Peter van Inwagen - Mysteries of Free Will
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- Опубліковано 20 січ 2024
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Our human sense is that our will is fully free. Our scientific sense is that every action is determined by a prior action. Free will versus determinism is a big question without clear answer. What follows from free will affects morality, responsibility, judgment, even the deep nature of consciousness.
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Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
To some people, being able to say that "somebody did something wrong" is more important than the truth.
because like animals, when we are in high-stress situations (witnessing hurtful actions) the quickest way for the brain to secrete stress-relieving chemicals is by responding violently.
exclaiming (or muttering under one's breath) that someone is a an irresponsible-immoral wrong-doer is a passive-agressive form of retribution/revenge/violence
because for any practical benefit all we need is the forward-looking rational method focused only on keeping society and individuals safe and the scientific method to reduce negative phenomenon to a minimum
exactly!
What are you talking about? The truth is literally what happened, the action, it’s basically the definition of truth.
@@pashkaS54 it's a bit more nuanced than that.
Yeah, I think ethics and morality is pretty fucking important.
Free will is derived from randomness. It is a moot argument, as it requires the ability to predict the almost infinite complexity and permutations of the generator of random numbers. Realistically impossible, nothing is deterministic at the quantum level.
Peter van Inwagen stated something interesting, "I'm not clear that we hold people responsible for things that they do. I'm inclined to think we hold them responsible for the consequences of things they do, and that makes the difference."
It's funny how we don't question our everyday acts that we all hope we are accountable for, but only if there's moral judgment. We are free to act but don't act immorally.
I can't stop but hold that previous events we have no control over (because we cannot change the past) determine our everyday acts, morally or otherwise.
GRAVITY DOES NOT PULL DOWN. THINGS WILL ONLY FALL IF YOU TOOK AWAY THE FORCE FROM UNDERNEATH THAT IS PROVIDED BY THE THINGS THAT ARE PUSHING THE THINGS UP.
DR. MICHIO KAKU SAYS, "IT HAS TO BE AN IDIOT TO PUT DYNAMITE ON TOP, AND EXPECT THE TOP TO IMPLODE THE BUILDING."
DR. MICHIO KAKU SAYS, "WE LIED TO YOU, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GRAVITATIONAL PULL."
"UTTERLY FASCINATING"...JONATHAN COLE FIRECRACKER DEMOLITION...
"EXPLOSIONS"
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The fallacy with determinists’ position that the criminal act is predetermined is that they also don’t take the position that so is the punishment. If we can then change our minds to not hold criminals responsible , isn’t that an exercise of free will?
I think the whole idea is that we are open systems and can be infuenced by new information that alters the "software" in our heads. And if we continue to punish (collectively) that will be detetmined and if not that will be determined also. Consider slavery, at one time a nearly universal institution and now only traces are left among what now is thought to be criminsals and rogur states.
Van Inwagen is my favourite guest on this show.
too bad there isn't a recent talk with him.
I especially appreciate those guests who don't just bang on about their own personal view, but lay out the spectrum of views in philosophy in a fairly even handed manner. Van Inwagen is particularly good at this.
Listening to philosophers and theologists it comes to my mind that; creator of universe probably didn't expect a genus called human will come up and eventually have a mathematical and probabilistic thinking capacity to decide against odds from spontaneous effects she/he will face before leaving home.
?
Logical science accepts humanity is equipped with extreme survival capacity with evolutionary advancements in brain. However, when it comes to extremes there is a need for a creator to beg and be thankful. Having a creator is good for humans to ask help, angry at and be grateful to. Having no creator concept does not serve any benefit, says available human history. These philosophers and theologists should sit o a table to discuss this. @@TahirAhmad-io6uw
Teaching that theres no incompatibilist free will is urgent and critical in every imaginable aspect.
This myth that our neighbors can manifest "a first cause" has got humanity on emotional steroids and has history repeating itself for thousands of years.
Talking about 'responsibilility' has zero practical application. For to keep society safe and reduce antisocial behavior we've been endowed with the scientific-empirical method.
Randomness and lack of predictability in brain functions do not represent "freedom". It merely adds an element of caprice to the functioning of a neural mechanism. There is no separate "you" that is free of your own brain mechanisms. Your brain mechanisms ARE '"you". The mechanism behaves as a combination analogous to the winding of a clock, plus the rolling of dice.
Time only allows for one outcome. That seems as though we don’t have choices.
Hi Closer To Truth, sitting here listening my mind wanders as per usual!, I have always found it very difficult to just listen to any other person, I can still hear what they are saying but I just cannot stop my own mind from doing its own thing!.
This particular topic has always intrigued me because I suspect a fundamental paradox. This is related to the concept that all and every aspect of the physical universe we inhabit is regulated according to utterly consistent and unvarying 'laws', these by definition forbid any dis-obedience!, we simply cannot choose to just ignore gravity so those freedoms are denied!. With them off the agenda exactly what freedom are we even talking about, is it just the freedom to change our choice of concepts and methods does it mean we are free to opt for whatever cognitive delusion we select because it 'fits' our desires and ideology, this implies that those choices have zero consequence, that they have no direct material effect on anything outwith our own mental and emotional orbit. The other-wise being that if there are 'real consequences our freedom of expression is regulated by those consequences.
On that basis I have no problem at all with the concept of free will but it does leave it entirely within the realm of imagination and delusion, art if you like but no science!.
Cheers, Richard.
Birds choose to ignore gravity-in the sense that they do not let gravity determine that they must remain earthbound.
@@longcastle4863 Hi Longcastle, thank you very much for this interesting and stimulating comment. at this moment I am so busy trying to work out where to start with a sensible response.
For the sake of strict simplicity let us start with just what you have said, firstly that birds ignore gravity, from a perspective of conscious awareness I think you are correct, the fact that in order to fly at all they must expend some energy in beating their wings, this then lifts them into the air does not mean that they 'know' anything about gravity.
This then points me in one direction, to continue the theme all my assertions are based on one fundamental idea, that there really is a physical universe in which we exist, a universe quite conforms consistently to patterns and principles that we can describe but not alter. This primary contention is one which I have chosen to use not because I believe it to be true but only because to allows me to describe some tings in terms that I can communicate with others who are interested, that conversation becomes one in which we can reliably test our understanding of each other by relating to that physical reality, it allows us to make plans and create designs of things that we want to do that will have specific utility, things we can use, such things can be good bad or indifferent, those judgements do also need to be made and for that it is much easier to establish the practical value of things than it is to specify the ethical or moral merits. Those conversations are worth having because we all only have a limited amount of time here and we can just waste all that time or we can use some of it to good purpose, one feature of this strategy is that at no time or place is there any opportunity to defy any natural laws, ignore them at our peril but defy them never!. Just as the birds might ignore gravity because they know nothing of it does not mean they defy it.
