Determinism vs. Freewill

[lindagarrette]

Not trying to be obnoxious here - I really think creativity is the driving force of all life, but consciousness and creativity combined is what I think is required for there to be free will.

 

It's my understanding that survival is the driving force of life. Creativity is a by-product.

 

Before delving into a discussion of consciousness, it would be smart to find out what it is. There has been a huge amount of scientific research on the topic lately, much of it directly related to causal determinism.

[lindagarrette]

 

So if someone performed a truly unique, totally arbitrary action, but would we recognize it as such? How would we measure it?

Free will either exists or does not. There's no compromise. Determinism is the alternative. Again, no compromise. Determinism is proven. Free will is not. Free will means freedom from the laws of nature and the past events. If that ever occured, we would completely lose predictability. Predictability is what makes our existance possible.

[Freethinker]

Well...I think that is stretching it a bit. Granted, great thinkers stand of the "shoulders of giants", but creativity is a process which creates new ideas from old ones.

But there is nothing "NEW" as far as the idea. It is just a revised approach based on a different assemblage. "new" as in different, but not "New" as in like nothing that has ever even been thought of before.

I like to think of idea-making just like elements. Each element contains the exact same things (protons, electrons, neutrons etc) yet each and every one of them is unique.

Unique and new are not the same thing. As in your exmaple, someone coming up with a different way of combining P's E's and N's did not ivnet something absolutely "new", just different then other combinations of known particles.

Ideas are the same - I take two well known concepts and fuse them into a new one, and there is a new concept. It would not exists without the combination of a) the ideas, :) my awareness of them, and c) my applied creativity.

Yes exactly. And at no point does this show Free Will. It shows that you were born with the ability to think (ideas) you have learned WHAT to think ABOUT (awareness) and HOW to correctly approach that thought (applied creativity). But you will not use elements in your "applied creativity" that you are not aware of, that you do not know of. Nor will you use approaches that you have no knowledge of.

 

e.g. you may decide to take a 'new approach" to something, say using extreme cold, but that would only be because you "know" extreme cold. It is NOT "unknown" to you. Perhaps no one has ever considered using it in that aspect before. But nothing totally unknown was used or even thought of by you.

 

Free Will is not, if it is limited by the requirement for existing knowledge. This puts everything in the context of nature plus nurture. Skinnerian.

Not trying to be obnoxious here -

Our greatest accomplishments are often unintentional! :-)

I really think creativity is the driving force of all life, but consciousness and creativity combined is what I think is required for there to be free will.

We don't know what "consciousness" is. And what we call "creativity" is the ability to take exsiting elements and make new arrangements of them.

 

It is a hard pill to swallow I know. But try providing an example that does not fit my description. A "new thought" that did not come from a combination of EXISTING KNOWLEDGE from nature/ nurture.

[Freethinker]

Free will means freedom from the laws of nature and the past events.

Thanks that says what I have been trying to say very nicely.

 

Free Will requires moving beyond anything we KNOW from nature/ nurture.

[Tormod]

Our greatest accomplishments are often unintentional! :-)

Bla bla bla. :)

 

It is a hard pill to swallow I know. But try providing an example that does not fit my description. A "new thought" that did not come from a combination of EXISTING KNOWLEDGE from nature/ nurture.

Now I'll have problems sleeping. Again.

[Freethinker]

Now I'll have problems sleeping. Again.

Well my stock in Sominex has been slipping. Thought I'd give it a boost!

[IrishEyes]

Well my stock in Sominex has been slipping. Thought I'd give it a boost!

 

Shame on you, Freethinker. can't you see by the devilish little grin in the avatar pic that he needs plenty of rest?

[Freethinker]

Shame on you, Freethinker. can't you see by the devilish little grin in the avatar pic that he needs plenty of rest?

Tormod's like me. Sleep just gets in the way. :-)

 

Now bed time, that is a whole other discussion! :-)

[TINNY]

Free will either exists or does not. There's no compromise. Determinism is the alternative. Again, no compromise. Determinism is proven. Free will is not. Free will means freedom from the laws of nature and the past events. If that ever occured, we would completely lose predictability. Predictability is what makes our existance possible.

How are you supposed to determine free will when you are saying "determine". To determine something, that something must be deterministic. OK, so how do you determine everything at the quantum level? Like the uncertainty principle.

[maddog]

This discussion has been thoroughly visited and there is a hypography on the topic. (Which I wrote a couple of years ago.) So far, no one has answered my outstanding question by giving me an example of free will. Until then, the theory of causal determinism stands.:)

 

There's no point in going over the same material. If you have an example of the "null hypothesis", then what iis it? Othewise you are just speculating and expressing unfounded opinions. This is a science forum, remember.

