Determinism vs. Free Will

Originally posted by Hope Ovidius: I slightly agree with what you say regarding the free will today, but I don't think the free will has been lost, just tranquilized by numerous impressions which we receive on a daily basis. However, there must be a free will, or else no revolutions or acts of conscience would ever take place.

But thats the point. Although within a revolution there is a certain amount of 'free will', one can make comparisions between all revolutions/revots - because the indicators are the same and the starting points are fairly similar.

This is how determinism comes into play - the idea is that the factors leading up to the Revolution were the major cause. Subsistence Crisis for instance, being seen as a determenent for Revolution. Now this is obviously a fairly marxist idea - Economic or social determinism being the root of all actions. Now although it doesn't satisfy all the questions, it does bring Revolution away from the act of a few individual instigators, which is was empiricist Historians would have argued.

The point I am making is that free will is merely exercised within a set of rules, based on the situation in which you are. Revolutions do not occur based on free choice - they are normally a reaction to some other action - government repression, feelings of inequality etc. But most of these actions are hated because there is a feeling of 'normality', so the reaction is based on social created ideals of what is fair and just, not based on free will.

Now with acts of Concience, the problem comes again when you look at Psychanalyisis. Consceince is subjective - it is formed within your mind based nurture. Hence why acts of atrocity can occur, people can change their conscience based on different factors. Not that this doesn't cause trauma or other problems, simply that Conscience is not static between people.

That actions can be predicted, does not mean they are determined, because that means they must have been designed to happen in ages way back in time, or even prior to time itself.

No, that is not the way in which Determinism is being used. Only in a Religious context.

The main issue with Free will in Humans, is how we come to make our decisions or form out ideas. Now some people would say, obviously there is free will - but how come nearly all ideas build upon other ideas. There can be no such thing as Free will because we are all influenced - we make our decisions based on the things going on around us. That is determinism in action. One argument I heard recently is about Globalisation and it effects. The person i was talking to believes that most things in the World are either influenced directly by Western patterns or are in reaction to those Western Patterns. So Terrorism, for example, is a rection to Western traditions... Part of hte power of Globalisation, say.

hi, im only replying becuase i got one post to go till i got 50, but i will reply and read all this tomorrow morning!
HAPPY 2 STARS!

Oblivius?

Ok, individual disagreements? You say that free will causes you to react to something within society. Basically, I'd argue that you are influenced mroe strongly by things around you than you might think. Be it your parents, you friends, something you read that morning yada yada, those disagreements have been developed by something - They don't freely form within peoples brains.

I think you will find that your actions are shaped more strongly by your personality, which is not always controlled by you conciouss mind. Lets face it, how many women get moody during their period? This is merely an example of how little control we have over our actions.

Originally posted by Ovidius Oblivius? Ok, individual disagreements? You say that free will causes you to react to something within society. Basically, I'd argue that you are influenced mroe strongly by things around you than you might think. Be it your parents, you friends, something you read that morning yada yada, those disagreements have been developed by something - They don't freely form within peoples brains. I think you will find that your actions are shaped more strongly by your personality, which is not always controlled by you conciouss mind. Lets face it, how many women get moody during their period? This is merely an example of how little control we have over our actions.

Omar: Heisenburgs uncertainty principle only affects our ability to measure things at very small scales, it does not mean there is any problem in the philosophy of mathematical descriptions. Although, I do get annoyed with people who forget that these are only descriptions.
Interesting, but not true. It does affect our ability to measure things, but no matter how accurate our equipment it doesn�t get rid of the principle:
In the Quantum Mechanical world, the idea that we can locate objects exactly breaks down. Let me state this idea more precisely. Suppose a particle has momentum p and position x. In a Quantum Mechanical world, I would not be able to measure p and x precisely. There would be an uncertainty associated with each measurement that I could never get rid of, even in a perfect experiment!!! The size of the uncertainties are not independent; they are related as

dp x dx > h / (2 x pi) = Planck's constant / (2 x pi)

Now this isn�t because our equipment is always going to be dodgy, but because the quanta doesn�t have a definite position or moment, its somewhat�hazy, even in a physical sense. So if you have a particle in a position and using all amounts of mathematical equations and stuff, the particle can only have a probability of going somewhere else. You can never know exactly where it is going. So it is uncertain, no matter how accurate we can get, of the outcome. I believe this can play a large part in life because, as I said, I believe life is a chemical reaction, thus in a chemical reaction such a small change makes a difference.


Omar: A friend of mine said the same thing to me today, the act of determinisim brings me the option to touch my nose or not, it is my free will whether I take the opition to actually touch my nose.

I don�t believe that. I believe, and it makes a lot of sense that you touched your nose, because of the direct situation you where in (right? Like that�s unnassiable), but to get into that position many other things happened to you, i.e. started a conversation about determinism, talked about someone touching nose, etc etc. Thus you could say you touched your nose because that�s the only choice you have. Everything leading up to this point had influenced you to touch your nose in this point. I like this, because it directly links with the atomic level of everything following these laws.
The only reason you would have made a different choice, is if the circumstances where different. Thus you only really had one choice, so it wasn�t a choice, so you had no free will.

