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I was wrong to infer that the determinism debate is between only those from the field of philosophy, though I am pursuing it as a philosophical question. Some today are using interpretations of scientific evidence as their argument.

Maybe John is one who (partially) is a proponent of determinism, as per his last note?

Sam Harris, famously, though painfully unscholarly he is.

Galen Strawson says he isn’t a determinist but argues that we cannot escape the causes that have made us who we are, which is basically a type of determinism since for him it means that human autonomy is an impossibility because we can never step out from under past causes to be autonomous.

John Searle, though he seems in the last decade to be hedging on determinism and starting to embrace quantum indeterminism as justification for free will

Jerry Coyne,

BF Skinner, who in his philosophy of behaviorism was a determinist.

Dan Barker doesn’t see free will as a scientific truth or philosophical truth, but as a social truth. But I think he is still dealing with ghosts of his preacher past.

It could be that I’m am wasting time on popular opponents of free will that would be best to leave behind.

Please know that I am addressing this issue from the context of a 70-year-old tome of existential philosophy, comparing Sartre’s metaphysics to what some claim today about proofs of physics concerning the concept of human autonomy. And I have to do it in 3,000 words.

Also, I use the word consciousness as does Sartre, who did not acknowledge subconscious states. He refers to behavior as being reflective or non-reflective, asserting that most of our behavior is non-reflective. Much of his writing about non-reflective behavior lines up with is being compatibly the subconscious. Sartre has plenty to say about motives and passions and desires, and it would be revealing to suss that out against the background of today’s advances in neuroscience.

Thank you for your thoughtful questions that bolster my self-doubt. I do not say that in sarcasm but truly thrive on self-doubt. It makes me work harder.

Best to all,

Peter

Peter Lloyd Jones
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562-209-4080

Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.

On May 21, 2019, at 6:45 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Peter, In the name of shameless self promotion, I have proposed that life is both deterministic and probabilistic based on experimental evidence for both cell physiology and its relationship to Quantum Mechanics (see attached). Perhaps you could comment? Best, John

On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 9:51 PM Peter Lloyd Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
John, Alexander, Gregg, and TOK,
It seems that we agree also that choice is better than free will because the freedom we are taking about when using the rems “free will" is a doing, not something to have. It is a verb, as John just said, and as Sartre has said. Sartre of course worked this out deeply on the ontological level, saying that freedom, choice, consciousness are all one and the same. His thought is that the only practical way to look at consciousness is how we are discussing looking at choice, that it is an action, not a container of things, that we are temporal beings evolving minute by minute. Consciousness is the life-long pursuit of being that is a doing and never an inert thing to label.

A few years ago I read an article by a doctor of medicine who proposed that consciousness is change, a physical change within our brains, and that using AI or computing metaphors only drives us away from understanding consciousness. I wrote him asking if his paper was based on research he might be able to share and he responded that it was just a hypothesis he was pondering. Dang it. But another start.

I am, so far, in agreement with Sartre, that we act within “a network of determinants.” That though does not mean that our acts are determined and unfree. So evolution, like conscious choice, is free to go in novel directions in evolving novel environments, within the context of its history.

I am pondering whether determinism might not be a problem for determinism. What I mean is, there are countless determinants competing to influence our every choices, or our evolution, and how can it be comprehensibly possible that it is already decided for all time which determinant is going to be the alfa determinant in all events? Further, this has to be taken on faith as it is unrepeatable and untestable. That alone should put it outside the boundaries of science and philosophy.

Alexander, I do think it is a waste of time to be arguing against determinism, but, in philosophy, there is a whole movement right now promoting determinism. My hope is to shoot it dead.

I do like syndeterminism...

Thank you all for your contributions here,
Peter

Peter Lloyd Jones
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562-209-4080

Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.

On May 20, 2019, at 4:55 PM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Peter

I agree. Strongly. But why even pretend that determinism has a case any longer? Why not go straight to the point and cut the chase and ask in what way determinism predicted the big bang itself?
Now, if the big bang is an emergence proper, as the birth of physics itself, we can then rethink history as emergences that create their own vectors. This means there is fundamentally no difference between parallel universes and the development of physics and later chemistry and later biology and later mind and later culture. They are all vectors of emergences in a fundamentally indeterminist metaverse.
Actually a human life can then be seen as vector of an emergence called birth itself. Now that's what I call an emergence theory worthy of proper complexity science.
The question is rather whether indeterminism is the appropriate term? Perhaps syndeterminism is even better? Especially since we do not even need chance or dices then either.

Best intentions
Alexander

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