h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Many apologies everyone, I screwed up the format. Here it is....again. The revised copy reposted is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guie/A50252 The previous thread is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F48874?thread=105871&post=886832 My first attempt at GuideML. Let me know what you think.

ooops
try
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A502525

Oh dear, I just checked and there's another entry on Free Will already in the Edited Guide: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A301122
I'm not entirely sure how this affects your entry and what you should do, but perhaps somebody with more working brain cells than I might want to make a suggestion.

Yours,
Jake

I think that they complement each other rather well. This entry is aimed at one audience, the other one is aimed at a higher technical level. If some of the extra blank lines are removed, I think that they should both be in the edited guide, linked together.

Don't get me started on the existing entry by Joolsee - it's dire for a large number of reasons, and should never have made it into the edited guide. OK, that was a little mean, but arguably I didn't have a choice in the matter.

In an ideal world, Joolsee's entry would be retitled "The Wager Argument for Free Will" - cos that's all that it really covers - and it doesn't cover that part terribly well. The rest of the subject is wide open for anyone to write about.

this is a duplicate thread of http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F48874?thread=113128

I think you are off to a fair start, but there is a basic flaw in the way you present your argument which is what I would like to start with here.

Before I begin, please, let me state that I do not believe in determinism as you seem to interpret it while I do believe in cause and effect as a natural part of our Universe. What I do here is attempt to point out some of the weaknesses of your argument. I am not coming at this as a proponent of a determinism that rejects human acts of creation, but rather as a proponent of free and responsible will.

The basic premise you are attacking is what *you* have defined as 'determinism,' that being the idea that 'everything has a cause.'

You then attack that statement by saying that if that is true then there is no room for God in the Universe by saying

"In the role as creator of the universe, God still would have had to be created by something else, or caused by something else. It's a question of time/cause."

The strength of this argument hinges on the idea that there is or was a God who is subject to this rule of determinism, which is to say that God is part of the universe that God created. This is akin to saying that the craftsman is part of that which he crafted -- the pot maker is part of the pot.

I think you can see that if there is a God who created the universe, this God must either have used himself to make the universe and thus it would be more proper to say that the universe is part of God rather than saying that God is part of the universe.

The point I am making is that there is no reason why a god capable of creating a universe should be subject to the laws of that universe. He is, by definition, greater than anything in that universe and may choose to obey any rule of that creation or not.

Just as the man, who makes a realistic setting for his toy train set and then sets that train to moving by laws of his devising, may reach in and modify or apply other forces to that 'universe' without himself being subject to any 'laws' of that train, set so a god may reach into the universe he created without necessarily being subject to the laws of that universe.

Thus, even though that universe might be subject to strict laws of determinism, it would still have a first event and even succeeding events that originate due to causes from outside that universe. It does no good to argue about limitations on an 'all powerful' god, since by definition there can be no such limitations.

Furthermore, it does no good to argue about a god in any case since you must first have a definition of that god. To define a god is to limit god to the strictures of that definition. While we are obviously capable of conceiving of God, we cannot be capable of conceiving the full capabilities of God who stands outside of the universe which He created. This is further evidenced by the fact that we have many different ideas of what the nature of God or a god might be.

Therefore any god you choose to define is simply the god of your definition and not necessarily the god of all definitions.

For these reasons, your argument against determinism should not use the concept of God to prove that determinism cannot exist.

Determinists (such as the Calvinists) have postulated a God that set the universe to running in the way that it runs with the actions of man having no effect on the outcome of events and have felt comfortable about the limitations of that concept. If you are going to attack determinism you must deal with the idea of determinism being distinct from the acts of a god.

Next, you should consider that you have chosen to use Webster as a god-like source of understanding. There is nothing wrong with this but you should be aware that the definitions that appear in Webster or any other dictionary are not necessarily philosophically consistent. Rather they reflect the common or accepted usage which tends to be sloppy and imprecise. This is why philosophical discussions spend so much time establishing and justifying the definitions used.

You do not justify your acceptance of the Webster definitions nor do you devote any effort to considering other interpretations which might be contrary to your position.

Your argument against determinism is, in fact, an argument against the stated and unsupported definition that you state in this way:

If every event has a cause, than the event couldn't have happened any other way. This is defined as Determinism in its pure form.

This definition is flawed because it does not explicitly attack the concept of human decision being a creative event that determines the result of a previous event. For instance, if I put on a red shirt rather than a blue shirt, strict determinism would say that my 'choice' was determined by preceding causes and that 'choice' is an illusion; there was never any chance, however slight, that I might put on the blue shirt.

Your use of the rhetorical question:

Can you think of a single thing that you did today that did not have a cause?

Should not have been left in the air as if it were obvious. It clearly is not obvious that such choices as I have described are also included under the rubric of determinism.

Moreover, it is important that you stress that that section, titled "Consider the relationship:" is intended to mock the concept of determinism, which is not clear from what you have written and is, really, not a part of a philosophical discussion in any case. Properly speaking, this is still part of your introduction though it does not appear so from your structure.

Your statement, "There cannot be a first cause (logically), and there is no last event (again logically)." is not justified. For strict determinism there must have been a first event and there must be a last event. There cannot be a negative or positive infinity relative to our present point in the life of the universe. (And infinity is a mathematical concept not a physical concept. You are wrong to apply them to the real world.) To a determinist there must have been a start of time, since time is the measure of the progression of events resulting from the first cause. By the same token, there must be an end of time, that being that moment when there are no more results of that primal cause.

