Why ask that question? The concept of a counterfactual doesn’t become meaningless just because it doesn’t affect your DT. Nor does it become false. Nor have you said why DT is the only thing that matters.
I noticed that people often mean two completely different things by “free will”. One is the decision making ability and the other is some vague metaphysical freedom, which can include unpredictability, being the ultimate cause of ones action and existence of counterfactuals outside of ones mind. People usually claim that these two things are related or follows from one another: if there is no metaphysical freedom then we can’t decide anything or, at least our decisions do not have some special meaning.
Originally, I had somewhat similar intuition. But when I thought more about these matters I noticed that it’s not the case, that metaphysical freedom doesn’t affect my decision making at all. All the really interesting questions, related to the freedom of will, like agency or moral responsibility or futility of choice, require decision making and irrelevant to metaphysics. Whether or not my decisions are determined I still have to make them, it is them that affect the future and that’s what gives them meaning, not some metaphysics. You may call it “wireheading” in one case and “a real free choice” in the other but it changes nothing in the actuall desicion making process. It can affect the way people feel about their choice, though, and that’s why I originally started talking about the “feeling of freedom”.
People keep making this mistake, combining two different things into one concept. The way the original question of this thread is posted is a good example of it. With you I have some mixed reading. You seem to understand that decision making works under determinism, but still for some reason attribute the sense of meaning to metaphysical freedom. Occasionally you make some weird statements like claiming that the future depends on the decisions in the present only if there are “real counterfactuals”:
Real counterfactuals mean you actually could have made a different decision under the circumstances. Which means that the future depends on decisions in the present.
So I have two hypothesis. First one, is that you see some real connection between decision making and metaphysical freedom that I missed. In that case I’m interested to know what it is. The second one is that we have some boring disagreement about defenitions and how we are supposed to feel about them in which case you do you, this whole line of discussion is fruitless for me and I’d like not to spend our time on it. Therefore, my question. If decision making is not affected by indeterminist metaphysics lets just focus on the other stuff.
If free choices requires complete determinism, so that decisions can be carried out, and also indeterminism, so that they can be free, then there are none. If they are free in some other way , you haven’t said how. If they only require partial determinism,then that is compatibke with partial indeterminism.
Under determinism people are free in exactly the way we feel we are. When we make a decision/do something we can decide/do whatever we want. Our decisions and actions affect the future and without them the future wouldn’t be the way it will. Even more, if we metawant to do the thing that we do not want—we can do it. If we metawant to be unpredictable we can achieve it.
What you are asking for is a full metaphysical account, not a definition. (And that might be part of the communication problem. There is no causal determinism without causal laws...but can you say exactly what a law is? Is it an idea on the mind of an observer, a platonic thingy, a material entity, an immaterial but physical entity, or what? I haven’t asked you before because it isn’t necessary to answer that kind of question to get a basic understanding of someone means by a term).
Yes! Exactly! Sorry for not being clear enough about it. I need to have a “metaphysical account” of indeterminism as my current standards do not allow me to claim that I understand something unless I have a good enough transparent box model for it.
As for causal determinism it’s easy. We start from the idea of causality which is just stuff that makes other stuff happen. Then this happening gives us causal graphs and we are free to call some parts of these graphs “laws”. Such law is an idea in a mind of observer which corresponds to an actual causal graph of reality. We can distinguish between “laws as we understand them” and “the way universe actually is”—a map-territory distinction in a nutshell. And we understand this model good enough to build computers working on these principles of inputs causing outputs. We use them to work, communicate about this exact matter and play games. I’ll call this “gamer gateway to metaphisical understanding”: if you can play packman on your model of methaphisics then it’s satisfactory.
But why do things happen and change at all? Why everything isn’t constantly the same? Why causality? This one I don’t know, yet. It just seems that it’s the way the universe is. And while not a really satisfying answer it at least makes sense. If the universe allows causality—no surprise that we have causality. Compare to this: universe doesn’t allow some things to be determinable but we still somehow are able to determine them. - This seems as an obvious contradiction to me and is the reason I can’t grasp an understanding of indeterminism on a gut level
That’s conflating two meanings of “determined”. There’s an epistemic meaning by which you “determine” that something has happened, you gain positive or “determinate”.knowledge of it. And there’s causal determinism, the idea that a situation can only turn out out or evolve in one particular way. They are related , but not in such a way that you can infer causal determinism from epistemic determinism. You can have determinate knowledge of an indeterminate coin flip
I understand how my epistemical position is an approximation of reality, so it can be less accurate. But what would it even mean to have a map that is more accurate than the territory itself? It can make sense in many worlds, if all the outcomes do actually happen, than my knowledge of the result of the coin toss in this world is an approximation of the general distribution among all the worlds. But if it’s not the case, than I’m lost. How is it possible to acquire such knowledge? To determine the undeterminable? It seems not only contradict the second law of thermodynamics but logic itself. If laws of the universe doesn’t allow to determine something and my epistemical process is part of this universe...
We can suppose that laws of the universe actually allow to determine every event, but there are events that can be determined only when and after they actually happened. Is it what you mean? This would make more sense to me, yet the mystery wouldn’t be solved. It would be passed to the moment where future become present. Something really strange would be happening then, when previously indeterminable becomes determined. What happens to all the other futures? I think we need a much better metaphysical account before we can reasonably agree that such position is coherent.
I don’t have certain knowledge that anything will be solved in the future. What you’re saying, *promissory materialism”, isn’t proof of anything and isnt new.
