Identical situations create identical outcomes?

[StrictlyLogical]

Anyone care to take on my post at 70 with a diligent considered response?

[Eiuol]

Therefore if we managed to time warp the entire world back five years, I expect you'd say that every single person would do exactly the same things -- leading up to this moment, and the exact words I'm "choosing" to construct this very sentence. Thus, if five years ago someone had said, "Everything that will be five years from now is already determined, and no one has the power to change it," I guess we'd have to say that this was basically correct.

I just don't see how you're answering my viewpoint even. That I wouldn't want to differently doesn't mean I am compelled or dragged along. Think of it this way:

Suppose I decide to build a skyscraper. As a rational person, I determine that the best option is to build in downtown Manhattan, I'll do that. San Diego, Detroit, or even Brooklyn, just won't do. Downtown is ideal as a view, and it is also practical. By all my reasoning, and rational standards, I make my decision finalized. Downtown is the one right answer. By considering all my knowledge and evidence, all other answers are wrong. If you ask me to wait a week before finalizing, but I know nothing will change with more time, I will make the same decision. As a rational person, I wouldn't make a different decision. I could change my mind, but why would I? At least we can say rational people wouldn't change their mind.

Formalized: Subject S1 chooses option A by method M. If M is rational, then we say S1 is rational, allowing S1 to pick a rational option, of which there is only one. If S1 wants to be rational, he wouldn't want to do otherwise.

I imagine you'd say "I agree, but S1 still could choose option B. You still could build in San Diego". That is true! Option B is irrational. That means I must've used a different method, a method a rational person would not use. As a rational agent, I can say I won't take any action other than A. I won't willfully be irrational.

Do you agree so far? It's a step before randomness or non-rational people, but do you at least agree about rational people?

[dream_weaver]

Anyone care to take on my post at 70 with a diligent considered response?

I'll bite.

 

How does a hypothetical consideration differ from an arbitrary assertion?

 

I would submit that it does not. It may be a tool to lend clarification to a point, but it is not a substitute as/for a valid premise in a logical argument.

Edited February 2, 2015 by dream_weaver

[DonAthos]

I just don't see how you're answering my viewpoint even.

You're quoting my response to your statement that your claims do not constitute determinism. I was demonstrating that it does, by extrapolating your claims out per my understanding of them. What part of what I'd said do you take issue with? What did I say that was incorrect?

 

Suppose I decide to build a skyscraper. As a rational person, I determine that the best option is to build in downtown Manhattan, I'll do that. San Diego, Detroit, or even Brooklyn, just won't do. Downtown is ideal as a view, and it is also practical. By all my reasoning, and rational standards, I make my decision finalized. Downtown is the one right answer. By considering all my knowledge and evidence, all other answers are wrong. If you ask me to wait a week before finalizing, but I know nothing will change with more time, I will make the same decision. As a rational person, I wouldn't make a different decision. I could change my mind, but why would I? At least we can say rational people wouldn't change their mind.

Formalized: Subject S1 chooses option A by method M. If M is rational, then we say S1 is rational, allowing S1 to pick a rational option, of which there is only one. If S1 wants to be rational, he wouldn't want to do otherwise.

I imagine you'd say "I agree, but S1 still could choose option B. You still could build in San Diego". That is true! Option B is irrational. That means I must've used a different method, a method a rational person would not use. As a rational agent, I can say I won't take any action other than A. I won't willfully be irrational.

Do you agree so far? It's a step before randomness or non-rational people, but do you at least agree about rational people?

Do I agree about rational people? Meaning what? That rational people unerringly employ rational methodology to select one option out of many, which is therefore a "rational option," and all other options thereby become "irrational," and proof of some other method -- some method that a rational person would not use?

There's a lot to sort out there. But let's cut the suspense and I'll quickly say no, I don't agree. I'll expand upon what I mean by "no" presently.

