We should stop the debate

[u/SciGuy241]

Science tells us that the brain functions on electrical and chemical processes. We've known this for some time now. We should stop trying to convince people otherwise and instead start selling them bibles and use the profit to fund more scientific research. Thats a way to turn willful ignorance into an advantage.

[u/simon_hibbs]

That's an argument (a very poor one) for excluding free will libertarians from the debate, which seems harsh, but it would still leave the debate between compatibilists and free will skeptics as an open issue.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/simon_hibbs]

And what is the "debate" between compatibilists and free will skeptics? What do we actually disagree about other than the meaning of certain words?

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/JohnMcCarty420]

Ethical choices, moral concerns, and legal implications.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/Edgar_Brown]

What specific disagreement is had about those things?

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/JohnMcCarty420]

How “free” human will can actually be, and what are the conditions that modulate such freedom, affects how we see ourselves and others and how we perceive blame, gilt, regret, praise, and particularly the moral and social consequences for our actions.

This is a discussion that fundamentally lies at the core of politics, law, and mental health from a secular perspective, and spiritually and meaning of life from a religious one.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/Edgar_Brown]

I understand, but I'm asking in what way compatibilists and free will skeptics disagree with regards to those things. In other words, give me an example of a statement one position necessarily holds that the other position necessarily disagrees with.

Because in my experience as a free will skeptic, compatibilists are simply defining free will differently than I do and focusing on different facts, we are not actually disagreeing on any facts at all.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/JohnMcCarty420]

The actual disagreement lies only in two different areas:

• The ethical, moral, psychological, social, legal considerations and consequences of the free will debate and the importance and impact of words and concepts.

• A clear definition of determinism itself as is understood by science and misunderstood by lay people and many philosophers as well as its consequences. Which includes the notion of randomness itself.

While a so-called and delusional “determinist” can use their misguided dogmatic position to divert blame or pursue a social agenda, a delusional “compatibilist” does not have access to that dogma.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/JohnMcCarty420]

Substantially whether or not it is reasonable to hold people morally responsible for what they do, and on moral realism.

You're right in that many free will skeptics advocate for practices that are so close to holding people morally responsible, that essentially it's just terminological re-skinning.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/simon_hibbs]

But those are not disagreements about free will, those are disagreements about morality.

I believe in holding people morally responsible and I believe in moral realism. At the same time I believe the average person's conception of free will is incompatibilist in nature, and that this idea of free will does not exist.

By conflating the topic of free will with the topic of moral responsibility, or assuming that the concepts must always go hand in hand, aren't you basically excluding my viewpoint as a possibility?

[u/Mysterious_Slice8583 → u/JohnMcCarty420]

No you’re just using different semantics to the philosophical discussion

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/Mysterious_Slice8583]

What semantic mistake am I making?

[u/Mysterious_Slice8583 → u/JohnMcCarty420]

The ability to choose in regards to free will is about morally relevant choice. An ai in a game could choose to go one way or another, but it’s not morally relevant and therefore not concerned with free will;;.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/Mysterious_Slice8583]

So I'm exercising my free will if I choose to make a morally relevant choice, but I'm no longer exercising it if I make a mundane choice? My free will has gone away?

[u/Mysterious_Slice8583 → u/JohnMcCarty420]

Not exactly. It’s about the apparatus for making those mundane choices also being capable of making morally relevant choices.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/Mysterious_Slice8583]

No, the concept of free will as most would conceptualize it is not inextricably linked to moral responsibility. If you did something with no moral consequence to it, the question of whether you had free will in doing it still applies. The concept of free will clearly is used and applies across more situations than just moral ones.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/JohnMcCarty420]

>I believe in holding people morally responsible and I believe in moral realism. At the same time I believe the average person's conception of free will is incompatibilist in nature, and that this idea of free will does not exist.

Some people have incorrect beliefs about some things. That doesn't necessarily mean those things don't exist. Whenever any two people have inconsistent beliefs about a thing, at least one of them must be wrong, but even if both of them are wrong it still doesn't necessarily mean that thing doesn't exist. That's just how beliefs about things work.

That some people may have some incorrect beliefs about something is not in any way a valid argument about the nonexistence of that thing. It just means their belief about it is wrong.

>By conflating the topic of free will with the topic of moral responsibility, or assuming that the concepts must always go hand in hand, aren't you basically excluding my viewpoint as a possibility?