I’m really confused now. Seems that we are arguing past each other. What point exactly are you trying to make here?
My point is that the fact that science haven’t produced some knowledge doesn’t mean that it won’t do it, or that it requires to incorporate some radically different philosophical approach to do it. We are neither scientifically nor logically omniscient. The process of discovery just takes time to develop all the necessary scientific insights and do the search.
Neither certainty, nor novelty has anything to do with it and I don’t understand why do you keep pressing this point. You don’t need to be certain that something will happen to understand the general idea of it happening. If your model includes significant probability of science continuing to produce new knowledge, than you already understand why is it possible that this knowledge will be produced despite it had not been produced, say 10 years ago, even though science didn’t become less materialistic.
I noticed that people often mean two completely different things by “free will”. One is the decision making ability and the other is some vague metaphysical freedom, which can include unpredictability, being the ultimate cause of ones action and existence of counterfactuals outside of ones mind. People usually claim that these two things are related or follows from one another: if there is no metaphysical freedom then we can’t decide anything or, at least our decisions do not have some special meaning.
Originally, I had somewhat similar intuition. But when I thought more about these matters I noticed that it’s not the case, that metaphysical freedom doesn’t affect my decision making at all. All the really interesting questions, related to the freedom of will, like agency or moral responsibility or futility of choice, require decision making and irrelevant to metaphysics. Whether or not my decisions are determined I still have to make them, it is them that affect the future and that’s what gives them meaning, not some metaphysics. You may call it “wireheading” in one case and “a real free choice” in the other but it changes nothing in the actuall desicion making process. It can affect the way people feel about their choice, though, and that’s why I originally started talking about the “feeling of freedom”.
People keep making this mistake, combining two different things into one concept. The way the original question of this thread is posted is a good example of it. With you I have some mixed reading. You seem to understand that decision making works under determinism, but still for some reason attribute the sense of meaning to metaphysical freedom. Occasionally you make some weird statements like claiming that the future depends on the decisions in the present only if there are “real counterfactuals”:
So I have two hypothesis. First one, is that you see some real connection between decision making and metaphysical freedom that I missed. In that case I’m interested to know what it is. The second one is that we have some boring disagreement about defenitions and how we are supposed to feel about them in which case you do you, this whole line of discussion is fruitless for me and I’d like not to spend our time on it. Therefore, my question. If decision making is not affected by indeterminist metaphysics lets just focus on the other stuff.
Under determinism people are free in exactly the way we feel we are. When we make a decision/do something we can decide/do whatever we want. Our decisions and actions affect the future and without them the future wouldn’t be the way it will. Even more, if we metawant to do the thing that we do not want—we can do it. If we metawant to be unpredictable we can achieve it.
Yes! Exactly! Sorry for not being clear enough about it. I need to have a “metaphysical account” of indeterminism as my current standards do not allow me to claim that I understand something unless I have a good enough transparent box model for it.
As for causal determinism it’s easy. We start from the idea of causality which is just stuff that makes other stuff happen. Then this happening gives us causal graphs and we are free to call some parts of these graphs “laws”. Such law is an idea in a mind of observer which corresponds to an actual causal graph of reality. We can distinguish between “laws as we understand them” and “the way universe actually is”—a map-territory distinction in a nutshell. And we understand this model good enough to build computers working on these principles of inputs causing outputs. We use them to work, communicate about this exact matter and play games. I’ll call this “gamer gateway to metaphisical understanding”: if you can play packman on your model of methaphisics then it’s satisfactory.
But why do things happen and change at all? Why everything isn’t constantly the same? Why causality? This one I don’t know, yet. It just seems that it’s the way the universe is. And while not a really satisfying answer it at least makes sense. If the universe allows causality—no surprise that we have causality. Compare to this: universe doesn’t allow some things to be determinable but we still somehow are able to determine them. - This seems as an obvious contradiction to me and is the reason I can’t grasp an understanding of indeterminism on a gut level
I understand how my epistemical position is an approximation of reality, so it can be less accurate. But what would it even mean to have a map that is more accurate than the territory itself? It can make sense in many worlds, if all the outcomes do actually happen, than my knowledge of the result of the coin toss in this world is an approximation of the general distribution among all the worlds. But if it’s not the case, than I’m lost. How is it possible to acquire such knowledge? To determine the undeterminable? It seems not only contradict the second law of thermodynamics but logic itself. If laws of the universe doesn’t allow to determine something and my epistemical process is part of this universe...
We can suppose that laws of the universe actually allow to determine every event, but there are events that can be determined only when and after they actually happened. Is it what you mean? This would make more sense to me, yet the mystery wouldn’t be solved. It would be passed to the moment where future become present. Something really strange would be happening then, when previously indeterminable becomes determined. What happens to all the other futures? I think we need a much better metaphysical account before we can reasonably agree that such position is coherent.
I’m really confused now. Seems that we are arguing past each other. What point exactly are you trying to make here?
My point is that the fact that science haven’t produced some knowledge doesn’t mean that it won’t do it, or that it requires to incorporate some radically different philosophical approach to do it. We are neither scientifically nor logically omniscient. The process of discovery just takes time to develop all the necessary scientific insights and do the search.
Neither certainty, nor novelty has anything to do with it and I don’t understand why do you keep pressing this point. You don’t need to be certain that something will happen to understand the general idea of it happening. If your model includes significant probability of science continuing to produce new knowledge, than you already understand why is it possible that this knowledge will be produced despite it had not been produced, say 10 years ago, even though science didn’t become less materialistic.