You're building your skyscraper and you've decided on Manhattan, for the reasons given. But now you have to choose a specific site, and there are a few available options which fall within the general area you've picked. None of them is "ideal"; each site has something to recommend it, and some drawback. While you could spend a lot of time analyzing each -- and certainly you judiciously spend what time you can -- the truth is that you cannot take forever to do so. There are limits to what you're able to do, prior to making some decision, in terms of time, energy, expenditure, etc.

Suppose site A has the advantage of being the best price; site B will offer the best view; and site C is the best situated in terms of proximity to services/subway/etc.

You weigh these factors as best as you're able and you make some decision. We'll say you pick site B. Is site B the one, singular "rational" option? Must you conclude that "all other answers are wrong"? Not at all. It could be, and you can recognize this at the time, that if you spent a week more weighing your options, you might come to some other conclusion. You also recognize that other rational people (who also use some rational methodology) could easily come to other conclusions. Equally reasonable conclusions.

What I think you want me to say, and what I will agree is correct, is that a rational person is not going to act against his best judgement, and that it would be irrational to choose site A or C in the face of previously having decided that site B is the best choice. But really, the question of volition is not "what does one do when one has come to some conclusion about what he should do"? Rather it is the process of coming to that conclusion in the first place.

We have three suitable options and each of those options has some reason to pick it over the others. We're agreed that we will not decide contra our best judgement -- but how do we come to that judgement? It could be that one factor clearly outstrips the others of itself, or due to some other circumstance; for instance, if we are low on starting investment funds, that might tip the scales towards site A... but it is also possible that it is hard to assess the relative value of any of the three options. So hard that it is not clear that there is one "correct" pick, per our current understanding or ability to discern, given the further constraints of our present context. Sometimes we must simply decide.

In the case of having selected site B, I think that you might say, "See? You picked B because it offered the best view. Therefore if you were in that situation again, you would always pick B, because that's the decision your methodology would lead you to, every time -- you'll pick the site with the best view." But it is not the case that having the best view motivated me to pick B in a way that having the best price could not have motivated me to pick A -- it was not the only "rational" answer. Instead, it is the act of picking site B which makes "having the best view" the reason which becomes, almost in retrospect, motivational. Similarly, if I picked sites A or C, it would still be true that "I had a reason" for my choice, as having some reason is always necessary to act; but the reasons do not themselves force my decision, or impress upon me their "rightness" as opposed to the others. Rather, it is my decision which elevates one of those reasons; it is the act of deciding that makes one of the choices "correct," insofar as it is my decision.

To try to put this another way, we might have reasons for any number of actions. But having reasons is not sufficient for action; to take action requires both reasoning and an act of will. Between three choices, each might have reasons -- good reasons which appeal to rational men -- but the one which gets acted upon depends on which we will, and that -- the act of willing, which selects from among potential reasons and commits one of them to action -- is "decision," is volition, and is our unique power to alter the course of our lives.

And this... this is probably the extent of my ability to describe what I believe to be true about volition. If it fails to convince, I'll take solace in the knowledge that you were fated to disagree with me from the start.

Edited February 2, 2015 by DonAthos

[aleph_1]

DonAthos,

 

May I ask one point of clarrification? If according to my values I weigh each of the building sites as 20% desirable, 50% desireable and 30% desirable, I could make my selection as follows: I could make a pie chart with the given area proportions and attach a spinner. Then I could spin the dial and wherever the arrow fell I would choose to build. Would you classify this method as rational but not volitional? Is it irrational?

[Spiral Architect]

Anyone care to take on my post at 70 with a diligent considered response?

 

Free will exists.  A deterministic philosophy is a contradiction in terms since advanced knowledge presupposes freewill.  

[DonAthos]

DonAthos,

 

May I ask one point of clarrification? If according to my values I weigh each of the building sites as 20% desirable, 50% desireable and 30% desirable, I could make my selection as follows: I could make a pie chart with the given area proportions and attach a spinner. Then I could spin the dial and wherever the arrow fell I would choose to build. Would you classify this method as rational but not volitional? Is it irrational?

