Definitions (from The American Heritage College Dictionary – Fourth Edition):
Determinism: “the philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs,
including every human event, act and decision, is the inevitable result
of antecedent states of affairs.”
Free will: “The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by
external circumstances or by any agency such as fate or divine will.”

As I see it, a belief in determinism necessarily excludes any possibility of free will, whereas a belief in free will does not necessarily exclude the possibility determinism.

In other words, free will only says that some things have free will, whereas determinism says that all things must be deterministic.

Thus, an entity with free will can cause effects within a deterministic system, but that entity is not itself deterministic.

So the question is this:

“Can there exist any thing which is not deterministic?”

Of course there can never be proof either way, by the very nature of the two philosophies, but hey, that never stopped any of the great philosophers.

The only scenario I could think of thats not affected by determinism would probably a super deep sea volcano erupting. Or a complete revolution of the sun (nothing is really pushing it, gravity I guess but that wasn't invented)

Every person has some aspects of determinism and some aspects of free will . When we learn many things from society , religion , the nation where we live ...etc we are under determinism . When we make choices about what we study , who are our friends ...etc it is free choice .

Double Post .

The old fate versus choice question.... Is our destiny determined by our choices or by a random series of events that have taken place. The truth of the matter i believe is that that the two are intwined and that one creates the other which in turn creates the one. Kinda alot like the Yin and Yang in eastern thinking. We have a tendency in western philosphy to view things as seperate,opposite and not the same. This has lead to a lot of conflict. Really i think we should begin to think about the way things naturally occur. As a series of choices that bring about events which influence and affect our future choices. Some things are decided for us while other things are up to us to determine

The two aren't completely incompatible, it's levels of granularity.

With a perfect knowledge of preceding events, one could probably find a preceding event that led to current actions, thus proving Determinism.

On a much more granular scale, one could see individual choices being made.

The end result is that every action is a little of column A and a little of column B. While we all have free will, our "freewill" will most often be exercised in patterns are set in place by past events.

My name is Jeremy and I approve this message.

So can I assume that you (Spider and Billy) agree
that there are some things which are deterministic
and some things which are not?

I believe the two *are* contradictory. However, I also think this is irrelevant. Even *if* reality were to turn out to be deterministic, this still wouldn't necessarily negate the illusion of free will. We should still live our lives as if we have a choice in the matter and to us, it would still seem as if we do.

Regardless, we have no reason to believe that quantum physics is deterministic. We do have reason to believe that it is not. This therefore implies that the determinism implied by classical mechanics is the illusion rather than the rule.

Water is only solid when it is ice.

Metal is only liquid when it is extremely hot.

The world is only probabilistic at extremely small scales.

There is a place for everything. I see no contradictions.

Ditto.

What it comes down to for me is this, reductionism.

To discover truths many times we will filter out as much as possible, reduce down to its simplest terms, and isolate the term that is in question.

Will is not something that can be reduced, it is dependent on all of the factors of reality, every sensory imput is subject to it.

Its like trying to model a twister, its extremely complex and small variations to imput data, makes for large variations for output.

I do not think talking about free will and determinism in isolated forms is meaningful.

I see will as being independent of any factors of reality or sensory input.

It's no wonder we can't make any progress. We're not even talking about the same things. This is what I have realized today.

Responsibility is the key role player throughout history...

The illusion of deflection.

Whether the choice is completely determined or utterly at random, the one who chooses remains with the same level of responsibility.

Hume's fork lays the argument much cleaner.



Probability does not contradict causalty, it merely frames the concept with an incomplete knowledge base.

Oh we have been, I have realized you have taken a reductionist view but within a different framework for quite some time now. I am just able to define my stance much more clearly now. I am a reductionist as well, but I see flaws in reducing a quilt to threads when you are talking about a quilt not threads.

[double post]

Ok maybe we are talking about the same thing.
So let me rephrase: I don't understand what you are talking about when you say that "will is dependent upon all factors of reality"
because,according to the definition of will that I am using, that is a contradiction.

So whether we are talking about the same thing or not, the result is the same - a disagreement about the nature of the subject.

To me this is evidenced also by the fact that I have no idea what the referents are for the quilt/thread analogy - if any.
I understand the flaw in reducing a quilt to threads when talking about a quilt. But I don't see the similarity (if one is intended)
to our different views on the subjects of free will and determinism.

I believe everything is deterministic; there is a reason for everything under the sun.

So you agree with the deterministic philosophy. That's fine. There are many people who don't share that belief, but there is also no doubt that many people (including the entirety of the "scientific community") agree with you.

But saying "there is a reason for everything under the sun" to support your viewpoint is hardly an argument, since it is really just restating the definition of determinism.