level of the Comos – its will to entropify – becomes the context that makes sharp sense of its own "other" – the possibility of tiny critters forming their own local wishes and ambitions within what remains still possible in a small, but personally valued, way. — apokrisis

By no stretch of the imagination can "entropy" be conceived as a particular. This is the problem encountered when you incorrectly portray final cause as top-down causation. You have to assign purpose to the most general, the most global, and this is exactly opposite to what empirical observation shows us, that purpose is a feature of the most particular, the most local.

This can be clearly understood in the principles of holism. The part has purpose in relation to the whole. "Purpose" therefore, is a property of the part, not the whole. And if we were to attempt to assign purpose to the whole, we would have to relate that whole to something else, make it a part of a larger whole, to say that it has a function in that relation.

To see how "purpose" is causal, as a property of the part, in its relation to the whole, requires an understanding of final cause, and it's associated concept, free will. When the part acts purposefully toward being functional in the existence of the whole, the part does this freely, without causal coercion from the whole. Therefore the "principle" which the part adopts, and which gives it purpose, is derived from something other than the whole of which it is a part of. This principle is fundamental to the part's existence as a part, and is causal (bottom-up) in the sense of final cause.

You haven't dealt with my naturalistic argument. — apokrisis

Your naturalist argument is flawed for the reason I explained. You wrongly portray final causation as top-down. This is because you incorrectly conflate final causation, which is bottom-up causation empowered by the freedom of choice, with the top-down constraints of formal cause, of which "entropy" is one. It is very clear, from all the empirical evidence that we have of the effects of final cause, that the purpose by which a thing acts, comes from within the agent itself, as a bottom-up cause, and it is by selecting this purpose that it may have a function in relation to a whole.

But yes, some new phenomena or discovery comes to light that sheds some light into what was already deemed extremely problematic centuries ago, like the hard problem, or machines thinking. — Manuel

I agree, the truly "hard problems" are the ones which get put aside and neglected for the longest periods of time, hundreds or even thousands of years. They tend to be fundamental, basic ontological issues, so that the work-around is basic and foundational to the ensuing conceptual structure which develops from it. A good example is the interaction problem of dualism, which is very closely related to the hard problem of consciousness.

If we take the hard problem as most basic, fundamental, and therefore most ancient, we can see that the classical work-around for this problem has been dualism. But in ancient Greek philosophy, the incompatibility between the material world of becoming, and the logical world of being and not being, was exposed. Since the logical world was apprehended as consisting of ideas which were considered to be immutable eternal truths, the interaction problem developed because it was impossible to show how this realm of immutable "objects" could interact with an ever changing material world.

The work-around for the interaction problem was initiated by Plato, as "the good", and developed by Aristotle as final causation, later blossoming into free will and intention. The modern day "hard problem" is just a form of extreme ontological skepticism, which rejects all of the significant metaphysical work-arounds produced over the past millennia, to bring us right back to the basic, fundamental problem, and have another go at that problem from a new perspective. The "new perspective" is the one currently obtained from all the gained experience and new knowledge developed over that time period.

So Hume really ought to be classified with G.E. Moore and Wittgenstein in as an opponent of sceptical conclusions. — Ludwig V

I don't think you can draw this conclusion so readily, because it's very unclear as to what Hume means by "uniform experience". And, Hume tends to be a little inconsistent in the way that he represents the relationship between reasoning and sense experience, so his claim that "uniform experience" can produce a proof which is beyond doubt, is in itself highly doubtful.

The problem is that by "uniform experience", Hume obviously means a number of distinct, or separate events, or experiences, compared with each other. This is how he generally represents sense experience, as distinct instances of sensation. But, it is through the use of memory, comparison, and inductive reasoning that we identify consistency through distinct events, to conclude uniformity. Of course memory and inductive reasoning are fallible, so Hume's statement that "uniform experience" provides a proof which leads no room for doubt is very unsound.

I just did the exact opposite of distinguishing them as the general and the particular when it comes to the downwardly acting constraints of a system.

The desire is the generality as it only cares for the achievement of its end, and not the particularity of the form needed to achieve it. — apokrisis

Talk about muddled blathering. Intention, will, is proper to the individual, the particular, while "form" as the formula is general.

Of course chance and spontaneity – as the character of pure material potential - must be entrained by top-down finality to produce an in-formed stable state of actualisation. — apokrisis

But finality is known to be a bottom-up cause, as the will, the cause of motion of the individual. So this bottom-up cause, which is inherently free, as the free will, enabled in its freedom by the potential of matter, is constrained in its bottom-up causation by top-down formal constraints.

Get to grips with the true Aristotle — apokrisis

There is no such thing as "the true Aristotle". It's a matter of interpretation, as is the case with any good philosopher.

But you need to get a grip on the true reality. Final causation is very clearly bottom-up. It is basic and fundamental to every action of organic matter, as purpose driven activities. You know that. So why do you claim final causation to be top-down, when you know that the purposefulness of living activities stems from the very existential base of the material organism?

As you are an Aristotelean – albeit of the scholastic stripe – it is surprising you don't immediately get all this.

Aristotle is the inspiration for the systems science movement. He analysed the irreducible complexity of nature in logical detail with his four causes, hylomorphic substance, hierarchy theory, etc. — apokrisis

I've seen your Aristotelian influence. you conflate formal cause with final cause. That's why you have no principles to separate the downward causation of formal cause from the upward causation of intention, and the individual's free will, final cause.

His hylomorphism spells out the basic Peircean triad of potentiality/actuality/necessity – the dichotomy of pure material potential and pure formal necessity which combine to create the third thing of actual or substantial material being. Prime matter plus Platonic constraints are the bottom-up and top-down that give you the hierarchy of manifest nature. A world of in-formed stuff.

The four causes expands this analysis to reveal the further dichotomies to the fundamental dichotomy.