I think that if you could understand the available choices in terms of percentages, and that one option was "twenty percent more desirable" than the next best option, then you have already decided upon whatever there was to decide between them. So if you find yourself shading that pie chart such that one option is as large as the other two combined, that's probably the one to go with. (If a person believes that one option is clearly better than the others, but remains unsatisfied that this ought to be the choice, that would indicate to me that the issues need to be explored in greater depth, if possible, before casting one's lot.)

Are there cases where, after struggling with some difficult decision without apparent resolution, a person might turn to external means to "decide" for him? Perhaps. Batman's Two-Face is famous for it.

As for classifying this method, it's certainly volitional, both in that a man would need to decide to resort to such a thing, and then he must further commit himself to the result (or against it), whatever it might be. I don't think it's necessarily irrational... though I would not expect a person to want to do this, except in the case, perhaps, of some trivial decision. I believe that for most important matters, we want to think to the extent we can, reason to the extent we can, and then commit ourselves to a plan.

[StrictlyLogical]

DonAthos,

 

May I ask one point of clarrification? If according to my values I weigh each of the building sites as 20% desirable, 50% desireable and 30% desirable, I could make my selection as follows: I could make a pie chart with the given area proportions and attach a spinner. Then I could spin the dial and wherever the arrow fell I would choose to build. Would you classify this method as rational but not volitional? Is it irrational?

 

Sorry I have to jump in here.

 

When one substitutes one own decision with the flip of a coin or the spin of a wheel, in very real sense the decision IS being abdicated.  To the extent a person allows something other than himself to make his decisions, he is simply NOT making the decisions.

 

Now, that said, his "decision to allow" the external entity, person, coin or whatever to rule him in his choice, IS wrong, ethically (not in his rational self-interest).  Whether or not making a conscious decision to do something which IS wrong, is irrational or not, would depend upon whether he knows it is wrong or not.

 

SO, an Objectivist, who decides to abdicate his sovereign authority to make a decision by making himself obey the toss of a coin is being irrational, to the extent he knows it is not in his rational self interest to abdicate his decision making in such a way.

 

This is not to say that anyone's internal decision making functions like the spinning wheel or not, I simply want to remind readers that relying on a spinning wheel simply means one is not directly making the decisions for himself, although he has chosen to let something (or someone?) else make them for him.

Edited February 2, 2015 by StrictlyLogical

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Anyone care to take on my post at 70 with a diligent considered response?

I don't have a million-foot-long understanding to post.

I know what I believe and why (and I've posted it before) but I can clearly see that you believe the opposite, which I can't account for.

After all of this, the upshot of it remains that my concept of volition seems 'just obvious' to me; I cannot understand how you could fail to see it, nor can I see whatever it is that you keep referring to. I can't connect the thing you describe to anything can recall ever witnessing or experiencing. Since I have no referent for your concept of volition, I think we are using the same vocabulary to discuss two fundamentally different things. I could post a million-foot-long description of what I'm referring to, but I suspect that I would effectively be trying to describe a color to the blind.

I know that "volition is introspectively self-evident"; I know what this means, and all I can say is that if 'volition' means the thing you're describing then it just isn't.

I've been thinking about ways in which we can actually communicate with each other about this and I'll be ready to share them soon.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Therefore if we managed to time warp the entire world back five years, I expect you'd say that every single person would do exactly the same things -- leading up to this moment, and the exact words I'm "choosing" to construct this very sentence. Thus, if five years ago someone had said, "Everything that will be five years from now is already determined, and no one has the power to change it," I guess we'd have to say that this was basically correct.

No; that would mean that our minds are meaningless; they are influenced by nothing and affect nothing, but are just sort of 'along for the ride'. That would be the Hegelian sort of determinism that Eiuol was denying in his post about methods and consciousness (and also what he means by unqualified 'determinism').

I just don't see how you're answering my viewpoint even.

If 'determinism' means anything within the context of this discussion, it's that "we must, by this rationale, say that there is one particular path ahead, and no individual has the power to deviate from that path". If not then we are left without a word to denote what our disagreement even is.

