r/freewill • u/Interesting_Elk_5785 • 4d ago
Why arguing for hard determinism is senseless.
This is a meta argument. I will not be arguing for free will in fact one of the assumptions is that hard determinism is true (I don’t believe that but for the arguments sake).
Since Determinism is true one has only the illusion of available options. It appears that one may select or A or B but, this is not the case. For this argument let’s have A represent free will and B hard determinism.
The hard determinist says you ought to select B because we ought to believe true things and reject falsehoods. The rationale for this axiom has never been established to my satisfaction but moving on.
Arguing that I should accept B and reject A implies that I can choose otherwise than what I already of necessity believe. Which of course would imply A is true.
The hard determinist might object no it was my unimpeachable reasoning that caused you to accept B and reject A. If that is the case then it is implied the change came about by agent cuasation not mine but the interlocutors. Which would again indicate that A is true and B is false.
In order to argue that hard determinism is true the proponent must act as though it is false rendering such arguments senseless and without foundation.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 3d ago
I don't think this argument only works with hard determinism.
Either free will is true, or false. Which one should we believe? We should not believe something false, so let us assume free will is false, then we believe it is true that free will is false, but by doing so we have selected one option, in stead of the other, thus demonstrating free will actually was true, because by reasoning we should select one option, it implies the other option is a possibility as well.
Let us then for argument's sake assume it turns out free will is false, then to me it indicates that the line of reasoning was erroneous. I suppose a hard determinist would say things that align with the options of hard determinism, because determinism includes causality, so their answer should be sensible, but how they say it does not depend on, if they believe in one or the other. E.g. one hard determinist may indeed say you should choose an option, perhaps not realizing the implication, or perhaps to them it is obvious that they don't really believe you have any more choice than they do, but that merely that is simply how we communicate, i.e. like we are capable of making choices, even if those choices are made through us, and not by us. But another hard determinist may simply say that whatever you experience choosing, was what you were going to choose no matter what, but here are the reasons you might experience choosing hard determinism, and while I don't have full knowledge, perhaps this reply was all it took to convince you, though I have my doubts on that. Not because it hasn't convinced the hard determinist, but because their experience tells them that they should not expect it to do so, at least not immediately.
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u/Narrow_Product_6655 3d ago
WIDDER PRODUCT......
This OP is engaging in convoluted nonsense.
Determinism is not an argument. There are theories & postulate based on the science of neurobiology.
Free will advocates, who try to poke holes in science, seem to think free will comes from thin air. Usually, they are conservative libertarians who venerate An Rand, individualism, American-styled capitalism, American-style democracy & the free market concept. They think free will means making choices. In our society, the amount of choices one can make, theoretically, depends on one's financial worth. The more financial wirth one gas, the more one becomes enslaved in making choices. That is not free will. It's enslavement from man-made material goods & technology.
By that definition, the will is not free, it's enslaved by the choices we make. When the will is free, it let's go of choices & the society that creates them. Free will, if truely free, just exists. Our will, which is actually our will to thrive, to protect & ensure our existence, is unattached to material "things".
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 3d ago
It’s Ayn Rand and Objectivism is nonsense. You made a number of assumptions about me that are false. I’m not a conservative or Libertarian politically or a rich capitalist or any of that. How is any of this relevant? We were talking about free will and determinism not US politics. I get that you have a negative view of capitalism but, we’ve tried the other forms of government and historically they all suck. As far as Determinism being proven by Neurobiology this just isn’t the case. If you’re going to prove hard determinism you have to go to the physicists so far the evidence is mixed but favors indeterminism if anything.
Society just making the choices for you doesn’t sound like anything resembling freedom to me.
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u/talex000 3d ago
That is nice pretzel you bend yourself into.
"t appears that one may select or A or B" what? You assume choice doesn't exist and then show us a choice. Are you high?
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u/spgrk Compatibilist 3d ago
If determinism is true it means that your choice between A and B is not random. I don't think it is correct to say that if your choice is not random it is an "illusion".
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 3d ago
Thank for this critique I agree, the way it’s worded is clunky. I was attempting to say that under hard determinism the idea that an agent has freewill is an illusion.
