There is no Hope without Jesus

[Byblos]

Okay, I've been away for far too long and now I need a refresher on how to quote properly. Could someone please fix the mess I made with the above post or let me know how to do it? Thanks.

[1over137]

You know it very well

there was only slash missing in one /quote

[Byblos]

You know it very well

there was only slash missing in one /quote

Thank you Hana. Rick's right, I'm just getting too old.

[RickD]

You know it very well

there was only slash missing in one /quote

Thank you Hana. Rick's right, I'm just getting too old.

Byblos,

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I think you're getting old. I actually think that you've been old for a while now.

Sorry for the miscommunication.

[Kenny]

the other part of your comment is full of t(1) t(x=+1) and a host of other algebra type symbols. I am having difficulty understanding what you are saying when you speak this way. Perhaps you can make your point differently, or perhaps this is something we can just agree to disagree on

Ken, I was wondering why you didn’t comment my argument and guessed that you perhaps wasn’t comfortable with the notation. It is easier to write an exact argument using symbolic expressions than do that with words only but I think it may be more difficult to understand. So I will try a similar argument.


The argument about Me
1. How I a now depends on how I was at some earlier time some moments ago and the environment between that earlier time and now (and on nothing else).

I think the actions you’ve engaged in between the earlier time vs now can determine who you are right now; also.

2. I can repeat that proposition to that earlier time and a still earlier time.

I agree.

3. From 1 and 2 I get that how I am now depends on how I was at the still earlier time and the environment between that time and now (and on nothing else).

Still we need to include the actions we have engaged in between the earlier time and now.

4. I can go backwards in time sufficient many times repeating step 2 and 3 until I reach the moment just after conception. I will then get that how I am now depends on how I was just after conception and the environment between that time and now (and on nothing else).

who we are now has little to do with freewill. Free will is about the actions we have chosen to engage in.

5 How I was just after conception depends on the genes/heredity only.

I agree.

6. How I am now depends on heredity and the environment between the time just after conception and the and the environment between that time and now (and on nothing else).

This is the same argument as the argument about Em (first version in #355) but now backwards in time so I now called it Me.

Hopefully this is easier to read and I repeat my question. If you don’t agree, where is it wrong? Kurieuo thought that I have some premises which you may not agree with. Is that correct?

Nils

You seem to have made an argument about how you became the person you are right now (though IMO you left out how the actions you have chosen in the past can determine who you are right now also) but we are talking about free will; not how you became the person you are right now.

[Nils]

PART 1

Using the same reasoning, we can deduce not only do we not have free will but neither do we have reliable cognitive faculties with which to process logic and reasoning since we did not start out with them (or end up with them if working backwards). Similarly, an acorn or an apple seed could not possibly produce an oak tree or an apple tree because they did not start out with them.

What I say, Byblos, is that what we are and do depend on heritage and environment only. That doesn’t exclude that the abilities to have cognitive faculties or the predispositions to become an oak are written in the genes.

But that's just an arbitrary choice you're making to exclude free will from heritage and environment and yet include reliable cognitive faculties. After all, no new born demonstrates reliable cognitive faculties nor do they display free will. So why the arbitrary inclusion of one and the exclusion of the other?

Your reasoning is faulty because first, you erroneously assume a living human being does not start with free will (says who?),

I think that we inherit the faculty to deliberate and choose, that these features are in the genes. If you call that to have free will you use an other definition than I do. I relate free will to be truly deserving blame and praise and I don’t think that we deserve that if we are products of heritage and environment only.

Free will is not just the ability to deliberate and choose but also to be held accountable for one's choices. That you do not consider the latter the same as the former, once again, is an arbitrary decision on your part. Do you consider human beings as rational animals or not? I would presume you do.

PART 2

and second, the reason you make this first faulty assumption is that you are not considering the essence of what it is to be a human being (and more fundamentally the distinction between essence and existence of anything that exists).

I don’t know or understand how you define “essence” and which is the distinction between it and “existence”, please tell me.

I really think this is the crux of this type of debate, i.e. from which worldview vantage point one is arguing. I subscribe to the natural law and by extension to natural theology and classical theism. In my estimation it is the only worldview that can make sense of EVERYTHING. That's the preamble to saying I'm not sure this thread is the place to discuss such topics but I'll leave it to the Mods to decide if they want to split it.

