Challenge to debunkers: Can you prove hallucinations are generated inside brain :-)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

You've defined determinism as not random. So obviously free will is compatible with determinism. It's not a kind of free will which is compatible, but free will in the sense that everyone means it. Unless you wish to backtrack on your definition of determinism?

You lost me. Random is defined as not deterministic, not the other way around. The libertarians have to show that there is room in "random" for whatever it is that they want as the third contributor to decision making.

~~ Paul

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

You lost me. Random is defined as not deterministic, not the other way around.

I'm simply repeating what mszlazak said. S/he said determinism means not random.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

I'm simply repeating what mszlazak said. S/he said determinism means not random.

I just checked the last few pages of this thread and can't find where he said that. Could you post a link?

~~ Paul

[jacob]

Not very related to this thread, but wanted to mention of an interesting study published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry in 2001. I started a thread on it in scientific debates forum with some of the more interesting excerpts ( I have not read the whole article, though):

The Neuropsychiatry of Paranormal Experiences

Just wanted to make sure you'll all see this

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I just checked the last few pages of this thread and can't find where he said that. Could you post a link?

~~ Paul

Don't you believe me?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

Don't you believe me?

Sure, I just want to see how the heck mszlazak said that.

~~ Paul

[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Indeed, but what fun is that? There is nothing to argue with in that definition of free will.

~~ Paul

Learning is fun and interesting when the issue is this serious.

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[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

You've defined determinism as not random. So obviously free will is compatible with determinism. It's not a kind of free will which is compatible, but free will in the sense that everyone means it. Unless you wish to backtrack on your definition of determinism?

BTW the mechanical philosophy has been shown to be false by QM.

The cornerstone of incompatibilism is the claim that if all human behaviour is completely determined by events that precede it then all human behaviour is inevitable.

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Libertarians have varieties of free-will that they want. One libertarian view wants a free-will that involves the notion of 'agent causation'. Agent causation is the idea that agents cause events directly, not in virtue of being in any particular state. You, not your desire for beer and your belief that there is beer in the fridge, are the ultimate cause of the fridge being opened. It's an appeal to a supernatural 'unmoved mover'.

Another variety of libertarianism wants a free-will that involves episodes of decision-making that are indeterministic by previous states of mind-brain. To them this doesn't involve anything 'spooky'. According to quantum physics, at the scale of subatomic particles, natural processes are irreducibly indeterministic: prior states do not determine later states; rather, they merely make some later states more probable than others. On an influential interpretation of quantum physics, luck or chance are built into the very fabric of the universe. They argue that the kind of free-will that grounds judgements of moral responsibility can only be explained in terms of the amplification of indeterministic quantum effects to macroscopic scales in the mind-brain, during decision making. Otherwise, the 'buck cannot stop' with the agent, because any decision can always be blamed on a chain of causes, over which the agent has no control, that determines the discision.

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[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I just checked the last few pages of this thread and can't find where he said that. Could you post a link?

~~ Paul

He said that indeterminism means not influenced by anything. So if an event is not influenced by anything, this means it's random.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

The cornerstone of incompatibilism is the claim that if all human behaviour is completely determined by events that precede it then all human behaviour is inevitable.

Depends on what is meant by "inevitable". If I went back in time to some famous historical event, and suppose hypothetically that my presence had no effect on the environment whatsoever, then I would know what these historical people would say and behave. And likewise if someone traveled from the future and surreptitiously observed us, she would know how we would behave. Does that make my behaviour inevitable? Surely only in the most shallow insignificant sense.

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Libertarians have varieties of free-will that they want. One libertarian view wants a free-will that involves the notion of 'agent causation'. Agent causation is the idea that agents cause events directly, not in virtue of being in any particular state. You, not your desire for beer and your belief that there is beer in the fridge, are the ultimate cause of the fridge being opened. It's an appeal to a supernatural 'unmoved mover'.

Yes that what I believe in. But according to how you define determinism this definition of free will is not incompatible with it.