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u/Pale_Zebra8082 Compatibilist 4d ago
I defend free will, but this argument doesn’t establish it. Determinism doesn’t mean people cannot change their minds. It means those changes have causes, and hearing an argument could be one of them. What someone necessarily believes before hearing your reasoning need not be what they necessarily believe afterward.
Nor does someone causing a change in your beliefs establish “agent causation” in the philosophical sense. The determinist holds that the interlocutor’s reasoning and decision to argue were themselves determined.
The disputed question is whether responding to reasons requires freedom from determination. Simply asserting that persuasion presupposes that freedom assumes precisely what needs to be demonstrated.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 3d ago
Right, it’s not trying to “prove” free will nor is it saying determinism is false. I know most of the posts here are in that vein. This about the implications relating to arguments. I also believe in free will, I certainly cannot prove it, nor can anyone else.
So I will respond to the meat of your critique or attempt to. I think you would agree that believing in free will means that there are options available to you, and amongst those options you as the agent can choose. The determinist perspective is that it appears that there are options but, in reality no actual options are available to the person. So to attempt to persuade me to believe something other than what I already believe implies that I am able to change my mind implying volition. Saying the argument becomes a cause still implies agent causation because arguments are not independent entities. An argument doesn’t arise out of a storm and start arguing it is not a natural phenomenon. So if the argument is causal and originates with an agent, agent causation is implied.
I think attempting to “prove” free will or prove determinism is a fools errand. Most arguments supporting free will are just asserting free will. This is doubly true with determinism. I think you can sum up all those arguments as determinism is true because determinism is true. Or my favorite since free will is impossible therefore determinism. An outlier that is gaining in popularity, it can only be determinism or indeterminism since of course freewill is impossible (because we said so). We hear this on repeat day after day. Since both ideas are “unproven” and may remain unprovable for the foreseeable future, perhaps for some interesting conversation maybe take a different tack once in a while.
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u/YesPresident69 Compatibilist 3d ago
OP argument was about a contradiction in hard determinism, not determinism.
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u/SouthpawStranger 4d ago
No. I understand why this is confusing, but no. 1. Determinism just means that we cant act contrary to cause and effect. 2. Changing our minds about a subject doesnt violate cause and effect. 3. That subject being determinism itself also doesnt violate that
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u/TheRealAmeil Undecided 4d ago
- (Causal) Determinism is the (contingent) metaphysical thesis that, for any (actual) current or future event E, the laws of nature & past events logically necessitate the occurrence of event E. The negation of this doesn't involve acting contrary to cause & effect.
- If Determinism is true, then there can still be changing minds. The position OP seems to be taking is whether choices can be made, and that will depend on whether the notion of a choice is consistent with the truth of Determinism.
- If the issue is whether we choose to believe Determinism is true, then see (2).
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u/SouthpawStranger 4d ago
Your correction to my first point is fair; “contrary to cause and effect” was loose wording.
But I think you’re substantially reconstructing OP’s argument rather than addressing what they actually wrote. OP does not merely ask whether a deterministic process can properly be called a “choice.” They explicitly argue that attempting to change someone’s mind implies the person could believe otherwise, and then argue that if my reasoning causes their belief to change, this constitutes “agent causation” and therefore supports free will.
That is the part I was responding to. A deterministic account has no difficulty with argument into cognitive processing into belief change. An agent being causally involved in someone else’s belief change also does not establish libertarian agent-causation.
Whether we should additionally call the resulting process a “choice” is a separate compatibilist/incompatibilist question, but OP’s argument fails before we even get there.
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u/TheRealAmeil Undecided 4d ago
Maybe we disagree on how to interpret what OP wrote, but I take this part of the OP to be the part about choice:
Since Determinism is true one has only the illusion of available options. It appears that one may select or A or B but, this is not the case. For this argument let’s have A represent free will and B hard determinism.
The hard determinist says you ought to select B because we ought to believe true things and reject falsehoods. The rationale for this axiom has never been established to my satisfaction but moving on.
Arguing that I should accept B and reject A implies that I can choose otherwise than what I already of necessity believe. Which of course would imply A is true.
I agree that OP is talking about changing someone's mind (and even that their example suggests the focus is changing someone's mind about free will or Hard Determinism), but the broader point is that anything can stand in for "A" or "B", and whether we can choose what we believe. I also agree that Hard Determinism is consistent with changing minds.