I am by no means sure that you will be able to understand this point of view, if you are like most people deeply embedded in your own mind set and beliefs it might just be too radical form you but clearing my own mind like this does make me feel a bit better.
Cheers, Richard.
Dear Robert, would you please consider speaking to Robert Sapolsky about his issue? it would be an interesting conversation.
He has had enough appearances recently with the release of his new book. No point in another appearance. Many of those interviews were an hour long. I wish this channel would release more long form interviews. They seem to think that their viewers can't handle videos longer than 15 minutes (mostly).
@@scrollop Has Robert spoken to him already? I can't seem to find it on the channel. Could you share the link please. Thank you.
Not sure Sapolsky has anything to add to the discussion on free will, since he basically parrots the same line of thought that we've all heard before.. i.e. he's in denial of free will
@@zurc_bot
🐟 11. FREE-WILL Vs DETERMINISM:
Just as the autonomous beating of one's heart is governed by one's genes (such as the presence of a congenital heart condition), and the present-life conditioning of the heart (such as myocardial infarction as a consequence of the consumption of excessive fats and oils, or heart palpitations due to severe emotional distress), each and EVERY thought and action is governed by our genes and environmental conditioning.
This teaching is possibly the most difficult concept for humans to accept, because we refuse to believe that we are not the author of our thoughts and actions. From the appearance of the pseudo-ego (one’s inaccurate conception of oneself) at the age of approximately two and a half, we have been constantly conditioned by our parents, teachers, and society, to believe that we are solely responsible for our thoughts and deeds. This deeply-ingrained belief is EXCRUCIATINGLY difficult to abandon, which is possibly the main reason why there are very few persons extant who are spiritually-enlightened, or at least who are liberated from the five manifestations of mental suffering explained elsewhere in this “Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, since suffering (as opposed to pain) is predicated solely upon the erroneous belief in free-will.
Free-will is usually defined as the ability for a person to make a conscious decision to do otherwise, that is to say, CHOOSE to have performed an action other than what one has already done, if one had been given the opportunity to do so. To make it perfectly clear, if one, for example, is handed a restaurant menu with several dishes listed, one could decide that one dish is equally-desirable as the next dish, and choose either option. If humans truly possessed freedom of will, then logically speaking, a person who adores cats and detests dogs, ought to be able to suddenly switch their preferences at any given point in time, or even voluntarily pause the beating of his or her own heart!
So, in both of the aforementioned examples, there is a pre-existing preference (at a given point in time) for one particular dish or pet. Even if a person liked cats and dogs EQUALLY, and one was literally forced to choose one over the other, that choice isn’t made freely, but entirely based upon the person’s genetic code plus the individual's up-to-date conditioning. True equality is non-existent in the phenomenal sphere.
The most common argument against determinism is that humans (unlike other animals) have the ability to choose what they can do, think or feel. First of all, many species of (higher) mammals also make choices. For instance, a cat can see two birds and choose which one to prey upon, or choose whether or not to play with a ball that is thrown its way, depending on its conditioning (e.g. its mood). That choices are made is indisputable, but those choices are dependent ENTIRELY upon one’s genes and conditioning. There is no third factor involved on the phenomenal plane. On the noumenal level, thoughts and deeds are in accordance with the preordained “Story of Life”.
Read previous chapters of “F.I.S.H” to understand how life is merely a dream in the “mind of the Divine” and that human beings are, essentially, that Divinity in the form of dream characters. Chapter 08, specifically, explains how an action performed in the present is the result of a chain of causation, all the way back to the earliest-known event in our apparently-real universe (the so-called “Big Bang” singularity).
At this point, it should be noted that according to reputable geneticists, it is possible for genes to mutate during the lifetime of any particular person. However, that phenomenon would be included under the “conditioning” aspect. The genes mutate according to whatever conditioning is imposed upon the human organism. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE for a person to use sheer force of will to change their own genetic code. Essentially, “conditioning” includes everything that acts upon a person from conception.
University studies in recent years have demonstrated, by the use of hypnosis and complex experimentation, that CONSCIOUS volition is either unnecessary for a decision to be enacted upon or (in the case of hypnotic testing) that free-will choices are completely superfluous to actions. Because scientific research into free-will is a recent phenomenon, it is recommended that the reader search online for the latest findings.
If any particular volitional act was not caused by the preceding thoughts and actions, then the only alternative explanation would be due to RANDOMNESS. Many quantum physicists claim that subatomic particles can randomly move in space, but true randomness cannot occur in a deterministic universe. Just as the typical person believes that two motor vehicles colliding together was the result of pure chance (therefore the term “accident”), quantum physicists are unable to see that the seeming randomness of quantum particles are, in fact, somehow determined by each and every preceding action which led-up to the act in question. It is a known scientific fact that a random number generator cannot exist, since no computational machine or software program is able to make the decision to generate a number at “random”.
We did not choose which deoxyribonucleic acid our biological parents bequeathed to us, and most all the conditions to which we were exposed throughout our lives, yet we somehow believe that we are fully-autonomous beings, with the ability to feel, think and behave as we desire. The truth is, we cannot know for certain what even our next thought will be. Do we DECIDE to choose our thoughts and deeds? Not likely. Does an infant choose to learn how to walk or to begin speaking, or does it just happen automatically, according to nature? Obviously, the toddler begins to walk and to speak according to its genes (some children are far more intelligent and verbose, and more agile than others, depending on their genetic code) and according to all the conditions to which he or she has been exposed so far (some parents begin speaking to their kids even while they are in the womb, or expose their offspring to highly-intellectual dialogues whilst still in the cradle).
Even those decisions/choices that we seem to make are entirely predicated upon our genes and conditioning, and cannot be free in any sense of the word. To claim that one is the ULTIMATE creator of one’s thoughts and actions is tantamount to believing that one created one’s very being. If a computer program or artificially-intelligent robot considered itself to be the cause of its activity, it would seem absurd to the average person. Yet, that is precisely what virtually every person who has ever lived mistakenly believes of their own thoughts and deeds.
The IMPRESSION that we have free-will can be considered a “Gift of Life” or “God’s Grace”, otherwise, we may be resentful of our lack of free-will, since, unlike other creatures, we humans have the intelligence to comprehend our own existence. Even an enlightened sage, who has fully realized that he is not the author of his thoughts and actions, is not conscious of his lack of volition at every moment of his day. At best, he may recall his lack of freedom during those times where suffering (as opposed to mere pain) begins to creep-in to the mind or intellect. Many, if not most scientists, particularly academic philosophers and physicists, accept determinism to be the most logical and reasonable alternative to free-will, but it seems, at least anecdotally, that they rarely (if ever) live their lives conscious of the fact that their daily actions are fated.