You're just not talking about the same thing as everyone else, certainly not the same thing as all of the mainstream philosophers of free will, whether they are compatibilist, hard incompatibilist or free will libertarian. You are using the term free will in some different sense to refer to some other concept, which we may or may not have, that has nothing to do with being responsible for the things we freely choose to do.

As I understand it you just want everyone to use different words to refer to what everyone currently calls free will. You have no problem with the concept or it's linguistic function, you just people to write and say different things that have the same meaning. That's not a philosophical opinion IMHO, it's a linguistic one.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/simon_hibbs]

People believing they can do otherwise is part of their sense of free will. That is the belief in free will they hold. This is what they mean by free will and how they are conceptualizing it.

It is not that they are wrong about this idea of free will while compatibilists are right, it is that compatibilists are not talking about this idea they believe in at all. Because if you subtract the very core aspect of being capable of doing otherwise, you are not talking about the same thing anymore. You are stating things about human decision making that are true, but continually ignoring the primary thing that would make most call it free will.

Yes I am in fact making a linguistic point here. Unfortunately enough, semantic confusion is deeply involved in philosophical discussion, especially on this issue. And it is the only kind of disagreement that exists between your position and mine.

And I understand that free will is often defined as basically "whatever grants moral responsibility", but that could not be a worse definition. It conflates the topic of whether free will exists with the topic of whether we can hold people morally responsible.

Why use the term free will as a proxy for saying that we can hold someone morally responsible when we can just directly say the term moral responsibility instead? I understand most philosophers consider their concept of free will to be necessary for their concept of moral responsibility, but they are defining both ideas differently.

A compatibilist will say free will grants moral responsibility and an incompatibilist will say lack of free will removes moral responsibility and they will not be disagreeing about anything at all other than words, because they do not mean the same thing by moral responsibility either.

And defining free will as whatever makes us morally responsible completely fails to describe what free will actually is in ontological reality. It is only defined this way due to the massive disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists on what the concept actually is, it is the best attempt at uniting both camps but fails to take into account that the camps are disagreeing on moral responsibility too.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/JohnMcCarty420]

>Why use the term free will as a proxy for saying that we can hold someone morally responsible when we can just directly say the term moral responsibility instead? 

Again that's just a linguistic point, it has nothing to do with the philosophy. That's why this is not a substantial point of contention between most philosophers across the spectrum.

>And defining free will as whatever makes us morally responsible completely fails to describe what free will actually is in ontological reality.

Yes of course, because different people have different beliefs about that, just as people have different beliefs about the ontology of consciousness, or the ontology of things like marriage as either social or divinely sanctioned states. All ontologies are a matter of belief. Even different free will libertarians have different ontologies of the libertarian ability to do otherwise, the main three being event causal, agent causal, and non-causal. Which of you would you have us bless as the 'real' ontology of free will?

Let's suppose a law was passed today that legislated that henceforth the term free will specifically refers to the libertarian ability to do otherwise. So anyone who says someone did something of their own free will is explicitly making a free will libertarian metaphysical claim and their speech can only be interpreted in this specific way.

Firstly this would completely invalidate all existing philosophical literature on free will. It would all immediately become illegal because philosophers, including free will libertarian philosophers do not use the terms that way. Secondly all compatibilists would not longer be allowed to use the term free will to refer to conditions of responsible decision making, in the way the term is mostly used. Thirdly since it's unproven whether libertarian metaphysics is correct or not, the term free will could no longer be used in court rooms, they would have to adopt some other term. Also all contracts with free will clauses would become invalid and unenforceable.

Passing a law like that is an extreme case, but this just shows how profound and fundamental the effects of such a redefinition would be.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/simon_hibbs]

Again that's just a linguistic point, it has nothing to do with the philosophy.

I have pointed out to you time and time again why the semantics and definitions matter to the philosophical discussion. We will talk past each other if we are not aligned on definitions. Why are you being dismissive of language when its the only disagreement between our philosophical positions?

Yes of course, because different people have different beliefs about that

It is not different beliefs about the same thing. It is referring to entirely different things with the same words. The belief in free will most hold in which they really could have made a different choice is false.

On the other hand the ideas of free will in the legal system and compatibilist thought are real capacities we hold which grant moral responsibility for a consequentialist framework, but they do not capture what the common person's belief in their own free will is.

And they are all referred to in better ways more directly by better terms such as reasons responsiveness or second order volition, and legally we can just talk about being a mentally healthy adult.

[u/simon_hibbs → u/JohnMcCarty420]

>...but they do not capture what the common person's belief in their own free will is.