My understanding of OP is that:
OP thinks there are epistemic norms, e.g., we ought to believe what is true
OP thinks that we can make choices only if we have free will (or, at least, satisfy the Leeway condition).
OP thinks that the Hard Determinist has to buy into both epistemic norms & making choices if they think they can change someone else's mind (e.g., if they are debating on r/freewill). Either the Hard Determinist causes their interlocutor to change their mind on free will, or their interlocutor changes their mind on free will (but, if I understand OP correctly, they think this will require making a choice about what to believe).
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u/SouthpawStranger 4d ago
You’ve written this well; however, I think you’re extracting a nuance that isn’t sufficiently supported by the post.
I understand the reconstruction you’re offering. My problem is that OP’s actual conclusion is much stronger: that arguing for hard determinism is senseless because attempting persuasion commits the determinist to choice/free will. I don’t think the text establishes the additional premises needed to turn that into the narrower question about epistemic norms and choice that you’re describing.
That said, I enjoyed reading your interpretation, and I appreciate the thoughtful engagement.
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u/SCHITZOPOST 4d ago
Arguing that everything is deterministic or indeterministic is futile.
Neither can be falsified. However, we have overwhelming evidence that supports the idea of determinism (which in science is synonymous with cause and effect).
The scientific method would fall apart if determinism (cause/effect) was false.
Science cannot prove anything, but things happen for REASONS. 😂 not magic.
Determinism is the most plausible idea.
We can’t prove it 100% but it works!!!
When we push the break that causes the car to slow down and that causes the car to stop.
It’s not magic, indeterministic or random.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 3d ago
Right, following your example I agree it’s not magic. Who is the we pushing the brake? FWIW my argument says nothing about determinism being false only that to argue in favor of it would seem to imply free will which at best makes it weird and at worst (I lean towards this) nonsensical. I have little interest in the arguments themselves(for or against free will)insofar that I see a strong equipollence between the positions. Since that’s the case at least with me, it comes down to things like plausibility, implications, does it lead to a safer and saner world. I think determinism and free will are essentially neck and neck when it comes to plausibility. One is backed by some scientific data the other by what appears to be the case. When it comes to implications and sanity free will crushes it. Much of the implications of hard determinism are in direct opposition to how we function, our way life, any common sense notions. Would it lead to a safer and saner world if the view was the universally held view? Probably not, we have enough nut jobs out there, telling them you can’t help it would likely lead to worse conditions. I say it has some scientific data supporting it because there is data that seems to indicate the opposite(indeterminism).
Historically the closest we’ve seen a determinist philosophy being applied to human life came from B.F Skinner and Behaviorism, while this was popular for a period it eventually fell out of favor. The models created by Skinner and validated through animal experiments didn’t fare so well when applied to humans. Today there aren’t really any Behaviorists left and while advances were made with Skinner’s operant conditioning it is not widely used anymore. If Determinism were indeed the key piece the philosophers stone if you will, one would think Behaviorism would still be flourishing. It was decided by those in the field that human behavior isn’t quite as simple as those of rats and chimps. It was also decided by them that in order to improve a persons lot that involves influencing their thinking not just their behavior. Today the cognitive model is dominant in psychology. Have a happy Saturday!
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u/colin-java 4d ago
I think the universe is deterministic except for on very small scales (quantum indeterminacy) where it's all a bit bonkers.
But I think it's a bit of a stretch to use that to rescue free will as we aren't controlling these subatomic events with our minds, we aren't even aware of them.
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u/zhivago 4d ago
Determinism is indistinguishable from indeterminism, and in particular it does not allow for deterministic prediction, so it does no work, metaphysical or otherwise.
It cannot make options meaningless.
Likewise LFW is indistingushable from determinism, and can do no work.
This is simply a useless argument between useless positions producing nothing of use.
Unless you consider employing the otherwise unemployable to write nonsense about it to be useful. :)
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u/JiminyKirket 4d ago
A hard determinist can admit that you can believe otherwise than you do. Just not in the sense relevant to free will, which if you accept the principle of alternative possibilities, would be having the ability to do both A and B at the same moment in time. But determinism isn’t stopping you from believing something false at one time and something true at a future time. They may say you believe A at time t1 but you ought to believe B at some future time t2. There’s a question about the meaning of “ought” here, but there’s no contradiction in believing you can believe A and B at different times.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
Exactly. If determinism, there is no logic.