Cont...
At 1:57 Peter van Inwagen clarifies that the freewill debate is grounded in terms of compatibilism versus incompatibilism, where free will is either compatible or incompatible with determinism. Determinism usually implies bottom-up causation (materialism), exclusively. And in this context, freewill is *incompatible* with determinism.
But there is another direction of causation, that of top-down. Culture is an example of top-down causation. Top-down causation implies context, & choices made in terms of contingency & the options that avail themselves. In this sense, freewill is directly relevant & compatible, because choices are made in anticipation of objectives & what one wants to become.
Bill Gates, for example, began life as a computer programmer who, through astute decisions engaged with the top-down of cultural developments in technology, along with the top-down of parental guidance & support, to become the success he is known for. That's freewill at work, and Microsoft couldn't have happened without it.
Top-down causation is what is missing from the contemporary life-science narrative. It is semiotic, and it provides solutions to problems such as entropy and the mind-body problem.
If we didn't have free will then we would all be the same but we are all different and we make different life choices. Even if someone copied everything a person does there would still be a big difference in their identities.
If source of all evil is traceable to substances inside the earth and we know the mechanism how to prevent that substance reaching the surface to harm any being, then associating FREEWILL with PUNISHABILITY would become completely superfluous as nobody could ever be blamed for any evil. Then freewill would still be necessary to perpetuate happiness, while PREVENTION OF EVIL would have 100% deterministic formulae that are always particle physically implementable.
Starting a discussion of free will from a moral perspective is mostly unproductive and confuses the issue, imo, because the ability to make choices from the options available to one (which is how I define free will), was not introduced into the animal kingdom because of moral concerns, but for practical concerns often having to do with adaptation and survival: which particular animal in a herd to hunt, deciding the safest place to camp for the night, a bird deciding which male she wishes to mate with, etc. Only much later in the evolution of Homo sapiens, especially as they began living in larger groups and communities, did the understanding that individuals have the ability to make choices start being applied systematically to issues of guilt and culpability. Starting with the latecomers of guilt and culpability, then, confuses the issue, I think, of what free will is and was originally, evolutionarily speaking, selected for.
Eeerrrrmmm is always used when somebody does not know what they are talking about.
He says eeerrrmmm far too often.
No free will = philosophical zombie
Apparently, some people like pretending to be zombies 😂
What if you take your human lens off and see only the building blocks of the universe moving and interacting. Is the human brain really so special? Maybe I'm typing this right now because of the experiences I've had thus far, and because my brain was formed in it's own particular way with it's own unique traits. Did I choose to say this or has it just come to this? The fact you were even born to be able to ponder all of this was not even your choice.
Maybe it was your choice, but you chose it on another level or dimension of consciousness which your human self is unaware or unable to describe
Of the many discussions of freewill here on CTT, still, i haven't seen anybody mention or inquiry Intellect.
This is madness.
In my view intellect is one of the determinant factors in our decisions. From a determinist point of view our decisions are a result of pre-existing factors such as our preferences, fears, needs, desires, knowledge, reasoning skills and other mental constituents. Our intellect is one of these. Together they are the constituents of our minds, and to say that a decision is ours is to say that there was some process by which the constituents of our minds caused that decision.
From a philosophical point of view I think this must be true regardless of physicalism or dualism. Suppose we say that or minds are in fact composed of some non physical mental stuff, and this mental stuff is us or is part of us, then I still think this stuff must be the cause of our decisions in order for them to be ours. So my determinism is not dependent on my physicalism, because I think the idea of a choice being un-caused and yet also somehow being ours is incoherent. For me, to say that a choice was ours is to say that we caused it, and to say that we must have some account of who our what we are, and of causation.
If by intellect you mean bennet IQ I am agree it will be contributory but not sure it would be the dominant one. If you mean something else do elaborate.
Most important question.
Free will as free will, there is none.
Yet are you not responsible? Yes you are. Are you responsible for all or partially? Not known.
What is the journal of one's journey?
So if humans have free will, not to have free will, then they have free will. ©
Metaphysician philosopher
Pre determinism is a fallacy if compare to free will.
Past cannot be changed as already determined.
Free will only affect the present and the future as it constantly changing pre determination is also constantly changing.
Free will is incoherent under any defintion.
Thoughts are either determined by prior causes (principle of sufficient reason/ cause and effect) in which you do not control them, or they are random (quantum indeterminacy)/ a mixture of both, in either case you do not control them.
Every particle (further divisible to the wave function or possibly strings) in the universe, obeys the laws of physics, and your brain which constitutes of matter is no different; following the 4 fundamental forces, in which you do not control that was set off at a brute fact (the big bang) or infinite regression.
Libertarian free will proponents insist that their choices are made for reasons, but also that those reasons do not determine their choices. Or that those reasons are not themselves determined, but also not a matter of chance, this is a contradiction.
If it’s a false trichotomy, then what are the other options? Agent causation (of the soul)? But again, does something cause the agent to act, or does the agent act for no reason?
Even if you have an immaterial soul, it only makes sense to say that soul is making decisions if its actions are causally determined by prior soul-states. Otherwise, its actions are uncaused, and uncaused events are, by definition, random. If you are acting randomly, that’s not really decision making. It’s only if your actions are done for reasons which cause those actions that you’re really making decisions. You’re not making decisions if you’re just doing things for no reason.
A mixture of chance and determinism? Part of the decision-making process involves causal influences, and the rest has no prior cause. This doesn't solve it. Free will, described by its advocates imply a person has control over their decisions. If my decisions are predetermined; how do I have control over them? If my decisions have no cause, and occur for no reason, then how can I control them?
What does it mean to say that “we are free and in control of what facts and ideas the mind focuses on”? When I choose to focus on an idea, does something cause me to choose to focus on that idea? If the answer is yes, then I'm not really in control of that act of focusing. If the answer is no, and there is nothing that determines what I will choose to focus on, the act of focusing on anything is no different from a chance event, which by definition are not controlled by anything.
So, does something cause a person to focus and think, or does the person’s choice to think and focus happen for no reason? Or is it partly causally influenced and partly chance? I don’t see how responsibility or control fits into any of these options, and I don’t see what other options there are.
I can choose 'x' or 'y', however, everything that makes up that choice is caused by both internal and external variables in which you did not pick. E.g., genetics, brain electricity and chemistry, physics of your own atoms and that around you, parents/ who raised you, where you were raised, what you were taught.
