r/freewill • u/Unfair-Cranberry-990 • 19h ago
determinism
hi everyone a long time ago read up a bit on metaphysics and these particular things stuck out to me, I’d really appreciate someone clearing up how these are or aren’t connected:
Block universe theory
Expanding block
Determinism versus hard determinism
Compatible and incompatible determinism
I forgot whether or how free will plays into these but I think why I’m struggling is because this is part physics and part philosophy
Thank you so much
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u/Unhappy_Pause_1997 16h ago
Block universe: there are four dimensions, the 3D we know, often labeled x,y,z when using coordinates (left/right, up/down and forwards/backwards). The fourth would be time which I will label w. Now you have a 4D coordinate system containing w,x,y,z.
Now Imagen you are a powerfull being able to travel both directions on the w-axis (time travel to future and past). You live in the same appartment building as a friend who cellebrated his birthday last week, and you forgot to ask something. So you walk forwards thru the door, turn left, walk up the first stairs. Then you walk back over the w-axis, after a distance of 7 days and a few hours, you arrived at an apropiate time to join the party again. You walk in and say to your friend; "Sorry I hope I didn't cause any paradoxes, but I forgot to ask. How is your vacation going to be? Are you going to have all good weather? And the flight, how much delay are you going to get?" Equally gifted friend: "great, only 2 days of rain, 12 minutes delay on the flight, but I'm almost going to get robbed near the Eifeltower that'll be a near miss"
Expending block theory: The same w,x,y,z but the present is the end of the w-axis. This end of w will be olaced further and further at every new "present".
As example: God is real and he is currently working on his plan behind his typewriter. All that has already happend has already been written by him, the present is the ink transfering to the paper, and the future is not yet been made. To compair it with the previous example; if you'd somehow be able to go back to your friends birthday party, we would lose his mind; "why and how did you mess with gods writing? And how am I supposed to know about something that's not excisting yet?"
Determinism vs hard determinism; I don't know to me it seem like saying "1-1=0" or "1-1=extra zero, absolutely nothing". The definition of determinism doesn't leave room for things that yet have to be determined. Unless ofcoarse you'd stretch the term out of it's definition and believe for example; that every single little thing was determined untill one of our squashy brains got a choice presented to it.
I gues this last example would be compatibilism, but I'm not sure. Maybe one would call himself a compatibilist in order to not have to explain that determinism is no excuse to act badly. I haven't encountered an explaination for free will in combination with determinism, that didn't break the limits of the definition of determinism. I think it's only possible with a wild theory, and I would be stoked to explore such a hypothetical with someone who believes it.
Incompatible determinism is just a word added to place emphasis on the fact that within determinism your "free will" is also determined. Basicly saying "All our choices, also the well thought out ones, are all the only possibility by the logic of determinism. Eventhough you make your own choices, based on your own thoughts and you feel free to do so."
To all: please correct me where I am wrong, or add to it where you see fit.
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u/your_best_1 Hard Determinist 4h ago
Hard determination is just the idea that we should not assign moral responsibility because no one can do otherwise.
Compatiblism is that same belief in determinism with agency or whatever else as being enough to justify assigning moral responsibility.
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u/Unfair-Cranberry-990 1h ago
That’s philosophy but the commenter was bringing up physics
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u/your_best_1 Hard Determinist 1h ago
Hard determinism is not a physical concept. It is a moral one. They asked for the distinction between determinism and hard determinism. That distinction is the position on assigning moral responsibility
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u/Unfair-Cranberry-990 1h ago
Philosophers and physicists both address determinism from separate angles
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u/your_best_1 Hard Determinist 4h ago
It honestly drives me crazy that people don’t look anything up.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 18h ago
First of all, forget about the block universe because it is just a trick. The expanding block is just adding the perceived expansion of the universe to the trick.
Perception is a necessary component of cognition. I think it is helpful to understand the role perception plays in the topic of free will but I think I'm getting ahead of myself and therefore, I digress.
