A Strange Conception of Free Will

[Secular Sanity]

I caught your post before you edited it.  You don’t have a clue.

LOL! So you think arguing against free will from either determinism OR indeterminism is superior to taking BOTH into account?  

Is that what I said? No, I don't think so.

What's the matter, Syne?  You should be thrilled with my conclusion.  If free will exists, it exists within your imagination.  You know, sort of like your god, but that little symbolic tidbit, pattern, mental model, intentionality, or whatever you wish to call it turned out to be the wrong conclusion, i.e. false.

Okay. Now off you go.  Back to the drawing board. Chop-chop!

[Syne]

Oh noes, you saw my post before I corrected "free" to "free will". Whatever am I to do?

See, you've never wavered in your snarky liberal jibes.

And when you only quote people who make such naive arguments, what are people to believe? Either that you agree with them or you're just incapable of making your own arguments and must rely solely on appeals to authority.

[Secular Sanity]

Oh noes, you saw my post before I corrected "free" to "free will". Whatever am I to do?  

See, you've never wavered in your snarky liberal jibes.

And when you only quote people who make such naive arguments, what are people to believe? Either that you agree with them or you're just incapable of making your own arguments and must rely solely on appeals to authority.  

Don’t lie, Syne. At least try to remain somewhat pathetically honest, will you?

Liberal, hah! Do you think my sympathies are meant to crown a victim and silence a righteous man such as yourself? Your righteousness is merely a delusional exploitation.

It seems as though you’re more afraid of being understood than misunderstood, but the only thing we need to know about you, is that you’re human. *sniff- sniff* I can smell the stench coming from your cave. It’s not a path to God, silly boy. There is no entrance to another world. It has but one entrance and one exit, birth and death. It is a labyrinth, so to speak, a representation of your ancestors and yourself. Your words are only a mask, and your morals, a covering—utilities, which you falsely project onto the nature of things. And whatever meets the greatest needs is glorified, isn’t it?

It’s funny because you attempt to stand in opposition to nihilism, but it is your fear of pessimism that forces you to search for a religious interpretation of existence. If there was a final goal or purpose, we would have reached it by now.

So, go ahead, Mr. Syne the science guy, tell me your original thoughts. What have you discovered on your own that you have not taken from elsewhere, or from former thoughts? Go ahead, tell us, so that we can acknowledge your specialness. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?

My free will is only this; an artistic curiosity in a realm of freedom and a realm of constraint. An arbitrary choice is a choice function. A random choice will have a different outcome each time. Chance; well, a chance is innocent. I cannot claim a chance as my own. I have as my own, only arbitrary and objective necessities. I can systematically test the boundaries, trace my path, and patterns, but when I reach the point where I can no longer do anything arbitrarily, I’m bound by necessity, and then necessity and freewill are one in the same, a basic function—the will to live.

[Syne]

Pessimism is a blunt tool used by fools who don't know how to weld skepticism. There's no reason to fear fools.

I've told you, many times, that I don't expect anyone to take anything I say as any sort of authority. So all these accusations of haughty self-importance is likely your own projection. Lashing out at those who do not lend your opinion credibility...just for being your opinion. You'd help your credibility if you ever managed to engage the actual arguments being made, you know, instead of just throwing authoritative quotes at 'em.

But let's test your ability (inability?) to engage an argument.

If A deterministically causes B which then deterministically causes C which then indeterministically causes D, can A be said to both cause and determine D?
Or would the indeterministic event C interrupt the determination of A?
Does the randomness of C mean that the only cause of D is random?
Or did the previous events to C contribute to D?

And what is the reasoning for each answer?

[Secular Sanity]

But let's test your ability (inability?) to engage an argument.

If A deterministically causes B which then deterministically causes C which then indeterministically causes D, can A be said to both cause and determine D?
Or would the indeterministic event C interrupt the determination of A?
Does the randomness of C mean that the only cause of D is random?
Or did the previous events to C contribute to D?

And what is the reasoning for each answer?

My hunger [A] prompts my decision to eat lunch [B], which leads to my decision to eat out [C], but on the way, I’m killed by a drunk driver [D], did my hunger cause my death?  Nope.  Did my going to lunch cause my death?  Nope. It’s a post hoc fallacy.  The events merely followed each other, in the absence of causality.

Was the so-called "random" drunk driver really a random event?  Nope. It was only thought to be random due to the lack of physical information.

Did his drinking cause my death?  No.  Did his decision to drive drunk cause my death?  No.  Did his car crashing into my car cause my death?  Yes.  

He was drunk, but not as drunk as he would have liked to have been.  He ran out of mixer, or so he said, which prompted him to drive to the store.

Did he have free will?  Maybe, if he had contemplated the possible consequences beforehand.  Played them out in his head.  You know, used his imagination.  If you have free will, where then might it lie?  

"In classical physics, experiments of chance, such as coin-tossing and dice-throwing, are deterministic, in the sense that, perfect knowledge of the initial conditions would render outcomes perfectly predictable. The ‘randomness’ stems from ignorance of physical information in the initial toss or throw."

You could deny the existence of the classical deterministic Newtonian world and accept indeterminism, but you’d still have to explain how an action can be undetermined without being random, and hence not free.

[Syne]

Now try that with a truly indeterministic event, instead of your admittedly "so-called random event."
Does actual randomness of C mean that that the only cause of D is random?
This means a truly stochastic process that is not just a lack of information.

Does "A deterministically causes B which then deterministically causes C which then indeterministically causes D" deny determinism?
Determinism means that a change to any event in the causal chain would change the outcome. So your going to lunch, his drinking, and his decision to drive were all contributory causes, the lack of any one of which meaning the outcome does not obtain.

If C would not have occurred without B, then how can D only have the stochastic event C as its cause?
Does a stochastic event completely sever the deterministic causal chain?
If without B there is no C, then there is no D, regardless of whether C is deterministic or not.

[Secular Sanity]

Now try that with a truly indeterministic event, instead of your admittedly "so-called random event."
Does actual randomness of C mean that that the only cause of D is random?
This means a truly stochastic process that is not just a lack of information.

Does this mean that you're denying the existence of a classical deterministic Newtonian world?

[Syne]

Apparently you didn't bother reading beyond what you quoted.

"If C would not have occurred without B, then how can D only have the stochastic event C as its cause?"
I've misplaced my crayons, but NO, none of that denies macro determinism. And I've already told you I take both determinism and indeterminism into account.

You're still stuck on refuting free will from solely one or the other, ignoring that both exist. They are not an existential dichotomy.

[Secular Sanity]

I've misplaced my crayons, but NO, none of that denies macro determinism. And I've already told you I take both determinism and indeterminism into account.

Someone probably took your crayons away for safety reasons. Were you eating them again?

[Syne]

Deflection in lieu of argument.