These make up your beliefs, thoughts, impulses, emotions, knowledge, memory.
True free will would be walking off a building and willing your atoms to defy gravity. In the same way your body cannot defy that fundamental force, your brain cannot defy the other 3 forces which makes up your thoughts. You are just matter and energy reacting to the laws of physics.
You can only do anything for 2 reasons; because you want to, or you are forced to:
You can do whatever you want, but you cannot choose what you want. It’s a fact that you cannot change. Try this with any scenario.
E.g., I give you 2 ice cream flavours to pick from: your favourite (x) and unknown (y). You will choose what you want more. If you pick your favourite x, it’s because you want it presumably for whatever reason it’s your favourite (taste/ texture, nostalgia, safe choice etc.) If you pick y, maybe it’s because you want to try something new in case it’s your new favourite, and this want becomes higher than the want of having your favourite ice cream, which you never chose to want more. Perhaps despite preferring x, you choose y in an effort to regain control of free will and nothing else. You still fall into the same problem; In order to do that, you'd need to "want" to regain your free will, as you see it.
Why is your desire to prove a point like this stronger than the desire to have the ice cream you prefer? It just is, and if it happened not to be, you'd have chosen the ice cream that you do prefer. The key takeaway is this: you cannot determine your wants. Think of something you want. Try to not want it. Think of something you don't want and try to want it. It's not possible. And even if it were, in order to change a don't want into a want, you'd need to want to want it. And vice versa. To change want into a don't want, you'd need to want to not want it. You simply can't control what you want.
So being forced to do something isn't free will, and wanting to do something isn't free will.
But being forced or wanting to do something are the only reasons why you do anything.
You never lined up all the flavours; a,b,c…x,y,z… and said “I’m choosing for x to be my favourite”, rather it is innate to you, based on internal and external variables that you did not choose.
Why did you choose x? Because I like the way it tastes, or maybe it’s nostalgic because my nan used to give to me as a boy. But again, why? Because it’s how my gustatory system is wired (in which you didn’t choose), or because that’s what my nan was raised to eat as well. I can ask why, ad Infinitum.
But why did that resonate with you and not something else? You keep digging existentially deeper, you’re left with bio/chemical/physical mechanics and processes that you have no control of that creates the whole illusion of the experience of you. You did not pick your taste buds, or brain sensory input/ output systems or to be in that environment for that nan to provide you with those experiences. Why will have an infinite regression to a point you cannot explain. “It just is”.
Why, will always have a why question following it into an infinite regression.
Divine Foreknowledge:
The argument is not that God predetermined what he knows ahead of time, it is that in order to infallibly know what will happen in the future, what will happen in the future has to be written in stone. Even if it’s not written in stone by God, it still has to be written in stone in order for God to know it infallibly. Knowing something will happen, even infallibly doesn't deterministically cause it to happen. The point is that in order to infallibly know that an event will happen, that event has to be predetermined. It doesn't have to be predetermined by the knowledge you have, but in order to have that knowledge infallibly, the event cannot be free to not occur. To say that an event is free to occur or not occur is to say whether it will occur or not cannot be infallibly known. There is no coherent scenario, not even hypothetically in which these events do not occur.
Even if God is outside time, and our future actions are retroactively causing God to know about them infallibly in the present, then they also lock us into committing them inescapably, otherwise we could defy God's foreknowledge. This would mean that I am predetermined to take every action I will ever take. If we aren't free to act differently, in the future, from how he, presently know we will act, because from his perspective it's already happened, then we have no more freedom to change the future, that we have to change the past.
we do we not think it is natural to say that a person created an idea, instead of had one. we view ideas as more similar to catching a cold because they are not constructed in a process transparent to us with intention, that kind of a thing would not even make sense, not in the final form, something has to come from outside experience and enter into it for new ideas to be come upon.
Imagine if we all don't have this thing caled: Free Will. Where would all of us be & the universe as well, ultimately?. In Hinduism, Karma Theory is based only on Free Will, I understand. Many outside agents like GOD, even DEVIL may have a role in each of our lives but still whatever little Free Will we all have or at least suposedly have, should play a role in every choice we make in life, hence form Karmas, good, bad, ugly ones. We all need Free Will assumed or otherwise too to lead decent, ethical, good lives here, for sure & for Karma formation too to determine our next births as believed in Hinduism. MeenaC
So, Robert wants to understand how an individual comes to have an action that is categorized as 'free will', and this understanding is needed in order to create a controllable artificial conscious machine. 😉
That's what Robert is looking for.
we all have compatibilist free will all the time to some degree. no one has incompatibilist free will ever. whats urgent is to teach is that no one has incompatibilist free will. that our neighbor could not have done otherwise. that we can and do 'know' this. (of his own accord..)
“Free will”, is God’s gift and curse to humanity.
the argument does presuppose an understanding of what it means for A to choose to shot B by means of counterfactual. so i don't see what is added here tbh:) you assume there is such a thing as choice that can be judged to be a criteria for responsibility, i'm not sure what to do with that, it is seemingly just assumed with no reference to a manipulator. what causes A to shoot B when the manipulator does nothing? you can't just leave that question out of the analysis, surely isn't a strong enough qualifier to wave that question away. morality, right and wrong is something we perceive and act upon whatever the causes of it, but the understanding of the meaning responsibility or the origin of the contemplation and results in action are hidden from view, we easily just fall back on the intuition of the self containment and obviousness of this choice and the resultant actions belonging to the person A, but upon examination i would still have to say that no progress has been made to ascertain the meaning of responsibility outside the intuitive obvious sense of our intuitions. what was the cause of the understanding and the contemplation, the possible doubt in the thought process, the trigger for the change in experience corresponding with the process leading to pulling the trigger, we find no firm ground floor there, only correlation from which we can reasonably assume risk associated with a person contemplating murder or promoting their intent to do so, but the meaning of responsibility is still not there, the experience of responsibility seems obvious, and actionable, but the origins of the situation in which we find ourselves as who we are seem not to have that character at all removed from the intuition. what this example seems to make obvious is that the internal process of experience, of contemplation, judgement and hesitation with respect to effecting other living beings as we see them, is responsible for actions, and that might very well be true in a certain sense, but the experience is not something that is itself chosen in the same obvious way, there is no obvious secondary or tertiary process of choosing how we feel about choosing, of structuring our own attitudes at will or our impressions in some experience free of the same structure, ultimately these impressions and experiences has to be something structured by something hidden and not percived and so our degree of control over them is not only unknown but is not entering into our intuitions at all, therefore we face a choice of accepting that our impressions and experiences are what and who we are and that from which responsibility derives or we have to say that we do no spring forth from ourselves and there was a manipulator with no such features behind the curtain all along in both cases, the first option doesn't make much sense because we do not choose our attitudes and impressions in the moment they choose for us and that is how we identitfy ourselves in any given experience, but that is not enough to account for why we feel as we do and act as we do, all we can identify there is a feeling of responsibility, and that feeling might be a good thing in the process of choice as it is as the result of the unknown sub strait, giving rise to the experience of responsibility and correlation in action, but as a cause being unfelt and un-judged by ourselves of ourselves. that is to say, even if responsibility is something of a concept hanging in mid air resting not on causation but on intuition it is a good thing to feel and to act upon for whatever reason, it is there and is correlated with action even if we cannot trace any control over it, for better or worse responsibility has to be viewed as a kind of causal influence that runs through us, not that is held by us. it is somethign we feel or do not feel, something we act upon or do not act upon. it is not something we generate on our own.
