Determinism-Indeterminism dilemma

[orang]

The problem? There is the huge problem there! The main question is how do you assign freedom to what initiated from you while you certainly have no control on it? You don’t have control since the knowledge that how the initial cause initiated in agent is needed for an agent in order to have control on initial cause, but once the knowledge is there, then you are not free. In another word, you cannot be free at the same time have knowledge on how you are free.

That was initial part of my argument to prepare the second part, as the initial cause must start within agent if we want to grant freedom.

Hold on, people don’t always follow knowledge. Knowledge is only considered and weighed out by the intellect, as we see, the intellect is only the manager, that’s all. The soul is all and patiently pursuing, Its a jungle.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Hold on, people don’t always follow knowledge.

The intellect in of itself has nothing to do with the soul , other then translating impressions in cause from the unconscious, which is subject to the soul, which are suggestions. Its an association. No words insofar as conscience,. words and exactness are only things to do with getting close to what is going on.

Right, You can’t follow knowledge you don’t have it to begin with. Still the formation-information of the conscience comes into play here, so the choice still becomes a collective process even with an unknown, because of the responsibility attached.

 

[Counterpoint]

Aquinas does not teach " indeterminism, " nor does he teach " determinism. "

What Thomas is saying is that God can and does move the will ( even the intellect in some cases ) by way on inspiration. But the will remains absolutely free all the while.
One has to read Thomas as a whole, just as one must read Scriptures as a whole.

Linus2nd

I cited Aquinas (and a Thomistic scholar) to support my claim. That’s the difference between my post and yours.

 

[GaryTaylor]

I don’t see the issue at this point. Be it some are following more closely than others, I think at this stage everyone is pretty much on the same page?

 

[Counterpoint]

If you choose to not act, then not acting was a choice? Yes? I can choose two roads or a third ,forth, or fifth route going home. I can choose to not take any and not go home.

Whatever choice you made, you choose, however many alternatives in your mind there are to choose from you have NO CHOICE but to choose One.

There is no random chance, its a choice regardless how many alternatives there are.

You’re failing to grasp the central issue here: If we could go back in time and replay the tape, could you have chosen otherwise? That’s the question. If you believe you could have chosen otherwise, then you have to explain how you could have chosen otherwise - given the fact that everything leading up to the choice on which road to take would have had to be exactly the same.

Either everything is predetermned and could not have been otherwise, or an element of chance is at play. Determinism or indeterminism (not determinism) are the only two possibilities.

 

[Counterpoint]

Thanks, Prodigal_Son

I don’t think we can know for sure whether we have free will (after all, I can’t get behind my own consciousness to see if anything is causing my choices or not), but saying that science could never say anything about free will isn’t quite right. Many people have tried to use quantum indeterminacy to open the door for free will by refuting Newtonian determinism, for example. But it’s also important to recognize that the burden of proof is on determinists here, to show that what we don’t have what we all think we have, not on libertarians to establish that we have what we all think we have.

The moral implications are exactly the same regardless of whether compatiblist free will or libertarian free will holds true. For I cannot be held any more morally responsible for a decision or an act that ultimately reduces to pure chance or randomness than I can for one that was completely predetermined and could not have been otherwise. This is not difficult to intellectually grasp. Unfortunately, many cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this simple truism because it threatens their cherished religious convictions.

 

[tonyrey]

Our actions are determined. They are determined by us.

This is the clear answer to the dilemma.

Materialists believe free will doesn’t exist because they interpret everything in terms of things yet it is self-contradictory to reduce persons to biochemical processes. **We would have no control over our conclusions…
**

 

[GaryTaylor]

You’re failing to grasp the central issue here: If we could go back in time and replay the tape, could you have chosen otherwise? That’s the question. If you believe you could have chosen otherwise, then you have to explain how you could have chosen otherwise - given the fact that everything leading up to the choice on which road to take would have had to be exactly the same

Determinism-Indeterminism is resolved, its has no bearing on Free-will as understood. None, you are restricted to an evolution theory with Natural design, That’s rejected and for reasons mentioned which your argument is where?

How two twins genetically the same-identical, choose differently? Pretty much leaves your theory where, we really have free-will.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

The moral implications are exactly the same regardless of whether compatiblist free will or libertarian free will holds true. For I cannot be held any more morally responsible for a decision or an act that ultimately reduces to pure chance or randomness than I can for one that was completely predetermined and could not have been otherwise. This is not difficult to intellectually grasp. Unfortunately, many cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this simple truism because it threatens their cherished religious convictions.

