How do atheists get around determinism?

[morgantj]

In that case your “knowledge” that people’s thoughts are determined is determined and makes you determined to deny that there is free will! In other words your argument is self-destructive because there is no guarantee that thoughts which are caused by physical events are true. BTW How do you know all our thoughts are determined?

If determinism is true, it is correct that my thoughts are determined and determine me to not accept the claim that there is such a thing as free-will. As far as determinism being self-destructive, if determinism is true, then you were determined to argue that determinism is self-destructive and there is no guarantee that your argument which is caused by physical events are true either. So the possible validity of your argument is comprised as well. Being subjects within a system where the system determines subjects actions makes it difficult for those subjects to make indepenant truth claims about the very system that is determining them to make the claims. But I would much rather see what evidence there is to support the idea that we have “free-will.” The evidence for that appears to be most lacking. Whether or not determinism is true or not, is not so much my concern. My concern is the proponents of free-will say we have the freedom to do otherwise, that we have free-will, well lets see the evidence for that, how does that work within our understanding of physics, nature, and causality. It doesn’t fit. It seems like another unjustified evidenceless “there is a god” proposal.

 

[James_S_Saint]

If determinism is true, it is correct that my thoughts are determined and determine me to not accept the claim that there is such a thing as free-will. As far as determinism being self-destructive, if determinism is true, then you were determined to argue that determinism is self-destructive and there is no guarantee that your argument which is caused by physical events are true either. So the possible validity of your argument is comprised as well. Being subjects within a system where the system determines subjects actions makes it difficult for those subjects to make indepenant truth claims about the very system that is determining them to make the claims. But I would much rather see what evidence there is to support the idea that we have “free-will.” The evidence for that appears to be most lacking. Whether or not determinism is true or not, is not so much my concern. My concern is the proponents of free-will say we have the freedom to do otherwise, that we have free-will, well lets see the evidence for that, how does that work within our understanding of physics, nature, and causality. It doesn’t fit. It seems like another unjustified evidenceless “there is a god” proposal.

Can I ask why you care of the issue of free-will? By your answer to that, the answer you request can be gained.

 

[morgantj]

Can I ask why you care of the issue of free-will? By your answer to that, the answer you request can be gained.

Can I ask why you care why I care for asking for evidence of free-will? By your answer to that, the answer you request can be gained.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Can I ask why you care why I care for asking for evidence of free-will? By your answer to that, the answer you request can be gained.

I doubt that, but to be polite;

I ask because there is a confusion on the issue and your actual purpose in asking your question clarifies that confusion. Without your response, you can argue forever and never be able to get a clear answer.

I realize that arguing forever seems to be the purpose of many, but I can’t merely assume that everyone in quest is merely arguing for that sake. Thus unlike most who merely presume (sin), I ask.

 

[tonyrey]

If determinism is true, it is correct that my thoughts are determined and determine me to not accept the claim that there is such a thing as free-will. As far as determinism being self-destructive, if determinism is true, then you were determined to argue that determinism is self-destructive and there is no guarantee that your argument which is caused by physical events are true either. So the possible validity of your argument is comprised as well. Being subjects within a system where the system determines subjects actions makes it difficult for those subjects to make independent truth claims about the very system that is determining them to make the claims.

I believe determinism leads to (well nigh) total scepticism because it makes it impossible to make any independent truth claims at all. The truth makes us free but we have to be free to arrive at the truth consistently. It is far easier to be mistaken because there is only one truth whereas there are innumerable ways of making a mistake - as anyone who tries to predict lottery numbers knows.
At all events atheists cannot win if determinism is true it makes it impossible to prove there is no God.

But I would much rather see what evidence there is to support the idea that we have “free-will.” The evidence for that appears to be most lacking.

The remarkable success of science is convincing evidence for free will in view of the sterility of determinism - which may well have hindered scientific progress, as we see in Einstein’s letter to Max Born:
“Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the ‘old one’. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.”

But I would much rather see what evidence there is to support the idea that we have “free-will.” The evidence for that appears to be most lacking. Whether or not determinism is true or not, is not so much my concern. My concern is the proponents of free-will say we have the freedom to do otherwise, that we have free-will, well lets see the evidence for that, how does that work within our understanding of physics, nature, and causality. It doesn’t fit. It seems like another unjustified evidenceless “there is a god” proposal.

That is because your concept of reality is defective. It is arbitrarily restricted to physics, nature, and causality. Do you treat yourself or the persons you know within that context?!

 

[James_S_Saint]

I believe determinism leads to (well nigh) total scepticism because it makes it impossible to make any independent truth claims at all.

I can’t agree with you on that one.