The bottom-up constructive causes and top-down constraining causes are split by the dichotomy of the general and the particular. — apokrisis

The pure potential of matter cannot properly act as a cause, so you need to place intention, final cause at the base of the "bottom-up constructive cause'. But this is inconsistent with the common notion of "emergence", because it is teleological and emergence is not.

But could it be that doing good is as simple as not doing bad? — invicta

There's a few reasons why this doesn't work. First, human beings like other animals are active, so they can't be told to do nothing, which one might be inclined toward if simply directed not to do anything bad. Since they must be allowed to do things, we can't list off all the bad things, and tell them not to do these, because human beings are creative, and they will develop new, unnamed bad things. So, it's better to direct them toward doing good, so that they happily occupy themselves doing good rather than spending their time looking for loopholes around the named bad things which they are not supposed to do.

Back in the 17th century the "hard rock of philosophy" was the problem of motion, in which "motion has effects which we in no way can conceive".

What happened with that problem? It was accepted and science and philosophy continued - in fact, to this day, the hard problem of motion has not been solved, but we work with what we have. — Manuel

We develop "work-arounds", such as the idea of entropy, and then the problem gets hidden behind these strange terms. In this way, the problem will be sufficiently suppressed until in the future sometime it rears its ugly head again, in a new problematic form.

Hence you aren’t a structuralist or systems thinker. — apokrisis

That's right. I see significant flaws in systems theory. The "system" when used as a theoretical tool, is an artificial structure, a human construction which is produced in an effort to model an aspect of reality. The theory utilizes a boundary to separate the internal, as property of the system, (part of the system), from the external, environment, as not a part of the system. No system can have a closed boundary in an absolute sense, as experimentation seems to demonstrate, and the second law of thermodynamics, and the concept of entropy stipulate.

The problem with systems theory is that it does not provide a second boundary to distinguish between what is not a part of the system by being on the other side of the boundary to the outside (external environment), from what is not a part of the system by being on the other side of the boundary to the inside of the system (what is inherent to the theory, stipulated as not part of the system). By assuming only one boundary which separates "being part of the system" from "being not part of the system", anything which changes its status must cross that one boundary. But this renders certain aspects of reality as unintelligible, such as the entropy demanded by the second law,. This concept dictates that there is something which is lost from the system, i.e. no longer a part of the system when it was a part of the system at an earlier time, yet it is not apprehended as moving through the boundary such that it can be detected as being on the outside of the system. So entropy refers to something which changes its status, but not by crossing the one boundary, but through stipulation as inherent to the theory.

But my structuralist or systems metaphysics is saying that they are irreducibly complex. Thus not reducible to monistic simples. However capable of being reduced or explained as an inevitable relation, such as is represented by a ratio. — apokrisis

This is how the problem I've described above manifests in your metaphysics. The idea of something "irreducibly complex", is an admission of the unintelligibility of that feature. But you are making a false claim, a misrepresentation, to say that this irreducibly complex thing can be "represented by a ratio". To produce that ratio requires that we impose a separation, and this requires a reduction an analysis. To say that something is "irreducibly complex" is to say that it cannot be represented by a ratio.

This end product, 'that which is irreducibly complex', is what systems theory provides us with, due to the failure outlined above. When something, energy for example, is lost to a system, i.e. is no longer a part of that system, and it has not been observed to have crossed the boundary of the system, there is no way to know whether the energy has passed to the outside of the system in some undetected way, due to the limitations of observational capacities, or it has been lost inside the system to what is called entropy. "Entropy" therefore, is irreducibly complex, because no separation between the energy not accounted for because of failure in observation (failure in practise), and the energy assumed to be lost to entropy by systems theory (failure of theory) can be produced. Therefore the content of this irreducibly complex concept, "entropy", cannot be expressed as a ratio between those two aspects which actually make up what is commonly known as entropy.

There is a lot of that - an assumption of superiority, even supremacy - in all human cultures. It's an almost inescapable tenet of our self-regard as a species. (We must be the best, or we couldn't have killed off most of them, right?) Until we examine it with some degree of objectivity. — Vera Mont

We must assume superiority in order to give ourselves the right to do what we do to the other living beings. And we must give ourselves this right in order to protect and feed ourselves. In other words, the assumption of supremacy is necessary in order for us to actually have supremacy, as ideology precedes actuality.

Man a creature of rational intent whereby better socialisation can turn that intent to good side rather than bad, wants to inherently do good I believe but gets corrupted, turns to hate somewhere along the line and does bad stupid shit, hating his fellow man in the process to the extremes of wanting to kill him, because of petty differences or simply because he slept with his wife. — invicta

Whether or not human beings inherently want to "do good" depends on how we would define "good". Such a statement would require that all of our instinctual actions are directed towards goods. But this is really not consistent with the common definition of "good", as many such actions are designated as directed by bad intentions.

There has been an attempt in Christian theology to define "good" in the way that you propose. This is based in the idea that the end which the will is directed toward, in the case of an intentional act, is called "the good". That is how Aristotle described the intentional act. From this definition, any intentional act is necessarily directed toward a good, and we can say as you do, "our instinctual actions are directed towards good", because our natural inclination is to act according to our intentions.

However, this way of defining "good" produces a duality in types of good outlined by Aristotle. We say that the act is directed toward a good, because it is directed intentionally, and that's the way "good" is defined, as what intention is directed toward, but we still want to be able to judge some intentionally directed acts as wrongful. So Aristotle outlined a distinction between an apparent good, and the real good, to allow for this difference. This principle was adopted into Christian theology. The goal of moral training therefore is to produce consistency between the apparent good and the real good. Then we can say that human beings inherently want to do good, but this turns out to only be the "apparent good". Then we're still faced with the problem of how to determine the real good.

