Determinism, Free will and Uncertainty

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I did this thread, based on the other discussion about free will.

To discuss the issue, including both things


I lack one option that I forgot to include:
"We can never know for certain how the universe works".

Edit:
and this other:
"I am uncertain of uncertainty, determinism and free will."

Last edited by greenblue on 23 May 2008, 1:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I want both options 1 and 3.

There are many definitions of determinism.
Please provide the one you mean.

Well, the philosophical position of determinism that has to do with causality.

I mean give us a word-for-word definition, so we all know what we're discussing.
www.Merriam-Webster.com has several definitions under it, each slightly different.

Ragtime, it has 2, maybe 3 definitions, and 1 of those is clearly inapplicable, so you'll have to specify your problems using the merriam webster.

I am a determinist and an incompatiblist, and thus I reject the concept of "free will." I am also an eternalist, that is, all moments, past, present, and future, exist and the flow of time is an illusion.

I voted random. Future events are only determined to a degree of probability. The universe is essentially random.

Besides the fact that I regard cause and effect as ugly theoretical crutches.

Humans are stuff. Their brains are stuff. There is no reason to suppose that quantum uncertainty has a meaningful impact on the computations of it, so therefore humans are pretty much deterministic creatures (allowing for minuscule probabilities of something else happening).

That is, the universe is random, but determinism is a good approximation of how it functions, including people.

More to the point, I regard free will as not so much false, but nonsense. It is not a meaningful proposition as far as I can tell. And where people try to make it one, it fails pretty badly.

I'm Calvinist, and we reject free will. Theistic determinism, predestination, TULIP, all that stuff.

I voted "Determinism exists etc" but I also believe determinism and free will are incompatible.

No, y'all are supposed to. I have met Calvinists who have claimed to accept free will. The theology is pretty monergist though.

I believe in theistic determinism (I believe that's the terminology).

What is meant by "free" will?

If something is not caused by anything else, is it then not random by logical neccessity?

Is that what is meant by "free" will? Unattached, random will?

I think not, since I assume that others share my experience that the will is not independent of the rest of the world, thus others would not mean this.

Then what?
That there is a random element alongside the causality? Possibly. Perhaps even probably.

But let's not jump ahead. Let's discuss causality. Let's assume that there is causality, for the sake of keeping to the subject at hand.

As I see it, there are two kinds of causality that are of interest here:
Physical causality, and the special case of causality that pertains to matters of the will.

Allow me to demonstrate the latter: One man mocks another man, say, by calling him a coward. The other man, as an effect of this, decides to forcibly apply the knuckles of his right hand to the first man's chin.
Feel free to replace this example with a better one.

Let us define these two kinds of causality, especially the elusive latter one, more thoroughly, and then compare them to eachother, to see if there are any significant differences, to then examine the nature of those differences.

Also keep in mind that some answers are better formed as "Neither-Nor", than as "Either-Or".

I meant my theology is Calvinist. I used to be more on the Arminian side of things. Even so, we Presbyterians don't make a habit of excommunicating people who don't hold the 'correct' theological views, so there will of course be people in Calvinist churches who don't exactly hold to Reformed theology.

Why so many ISTS and ISMS?

I believe there exists free will among a whole universe of causes, conditions, and effects. I think of every caused, effected, and conditioned thing as a nonlinear style web. Buddhism specilizes in this stuff. Then again, what do I know? I haven't read every book ever printed, nor do I know what Einstein might say about any given topic. Einstein is dead and can no longer speak on his own behalf.

Letter to Eric Gutkind (partial)
Albert Einstein (1954)
Translated from the German by Joan Stambaugh
________________________________________
...
... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and `rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes
Yours, A. Einstein.