Volitional Will vs Determinism

[kiaer.ts]

The issue is now whether an action is caused or uncaused but whether the agent himself caused it or some other factor was determinative. The notion that a person does not have free will if the chemistry of his body caused something is based on the irrational idea that you are not your own body.

Free will is not will that is free from reality.

It is morally free will - the will of a mature healthy person in possession of his faculties and free from external coercion.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Ted Keer

[peterdjones]

The issue is now whether an action is caused or uncaused but whether the agent himself caused it or some other factor was determinative.

The issue is whether all events are caused, including mental events that bring about actions. If all events are

deterministically caused, then there is no basis for saying that events that lead to actions are free. If agents

are just another stage in a deterministic chain, then the claim that they exert some special causality is merely

honorific.

The notion that a person does not have free will if the chemistry of his body caused something is based on the irrational idea that you are not your own body.

We are not un free because we are material. However, if we are material AND determined, we do not have incompatibliist free will.

Free will is not will that is free from reality.

Incompatiblisis free will is free from determination

It is morally free will - the will of a mature healthy person in possession of his faculties and free from external coercion.

That is compatibilism, which Rand rejected.

Edited March 6, 2011 by peterdjones

[kiaer.ts]

Humans are not point masses. Freedom is not causelessness. Free will is not freedom from the self.

Whether our actions at the organismic scale result from 'random' (an epistemological concept) or predictable events at the atomic level, our actions as organisms are still the result of our bodies. In either case, your body has the faculty of volition. It's freedom doesn't result from its being the result of random rather than predictable efficient causes.

I did not and do not advocate compatiblism in the conventional materialist reductivist sense. Your objections are based on a host of such preconceptions.

If you really care to understand the Objectivist position then you need to understand the Objectivist view of entity causality.

[peterdjones]

'random' (an epistemological concept)

So you say.Asserted without proof.

your body has the faculty of volition. It's freedom doesn't result from its being the result of random rather than predictable efficient causes.

It's freedom from determinsim can only be freedom from determinism.

I did not and do not advocate compatiblism in the conventional materialist reductivist sense. Your objections are based on a host of such preconceptions.

Rand's contradiction lies in asserting determinism and volition and incompatibilism. You may have achieved a non-contradictory

stance by dropping incompatibilism, but that does not free Rand form contradiction.

If you really care to understand the Objectivist position then you need to understand the Objectivist view of entity causality.

Doesn't work. Entities perform particular actions at particular times because of particular events within them.

[kiaer.ts]

'random' (an epistemological concept)

So you say.Asserted without proof.

your body has the faculty of volition. It's freedom doesn't result from its being the result of random rather than predictable efficient causes.

It's freedom from determinsim can only be freedom from determinism.

I did not and do not advocate compatiblism in the conventional materialist reductivist sense. Your objections are based on a host of such preconceptions.

Rand's contradiction lies in asserting determinism and volition and incompatibilism. You may have achieved a non-contradictory

stance by dropping incompatibilism, but that does not free Rand form contradiction.

If you really care to understand the Objectivist position then you need to understand the Objectivist view of entity causality.

Doesn't work. Entities perform particular actions at particular times because of particular events within them.

You are just making this up as you go along. Have you even read Rand? She nowhere espouses determinism. I (than whom you will find no more generous poster on this forum so far as willingness to give lengthy explanations if asked) was afraid I was treating you too abruptly on the other thread. This continued baseless assertion by you makes it clear I was not.

Edited March 7, 2011 by Ted Keer

[peterdjones]

You are just making this up as you go along. Have you even read Rand? She nowhere espouses determinism.

She espouses determinism in the quote I have given before:

"All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe, from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life, are caused and determined [emph. added] by the identities of the elements involved". --AR

Likewise, Peikoff states on page 14 of The Objective Philosphy of Ayn Rand,

"A thing cannot act against its nature, i.e., in contradiction to it's identity, because A is A and contradictions are impossible. In any given set of circumstances, therefore, there is only one action possible to an entity, the action expressive of it's identity."'

I (than whom you will find no more generous poster on this forum so far as willingness to give lengthy explanations if asked) was afraid I was treating you too abruptly on the other thread. This continued baseless assertion by you makes it clear I was not.

I gave the same quotes before, so my assertions were not baseless.

Peikoff may well have said that determinism is false as well as saying it is true (not to mention

saying it is true for non humans and false for humans). He's like that.

Edited March 7, 2011 by peterdjones

[peterdjones]

The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature . . . . The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it.

For the New Intellectual Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 151.

To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved.