I noted the similarity between the "thick moment" and Douglas Hofstadter's I am a strange loop. Prophetic stuff. — Banno

The "thick moment", or what I call the breadth of the present, is what I've been arguing for for years, as what is necessary for an adequate understanding of the reality of free will. This is better known as the concept of a two dimensional time. The second dimension of time allows that one aspect of reality is ahead of another, thereby causal in that relationship of priority, while both are sharing the same 'now' of the present in relation to a linear representation of time.

I call it the "thick moment" of consciousness. What matters is that I feel myself alive now, living in the present moment. What matters is at this moment I'm aware of sounds arriving at my ears, sight at my eyes, sensations at my skin. They're defining what it's like to be me. The sensations they arouse have quality. And it's this quality that is the central fact of consciousness. — https://www.edge.org/conversation/nicholas_humphrey-chapter-11-the-thick-moment

The simple fact of the matter is that we sense the reality around us as activity rather than as a serious of static states, like a movie of still frames. And, since sensation is what provides us with a presentation of what is, at the present in time, we must conclude that there is activity at the present time. Since the passage of time is a requirement for activity, we must conclude that there is actually passage of time at the present. This time which passes at the present cannot be accounted for with a linear representation of time which posits a non-dimensional point at the present, to separate future from past. It must be considered to be a duration of time which is neither past nor future.

Nothing can exist except by being a system that marries Aristotle’s four causes in bottom-up “material” construction and top-down “immaterial” constraint fashion. — apokrisis

I think that since intention is personal, the immaterial final cause acts in a bottom-up freedom fashion.

Yet these two facets of human beings raise question as to man’s nature are we inherently bad or good ? — invicta

Human nature is neither good nor bad. We can look at the human being as having capacities, which provide for the reality of power. And as Plato explained, one can direct one's own capacities toward good, or towards bad. So the same person who has the power to do great good in the world , also has the power to do great evil in the world.

Before the next collision, we can now calculate, based on our experience, what will happen, but only based on the assumption that the balls will behave as they did in the previous collisions. The assumption that the future will be similar to the past, however, cannot be justified by any calculation but only by experience. — Jacques

I don't think you have this quite right. The point Hume makes is that the assumption that the future will be similar to the past cannot be justified by experience, because the future is always ahead of us, and never properly experienced. Experience is always, all in the past. Therefore, that the future will be similar to the past is a principle derived from something other than experience.

The prediction, for what will happen in the future, is as you say, based on an assumption that the future will be similar to the past, but the issue between you and I is the question of what this assumption is based in. We could say that this assumption is somehow derived from experience, but we cannot say that experience justifies it, for the reasons explained above, and it is the way that it is derived which is at issue here.

So this is where inductive reasoning comes into play. When we take past experience, and produce a general principle like 'the balls behaved in such and such a way in the past, therefore the balls will behave in such and such a way in the future", this is an inductive principle. So the issue is what grounds, or justifies the inductive principle. That things behaved in such and such a way in the past, is not sufficient to produce the necessity to imply that they will necessarily behave this way in the future. What is needed is another premise which states that the future will be similar to the past. But this again appears to be just a more general form of the same inductive principle, How things have been in the past, will continue to be how they are in the future. So we do not escape the trap of relying on induction, and this does not give us the desired necessity, or certainty. However, Hume and you as well it seems, want to say that this principle (that the future will be similar to the past) is not actually derived from reason, but simply some sort of predisposition which we have toward looking at the future. We just naturally assume that things will be the same, rather than having derived this idea from experience and inductive reasoning.

This is absurdity from where I'm coming from. We can speak of definitions (nouns) and actions (verbs) both. By the logic of what something does always being what we say of it, then if we say cats teleport then suddenly they do. Except of course what we say about something (either what it does or is) is independent of what that existant actually does or is. — Benj96

Right, you are just demonstrating the difference I am talking about. Even the name of the thing is distinct from the thing itself. And that's why we cannot reduce all to one, as you propose. Even if we make the name a thing itself, and say something about it, what we say about it is not the same as the thing, and this would just lead to an infinite regress. So your proposal for unification would just produce an infinite regress which would render all of reality as unintelligible.

Except one needs to outline that energy is fundamentally all things and their relationships. — Benj96

This is an incorrect representation of "energy", which actually only refers to the relationships between things. Things themselves are said to have mass, which is not the same as energy, but is in some way equivalent by the formula expressed in the op, "E=mc2". Do you recognize the difference between "the same", as indicating the very same, or one and the same thing, and "equivalent", as indicating two distinct things which are equal according to some principle or principles?

If this isn't coherent/making sense for you at this stage I think we can just agree to disagree. I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily but I think we are simply coming at the topic from completely opposite angles. — Benj96

I've known since the beginning of this discussion that we could never agree, because you very quickly demonstrated that you are not averse to believing something which is incoherent. You seem to believe on principle, or on faith, rather than through understanding. There is this incoherent idea you have, that a thing and what that thing does, could be one and the same, and instead of understanding what that means, and how it is incoherent, you simply keep insisting on it.

It appears like you desire to replace terms like "good", "correct", and "right", which appear to clearly have an opposing term, with a term like "truth", which if we dissociate it from "false", might not have an opposing term. Then we could say that the dialectician seeks truth. But this would completely divorce dialectics from moral philosophy, if moral philosophy is still held as dealing with good and its opposition bad, leaving it irrelevant in this field.

An opinion that I have, which you might take note of in relation to this issue, is that Christian theology, following Platonic dialectics, attempted to remove "good" from the category of terms which have an opposing term, by associating it with existence in general and assigning incoherence to any proposed opposition, "non-existence". This way of relating to "good", such that there is no true opposing term, no true bad or evil, is basic to fundamental Christian tenets like love thy neighbour, confession, and forgiveness, which encourage us to judge the actions of others as directed toward a misunderstood good, rather than as bad.

