Summations Only

Yep. I think that constitutes a "genuine, metaphysically robust alternative" possibility. If we are going to invoke quantumness then it would seem that there is some (albeit very small) probability that we could go ahead and rape that nun.But macroscopically deterministically the raping (or otherwise) of the nun was determined long before the nun or the potential rapist even existed.

I'm not going to touch the Problem of Identity.

I agree.

And that is why the whole thing stinks from a subjective perspective.I am only not raping nuns because....Well because that is what "fate" (i.e. determinism) dictated.

Hi all, interesting discussion. As I see it, simplistically "free will" would mean being able to chose A or B courses of action (and chose A), while determinism would mean having the illusion of choice (while taking course A).Seeing as - in either case - course A is taken, this makes it difficult to sort (unless you could go back and chose to take B).However, this is also complicated by the fact that there are a lot of previous experiences etc involved, particularly in adults, that come into play in the (apparent?) decisions made. And yet it seems that every time you are confronted with a nun you make the same choice, rather than sometimes yes and sometimes no. To my mind this raises the question of constraints on the choices available.Is this really a "free" choice, or is it one that is it a learned response, a conditioned response, or a (genetically or whatever) predetermined response?A learned response would be based on past personal experiences or the taught experiences of others, where B was tried but A was found to be a better choice for the individual to make. A learned response person would make the same choice under the same circumstances, but it is a considered response that is open to modification with new information or different conditions.A conditioned response would be based on training and positive\negative feedback regarding what is considered acceptable and non-acceptable behavior for the individual. A conditioned response person would always make the same choice under the same circumstances, unless the conditioning was countered.A predetermined response would be one where the circumstances leading to the (illusory) choice event determine which path is taken. If these circumstances are always the same then the same result will occur, but if there are different circumstances then a different path is possible, but it would still be predetermined. The question then is why you don't want to, as that seems to determine your response, yes?To my mind this gets into the area of all your learning, all your experiences, and all your conditioning, all your personal development as you grow from a baby to an adult -- your worldview ...... and your worldview predetermines your (initial) reaction to situations. (iirc there was a study cited here that showed that people make up their minds first, and then look for reasons that support having made that decision -- ie does Dr Adequate actually choose not to rape the nun or does he rationalize\justify his (predetermined?) not raping the nun by saying he didn't want to do it?).We often think of babies as a tabula rasa ... waiting to be filled in with learning, experiences conditioning and development, but no predetermined aspects of personality\persona\behavior, and yet twins behave differently?We also think of children below the "age of majority" as not being capable of making adult\informed decisions (their learning, experiences conditioning and development are not complete), and yet there is wide variation in when (if ever) this ability to make "proper" decisions occurs in individuals. Now one could say that the chain of events that occurred during a persons life (that form their worldview) up to the moment of choice then predetermine the result ...Enjoy.

I'll reply to the part that was a response to me, though I'm in general agreement with your whole post. Exactly. This is what I call genetics plus environment. The environment includes your current worldview as created by past experiences and intuitions.This would be why it is possible to modify a person's behavior. You can't change their genetics, but you can create or add experiences that will modify future results, though still deterministically.

Nothing has multiple outcomes. Decision requires multiple options. If I choose one over the other, based on my state of mind, that is an exercise of my free will. Well, as an (adequate) determinist, I can tell you that that is not what I would say. I would say: "You make a decision; you take an action that there was no possibility of you not taking given your state of mind, which was that you wanted to do the thing that you did." But as I have pointed out repeatedly, materialism is a complete red herring. I am, as it happens, a mental materialist, but my arguments would be exactly the same if I believed in an immaterial soul. You yourself write: "The common perception of free will is inherently dualistic. It assumes that the part of you that you identify as "you" is your mind ... and so can initiate an action in your body that is caused by this immaterial "you"".My emphasis. Does it matter a tinker's damn if the causal agency is or is not instantiated in some form that we can touch, weigh, or measure? If my choice is caused by my state of mind, then it is caused by my state of mind, whether or not this state of mind is instantiated in the lump of tissue we call the brain. Either way, this either is the exercise of free will, or it is not. Really? I can think of a fourth. You may be able to deduce it by reading my posts.

Was your non-raping of nuns deterministically decided before you, or indeed any nuns, existed?

Fred didn't change who he was; he was - in your terms - himself with his own brain making his own choices. His choices would be diferent though. He still has freewill, but his choices are conditioned by his illness.If it's true that our brains are set up to preclude and include moral drives, that they can change during our lives beyond our own control, then the range of what we call 'free' isn't quite as wide and as open as we assume.It's simply a truism that we are free to do what is in our heads to do, but if you exclude how those ideas and feelings arrive in your head to start with, you're making a limited point.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

That's why i said possible. Quantum Mechanics is based on multiple possible outcomes before the probability wave collapses. But there you go using the word "choose" again. If your state of mind ensures that you do action A, then you didn't "choose" anything, because there was no action B possible. How is it a decision if there was no possibility of you not doing it? The difference is one step further back. The immaterial you initiates a new causal chain under free will. In other words, there is no preceding cause to the immaterial you. What you're positing, with your material mind has preceding causes. Your state of mind is caused by your past experiences and your perception of the environment you're in. There is a causal chain leading up to your current state of mind such that you take an action.This is different from what I'm talking about where the causal chain starts with the immaterial you, it is not just a continuation of a causal chain that reaches all the way to the big bang. You claim you're not redefining free will, so your posts don't seem to indicate a fourth possibility for why you are redefining free will. If they do, I must have missed it.

Example?

When somebody says "I could have chosen otherwise," they only mean that their rational analysis made other choices available. It does not imply that they had any inclination to make other choices. By saying "Choice B was an illusory choice" you are ruling out a person from following his own inclinations. Yet, surely, following one's own inclinations is exactly what choice is about. Physical theory is an idealization, that describes individual things isolated from other effects. In reality, everything affects everything, and you could never work out the complete story.Additionally, quantum theory determines a probability distribution, and that does not determine a single fixed outcome.

Was the outcome of this choice deterministically dictated before you existed?

Well why do you choose course A? If it is determined by the fact that you prefer course A, is that a negation of free will or is it exactly what free will means? But the constraint is that it's always me making the decision, i.e. exercising free will. If you don't think that that's free will, then what would be free will instead? Would it be free will if instead every time I saw a hot nun a roulette wheel was spun in my head determining my reaction, and it might come up "rape the nun", "don't rape the nun", "flip her the bird", "recite the Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner", "lick her elbow", "join her religion", "pour custard over your head and claim to be Napoleon"?Surely the single actual constraint on what I do, namely that I choose to do it based on my personality and opinion and wishes and desires is exactly what makes it my free will. If the roulette wheel determined what I did, it wouldn't be.