Are there any arguments against determinism? Even if there is

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>>7721982
Because it would infer that if consciousness is universally derived, then it is universally manipulating.

e.i. the universe is consciously participating in itself. Yet, that is why we have god, because... spooky ramifications.

>>7721982
Look up Immanuel Kant and categories. In short: free will, causality, laws of physics, etc are categories through which you perceive the world. You can never achieve objective knowledge of the real world, but only subjective knowledge of the world you perceive. Therefore everything you experience is real for you, and that's the farthest you can go, so if you experience your will as free, your will is free for you.

>>7721998
Yet, subjective knowledge is not objective knowledge by discretion of the synthesis.

Gypsy magic...

>>7721982
people that are against determinism are just too stupid to understand the complexity of it

>>7722005
I never said that subjective would become objective. I said objective knowledge can't be achieved, so subjective will have to do.

>>7722012
This. I honestly think that at this point, you need to study Theology as much as anything else. Maybe it's OK that everything isn't explainable, even if that is kind of bleak and spooky.

>>7722012
A¬B
But we can just deny that...

>>7722021
PARADOX KAWKAWWW

>>7721982
>Are there any arguments against determinism?

Yes, many. They're just not very good ones.

And yeah, like you said, randomness in quantum physics doesn't really affect the idea of free will. All it means is that the future isn't predictable.

The way I see it even if Laplace's theory of determinism is wrong, free will can also affected by evolution and biological reactions and though processes that are responses to our environment. There are many angles of thought that argue against free will.

>>7721982
What does determinism have to do with "free will"?

Consider: Even if the universe was truly deterministic, pure classical clockwork all the way down, it still wouldn't be analytically solvable. Even something as simple and deterministic as the motion of the Earth, Moon, and Sun under Newton's laws of gravity and motion cannot be solved analytically. Certainly there's no such solution for my personal behavior!

That means that- even given absolute, perfect knowledge of the current state of our hypothetical deterministic universe - the only way to spin that into prescience is to solve it numerically - to simulate it, timestep by timestep.

Now, I happen to believe that the human mind is purely physical, and that an accurate simulation of the brain is equally "me."

So, if you wish to predict what choice I will make in a future situation, you must simulate me - which is exactly the same as me actually living through that time and making that decision! In other words, given absolute knowledge of a deterministic universe, there is no way of finding out with total accuracy what decisions I will make before I make them, because your method for finding that out is to duplicate the universe, run time more quickly, and watch me make it!

And sure, when the exact same situation rolls around in the real world, I'll respond in exactly the way you "predicted" - but all that means is that I do things for reasons, and if given the same reasons I'll do the same thing. An ideal rational actor is perfectly predictable, and I do like to think I'm rational.

None of this makes my choices any less meaningful, or my will any less "free." And introducing unpredictable random noise into my mind would hardly make me feel *more* in control of my actions!

Anyway, quantum mechanics does make the world nondeterministic. "Determinism" means "the state of the world at any given time is uniquely predictable from the prior state", and for QM that isn't true.

quantum uncertainty does have an objective effect on brain chemistry, and this effect, although small, can have implications on behavior due to chaos theory

the universe, as it stands now, is probably 99.999% determined, but this was not necessarily always the case (see: shortly after the big bang)

>>7722017
with that way of thinking, why would u study anything?

I don't understand free will. It doesn't make sense to me. When people argue it exists, they revert to religious type arguments.

>>7722243
This is a thing I've tried really hard finding an answer to for one of my presentations about free will, how does quantum physics effect our neurons, and can they really change decisions?
Even if it effected one neuron, there are billions of them in our brain, so I hardly doubt they really have influence on our actions.
..And also, how much does the randomness in quantum physics effect us at all, outside of neuroscience?
do they really make the world indeterministic, outside of test-results?

>>7721982
You do make choices, as in, the part of the universe that can be defined as "you" performs the act of deciding.
>>7722323
Because the particles that make up you were determined to.

>>7722235

Honestly it sounds like you understand this stuff but then "choose" ignorance because the loss of free will in your life scares you.

>>7722235
>What does determinism have to do with "free will"?

Nothing. They're retarded.

Deterministic --> actions determined by predictable colliding atoms
Indeterministic --> said collisions are random, you can't control them

No free will. Philosophy 101 came in handy

>>7722355

You've been reading my posts, Anon.