I think it comes down to a question of what the dialectician is supposed to do (as in the sense of ought), within the discipline of dialectics (if we can even call it a discipline). By saying that I am wrong you imply that something else is right. But won't these two actually negate each other, in sublation, to some further idea? How would we describe this further idea which it appears like the dialectician is supposed to strive for? We cannot say that this further idea is the "right". or "correct" idea, because that sort of term has already been used up in the process of negating my idea as "wrong", or "incorrect".

I'll try to unpack it succinctly, and leave it here as a sideline opinion, for reference, so as not to derail the thread.

What is common to both principal forms of dialectics, Platonic and Hegelian, is a base in the wanting of (therefore lack of) moral direction. It's very obvious in Platonic dialectics, as Plato demonstrates that no true meaning for important moral terms like "just", "good" and "virtue" in general, can be determined. It's less obvious in Hegelian dialectics because Hegel generalizes dialectics, transforming the process to be applicable to all forms of logic, which Plato actually did in his later work after applying the method to terms like "knowledge".

So in Hegel's dialectics, we have the thesis (good), antithesis (bad), and the sublation of the two. What is shown is that there is no true correct or incorrect, just an endless process of sublation, as this procedure repeats itself. Therefore, when related to morality, the concept which supports this dialectical structure, is the idea that there is no true moral "good", as good is opposed to bad, and there is just the continuing process whereby the two opposing extremes negate each other.

Since morality deals with what is good, and the Hegelian dialectician sacrifices the value of "good" to its opposite, "bad" through the process of sublation, we can infer that the dialectician has no principles to criticize the moral direction of another; i.e. no principles to say that one person's claimed good is "better" than the opposing person's claimed good.

What I was referring to is seen in the Minkowski metric of spacetime, in which the time term is in fact a distance term c2(t1−t2)2−(x1−x2)2−(y1−y2)2−(z1−z2)2. — jgill

This I consider to be the principal defect of the current conventional conception of spacetime, that time is reduced to being spatial, rather than conceived of as being logically prior to space.

The existence of dialectics in general, i.e. the fact that dialectics is a valid philosophical tool and it is actively taught and employed, indicates that philosophers have not been capable of identifying what constitutes a "morally good life'. Dialectics is the manifestation of a lack of morals. The dialectician therefore, has no principles to criticize the morals of anyone, other than one's own lack of morals which has manifested as the dialectician's practise of dialectics.

All you are saying is the language about something, and the actual thing, are not the same. Obviously. That's basic. What of it? — Benj96

You keep insisting that the thing and what is said about the thing, are the same. Here:

I dont see incoherence in energy being a thing and that thing being what it does. — Benj96

What something does, is always what we say of the thing. It's how we interpret its relations to other things. The principle of relativity makes use of this fact, allowing that we can describe a thing's relations to others in multiple ways, none of which could be said to be the true way.

Since the thing is one, and what is said about the thing (what it does) is a multitude, they cannot be the same.

Something said about another may be correct (ie opinion in alignment with what is) or it may be incorrect (opinion not reflecting what actually is). And what of it? What's your point. — Benj96

The point is that the thing, and what is said about the thing, or, what the thing is said to do, cannot be the same. this is evident in your example. "The universe", and "is a single thing", each mean something different.

I dont see incoherence in energy being a thing and that thing being what it does. I have no issue with action being a thing. Or "doing" being an existant phenomenon (a thing that is). — Benj96

If you still don't understand the difference, then so be it. I don't see how I can explain any further. The incoherency is due to the fallacy of equivocation which I explained to you earlier. If the word "energy" refers to a thing, and it also refers to what a thing is doing, then these are two distinct meanings of the word, as it is used as a noun in the one case, and as a verb in the other. To use the word as if the two meanings are interchangeable, or the same, as you propose, is the fallacy of equivocation. It is this fallacy which renders your perspective as incoherent.

Yes. Thats how language works. I could just say "the universe is the universe" or even more extreme a case just keep chanting "oneness" repeatedly in response to everything you say. But that wouldn't be informative would it - information of course being what i use the distinctions imbedded in language to get across. — Benj96

But this is not the same as the other. To say "the universe is the universe" is to repeat the same thing, as a statement of idenity, and this says nothing about the universe.. To say as you did, "The universe as a whole is a single thing", is to say something about the universe. But then what is said about the universe is necessarily something other than the universe itself.

You pointing out that my language breaks down into little itty bitty pieces that are all separate doesnt detract from the notion - my perspective that the universe is the "whole cake" and everything distinguishable within it is a fraction of that cake. — Benj96

The point is, that when you propose that the subject (energy), and the predicate (what energy does), are one and the same thing within the category called "the universe", you leave the thing that you are talking about, the universe as unintelligible due to the incoherency which you create with this proposition.

So again, i reiterate, we can go splitting things apart and examining them in isolation like energy and matter as completely seoarate things. Or we can unify them (as einsteins equation does) and approach a singular fundamental, discussing how they are two faces of the same proverbial coin. But it depends on whether you want to accord or discord with me, that will dictate whether the conversation moves forward fluidly or remains static and fixated on particulars. (the dynamic triad i mentioned early). — Benj96

As I explained, the things are already split apart, naturally. Your attempt to describe them as unified is unsupported by any real principles, so your proposition is in discordance with reality, therefore false.

I explained why possibility is taken for granted, rather than demonstrated logically. To demonstrate it logically would make it necessary, and this would be self-contradicting, self-refuting. You might inform yourself by rereading my replies. You ask what I called the "loaded question".

