Taffy Lewis

Liquidrage:

The author does not say that determinism claims that falsehoods are avoided. The latter is supposed to follow from joining determinism with the other 3 premises. Determinism by itself doesn't entail anything about what people believe.

[quote]3 and 5 do not combine to make 6 outside of the author's delusions.[QUOTE]

3 and 5 clearly combine to give us 6. If you assume that you can refrain from believing falsehoods with regard to free will and if you assume that whatever you can do is done then necessarily you DO refrain from believing a falsehood with regard to free will whether you believe in free will or not.

How does the authors definition of "determinism" differ from the definition you offered?

The author's argument may fail. I don't know. But none of the criticisms on this thread support failure on his part.

Liquidrage

Actually, I was very clear in showing the failures.
Mine was not an arguement of opinion and semantics.

I showed that the author's statement,
"In step 7, we see that, if determinism is true, then MFT is not a falsehood, since if it were, we would (step 6) refrain from believing it, whereas some in fact believe it"
attempts to redefine determinism.

The author did not show that determinism excludes falsehoods but this is exactly what the author claims determinism does.

"if determinism is true, then MFT is not a falsehood, since if it were, we would (step 6) refrain from believing it"

The author's preamble to the grand thesis is that determinism excludes all falsehoods. The grand thesis is that determinism and free will are both true, therefor free will exists.

I showed that the author used irrelevant statements (1,2) and a belief (4) for a foundation on which further conclusions are based.
I also showed that the author had no basis on which he was allowed to combine the statements.
The author did not show a
if a then b if be then c
a then c
(more on this later)

3 and 5 clearly combine to give us 6. If you assume that you can refrain from believing falsehoods with regard to free will and if you assume that whatever you can do is done then necessarily you DO refrain from believing a falsehood with regard to free will whether you believe in free will or not.

No, 3 and 5 do not combine to make 6, clearly or otherwise.


If you assume that you can refrain from believing falsehoods with regard to free will

If you assume that you can refrain from believing in false hoods with regard to determinism

if you assume that whatever you can do is done
if you assume that whatever you can do is done

you DO refrain from believing a falsehood with regard to free will

you DO refrain from believing in a falsehood with regard to determinism...
whether you believe in determinism or not.

Taffy Lewis

Liquidrage:

Proposition 6 is not a statement of determinism. Premise 3 is the author's statement of determinism. 6 follows from the combination of 3 and 5. You have confused his statement of determinism with his combination of determinism with proposition 5.

Liquidrage

Taffy,


I confused no such thing.

3 and 6 are both statements of determinism.

This is 6
"If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods"

It doesn't matter what the author used to create 6, it is in fact an attempt at defining a property of determinism.

The author uses this statement to conclude that determines prevents people from beliving anything.

"if determinism is true, then MFT is not a falsehood, since if it were, we would (step 6) refrain from believing it"

See. The author belives that determinism PREVENTS the belief in ANYTHING that is untrue.
Notice, how the author uses "6" as his evidence for this.

tronvillain

Liquidrage, six does appear to follow from the combination of three and five, so superficially if you accept three and five you should accept six. Of course, the problem is that six does not actually follow from three and five, since as I have pointed out the two premises use the word "can" in two different senses. It's a rather pathetic trick really.

tronvillain

Taffy Lewis:
Yes, they do. Six simply does not follow from the premises.

NialScorva

I don't like the notion of Free Will. It's such a nebulous thing, and only necessitated by theistic questions of how we can be punished by an omniscient god that knows our actions before we commit them-- IOW we can commit sins and go to hell because god gave us "free will" which magically absolves him of his responsibility for creating us.

It also suffers from the problem of the ding an sich. We certainly *appear* to have free will (well, until one starts studying behavioral psychology, then it becomes more of a hybrid determinism/free will thing). How do you penatrate through the appearance to the actuallity? Most philosophers have pretty much said that we can't, that we can only know them through their appearances.

If we don't have free will, but merely the appearance of it, then what does that change? Are my "choices" any less real? Are my experiences any less?

Why does the question even matter except as a relic from a broken theological system?

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: NialScorva ]</p>

Taffy Lewis

tronvillain:

I see no reason to believe that the author is using two different senses of the word "can".

Taffy Lewis

NialScorva:

If anyone has indeterministic free will it cannot be the case that any person, God included, can know our future choices. If we have this sort of free will then the future is indeterminate in those respects and so there is nothing to know. One cannot know something that is not the case. So a being could know everything (ie. everything there is to know) and not know what I will do in the future.

If one isn't prepared to trust the appearance of free will then why should one trust their sensory and cognitive faculties when they appear to tell us about behavioral pscyhology? Why trust one set of appearances and not the other?

I don't see that belief in indeterministic free will is dependent on theism. Many atheists believe in free will including some atheistic religions such as Jainism. Simply because most theists believe in free will that does not mean free will depends upon theism. Most theists believe in the physical world. Does that mean belief in the physical world depends on belief in God?

Ierrellus

Taffy,

I couldn't get past points 1 and 2 because of the word "should", which places the entire argument into the realm of relativistic value judgments and out of arena of objective logic. See David Hume's dictinction between "what should be" and what is."

In evolutionary studies there are statements about "hard" determinism (you became a human being with all accoutrements necessary for your survival as such) and "soft" determinism (you learn from the interface between your brain and your environment.) No "shoulds" here! And really, no stultifying determinism!

From what "should" I want my will to be free?

Ierrellus

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]</p>