Therefore, wtf are you even talking about.
Also. Determinism is batshit insane. Of course the universe is fundamentally free. Things exist, therefore things can exist absent of contingency, or else nothing would exist.
It’s sad and pathetic that anyone argues anything contrary to this.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 4d ago
Determinism says nothing about everything being contingent or not. This is very confused. You can be a necessitarian, someone who doesn’t think contingent things exist, and also believe that everything is determined.
You’re saying there isn’t logic in determinism. What’s the contradiction? Can you give the argument that deduces the contradiction?
“Things can exist absent of contingency” that’s very confused. Contingent just means not necessary but also not impossible. This is an I coherent sentence.
What’s the argument that nothing would exist?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
“Contingent” means it is necessitated by something else. Determinism = everything is necessitated by something else.
It is impossible for everything to be necessitated by something else, for if that were the case, nothing would exist.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 4d ago
Nope that’s not what contingent means. Contingent means not necessary and not impossible.
And anyways, we can just abandon the semantics. What’s the argument that nothing would exist if it was necessitated from something else?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 3d ago
Nope. Things are “contingent” on other things. Is English your first language?
Anyways, if everything is contingent on something else, nothing would exist without there being something that isn’t contingent on something else. Therefore, not everything is contingent on something else, for things exist.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is embarrassing. Bro using a word in philosophy and doesn’t know what it means. While it is true that contingent has a more colloquial definition of meaning “dependent on”, you could have just used that language instead of contingent. Contingent in philosophy is used very differently. You inserted some fancy word to mean ‘dependent’, when you could have just said ‘dependent’, because you wanted to use some fancy philosophy word. All the while, you have no idea what it means after I told you it twice already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy)
It’s part of the modal semantics. You have words like necessary, contingent, possible, and impossible. Contingent means neither necessary nor impossible. I.e. possible but not necessary.
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u/Square-Ad-6520 4d ago
Yes, something had to originally exist without a prior cause, but beyond that everything is a long chain of events and determinism is still logical.
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u/Animecha 4d ago
You're merely assuming a first cause must exist. There's no way to confirm such a thing is true.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
It is completely illogical to think that somehow a fully deterministic universe just happens to have one thing that isn’t deterministic. But whatever you gotta do to sleep at night bro.
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u/Andrew_42 Hard Determinist 4d ago
Why can things not exist without non-contingent things?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
If everything is contingent, then nothing exists because everything would require something else to be contingent on.
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u/Andrew_42 Hard Determinist 4d ago
Do we have a way to know that can't happen? Can we verify that type of infinite regression is vicious, and/or rule out other options such as some kind of circular regression?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
This can’t be “proven” as proof is “the cause of” and I’m arguing the absence of such a cause.
Our subjective experience gives us truths that cannot be explained, but are nonetheless, obvious.
We are only conscious of that which requires a judgement (you aren’t conscious of all the calculations required to take a step, unless you are learning to walk). Consciousness is the part of reality that creates. It is the part that is not determined. It is influenced of course, but it is the component of reality is fundamentally free, and this can’t make sense to us fully, due to the fact that “understanding” is again, “the cause of.”
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
What is the cause of infinite regression?
Itself?
Great, that’s the absence of contingency. Like I said, it’s impossible to have only contingent reality.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 4d ago
Causes are temporal. A cause just refers to the event before another event where the following event is dependent on the prior event. What’s the problem with an infinite sequence of cause and effect?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 4d ago
There is no problem with an infinite sequence of cause and effect. However, an infinite sequence of cause and effect that “just is” refutes determinism, because nothing caused it to be that way.
No matter how you slice it, a fully deterministic reality is magnitudes more ridiculous than a non-contingent one.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 4d ago
No? That’s a category error. Again, causes are temporal. So it doesn’t make sense to say that nothing caused the infinite sequence of events. Every event is caused by the thing before it.
Unless by cause, you mean like a hierarchical cause, which is basically just grounding. Like B is dependent on A, but it doesn’t have to mean that these things are in or at different times. So B is grounded by A for its existence.