Imagine, someone says "prove to me that libertarian free will is a reality". Then you attempt to make an argument which would produce the necessary conclusion. That would mean that the person that you are presenting the demonstration to would have no choice but to accept the conclusion of the reality of free will. But that instance of having no choice would be impossible if free will is the reality. Therefore, when an anti-free-willie asks a free-willie to prove the reality of free will, it's a loaded question, because if free will is the reality this is fundamentally impossible. Sure, the air is cold and thin at the top of the mountain, but enjoy the view, there is no reason to come down until some kind of need makes the decision to descend "necessary", as the means to the end. — Metaphysician Undercover

The point which you do not seem to grasp, is the relationship between possibility and free will. These two are tied necessarily by logic, such that if there is such a thing as possibility, then there is the capacity to choose, therefore free will. Asking someone to demonstrate "the possibility of...", is to ask that person to prove the reality of free will. This is impossible for the reasons explained, therefore we take possibility for granted, without proof. So your insistence, that the proposition "Free will is possible" must be demonstrated as necessarily true, is to pose the loaded question, to ask the free-willie to refute one's own position.

John claims that humans can run at 30mph.

Jane claims that humans cannot run at 30mph because the fastest a human can run is 25mph.

Joe demonstrates that humans can run at 27.5mph.

Has Joe demonstrated that humans can run at 30mph? No. — Michael

That humans can run at 30mph remains a possibility.

John claims that humans can make free choices.

Jane claims that humans cannot make free choices because all actions are the deterministic consequence of some prior state.

Joe demonstrates that some actions are the indeterminate consequence of some prior state.

Has Joe demonstrated that humans can make free choices? No. — Michael

Libertarian free will remains a possibility. What's your point?

The universe as a whole is a single thing. — Benj96

Even making this statement is an act of demonstrating the separation. You have the thing you are talking about, the subject, named as "the universe", and you have what you are saying about it, the predicate, "is a single thing". Therefore your statement implies necessarily, a specific type of separation within the universe which you exist. Despite your claim that we can start with the assumption of "a single thing", you have already demonstrated that you assume two things, the thing itself (named the universe), and what you have said about it (a single thing). These two do not have the same meaning therefore they necessarily refer to distinct things. Your claim therefore is self-refuting, it demonstrates itself to be false.

You cannot avoid the separation by denying it.

I speak in terms of unifying closely related relationships. — Benj96

The problem obviously is that the act of "unifying" requires a prior separation. You want to start with the premise of "a single thing", thereby denying this prior separation which is logically necessary for your claimed act of "unifying". In on other words you deny the reality of what is logically required for the act which you make.

The libertarian needs to explain what free will requires (e.g. an immaterial soul in your example) and that these requirements are possible. — Michael

Well that's not true at all. Any stated proposition has the possibility of being true. Stating requirements only limits the possibilities. So, for instance we might start by stating the requirement that the proposition cannot be self-contradictory, and this requirement would exclude some propositions as impossible (necessarily not true according to that requirement).

There is a number of ways which we can proceed toward knowledge in cases of possibility, the above mentioned way would be the process of elimination, eliminating the impossible. That something is impossible is the highest degree of certainty, or necessity, which we can obtain in cases of possibility, but it is still not perfect, or absolute, because the certainty obtained relies on the truth of the stated requirement. So by the above mentioned example, the requirement of non-contradiction, if this requirement were not itself true, it would provide a false certainty.

Another way we can proceed toward knowledge in cases of possibility is to determine probability. And just like the way that the process of elimination depends on the stated requirements, this way depends on the principles deployed in the statistical analysis.

In all cases of understanding possibility, possibility is taken for granted. It need not be demonstrated, as you claim, for the reasons I explained earlier. To demonstrate logically the reality of possibility, would render it as necessary, and that would be self-refuting. So you're assertion here, as to what the libertarian must show, is to ask the loaded question I mentioned earlier. You might argue that to take possibility for granted is to assign it a sort of necessity, and that would be self-refuting, but that is a different type of "necessity" than the logical necessity which you are asking for in your request for requirements.

If our actions are the consequence of quantum indeterminacy then they are the result of random chance, not free choice. — Michael

Chance is not properly a cause, it is simply a descriptive term. Therefore "chance" in the context of quantum indeterminacy cannot cause actions, and no actions can be said to be "the consequence of quantum indeterminacy" in that way, as if indeterminacy had caused these actions. "Chance" and "indeterminacy" are how we describe these actions, not the cause of the actions.

However, the real and natural situation, which is referred to by that phrase "quantum indeterminacy", provides a situation where the free willing agent can act in a manner which is not dictated by the laws of determinism (therefore not compatible with determinism). I described this relationship between the possible free willing "agent" and the principles of physics (laws of determinism), and how what is understood by quantum mechanics allows that the free willing "agent" is logically a real possibility, in the post above.

Yes. Because energy is (actor) and does (property). The two are united as a singular entity. It "is doing-ness". — Benj96

As I said, this is incoherent to me as a category error which result in equivocation. The subject (actor in your terms), and the predicate (what the actor "does"), refer to two distinct things. We can assign the same name to these two distinct things "energy", and this is very common in cases where a word has meaning as a noun, and meaning as a verb, but we must maintain this separation of meaning, to avoid ambiguity. And if that ambiguity is actually utilized within a logical demonstration this is the fallacy of equivocation. And that is what you are doing. Therefore you argue by equivocation and this renders your argument as incoherent to me.

Just like a coin has 2 faces, is one face any more "coin" than the other? — Benj96

The coin is the subject and it has two stated properties. face one, and face two. The coin itself is not face one, nor is it face two, or even a composition of face one and face two. It is not a composition of the two because there is an endless number of properties which can be named, the edge, the printed figures, the weight, the shape, etc., and we could never name all of them required to produce "the coin" as a whole. So if "energy" is your subject, as "coin" is, whatever properties you name, which energy is supposed to have, they are not the same as energy.

So it is correct to say, as you propose, that one face is not any more the coin than the other, but no matter how many properties you name, you do not get "the coin". Your category mistake with "energy" is that you assume "energy" as subject, and its properties, as predicates, are the same.

Then as an example, free will (according to the libertarian) is incompatible with both determinism and quantum indeterminacy. — Michael

OK, this would be acceptable. but this leads to a further problem in defining "libertarian free will". You now have two conditions stated here: #1 incompatible with determinism, #2 incompatible with quantum indeterminacy.