 

[morgantj]

I doubt that, but to be polite;

I ask because there is a confusion on the issue and your actual purpose in asking your question clarifies that confusion. Without your response, you can argue forever and never be able to get a clear answer.

I realize that arguing forever seems to be the purpose of many, but I can’t merely assume that everyone in quest is merely arguing for that sake. Thus unlike most who merely presume (sin), I ask.

I don’t need to state the purpose/intentions of my questions at the same time I ask them. If you just answer them, I would reply to your answers and the purpose would be revealed at the right time when the discussion progresses. Stating my intentions ahead of time risks poisoning the well and influencing answers that would otherwise be different had I not of presented what I was getting at ahead of time. What has been counter productive to to the discussion is you asking me to state my intentions of my questions instead of just answering them honestly to the best of your ability. If anything, I see this as a misdirection technique to avoid even having to address my questions. Which is, if you have forgotten, What evidence is there that supports the idea that we have free-will?

 

[James_S_Saint]

I don’t need to state the purpose/intentions of my questions at the same time I ask them. If you just answer them, I would reply to your answers and the purpose would be revealed at the right time when the discussion progresses. Stating my intentions ahead of time risks poisoning the well and influencing answers that would otherwise be different had I not of presented what I was getting at ahead of time. What has been counter productive to to the discussion is you asking me to state my intentions of my questions instead of just answering them honestly to the best of your ability. If anything, I see this as a misdirection technique to avoid even having to address my questions. Which is, if you have forgotten, What evidence is there that supports the idea that we have free-will?

Is your choice.

 

[morgantj]

I believe determinism leads to (well nigh) total scepticism because it makes it impossible to make any independent truth claims at all. The truth makes us free but we have to be free to arrive at the truth consistently. It is far easier to be mistaken because there is only one truth whereas there are innumerable ways of making a mistake - as anyone who tries to predict lottery numbers knows.

This is a logical fallacy, specifically, an appeal to consequences. What you are saying amounts to - “I don’t believe in determinism because I wouldn’t be able to make any truth claims, and well, I also wouldn’t be free.” So what? Just because it doesn’t flow with how you would like things to be doesn’t negate it’s truth value. It’s just you saying you don’t like what the consequences would be if determinism is true, but it adds no value to addressing the validity or lack of validity to the premise.

At all events atheists cannot win if determinism is true it makes it impossible to prove there is no God.

For one, if determinism is true, it effects everyone, not just atheists. Second, the burden of proof isn’t on atheists to prove there is no god, the burden of proof is on the theist that first make the positive claim that a god exist.

The remarkable success of science is convincing evidence for free will in view of the sterility of determinism - which may well have hindered scientific progress, as we see in Einstein’s letter to Max Born: “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the ‘old one’. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.”

Hindered? On the contrary, causality is what allows science the ability to make any accurate predictions at all, without it, we wouldn’t be able to “determine” or learn a thing.
Also, even if one could disprove determinism, it still doesn’t prove we have “free-will.” Which is why I ask to see the evidence for free-will.

 

[morgantj]

Is your choice.

I’m afraid it isn’t. I am determined by the conditions of our environment.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I can’t agree with you on that one.

I think you can, but you *choose *not to.

 

[morgantj]

I think you can, but you *choose *not to.

HAHA! You caught him, he slipped up. He’s really a determinist.

 

[Patty23]

Ah the starry heavens above and the moral law within of Immanuel Kant.

Logic and Rationality is something that cannot be proven unless taken us axioms.
Logic and Rationality as such are non empirical realities and therefore when are tried to be proved becomes relativistic and solipsistic.

Everything still seems to be either a rationalist, empiricist, or an idealist. Which all in someway offer fragments of truth with regard to ontology and epistemology regardless of the degree of truth.

Let’s take a formula for example. F=MA

This formula is immutable and absolute which seems to be holding an existence of its own apart from material objects. the ever contingent motion of matter as such is limited by principles which cannot be altered by matter or a “conscious matter”.

It is partly true that formulas and principles are abstracted from matter through observation so in a way they are fundamentally connected with matter, but its fundamental value and existence as abstracted by our minds, give as something absolute groundings, which results to why we get to abstract rationality and logic in our world. Even if we accept evolution or creation, the abstraction of order is present, which is actually what every sane person is unconsciously doing. Even a person who willfully destryoys nature still employs the limits and potentialites that flows from logically abstracted principles.

Leibniz may be right in saying that the nothing’s in the mind unless first in the senses except the intellect itself, a reaction against Locke’s Tabula Rasa. He also said that even if you magnify the brain to the size of a windmill, you would never see what the mind is thinking, i.e. you would not see thoughts corresponding to external objects as such, like images of floating chairs, pen, etc. Yes one might say that there are some impulses, but still it doesn’t explain reality in a picturesque and ppurely empirical worldview.

