Free Will and Causality

My apologies if this is poorly worded or an often asked question, but how does free will reconcile itself with the simple concept of cause and effect.
What is the difference between a ball rolling down a ledge and a human making a decision other than the decision having far more nuanced "causes"?
Frankly, I find it incredibly childish to believe that the future is not set in stone. Not knowing how the future will turn out is not the same as the future being undetermined.

Causality, and free will, are not mutually exclusive, or contradictory.

Inform, educate, and cultivate, yourself, but above all, THINK (something which you seemingly are not doing).

Fuck off.

/thread

Quantum Theory shows that the light beam exists in both places thereby creating a Multiverse.

Martin Van Buren can choose which Universe he wants to live in within said Multiverse (or so he is deluded into thinking so by the theory of Free Will).

So...
Are you here in this universe or are you in both universes? Furthermore, is the you in the other universe really you?

>/threading yourself

Bump

/b/ump?
So...
There is a universe where the thread was not bumped. Which universe are you in and did you choose to be here?

Are you also there?
(Store Fronts)

I'm sorry, but how can free will (ie the idea that outcomes are not determined by past events) NOT be contradicted by causality (ie the idea that outcomes are determined by past events).

I am not opposed to changing my view, but i have yet to find a compelling argument to do so. You're welcome to insult me, but I'd appreciate pointers in the right direction so that I can educate myself properly.

sorry, meant to quote

Let's go see a movie.

Should we see Captain America 2 or Batman v Superman?

What movie did you think of? Did you pick neither?

Why did you think of that movie, or think neither?

Did you have a shitty experience with cast or crew from either and choose the other, or choose neither?

Did you have a fond memory of a previous film or maybe a trailer for one of these, and decide based on that?

Are you afraid people will know you enjoy simple pleasures and decide based on that?

Or did one or more of these things make a default decision for you that was never actually deliberated?

One can have free will within certain parameters, and simultaneously, certain parameters can be influenced by free will.

That is how everything in the universe works.

One has the free will to do anything that is possible, both physically, and/or within one's capability, nothing less, nothing more.

Are you retarded?

Even free will is based upon past events. You can only choose based upon where you are right now (and it is past events that got you here)

Your inquiry is whether said past events REQUIRE that the next thing MUST happen and that it CANNOT BE ANY OTHER WAY.

Right?

Other than simply wanting to have free will within those parameters, what is your proof that it exists?
My inquiry is how can choice be anything other than an illusion when all of reality is shown to have causes and effects?

I can't prove that it exists but I can CHOOSE to believe that it exists (Or do I have to believe it exists). That makes me feel good.

You can however prove the multiverse, since the photon exists in both places. Now I choose to go night night...

>Other than simply wanting to have free will within those parameters, what is your proof that it exists?

Maybe if you weren't mentally impaired you would realize the simplicity of the concept, and wouldn't ask such idiotic questions.

look, I realise that it's fun to call me an idiot, but I would truly appreciate if you would defend your notion that free-will exists with something other than "because it makes me feel good that i'm in control"

I suggest reading Hume's "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding." Specifically the section, "Of Liberty and Necessity." You won't get too much more out of it but it's worth the read and at the end he says that free will simply needs to be redefined. Freedom of will in the way you insinuate is impossible. But freedom of choice insofar as our choices determine our actions is possible. Imagine a person chained to a wall. He cannot move his arm even if he so chooses. He does not have the freedom to do so. This is how Hume wants to think about freedom of will. Any other freedom is ultimately impossible.

If I am a twin, but I split off from my other zygote self, is that other zygote me?

I know at one point in time, the singular zygote before the split was me.

Agency

You have to be specific when you define free will tbqh, because I personally don't think that a human mind can be the source of a causal chain of events without anything being prior to that causal chain.

Think about it, every single choice humans act is almost always precipitated by a desire, or an urge to do something, eat foods, take a piss, have sex, watch TV etc, and you can't really say that you "decided" what kind of urges you have from one minute to the next.

It reminds me of the quote by Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll add it to my reading list.

Care to explain how agency is not simply an illusion masking the transition from cause to effect?

When reading it, given your views here, you'll be agreeing with nearly everything he says. Hume does that for a lot of people. He's probably the most agreeable philosopher out there. I imagine that it's because most modern ways of thinking are based off of his work. The section I suggested is not very long. Should only take you a half hour or so, maybe a bit longer. After reading it you'll probably want to read more Hume though.

Cheers.

That implies you think of causality as having only one output for any given input. Agency is the range of possible outputs. On a more practical level, what is knowable is limited, so the range of possible outputs is even greater. It depends on if your intellectual thought is predicated on what it is possible to know, or pure theory.