 

Sorry I missed your earlier discussion. I going to consider something novel. Just to set

the stage. If we are contrasting Free Will with Determinism (assume the old 18th cent.

version), then with free will you have choices. I saw that from FT he sees that is not

likely because deterministically we influenced to make that choice. I would lable that a

False Choice. As this is the expected outcome (what someone would expect). Sometimes

a person will do something unexpected. Without psychologizing about the choice, just

consider that all options weighed and the a Choice made Freely of what arguements or

logic as to why or why not, casting these aside. This to me would be Choice freely made

and an example of free will.

 

I have another point to make, though my brain is getting foggy. So g'nite. ;-)

 

Maddog

[pgrmdave]

FT, What would you consider a new idea? Everything is made of matter and energy, none of that is new, anything created would merely be a new arrangement of that. Would you say that music is not new? If anything, shouldn't jazz be considered having been 'new', as it was such a radical departure from standard music at the time, with its unusual chord structure, and swung notes?

[pgrmdave]

This discussion has been thoroughly visited and there is a hypography on the topic. (Which I wrote a couple of years ago.)

 

Here is the hypography mentioned, it has a few sites which attempt to explain the possibility of freewill in a deterministic universe.

http://www.hypography.com/topics/Laplaces_Demon_112215.cfm

[motherengine]

if i am a construct of many, perhapes infinite particules and if these particles work together to become the deciding factor in how i feel and what i think and do than one could say (as i have in the past) that freewill cannot exist because all decisions are determinedby a complexity below the surface of rational thought. but then one could also say that there is no surface of rational thought at all and that though the sense of self(i/me) is an aspect of the many it is not an illusion of a whole but both a whole and a community. further one could suggest that something cannot be enslaved by itself so that the concept of freewill represents a linguistic conundrum. because i have a sense of self does not seperate me from what makes me up and though language is suited to the whole mind (mind as in in the part of you you call 'yourself') rather than its individual components we are restricted in our termonology, enslaved by the limitations of language but mentally free in the sense that we are our own limitation. maybe i am running around in circles trying to simply state that the idea of freewill is identical to the idea of the soul in that true freedom of will may not be able to exist unless the mind/self is divined from a substance beyond scientific measurement. freewill in my opinion is more a metaphysical concept than a psychological or purely scientific one.

[Freethinker]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I have been busy and will be disapearing again for a while soon.

FT, What would you consider a new idea? Everything is made of matter and energy, none of that is new, anything created would merely be a new arrangement of that.

Exactly. If there were truly the possibility of Free Will we would not be restricted to just new arrangements of the same things.

 

What would I consider "new"? If I had Free Will I might be able to come up with something. And that's the point isn't it?

 

Once more we are back to "Prove X doesn't exist".

Would you say that music is not new? If anything, shouldn't jazz be considered having been 'new', as it was such a radical departure from standard music at the time, with its unusual chord structure, and swung notes?

What is new about "things" making noise? What is new about finding certain combinations of noise from certain things to be more enjoyable than other combinations or other things?

 

Now perhaps if we could asnmdhbn from some fksdnifsi.

[Freethinker]

maybe i am running around in circles trying to simply state that the idea of freewill is identical to the idea of the soul in that true freedom of will may not be able to exist unless the mind/self is divined from a substance beyond scientific measurement.

Yes RE the circles. I was getting dizzy. the simple def works much better.

 

First comment is the sudden popping into existence of additional agents. divined. What support is there to allow us to accept any claim of a divine source that divined this mind/self?. Ever heard of Ockham's Razor?

 

Next we get to substance beyond scientific measurement. What claim is this making? Then what support can you provide to allow us to accept this as an explanation?

 

The claim seems to be that there can be a substance

 

substance - physical material from which something is made or which has discrete existence (WWWebster)

 

that there is something that exists in our physical world, that is to say can interact with the other stuff that exists in our physical world. Yet this interaction is beyond scientific measurement.

 

Show us how ANYTHING can EXIST/ INTERACT with our physical existence and not produce an effect which can be captured? Can it recieve data from us, can we recieve data from it? Heat? Pressure? EMF? In what way is it a substance if does not interact in any way with our physical existence?

freewill in my opinion is more a metaphysical concept than a psychological or purely scientific one.

And as such it would not be something that exists/ affects/ is involved with our actual existence. IOW we don't have Free Will.

[motherengine]

ALL "Choices" are a culmination of EVERYTHING and the actual "choice" is the results of the electrochemical processes of the brain which has been configured to it's current state by nature/ nurture.

 

and you know this how?