Rationalism without the senses we’ll make you a man out of this world. You might have logical conclusions but still will remain alien to this world.

My conclusion would is that there are some things that are not totally empirical, for matter must replicate the same matter in a material mind to give an exact material explanation of the world. But through abstraction, we can logically observe that the world is fundamentally made up of matter in flux governed by immutable non empirical laws. What we observe is matter, but the immutable principles are not matter as such.

There are just some things that are too obvious to deny and some are to complex to explain with or without proofs. But reality is what it is.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

and for each one, you introduce an aspect to the irreducible statement that guarantees that proof isn’t a proof of the statement being defined. In that sense, Chaitin has disproved the PSR without actually constructing a specific counter-example.

so basically he thinks that if you disprove all the possible reasons something is true, then it can be true for no reason? it seems to me if you disprove every reason something is true then it simply isnt true. i must be missing something here.

 

[morgantj]

reality is what it is.

It goes without saying.

Rationalism without the senses we’ll make you a man out of this world. You might have logical conclusions but still will remain alien to this world.

My conclusion would is that there are some things that are not totally empirical, for matter must replicate the same matter in a material mind to give an exact material explanation of the world.

And senses without matter… well, there would be none. We can only sense due to physical matter, our sensory nervous system. Without matter, there would be no senses to detect the world, and no mind to make sense of it.

No matter, the universe has no obligation to provide explanations to us or to comfort us.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Ah the starry heavens above and the moral law within of Immanuel Kant.

Logic and Rationality is something that cannot be proven unless taken us axioms.

That is not *exactly *true.
Both Logic and Rationality can be proven, both empirically and “rationally”.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Like I said, none of it depends on the PSR. Not one bit. If you think that it does, then I’m afraid it’s up to you to explain how and why.

i have several times now, and you havent bothered to refute it but just to assert its no true.

**again, science presupposes the PSR because scientists expect a cause for an observed effect. its the very basis of the scientific method. **

ive explained this very simple fact a couple times. can you refute it?

Are you suggesting that the PSR is summed up in the simple statement that “every effect has a cause”?

Wikipedia has this to say on various formulations of the PSR.

yes, ive seen the wiki before. and yes, its a fine generalization for the discussion about the presuppostion of the PSR in the sciences.

I have different standards for different contexts, sure. There is nothing inconsistent about that

.

how are the contexts different? we know about all the laws and principles from the observation of their action. the same is true of the laws of conservation and the PSR. each is proven by repeated experiment. each may concievably be found to be false. there is no difference. id say that is about as contradictory as one can get.

Not at all. The scale is quite trustworthy. Probabilistic support is all we require for trust and expectation–and we have plenty of it.

any good poker player can tell you that probability is no basis for trust. stick all your chips in because you have aces up and you will eventually lose all your chips.

Scientists look for natural explanations for natural phenomena, but they are fully aware that they are by no means guaranteed to find one.

the fact that they are looking for one is the PSR in action. so now you admit that the PSR is presupposed by the scientific method?

In more abstract fields like cosmology, they often aren’t even sure one is possible. And they certainly have no inherent expectation for an explanation of nature itself.

That kind of thing is simply beyond the scope of modern science.

so now your not denying the PSR is the basis of the scientific method, but rather that in cosmology it may not apply. why didnt you just tell me that before instead of denying what you now admit.

of course they are not sure one is possible, they are restricted to the planck time for observation, they follow the scientific method, and therefore literally cant search for a cause past a certain point with physical observations. but they still try too. they propose a number of possibilities, even in that hopeless situation they still follow the PSR, they arent satisfied with the mere observations we have, they postulate a singularity. so as you can see, even for them the PSR rules.

 

[Just_Lurking]

so basically he thinks that if you disprove all the possible reasons something is true, then it can be true for no reason? it seems to me if you disprove every reason something is true then it simply isnt true. i must be missing something here.

Consider arithmetic sentences of the form (Forall x, H(x)), where H() is an easily testable predicate, e.g., you can find out if H(17) is true or false just by pressing a few buttons on your calculator. Let U be the set of all such arithmetic sentences.

Chaitin is using the principle of the excluded middle here, so he is assuming that (Forall x, H(x)) is either true or false. If it is false, then there is a specific value n such that H is false, and you can use your calculator to verify this. Call n a counter-example. Let CU be the subset of all sentences in U that have counter-examples.

Also consider proofs of (Forall x, H(x)). These are verifiable as well, because proofs must start from given axioms and must use sound rules of inference. Let PU be the subset of all sentences in U that have proofs, i.e., reasons.

What mathematicians have shown is that PU union CU is a proper subset of U, that is, there are an infinite number of arithmetic sentences in U that are neither in PU nor CU. Chaitin has some extension/variation of this result that I’m not really familiar with. I’ve seen his talk on Omega, but I haven’t really read his work.