You ignore a third option which Prodigal_Son brought up a million years ago; our actions are determined… by us. And saying that that isn’t free will but “randomness” just begs the question that genuine free will can’t exist.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

Materialists believe free will doesn’t exist because they interpret everything in terms of things yet it is self-contradictory to reduce persons to biochemical processes. **We would have no control over our conclusions…
**

We also couldn’t have actual knowledge: youtube.com/watch?v=TryOC83PH1g

 

[GaryTaylor]

Aside from the OP which I think we know by now the Catholic understanding can’t be intentionally squeezed into what is rejected and unresolved-Supernatural design. The argument is contingent on the presentation being correct about denial of Supernatural design.

Further the point of conscience could be further defined.

ourladyswarriors.org/teach/gaudspes.htm

1. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. [Cf. Rom. 2:15-16.] Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. [Cf. Pius XII, March 23, 1952: AAS (1952), p. 271] In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.

The secular thinking by reduction must reduce this to moral feeling and sense. This must emanate from within, also in denial of from outside-God. No guidance-consensus as to what “goodness” means. Therefore, anything goes as long as the conscious is in line with whatever goodness means. Dignity is offered from without, it is often denied from within.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I cited Aquinas (and a Thomistic scholar) to support my claim. That’s the difference between my post and yours.

Absolutely wrong. This is the quote you gave: " God does move the will, “since he moves every kind of thing according to the nature of the moveable thing…he also moves the will according to its condition, as indeterminately disposed to many things, not in a neccesary way” (QDM 6). (source: pp. 149-150, “Aquinas: Beginner’s Guide” by Edward Feser)

In typical Sophist fashion you have extracted one comment, second hand, from Thomas to attempt to bolster your view. That is a gross injustice to Feser and Thomas, for neither one holds to determinism in regard to the human will. And it would be a gross injustice to both to interpret the word " indeterminately " as meaning " randomly. "

God governs the whole universe. He governs it through the nature he has created in each creature. But each creature moves itself naturally according to the law of its nature. In man he does the same thing. He has created our nature and we govern our lives in accord to that nature. However, in the case of man, we are free to decide for ourselves to act one way or another or not to act at all. Our wills are absolutely free. And that is what the quotation above is emphasizing, the will remains free. And that is what Feser and Thomas mean by " indeterminately. " It means man is free in all his cognative functions.

And that is the crux of the O.P.'s " dilema. " It is the human will and whether it is free or not that is the issue, not the lack of freedom in other creatures. As far as the human will is concerned, the will is free. And this " indeterminism " on the part of God’s action upon the human will does not mean, either, that the acts of the human will are " random. " The human will is a free act of judgment by the will on the objects the intellect presents for judgment. There is nothing either " random " or " determinite " about acts of the will.

So there is no dilemma here at all. The whole argument is mere sophistry as it touches the human will.

On the other hand, the human soul governs other functions of man’s life naturally, its life functions, its vegatative functions, and its sensory functions, and many other of his bodily functions, in a determinate fashion according to the " laws " written into man’s soul. So the soul governs the whole life of man, both his cognative and his non cognative functions. His non-cognative functions are determinate, his cognative functions are free.

So the difference in ours posts is that I am presenting the whole truth about man, whereas you have elicited an invalid conclusion by selectively editing one quotation to bolster your biased view.

And if the reader doubts what I say, he can go to the S.T., Part 1, Ques 75-83 and read the Master himself on the subject.

Linus2nd

 

[Prodigal_Son]

The moral implications are exactly the same regardless of whether compatiblist free will or libertarian free will holds true. For I cannot be held any more morally responsible for a decision or an act that ultimately reduces to pure chance or randomness than I can for one that was completely predetermined and could not have been otherwise. This is not difficult to intellectually grasp. Unfortunately, many cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this simple truism because it threatens their cherished religious convictions.

You seem to think that “free will” entails “indeterminate will”. Do you have an argument for that, or do you simply assume it?

 

[GaryTaylor]

That’s the question. If you believe you could have chosen otherwise, then you have to explain how you could have chosen otherwise - given the fact that everything leading up to the choice on which road to take would have had to be exactly the same.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-stage_model_of_free_will

A two-stage model of free will separates the free stage from the will stage.

In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part in deterministically.

In the second stage, an adequately determined will evaluates the options that have been developed.

If, on deliberation, one option for action seems best, it is selected and chosen. If no option seems good enough, and time permitting, the process can return to the further generation of alternative possibilities (“second thoughts”) before a final decision.

A two-stage model can explain how an agent could choose to do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances that preceded the first stage of the overall free will process.