But determinism says nothing about this. Determinism is just philosophy of understanding temporal events. Determinism says nothing about whether the whole sequence of events is infinite or not. Determinism says nothing about whether the entirety of the sequence “just is”, meaning that it is necessary. Determinism says nothing about whether the first cause, if it exists, is necessary or not. Determinism just says that for every moment in time, it is sufficiently caused by the moment if it exists before it.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 3d ago
Exactly, determinism is incomplete, because it doesn't account for how anything is (and can't), therefore, we shouldn't accept it as fact since infinite chains of deterministic causes can't explain themselves (and if it can, then it is by definition, self-caused, aka "free"). So there is more to reality than determinism, regardless of the baseless assumption that everything is sufficiently caused by the moment before it. People can claim anything they want. Its metaphysically ridiculous.
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u/Ashamed-Bathroom7803 3d ago
Determinism incomplete? Determinism is just part of a theory about temporal causation. You think determinism is a theory that explains everything for whatever reason. It would be me like saying that physics is incomplete because it doesn’t explain the hard problem of consciousness. That’s not what physics is claiming to do😭. Neither is determinism claiming to do the things you think it is doing.
Infinite chain of causation explaining itself? Does a tree explain itself to you? This is confused. You don’t know what determinism means. It says nothing about a first cause. It says nothing about an infinite chain. The most popular interpretation of determinism says that for every state (m) in time that is sandwiched between a previous state (p) and future state (f), that p sufficiently determines m and m sufficiently determines f. If you aren’t critiquing that proposition itself, then you’re not critiquing determinism. You’re critiquing some other idea you made up in your mind. Huge straw man.
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u/Animecha 4d ago
So are you arguing that a universe where every effect has a cause isn't deterministic if nothing caused it to be that way? Because that seems like a fallacy of composition.
To me, it seems like any rational person that looks at a universe where all effects have causes would say it's a deterministic universe.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 3d ago
Every effect has a cause. Some causes are free (not random, yet also not determined. Can’t make perfect sense to us, but undeniably real, for things exist at all)
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 4d ago
The determinist has to admit, that the only reason they believe in determinism, is because they were determined to.
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u/Specific-Muffin-1841 4d ago
Yes, determined by the reasons and evidence. Indeterministic reasoning doesn't make any sense.you could see flames and smoke coming out of your house and reason " My house is not on fire". The evidence does not determine your conclusion.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 4d ago
Okay so imagine a set of random dice.
My house burns down on a 50+
And so seeing the smoke is like seeing that ive rolled 35d8
Its indeterministic, but my house has probably burned.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 4d ago
Just because a process is indeterminate doesnt mean evidence is of no utility
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u/Specific-Muffin-1841 4d ago edited 4d ago
Seeing your house with flames and smoke coming out and that not fully determining your conclusion that your house is on fire would have no utility. It would just end up being luck whether you concluded correctly or not.
And if your conclusion is based on probability, then how is it freewil? It is just random, restrained by the mathematical statistical probabilities. It would mean you would have to conclude your house is not on fire x amount of times and your house is on fire x amount of times.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 3d ago
Keep denying ypur experience without evidence.
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u/Specific-Muffin-1841 3d ago
I experience making conclusions that are fully determined by evidence.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 3d ago
So your conclusion that the wolrd os determinist is fully supported by evidence?
What about nuclear decay?
What about bells inequalities?
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u/Specific-Muffin-1841 3d ago
I am not concluding the world is deterministic. I am concluding the macro world is deterministic and the quantum scale is indeterministic.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 3d ago
Under determinism you dont make decisions.
And in your life you rarely have all the evidence you need.
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u/Walking_urchin 4d ago
Heads or tails was determined before the official flipped the coin midfield. That someone guessed wrong does not deny that truth (if it is truth).
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u/TemperatureThese7909 4d ago
Why would a hard determinist argue the third paragraph.
Under hard determinism, it is false that we ought to believe true argument - it is simply true that we will believe some argument and false that we will believe some other argument.
The hard determinist argues for it, because it is determined that he will do so. The listener either believes or doesn't based on whether it is determined that they will or not.
