Comment by yawpitch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yawpitch | Hacker News Reader

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Most people taking determinism seriously is exactly the same as most people taking God seriously, when neither determinism or God is provably known to be present or absent from the situation. Any attempt to decide the question of free will on either flimsy foundation is, really, just navel-gazing seriously.

Occam’s Razor, used properly, looks for the explanation with the least number of constituent assumptions; if the fact is the Universe operates in a manner in which quantum indeterminacy holds, the so do our nerves, thus so does everything we perceive at a human (read as “extremely ignorant”) scale. In such a world the ground state of Occam’s is one in which non-determinacy is a fact and any and all thoughts of determinism are a pointless diversion… this makes it really important to reach a conclusion on the question of whether or not the smallest scale is stochastic or not before building a philosophical or political platform atop any assumption of the contrary.

The original post is a question about people’s beliefs, not a proof or a case for any one belief.

Many believe in determinism, or at least the functional equivalent, and it poses a challenge to the popular belief that we can choose what we do. That’s the problem I’m interested in understanding.

Indeterminism, which includes that base layer of randomness, still presents a dilemma with regards to free will, doesn’t it? From the perspective of free will, and absent a more explanatory theory, they are functionally equivalent theories. Whether my brain is randomly producing actions or from an infinite chain of determined causes or a mix, free will is nowhere to be found without a more precise explanation.

The question is about free will given different assumptions of reality. My main challenge with your angle is that it’s firmly missing the point.

I am not arguing for determinism, nor the existence of God, but since I’m asking what people believe, I’m including both answers as options.

I’m missing no point precisely because there is no point whatsoever in asking people’s views on free will while first assuming determinism is, which is prima facie relying on facts not in evidence AKA assuming the conclusion AKA begging the question AKA a classic example of a circular reasoning fallacy.

The effect of a deterministic universe on the question of free will is only of interest once we determine we’re in such a universe. We have not done so. At this stage asking that question is no more or less meaningful than asking how everyone feels about living in a universe in which the answer is 43 or where we know the circle can be squared.

Now, yes, the question of how fundamental indeterminacy would effect free will is also premature, though arguably more interesting if only because it hasn’t been churned over by pedants for millennia.

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