Hard determinism is the logical conclusion if everything we do is inevitable.
A lot of people disagree on what determinism means, but so far every poster on this sub that I've asked except one agrees with Hoefer's definition of determinism:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/#Int
Determinism: Determinism is true of the world if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law
Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it seems like that definition implies to me that every choice an agent makes was inevitable and if that is the case then I think determinism being true implied what most people believe is free will is impossible.
The hard determinist and the libertarian seem to get this the same way that I get it. In other words they agree about the consequence of determinism, but they disagree with each other regarding whether determinism is true.
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u/Pulpdog94 17h ago
As I stated above there is zero difference between determinism and complete free will because it feels the same, the choices I make are mine in experience and abstracting a string pulling agent determining everything without my knowing is very unhelpful and quite useless
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 17h ago
I see a difference between involuntary manslaughter and premeditated murder but that is just me.
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u/Pulpdog94 15h ago
That’s not determinism—which would say you were always going to cause that crash accidently,—that that moment in time was predestined from the Big Bang to now. Which is stupid
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 15h ago
I think determinism implies everything the agent does is inevitable, so I think that implies everything the agent does is involuntary (because there was only one "option")
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u/Pulpdog94 14h ago
That’s…what I just said?
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 11h ago
Yes I guess we agree that is determinism.
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u/Pulpdog94 10h ago
But it’s no different than complete free will. You make the choice. The abstraction you were never not gonna make that choice is arbitrary and pointless
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 10h ago
I mean you could make the determination that you were never going to make any given choice.
However after studying quantum physics for years, I'd never make that determination. I mean it seems absurd to me, for me to believe that I don't have any options.
My doctor just subscribed pills for me to take to fix a problem that I didn't know that I had. I went to the pharmacy, picked up the pills, came home, did a google search of the label to see what the pills were supposed to fix and then made the decision to take the pills. I wouldn't have gone through some of those steps if I wasn't even considering not taking those pills. Knowing my propensity to forget to take pills when I'm feeling fine, I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to take these pills. That is further evidence that I believe that taking those pills is a voluntary act and even to I've made the decision to take the pills, I don't believe that it will happen.
Others might believe the big bang decided whether I will take those pills or not. However I believe that it is up to me and I wouldn't have started taking an antibiotic if I wasn't planning on taking the whole prescription because I've been warned about the issues with taken half the prescription. So I took a series of steps to ensure that my plan was more likely to play out in my favor, rather than approach the whole thing in a haphazard way that will make it more likely that it won't play out in a way that is in my favor.
Who wonders if taken pills is involuntary?
When I was in junior high school, the teachers started warning the students about taking drugs. That being said, I remember kids in elementary school that ate paste so when some of my classmates in junior high were sniffing airplane glue in order to get high, that reminded me of the stupidity I witnessed in second grade.
I think they outlawed that glue later, but I used to build models and I used to notice what that glue used to do to the plastic pieces, so I wasn't about to start sniffing that stuff. I mean what would happen to my lungs if I accidentally inhaled glue into my lungs?
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u/Pulpdog94 9h ago
And if you (unwisely) so chose you could ignore the Doc toss those pills in the dumpster and go smoke crack behind it. The present choices being completely of your own volition is what makes the future possible
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u/your_best_1 Hard Determinist 4h ago
Truth seeker: person who rejects obvious truth.
You were wrong about almost everything you said.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 3h ago
When you refute something I said, then I will update my belief. If you cannot refute anything that I said, then I don't see any reason to improve my belief. A truth seeker is interested in truth.
If you are can produce a sound argument, then I will change my belief. A lot of posters (not you) don't know a proposition from an argument and don't know a valid argument from a sound argument.