Good work.

>>7722338
the answer is yes, quantum uncertainty can, for example, cause a given ligand to not bind to a receptor, which can potentially change behavior in some instances; but when there are trillions of ligands and billions of receptors, and furthermore a dynamic equilibrium between them, the overall effect on nerve conduction is quite small. but it's there, and so the universe can't possibly be 100% determined, deal with it

to give a shitty example of how quantum uncertainty could theoretically affect behavior: imagine that something happens to you on september 21st, 1995, and that its long-term potentiation in the brain is directly determined by how the binding of certain ligands relays chemical messages to the cell (and its resultant effects on transcription, protein phosphorylation, etc. which are quantifiable chemical events): how could this subtly affect your ability to remember said event on september 21st, 2015? how will your memory or non-memory of this event affect your behavior?

>>7722397

It's about free-will. Who gives a fuck if shit is deterministic or not?

Way to waste electrons.

>>7721982
What's the best definition of free will?
I feel like people don't agree on this.

>>7722419

You (your mind) is in possession of your body, and by using it as a vehicle you effect actions on the world.

Clearly bullshit. Just the fact that peristaltic movements exist makes it bullshit.

Heh. Peristaltic movements. Bullshit.

>>7722235
>for QM that isn't true.
It's not *locally* true.

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If determinism was correct, I still think it would really matter much.
If determinism is correct, Hitler didn't do anything wrong.
If determinism is incorrect, Hitler still didn't do anything wrong.

>>7722450
Hitler fucked up at multiple points in the war, you moron.

Germany was crushed on multiple fronts. Obviously Hitler did quite a lot wrong.

>>7722426
>>7721982

>Clearly bullshit

Why don't you try to write it down in formal logic? Or try to be at least kind of rigorous when defining it? If you actually do, you'll realize it's not "clearly bullshit", it's clearly unscientific. Determinism and free will aren't things that are true, decidable or falsifiable. You simply can't know, and it's a matter of philosophical interpretation, not science.

This is explained once in every one of these threads. I hope one day people on /sci/ will be faster to put this forth and end these threads asap.

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>>7722451
Hitler never existed, just like the holocaust.
Unless you build a time machine of course...

How are we even sure that the past is somewhere outside our being?

>>7722454

Can you formally define possession?

>>7722451
Thinking Britain would help him defeat communism was certainly wrong.

>>7722467
If you can't formally define free will then you already jump to my conclusion: unscientific, and everything else I said.

(But you can, just not in those silly "possession" terms)

>>7722451
Hello newfriend. "Hitler did nothing wrong" is a 4chan meme. Calm down

>>7721982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem

>>7722474

What terms would you use? How is possession a silly term? Is property a better term?

How does something not being formal prevent it from being empirical?

>>7722483
>How does something not being formal prevent it from being empirical?
If you can't write it down to define exactly what you mean, then it's simply random babble and dribble, absolutely meaningless and worthless for all intents and purposes except for discussions on rough sketches for possible ideas. The easiest way to "write something down to define exactly what you mean" is doing it in a formal language.

The things you're talking about aren't actually precise, and don't actually have any meaning. You're making an ill-defined complaint.

Here's the dual problem: Define determinism. Do it rigorously, exactly. If you can't (if I have to ask "what do you mean by X") then you don't know what you mean by it either. I'll wager that's the case.

>people still arguing for free will

Might as well be religious, m8s

>>7722508
Not really, no. We're getting to a point where my grasp on it is very murky, as I haven't studied enough philosophy to understand it fully. The main idea is that when you say something, you actually appeal to the person you're talking to actually knowing what you want to say. You don't actually transmit a message, as much as you transmit some cues that you know will make the person know what you mean.

You simply can't do science on this realm. It's unscientific to ask things about language, and if I'm not mistaken, it's pointless in general to ask anything about language inside language.

>>7722501

Is the majority of the scientific literature unscientific because they describe and analyse experiments use a natural language?

I mean...it has to be.

Global warming IS A HOAX.

>>7722519
The experiments themselves and the data are the important part. If they lacked experiments and data, and were left with just the natural language, then it would be completely unscientific. If you removed all the natural language, and presented only the experiments and the data, I would argue that it would still be a scientific product. Wouldn't you agree?

The language is useful to communicate the ideas, but it isn't the ideas themselves.