Before discussing essence and existence, let me ask you this question: do you believe that universals exist? By universals I don't mean propositions (although they could be) but abstract ideas that are shared with common things. Take for example the concept of triangularity. Would you agree with me that triangularity exists whether or not any triangles ever existed?

Byblos, I think that you are right. I have split your post in two parts, see above, and I think that it is good to continue part 2 in a separate thread. If I knew what to name it I would have done it already. The issue you raise will need some rounds and it will be difficult to follow that discussion intermingled with the ongoing free will discussion. Do you want to do it or shall I?

To answer your questions I need some time.

Nils

[Kurieuo]

I'll agree with you that free will, indeed consciousness itself, is mysterious. Yet, what we consider mysterious today doesn't necessarily mean it ought to be rejected as untrue, but is perhaps more reflective of our current state of knowledge. Consider that lightning seems to have been quite mysterious to various people in ancient times.

As for a modern example. I'm sure you're familiar with the double-slit experiment. When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect? Isn't this also quite mysterious? Yet, we don't say its not happening or untrue because we can't make sense of it.

There are lot of things, especially in quantum theory, that are counter intuitive, but that is different to being mysterious. Other things, for instance consciousness, we don’t understand but that is part of the extremely complex brain so in that case we may have hope to understand it better in the future. I think that free will is metaphysical impossible (given the premise of standard causation) and I can’t see that any advances in science could ever overcome it, it is mysterious in a more fundamental way.

You didn't answer my question: When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect?

I'm still looking for your response here Nils.

[Nils]

I'll agree with you that free will, indeed consciousness itself, is mysterious. Yet, what we consider mysterious today doesn't necessarily mean it ought to be rejected as untrue, but is perhaps more reflective of our current state of knowledge. Consider that lightning seems to have been quite mysterious to various people in ancient times.

As for a modern example. I'm sure you're familiar with the double-slit experiment. When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect? Isn't this also quite mysterious? Yet, we don't say its not happening or untrue because we can't make sense of it.

There are lot of things, especially in quantum theory, that are counter intuitive, but that is different to being mysterious. Other things, for instance consciousness, we don’t understand but that is part of the extremely complex brain so in that case we may have hope to understand it better in the future. I think that free will is metaphysical impossible (given the premise of standard causation) and I can’t see that any advances in science could ever overcome it, it is mysterious in a more fundamental way.

You didn't answer my question: When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect?

I'm still looking for your response here Nils.

See #417 viewtopic.php?p=235409#p235409
Nils

[Kurieuo]

I'll agree with you that free will, indeed consciousness itself, is mysterious. Yet, what we consider mysterious today doesn't necessarily mean it ought to be rejected as untrue, but is perhaps more reflective of our current state of knowledge. Consider that lightning seems to have been quite mysterious to various people in ancient times.

As for a modern example. I'm sure you're familiar with the double-slit experiment. When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect? Isn't this also quite mysterious? Yet, we don't say its not happening or untrue because we can't make sense of it.

There are lot of things, especially in quantum theory, that are counter intuitive, but that is different to being mysterious. Other things, for instance consciousness, we don’t understand but that is part of the extremely complex brain so in that case we may have hope to understand it better in the future. I think that free will is metaphysical impossible (given the premise of standard causation) and I can’t see that any advances in science could ever overcome it, it is mysterious in a more fundamental way.

You didn't answer my question: When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect?

I tried to explain why I don’t think the answer is important, but I think that the answer you are looking for is: The difference is the measuring device. If a quantum event is measured upon it will change. Isn’t that obvious . If you were taught that when you were young you may have thought now that it was intuitively true.
I insist that the free will mystery would be an other kind of mystery, more fundamental.

Actually, no - the difference isn't the measuring device. The delayed choice/quantum eraser experiment shows that it wasn't the measuring device that caused the particle effect to happen rather than disambiguation. There are various YouTube videos around that explain the eraser experiment in detail. So then, what would be your second answer? Really, the answer I'm looking for is the one often said by scientists/physicists.