Anyway, let RU = the rest of U, i.e., the subset of all sentences in U that are neither in PU nor CU. Mathematicians refer to sentences in RU as true because of the principle of the excluded middle, as we know that the sentences in RU have no counter-examples. In terms of the PSR, sentences in RU are true because they are true – there is no other reason for them being true other than that they are true.

It’s kind of like saying the reason there is a sandwich on my table is that, look and see, there is a sandwich on my table. It’s not lunch time, no one put it there, …, there are no reasons for the sandwich other than that it clearly exists because I can see it. Chaitin finds this to be a disproof of the PSR.

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey I believe determinism leads to (well nigh) total scepticism because it makes it impossible to make any independent truth claims at all. The truth makes us free but we have to be free to arrive at the truth consistently. It is far easier to be mistaken because there is only one truth whereas there are innumerable ways of making a mistake - as anyone who tries to predict lottery numbers knows*.*

                        This is a logical fallacy, specifically, an appeal to consequences. What you are saying amounts to - "I don't believe in determinism because I wouldn't be able to make any truth claims, and well, I also wouldn't be free.

It is not an appeal to, but a **recognition **of, the consequences. Our instincts are an example of determined biological events and we know how fallible our instincts are. If our thoughts are also caused by biological events they will be even more unreliable because, as I have pointed out, there are countless ways of making a mistake and there is only one truth. In addition, the problems posed by reality are immensely more complex than the problems of biological survival. A biological computer - which is what your view of a human being amounts to - functions according to a very limited programme produced solely by the need to survive and reproduce. How can it possibly deal with highly abstract philosophical, moral, political, aesthetic and spiritual issues successfully? If it were possible surely computer scientists would have succeeded by now in constructing a computer which is far superior to the human mind…

" So what? Just because it doesn’t flow with how you would like things to be doesn’t negate its truth value. It’s just you saying you don’t like what the consequences would be if determinism is true, but it adds no value to addressing the validity or lack of validity to the premise.

Argumentum ad hominem.

At all events atheists cannot win if determinism is true it makes it impossible to prove there is no God.
For one, if determinism is true, it affects everyone, not just atheists.

Indeed. No one can win!

Second, the burden of proof isn’t on atheists to prove there is no god, the burden of proof is on the theist that first make the positive claim that a god exist.

The burden of proof is on atheists to prove physicalism is true because their denial of God implies that there is no supernatural reality, i.e. that only physical objects exist.

The remarkable success of science is convincing evidence for free will in view of the sterility of determinism - which may well have hindered scientific progress, as we see in Einstein’s letter to Max Born: "Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the ‘old one’. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."
Hindered? On the contrary, causality is what allows science the ability to make any accurate predictions at all, without it, we wouldn’t be able to “determine” or learn a thing.

I was referring specifically to Einstein’s initial reluctance to accept quantum theory.

Also, even if one could disprove determinism, it still doesn’t prove we have “free-will.”

It proves that we may well have free will - given the universal consensus that we are responsible for our actions.

Which is why I ask to see the evidence for free will.

Go to any court of law. You will see evidence of the universal consensus…

 

[hatsoff]

i have several times now, and you havent bothered to refute it but just to assert its no true.

**again, science presupposes the PSR because scientists expect a cause for an observed effect. its the very basis of the scientific method. **

ive explained this very simple fact a couple times. can you refute it?

I have no need to refute a claim which lacks sufficient support. I simply decline to accept it until such time that said support is proffered.

any good poker player can tell you that probability is no basis for trust. stick all your chips in because you have aces up and you will eventually lose all your chips.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Probability theory is about as solid as a science gets, short of pure logic. I wouldn’t know what to tell you if you doubted its applicability.

the fact that they are looking for one is the PSR in action. so now you admit that the PSR is presupposed by the scientific method?

The PSR is a principle–that is, a statement, which can be true or false, not a behavior to be acted out or suppressed.

so now your not denying the PSR is the basis of the scientific method, but rather that in cosmology it may not apply. why didnt you just tell me that before instead of denying what you now admit.

I’m afraid you misunderstood me. Scientists needn’t care one bit about the PSR, regardless of their field of expertise. As I mentioned previously, the PSR is simply beyond the scope of scientific relevancy, given current technology.

Now, in the field of cosmology, I would suspect (although I do not know for certain) that you will find more scientists aware of the PSR than in other fields, and thus in cosmology you may (or may not) find open denial of the PSR.

However, open denial is just icing on the cake, so to speak. Regardless of whether scientists are aware of the PSR and/or talk about it, the PSR is not a prerequisite to their research, or to a rational interpretation thereof.