The label we use is meaningless but without any label at all we cannot convey what we think, which renders this entire thread pointless.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Harrison Danneskjold

[DonAthos]

SO, an Objectivist, who decides to abdicate his sovereign authority to make a decision by making himself obey the toss of a coin is being irrational, to the extent he knows it is not in his rational self interest to abdicate his decision making in such a way.

I disagree that this is always the case, or that this is fundamentally an "abdication" as you're characterizing it. I don't typically toss a coin in any event, but there are times when my wife might pick up fast food on her way home from the store, and where -- when she asks me what I'd like -- I tell her that I'm happy with whatever she decides to grab.

In some sense, perhaps, I'm "abdicating my sovereign authority" (at least as much as I would if I rolled a die or flipped a coin), but in another sense I'm making a firm decision -- to trust in my wife's judgement and to live with the results.

Maybe you don't find these approaches analogous? I believe that they are, but I'm open to argument.

 

No; that would mean that our minds are meaningless; they are influenced by nothing and affect nothing, but are just sort of 'along for the ride'. That would be the Hegelian sort of determinism that Eiuol was denying in his post about methods and consciousness (and also what he means by unqualified 'determinism').

I don't know that my extrapolation of Eiuol's argument means that our minds "are influenced by nothing and affect nothing"; I grant that, given Eiuol's position, our minds are essentially "one more domino in the chain" -- influenced, yes, and affecting, yes, just as a domino is influenced by the domino behind it and will subsequently affect the domino to the fore. But what our minds do not have in this scenario -- and thus what we do not have in this scenario -- is any particular "agency" apart from a domino. No power which could sensibly be described as "free will." The mind, in this view, is just a complicated algorithm.

So does my extrapolation from his argument not follow? If his argument is that any given decision, from five years ago (or at any point) would proceed in precisely the same way if reproduced a million times, because given the context in which that decision is made, no other decision is possible (i.e. metaphysically), then isn't that true for each and every actor, and each and every decision, and each and every instance of a human mind focusing or remaining unfocused (which I believe is Rand's root for volition)?

How can we say "only one 'choice' can metaphysically proceed from any given context" without then drawing the conclusion that, therefore, we are essentially without choice? Given Eiuol's view, it is as though a computer claimed to "choose" the results it puts out, despite the fact that we have a window into its programming and recognize that every single output is utterly predictable, and strictly per its programming.

Whatever we might mean by "volition," that's not it.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

I have a few premises.

1: The actions of any entity are "determined" or caused by some context IF it must always act that way within that context and cannot do so beyond it.

2: A causal relationship is implied, for any body of knowledge, when it contains observations of an entity behaving a certain way under a certain set of circumstances, but none of that entity doing so outside of that set of circumstances.

3: A previously-discovered causal link allows one to make temporal inferences; to predict the consequent from the antecedent, as venture capitalists do, and vice versa, as archeologists do.

4: If some abstract, omniscient being were to infer a causal relationship, in perfect accordance with #2 (since it has an infinite attention span), any subsequent inference from that knowledge would ALWAYS yield correct predictions.

Now, whatever their actual relation to reality, can we firstly agree that these do not contradict any major Objectivist principle?

[Harrison Danneskjold]

So does my extrapolation from his argument not follow? If his argument is that any given decision, from five years ago (or at any point) would proceed in precisely the same way if reproduced a million times, because given the context in which that decision is made, no other decision is possible (i.e. metaphysically), then isn't that true for each and every actor, and each and every decision, and each and every instance of a human mind focusing or remaining unfocused (which I believe is Rand's root for volition)?

Yes, it does. However. . .

"Thus, if five years ago someone had said, 'Everything that will be five years from now is already determined, and no one has the power to change it,' I guess we'd have to say that this was basically correct."

While someone on Earth may well have said exactly that, five years ago, the implication seems to be that they didn't. It seems to be a counterfactual scenario.

If so then no, I don't believe it follows from his ideas or mine.