I believe that free will is incompatible with determinism, which is consistent with condition #1. I also believe that free will is compatible with quantum indeterminacy and this is inconsistent with condition #2. So now we have two conceptions of "free will" which are both incompatible with determinism. I always thought that my conception of "free will" is compatible with so-called "libertarian free-will", but according to your stated conditions, it is not.

Are you able to help me to expose the difference between these two conceptions of "free will" which are both incompatible with determinism? Can you explain to me what are the features of the libertarian conception which make it incompatible with quantum indeterminacy, and in exchange I will explain why my conception avoids this incompatibility?

Free will requires that there is some third mechanism (e.g. agent-causation) for action, and the libertarian's task is to make sense of such a thing and show that such a thing is possible. — Michael

Agent causation is not a problem for my conception of free will, and it ought not be sufficient to impose condition #2 on the libertarian conception, but maybe you can demonstrate otherwise. The "agent" involved is an immaterial act, as described by classical dualist metaphysics, and commonly known as the soul.

Material existence occurs at the present as time is passing. It is what "is", implying "now" which is commonly known as the present. The immaterial cause is always prior to, i.e. in the future of the present "now", so it is never observable to us. It is known only by its effects which manifest at the present. As time passes, the immaterial cause may act as "agent" to influence what unfolds as observable material existence, at the present.

For further explanation, consider this. The principles of quantum physics apprehend a shortest possible period of time, which is represented as the Planck length. Now suppose two material, or physical states which are supposed to be separated by a Planck length duration of time. These are the describable situation at T1, and the situation at T2. These two situations are not the same, so something must happen in that short duration of time to "cause" a difference between the the situations.. But whatever happens in that time between T1 and T2, it cannot be referred to as a material, or physical occurrence, because it occurs during a period of time which the principles of quantum physics dictate that a material or physical change is impossible. Therefore, the change which happens between T1 and T2 is an immaterial, or nonphysical change. This is where the immaterial, or nonphysical "soul" may be active, as an agent, and influence what becomes at T2, from what was at T1.

I described the immaterial soul s acting "in the future of the present moment" because we measure time as it passes, so all measured time is in the past. Therefore, as we attempt in our experimental endeavours to produce a shorter and shorter period of time, what we are really doing is reducing the amount of past time, within the measured duration, to get a more and more accurate pinpoint positioning on "the present moment". The pinpoint positioning appears to be impossible, hence the limitation of the Planck length, and so the Planck length substitutes for the pinpoint position of the present, as "the infinitesimal". However, there is necessarily change which occurs during this time period (the infinitesimal) which serves by substitution as "the present moment", as demonstrated logically above. This is the change which occurs between T1 and T2, as these are different situations. This activity must be apprehended as occurring prior to the present, outside (as prior to) the boundaries of "measured time", which is past time. So any agent which acts to cause change within this infinitesimal time period, must be acting in the future of the present moment.

For me change is a property of potential. — Benj96

Not true from my personal perspective/rationalisation. The changing thing is changing. The constant it abides by in doing so - change - is permanent in its phenomenonology.

In this case your statement would be a conflation of the actor (change) with the acted upon (the changed) - they are a dichotomy. — Benj96

You are making a category mistake. You state that change is a property. but then you make change the thing, the actor. At one point change is the predicate (property), and at another time it is the subject (actor). That's equivocation. Then what you say afterward is incoherent to me because of this equivocation.

I hope i am articulating the concept well. Forgive me if it isn't unclear I'm happy to further elaborate if need be. It's a tricky subject one I've been thinking about for years now — Benj96

You'll have to clear up that issue, stated above, before we can proceed any further toward a mutual understanding.

It might be that free will is impossible if either determinism or some other X is true. — Michael

This is a misleading statement, because if it "might be", means it is still possible. So "it might be impossible" means that it is possible. To say that it is "impossible" rather than that it is possible that it is impossible, would require another demonstration to show the required necessity. if determinism is shown to be necessarily false, how would you proceed with that demonstration, when the only other premise we have is that determinism is inconsistent with free will? Since these are the only two premises, the appropriate conclusion is that free will is possible.

A demonstration that determinism is false isn’t a demonstration that this other X is false, and so not a demonstration that free will is possible. — Michael

We have two premises. One is that determinism and free will are incompatible, the other is that determinism is false. From these two we conclude that free will is possible. There is no "other X", so your premise concerning "other x" is irrelevant. If there is something else, "other x", which forces the necessity that free will is impossible, this would be a completely different argument. And until that "other X" is identified and shown logically to make free will impossible, the conclusion from the other two premises, that free will is possible, stands. From the premises stated we can conclude that free will is possible, and "other X' has not been shown to be relevant.

It is not sufficient that determinism be false for free will to be possible according to libertarians. — Pierre-Normand

Why not? I think that if free will is inconsistent with determinism, then the demonstration that determinism is false is exactly what is required to demonstrate that free will is possible. A and B cannot both be true. A is false therefore B is possible. I know that this does not necessitate free will, but you're talking about the possibility of free will here. The problem is that free will is fundamentally inconsistent with necessity. So free will can only be accurately related to possibility, not necessity. it would be self-contradictory to say that free will is necessary.

Imagine, someone says "prove to me that libertarian free will is a reality". Then you attempt to make an argument which would produce the necessary conclusion. That would mean that the person that you are presenting the demonstration to would have no choice but to accept the conclusion of the reality of free will. But that instance of having no choice would be impossible if free will is the reality. Therefore, when an anti-free-willie asks a free-willie to prove the reality of free will, it's a loaded question, because if free will is the reality this is fundamentally impossible. Sure, the air is cold and thin at the top of the mountain, but enjoy the view, there is no reason to come down until some kind of need makes the decision to descend "necessary", as the means to the end.