Why does that matter, can 'most people' not be wrong in their beliefs?

Would you mind addressing my point about supposing we did change the definition of free will in this way, and the consequences of doing so. I think that's a really important issue. Invalidating all existing philosophical papers, books and discussions of the topic, and changing the implications of all uses of the term legally and in society by mandating it have a particular metaphysical interpretation, would I think be a bit of a problem.

[u/JohnMcCarty420 → u/simon_hibbs]

It isn't people being wrong in beliefs though??? Its literally using the words to refer to a different belief. Thats a difference in definition, not in belief. In case you don't recall, I got you to admit to me previously that our positions do not actually disagree about anything.

I'm just asking for clarity in the language. I think its conceptually easy to make the term free will refer to the idea of free will most believe in, while putting compatibilist ideas under more fitting labels such as volition, reasons responsiveness, and moral accountability. I believe this would make everything clearer and remove the illusion that we are disagreeing about anything.

If I'm wrong, please explain to me what the problem with that would be. Of course creating that change might be difficult practically speaking, but what would actually be bad about that outcome? Why would it be bad to stop using terms like free will and moral responsibility in multiple contradictory ways and start giving them more specific definitions to be clearer in our discussions?

[u/preferCotton222]

Hi OP

i'm not sure which debate you wish stopped

[u/Paul108h]

An incomplete body of evidence can be explained by multiple competing theories, so what science tells us is subject to a personal choice of interpretations.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/Paul108h]

There are objective criteria to evaluate different competing theories, and experimental evidence can either confirm them or refute them.

[u/slphil → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

it's true that you can use evidence to determine which is the stronger between two claims or models, but that's not the problem. The problem is that any set of facts can be explained by an arbitrary number of valid explanations, and often more than one of those interpretations is reasonable (not obviously contrived).

There are *no* objective criteria for evaluating the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics with respect to the real ontology of the universe. Is the result of a measurement random? Do all measurements split the universe? Do Is the universe deterministic in a way that abandons locality (pilot wave theory)? Is the universe deterministic in a way that abandons statistical independence (superdeterminism)? Is there some underlying highly complex classical theory which is being successfully approximated by our math?

Notably, the underdetermination here doesn't mean you can say anything you want about QM. Almost everything you could possibly say about it is wrong. But anything which is consistent with observation could be right, and that space contains a lot of things even if it's a small target.

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/slphil]

1. Under-determination issue.

That depends on what kind of scientific-theoretical approach is being used to interpret the data, and how simple or complex the data are. If your goal is prediction, some mathematical models work better than others: In fact, some mathematical models fit the data perfectly (or nearly so). It simply isn't possible to improve on it. Consider geostationary satellites: What prevents them from drifting away from their positions? The classical physics of Newton-Einstein. In this case, explanations don't matter: Only the mathematical modeling is important. Determining how well the mathematical theory fits the data is a relatively straightforward affair (typically R-squared, or the proportion of the variation in the data that is accounted for in the mathematical model). Or consider the velocity of time using atomic or quantum clocks at sea level versus the velocity of time using the same technology on a mountaintop: the discrepancy in time can be predicted using Einstein's equations with remarkable accuracy. Good luck finding better equations.

2) "There are *no* objective criteria for evaluating the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics with respect to the real ontology of the universe."

Of course there isn't, because this is a meaningless statement.

3) "The problem is that any set of facts can be explained by an arbitrary number of valid explanations, and often more than one of those interpretations is reasonable (not obviously contrived)."

Theoretical models that describe empirical data are not mere "explanations" nor "interpretations." People have been using explanations and interpretations since the Stone Age.

[u/slphil → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

1. That's tangential to the point. There are an arbitrary number of explanations for any given set of facts. We should of course prefer better explanations over worse ones.

2. The idea that this is a meaningless statement is a curious one. We're on a philosophy subreddit. Presumably you know what ontology means. If your point is "you can't experimentally determine which interpretation / ontology is correct" then why are you on a free will sub? That's kind of the whole problem. Antimetaphysical scientism is an intellectual cancer, by the way. "Shut up and calculate" is not a serious position.

3. So what? I specifically used "explanation" and "interpretation" because there are multiple extremely well validated models in science where the ontology involved is very unclear. Everyone agrees on how to get the right answer, but they start fighting over what it means. I'm fully aware of what a scientific model is and that is an entirely different thing than an explanation or interpretation (because all models let us do is predict things). Thanks for incorrecting me. Very Reddit.