[Nicki]

Now then, perhaps "free will" itself is just a myth many have accepted. Sofaras my modus tollens argument which is based upon intuition, it perhaps inline with Tolkien's less forceful argument here that the fact we can think of things outside the walls [of materialism] is suggestive that things really do exist outside those walls:

I only have one question. What's a sofara?

[Kurieuo]

Now then, perhaps "free will" itself is just a myth many have accepted. Sofaras my modus tollens argument which is based upon intuition, it perhaps inline with Tolkien's less forceful argument here that the fact we can think of things outside the walls [of materialism] is suggestive that things really do exist outside those walls:

I only have one question. What's a sofara?

you don't know? Conjoining words together is my way of reducing the number of words I write.

[Nils]

I'll agree with you that free will, indeed consciousness itself, is mysterious. Yet, what we consider mysterious today doesn't necessarily mean it ought to be rejected as untrue, but is perhaps more reflective of our current state of knowledge. Consider that lightning seems to have been quite mysterious to various people in ancient times.

As for a modern example. I'm sure you're familiar with the double-slit experiment. When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect? Isn't this also quite mysterious? Yet, we don't say its not happening or untrue because we can't make sense of it.

There are lot of things, especially in quantum theory, that are counter intuitive, but that is different to being mysterious. Other things, for instance consciousness, we don’t understand but that is part of the extremely complex brain so in that case we may have hope to understand it better in the future. I think that free will is metaphysical impossible (given the premise of standard causation) and I can’t see that any advances in science could ever overcome it, it is mysterious in a more fundamental way.

You didn't answer my question: When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect?

I tried to explain why I don’t think the answer is important, but I think that the answer you are looking for is: The difference is the measuring device. If a quantum event is measured upon it will change. Isn’t that obvious . If you were taught that when you were young you may have thought now that it was intuitively true.
I insist that the free will mystery would be an other kind of mystery, more fundamental.

Actually, no - the difference isn't the measuring device. The delayed choice/quantum eraser experiment shows that it wasn't the measuring device that caused the particle effect to happen rather than disambiguation. There are various YouTube videos around that explain the eraser experiment in detail. So then, what would be your second answer? Really, the answer I'm looking for is the one often said by scientists/physicists.

I have looked at some more videos and checked the Wikipedia entry. Without digging deep in the topic I have no more comments than that I can adhere to the Copenhagen interpretation that particles are kind of probability waves, but the comment that probabilities are a bit tricky.

I hope your questioning is part of answering my questions in
viewtopic.php?p=235409#p235409

Nils

[Kurieuo]

There are lot of things, especially in quantum theory, that are counter intuitive, but that is different to being mysterious. Other things, for instance consciousness, we don’t understand but that is part of the extremely complex brain so in that case we may have hope to understand it better in the future. I think that free will is metaphysical impossible (given the premise of standard causation) and I can’t see that any advances in science could ever overcome it, it is mysterious in a more fundamental way.

You didn't answer my question: When electrons or photons are fired through a double slit, what is the differentiating factor between whether you get a particle effect or wave disambiguation effect?

I tried to explain why I don’t think the answer is important, but I think that the answer you are looking for is: The difference is the measuring device. If a quantum event is measured upon it will change. Isn’t that obvious . If you were taught that when you were young you may have thought now that it was intuitively true.
I insist that the free will mystery would be an other kind of mystery, more fundamental.

Actually, no - the difference isn't the measuring device. The delayed choice/quantum eraser experiment shows that it wasn't the measuring device that caused the particle effect to happen rather than disambiguation. There are various YouTube videos around that explain the eraser experiment in detail. So then, what would be your second answer? Really, the answer I'm looking for is the one often said by scientists/physicists.

I have looked at some more videos and checked the Wikipedia entry. Without digging deep in the topic I have no more comments than that I can adhere to the Copenhagen interpretation that particles are kind of probability waves, but the comment that probabilities are a bit tricky.

I hope your questioning is part of answering my questions in
viewtopic.php?p=235409#p235409

So then, you would agree that observation collapses the wave function, that is, the mere act of observing determines a physical outcome in a range of possibilities? This seems to me an extremely hard fit with your views on the material world, physical realism, determinism and such.