Consider our universe as a set of dominoes laid out in a pattern on the floor. The cause of the initial event may be thought of as the finger that tips the first domino. Our universe does not begin until that first domino hits the second and it does not end until the last domino falls. By the definition of determinism, our time is simply the results of the primal touch which necessarily came from outside our universe and does not need any further action but does not exclude it either. Obviously, something or some one may have set up the dominoes in the first place but that doesn't matter because we have nothing to say or do about it. Our sense of control and self-determinism is false.

You start your article by saying:

Logic being the only way in which we can describe the world around us, I will use logic to describe the problems with determinism.

There is no need to be logical in describing the world around us. Logic is a construct based on certain artificial premises that we use to describe the way we think things function. There is no need to use it but we choose to use it as you are stating you intend to do. In a sense, you are crippling yourself by using logic since logic is itself a deterministic discipline. You state a postulate and then another then you show that because these exist the result must follow by cause and effect -- if a and b then c.

By this choice, you reject non- or a-logical arguments and say that by the very rules of determinism, determinism is not valid. However, if you examine what I just said, you should see is that what you are really proving, if you succeed, is that logic is not valid and, therefore, your argument is not valid. But if your argument is not valid then logic is valid, so your argument is valid, etc.

A paradox is simply an indication that there is something wrong with the argument that leads to it. In this case, the problem is with your postulates and the initial definition you are using.

Your problem is not to prove that determinism can't exist, logic tells us that there is no way to prove a negative assertion. Rather, you must restate it as a positive assertion and prove that that assertion is false or has exceptions, which is much the same thing.

In this sense, you are correct to start with the positive assertion that determinism is true, but by attacking the false assumptions of infinitely distant and unreachable starting and ending points, you have simply wasted your time attacking assertions that are part of non or partially deterministic systems as if they were part of determinism.

What I am saying is that your argument fails for the lack of a proper attack on the fundamental aspect of determinism.

You do better when you leave logic behind and, effectively, apply Ockham's Razor. In your later sections, you come close to explaining how societies are based around concepts of morality which, in turn, are based on the concept that a person is responsible for the actions he takes. This is immaterial to strict determinists since the appearance of responsibility is only that, appearance. You come close to saying, but do not actually say, that it is simpler to assume that the result of your choice to act against the rules of society will be punishment based on the assumption of personal responsibility than to assume that your choice was, in fact, no choice but rather predetermined by previous events over which you have no control. Society won't care.

You would be wise to mention and use Ockham's Razor, explicitly

Another point of view that you might want to consider are the weaker deterministic positions that maintain that while the ultimate outcomes of events are predetermined, there are varying degrees of freedom between those outcomes. For instance, some modern Jews believe that while God determines what will happen, they are free to determine how it happens. That is, the choices one makes when placed in situations one has little or no control over are still important in the overall scheme of things even though those decisions cannot affect the ultimate outcome. This is much like saying that now that you have lost control and are rolling down the ski slopes head over heels, you can still make decisions that will effect how damaged you will be even though you cannot effect the ultimate event of reaching the bottom of the slope.

On a more practical level you must remove that first person usage in your opening paragraph. First of all, if you are using logic only then what you are presenting is not opinion but objective analysis.
Secondly, edited guide entries must not be written in the first person. You are a researcher for the guide, the assumption is that you will be objective even if a bit of judgmental language slips in. Part of the purpose of Peer Review is to catch you when you slip and let opinion stand for fact.

If you don't want to remove the personal aspect of your presentation and you are just looking for help in clarification of your written presentation, then this article should be being discussed in Writer's Workshop, not here. There is no harm in posting an unedited article, there are many out there. But, an edited article must meet the standards of the guide.

As a minor niggle, you left the 's' out of consciously and there are a few other typos and mistakes here and there which won't matter till you have re-addressed your argument.

I'll be interested in seeing how this develops.

Barton

Well, Lucien, you've managed to snag the honor of drifting to the very, very bottom of Peer Review.

Barton left some wonderfully insightful comments for you above -- any response?


Mikey

Here's another one I'd like to reccommend to the flea market.

Mikey

ps -- does reccommend have 1 c or 2? and how do you remember?

One 'c'.

I remember because it's like re-commend, to commend again. No, that doesn't exactly make sense, but it's how I remember it.

Or you could remember that the abbreviation 'recc' is just wrong.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'The Flea Market'.

...the author seems to have 'left the building'.

Hello there?

How come this 'Lucien' is (still) a scout, if he left the building? Shouldn't he be around then?

What happened to the entry? It looks as if it was amputated...

Just out of interest... (Ummm... Is someone actually going to answer this?)

HELL

I think that this entry has been trashed.

As a starting point for it's replacement might I suggest that determinism tells you what options you have left, while free will lets you choose between your remaining options.



(Is that a good enough answer to you hell?)

There's already an Edited Entry on this subject, and *it's* a piece of junk, too. I don't know why it's so hard to present the arguments on both sides, clearly and impartially, without having to decree that one side or the other is "right".

Yes, it's on my "to do" list, but it's not at the top.

xy: O yes, a good answer.

Isn't free will against determinism also chaos against order?

I think this thread should be moved out of the Flea Market. The entry has been trashed, the author is awol... There's actually nothing to salvage here.

Just another question: What about Lucien's scout status?

Thanks,

HELL

Lucien will be 'retired' as a Scout - as you say, he seems to have 'left the building'.

Flea Market Clean Out:

Return to Author's space.