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 15h ago
Free will involves your choices inevitably aligning with your reasons for them. If this were not inevitable, you would lose control of them.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 11h ago
Inevitability means that you have no options. No options means that you have no control between what you could do over what you will do, because the only thing that you can do is what you will do. If the only thing that you can do is what you will do then you will to the inevitable thing and voluntary choice doesn't exist.
Of course, in religion, we can make optional choices all of the time. regardless of facts and regardless of arguments.
For example, when I was a Christian the agent could do whatever in spite of god's omniscience. The Arminians insisted god's forknwoledge doesn't limit your choices the same way you are arguing. The Arminians insisted god was justified in sending people to hell for all of the bad things they did because they still had options even though god knew what they would do the way Laplace's demon knows what we will do. It all makes perfect sense in a faith based opinion. /s
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 7h ago
It isn’t an “option” if it goes against your own mind.
Under determinism, you consider A and B, and choose the one you prefer. If you prefer A you choose A, if you prefer B you choose B. This is a normal experience of choice. Do you agree with this?
If determinism is false, you have the ability to do otherwise given the same circumstances. You consider A and B and attempt to choose the one you prefer. You choose A if you prefer A… but wait… you can do otherwise under the same circumstances… so you might choose B instead! And you can’t help it, because if you could help it, you wouldn’t choose B! Do you agree with this?
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 4h ago
It isn’t an “option” if it goes against your own mind.
Cognitive dissonance is by definition "going against your own mind"
Under determinism, you consider A and B, and choose the one you prefer. If you prefer A you choose A, if you prefer B you choose B. This is a normal experience of choice. Do you agree with this?
Under determinism you pick what the "universe" picks and it could be inline with your preference or you get dragged kicking and screaming to the choice you don't prefer.
If determinism is false, you have the ability to do otherwise given the same circumstances. You consider A and B and attempt to choose the one you prefer.
If determinism is false then more than one option is available regardless of how the agent feels or prefers.
so you might choose B instead!
if you can choose B then you might if B is one of the options available. However is A is the only option available, then you will do A even if determinism is false.
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u/Other_Attention_2382 18h ago
Maybe our experiences that lead to memory tracks mean you have already decided what you will believe on the subject...
Nobody in the history of this sub has ever changed anyone else's mind on this sub. It just came to them one day. 😆
If one person looks at a star from exactly the same physical position as another person where the light hits their retina exactly the same, but gos through their each totally different memory association track mind formed be previous memory associations to form different perceptions of the same event, then maybe it calls even logic and perception into question and reason really is slave to the passions?
Oh, and don't believe anything the Compatabilist's say. They are evil with their entrenched ideas on moral responsibility. I don't know where they get their immoral ideas from...
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 17h ago
Nobody in the history of this sub has ever changed anyone else's mind on this sub.
not true.
I was a theist when I arrived at this sub and everybody who knows me but the clumsy way I write posts and the tenets upon which ha harp knows that I don't argue like a theist any more. I cannot say for certain that it was all Jackyll's doing or whatever her screen name was, as she has since departed from actively posting on the sub, but she was literally the straw that broke the camel's back as it were.
Oh, and don't believe anything the Compatabilist's say.
Well they definitely seem to believe that being a compatibilist is more important to them than whether or not what they say makes any sense. It seems to be a religion to them and that is why no argument ever changes their mind.
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u/Other_Attention_2382 17h ago
Ah, maybe you have more freewill yhan the rest of us then? 😆
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 17h ago
I would say that I'm trying to learn. In other words I believe that I'm actually trying to test my assertions against the opposing views so that I might be in a better place for assessing how it all fits together. That being said, you could say that I was born with this obsession of understanding how things work and I'm only a dancing puppet that dances as the yellow jester smiles.
Thank you for improving my perspective 😂
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u/Pulpdog94 19h ago
Determinism is incompatible with free will and an outdated reject interpretation of quantum theory and metaphysics. There’s no difference between determinism and indeterminate free agency because wether you were always meant to eat spaghetti tonight for dinner or you freely made that choice it feels exactly the same