So the deterministic parameters, all previous events, and the persons underling personality, provide a probability distribution for all choices for any particular situation. The act of free will is to then select one single possibility as the decision.
So for an example, all previous events in my life including the fact I'm writing this reply, and my personality, now bring me the option to touch my nose or not. phi(this situation) = 50% chance of touching my nose, and 50% chance of not touching my nose. I choose of my free will not to touch my nose. For this situation, the chance of picking up a barstool and hitting it over the person next to me is zero, because there is no barstool and no person next to me.

Now it is important to realise that as soon as I have made this choice, it becomes a previous event and will change the probability distribution next time I come to make the decision whether I touch my nose or not to illustrate free will.

I think that�s a little airy fairy. And not a real equation. Mainly because in an equation you can�t have such faint borders between ideas, such as in personality and all previous events. Because in the terms of causation they are the same thing. Also it is ridiculous to say you have a 50% chance of touching your nose and a 50% chance of not, because it is inevitable that all the atoms and subatomic particles are continuing to do their same daily law abiding stuff,  so there�s not 50% chance that their going to stop and move in another direction.
I guess that model works in a kind of light macroscopic version that tries to sound smart by incorporating causation, yet contradicts in saying there is a possibility. Plus you�d have to incorporate the probability of falling of you chair, the probability of you house falling down, and all that, so the equation could never be that nice.

But if everything was predestined, why would we need a free will? And with predestination, for instance meaning that only a certain number of humans would be allowed to enter Heaven, why would we need to do anything?

YES HOPE! That�s exactly the problem. I guess you all know my opinion by now, but that�s why I�m so confused. And even if I just take the lazy answer out an and say free will is an illusion (just brings up the question, bloody hell, how do we manage to create such an amazing illusion?), it still doesn�t answer you underlying question.

Regardless of influence, free will exists. I was speaking of revolutions, but not only military revolutions or upheavals of socity and old systems. The revolutions I'm talking about is the individual disagreement which can be found in every society. Of course, disagreements occur as a reaction, but it is our free will that causes us to react.  Even though our free will has been dazzled with impressions and influences, our will remains free, meaning that we decides what to do ourselves. Of course, we do not have 100 percent freedom of the will, but humans can never be 100 percent free anyway. However, whether I'm influenced, in remains my choice whether to act the way I do.
See, right there we hit another problem. I agree. So how does it work. I believe that humans (at least seem) to have 100% free will (on a macroscopic level) and yet I believe that the universe is governed by a set of laws!!!
SOMEONE HELP!



Edited by HistoryPoi - 30-Mar-2007 at 19:16

Originally posted by Hope Originally posted by Ovidius Oblivius? Ok, individual disagreements? You say that free will causes you to react to something within society. Basically, I'd argue that you are influenced mroe strongly by things around you than you might think. Be it your parents, you friends, something you read that morning yada yada, those disagreements have been developed by something - They don't freely form within peoples brains. I think you will find that your actions are shaped more strongly by your personality, which is not always controlled by you conciouss mind. Lets face it, how many women get moody during their period? This is merely an example of how little control we have over our actions.   Sorry, my bad, my mind must have been elsewhere, my apologies.     However, I don't disagree with what you say about influences, but that does not mean we're not in the possession of a free will. It only means that the potential of the free will is reduced, consequently; our will is not absolutely free, but then again, I've never claimed it to be.

No, it means that those decisions are made within a framework, based on a cultural construct and a significant amount of development. Hence why thought processes are so different within different communities/cultures.

Which, basically, in my opinion means that Free will is something we assume exists, but really doesn't. We do not make 'free choices', we make choices based on fairly strict rules, its merely that these rules are very diverse and difficult to understand.

No, it is not HistoryPoi.
We can choose to go against or go along with the 'set of rules' you speak of, and endless variations in between. This is free will. We do not have to follow any 'set of rules' even if they are there, we choose for ourselves what to do.

Originally posted by Timotheus How do you keep religion out of this? I can't argue for 'determinism' on any other basis...I imagine I could, if I put some thought to it, but still...

Interesting. And what grounds does religion for determinism. Traditionally, it argues against it. Bring religion into it.

Originally posted by Knights We can choose to go against or go along with the 'set of rules' you speak of, and endless variations in between. This is free will. We do not have to follow any 'set of rules' even if they are there, we choose for ourselves what to do.

if you choose to go against the set of rules (presumably the laws of physics we are refering to). So using your...free will...alone, we can bend the fabric of the universe and by just thinking we can destroy all mathamatcally represented laws? Thats impressive. and what you just said is exactly wat weve been discussing. So back it up!

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim Originally posted by Knights We can choose to go against or go along with the 'set of rules' you speak of, and endless variations in between. This is free will. We do not have to follow any 'set of rules' even if they are there, we choose for ourselves what to do. If this is true, then how come people behave predicably on large scales? There is certainly an underlying, measurable and predicitable order.

Don't get me wrong, I never said there was no underlying set of moral values/rules...whatever you want to call them. I believe they do exist.  All I was saying is that  there is the option to go against them (free will), but on the larger scale, yes you are right, there are particular trends and predictabilities. I am just wondering (not questioning in a negative sense), how is order measured?
Regards,

- Knights -

Are they variable and estimated, or set in concrete? I understand they could do a large scale probability, a pretty accurate generalisation over a population, but is there any way of attaining a 100% correctly measured order and pattern? Thanks.