>>7721982
/sci/ doesn't care about philosophy. The best you'll find here is some pop-sci mixed with some thoughts people had when taking drugs.

>>7722529

Even though free-will clearly doesn't exist, you've given me some things to think about.

This has been somewhat productive...ish.

>>7721982
There are none. Math is purely deterministic (there is no such thing as, say, "this theorem is true with probability 50%"). And the Universe is effectively math. Consequently, the Universe is computable. Consequently, there is no such thing as randomness how it is vulgarly understood by uneducated people.

Protip: try to define randomness in pure mathetatical terms ad u quickly find out that it's extremely ambiguous.

>>7722551
You seem to have an interest in the philosophy of science. It would be good for you to read up on it.

http://www.indiana.edu/~koertge/rCamb_Popper.pdf
http://worthylab.tamu.edu/Courses_files/Popper_ConjecturesandRefutations.pdf

Do understand that this is not science. The philosophical study of science is actually unscientific.

>>7722559
>The universe is math
>The universe is computable

>Claiming you know anything about the universe
You don't know what science is or does. Please, don't give authoritative opinions on subjects you have never bothered to study.

>>7722565
>subjects you have never bothered to study
Unjustified blaming for sure proves you did study them

>>7722235
>"Determinism" means "the state of the world at any given time is uniquely predictable from the prior state", and for QM that isn't true.

Unpredictable, will never be analytically solved, maybe, but there's only one unpredictable way it will happen because it can't happen again differently afterwards.

>>7722419
Starting a casual chain which isn't determined by the past

Is there a good source about how religion handles free will?

>>7722097
I guess the deciding factor in whether or not Laplacean determinism is applicable to the human mind is the question of whether the human mind is entirely computable, or more than the sum of its parts. If you knew the molecular compositions of the brains of every human on the planet, would you be able to predict the future of humanity based on the interactions of individual humans and the little differences that imperceivable variations in brain composition have on those interactions? Is it simply a matter of being able to account every factor into the prediction?

I somewhat recently came across this idea that life (the process) is basically a virus in the cosmic scale of things. Everything else in the universe is entropic; life is the only process that is consistently generating more complexity. Living things seek to, in the very least, retain their complexity, and - if you buy into the Saganist idea that intelligence is an inevitable result of evolution - will continue to impose complexity on the universe in ever-increasing scales. If the nature of life is fundamentally different from every other working of the universe, can mechanistic determinism still be applied to it?

>>7724216
bretty far out bro

>>7724112
No, because every single goddamn source is:

>god is omnipotent
>god knows every decision you will ever make
Yeah but then he already knows what's going to happen on earth, why does earth even exist?
>To give you the free will to be good or evil
But he already knows what I'm going to do
>But you still have to do it
My whole fucking life is a lie

>tfw you heard religion is supposed to be a source of hope and not a reason to feel hopeless

>>7724414

Not true. There is something called analytic theology that tries to rationally approach to those kinds of problems (e.g. Zagzebeski's The dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge)

>>7722529
So the data is scientific but conclusions derived from it are not.

Maybe if you formalized your idea instead of leaving it in some disgusting informal format we would pretend to be interested. As it is your ideas lack any rig our and are essentially meaningless drivel.

>>7724493
The study of science is, by nature, unscientific. I am unable to rigorously define my terms here as I'm dealing with something that doesn't have clear models and demarcation. So I'm using language and appealing to you knowing what I mean. I know for a fact that you're intentionally pretending not to understand what I meant, since it's very clear. How do I prove that? I can't! This isn't scientific, that's the whole point.

How does qm support free will wouldnt it be equally out of our control?

>>7724532
It doesn't support determinism or free will. Aspects relating to empirical models of our universe are absolutely unrelated to the interpretation of the philosophical nature of the universe.

>>7721982
Arguments against determinism? Sure. Arguments for free will? Nope.

Determinism or fundamental randomness. There's your choices.

>>7724567
why people must speak without knowing shit

>>7722506
It's just their nonfree will which still makes them argue about this.

free will is a good "effective" theory, but c'mon, the universe is totally deterministic because that's what makes sense to me

>>7724592
Enlighten me then.

>>7724835

as common sense suggests that we are free, it's up to pro-determinism proving it. If I say "I think that x is true" but common sense says y, it's up to me to provide an argument

>>7725121
So we have free will cause we think we do? Sounds pretty silly desu