Philosophy: Who Needs It “The Metaphysical and the Man-Made,”

Philosophy: Who Needs It, 25.

Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance.

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Leonard Peikoff “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,”

[kiaer.ts]

Nevermind.

Edited March 7, 2011 by Ted Keer

[Brant Gaede]

I would suggest the free will/determinism sequences are being mixed up a little here. If man has free will the expressions of that will become part of a general deterministic process. Humans do determine and are determined both, buts what's going to be determined is hard to predict even on the macro level. The premise of this thread is wrong for there is no conflict except in different people on the level of argument. We need to investigate what is really going on especially regarding the choices we seem to make. In regard to determinism per se it only seems verifiable by looking in the rear-view mirror of existence, but we seem to actually see very little. As for free will we do choose, don't we? If you want to come to the conclusion we actually don't--well, that's up to you.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

As for the primo-historical Objectivists making what seem to be jumbled up statements about various subjects, these are frequently the basic result of putting too much into the philosophy that should be investigated, not propounded as immutable truths or part of the philosophy as such. Objectivism as commonly understood is top-heavy with this kind of stuff.

--Brant

[peterdjones]

I would suggest the free will/determinism sequences are being mixed up a little here. If man has free will the expressions of that will become part of a general deterministic process.

If the decision making is an uncaused cause that doesn't come from the general deterministic process, determinism is false.

If determinism is true. decision making is not free of determinism.

The issue of whether decision making contributes to causality is irrelevant: the problem lies in where it comes from,

not where it goes to.

Humans do determine and are determined both, buts what's going to be determined is hard to predict even on the macro level

Ignorance is not bliss: if we are determined we are not free. Our ignorance of how we are determined does not make us

free, any more than out ignorance of how we will die makes us immortal.

[Peter]

Peterdjones wrote:

Ignorance is not bliss: if we are determined we are not free. Our ignorance of how we are determined does not make us free, any more than out ignorance of how we will die makes us immortal.

End quote

Identical Twins should be frequently bumping into each other, or at least getting into each other’s way, according to determinism. Chaos Theory and randomness are interesting anti-deterministic concepts too.

Ay layk Ayn’s version and description of *Volition* which is that volition begins with the initial, undetermined decision to raise or lower consciousness. Even a moderate adherence to “soft determinism” will lead to psychological problems (and derision, as in: What made you say that, you ugly bag of mostly water?)

And that line from "Star Trek TNG" RANDomly reminds me of Christianity which speaks of free-will and also of how all the elements and lower animals were put on this earth to serve man. That is in total disagreement with many environmentalists, and the unproven, spooky hypothesis of Mother Earth (or was that her, just growling, in New Zealand?).

I choose to say good bye,

Peter Taylor

[Brant Gaede]

I would suggest the free will/determinism sequences are being mixed up a little here. If man has free will the expressions of that will become part of a general deterministic process.

If the decision making is an uncaused cause that doesn't come from the general deterministic process, determinism is false.

If determinism is true. decision making is not free of determinism.

The issue of whether decision making contributes to causality is irrelevant: the problem lies in where it comes from,

not where it goes to.

Humans do determine and are determined both, buts what's going to be determined is hard to predict even on the macro level

Ignorance is not bliss: if we are determined we are not free. Our ignorance of how we are determined does not make us

free, any more than out ignorance of how we will die makes us immortal.

If we could be free we are not necessarily determined?

--Brant

just do it

[Brant Gaede]

It seems to me that determinism excluding free will is something of a fallacy in that it excludes humans from a special place not occupied by other animals and purely physical forces. If our free will is an illusion, why can't we just toss it? If we do we also toss out morality and philosophy itself plus what ever else humans create. A wolf does not create the sheep it eats or a cow the grass. The pillager does not create what he pillages.

--Brant

[peterdjones]

Identical Twins should be frequently bumping into each other, or at least getting into each other’s way, according to determinism.

I don't see why. Determinism might predict that they behave the same under the same circumstances, but they are never

going to be under exactly the same circumstances because they have to occupy different volumes of space

Chaos Theory and randomness are interesting anti-deterministic concepts too.

Ay layk Ayn’s version and description of *Volition* which is that volition begins with the initial, undetermined decision to raise or lower consciousness. Even a moderate adherence to “soft determinism” will lead to psychological problems (and derision, as in: What made you say that, you ugly bag of mostly water?)

Uh-huh. Well, Rand didn't believe in determinism when it is called Determinism, but she likes it just fine when it is called

Causality.

