Determinism and free will

[Forty Two]

In some universes there is empirical evidence and in other universes there isn't.

Here's one to wrestle with -- if multiverse theory is true, then it necessarily follows that in some universes their reality is that they aren't a part of a multiverse.....and ours might be one of those...

[pErvinalia]

Nah, I don't think the concept of multiverses involves different physical laws in any of them.

[laklak]

If it looks like free will, walks like free will, and quacks like free will, then best to treat it as free will.

[JimC]

Free will and freedom are illusions of western society. We are never totally free. We accept impositions as the cost for our so-called freedom.

This, of course, is confusing the philosophical conundrum that is free will with the degrees of personal freedom possible in various political systems.

[JimC]

Nah, I don't think the concept of multiverses involves different physical laws in any of them.

In many of the speculative physics articles I have read, it does, at least to the extent of alterations in the variety of physical constants that seem (at the moment) to be arbitrary quantities. The point is often made that many universes with differing values of such constants will not produce stars and planets, and thus life, and that, via the anthropomorphic principle, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in just that universe which has the right set of constants to allow life to form.

[Brian Peacock]

If it looks like free will, walks like free will, and quacks like free will, then best to treat it as free will.

[pErvinalia]

Nah, I don't think the concept of multiverses involves different physical laws in any of them.

In many of the speculative physics articles I have read, it does,

Blood theoretical mathematicians!

The laws would have to be the same in the branching multiverse theory where for ever active choice in ours new mulitverses are spawned where the choices chosen are different. So for every time that Cunt obsesses over fat people in this universe, there's another universe spawned where he doesn't care about fat people.

[JimC]

Nah, I don't think the concept of multiverses involves different physical laws in any of them.

In many of the speculative physics articles I have read, it does,

Blood theoretical mathematicians!

The laws would have to be the same in the branching multiverse theory where for ever active choice in ours new mulitverses are spawned where the choices chosen are different. So for every time that Cunt obsesses over fat people in this universe, there's another universe spawned where he doesn't care about fat people.

I think there are 2 separate ideas being considered here. You, I think, are talking about the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory, where every event at a quantum level produces 2 (at least) possible universes. Generally considered to be unlikely, but still considered by a few physicists as possible.
The multiverse, on the other hand, is a vision of an eternal universe, where random events (like our big bang) spawn new universes continually. It is this perspective that involves the possibility of a vast range of possible universes, differing in fundamental physical constants.

[rainbow]

What if the universe was predetermined to be indeterminate? We'd have no choice but to have free will!

The Multiverse has an infinite number of outcomes at any point, so Yes.

Assuming there is a multiverse. That's largely a hypothesis with theoretical physics behind it, but I'm pretty sure that there is no empirical evidence backing that up, yet.

There is no empirical evidence to back up any Objective Reality either. All we observe is Subjective. Everything we measure is subject to bias.

You are a brain in a jar.

[JimC]

What if the universe was predetermined to be indeterminate? We'd have no choice but to have free will!

The Multiverse has an infinite number of outcomes at any point, so Yes.

Assuming there is a multiverse. That's largely a hypothesis with theoretical physics behind it, but I'm pretty sure that there is no empirical evidence backing that up, yet.

There is no empirical evidence to back up any Objective Reality either. All we observe is Subjective. Everything we measure is subject to bias.

You are a brain in a jar.

My jar is neat gin.

[pErvinalia]

What if the universe was predetermined to be indeterminate? We'd have no choice but to have free will!

The Multiverse has an infinite number of outcomes at any point, so Yes.

Assuming there is a multiverse. That's largely a hypothesis with theoretical physics behind it, but I'm pretty sure that there is no empirical evidence backing that up, yet.

There is no empirical evidence to back up any Objective Reality either. All we observe is Subjective. Everything we measure is subject to bias.

You are a brain in a jar.

I'm a pickled brain in a jar.

[Brian Peacock]

Would you be comfortable replacing the term 'free will' with 'freedom' in the above?

"Freedom" is essentially how the compatibilists define it, so not really.