Ok, let's suppose Hume is wrong. Then try to solve the following problem: A billiard ball rolls toward a second billiard ball. Try to figure out (before they meet) what will happen when the two balls meet and state what method you used to do it.

By what reasoning do you find out whether the balls will attract each other, whether they will bounce off each other and in what direction, whether they will penetrate each other, or disintegrate, or explode, or ... or ...? — Jacques

If I'd never played pool before, I could read some books, and learn how the balls ought to behave through geometrical principles, and physics, then apply deductive reasoning to say that the balls on my table will move that way. Those principles I would study would have been developed from inductive reasoning. Or someone could tell me these principles. If I've played pool before, and learned from experience rather than being taught principles, I'd use inductive reasoning more directly.

Broadly, we may say that the doctrine of determinism entails that all the facts about the past together with the laws of nature uniquely determine the future. — Pierre-Normand

It doesn't but quantum indeterminacies often are seen to provide no help to libertarians. — Pierre-Normand

I don't see any consistency between these two statements. If, following the laws of nature is a requirement for determinism, and "stochastic" refers to actions describable by probability rather than law, then it would definitely be true that the stochasticity of quantum indeterminacies supports the rejection of determinism.

And his thesis is that one cannot derive an effect from a cause by thinking alone. This is only possible by observation. — Jacques

Well sure one cannot derive causation from thinking alone. That would be rather nonsensical because something has to stand in, within the thinking, as the cause and as the effect. That is known as the content of thought, and most of the content is derived from observation.

But that is not the issue here. The issue is whether the concept is derived from thinking, (better stated as "reasoning") or some other living process like a simple propensity to associate one thing (the cause) with another thing (the effect). Hume's claim is that our capacity to predict, through the use of the concept of causation, i.e. to say that a certain outcome (effect) would be necessitated by a certain action (cause), is not based in reason, but in some sort of propensity toward seeing things in this way.

The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it. Motion in the second billiard-ball is a quite distinct event from motion in the first; nor is there anything in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other. — Graciela De Pierris, Michael Friedman

This is the heart of Hume's mistake. He misunderstands how we sense and observe things. We actually observe things as continuous in time, not as distinct events. there are no natural divisions observed between events or motions, as motion is observed as continuous. It is the mind which separates, or individuates distinct events, or distinct motions, within the flow of time. So we observe a multitude of billiard balls rolling and bouncing off each other as one event. This is very evident with the opening shot which breaks the pack, and the balls are rapidly moving around bouncing off each other. It is the mind which separates the action of one ball from the action of another ball, and the mind numbers these individuated events as motion #1, and motion #2, in a temporal order, assigning cause to the motion of one, and effect to the motions of the other.

This is evident in all such activities which are divided in this way to assign cause to the earlier part of the event, and effect to the later part. For example, a rock flying through the air hits the window and the glass breaks. That is sensed as one continuous event. But the mind of the observer separates the flying rock, as cause, and the breaking glass as effect.

So Hume's thesis is incorrect, by starting from a false premise. He assumes that we must somehow associate cause with effect, and so inquires as to the means by which we establish a relation between these two. in reality though, the temporal process which constitutes cause and effect is perceived by us as continuous, without natural divisions, and we separate cause from effect. So the proper inquiry should have been to inquiry how the mind separates cause from effect, rather than how we relate cause to effect..

What Hume meant to say is this: when you observe an unknown process for the first time in your life, say the encounter between two unknown creatures from the deep sea, you cannot predict by any reasoning what will happen. The only way to find out is to observe what happens. — Jacques

And that's relevant?

Consider this. The fact that reasoning cannot provide us with an absolutely perfect and omniscient capacity of prediction, does not imply that our capacity of prediction is not based in reason. That conclusion would require the premise that reasoning provides us with absolutely perfect and omniscient knowledge.

This is why the Stanford article you quoted says about Hume's argument, "what he calls 'reasoning'''. Hume consistently mischaracterized, poorly described, or incorrectly defined (if we can call descriptions definitions), the capacities of human beings.

I have no doubt that some kinds of animals have a capacity to reason, and I don't believe that reasoning is necessarily carried out, even by humans, in the form of "explicit thoughts". — Janus

I tend toward believing that many animals perform some sort of processes which are very similar to "reasoning", if not actually reasoning. The issue here is in how one would define "reasoning". If we limit "reasoning" only to those formal processes like deduction and mathematics, which produce a high degree of certainty, in the way that Hume wanted, then I think we decisively exclude the mental processes employed by other animals from the category of "reasoning". I don't know Hume well enough to say this for certain, but this may have been his intention, to produce a clear separation between the mental capacities of human beings, and the mental capacities of other creatures.

I like to think of "reasoning" as being defined by the use of symbols in the thinking process. And, there are formal ways of using symbols in thinking, being defined by convention, and also informal ways of using symbols in thinking, and these could be called private ways. We need to allow for the reality of private ways of thinking, in order to account for creativity; the reality of growth and expansion, evolution in the thinking process. Private ways may be taught, and adapted by others, becoming new conventional ways.

If, as I propose above, we use the use of symbols as the defining feature of reasoning, we might in some sense exclude other animals from the category of "reasoning", but this depends on how one would define "symbol", and exactly what type of mental images other types of creatures employ. In many ways, an aural or visual imagine can qualify as a "symbol", so the exclusion of other animals is not so simple.

This problem of definition is very common when analyzing the capacities of living creatures, and it is the principal reason why deductive reasoning does not provide us with the high degree of certainty which many people believe it does. The results of deduction are only as sound as the premises employed, and definitions constitute a large part of the premises. Each definition creates a sort of internal boundary as to what is essential, necessarily inhering within, the defined term. And this is known as logical priority. So, in the example above, I define "using symbols" as necessarily inhering within "reasoning", such that using symbols is an essential aspect of reasoning, and therefore logically prior to reasoning. Then "using symbols" is the broader category and may include other activities which are not properly "reasoning".