[peterdjones]

It seems to me that determinism excluding free will is something of a fallacy in that it excludes humans from a special place not occupied by other animals and purely physical forces. If our free will is an illusion, why can't we just toss it? If we do we also toss out morality and philosophy itself plus what ever else humans create. A wolf does not create the sheep it eats or a cow the grass. The pillager does not create what he pillages.

--Brant

Can you toss determinism and keep the Law of Causality?

[Brant Gaede]

It seems to me that determinism excluding free will is something of a fallacy in that it excludes humans from a special place not occupied by other animals and purely physical forces. If our free will is an illusion, why can't we just toss it? If we do we also toss out morality and philosophy itself plus what ever else humans create. A wolf does not create the sheep it eats or a cow the grass. The pillager does not create what he pillages.

--Brant

Can you toss determinism and keep the Law of Causality?

Why would anyone care if you could or couldn't? You'll keep it if it's important to your prognostications and toss it if not, regarding both. My basic but not immutable position--I don't know enough--is human beings are determined and then they--if they have enough freedom--determine and a lot of that comes from choices they make and to say they couldn't have made other choices, only the ones they did, is to claim a mystical infallibility in your own, determined, knowledge about that for you've first shot your arrow into the side of the barn and then drawn your bullseye around it and told us to look at the wonder of what just-had-to-have-been.

--Brant

Edited March 8, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[peterdjones]

Can you toss determinism and keep the Law of Causality?

Why would anyone care if you could or couldn't?

People who care about truth and consistency tend to care about that sort of thing

You'll keep it if it's important to your prognostications and toss it if not, regarding both. My basic but not immutable position--I don't know enough--is human beings are determined and then they--if they have enough freedom

How can they have freedom if they are determined? (I care about consistency)

--determine and a lot of that comes from choices they make and to say they couldn't have made other choices, only the ones they did, is to claim a mystical infallibility

You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists

don't argue it that way, for a start.

Edited March 8, 2011 by peterdjones

[Brant Gaede]

You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists

don't argue it that way, for a start.

Where did I say what Objectivists say? Determinism can be argued any number of ways. I find little value in any determinism argument, even my own. Why? Not enough data. Here we are. We make choices. One choice cancels out those not chosen. This appertains to free will, something we know a little more about. That human things are determined by this or that doesn't mean all things are (purely) determined but represent an admixture for obviously our nature as humans, individually and collectively, will have a lot to do with the choices we make, but none of this tells us what determinism generally speaking is. We can posit this and posit that until the cows come home and keep on positing until the end of time and all our positings will be controversial, at least out of present knowledge. Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action. We can say it's not action, but the action will still exist. Call it something else. Determinism yes or no is yes or no words only. We can put them up or out or zip our lips. I'm sure you haven't been determined to come here about determinism. Not unless your Objectivist brother beat you with a stick when you were very young.

--Brant

Edited March 8, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

'random' (an epistemological concept)

So you say.Asserted without proof.

your body has the faculty of volition. It's freedom doesn't result from its being the result of random rather than predictable efficient causes.

It's freedom from determinsim can only be freedom from determinism.

I did not and do not advocate compatiblism in the conventional materialist reductivist sense. Your objections are based on a host of such preconceptions.

Rand's contradiction lies in asserting determinism and volition and incompatibilism. You may have achieved a non-contradictory

stance by dropping incompatibilism, but that does not free Rand form contradiction.

If you really care to understand the Objectivist position then you need to understand the Objectivist view of entity causality.

Doesn't work. Entities perform particular actions at particular times because of particular events within them.

See for a reply of mine on Ted's views, which I don't think solve the problem of reconciling current physics with volition.

On Rand's views, I agree with you:

- that Rand was not a compatibilist;

- that the O'ist position on causality is a statement of universal determinism;

- that the O'ist position on causality thus contradicts, or at minimum, produces incoherence with the O'ist position on volition.

Rand apparently was satisfied with the fudge answer that the identity of the human permits only one action in a circumstance, that action being choosing. I call this the Yogi Berra answer: When you come to a fork in the road, take it. That, say, going left at a fork in the road is a different physical action from going right seems either to have eluded her or just never to have been considered.

I thought the article by Franz Kiekeben, "Rand on Causation and Free Will", which you linked on another thread (post #20, "Objectivist Contradictions" thread), did a pretty good job of discussing the contradiction (or incoherence).

Ellen

[peterdjones]

You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists

don't argue it that way, for a start.