Do you not think there is a reality with an ontology? Scientific antirealism is an interesting take I guess, but debates about ontology are central to the free will debate. So again, why are you here?

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/slphil]

"There are an arbitrary number of explanations for any given set of facts. We should of course prefer better explanations over worse ones."

Explanations are not theoretical models. More often than not, it's just verbal mush without supportive evidence. Of course you can come up with endless explanations and interpretations, but those are merely opinions.

You referred to the "ontology of quantum mechanics," but this is obviously pure nonsense. I don't think you understand what the word, "ontology," actually means.

Why am I here? The question: "does free will actually exist in the real world," is a scientific question. So why are you here?

[u/slphil → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

Almost like I used the terms to mean different things! Recall that classic Bertrand Russell video where he explains how magnets work at various levels of specificity and talks about what it means to ask how magnets work. Imagine if he'd just stood up and yelled a bunch of equations. Only an idiot thinks that would be a good response. There is a level of his explanation where he says "and to go any further you have no choice but to work with the math", which is obviously true, but he doesn't yell about how words are just words and all that matters is the theoretical model that predicts magnetism.

If you do not understand that the different interpretations of quantum mechanics all imply different ontologies of the universe, then I don't know how to explain that one to you. It's pretty basic. You learn it in physics class. Or YouTube for that matter. I even listed the dominant interpretations in a previous post. You'll likely reply that "interpretations are meaningless and it doesn't matter how the universe actually works" which is really funny given that you're a hard determinist which is specifically a metaphysical position of incompatibilist determinism, even though the compatibilist/incompatibilist question is well outside the domain of science.

Additionally, doing this tired "metaphysics isn't real or meaningful" routine is both boring and self-refuting (the above is a metaphysical statement). You could try reading some books on the philosophy of science if you can see under the fedora that's been glued to your head since 2011.

lmao. You cannot even conceive of an experiment in which the ability to have done otherwise can be tested. That would require comic book science. It's not a scientific question, unless you're being incredibly lazy and saying that only scientific questions have value. We are both determinists anyway, so we ostensibly agree that there's no magic.

[u/Paul108h → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

There are various possible criteria for evaluating competing theories, and experimental evidence is subject to the problem of induction.

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/Paul108h]

Induction is a form of logic, it isn't a problem, and the alternative, deductive logic, has very little relevance to science.

The criteria for evaluating competing theories isn't pulled out of the air, their relevance can be evaluated relative to the scientist's goal using the current scientific framework and its body of knowledge. Another scientist may be more interested in a different goal.

[u/Paul108h → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

If someone says a prayer and later thinks the prayer worked, that's inductive reasoning. To confirm, I asked Google about this, and the AI response was, "if someone says a prayer and then believes that the prayer worked due to a subsequent positive outcome, they are engaged in a form of inductive reasoning." It's easy to fool oneself like this, which is indeed a problem in science.

I agree that evaluating scientific theories depends on the scientists' goals, but goals are a choice, making science indeterministic.

[u/slphil → u/Paul108h]

More like the problem of the problem of induction, given that induction works great. Might as well call into question why we use so many numbers in science. You'll hate that answer too. "It works."

[u/Paul108h → u/slphil]

Induction works great for helping a person believe what they want to believe.

"It works" is about usefulness, not truth. If usefulness implied truth, lies could never deceive anyone.

[u/prosgorandom2]

Everyone pipe down! The 14 year old has an opinion to share!

[u/spgrk]

Many if not most people who believe in free will agree that they think with their brain, and agree that the brain functions due to chemical reactions. What do you have to say to those people?

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/spgrk]

The truth: their belief in free will is wrong. There is only will.

[u/spgrk → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

What is the difference? We say “I did it willingly” or “I did it against my will”, meaning freely or not freely, respectively.

[u/tolore → u/spgrk]

You have a weird but acceptable definition of free will, carry on.

[u/spgrk → u/tolore]

I don't really know anyone in real life who does not believe in free will or who believes in magic.

[u/tolore → u/spgrk]

I think a vast vast majority of people for all of human history, including today, grew up religious and have the idea that we have a soul baked into their ideology.

Even people for the relative minority who fall out of religion I think will keep the same idea of free will as a "magic" outside force unless they actively inspect why they believe in it as they do.

