Is free-will an illusion?

Tsc tsc...

There are several different interpretations of determinism. I do not subscribe to the view that determinism is fatalism. I do, however, think that biological organisms respond to their environments in lawful ways. The direction of functionality is from the environment to the organism. Freewill accounts are from the organism to the environment. There simply is no evidence that this is the case. The ancient Greeks once believed that the eye worked by emanations going from the eye to the outside world. Ophthalmology would be pretty mixed up if we continued to pursue this idea.

While it doesn't make much sense to hold people morally responsible and blame them for their failings, it makes practical and moral sense to deal with the practical problems that we face with other members of society. If you had the brain of a killer it is still a practical problem that needs to be dealt with. Locking you up to protect others from the harm you could cause could still be the most logical thing to do.


This is just factually incorrect. Determinism is the philosophy of science. The natural phenomena studied by scientists can be studied as they are because they are deterministic (excluding what physicists have discovered about particles at the quantum level). It is also known that human behavior occurs for lawful reasons. There, in fact, is probably no more educational endeavor we could undertake as a species than to advance the knowledge about how human behavior works and how to construct environments so that we ensure the survival of our culture and maximize the wellbeing of society's members. There is also nothing more stifling to progress and nothing as unintellectual as waiting for the sainted members of society to come and save the rest of us.

If you take the trouble to listen to this, you might learn something.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2011/07/pze_20110702.mp3

You need to listen through to the end (about 25 mins).

on top of that, you got realistic will,vs impractical will.

the latter is truly wishful dreaming (i "want" to get my masters degree in a year),
but notice, if it's labeled and dressed up as quality serious will, it's effect, will act as such.

in a nutshell, since free will and free wish are often confused,
in such scenario's, the confused option('s), disables and paralyzes the freedom of choice.

Are you an advocate of the free won't ? Or advocate of the soft determinist political mess ? In this thing either you are a determinist or you aren't...
Drop the bullshit n define yourself...your pseudo elaborate posts stating trivialities about science won't shield from a clear answer if your target audience wants more then common sense for company...

These viewpoints are known and rejected. Listening to philosophers bumble around the explanation of human behavior is at best, mildly entertaining. Little is learned about how the behavior of biological organisms works by sitting in a room and attempting to discern the mechanisms via logic and deduction. One has to roll up one's sleeves and do the hard work of demonstrating principles at work.

Nothing is gained or lost by worrying about autonomous man. Autonomous is uncaused. Uncaused is miraculous. Miraculous is godlike. We are consumed with credit for our creations and refuse credit to the world around us.

When a person's behavior changes after the removal of a tumor on the brain we attribute certain past behavior to the tumor. When a person's behavior changes after the application of certain contingencies, then we attribute behavior to the contingencies. Ignoring that there are naturally occurring contingencies does not make them go away. Learning how to construct artificially occurring contingencies allows one to change behavior; whether it's one's own behavior or the behavior of others.

Fil, don't blow a gasket. It is not a dichotomy. Get specific if you want a specific answer to something.

My 2 questions were quite clear ! Still waiting for an answer...as you said yourself either you believea in cause and effect or in miracles...middle ground is total bullshit !

middle ground is respecting human inabilities

Fil, the reply is directly above. Please

Also, and elsewhere since.

https://youtu.be/bQwPzSsXlyw

no, it's one possible philosophies of science among many. And it's a rather dated one.


You just excluded from determinism the entire universe as we know it... It's perfectly possible to study, observe and model non-deterministic phenomena. That's what statistics and probabilities are made for, and they are used by scientists to make sense of not only quantic-level events but also in biochemistry or genetics.

Statistics and probabilities apply to what we can know, to epistemology, it says nothing how the Universe works. Moreover, even if we turn to "causality" as the mere description of the order of things in a timespace ensemble the reasoning pov changes nothing from the inside spacetime perspective. As long events follow a strict patterned order with no exceptions we can for all practical purposes use the coinage.

So again you keep grasping at straws confusing epistemology with ontology and misperceiving any use of science methodology or the use of statistics and probabilities as means of prediction and control with justification on how those events are actually processed. Its not unreasonable to account 99% of all scientists describing their research process using determinism as means of justification on what is happening as they observe it. A leads to B leads to C is still how things are explained every day. Also keep in mind that PERFECT CORRELATION is indistinguishable from causality for us as we move through spacetime.

New York University. (2007, November 19). Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-species Study. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 10, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm

Evidence for determinism in species diversification and contingency in phenotypic evolution during adaptive radiation Published online before print 3 October 2012 doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1669 Proc. R. Soc. B 7 December 2012 vol. 279 no. 1748 4817-4826

Determinism and stochasticity during maturation of the zebrafish antibody repertoire. www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1014277108/-/DCSupplemental

And yes, it is only one of several philosophical assumptions of science. I was not intending to imply that it is the only assumption.

Oh please... The vulva of worms evolved in not-too-unpredictable manner? So what?

There are trends in evolution. It doesn't mean it's predictable.

Come on. How often does a worm's vulva come up in conversation?

You're right, we should make the most of it.

Basically, they concluded that the number of cell divisions and the number of rings needed in vulva development among ringworms declined over time -- instead of randomly increasing and decreasing. So there is progressively a higher economy of means to produce the same vulva among nematodes. That's an evolutionary trend worth noting.

But where I disagree is when the quoted article says: "These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not." There's a huge gap between their very limited data and this wide-ranging conclusion. The original scientific article is much more cautious:



In other words, natural selection forces shape evolution... Earth shattering, no?

You make a good point.

...fracking Christ... what did the world devolve into...debating the evolution of worms vulva to make a point...I am so fracking close of giving up this shitless hole of self absorbed mediocre egos...technocrats at least used to have the merit of knowing stuff... nowadays is just wiki and goggle maniacs without a shred of light in a vacuous brain. No personal input or feedback, no reasoning skills, just quotations and petty demagoguery...pride and stupidity are quite a match ! Au revoir !

Hey, ringworm have feelings too! And vulvas, may I add.

I bet they even have feelings in their vulva.