Grames

Determinism can be refuted without reference to free will. The determinist principle that each action entails a single possible consequent action is an arbitrary assertion that cannot be proven. Considered as a simple restatement of the causality principle determinism fails because it unjustifiably restricts what is possible. Unjustifiable, because philosophy can not be normative by specifying apriori what physics must discover. Philosophy can only specify what kind of thing is impossible, a contradiction. Determinism also invokes an infinite regress of causes unless there actually was a metaphysical first cause. But if determinism can have one first cause then it can have others and 'single possible consequent action' is a false premise. Kiekeben understands and agrees that determinism does not follow from causality. His chief complaint lies in this concluding passage: The point being that knowledge is impossible in a magical universe where any entity might do anything at any time, because any entity is always trivially "acting in accordance with its nature." This is the problem behind validating the methods of induction, and is the root of skepticism. Ayn Rand did not solve this problem so there is no official Objectivist response, but Leonard Peikoff claims to have done so in his lecture course Induction in Physics and Philosophy. My order has not yet arrived, so I don't know the proper response.

Thanks for your clarification, your point is valid. I should have emphasized that the fallacy of reification should be avoided: free will isn't going to be found as a thing in the brain because it is something the brain does. Reductionist dissection and analysis isn't going to find free will. Still, you have motivated me to write a paragraph addressing the metaphysical nature of free will. That which exists is neither true nor false, it simply is. Existence is the standard of truth in the sense that any idea which is true can be reduced to an existent (or relation among things that exist). What makes ideas metaphysically different and unmetaphysical is that they can be true or false. Free will, because it is the means by which we steer our thoughts correctly or incorrectly, is the cause of the 'true or false' nature of abstractions, the fallibility of knowledge. Free will then cannot itself be judged true or false but must be accepted as metaphysically given.

It is possible to value abstractions that don't exist. I prove it by pointing out that any and all things that come about by a long and complex process that involves planning and acting over long time scale is valuing an abstraction by acting to to make it a concrete. Examples would include getting an education, completing a project, the course of a career, taking a trip or building a house. Large civil engineering achievements such as bridges (Golden Gate Bridge) don't just take a long time to build, they are expected to stay in service and remain safe to operate for decades and possibly over a century. It is not possible to for a girl to truly love a potential daughter or son before they exist, but she can certainly value the potential, and act on a plan to have a child. She can even "fall in love with the idea" of having a family, although that equivocates on the precise meaning of the word "love". She can further speculate or assume that her children will have children of their own, and then value and act on that. "To value" and "to love" are not synonomous, but both can be applied to intangibles. Responsibility doesn't derive from value, it derives from causality. If you value someone you don't incur a responsibility toward them, you incur a responsibility toward yourself to act rationally and consistently, integrating that person into the rest of your values. Accepting responsibility means accepting the need to act, the performance of your actions, and the consequences of your actions are the only means to achieve values. Their is no "duty" in Objectivism only causality. If you want the effect then enact the cause. The only limit on how remote and abstract your chosen effect can be is your own limit in thinking and acting.

Who says its a negative effect? There is no such thing as an authority on this matter, there is just the relative costs of different technologies. Let the people decide. Up til now, nothing beats the cheapness of coal and oil, and the people vote with their wallets. If crude oil continues to raise in price then eventually some other thing will be cheaper and the world will change. There has been energy technology innovation, but none of it has been able to beat fossil fuel economics. The principle at work here is just "people minimize their expenses".

(Trying to avoid spoilers in my reply) No, it was eliminate. There is virtually no dialog at the end. Mike Terry climbs into the fighting ring and waves for the microphone to be lowered, but it turns out there is no need for a speech because of what happens next. I saw it at the mall cinema yesterday.

A small movie about integrity. Stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (the Alliance operative in Serenity) as a black belt jiu jitsu instructor Mike Terry in L.A. Life can be tough, and having to deal with unprincipled people only makes it tougher for him. But thats no reason to surrender. Interestingly, near the end of the film when Mike Terry comes to know fully in what he is participating, his first instinct is to withdraw. He gets a little "support" from a friend and finds a better way forward. Nothing wrong there, thats what friends are for. The ending is very understated yet powerful, it artfully eliminates a speech in favor of an action. Recommended.

Only "most" of the infants avoided the glass floor? Fear of heights. An automatized emotional reaction, like a reflex, is not knowledge. Instinct is not knowledge.