free will is the ability to do what you don't want to do
Doesn’t a person on a diet both want to eat that second piece of cake and not eat it? Nietzsche expressed ambivalence about free will and what it is. Instead, he said, what we have are various wills-some strong, some not too strong-all vying for attention and dominance within an individual and/or within a society (in my understanding of Nietzsche’s comment, which unfortunately he never expanded on). I think he had a point.
@@longcastle4863 i agree, and in that sense you can interpret my sentiment as: free will is the ability for the weaker thoughts to win.
@@anywallsocket 👍
@@longcastle4863 I never heard that about Nietzche. But it’s funny because he’s explaining my theory about hierarchy of preferences. We make preferences of the preferences which are more important. Cost over flavor, then good flavor over poor flavor,, etc.
Like we prefer sushi 24/7 but can’t afford it so we eat ham sandwiches instead.
I prefer a Bugatti but will drive a Dodge. I rather have a white dodge over a red dodge.
My preference for not having my truck repossessed overrides my buying a Bugatti. But I like white over red.
No Freewill...
Causes and Consequences...
There is no free will
I mean, where would it come from? Every decision you make upwelled from you unconscious.
If something upwells from unconsciousness into consciousness, I would think, then, consciousness gets to decide what to do with it. It’s now consciousness’s territory. Also, just because someone was raised in a racist family, doesn’t mean they have to be racist-even if for a long time that was their knee jerk reaction because of where or how they were raised.
The Kekule Problem from Cormac McCarthy talks about a scientist who couldn't figure out the structure of a certain molecule until it came to him in a dream.
The unconscious wasn't a barrier to his will.
It can do first order logic and higher order logic, but it doesn't do anything without prompting.
Sound familiar? 😂
If everything is determined by the unconscious, why does it need to communicate in dreams? Why is a subjective experience open for interpretation necessary?
The problem in the A shooting B scenario is that what distinguishes freedom is the choice, not action outcome. When we say A is responsible for the action we're just using shorthand for making the decision. Let's say the off-screen bad guy has remote control over the trigger finger muscles in A's arm. What matters is did the signal to the muscle come from A's brain or from a remote control circuit. A made a choice and a choice is an action in the world, but if that action is intercepted and superseded, A cannot be held responsible for that. I think this is true irrespective of whether we're determinists or physicalists.
*"The problem in the A shooting B scenario is that what distinguishes freedom is the choice, not action outcome"*
... I agree with that!
*"A made a choice and a choice is an action in the world, but if that action is intercepted and superseded, A cannot be held responsible for that."*
... That begs the question, _"Can a decision ever be intercepted or superseded by anyone other than the single agent that's making the decision?"_
*(1)* Anything that can intercept or supersede my decisions would necessarily be an "additional agent" that has magical access to future events.
*(2) If this "additional agent" exists, then I'd like to see it physically / scientifically demonstrated. Show me the magic "decision genie" hiding behind the curtain!
*(3)* Why is an additional agent even required at all?
*(4)* Is there also a *3rd agent* that intercepts or supersedes the actions of the *2nd agent* that's intercepting or superseding my decisions? And is there a *4th agent* that does the same for the *3rd Agent?* ... and so on and so on.
@simonhibbs887 Yes. "A's brain" made a choice, but was that choice a product of the limited options made available to the "A's brain"? The brain tells the body how to act. Consciousness tells "A's brain" what it is aware of. Brain decides (has no moral compass).
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC The example Van Inganwen gives is for example if A makes some move not consistent with taking the shot, such as starting to turn or move away. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but something along those lines. It’s a contrived example, but we could construct less contrived ones, such as A is in control of a bomb set to detonate and must decide whether to disable it within a time frame, but the interfering agent can send the signal at the last second anyway. There’s no need to see the future.
The point is A’s choice doesn’t affect the resulting outcome. It’s just highlighting that the choice is what is morally relevant, not the outcome. That’s true regardless of whether we’re determinists or believe in libertarian free will. Not that this scenario is not arguing either for or against libertarian free will. It’s arguing that both are missing the point by focusing on actions, but I think that’s a mistake. You and seem to agree that the important consideration is decisions.
@@quantumkath I’m not sure what you mean by options made available to the brain. Do you mean information the brain received about the situation?
@@simonhibbs887 *"It’s a contrived example"*
... Yes, the mysterious *second agent* is an "evil demon" that will compel A to shoot B if he doesn't do so on his own accord. So, the end result is that B still gets shot whether A chooses to or not. Because the outcome is the same no matter what, we can never know if A chose to do it - or was compelled to do it.
The "contrived" part is the existence of the mysterious "second agent." Why does it exist?
*"It’s a contrived example, but we could construct less contrived ones, such as A is in control of a bomb set to detonate and must decide whether to disable it within a time frame, but the interfering agent can send the signal at the last second anyway."*
... Yes, we can negate just about anything when we employ a *second agent* to do our dirty work.
*"The point is A’s choice doesn’t affect the resulting outcome."*
... Correct! So, all we have to do is perform a philosophical exorcism to remove the evil demon and we all get back our free will, right?
*"It’s just highlighting that the choice is what is morally relevant, not the outcome. That’s true regardless of whether we’re determinists or believe in libertarian free will."*
... And to that I would agree! It's a way to demonstrate that the *choice* is the focal point and not the outcome. All asides to morality are taken into consideration by A before he pulls the trigger (or not).
But Simon, people take these innocuous "thought experiments" and run with them. HDeists really WANT this mysterious *second agent* to exist! They try to "bring it to life" by claiming its either a prior event, a preference, Newtonian physics, or a brain.
Do you not see the comments from the ones who do this?