Note- the word choose; “the agent could choose” to do otherwise.

P1. Either determinism or indeterminism is true

First this is non sequitur as it “neglects” to admit the possibility of supernatural design as been shown. The argument is based on evolution as the article indicates

Second- In the first stage, alternative possibilities for thought and action are generated, in part indeterministically.

NOTE: the words “in part”

Now watch…In the first “free” stage of the two-stage model, the "indeterminism is limited to the generation of alternative possibilities, (which again assumes genetic evolution)

Second- In the second “will” stage, the decision is not predetermined by events in the distant past, before the agent was born, indeed possibly back to the origin of the universe

In the second stage, an adequately determined will evaluates the options that have been developed.

And possibly back to the Word written in the heart and formation of conscience?

Culminates…“Identifying the source of indeterminism in the free stage, and locating it in the brain, has proved to be a challenge for philosophers and scientists. A random quantum mechanical event in the brain amplified to the macroscopic level might only do harm if it was involved directly in the decision.”

Sounds to me like they have fringe, vague theory, thus no fact or law to base there presumptions on? “has proved to be a challenge”

Your question…James was doing OK here…

James was the first thinker to enunciate clearly a two-stage decision process, with chance in a present time of random alternatives, leading to a choice which grants consent to one possibility and transforms an equivocal ambiguous future into an unalterable and simple past. There is a temporal sequence of undetermined alternative possibilities followed by an adequately determined choice where chance is no longer a factor.

James went beyond his pay scale here…

James also gave full credit to Charles Darwin for the core idea behind his own “mental evolution”, explicitly connecting spontaneous variations in the Darwinian gene pool with random images and thoughts in the human brain.

Course James and the rest fail to admit formation of conscience may have an outside cause.

The evolution conclusion…

The physiology of how this happens has been little investigated.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

This leaves everyone who believes they have any freedom of choice to also believe in the supernatural, because it takes a belief in the supernatural to have any sort of true freedom.

No, it doesn’t. You can believe something without offering an explanation of how it was true. Atheists can believe in free will without explaining how it is possible.

 

[wmw]

Axiom 1) Nature is either determinate or random.
Axiom 2) Man has free will.
Conclusion: Something supernatural provides for man’s free will.

Anyone can believe whatever they like, but they must break the axioms I presented preceding this concluding statement.

All is fair if you’re not accepting the Axioms, but I thought this thread was based on acceptance of 1) and if someone claims fault with 2) every thought and discussion is mute.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Axiom 1) Nature is either determinate or random.
Axiom 2) Man has free will.
Conclusion: Something supernatural provides for man’s free will.

Anyone can believe whatever they like, but they must break the axioms I presented preceding this concluding statement.

All is fair if you’re not accepting the Axioms, but I thought this thread was based on acceptance of 1) and if someone claims fault with 2) every thought and discussion is mute.

1 has to be explained carefully otherwise people will get the idea that you are preaching the philosophy of determinism. That is why I prefer that people not use the term at all. But to explain. God created the natures of every creature and substance. Aristotle taught that nature was the cause of motion and rest in those things which possessed a nature in themselves. Thus he distinguished between natural things and artifacts ( which he called art) or things that happened by chance ( where natural things were forced to act contrary to nature).​

What he meant is that natural things, even man, are what they are, and do what they do, entirely by nature, naturally. The example he usually gave was that the heavy and the light seek their proper places, down and up respectively. As everyone here knows man’s soul governs every aspect of his life, all of this is according to nature. Even man’s intellect and will act according to nature. The distinction is that the nature of the intellect and will is that they are free. Whereas, the other operations of the soul, nourishment, growth, digestive, etc. are not free. So in all of earthly creation only the human soul has an absolutely free power, but it has it by nature, naturally.

By explaining the case this way we avoid falling into the trap of " mechanical " determinism.

Linus2nd

 

[tonyrey]

Materialists believe free will doesn’t exist because they interpret everything in terms of things

Indeed!

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Axiom 1) Nature is either determinate or random.

This axiom does not exclude natural free will. A naturally free-willed decision is a decision that is determinate, but determined by the agent.

 

[wmw]

True, I’ve not been following Aristotle’s thought that the spiritual soul is natural. My thought has been that everything created by God in the Big Bang is nature; while, the individual creations by God of the souls of men and the angelic beings are not.

I see the desire to call it natural for man to have a soul for this is the full form of humanity, but then the need to make this special type of determinism by agent. This seems a force fit, but since Aristotle wasn’t likely thinking of the soul as part of a spiritual realm this approach makes sense.