I already did in post #31 of this thread. To summarize, a mind can't exist without a body, a means of perceiving and interacting with the world. What elements of a body can be dispensed with, and what minimum requirements remain is not yet known. Beyond the notion that some body is required I have no theory on how much body is necessary. I emphasized the epistemological nature of free will so I could make the following point. Looking for how free will works as a scientific investigation is like investigating ideas scientifically. Ideas don't exist physically or metaphysically and neither does free will, so the pursuit is chasing a ghost. The 'single possibility for action' idea is not a necessary consequence of moving free will from metaphysics to epistemology. The idea is wrong on more fundamental terms. Determinism can be refuted without reference to free will. The determinist principle that each action entails a single possible consequent action is an arbitrary assertion that cannot be proven. Considered as a simple restatement of the causality principle determinism fails because it unjustifiably restricts what is possible. Unjustifiable, because philosophy can not be normative by specifying apriori what physics must discover. Philosophy can only specify what kind of thing is impossible, a contradiction. Determinism also invokes an infinite regress of causes unless there actually was a metaphysical first cause. But if determinism can have one first cause then it can have others and 'single possible consequent action' is a false premise. Well it wouldn't be very practical if the problems were serious, so I wonder what problems you have in mind. I have relied upon SEP Compatibilism as a background explanation of compatibilism. Because Objectivism denies the determinist premise of a single possible consequent action, and a rigorous denial of this premise was not listed as one of the compatibilist arguments, Objectivism is not compatibilism.

And by 'reason' here I think you mean by science, an investigation which is inherently materialistic, because you ask for 'evidence' of 'such a thing'. I would say that it is possible to create a mind (but not just with a 'computer') and it would necessarily have some free will in it to be recognizable as a mind. After all, our biological means of human reproduction is similar to nanotechnology. If people can have free will, then so can other suitably constructed entities. You are looking for free will in the wrong place. Free will is not a physical or metaphysical idea. Category error. That existence, consciousness and volition can not be analyzed is meant strictly in 'a philosophical way'. That is the context in which the statements are made and the only context in which they can be understood. The specific way in which they are philosophical is their epistemological content. By 'reason' you mean by science, an investigation which is inherently materialistic and reductionist. Epistemology is not a 'science' that can be so reduced, but that doesn't make it mystical. Aristotle wrote "All men by nature desire to know." This small statement is not just a meditation on human nature but also the nature of knowledge. The will to know is an epistemological first cause, not a metaphysical first cause. The will to know is not a metaphysical first cause because it does not make possible the existence of anything, existence is prior to and independent of consciousness. The will to know is an epistemological first cause because it makes possible any and all knowledge. Equating the 'will to know' with 'free will' is what Objectivism does. The mental freedom to direct your attention, to solve a problem or to simply be still and alert, or to do none of these things by not even focusing mentally, is the only true freedom. Added in edit: Objectivism duplicates this pattern in ethics. The will to live is an ethical first cause, because it makes possible any and all values.

The simplest interpretation of the 2012 business is that the mayan calendar does a rollover and must begin again. It is literally Y2K all over again but with a different calendar system. Nothing will happen, again. Business as usual, carry on.

I have more responses to your first big post. Intuition is never good enough, agreed. But when you introspect and identify an emotion you are feeling that is perception. When you introspect and perceive your power of choice, that is perception. A perception is 'evidence of the senses' and so certainly is good enough basis for accepting that which is perceived.

The brain is not enough to create a mind. Consciousness by definition is awareness of reality. Awareness requires being able to notice similarities and differences but a 'brain in a box' without realtime sensory inputs would not be aware of anything, not even itself. Furthermore, being aware and conscious but unable to take any action due to lack of a body is a hardship enough to drive an existing person insane, and enough of an obstacle to prevent formation of an artificial consciousness. A body provides the eyes, ears, and other senses, as well as the muscle power to move about and manipulate the world. A mind can't exist without a body, a means of perceiving and interacting with the world. So my objection is not that some extra non-material stuff has been left out, but that you need to add more material.

I forgot there was a premium forum, so I went to check it out to see if it was worth a buy in fee. I saw no new posts in the premium forum for the last 2 years? Not much of an incentive there. If it really is more active than that, then the forum is not actually read-only for all.

I would like to read a fuller treatment of your point 3. Do you realize how your point 3 formalizes and accepts the mind-body dichotomy, in asserting that a only a brain, or just a simulated brain is necessary for the existence of a mind?

If you are a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers you can download Chua's 1971 paper IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory, Memristor-The missing circuit element, Chua L.