Where did I say what Objectivists say? Determinism can be argued any number of ways. I find little value in any determinism argument, even my own. Why? Not enough data. Here we are. We make choices. One choice cancels out those not chosen. This appertains to free will, something we know a little more about. That human things are determined by this or that doesn't mean all things are (purely) determined but represent an admixture for obviously our nature as humans, individually and collectively, will have a lot to do with the choices we make, but none of this tells us what determinism generally speaking is. We can posit this and posit that until the cows come home and keep on positing until the end of time and all our positings will be controversial, at least out of present knowledge. Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action. We can say it's not action, but the action will still exist. Call it something else. Determinism yes or no is yes or no words only. We can put them up or out or zip our lips. I'm sure you haven't been determined to come here about determinism. Not unless your Objectivist brother beat you with a stick when you were very young.

--Brant

So much for philosophy

[Peter]

Peterdjones wrote:

Uh-huh. Well, Rand didn't believe in determinism when it is called Determinism, but she likes it just fine when it is called Causality.

end quote

I wonder, what makes Peter, Peter?

Brant wrote in reply:

. . . they couldn't have made other choices, only the ones they did, is to claim a mystical infallibility in your own, determined, knowledge about that for you've first shot your arrow into the side of the barn and drawn your bullseye around it and told us to look at the wonder of what just-had-to-have-been . . . . Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action.

end quote

Ellen Stuttle replied:

Rand apparently was satisfied with the fudge answer that the identity of the human permits only one action in a circumstance, that action being choosing.

end quote

Rand also didn’t believe anything (hypothetically,) but she *believed* in logic, and logical and rational conclusions, which are causal. Oh, boy. I better read what Ellen said we should read first.

Should we get newby Dennis May into the discussion?

Dennis, where art thou?

Peter Taylor

[Brant Gaede]

You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists

don't argue it that way, for a start.

Where did I say what Objectivists say? Determinism can be argued any number of ways. I find little value in any determinism argument, even my own. Why? Not enough data. Here we are. We make choices. One choice cancels out those not chosen. This appertains to free will, something we know a little more about. That human things are determined by this or that doesn't mean all things are (purely) determined but represent an admixture for obviously our nature as humans, individually and collectively, will have a lot to do with the choices we make, but none of this tells us what determinism generally speaking is. We can posit this and posit that until the cows come home and keep on positing until the end of time and all our positings will be controversial, at least out of present knowledge. Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action. We can say it's not action, but the action will still exist. Call it something else. Determinism yes or no is yes or no words only. We can put them up or out or zip our lips. I'm sure you haven't been determined to come here about determinism. Not unless your Objectivist brother beat you with a stick when you were very young.

--Brant

So much for philosophy

Valid philosophy is based on actual human beings and their human being. It is not based on any pure up-in-the-clouds contrived doctrine coughed up out of conjecture. It is determinism itself that is "so much for" philosophies as philosophy is necessary for the serious choices people make and therefore determinism implicitly uses philosophy as a stolen concept.

--Brant

[kiaer.ts]

You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists

don't argue it that way, for a start.

Where did I say what Objectivists say? Determinism can be argued any number of ways. I find little value in any determinism argument, even my own. Why? Not enough data. Here we are. We make choices. One choice cancels out those not chosen. This appertains to free will, something we know a little more about. That human things are determined by this or that doesn't mean all things are (purely) determined but represent an admixture for obviously our nature as humans, individually and collectively, will have a lot to do with the choices we make, but none of this tells us what determinism generally speaking is. We can posit this and posit that until the cows come home and keep on positing until the end of time and all our positings will be controversial, at least out of present knowledge. Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action. We can say it's not action, but the action will still exist. Call it something else. Determinism yes or no is yes or no words only. We can put them up or out or zip our lips. I'm sure you haven't been determined to come here about determinism. Not unless your Objectivist brother beat you with a stick when you were very young.

--Brant

So much for philosophy

Valid philosophy is based on actual human beings and their human being. It is not based on any pure up-in-the-clouds contrived doctrine coughed up out of conjecture. It is determinism itself that is "so much for" philosophies as philosophy is necessary for the serious choices people make and therefore determinism implicitly uses philosophy as a stolen concept.

--Brant

I hope you realize, Brant, that by continuing this you are guilty of forcing peterdjones to say such silly things.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What a load of baloney.

One thing scientific-minded folks don't get with Rand is that the God's-eye view is foreign to her thinking, whereas they are perfectly capable of rationalizuing anything until they get there. Just throw in a little math and jargon and you can postulate the most outrageous thing if you want. But that ain't Rand.

This determinism thing is a case in point. Here is a direct quote from the article by Kiekeben that Stutlle thinks "did a pretty good job of discussing the contradiction (or incoherence)." (She is talking about Rand's contradiction and incoherence, of course.)

