Proof of nonexistence of free will

@shanemcd3,

shanemcd3 wrote:

How can you say that without a brain and neurons there would be no thought, but at the same time that it is wrong to reduce thought to neuron firing patterns? Which is it? Is thought due to neuron activity or not? The mind is a physical process, any other interpretation is based on pure speculation, as it is not possible to prove that which is not physical. Besides, perhaps a brain and neurons are not needed for thought, although in humans it certainly is, that is carbon chauvinism, it is not a proven fact. And yes, quantum mechanics is a well proven, physical theory, however there are different interpretations of it, while most would say that the universe is governed by probabilitys, others would say that there are hidden variables at work, and we just have not yet discovered them. And lets presume that the big bang was a random event, that does not prevent it from becoming determinite as soon as it came into being, as an analogy, imagine a ball on top of a hill, and at some stage i randomly push it down, although it began as an indeterminite event, as soon as i push it, its path becomes fixed, it becomes determinite. On the issue of defending both free will and determinism, i really do not know, any thoughts on the matter? Personally i do not believe in free will or determinism, in that the future is not fixed due to quantum uncertainty, but that it does not automatically give rise to free will. And if you have a theory on determinism then please share it with us as we are all here to learn and understand as best we can, to gain new insight from as many viewpoints as we can, yours sincerly, shane

When I observe somebody else's brain, what I am observing is not my thought, but rather what I suppose to be someone else's thought, of which I have no experience whatsoever. Therefore, my reducing my thought to that observation (materialism)---based on that same observation---will always be as valid as reducing that observation to my thought (idealism).

What we need is a rigorous (philosophical) means of establishing the true relation between my thought as experienced by me and what I observe in someone else's brain when they appear to be having that same experience I have when I think, and that observation alone is utterly unable to provide that rigorous means.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The issue can entirely be reduced to causality...its not about me/you/us being able to predict or to know what will happen but instead on me believing there are relations of cause and effect...that means that even when I can´t predict the outcome of an event due to complexity I still can believe it has a cause and a pre determinate path...
freedom is not about the uncertainty of knowledge but rather about the uncertainty on what will happen whether I know it or not, given a common cause...I am one of those who bets is neck that regarding QM there are still hidden non disclosed variables at work...is either that or one of these days we all will be speaking with mickey mousse...
( it might well come as an emergent phenomena )

In other words: theory has nothing to do with practice!

Amazing.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

Besides, on a closer look if it where to be true that Freedom and uncertainty actually exist the consequence would precisely be the opposite of what people expect...that is, between my willing and what would happen there would be no relation of causality due to uncertainty...it might well be that I wished one thing and quite another came to happen...or are we humans a special case ?
...meaning there is uncertainty everywhere with the exception when we us humans are willing for anything...how convenient dumb and presumptuous is that ?

Have you ever tried to do something and failed? If you did (as I bet is the case), then you know that our intentions are no exception regarding the uncertainty of events.

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@guigus,

The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

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@guigus,

...I guess adding to your ignorance you are not familiar with statistics nor infinity or low entropy high entropy cycles, otherwise you would have dropped that BS already...I am just wondering how many universes will have to repeat until you actually get it right ?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

(just to make it clear the above link refers to the post that was a reply to your practice/theory nonsense)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Because you answer seems unrelated to my post, here it is again:

guigus wrote:

Have you ever tried to do something and failed? If you did (as I bet is the case), then you know that our intentions are no exception regarding the uncertainty of events.

In case you miss it again, that means our intentions do not guarantee the results of our actions, which proves our actions are not determined by our intentions, making us no exception to the general indeterminacy of the world.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...I guess adding to your ignorance you are not familiar with statistics nor infinity or low entropy high entropy cycles, otherwise you would have dropped that BS already...I am just wondering how many universes will have to repeat until you actually get it right ?

Insults are still not arguments.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

(just to make it clear the above link refers to the post that was a reply to your practice/theory nonsense)

My comment regarded your divorcing theory from practice (which is what I would rather call "theory/practice nonsense"):

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...its not about me/you/us being able to predict or to know what will happen but instead on me believing there are relations of cause and effect...

