Randomness is not control!

[Simon says...]

Time and time again, the existence of idealistic free will, is argued for by using indeterminism as a proof. Determinism directly contradicts idealistic free will, because whilst idealistic free will claims that you are free from the causal chain of events and thus have control over your actions, determinism says that nothing is free from that chain, not even human cognition. As such it is thought that if indeterminism is true then idealistic free will is true also.

But there is something everyone is forgetting in that argument. Freedom from the caual chain of events, does not give you control over your actions, and control over your actions is part of idealistic free will. The mistake is thinking, "I am free from there causal chain, therefore I am in control", this is not so. Why? Because all indeterminism gives us, is the existence of randomness in the universe (i.e. freedom from having a cause, in other words freedom from a reason for being the way that it is). Randomness is not control.

If I toss a coin, it may land on heads and it may land on tails. If the universe is deterministic, then essentially words like "can" or "might" are no longer metaphysical terms but epistemelogical, probability as a whole becomes a way of expressing and quantifying knowledge or belief that an event has or will occur. So whilst in a deterministic universe, a coin "might" land on tails, if it lands on heads, it was still, never going to land on tails, but, we didn't know that, and so the probability is still valid. In other words we use probability to fill the gaps of uncertainity, not because it is causless or random, we simply don't know everything that is going on, if we did we could calculate all the outcomes from now on.

But if I toss a coin and the universe is indeterministic, then "can" and "might" are more a metaphyiscal phenomenon than merely a prediction of outcomes. It lands on tails, but if I rewind time and toss run that event again, it might this time land on heads. This is because, essentially, nothing caused it to land on tails rather than heads. For example, when I toss a coin I ask someone, "why did it land on tails rather than heads?" and he says "no reason, its just random." So what indeterminism gives us is the existence of things happening for no reason, i.e. randomness.

Randomness is not control, if your behaviour is free from the causal chaim in this fashion, i.e. idealistic free will, that means you cannot have control over the outcomes, because they are random. To control the outcome is to purposely direct it, in other words to make a thing happen that you want to happen, that suits your purpose, your intent. What is intent? Intent, (at least in legal terms) is the planning and desire to perform an act, this is by no means contradicted by determinism, infact deterministically your desires are caused, which in then cause your intent, which then cause your actions.

Free will only works in the sense of freedom "to" do something, as apposed to the more idealistic freedom "from". If you have freedom "from" that is not control, but if you have freedom "to" which is often the case where determinism is true or not, then that can be.

[setelement]

With in free will we will still have control but only over our action and all other internal things that go on. Indeterminacy shows us that we have no control over the external world. It is because of consciousness that our internal world is not random, and the probabilistic model can only be considered after taking a persons past experiences with similar situation but this is still a somewhat of a deterministic frame for them to approach from. The reason why consciousness still fits inside the indeterminacy picture and avoids the whole side of randomness is that at any given moment in our lives we are presented with situations that lead to many different outcomes. We make the choice that we believe to best suit us at that time. Yes it is true that this choice is based on the external world of events that surround us and how we interpret them, but this is where free will and determinism find their separation. For we as conscious thinkers are not subject to simply view a situation the same way all the time. Our interpretations are a very fluid thing in this world also making them a very special thing.

Also determinism doesn't appears to work in a utilitarian frame, because if that were true then wouldn't similar societies react similarly if everything was deterministic. They don't. All we need do is look at our own country we will see a cornucopia of different reaction to the same events.
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7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

-Wittgenstein

[Simon says...]

Hold on a minute, so you are saying that if everything is deterministic, therefore everyone should react the same way to a given stimulus? That's not necessarily true at all! Everyone has unique experiances, and also a unique genetic code, so its not suprising that we react different, that has little or nothing to do with indeterminism.

[wanabe]

One must be knowledgeable of the chain of events in order to gain free will. The more knowledgeable; the more free will on can have.

Randomness is not control, but it allows for the opportunity of control.

If you toss a coin; but you do not have to toss the coin. Nor does it have to land; and it may land on its side. As for why it landed or did not land in a particular way. It starts with how it is flipped, then the environment it is flipped in, and what it lands on. In addition to the properties of that particular coin from the time it is flipped to the time it lands. This is all contingent on a person flipping the coin first and foremost, and that takes will.

Freedom from, and freedom to, are fleeting. They change as everything does (this is key). One may put them selves in a position more likely to give them selves freedom from, by using their freedom to.
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The Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, And Help All Others To Do So. Fear is weakness leaving the mind.

[Simon says...]

[wanabe]

Not everything begins with choice. There was a time before consciousness, before life; conciseness happened out of that by chance and probability(before life the ability to make absolutes out of some thing existed; with life came random, and will). It's not circular, that is far too simple a chain was much better. More akin to chain-male; choice is when the chain moves, and it does move; things always change. Not always will there be the opportunity for choice however, as I said fleeting.

[setelement]

[James S Saint]

[Meleagar]

The problem is that the O.P. has created a false dichotomy between "determinism" and "randomness". Just because one can only imagine a binary state (like: black & white) and system of a mixture of the two (grayscale), doesn't mean that the universe is in fact limited to combinations of black and white.

Those with free will understand (by direct experience) that another commodity exists: deliberacy, which is not determined, nor is it random. It is deliberate. Color exists, rendering your black & white dichotomy false.

That some cannot understand it, or cannot experience it, is of no more factual relevance than someone who cannot perceive color insisting that it cannot possibly exist because the universe can only be experienced or explained in terms of black, white, or mixtures thereof.

Insisting that one explain color in terms of black and white, or to show how color is not a mixture of black and white, is a logical fallacy; you can't prove or even argue that color exists by referring to black and white because it is as primal a state of observation as black and white.

Also, as I've already shown in other posts, the argument that only deterministic or random events occur renders one's argument incoherent, because they have no deliberate means of attempting to make or discern true statements; statements are either determined or random or some mixture, and as such have no meaningful value. Random statements are incoherent; determined statements are just the product of sequences of causal forces and cannot have any deliberate correspondence to truth.
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http://spiritualintelligentdesign.blogspot.com/

[James S Saint]

Randomness is doesn't actually exist at all. It is just a misunderstanding. So if you are saying that free-will is somewhere between real truth and misunderstanding, well, I couldn't disagree with that.

[Belinda]