Martin Van Buren likes the way you think.

The split of the zygote would be different than the photon being on both places. We are talking about two embryos now whereas ONE photon is existing in both places. Right? Quantum theory right? I don't know. It's late and I'm mumbling about Martin Van Buren.

The original question however is quite valid or at least I choose (or am compelled to think that I choose) to think so...

(Make it stop!)

I see. I'm not talking about the concept on a practical level. I'm thinking on in more abstract terms.

Free will is a childish concept that only really exists in any capacity in the heads of religious morons who want to rationalize their sky god's atrocities.

>I find it incredibly childish to believe that the future is not set in stone.
You don't believe in randomness at all?

You're a robot. I bet you had to CHOOSE pictures of store fronts.

>(ie the idea that outcomes are not determined by past events)
Miscategorization. It is more the idea that determinable events may still have a degree of inherent indeterminably.

Is this some new form of high-level shitposting? Are you mocking my train of thought by babbling to yourself about the 8th US president, zygotes, and quantum theory?

Ironic considering pre-determinism's historical roots as religious doctrine

I believe that there is a difference between chaos and randomness. That being unable to determine a pattern is different from there being no pattern.

this

Not really. The nature of the argument has changed with the advent of quantum physics. The multiverse occurs. The question is now "can we choose which universe within the multiverse that we will live in".

>The multiverse occurs

OK, so you don't believe in randomness at all, you just think there is some hidden pattern or theory of everything that hasn't yet been discovered and can't necessarily be proven without access to the initial condition and all possibilities?

I don't believe it will be discovered, but essentially, yes. Sorry if my posts were convoluted.

Do you mean this from a practical point of view, or from an impossible, objective point of view?

Besides being convoluted and semantically contextual, it is also no more falsifiable and in fact less quantifiable or usable than the concept of free will used in random processes and the practice of modern statistical probability.

From any point of view, I am saying that from every possible point of view there may be spontaneous random elements and mutations that necessitate no coherent direct determinable cause.

Sorry, but as far as I can tell, the concept of a multiverse is still a purely hypothetical concept that is, quite simply, impossible to prove. your question seems to belie a misunderstanding of what the multiverse is and I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on what you mean.

I'm not denying that approximations made through the practice of modern statistical probability are not useful. I am simply arguing that from an impossible, outside, purely objective view of the universe, that everything has causes and effects, and while it seems random to you or me, it is not.
take a random number generator on your computer for example. while the output seems random, it can be replicated if the exact same variable inputs are used.
Why can this thinking not be extrapolated on a universal level?

>Why can this thinking not be extrapolated on a universal level?
>an impossible, outside, purely objective view of the universe

>universal
>impossible

I see. It's impossible to prove, and thus useless in practice.
Is it possible to prove free-will? or is the whole debate just a circle-jerk?

Free Will is a largely qualitative concept not suitable for quantitative scientific inquiry, but at least their semantics don't typically begin by declaring their own premise impossible, so it is interesting to investigate and with potential utility instead of self declared too abstract to be possible.

Randomness is the result of a maelstrom of potential where individual events might not be significant or determinable, but combinations over time inevitable create recognizable patterns and degrees of predictability.

What is your theory for necessary patterns that must exist to create irrational transcendental constants like pi and e?

Robots make choices all the time. You're a robot too, by the way.

Ironic indeed. People have started to give more shits about each other's suffering since the iron age inception of these barbarous religions, and as a result the idea that god knows everything in advance was pretty much abandoned in public discourse.

An even more ironic part of it, of course, is that this development contains a further detachment from reality (i.e. humans have free will) and religion at the same time (god is no longer omniscient or all-powerful)

Not to be pedantic, but determinism as I argued it isn't too abstract to be impossible, but too abstract to be proven. The distinction is important.

I am not familiar enough with mathematics to know if my answer is right or even if it will make sense, so forgive ignorance on my part. From what I understand, we already know the pattern for pi. It is the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter. Typically we use 3.1459 as an approximation of that pattern. As I understand the subject, as more digits of pi are revealed, the approximation approaches the exact value of the pattern. Similarly e is the base of the natural logarithm, and its approximation approaches the exact value as more digits are used.

If you are asking something else, I'm sorry but I don't know enough to say anything without getting it catastrophically wrong.

>As I understand the subject, as more digits of pi are revealed, the approximation approaches the exact value of the pattern.
>are revealed
Isn't there still inherent randomness and indeterminacy from the fact that there will still always be an infinite number of unrevealed digits and you still can not predict the next one without choosing to proceed with the raw calculation?