The problem is that the thing which inheres within, that which is "logically prior", as essential to the defined thing, is always the broader and less well-known category, therefore receiving a less clear and concise definition. So the effort to produce certainty in our deductive reasoning requires that we go further and further inward in our quest to understand and define the prerequisite terms employed, and as we proceed in this way, the terms are less and less well defined, decreasing the desired certainty accordingly. And since this is how defining works, uncertainty inheres within conception.

That is the principal reason why "systems theory" is not at all suited for the understanding of "living systems". Systems theory relies on the use of boundaries, and the boundaries define the external limits of the proposed system. But a living system is defined as "open" and this implies that the boundary is not a true boundary. The reason why the boundary is not a true boundary is because it does not provide a good definitional base for distinguishing the status of some things as to 'part of the system' or 'not part of the system'. And the issue, or deficiency, is that the model puts the boundary around the outside of the system, while the true opening, or weakness (which is really a weakness of definition) is to the inside of the system. Therefore the opening in the boundary of an "open system", a living system, ought to be represented as on the inside.

Let me make an analogy. Let's suppose a model of thinking which is a neurological representation, is presented as a system. As wayfarer states above, this "brain-mind identity theory" is defective. The neurological system model puts a boundary on the system which is an external limit to the system. Things which have a causal effect on the system as a whole, which cause change to the system, must come from outside the system and pass through the external boundary in order to be apprehended as having an effect. However, as I demonstrated above, the mental process of thinking and reasoning employs symbols with defining boundaries to the inside. In this process, the weakness of the whole, the location where things are not clearly defined and therefore may be either part of, or not part of, the whole, thereby having causal influence on the whole, is to the inside of the whole, not the outside. Systems theory, since it is based in empirical observations from the outside of the system provides no means for apprehending the cause of changes which pass through the principal weakness of the whole, the internal opening.

If two or more parties agree by experience that it is currently hot then that is truth.

How do you get conspiracy out of that? — invicta

What if what these two agree to, is contrary to what everyone else is claiming? For example, if two parties conclude by their own experience that the earth is flat, or that the sun revolves around the earth, while most other people are telling them otherwise, does that make it true? Sounds like the beginnings of a conspiracy theory to me, because then those two would have to explain why everyone else is conspiring against them.

Finally I understand that you are not criticizing my interpretation of Hume, but Hume himself. I am so relieved because I am sure he does not need my help. — Jacques

I'm criticizing both, your interpretation, and Hume himself. Your interpretation is bad because you interpret Hume's argument to be demonstrating that the conception of causation is not based in reason, when he clearly shows that it is based in reason. The reason for your bad interpretation though, is that Hume's argument is incoherent, so you can blame Hume if you will. Notice that the quote from Stanford which you provided says that Hume concludes that the relation between cause and effect has "no foundation in what he calls 'reasoning'". The authors at Stanford notice that Hume is working with an unconventional idea of "reasoning".

You do not seem to have noticed this, and that's why I am criticizing your interpretation. What you're not noticing is that Hume describes this relation between cause and effect as being based in reason, when "reason" is understood in the conventional way. But, he proposes that we restrict our use of "reason" according to a private definition which he is outlining, so that the type of reasoning by which we commonly relate cause to effect, does not qualify as "reasoning" under this private definition. The issue here is that faulty or invalid reasoning is still reasoning.

The further point I made, is that by Hume's own argument, his conclusions concerning the relation between cause and effect cannot be "reasoned" conclusions, so his conclusions are fundamentally unjustified. Therefore Hume undermines his own argument, so his argument is self-defeating. The same premises by which he argues that the concept of causation is not derived from reason, ensure that his own conclusion is not derived from reason. That you do not apprehend this is a further indication that your interpretation is poor.

And as the truthfulness of such a statement depends on mutual agreement between two or more subjects then it’s no longer subjective (context dependent) but objective (context independent) for certain statements only which are subject to change such as current heat level. — invicta

Hmm, agreement between two or more subjects produces truth and objectivity? That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

Hume concludes that this inference [from cause to effect] has no foundation in the understanding - that is no foundation in what he calls 'reasoning'. — Graciela De Pierris, Michael Friedman

I explained quite clearly already, why such a conclusion is self-defeating. Notice that even this statement is self-contradicting. The word "inference" implies reasoning. An inference is what is derived from reasoning. So if a supposed "inference" has no foundation in reasoning, it cannot be called an "inference" because that would be contradictory. Yet it is called an "inference", because it is recognized that it actually is founded in reason, and Hume's attempt to portray it as not founded in reason is just incoherent hypocrisy.

Hume attempts to limit the meaning of "reasoning" to exclude inductive reasoning from the category of "reasoning", because of the deficiencies found to inhere within this form of reasoning. However, that leaves Hume's own conclusion, that the relation between cause and effect is not founded in reason, as itself not founded in reason. Therefore unjustified. That's why Hume's conclusion is self-defeating.

I do not find that it is an inductive inference, because it is not an inference from particular cases to the general case. It is more likely to be a case of analytical reasoning. — Jacques

An inference from the particular to the general is exactly what the quoted conclusion is. Look:

"The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination.

Hume gives many examples of particular instances of why the mind cannot find the effect to be implied by the cause. These examples of particulars are supposed to be representative of what observations of the "most accurate scrutiny and examination" could provide for us. Then he states the general (inductive) conclusion "the mind can never possibly find...".

Analytical reasoning involves judgements concerning relationships of meaning. Hume could not produce that conclusion of impossibility, "the mind can never possibly..." through analytical reasoning because there is no premise or axiom to support that inference of impossibility, only Hume's observations of what the mind can and can't do. Then the general principle "the mind can never possibly...", is produced; clearly inductive reasoning.