We are affected by what we experience, every day. We can choose how we handle those effects, (whether fated to 'choose' it, or not) but not whether or not to be affected. So if someone were to go back in time and say something that hadn't been said before then I think there would be sweeping differences; no less than if they'd gone back in time and shot Isaac Newton.

In fact, I don't think it would be possible after that for things to unfold in exactly the same way.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Given Eiuol's view, it is as though a computer claimed to "choose" the results it puts out, despite the fact that we have a window into its programming and recognize that every single output is utterly predictable, and strictly per its programming.

Well. . . What about us?

What if we could scan peoples' brains, identify what they were doing and show it all happening in real-time? Jurors could literally peek into the THOUGHTS of the accused; voters into politicians'; wives into husbands.

I don't suggest the idea as evidence of anything at all, but I'd like to know how you feel about it.

[Eiuol]

What part of what I'd said do you take issue with? What did I say that was incorrect?

That you insist on talking in terms of determinism when my view is not to be understood in terms of determinism or the standard tradition of analyzing free will vs determinism.  If anything Rand wasn't nuanced enough about explaining the identity of free will, but she was fine at showing how identity need not be a contradiction to free will and that free will is real. Your extrapolation leaves out causal mental states that I keep talking about - a will that makes a choice happen - and that I didn't argue against "choosing otherwise" at all, only that the "otherwise" doesn't mean we would really in fact will to choose anything besides what we will in the first place. I'm apparently stating a contradiction: A free will would only ever will to act one way. Except I'm not, or at least, I want to show how it isn't.

 

That rational people unerringly employ rational methodology to select one option out of many, which is therefore a "rational option," and all other options thereby become "irrational," and proof of some other method -- some method that a rational person would not use?

Well, yes, insofar as a person is rational in some instance if they employ rational methodology, they've succeeded in employing that methodology. Whether the person is always rational is not important, although it is possible. Part of rational methodology, per Objectivism, is to reach a single answer that is best within a specific context, that is, given ALL knowledge you have, the status of the world, all your evidence, etc. The idea here is that at least a person acting rationally would only ever make the one rational choice. From here, I want to show that -any- person who acts would only ever make one choice. But I want to work out the rational person case first.

I know time to decide is a factor, but I said this is a case where it won't be. Even if it were in this case, it doesn't matter. Maybe in a literal way, Manhattan or San Diego will be equally as good, but since you are pointing out specific ways to deal with time-limited scenarios, you're still working towards one answer. Other people may make different rational choices, or more time may alter your context, but if you take yourself as an individual, -you- have one rational answer. Or if you can't determine it in time, you'll use another method you don't usually use to reach an answer. Any other answer will be wrong or irrational.

To be clear, I agree that volition is about the process of coming to a conclusion. It involves an ability to give one answer, an ability to make a selection. If there is no will, nothing will happen. If nobody is home, nobody is doing anything as an act of will. For our thinking, a will is what allows us to make concepts and to be aware of perception. Focusing or not is part of it all. But if you would only make one choice, it doesn't negate any of that. If you always eat burritos or pancakes on Tuesday, depending on if it's an odd or even day. You could go against that rule, but if it really is how you decide what to eat on Tuesday, I know what you'll eat every Tuesday. The skyscraper is more complex, yet makes the same point: the methods used by a rational person is how I'd tell you what a rational person would do - keeping in mind I need to BE that person to be certain. Free will is still intact.

 

"To try to put this another way [...]"

I agree, my views don't contradict or preclude it. Your act of will makes the decision with reasons, evidence, preferences, biases, feeling alone, etc. Reasons here isn't supposed to be why you choose, but what was used to some extent in order to decide on one act. And if one is rational, and uses rational methodology, they will always make the same choice.

[DonAthos]

Yes, it does. However. . .

"Thus, if five years ago someone had said, 'Everything that will be five years from now is already determined, and no one has the power to change it,' I guess we'd have to say that this was basically correct."