So, even though experimental data shows you that you cannot predict the future, you still hold fast to your beliefs, explicitly declaring you consider your own beliefs more important than the facts.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Determinism is never defeated by facts: it is just not supported by them. Determinism is defeated by logic: if every event has an external cause, then the first cause of the series must have no cause at all (many theories suffer from this logical disease, including the Big Bang theory).

The only consistent way of attributing causality to everything is by making everything identical to nothing, so nothing is the cause of everything by being its own cause: this is the only sense in which determinism is true.

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@guigus,

And just how does the inability to predict the future makes a case for indeterminism ?
Whether I can or cannot know something has nothing to do with something being or not being true...if indeterminism is true it is certainly not true only on the assumption of our inability to know...as I said absence of proof is not proof of absence.

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@guigus,

...phenomenologically speaking determinism assumes time and space cause and effect...the judgement that you need to counter my proposal needs to be metaphysical...by now you should have understood that much...nothingness has no business in there at all...anyway spare me the reply...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

And just how does the inability to predict the future makes a case for indeterminism ?
Whether I can or cannot know something has nothing to do with something being or not being true...if indeterminism is true it is certainly not true only on the assumption of our inability to know...as I said absence of proof is not proof of absence.

As I just said, our enduring inability to predict the future is no proof against determinism (meaning that everything is fully caused by something else), only a very good reason for us to be very suspicious about it (quantum physics is another very good reason). That proof comes from logic: determinism needs a first cause, which must itself have no cause, being thus indeterminate.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

...phenomenologically speaking determinism assumes time and space cause and effect...the judgement that you need to counter my proposal needs to be metaphysical...by now you should have understood that much...nothingness has no business in there at all...anyway spare me the reply...

Determinism needs not only causation, but also full causation: if something is only a partial cause of something else, then a rigorous determinism fails: it still needs to account for the rest of that causation. And absolute nothingness is the only thing that fully determines itself, hence the only thing that can account for the whole causation of everything while escaping the first cause problem.

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as a matter of fact, in a few experiments on photons, causality has been violated, you should check it out. and i guess you are with the "god does not play dice" philosophy. i am in neither group, but i lean a little towards the quantum uncertainty way of thinking

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@shanemcd3,

shanemcd3 wrote:

as a matter of fact, in a few experiments on photons, causality has been violated, you should check it out. and i guess you are with the "god does not play dice" philosophy. i am in neither group, but i lean a little towards the quantum uncertainty way of thinking

It is interesting to follow these developments: they give us practical parameters. But philosophy consists in something else. The kind of certainty philosophy seeks will never be provided us by science. You must find it in the concepts themselves. For example, the concept of nothingness tells us already that nothing is everything, just as the concept of being tells us that being is nothingness. And science needs these concepts, without which it could not even exist.

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@guigus,

What does is determined in absolute nothingness ? you are referring to a "what" remember ? What "what" is that eh ? Can ´t you simply read the damn word correctly ? oh dear...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

What does is determined in absolute nothingness ? you are referring to a "what" remember ? What "what" is that eh ? Can ´t you simply read the damn word correctly ? oh dear...

You are a bit confuse: the fact that absolute nothingness contradicts itself and becomes a being does not mean I forgot what it means:

Code:

Absolute nothingness is indifferently not any or not every being.

Not any being is not every being.

Any being is any other being.

And if any being is any other being, then it is not itself (it loses its identity, which depends, precisely, on its difference from any other being), being thus nothing.

(Stop trying to "remember" me of what is the premise of my reasoning. Instead, please notice how what you are trying to "remember" me necessarily contradicts itself.)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

We must not forget what absolute nothingness means, by thus forgetting the logical consequences of that meaning. Instead, we must remember that absolute nothingness means indifferently not any or not every single being, by which not any single being is not every single being (as absolute nothingness is indifferently not any single being or not every single being), so any being is any other being (not any single being is not every single being). Finally, with our memory faculties at full strength, we must realize that if any being is any other being, then it is no longer itself, or is nothing (any being is nothing).

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Nothingness is the absence of absence which in the double negative is to say it reports to everything in its own absence...negative beingness the absence of something, or even of all things, informatively reports to those things as necessary into becoming again...their memory is about their indestructibility, their thingness beyond matter, about their necessity of being reported permanently, infinitely...
...nothingness does not exist indeed...everything does !

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Proof of nonexistence of free will

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