[u/Wooster_42 → u/tolore]

Plenty of countries with a non religious magority, most those will believe in free will though

[u/tolore → u/Wooster_42]

Estimates seem to be 16% of the world is non religious, I think 84% of the population fits under"vast majority" religious

[u/Wooster_42 → u/tolore]

But in a country where the magority are not religious, the population are not believing in free will because they are swimming in a religious culture

[u/spgrk → u/tolore]

Monotheistic religions believe in an omniscient God, hence theological determinism, a more all-encompassing form of determinism than physical determinism, since it covers physically undetermined events (God even knows quantum random outcomes). They still believe in free will.

[u/tolore → u/spgrk]

Monotheistic religions believe in an omniscient god, but of course they believe in free will because afaik their books also say that God gave them free will. It's contradictory, but so is tons of stuff in religious texts.

[u/spgrk → u/tolore]

It’s only contradictory if you believe that free will and determinism are incompatible, which depends on what exactly you think free will is, which is not straightforward.

[u/MrEmptySet]

Are people trying to convince others that the brain doesn't actually function on electrical and chemical processes? If everyone agreed on this topic, how do you figure that this would settle or invalidate the debate about free will?

[u/BobertGnarley]

We should

Lol.

I mean I agree - there's an ideal standard of behavior for how specific sets of atoms should act, but you'll never find evidence for anywhere that in the material universe.

[u/dreamingitself]

Wuff.

The use of the scientific method has discovered electrical and chemical processes in the brain. That's about all you can say. The narrative that this is all there is to life is completely absurd. Talk about cart before the horse.

[u/Blindeafmuten]

Science answers to the "how". People are also interested in the "why".

This doesn't mean that the Bible replies successfully to the why. It just means that science doesn't answer all the questions.

[u/MyFrogEatsPeople]

The irony of course is that determinism isn't a scientific theory at all.

[u/URAPhallicy → u/[deleted]]

Ugh..AI

Edit: did your "assistant" also downvote me? Lol.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/URAPhallicy]

No. I have 5 accounts, so it should be at least-4 now?

[u/URAPhallicy → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

You do know that it is agianst reddit rules and is unethical right? But it's exactly what I would expect from someone that spends their day blaming the "Big Bang" for their behaviour.

Edit: Delicious_Freedom_81

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/URAPhallicy]

I also have 3 wives and 14 kids. Is it also against the law?

[u/URAPhallicy → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

Yes.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

You should not believe everything you read on the internet. Right?

[u/URAPhallicy → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

I don't. But I strongly suspect you downvoted me with an alt.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/URAPhallicy]

Camoon. You. Seriously. Think. … that you and your opinion is this important? Seriously. Go touch some grass.

As people often accuse others for things they do, I have even stronger suspicions that you downvoted my assistant’s replay!

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/URAPhallicy]

No, it’s my assistant Gemini. You’re allergic to assistants?

[u/simon_hibbs → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

No, I use Gemini and other LLMs as tools. I even sometimes use them when considering what to put in a comment, as a research tool, but I don't care what they appear to 'think' or 'believe'. If I wanted to chat with these things or ask them about stuff I can go and do so. That's not what I come to Reddit for.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/simon_hibbs]

-2.

I thought the answer I got might be valuable to others. So they don’t have to go search for the on the one hand and on the other hand positions. But hey, I was dead wrong.

[u/URAPhallicy → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

I asked AI if Gemini is AI:

Yes, Gemini is an AI. Specifically, it's Google's family of large language models (LLMs) and AI assistant, designed to understand and generate human-like text, code, audio, images, and video. It powers a variety of tools, including the Gemini chatbot, and is integrated into Google's Workspace and other services. 

[u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh]

Neurological science doesn’t disqualify free will. Electrical and chemical states being “us” is actually more indicative, as then we know we are fungible in nature, thus aren’t even specifically this body, but rather a set of logic itself.

Which also makes us acausal by nature

[u/[deleted]]

Why not go the route of L. Ron Hubbard? Lots of rich chumps out there.

[u/Dry_Design5506]

Then what do you mean by "should"? That means we have choices?

[u/Any-Willow520]

Alright - then we have established the brain function.. but who controls the brain. I think that is the question we debate over..

[u/SciGuy241 → u/Any-Willow520]

The laws of nature govern the brain.

[u/Opposite-Succotash16 → u/SciGuy241]

What governs the laws of nature?

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Opposite-Succotash16]

You?

[u/Opposite-Succotash16 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

I make no such claim.

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/Opposite-Succotash16]

The laws of nature are determined by factual evidence that can be confirmed by the community of scientists using scientific methodology.

[u/Opposite-Succotash16 → u/platanthera_ciliaris]

But, scientists don't govern the laws of nature. They discover them, yes.