While someone on Earth may well have said exactly that, five years ago, the implication seems to be that they didn't. It seems to be a counterfactual scenario.

If so then no, I don't believe it follows from his ideas or mine.

I wasn't suggesting (or meaning to imply) any counterfactual scenario; the literal meaning of what you've quoted was my intended meaning as well: if someone said this then, per Eiuol's arguments, we must say they were correct. It is the logical implication of Eiuol's view.

That this person would be indistinguishable from a determinist, though Eiuol continues to insist that this somehow is not determinism is... perhaps a matter for someone else to try to resolve. So I'll respond to this most recent post of his, but then leave it to your capable hands -- or that of others. I've said my piece and find that I am now repeating myself.

 

That you insist on talking in terms of determinism when my view is not to be understood in terms of determinism or the standard tradition of analyzing free will vs determinism.

Your arguments must be understood in terms of reality -- you don't have the power to set your own terms apart from that, or to say "it's not determinism... because I say it's not." Your views are determinist and they are contra volition (and I mean specifically the Objectivist view of volition, though I don't know of any other sensible kind), not because I say so, but because of what they entail.

 

I'm apparently stating a contradiction: A free will would only ever will to act one way.

Right. And what's further true of your view is that a "free will" would only ever "will" to act one way specifically due to the context it finds itself in -- which is the sum of the past, including past "mental states," etc. We can walk a person back, in this manner, through the foundation and formulation of his methodology and philosophy, to his very infancy. To before that. All the way back to the Big Bang. Every "decision" begets a new context, after all, and in that new context, only one "choice" is possible for every actor, just as only one physical state is possible for every domino.

I don't think that there is any word for this apart from "determinism." What's more, I don't think we need one. Determinism works just fine.

And for those who don't want to read back in the thread, here again is Peikoff directly stating the opposite view:

 

“Volitional” means selected from two or more alternatives that were possible under the circumstances, the difference being made by the individual’s decision, which could have been otherwise.

When he says that there are two or more alternatives "possible under the circumstances," he means the precise opposite of Eiuol's view, which is that only one alternative is "possible under the circumstances."

Eiuol's arguments are furthermore incompatible with Rand's essay "The Metaphysical and the Man-Made" and they obviate the need for even drawing such a distinction.

And in anticipation of being accused of further misrepresentation, here is Eiuol agreeing that human choice is as a computer running a program, though with greater complexity (or, as here, "depth"):

 

Hmm. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Essentially, yes, keeping in mind consciousness adds substantially more depth to that process.

Volition is not a function, though complex or "deep." Free will, volition, choice, agency, however it's termed, is something more and moreover, something different. It is not the case that there is only one (metaphysically) possible output for every input. Or, if that is true, then volition as Objectivism argues for does not exist, whatever other implications that might hold. We are then but dominoes with delusions of grandeur.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

If we imagine a pair of perfectly deterministic computers playing chess against each other, while we know that only one of them can win and that the outcome of the game has already been decided, we could not reliably predict the outcome from the very first move; there are simply too many variables; we would have to wait and watch the game progress. And we could differentiate pivotal moves from mundane ones.

For example, if one of the computers traded a pawn for the others' queen, we wouldn't sit passively and say "well, it was inevitable"; we would say "NOW things are picking up!"- we would identify that step, in this sequence of events, as more important; we would be sensibly conceptualizing it in terms of alternatives and *real* changes, despite the fact that it was inevitable.

And not only would that way of conceptualizing it be sensible, it would be cognitively useful (in fact, necessary in order to play chess); it would allow us to grasp the role of our own actions in the world around us.

Now, you could say that view reduces Libertarian volition to an illusion (and you'd be right) but I don't think it really matters.

Who cares whether it was possible to do something differently in the past (which can't be done differently now, anyway)? Does it matter whether multiple moves are ACTUALLY possible to us, as long as we can make the one move that counts?