Windmills:1, RK:0. Keep "tilting" RK, hope springs eternal... Meanwhile its been said that, like taking a Philosophy class" all you have to do is come up with a line of BS and successfully defend it....
Which says nothing about what it takes to get a doctorate in philosophy, which often involves learning several languages, keeping up with the sciences and being at least considerably above average in logic and math skills.
Yep. Agent Causation. And it’s through our intrinsic access to agent causation that we know about causation at all, at least intrinsically, as he mentions. Where I disagree is the idea that if God rewound the clock on an action the action could or would be performed differently. I think every instance of choice is an irreducible instance of freedom that is what it is even PRIOR to the actual creation of the moment of action in actuality. This is why God has middle knowledge. God “knows” (contains the information) of what any conscious state WOULD do in any circumstance, and why any conscious state would do what it would do (or does do if actualized into Being) is an irreducible and determinate fact about what that conscious state IS, determined by nothing but itself and its intrinsic freedom. Just as God both is necessarily a state of being (albeit a ultimate one being “being itself”) he also is an instance of will; so too with all contingent states of Being. To be is to determine a freedom into a determinacy. And how this freedom is determined is “essential” to what the state is in a way that is both determinate yet not “predictable” or determined by other factors outside itself. At least not totally.
Free will is incoherent under any defintion.
Thoughts are either determined by prior causes (principle of sufficient reason/ cause and effect) in which you do not control them, or they are random (quantum indeterminacy)/ a mixture of both, in either case you do not control them.
Every particle (further divisible to the wave function or possibly strings) in the universe, obeys the laws of physics, and your brain which constitutes of matter is no different; following the 4 fundamental forces, in which you do not control that was set off at a brute fact (the big bang) or infinite regression.
Libertarian free will proponents insist that their choices are made for reasons, but also that those reasons do not determine their choices. Or that those reasons are not themselves determined, but also not a matter of chance, this is a contradiction.
If it’s a false trichotomy, then what are the other options? Agent causation (of the soul)? But again, does something cause the agent to act, or does the agent act for no reason?
Even if you have an immaterial soul, it only makes sense to say that soul is making decisions if its actions are causally determined by prior soul-states. Otherwise, its actions are uncaused, and uncaused events are, by definition, random. If you are acting randomly, that’s not really decision making. It’s only if your actions are done for reasons which cause those actions that you’re really making decisions. You’re not making decisions if you’re just doing things for no reason.
A mixture of chance and determinism? Part of the decision-making process involves causal influences, and the rest has no prior cause. This doesn't solve it. Free will, described by its advocates imply a person has control over their decisions. If my decisions are predetermined; how do I have control over them? If my decisions have no cause, and occur for no reason, then how can I control them?
What does it mean to say that “we are free and in control of what facts and ideas the mind focuses on”? When I choose to focus on an idea, does something cause me to choose to focus on that idea? If the answer is yes, then I'm not really in control of that act of focusing. If the answer is no, and there is nothing that determines what I will choose to focus on, the act of focusing on anything is no different from a chance event, which by definition are not controlled by anything.
So, does something cause a person to focus and think, or does the person’s choice to think and focus happen for no reason? Or is it partly causally influenced and partly chance? I don’t see how responsibility or control fits into any of these options, and I don’t see what other options there are.
I can choose 'x' or 'y', however, everything that makes up that choice is caused by both internal and external variables in which you did not pick. E.g., genetics, brain electricity and chemistry, physics of your own atoms and that around you, parents/ who raised you, where you were raised, what you were taught.
These make up your beliefs, thoughts, impulses, emotions, knowledge, memory.
True free will would be walking off a building and willing your atoms to defy gravity. In the same way your body cannot defy that fundamental force, your brain cannot defy the other 3 forces which makes up your thoughts. You are just matter and energy reacting to the laws of physics.
You can only do anything for 2 reasons; because you want to, or you are forced to:
You can do whatever you want, but you cannot choose what you want. It’s a fact that you cannot change. Try this with any scenario.
E.g., I give you 2 ice cream flavours to pick from: your favourite (x) and unknown (y). You will choose what you want more. If you pick your favourite x, it’s because you want it presumably for whatever reason it’s your favourite (taste/ texture, nostalgia, safe choice etc.) If you pick y, maybe it’s because you want to try something new in case it’s your new favourite, and this want becomes higher than the want of having your favourite ice cream, which you never chose to want more. Perhaps despite preferring x, you choose y in an effort to regain control of free will and nothing else. You still fall into the same problem; In order to do that, you'd need to "want" to regain your free will, as you see it.
Why is your desire to prove a point like this stronger than the desire to have the ice cream you prefer? It just is, and if it happened not to be, you'd have chosen the ice cream that you do prefer. The key takeaway is this: you cannot determine your wants. Think of something you want. Try to not want it. Think of something you don't want and try to want it. It's not possible. And even if it were, in order to change a don't want into a want, you'd need to want to want it. And vice versa. To change want into a don't want, you'd need to want to not want it. You simply can't control what you want.
So being forced to do something isn't free will, and wanting to do something isn't free will.
But being forced or wanting to do something are the only reasons why you do anything.
You never lined up all the flavours; a,b,c…x,y,z… and said “I’m choosing for x to be my favourite”, rather it is innate to you, based on internal and external variables that you did not choose.
Why did you choose x? Because I like the way it tastes, or maybe it’s nostalgic because my nan used to give to me as a boy. But again, why? Because it’s how my gustatory system is wired (in which you didn’t choose), or because that’s what my nan was raised to eat as well. I can ask why, ad Infinitum.
But why did that resonate with you and not something else? You keep digging existentially deeper, you’re left with bio/chemical/physical mechanics and processes that you have no control of that creates the whole illusion of the experience of you. You did not pick your taste buds, or brain sensory input/ output systems or to be in that environment for that nan to provide you with those experiences. Why will have an infinite regression to a point you cannot explain. “It just is”.
Why, will always have a why question following it into an infinite regression.
Divine Foreknowledge:
The argument is not that God predetermined what he knows ahead of time, it is that in order to infallibly know what will happen in the future, what will happen in the future has to be written in stone. Even if it’s not written in stone by God, it still has to be written in stone in order for God to know it infallibly. Knowing something will happen, even infallibly doesn't deterministically cause it to happen. The point is that in order to infallibly know that an event will happen, that event has to be predetermined. It doesn't have to be predetermined by the knowledge you have, but in order to have that knowledge infallibly, the event cannot be free to not occur. To say that an event is free to occur or not occur is to say whether it will occur or not cannot be infallibly known. There is no coherent scenario, not even hypothetically in which these events do not occur.