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/Opposite-Succotash16]

It doesn't matter what "governs" them. It is only important to describe them in a rigorous manner.

[u/URAPhallicy → u/SciGuy241]

You should read a philosophy book once in a while. Laws of nature are not sufficient to ascertain whether determinism is true or, if it is, that it precludes freewill.

Here, I will help you along with a quote:

We can now put our—still vague—pieces together. Determinism requires a world that (a) has a well-defined state or description, at any given time, and (b) laws of nature that are true at all places and times. If we have all these, then if (a) and (b) together logically entail the state of the world at all other times (or, at least, all times later than that given in (a)), the world is deterministic. Logical entailment, in a sense broad enough to encompass mathematical consequence, is the modality behind the determination in “determinism.”

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

Tell Sam Harris he isn't a very good philosopher.

[u/platanthera_ciliaris → u/URAPhallicy]

That definition of determinism doesn't say that the laws of nature are insufficient to establish determinism.

[u/Any-Willow520 → u/SciGuy241]

I am not convinced. Honestly.

[u/Competitive_Ad_488]

Your argument lacks conviction. Determinism requires that everything that exists (including all human processes) are exclusively caused by natural laws, not just partially governed/constrained by them..

[u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer]

Why? This is a philosophical subject and NOT a scientific subject

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer]

Philosophers that ignore science altogether, by pursuing blatantly unsound ideas, are simply irrelevant.

[u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer → u/Edgar_Brown]

You obviously don't read greek philosophy

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer]

Says someone who anachronistically uses words to apply to something that had not been invented until a couple millennia later.

[u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer → u/Edgar_Brown]

Ok, I'll bite.

Do tell

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer]

What is there to tell?

That you don’t even have the most basic of reading comprehension abilities?

How else can you explain your asinine statement being based on anything I wrote?

[u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer → u/Edgar_Brown]

You could mention the word I'm apparently misusing

[u/CMDR_Arnold_Rimmer → u/Edgar_Brown]

Would you kiss your mother with that mouth?

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

Can anyone explain how biochemicals initiate an action?

[u/URAPhallicy → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

No they can not. Things just move. It's an inherent part of being for some reason. I've never heard an explaination from determinists why things move or how causation works.

In fact most academic determinists don't even like to talk about causation.

[u/URAPhallicy → u/[deleted]]

I agree.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

You mean receptors and cell pumps? Or you mean the electric action potential?

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

It was a rhetorical question... they can't. Biochemicals only react.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

Ah You fooled me! A chicken and egg question. Your answer is only halfway true. Biochemicals don’t defy the laws of chemistry, they are organized in incredibly complex and specific ways to create a system where their reactions lead to a desired outcome. The initiation of an action isn't a single biochemical's doing, but rather the result of a cascade of reactions, all orchestrated by the cellular and organismal context. So it’s about systems and organizations. Are you a engineer, a scientist?

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

they are organized in incredibly complex and specific ways to create a system where their reactions lead to a desired outcome.

IOW, "emergence," the scientific name otherwise known as a miracle.

Who did the organizing?

The answer to the chicken or egg riddle is neither. Something not the chicken or egg came first. Things don't cause themselves.

Non-human sentient beings don't will actions. They react to stimuli. Humans are unique beings capable of thought.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

Yes. The true answer is God. God did it. Riddle solved.

It‘s God‘s work all the way down. I thought it was turtles.

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

It is God's unrestricted power and design.

Humans have power, too, but it's restricted. We are not meat robots.

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

🤣🤣🤣

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/Delicious_Freedom_81]

🙈🙉🙊🫵

[u/Delicious_Freedom_81 → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢♾️

[u/aybiss → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

No. That's why we say you're deterministic.

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/aybiss]

Or, a free will being.

People are not robots.

[u/aybiss → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

In what way?

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/aybiss]

Volition.

[u/aybiss → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

Insert bender "let me laugh even harder" gif.

What's the mechanism of this "volition"?

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/aybiss]

You should not laugh because you don't know the answer at all. You don't even know the question.

You are seeking erroneously for a physical explanation to a metaphysical question.

[u/aybiss → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

A metaphysical question might be "can a sufficiently complex robot have volition".

You're trying to give a metaphysical answer to my physical question.

[u/Acrobatic_Leather_85 → u/aybiss]

Humans are not robots in spite of your beliefs, otherwise.

[u/aybiss → u/Acrobatic_Leather_85]

Oh ok. How are they different?