To make things more clear and quote from a paper I found online The Observer in the Quantum Experiment:

Given the determinism of Newtonian physics, the almost universal assumption of free will was early on seen as paradoxical. With classical physics it was, however, a benign paradox. The conscious mind receives information from the physical world only through eyes or other organs that are presumably understandable deterministically. Conscious free will is manifest through deterministically understandable muscles. The mind of the observer, that entity making free choices, being on the far side of eyes and muscles, could be considered an aspect of the universe isolated from the physical world to be treated by physics. Since within that realm the different experiments which could be freely chosen by the observer never led to inconsistent pictures of the prior physical reality, classical physics could deal with only one part of a divided universe without considering the observer.

An analogous argument is not available for quantum physics. Different quantum experiments that could be freely chosen by the observer do lead to inconsistent pictures of the prior physical reality. This apparent intrusion of the free choice of the observer into the aspect of the physical world addressed by physics constitutes a measurement problem in the quantum experiment. Our discussion will focus on this issue of the observer’s choice.

Stapp emphasizes that a quantum measurement involves two choices(4). The first is the choice by the observer of what experiment to do, that is, the choice of what question to ask of Nature. (Within the theory this involves the choice of basis.) The second choice Stapp identifies is that by Nature giving the probabilistic answer to the experimenter’s question, that is, providing a particular experimental outcome. For reasons dating back to the 1927 Solvay Conference, Stapp calls the choice by the observer the “Heisenberg choice” and that by Nature the “Dirac choice,” and we adopt this terminology. Taking the example of the two-slit experiment, the Heisenberg choice might be the decision by the experimenter to find out either through which slit each particle comes, or in which maxima of the interference pattern each lands. The Dirac choice by Nature would determine, in the first case, the particular slit, and for the second case, the particular maximum for each particle.

In other words, under a Newtonian view (like you appear to believe) the observer (us) is a passive observer. The world physically exists independant of us or any conscious agent. We ourselves are a part of the physical furniture within the world, a part of the physical landscape, and are ourselves physically determined. This classical physics and picture of reality is what I see you arguing for throughout. You're so tunnel-visioned with seeing the world through this lens of classical physics that for you "free will" isn't just not had but is logically unintelligible i.e., it's not even a possibility.

Yet, the venturing of modern science into the quantum world contradicts this classic view, and indeed even upsets physical realism. It seems that reality, to some extent, is being determined by consciousness which is at least minimally independant of the physical outcome it determines. So then, we aren't just passive observers like classically thought, but rather our mere observation helps to determine and shape the physical landscape. Indeed, where our conscious act of observing determines physical outcomes, it can be said the physically deterministic reigns snap and lose their control over us who are conscious agents and rather it is we who do the controlling. Therefore, it seems by no means any stretch to believe our conscious will can be exerted over the physcial order, indeed even over our physical nature such that we determine rather than be determined.

[Kurieuo]

PS. I don't see any questions at that link which aren't my own.

[Nils]

The argument about Me
1. How I a now depends on how I was at some earlier time some moments ago and the environment between that earlier time and now (and on nothing else).

I think the actions you’ve engaged in between the earlier time vs now can determine who you are right now; also.

I said and meant :”and nothing else”. You change this to “also” which spoils my argument.
Assume that the “Earlier time” is close to conception. Then you agree that how you are then is only determined by H&E.
It seems that you think that there are at least one first action A between the Earlier time and Now that is not determined by H&E (directly or indirectly through some earlier action that was determined by H&E, i.e. determined by the how I was at the Earlier time and the environment after that time). The conclusion is that it the action A is at least partly determined by something else. But what else is that? Everything in me up to the Earlier time was determined by H&E (and nothing else). There was no independent Me before action A.
So what you have to explain is how an “independent You” (or Me) can emerge in a person when the person at some time is fully determined by heredity and environment (H&E).

. . . . . .

You seem to have made an argument about how you became the person you are right now (though IMO you left out how the actions you have chosen in the past can determine who you are right now also) but we are talking about free will; not how you became the person you are right now.

If how you are is only dependent on heritage and environment it is not up to you how you are, it is just a matter of luck. You have not had any opportunity to change how you are and how you act. That is what I mean to not have free will. When you don’t have free will it seems unfair to blame you if you break moral rules for example, you don’t deserve it.

Nils