Even if God is outside time, and our future actions are retroactively causing God to know about them infallibly in the present, then they also lock us into committing them inescapably, otherwise we could defy God's foreknowledge. This would mean that I am predetermined to take every action I will ever take. If we aren't free to act differently, in the future, from how he, presently know we will act, because from his perspective it's already happened, then we have no more freedom to change the future, that we have to change the past.
Jeebus!😮
does a robot equiped with human level intelligence have free-will... what if such robot equiped with amunition is sent to the front and refuses to follow directions by deciding to not engage 🤔
then it will get replaced with one that does
the focus is on free will... in the case of the robot, which is usually equated with an automated system that takes a command and executes it without reflecting on the outcome, we can conclude that such system doesn't have freedom to choose what action to take next... but when the same robot is equiped with complex functionality (huma level intelligence) then suddenly it has the option to decide whether or not to execute an order or not, depending on the situation... let's say, intel prior to order/command was not correct or up to date and an UAV, with human level intelligence, tasked to execute it, decides to abort because a POW camp was identified instead... can we conclude that the difference between the two robots is the free-will or agency...
🥱
Contradictory Theology, Mathematics and Physics (Functions; limit built into every operation):
1. The Genesis 1 character and the Genesis 2 character are the exact same character.
2. Zero is not fundamental and nonzero is fundamental (Newton calculus).
3. 0D is not-necessary and 1D, 2D, 3D, 4D are necessary (Newton physics).
Non-contradictory Theology, Mathematics and Physics (Relations defined by constraints; limit is a separate operation):
1. The Genesis 1 character and the Genesis 2 character are polar opposite characters.
2. Zero is fundamental and nonzero is not fundamental (Leibniz calculus).
3. 0D is necessary and 1D, 2D, 3D, 4D are not-necessary (Leibniz physics).
Interpreting the Bible with the Genesis 1 character and the Genesis 2 character as the exact same character generates near 70,000 contradictions (see reason project) and requires heavy apologetics. A Bible interpretation which includes near 70,000 contradictions is what a snake-oil salesman would sell you.
[Breaking News 📰]: Contradictions = false.
The standard model of physics is 3+1 necessary space-time where 0 is not-necessary.
[Breaking News 📰]: the universe (3 + 1 space-time so 1D, 2D, 3D and 4D) been not locally real (or "less real") for a year now.
THEN: zero (0) = not-necessary (not locally real or "less real") and
nonzero (1, 2, 3, 4 etc) = necessary (locally real or "more real")
NOW: zero (0) = necessary (locally real or "more real") and
nonzero (1, 2, 3, 4 etc) = not-necessary (not locally real or "less real")
TL;DR if you aren't sure if the meaning of 0 and 1 changing is epic or not just remember that Rick Sanchez collapsed a Galactic Federation by changing a 1 into a 0.
whats the definition of responsible? dont we only need to make the world a better place, reduce to a minimum negative social/individual phenomenon and so all we need is science (change potential factors and measure effects)
we're all responsible to make the world a better place. Not to categorize all the men which we want to label for zero practical added-value as: not-responsible vs. yes responsible and very very responsible and very very not respondible. Im coining the term bibble of babble.
0:28 Harry Frankford the philosopher 0:52 ... free will uh at least as it's often understood by philosophers is a kind of double power with respect to the future that is uh you're trying to deide to uh between two or more alternatives and you're able to pick each of them um and all right but why does anyone think that's important well because some people uh think uh that in fact this had been the usual view that this is required for certtain moral judgments that is you can't say that somebody did something wrong unless you uh believe that the person could have done something else something besides that this is the old position that summed up in kinds of bumper sticker ought implies can. 1:47 2:38 ... so here's an example ... suppose that somebody does something that you think he's morally responsible for it doesn't make any difference what it is build everything into the cae you like uh that's let's say that somebody the usual gruesome examples that philosophers that philosophers you somebody shoots somebody else and then make put everything in to make that person responsible uh for shooting that person or for that person's death uh that you like a miracle occurs in his brain whatever uh then having supposed all that having satisfied yourself that A is responsible for shooting B thn had an invisible offstage manipulator what this person uh this offstage manipulate this evil spirit this mad scientist whatever it may be would do is he very much wants A to shoot B he'd prefer that A shoot B ... 3:45
Free will isn't a thing
except on youtube
Isn't an illusion a "thing?"
@@brothermine2292Yeah, but it's not a "thing" thing.
@@T_J_ : What's a "thing" thing? Is "2+2=4" a "thing" thing? It makes a lot of sense to believe 2+2=4.
@@brothermine2292 A "thing" thing is a thing that's true. So, yes, 2+2=4 is a "thing" thing.
Sapolsky settled the debate with his new book Determined. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Does one have free will if one is in the process of having an NDE?
@@scrollopwhy would an NDE suddenly give you freewill?
Free will is uncaused, eternal, substance of an infinite nature, mind, God. Every person is half man and half woman impossibility possible miracle God. A person is half genetic information from male and half from female. Kids look like their mother and father. Free will proves the existence of God and that's why atheists deny life exits. Without free will life can not exist. Without free will reality is determined. It's fact. It's reality. It's truth. It's what happened. God is the Mind that stores all reality past, present and future. When reality dies God die for ever. God is the perfect idea, to create your own life and death from self, a perfect game to eternal life or death. It's an idea that is censored and can not do harm. To end the war the discovery that atheism is a logical fallacy has to be news. Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. If God die all reality in the present of God will be deterministic. The past of God will not get new information from the present. Urgent. Thank you.
@@Mus4shi15 How can an NDE give you something you already have, but which some persistently deny?
_"Sapolsky settled the debate"_
Not really. He just presented his view, which isnt really his view, since according to him and others like him, those views are predetermined and do not originate from a person or self (since that self is an illusion anyway lol)
To be forced to do something is not to do something. Contemporary philosophy is in such a sorry state.
Canst thou by searching find out God? Job 11-7
Yea yea, Tzofar says that. And both Job and his "friends" seem to accuse each other of exactly the same thing: having the smaller-god-concept.
Yet in the end the god character claims twice that job was the one that was right.
(that theres no incompatibilist free will)
@@michalleaheisig Job seems agent-caused to me; he claims "I know that I will be justified", "if I hold my tongue, I know I will give up the ghost", he also denies the artificial as "physicians of no value" consider Coleridge's compatibalism: "as Cousin would make it It is neither possible says he nor for all men or for many to be philosophers There is a philosophic and inasmuch as it is actualized by an effort of freedom an artificial consciousness which lies beneath or as it were behind the spontaneous con sciousness natural to all reflecting beings"
Qauntom scale settled this for good , infinite degree of Freedom yet uniformity, timelessness without liner direction perfect in everyway. Confirmed newton.
