What is left for free will?

Originally posted by googlefudge
This is why it seems to me to be utterly nonsensical to talk about future operations effecting the present
state or of 'past' operations being 'yet to be selected'.

But once again, you are cheating. You admit your universe is hypothetical, but by using labels that have a well known direction in our universe you are implying something about our universe. Why not call them 'direction A' and 'direction B' in your universe?

If the 'future' operations are predefined then the system is completely deterministic, and has no randomness.
What if 'past' operations are not predefined. Cant we have randomness in the other direction?

But those future operations/states still have no baring whatsoever on the present state.
Why not?

The present state is only and exclusively dependent on the operations that HAVE been performed and is not dependent on any operations or states that might or will occur in the future.
Only because you defined them that way. I don't think you have addressed my scenario where I defined them the other way around.

Originally posted by twhitehead
But once again, you are cheating. You admit your universe is hypothetical, but by using labels that have a well known direction in our universe you are implying something about our universe. Why not call them 'direction A' and 'direction B' in your universe?

[b]If the 'future' operations are predefined then the system is completely deterministic, and h ...[text shortened]... hat way. I don't think you have addressed my scenario where I defined them the other way around.

I'm a bit rushed atm so I'll do a full answer later but...

I'm not sure what you mean by cheating.

I'm defining the properties of my hypothetical universe to demonstrate
that a hypothetical universe can exist that refutes the claim that in a
deterministic universe [with or without randomness] the future can be
said to be fixing the future.

If I can define a hypothetical universe that is not inconsistent with the
possibilities for our actual universe where the future doesn't have any
influence on the present/past then I have succeeded in proving that it's
not a given that in reality the future has any influence on the present
as there would exist a set of possible universes we could be in where that
isn't true.

This is in lieu of trying to prove the future has no influence in any possible universe
as A) I don't know that that is true and B) is far more work than I have time for.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Am I the only one who pretty much never understands what Black Beetle is trying to say? It's like Grampy Bobby wrote something after smoking a heavy joint.

I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

Causal Determinism and Chaos, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, Feynman, Bohmian QM, Aristotlean logic and catuskoti, wavefunctions, Newtonian systems, Free Will vs Forced Will, Metaphysics of Spacetime Substantivalism, Metaphysics and Realism, Schwarzschild black holes and places that exist but cannot be found nowhere in the given spacetime, Arrow of Time, Nature of Time -all stitched together in 4-5 posts. At least I hope I entertained you😵

If you have specific questions as regards specific things I said which you don't understand, kindly please ask this atheist whatever you want😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

Causal Determinism and Chaos, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, Feynman, Bohmian QM, Aristotlean logic and catuskoti, wavefunctions, Newtonian systems, Free Will vs Forced Will, Metaphysics of Spacetime Substantivalism, Metaphysics and Realism, Schwarzschild black holes and places that exist but cannot be fou ...[text shortened]... fic things I said which you don't understand, kindly please ask this atheist whatever you want😵

Nah, I'm good. I get a contact high just from reading your posts. 😀

Originally posted by Suzianne
Nah, I'm good. I get a contact high just from reading your posts. 😀

And you sip them straight? Without rum??
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

Causal Determinism and Chaos, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, Feynman, Bohmian QM, Aristotlean logic and catuskoti, wavefunctions, Newtonian systems, Free Will vs Forced Will, Metaphysics of Spacetime Substantivalism, Metaphysics and Realism, Schwarzschild black holes and places that exist but cannot be fou ...[text shortened]... fic things I said which you don't understand, kindly please ask this atheist whatever you want😵

Did I read your response to me correctly, that you reject the block universe determinism concept, and if not, what do you think of it and why?

Originally posted by JS357
Did I read your response to me correctly, that you reject the block universe determinism concept, and if not, what do you think of it and why?

No, I don't reject the concept, but I 'm far more interested about the nature of the time and the free will issue. Our universe could well be a block universe -in fact the idea of a constant herenew (in which time and the things that change are one, as is indeed the case with our universe) is extremely old in the realm of spirituality😵

Originally posted by black beetle
No, I don't reject the concept, but I 'm far more interested about the nature of the time and the free will issue. Our universe could well be a block universe -in fact the idea of a constant herenew (in which time and the things that change are one, as is indeed the case with our universe) is extremely old in the realm of spirituality😵

A comment on the block 4-D universe and then on to new things.
OK, so one aspect of the block universe is that the regularities that we see and conceptualize into cause and effect laws, are the way the universe looks to us, but at no location in space-time is that which is the case, caused by that which is the case at any other space-time. These facts just ARE.

So causal determinism is out the window, as perhaps an illusion, but "brute" determinism is not.

