On Feb 8, 2:32 pm, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Feb 8, 6:41 pm, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On Feb 8, 11:01 am, 1Z <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > > On Feb 8, 2:07 pm, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > It depends if you consider biology metaphysical. Free will is a > > > > > > > > capacity which we associate with living organisms, > > > > > > > > rightly or wrongly > > > > > > > There may not be a rightly or wrongly. > > > > > > Neither rightly nor wrongly? > > > > > Yes. There may not be an absolute correlation between living organisms > > > > and free will so much as a relative expectation of free will in things > > > > which are similar to the (any) observer. > > > > And if there is zero FW, those relative expectations > > > will be wrong too. > > > If they are relative there is no wrong. > > If you say a value has a great-than-zero value when it actually jut > has a zero value, that would be wrong.
That would be an absolute value rather than a relative value. Our expectations of free will would be a comparison only to our expectation of our own free will. If something is 100% similar to ourselves, then we expect it to have 100% of the free will that we have. It would have no bearing on our expectation of any objective parameter of freedom, it's just an aspect of self-similarity. > > > If I am very cold and I walk > > into a room temperature room, to me the room feels warm. That isn't > > right or wrong, it's a reflection of how my sense of temperature > > works. My sense of free will may work the same way. If I am used to a > > busy social human world, being out in nature may seem to be nothing > > but randomness and determinism, but if I grew up in the wilderness, > > that may not be the case. The wilderness becomes a living context > > which can be read and perhaps dialogued with in some direct way. > > Hopelessly vague. Hopelessly unhelpful personal opinion. How is it vague? Perception of temperature is relative, is it not? All I'm saying is that perception of free will might be exactly the same way. Is 110 degrees hot? Not if you are boiling water, but it is hot for ice cream. Do we have a lot of free will? Compared to a TV set, sure. Compared to some abstract idea of Libertarian Free Will? Probably not. Not sure it matters. The capacity to even conceive of that idea though is decidedly impossible in a deterministic universe. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >My hunch is that there > > > > probably is a correlation between what we think of as having free will > > > > and it's actual capacity for it, but who knows, we don't seem to be a > > > > very good judge of that kind of thing. > > > > > > > Free will, as an aspect of > > > > > > consciousness, may be subjective. > > > > > > The degree to which we infer the > > > > > > other as having the capacity for free will may be directly > > > > > > proportional to the perception of similarity to oneself. > > > > > > That doesn;t affect my point. if we are mistaken > > > > > in attributing FW to ourselves ITFP, we will be mistaken > > > > > in attributing to others on the basis of similarity to ourselves. > > > > > It think the possibility of falsely attributing FW to ourselves ITFP > > > > fails since it entails making a distinction between FW and > > > > determinism, which would not be conceivable without FW ITFP. > > > > It's conceivable. I just conceived it. > > > I just conceived it = "I, of my own free will, chose to conceive of > > it" > > No. The two are not synonymous. Why not? Are you saying that you were coerced into conceiving it? That you are a passive bystander to it's conception? > > > > > It would > > > > be like trying to make a distinction between air and the shadow of an > > > > invisible palm tree. > > > > ??????? > > > I'm saying that in a hypothetical universe where no freewill existed, > > there would be no way to even conceive of an alternative to > > determinism. > > You could just conceive of it as a result of deteministic > forces. No, just like you can't conceive of a square circle. It would not be in the realm of possibility to differentiate determinism from anything else. > > > You couldn't get outside of determinism to even imagine > > that there could be any other theoretical possibility. > > That makes no sense. If you drop LSD, it will > cause you to see and believe strange thngs that don't > exist. They do exist, they just exist within your experience. It's the same even without LSD. What you experience isn't what exists objectively, it is what you are capable of and conditioned to experience. >Deterministic forces can cause false beliefs. Deterministic forces can suggest false beliefs, but they can't truly cause any beliefs, otherwise they wouldn't be beliefs, but mechanisms. Belief can only be finally caused by a believer. > > > It would be to > > imagine the opposite of something that cannot even be named. > > Where on earth did you get "cannot be named"? Probably from Lovecraft or something. But it's entirely appropriate. A deterministic universe means that determinism cannot be named. What name does an engine have for being something other than a non-engine? > > > If there > > were no such thing as color, you could not imagine color simply by > > trying to conceive of 'not black and white'. > > But that is a false analogy. Indeterminism just means lack > of determinism. But free will means a positive assertion of intentionality - hence, color is not mere non-monochrome, and intentionality is not mere indeterminism. > > >Without free will in the > > first place, there is no possibility of conceiving anything or > > wondering about anything. > >The entire universe would be a machine that > > 'simply is' with no possibility for awareness (what would be the point > > of awareness?) > > What is the point of anything? Everything has all kinds of points. Generally I think the inside of things wants to accumulate significance and the outside of things doesn't want anything, which negates significance as entropy. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The whole idea of having an opinion of whether or > > > > not we have FW rests on our capacity to have and change an opinion, > > > > which would be meaningless under determinism. > > > > No it wouldn't. Of course you can;t freelly change an opinion > > > without some sort of freedom. > > > Why? If you have some sort of freedom, then you don't have > > determinism. > > > > But that is question begging. > > > No, it's question answering. You have a question? Then you have free > > will, otherwise there would be no point at all in the possibility of > > any sort of question. > > Oh good grief. You have now gone to assumijng, > with no evidence, that everythig has a point. What evidence do you have that evidence has a point? A question literally embodies a point. It is a motive to elicit sense. I don't assume that everything has a point, I assume that sensorimotive experience has many points, and that electromagnetic relativity is its 'pointless' container. > > >There would only be known and unknown, with no > > significant difference between them (again, what would be the point? > > if you can't do anything about your question except be a helpless > > spectator to see whether it gets answered or not, what would be the > > point?) > > > > But the other forms of the argument are non sequiturs. > > > What the palm tree? # > > No, the arguments that "you have choices/opinions/concepts therefore > FW exists". That isn't a non-sequitur in any sense. It's a coherent and accurate explanation of the absurdity of arguing an opinion which, when taken literally, explicitly eliminates the possibility of any opinion at all. How does a gear or lever have an opinion? I don't see how this isn't obvious. What is an opinion? Is it mandatory and involuntary? Or is it by definition intentional? What is determinism? Is it subject to your opinion or is it by definition independent of all voluntary cause? I don't understand how I am getting accused of not making sense, when this is elementary and crystal clear to me. > > >I was trying to explain precisely that determinism > > and free will would both be non-sequiturs > > Things aren't non sequiturs. Purported arguments are. Any communication can be a non sequitur if it fails to communicate coherently. Your association of the phrase non-sequitur with purported arguments for example is not a non-sequitur, since I can understand what you mean and you are not saying 'purported frog delicious are', but it is a factually incorrect assertion. Craig > > > > > > > > > in a deterministic universe. > > It would be a name for darkness in a universe without light. No > > distinction = no sense. > > > Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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