According to Rand, then, the law of identity implies that everything has a cause, and this in turn implies that, at any given moment, there is only one way that anything can act — only one outcome that is possible.

Implies to whom? To Rand?

Baloney.

Not in the stuff I have read. On the contrary, let me paraphrase part of that statement: At any given moment, there is only one set of ways that anything can act — only one set of outcomes that is possible--and that set comes from the existent's identity.

Ahhh...

That's better and more in line with the law of identity as I always understood Rand to mean it. And there is even an implied qualifier--based on human knowledge up to now.

But look at what Kiekeben said. How's that kind of tripe for sneaking in a concept that is foreign to Rand, attributing it to her, then claiming this proves she held contradictions and that makes her an incoherent philosophical Yogi Berra?

I get so tired of time-travel from these scientific-minded folks. They treat the future as if it were the past--as if they were God and can decree that there is only "one possible outcome." This is what I call the God's-eye view.

Anyone who has read Rand knows that when she talks about any human knowledge--and that means any at all--including the fundamental nature of the universe, she is talking about it from the perspective of a human being. This means that if new facts arise that a human being can grasp intellectually and validate, he will revise his statements of fact. The examples of her saying and implying this are countless.

When she wanted to express what an ostensive definition of existence was, she flung here arm around and said, "I mean this." She did not make some kind of intellectual projection from a logical construct and claim she had knowledge of all instances at all times in all spaces and in all contexts.

On the contrary, she constantly claimed that knowledge was contextual because man was not omniscient.

I could keep going on with further examples, but people either accept this about Rand or they don't. And if they don't, it is not because there is any lack of crystal-clear material to look at.

All knowledge to Rand is hierarchical. The fundamental part is always implied in any statement of fact if you use her system of concept formation.

So what is part of the time fundament when Rand talks about metaphysics (law of identity and so forth)? Let's look.

A solid fact is something in the past or present. That we can know with absolute certainty. We cannot know the future from experience. It hasn't happened yet. Can anyone think of Rand disagreeing with this so far? I can't.

So the future is the problem.

(Our dear time-travelers always use it to try to debunk what we know from the past and present. They pretend the future can be treated like the past or present, then they show how it does not operate that way, then try to pretend this means something intelligent. This even goes back to the Hume thing about is-ought.)

So what about the future?

The law of identity states that an existent is and acts according to its nature and cannot be and act otherwise. Now here's the context--Rand's context--our time-travelers always leave out: human knowledge. Man's knowledge of anything is ONLY from his past and present existence of the thing's past and present existence.

In Rand's view (and there are countless statements anyone familiar with her writing can quote), experience (and abstraction of it) is the starting point of human knowledge. (Think sensation, percept, concept.) So, does man have direct experience of the future? Hell no. Thus, man cannot have factual knowledge of the future--at least not from a human perspective. (From the God's-eye perspective, he can, but thinking like that--thinking seriously like that--would be the equivalent of looneyville to Rand.)

This means that man's knowledge of the identity of anything is based only on what it has been the past and is in the present. This is how we identify patterns. We can't jump into the future and look backwards and call that observation. We can project that, we can speculate "what if," but we cannot observe it. That's our nature as human beings. (Time travelers are not limited in this manner in their speculations they call facts and, by extension, contradictions.)

After a pattern has been identified and corroborated by countless sane, healthy human beings over centuries, this allows man to state with certainty which set of future acts will be in line with that identity. But it does not place a cap on it. On the contrary, all concepts to Rand are open-ended so that new "non-observed until then" instances can be included.

The only restriction that is placed on the future is that an existent cannot act contrary to its nature. This does not say that man knows the entirety of that nature. And that is nothing more than accepting reality for what reality is as man knows it up to now, and what man will find out it is in the future (i.e., making room for "more than one outcome" for the God wannabes). Not what man wishes it were or what he can rationalize it to be from applying math and jargon and isms to a boneheaded notion.

When I first started joining these discussions, I used to hold the world-views of scientists in high regard. Now I don't. I hold their experiments and data in high regard, but not their interpretations on the world-view level (like determinism and so forth--which comes from religion anyway). After looking at some of their clashes and conflicts, and seeing all the crazy stuff some of them would die to defend (and some have), I see that they are just as capable of making shit up as any second-rate Hollywood science-fiction screenwriter.

I have no problem with them making stuff up. But constantly attributing their God's-eye views to Rand to make more stuff up is tiresome.

But hell, if they constantly make stuff up on a fundamental level, why not make stuff up about what Rand thought and meant? That's only human, I suppose, even if you want to be some kind of God.

Michael