I suspect this may have some effect on certain free will considerations, but am not sure. I'm ready to lurk on that for a while.

Originally posted by black beetle
I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

Causal Determinism and Chaos, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, Feynman, Bohmian QM, Aristotlean logic and catuskoti, wavefunctions, Newtonian systems, Free Will vs Forced Will, Metaphysics of Spacetime Substantivalism, Metaphysics and Realism, Schwarzschild black holes and places that exist but cannot be fou ...[text shortened]... fic things I said which you don't understand, kindly please ask this atheist whatever you want😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

.... if gb did, bb, he would have mentioned it a few years ago when you were mentoring him in the nuanced Scheveningen.

Originally posted by JerryH
We are each different physically and fortunately. Are we born with and into enough difference to dictate our difference in choice? If so then where is free will?

If alternately there is some quality of us, not physical or fortune, that accounts for the choices we make and we choose differently, where is free will?

Does free will not demand we all make ...[text shortened]... ice. Does deviation from perfect choice not suggest flawed will?

What is left for free will?

Originally posted by JerryH (OP)
We are each different physically and fortunately. Are we born with and into enough difference to dictate our difference in choice? If so then where is free will?

If alternately there is some quality of us, not physical or fortune, that accounts for the choices we make and we choose differently, where is free will?

Does free will not demand we all make the same prefect choice. Does deviation from perfect choice not suggest flawed will?

What is left for free will?
___________________________________

Free will: an exercise of individual human volition or the capacity to choose; volition is the decision maker of the soul.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I'm not sure what you mean by cheating.

You are using your definitions to make a conclusion.

I'm defining the properties of my hypothetical universe to demonstrate
that a hypothetical universe can exist.....
But you are not demonstrating that it can exist. You are defining it as able to exist. Not the same thing at all.

If I can define a hypothetical universe that is not inconsistent with the
possibilities for our actual universe where the future doesn't have any
influence on the present/past then I have succeeded in proving that it's
not a given that in reality the future has any influence on the present
as there would exist a set of possible universes we could be in where that
isn't true.
So what is stopping me playing the same trick but with the future having the only influence?
The way I see it, you have so far said nothing whatsoever that singles out the past as special - other than your decision to define it as such. In other words there is no known property of the past that you have used in your argument. Hence if we swap 'past' and 'future' in your argument, there should be no problems whatsoever.

Originally posted by JS357
A comment on the block 4-D universe and then on to new things.
OK, so one aspect of the block universe is that the regularities that we see and conceptualize into cause and effect laws, are the way the universe looks to us, but at no location in space-time is that which is the case, caused by that which is the case at any other space-time. These facts just AR ...[text shortened]... ect on certain free will considerations, but am not sure. I'm ready to lurk on that for a while.

Methinks that, as a phenomenon-in-flux, the block 4-D universe would constantly change within a specific one and only one herenow (spacetime) point (but where exactly could be that point in our known spacetime? Since we are unable to spot in our spacetime the exact spacetime in which the block 4-D universe could be located, that specific universe cannot conceived as an event).
So, theoretically the sole cause of the changes there, it would be just the nature of that specific phenomenon-in-flux instead of the time evolution (as is the case with our universe and all the observers that are contained in it).

If this were the case, the cause of the changes and its effects could be determined or non-determined, however I think that the observer block 4-D universe (and all the observers included in it) would still keep their free will for the reasons I explained previously
😵

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by black beetle
I didn't knew our GB does heavy joints😵

.... if gb did, bb, he would have mentioned it a few years ago when you were mentoring him in the nuanced Scheveningen.

GKR, an imperial imp😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Methinks that, as a phenomenon-in-flux, the block 4-D universe would constantly change within a specific one and only one herenow (spacetime) point (but where exactly could be that point in our known spacetime? Since we are unable to spot in our spacetime the exact spacetime in which the block 4-D universe could be located, that specific universe cannot ...[text shortened]... vers included in it) would still keep their free will for the reasons I explained previously
😵

Fine, except I don't see the block universe in itself as a phenomenon-in-flux, or as an event. in fact I see it as quite the opposite. However, to the extent that free will means the making of decisions by an agent, I tend to agree that free will is preserved. IOW, within the block 4-D universe we know, I believe there occurs the making of decisions, and without them the universe would be different.

But regardless, what free will means, needs to come to the fore and be revealed with clarity. Does it mean the making of decisions?

Originally posted by Suzianne
I don't imagine that you are a slave, without the ability to do what you want. Not sure about you, but when I became an adult I put away childish things, and inherited the ability to make up my own mind.

but your choices are not the same as that of someone born in Somalia, or in Asia where the slave trade is rampant. Where is the free will of an Asian girl sold into slavery?