I don't think so.
As a hypothetical imagine if pi had not been calculated beyond 3.14 yet. The next digit is always going to be 5, nothing changes that. 5 will appear to be random to whoever is calculating pi, but it could never have been 3 or 6. It is not random.

>Isn't there still inherent randomness and indeterminacy from the fact that there will still always be an infinite number of unrevealed digits and you still can not predict the next one without choosing to proceed with the raw calculation?
I find your phrasing to stretch the boundary of what is considered to be random or determinable.

The next number of some approximation of an irrational value (that we have a definition of, like pi) is not indeterminable - it is in fact completely deterministic. The 4th number of pi will ALWAYS be 1 no matter how many times you try to calculate it. It is the epitome of determined.

When we talk about randomness in irrational numbers, we're talking about the lack of predictability or pattern WITHIN THE PATTERN ITSELF. That is to say, simply given the numbers 3.14 it is impossible to definitively say the next number is 1, but given the underlying definition, there is no randomness.

>how does free will reconcile itself with the simple concept of cause and effect.

The metaphysical primacy of the Will, and the submission of the material as regards that Will.

It truly must be random if you got 5.

That knowledge still won't help you find the next digit without raw calculation since it is random and still based on arbitrary definitions with infinite indeterminate elements.

>since it is random
>and still based on arbitrary definitions
Pick one.

Also, the fact that the definitions are arbitrary - and they're not - has nothing to do with their randomness.

>free will (ie the idea that outcomes are not determined by past events)

LOL
O
L

You're free to give a definition of free will that isn't that, and also doesn't ultimately give free will to a rock rolling down a hill.

>he cannot will what he wills

Schopenhauer was just too lazy to figure out how to will will.

Arbitrary is the top synonym for random, random is even in the definition of arbitrary why would they be mutually exclusive?

How does that bypass their inherent randomness if they are defined arbitrarily and there are no determinable patterns or predictive abilities?

free will has nothing to do with the body, any of it's thinking organs, or material "events" as such.

Free will is only meaningful and possible by the presence and intervention of an Almighty God.

And if he weren't, he'd still have to will will will. It boils down to an infinite regress.

>i have free will because the boss says so
Okay there, child.

>Arbitrary is the top synonym for random, random is even in the definition of arbitrary why would they be mutually exclusive?
It might be my mathematical education, but "arbitrary" is more a synonym for "any given amount of" rather than random. The terms may not be mutually exclusive per se, but they're definitely not synonymous.

Which thesaurus are you using?

Please go ahead and explain how collections of individual cells can have free will without the divine presence.

It's no more possible than a rock deciding to roll down a hill.

You either believe in freedom of the will and therefore an intervening God, you don't and believe in predestination or atheism, or you accept that you don't know.

>Please go ahead and explain how collections of individual cells can have free will without the divine presence.
They can't with or without it, as your divine presence is ill defined and how it causes free will you can't even begin to describe, let alone demonstrate.

Fuck off to .

I'm not using one. Please don't tell me you actually think whatever thesaurus shits out as synonyms is a synonym regardless of context.

Googling "arbitrary" gives me
> based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system
The definition of pi is the polar opposite of this, considering the definition has both a reason for its existence, and a system for its definition.

I am saying if you can't find a single thesaurus that doesn't list them as synonyms, you might consider that they might be synonyms especially when one is in the other's definition.

What is the reason a circle exists?
A system based on the arbitrary whim of apes with ten digits.

Well again, you're stretching the definition of randomness and your anus as well by pulling this shit. I'm not interested in these tangential metaphysical debates.

Anything talked about in these terms is "arbitrary" (2+2=4 is ARBITRARY LEL HOW RANDOM), making the word lose its meaning. There's nothing "on a whim" about the ratio of a circle's radius and circumference.

And to be clear, what I said in is that whether the definition is arbitrary has nothing to do with whether the numbers it "generates" are random. We already have the definition, whether we sharted it out of our collective anuses or arrived at it via geometric inquiry is irrelevant.

There is something random about taking a diameter's ratio to a circumference, it might have become procedural, but it was originally don't on a whim, the entire point of the unit is to say this is some arbitrary amount at a cutoff of some random segment denoted by some random symbol.

There is nothing random about its significance, the random part is when it occurred to someone.

And again, I'm really not interested in you breaking down words to the point they have no meaning.

greater personal significance doesn't automatically equal less randomness

Why is is more significant than the ratio of the area to the radius (or any other two random properties) other than it produces this random anomaly of a number that is non-terminating and unpredictable?

You are the one who tries to break words down to the point that synonyms don't count as synonyms because you are attached to your interpretation that makes you seem correct.