It doesn't seem to make us delusional dominoes, to me; I think it makes us the coolest kind of 'domino-type-thing' that exists, because we can look at the world around us in such an advanced way.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Eiuol]

And in anticipation of being accused of further misrepresentation, here is Eiuol agreeing that human choice is as a computer running a program, though with greater complexity (or, as here, "depth"):

Added depth here is so significant that we can distinguish it. What you wrote is a good way to put it. But it leaves out mental states! Traditionally, a determinist has NO causal role for mental states. So... please stop talking about whether it "really is" determinism, it only distorts what I'm saying, namely, by overlooking anything I said about a will. Anyway, you didn't comment at all on my added detail about the rational person case.

 

precise opposite of Eiuol's view, which is that only one alternative is "possible under the circumstances."

That's not my view! There is a metaphysical possibility, but no one would bother to do anything but one thing, ceteris paribus. That's it.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

There is a metaphysical possibility, but no one would bother to do anything but one thing, ceteris paribus. That's it.

If anyone would only do one thing, in one situation, then in what sense is anything else metaphysically possible?

[Eiuol]

It isn't contrary reality IF another option were selected. It seems that the big gap of understanding here is what "identical situation" means. Go through my examples and think about you would do. Go through your reasoning process and ask yourself why you would or would not act differently.

[Eiuol]

Don, I found a paper arguing against at least my rational person case. It is a paper not directed at free will discussions, but it does pay attention to epistemological points I've brought up.

 

http://www.princeton.edu/~tkelly/Evidence%20Can%20Be%20Permissive.pdf

[Harrison Danneskjold]

It isn't contrary reality IF another option were selected.

No; I get that. But if we already know that only one option WILL be selected, since only one method of selection will ultimately be used, then what is the intended meaning behind leaving the vestigial "if"?

Doesn't that multiply concepts beyond necessity?

Edit:

I've thought a lot about the parallels between consciousness and biological life. Since so much of this rides on the assumption that a determined decision is reducible to whatever external conditions determined it, I find myself wondering if metabolic actions can be coherently reduced to the actions of their constituent atoms, without reference to the organism as a whole.

Having not determined that yet, however, I fail to see the justification for that " if".

Edited February 7, 2015 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Eiuol]

No; I get that. But if we already know that only one option WILL be selected, since only one method of selection will ultimately be used, then what is the intended meaning behind leaving the vestigial

I can only explain metaphysical possibility so many times. I guess I can describe it as information theory would: a human has the greatest amount of information entropy that we know of. It could go in so many ways, but it would still go one way. A free will is a distinct part for some reason in order to get a plan of action to go through. I don't know why. I have explained the best I can how human thought is algorithmic - PLANS of action and reasoning. But it keeps getting lost as "it's just determinism!" by you and Don. Try expressing/paraphrasing my ideas by explicitly referring to a mental life and consciousness.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Eiuol

[Harrison Danneskjold]

I can only explain metaphysical possibility so many times. I guess I can describe it as information theory would: a human has the greatest amount of information entropy that we know of. It could go in so many ways, but it would still go one way.

I think you're looking at it as more complicated than it really is.

If we assume that "metaphysically possible" means possible within ANY body of knowledge (even some abstract body of total, omniscient knowledge) then wouldn't that make it such an easier problem to grapple with? You don't need to introduce concepts from information theory, then, nor find some secondary meaning of "could"; it allows us to think and talk about metaphysical possibility in a simpler way (which makes it a better way, in my mind).

If we were then to reject any outcome of any situation, except for one, as metaphysically impossible, I think the meaning of that becomes equally clear-cut and simple as well.

[Eiuol]

If we assume that "metaphysically possible" means possible within ANY body of knowledge (even some abstract body of total, omniscient knowledge) then wouldn't that make it such an easier problem to grapple with? You don't need to introduce concepts from information theory, then, nor find some secondary meaning of "could"; it allows us to think and talk about metaphysical possibility in a simpler way (which makes it a better way, in my mind).

Already treating it that way. Information theory is not to prove my point, but to express my thought. There is no secondary meaning of could here. I'm driving at the importance of methods of thought being definite. Go back to post #90.