This kind of makes my point; you appear to be taking issue with compatibilism because it's reference to free will is itself incompatible with idea of us being "able to choose a course of action that is independent of everything that has gone before," as you put it, but this is not how compatibilists use or integrate the idea of 'free will'. For them--and I'm not among their number, at least not officially or by choice--'free will' is simply freedom to act according to one's wants and needs, "according to one's motives without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions" as the previous Wiki-quote puts it, which does not necessarily entail the jettisoning of all of history and circumstance, whether personal or social.

No, it actually makes my point that instead of accepting that free will should be consigned to the bin of silly folklore, the compatibilists had to re-define free will to mean something different so as to be able to have their cake and eat it too. It still retains enough of the original definition to allow them to at least pretend there is some validity to the folk psychology. Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

To start with we both agree that 'free will' is problematic. You say it 'should be consigned to the bin of folklore', I say it's often bound to apologetic excuses the religious use to get away with the moral and ethical inconsistencies inherent in their faiths. However, this 'free will' thing is not some special something-or-other; it has no special power, influence, or force, but it does encapsulate the idea that we have, and exercise, a certain freedom in thought and deed - when indeed we are able to decide and act according to our wants and needs.

In philosophy outside of theology 'free will' is generally synonymous with 'freedom', that of which we think and do without the arbitrary impositions of compulsion or constraint. It is not contentious to take or hold this view of the term 'free will' and compatibilists are not being controversial or devious in being clear about what they mean by it.

But the common understanding of 'free will' is to a large part, thankfully, divested of much of that bollocks, a free will as 'freedom', as Liberty as opposed to Licence if you will. A free will which means we are free to decide and act, to choose coffee rather than tea, Trump rather than Clinton, cardigan rather than jumper, cheese rather than bacon or cheese and bacon, each according to our wants and needs, our motives. In this we are only free within the context of our circumstances: if there is no coffee we'll just have to have tea but if we're free it is because we're not subject to 'arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions' telling what we can and cannot drink. So 'free will' here is now 'a freedom of will' as well as 'a freedom from the will of others' - or more succinctly 'freedom'.

Free will is a metaphysical philosophical concept. "Freedom" is a political concept. The two really have very little to do with each other.

In what way is the term a metatphysical concept and not just a label for what we think and do without the arbitrary imposition of compulsion or constraint? In what way is 'freedom' a political concept, and in so being is rendered as something other than just a label for what we think and do without the arbitrary imposition of compulsion or constraint? For example, do you think that 'freedom' outside of the political arena is impossible, or moot; that without politics there would be no such thing as freedom, that we would have no need of it, even in conception?

While free will does seem at odds with the doctrines of Determinism Compatibilists reason that, in some particular senses, it is not. Critiquing Compatibilism on the basis that free will is incompatible with Determinism is one thing, but it has to involve compatibilists version of 'free will' and it requires a little more by way of exposition than simply saying that Compatibilism fails because free will is incompatible with Determinism. See what I mean?

It fails because it's comparing apples and oranges. A political philosophy can't say anything about a metaphysical concept.

I'm afraid that you will have to establish the metaphysical credentials of 'free will' in order to support that line of argument.

[Forty Two]

What if the universe was predetermined to be indeterminate? We'd have no choice but to have free will!

The Multiverse has an infinite number of outcomes at any point, so Yes.

Assuming there is a multiverse. That's largely a hypothesis with theoretical physics behind it, but I'm pretty sure that there is no empirical evidence backing that up, yet.

There is no empirical evidence to back up any Objective Reality either. All we observe is Subjective. Everything we measure is subject to bias.

You are a brain in a jar.

Just because reality is not objective doesn't mean reality is nonexistent.

[pErvinalia]

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millennia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.[2] They define free will as freedom to act according to one's motives without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions.

For example, courts of law make judgments, without bringing in metaphysics, about whether an individual was acting of their own free will in specific circumstances. It is assumed in a court of law that someone could have done otherwise than they did—otherwise no crime would have been committed.

Similarly, political liberty is a non-metaphysical concept.[3] Statements of political liberty, such as the United States Bill of Rights, assume moral liberty, i.e. the ability to choose to do otherwise than one does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

Informal Politics is understood as forming alliances, exercising power and protecting and advancing particular ideas or goals. Generally, this includes anything affecting one's daily life, such as the way an office or household is managed, or how one person or group exercises influence over another.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

I'll let my links do the talking for me.

[Forty Two]

"Most philosophers." We have a consensus. This is settled philosophy.