Here in fundamentals we see where a correlating event not in time but scale where critical extreme stat occurs, this provides the brain tool to access unique fields or perspectives of higher form id life ,triality of self with transfer of data ,info,code,word is fundamental and most precise.
We can dictate our non local systems and impose evolutionary human centric manipulation for our benefit and nature itself can not and will not work this way on its own. In fact we can't even force all systems of the universe to do this.
Its simple and was immediately understood when newton math mapped human dashboard equations of the knowledge of good and evil. The ability to correlate, plagiarize, project, reduce and less on.
Classical American founders simpley come to this conclusion is a different line of evidence found in history of nations, people places and things.
Now its confirmed
This is why we can't both
Follow the evidence where it leads
And
Project evolutionary time onto evidence and change it to fit even though this is how we lean into our pardolia of mind biases of good and evil.
One we deem something is symmetry or beautiful vs what is ugly or chaotic
To what extent can any action not be a reaction? Can any action be detached from the world and others; if it cannot in what sense is any agent responsible? Is not responsibility intrinsically attached; unable to be individually, wholly individually, caused? In judging you must God not judge himself? It seems to me there is no purpose, intention or accident, other than God's, that is completely, individually, solely causal. Causation is a myth of "attached intention". That which is attached cannot be solely, responsible and therefore causal. It can only be an accomplice. An accomplice of ...narration. only the narrator is guilty: responsible. As a character one is only a puppet of narrative pretext.
What happens in the mind and brain is so complicated that we have practically no chance of adequately analysing its details. Free will has to be approached at a level that doesn't try to use such a detailed analysis. It calls for an ordinary commonsense approach. Even then, we can't expect to get it exactly right. Horror of horrors: we have to admit we can't exactly know !!
Peter van Inwagen may be very smart and an accomplished philosopher, but he isn't very good at explaining this stuff. He seems more like he's rambling rather than simplifying the topic at times in the video. For instance, he didn't really answered the question about what an incompatibilist's objection to the Frankfurt case would be but instead went off on a tangent about how there are other ways to allocate responsibility for a situation.
why does 'responsibility' matter?
rationally, the only focus should be keeping society/individuals safe and working to reduce negative social phenomenon to minimum.
I wish we all wake up tomorrow and the word 'responsible' gets erased from all brains. And we only use rationale for deciding how to 'respond'!
My dog has got free will.
Sometimes he refuses to wear his coat in the winter.
He hides under the kitchen table, looking very determined.
Don't your other faculties - perception, reason, intuition, emotion, revelation, or some combination of these - effectively circumscribe faith, when you isolate it to undertake bona fide secular activity?
Most people believe our consciousness drives our decisions and actions. I believe our consciousness drives nothing and the neural network firing is literally everything we are, and directly causes every action we take. Consciousness is a movie we play to ourselves of that.
The neural network always fires in a particular way given the immediate inputs and learned history.
Consequently there is no free will but that doesn't make people not responsible for their actions because its people taking responsibility for their actions that becomes the lesson for others and those lessons impact their behaviours. As does the law. And moral teachings and so on. They all go to train our neural networks to fire in ways beneficial for both ourselves and society on the whole, on average.
my 2c
Moralless people have a lot of excuses not to accept personal responsibility.
* 2- Robert, this should be very important to you. At least, you are searching for the truth. Although I am not certain you are searching for the true or false or truth!?
This world has nothing much to do with Good God that you are looking for. You will find Bad God everywhere. Without any intentions of gender bashing, I try to be observant as much as possible, and I hope it will not hurt any feelings.
Therefore, this is the reason women give birth. They also have no choice, so forget about free will.
As I expressed in a post in another video of yours, in this world, human freedom (not liberty, in which is a different story) can be achieved only by the extinction of humanity. Humanity is most dangerous to itself. At least on earth. Yet I am not certain if other planets or beings are all with good intentions or closer to the truth.
If you and the other scientists and philosophers would like to know what the truth may be, I have an interesting theory.
Metaphysician philosopher
(6:00) *PVI: **_"The principle is that a person is responsible for doing something only if he could have done otherwise."_* ... This is at the heart of this _imaginary_ debate. The problem is that when someone makes a decision, the decision is made ONLY at that single point in time (not _before_ or _after_ ). That's where the decision-making process officially starts and ends. There are no _time machines_ that allow you to go back and choose differently, nor can you move forward in time and see the results of your decision before you ever decide.
You cannot shift the decision-making process forward or backward, so any reference to whether someone could have chosen differently necessarily exists ONLY at the point that a decision is being made. Logically, speaking, if there are *multiple options* available at the time of the decision, then whoever is deciding can freely choose between those options ... _or none of the options._
Hard Determinists (who I now call "HDeists") have "freely chosen" to subscribe to a new religion. It's a virtual religion that's totally dependent on semantics, time machines, and imaginary "puppet masters" hiding behind the curtain who steal our agency and make us do the things that we do (like a god).
However, that's what HDeists "choose" to do with the one life they've been provided, ... _so more power to them!_
If someone truly could choose to do otherwise, why didn't they?
Think of the person who suddenly develops paedophilic fantasies ... and soon after, acts on those fantasies thus creating a victim and ending up incarcerated.
Then it's discovered that he has a tumour in his prefrontal cortex. The tumour is removed and the paedophilia subsides. No more fantasies. No more victims.
Exactly how could they have chosen differently with a malfunctioning brain?
What if some people are born with malfunctioning brains as a matter of natural architecture (no tumour required; just faulty wiring)? Or genetic predisposition?
>”a virtual religion that’s totally dependent on semantics, time machines, and imaginary “puppet masters”….
I’m perfectly happy to defend actual determinism, but if you insist on arguing against this bizarre fantasy version of it, that as far as I can tell nobody believes in, then you’re in your own with that I’m afraid.
@@simonhibbs887 *"but if you insist on arguing against this bizarre fantasy version of it, that as far as I can tell nobody believes in, then you’re in your own with that I’m afraid."*
... There are *numerous commenters* who challenge me all the time on what you just claimed that nobody believes in. Perhaps you don't see them as much because you lean more toward the deterministic side.
Maybe Dr. Shrinker will chime in with his standard "semantic juggling act" and tell us both how we have no choice but to choose what we choose based on our preferences?
Maybe another commenter will tell us how we "can't choose what we choose" as if that's even a possibility.
Maybe a third will chime in with their "time machine" and tell us, _"If we rewound the universe back to the beginning, everything would play out just as it has, therefore we have no free will."_
Are you telling me you've never read these types of comments?