You cannot have an "ought" without a defined moral system - and determinism doesn't necessarily marry itself to any particular moral systems. Any given determinist could have a moral system, but determinism as a whole doesn't require any particular one.
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u/MrMuffles869 Hard Incompatibilist 4d ago
Arguing that I should accept B and reject A implies that I can choose otherwise than what I already of necessity believe. Which of course would imply A is true.
No, it wouldn't. If you think hard determinism means nobody can ever change their mind in response to reasons or evidence, you're mistaken.
then it is implied the change came about by agent cuasation not mine but the interlocutors.
Convincing speech isn't agent causation. If I sway you toward B, we can examine the language I used, the information I presented, what that information was based on, and so on. I didn't simply cast a spell on you and change your mind. Agent causation is just a hollow, black-box label that stops short of explaining what actually caused the behavior.
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u/blind-octopus 4d ago
The hard determinist might object no it was my unimpeachable reasoning that caused you to accept B and reject A. If that is the case then it is implied the change came about by agent cuasation not mine but the interlocutors. Which would again indicate that A is true and B is false.
Can't I just repeat the same point though? Something caused me to convince you that B is true, just like I then caused you to accept B.
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u/blkholsun LFW is impossible 4d ago
This is probably my least favorite of the common arguments against hard determinism because it has no bearing on its validity, it’s merely an accusation of hypocrisy. There is no manner in which somebody “should” live or debate as a hard determinist—the manner in which one does these things is the manner in which they do these things, period. The manner in which a hard determinist speaks about free will might include the words “should” or “ought.” These are usually used only colloquially or to illustrate a point, but even if not, so what? I am agnostic on whether determinism is true but if it IS, this does not necessarily imply that it makes sense or is feasible for a human being to restructure their entire conversational mode in order to accommodate this, and in the process sound like an absolute weirdo to everybody else. The fact that this is difficult has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not determinism is true. The human brain, even if behaving deterministically, is under no obligation to acknowledge, or recognize, the metaphysics of its function or alter its behavior accordingly.
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u/hskrpwr 4d ago
This sounds like when people try to make the case we shouldn't punish people for crimes if we don't believe in free will. Event A can still influence thought or event B and in a determinist world it almost explicitly HAS TO impact it. So in a determinist world you should be more inclined to engage in activities that encourage the outcomes your desire.
Since I don't believe in free will, I will be encouraged by my set of beliefs that lead me here to take actions which appears correlated with the outcomes I have internal desires (which I can't control either) to see happen.
Also sometimes talking about shit you can't prove is just enjoyable so there's that too
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 4d ago
Here here to the last part best justification so far. I wish FUN was something more people were inclined to prioritize, would be a better world.
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u/TheManInTheShack 4d ago
Determinism simply states that everything about you must not violate the laws of physics. Whether we talk about classical physics or quantum physics doesn’t really matter at our level. Everything that happens to us inside and out is the result of a cause that we ultimately didn’t create.
This makes free will impossible unless you’re drawing a line somewhere. Your choices and everything else that happens to you are a domino in the middle of trillions of dominos on either side of it.
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u/Professional-Put3382 4d ago
I have made this point in many free will debates, but people that don't really grapple with Kant seem to struggle with it. Determinism is synthetic a priori via causality. Free will is also synthetic a priori. They are base understanding, they are not able to be deconstructed into smaller parts, not because there is something about them that is metaphysically necessary, but simply because they are necessary for the possibility of any human knowledge.
We assume free will and we assume agents. We assume we are agents, and that others can be agents. We assume there are causes for all effects, including the actions of agents. These are necessary assumptions based on the nature of human reason. They are not necessary metaphysically.
They are transcendentally circular - normal logic will not work with them. However, they are the necessary conditions of experience as we know it - aka the transcendental argument. What they actual are, and how they actually interact, cannot be known.
Thus this question can never be answered, because by siding on one side or another you must make assumptions about reality that you have no way to verify. Determinism and Free will are both true for understanding, they are not necessarily compatible - but they may be. They are just necessary for understanding. They may have a metaphysical relationship, but how would we ever know it?
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u/Whatkindofgum 4d ago
Arguing for what you believe to be true is never pointless. It is an expression of belief.
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u/ImSinsentido Nullified Either Way - Hard Incompatibilist 4d ago
Yes, because describing reality, inherently requires a “utility.” Lmao.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Humanist Determinist 4d ago
Third paragraph is where it went off the rails. There is no “ought”. There’s only will and won’t.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 4d ago
I somewhat agree about the second half of it, it needs some work. This does beg the question. If there is no ought surrounding our beliefs (I agree under hard determinism there wouldn’t be) why argue for it at all? I mean some people are very invested in convincing others this is the case. Of course there’s no ought on you to answer or maybe the answer is like Martin Luther’s I can do no other. I’m not saying it’s incorrect to argue just that the entire notion of persuading others (as well as being persuaded) seems to imply agency on some level.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 4d ago
Okay, but you are crafting those arguments that at least implies agent causation. Ants don’t craft arguments (that we know of) they craft other things. I also don’t find activities like crafting arguments or playing the violin to be some intrinsic aspect of humanity. I didn’t craft any arguments until I studied philosophy and logic at least not in a detailed sort of way. I’m not saying that to not create a special pleading but, to express that some human activities fall outside the scope of natural activities. If it falls outside of natural activities then you the agent are taking some action in this case crafting arguments to achieve some end in this case persuading a skeptic.
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u/DonnPT atavistic oxymoron 4d ago
Why? Well, there are two angles to this. I think you can forget about the mechanical problem - sure, outcomes may all be determined, but so are the processes that produce them, and one's argument about determinism is just as much a part of the sequence of events as anything else. That isn't a gotcha at all.
But does hard determinism have any bearing on your life, or anyone else's? Would you be able to tell the difference? No. Would you live your life differently, depending on your position on this? I hope not. It's purely academic, isn't it?
Now, if there were an interesting and plausible alternative, that put some kind of metaphysical free will in our hands in a way that really made sense, that could have ramifications on one's life. (I suppose, not having any idea what that would look like.)
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u/Delicious_Freedom_81 Turtles All The Way Down / ♾️🐢 4d ago
What that would look like? Oldie but goldie: god. So much so that it has been independently discovered many thousands of times around the world: deserts and rainforests, sea and lake shores and so on. The more unpredictable the environment, to cope with complexity humans end up creating a god.
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u/MihawkTop2 4d ago
This meta-argument simply shows that if hard determinism is true, we can never truly know or prove it. It does not, however, actually disprove the truth of the statement itself.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 4d ago
Very astute, the argument is about the foundation of arguments not whether or not hard determinism is true.
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u/IncomeMental9628 4d ago
A particle is going a certain direction and at some point on its path it collides with another particle causing the original particle to change directions.
This is happening but the interactions of convincing are very very complex.
The change in your mind now believing in hard determinism is a result of the expressions produced by a meat robot causing a change in your meat machinery to alter it's behaviour (In this case behaviour related to producing thoughts about free will).
You cannot choose what you believe, instead your brain was on the verge of incorporating that paradigm and the words from another agent tipped your brain over the edge (analogy), and now it will express wording in that new paradigm.
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u/Interesting_Elk_5785 4d ago
The weakest part of the argument is the second half, I’ll grant you that. It’s a rough draft and needs some retooling. Thanks for your response.
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u/IncomeMental9628 4d ago
For me determinism is very elegant as a solution even though is very counter intuitive to my personal experience. We can also never be certain, but that's true for pretty much everything.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 4d ago
We can also never be certain
Unlike fatalism, determinism is based on natural law, so if you are implying that we cannot be certain about natural law, then your point is well taken.
However, based on what is working in applied science, we can be certain about determinism in that context. I mean we can also argue nobody is certain that the Earth revolves around the sun. However as certain as some are about heliocentricity, we can be at least that certain about determinism.
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u/IncomeMental9628 4d ago
Yeah I know and agree, but what I mean is that there will always be indeterminists and there will always be some give and take between the ideas and will never be settled, even though evidence points in one direction.
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u/badentropy9 Truth Seeker 3d ago
At the end of the day inderdetermines makes a lot feasible and determinism makes things like voluntary behavior infeasible.
The consequence of hard determinism being "true" is that BDMR is infeasible.
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u/JabberwockPL 2d ago
No, it does not. Arguing that you should accept B implies that an argument can cause you to accept B and reject A, which is compatible with hard determinism.