Thank you for this post! First I'd heard of it. This is not just an invention, it is a breakthrough in theoretical treatment of electrical circuits! Physics and engineering textbooks must be rewritten to accomodate the new knowledge. Its a new integration of Hysterisis into passive circuit elements. EETimes covers the story with a 3 page article. The memristor (a word formed from memory and resistor) has a new physics explanation on Wikipedia. Chua postulated the existence of the memristor in 1971. This is the kind of progress for which Nobel prizes are awarded.

That is a fair enough summary. Inanimate objects exist, agreed. As the existence of living things is conditional, it is not much of a hypothetical to postulate a universe in which all livings things failed to stay alive. We could also add back in living beings that do not have free will, which would be all but the humans. What kind of crazy idea of free will could possibly be true if it violated causality? What do you think free will is? Where is the freedom? Are we talking about "freedom from" or "freedom to"? Freedom is generally a political idea meaning freedom from coercions by other people. Since there is no such thing as freedom from reality, freedom must have a very restricted meaning in metaphysics. In other words, man can be moved by factors within his control, his ideas and values selected prior to the present choice. Man chooses his causes, and so is both free (externally) and caused (internally). Furthermore the internal causation of human conceptual level consciousness is so compounded by issues of reflexivity, self awareness, feedback loops and memory that the fact that it is casual provides no useful insights into what is going on in there. Causality and determinism are two different things. The law of causality is simply that an entity must act in accordance with its nature. Determinism states that every event is causally necessitated by antecedent events. The difference is, events don't exist. Only entities, things, exist physically or metaphysically. An event is an action of an entity (or plural entities). Determinism is false because it is a reification of events as if they were metaphysical primaries, when only the entities that act have existence. If it is the nature of the man that he has the freedom to choose among various acts or contents of consciousness, this is no violation of causality. Physics does not rule out free will, but there is not yet an explanation of how physics enables free will either. Nor is it philosophy's task to show how it happens. Let some neuroscientist do that. It is valid to introspect and feel your own power to choose, and rely upon that to validate the idea of your own free will. <minor aside> Rand did not say only living objects exist, she said only living objects exist conditionally. Inanimate objects exist but they don't face the alternatives of life and death.

Do not make any changes. No matter what new name you may select, someone else may pick a very similar name for their own site. Will you change again? Will you continue to flee from competitors? Fleeing is not competing. Take the time to consider Google's page rank algorithm, and reconsider whether objectismonline.com is a threat or not. At the moment, there isn't even a page at objectivismonline.com. I see no threat, and continuing to build up links to this site gives you an insurmountable head start over any competitor. Any website good enough to compete with yours even with your head start objectively deserves its traffic and should not regarded as stealing your traffic. Just purchase the .com url when it eventually becomes available.

A circular argument is one which assumes the validity of the conclusion when stating the premises. What kind of argument is it that uses the conclusion to disprove its own premises? In Objectivism, the idea of reductionism is rejected because it is identified as relying upon a fallacy. That fallacy is the stolen concept: using a concept while denying another concept upon which the former logically depends. Specifically, reductionism relies upon a very sophisticated and abstract knowledge that the world consists of a variety of subatomic particles and the forces they exert upon one another to deny the existence of scientists, their instruments of measurement and their methods of gaining knowledge. The objection which the fallacy of the stolen concept raises is not metaphysical or ontological. The existence of scientists does not make possible the existence of subatomic particles. The objection is epistemological: it is the knowledge of scientists that makes our awareness of the existence of subatomic particles possible, so attacking the knowledge (or existence!) of scientists is also an attack upon the right to treat ideas concerning subatomic particles as knowledge. Scientists are humans using a human means of perception and cognition, relying upon the evidence of their senses, to craft instruments and methods of investigation which are then used to probe and validate knowledge of subatomic particles. Breaking the chain of knowledge at any point renders invalid any claimed knowledge about the object at the end of the chain, subatomic particles. To begin with a worldview informed by ideas of subatomic particles and their physics to invalidate consciousness, volition, and the evidence of the senses is to convert ideas of subatomic particles from knowledge into floating abstractions. Floating abstractions are not to be used as premises in rational arguments. The idea that all knowledge is inherently systematic, that concepts are necessarily related to one another and that they can be and should be arranged hierarchically in terms of the fundamental and the derivative may be novel to many people. When a person has not yet considered the issue seriously he will not understand what is meant when the fallacy of the stolen concept is identified and will likely skip over it as so much opaque jargon. But there is a profound philosopical perspective at stake here well worth considering explicitly. The whole of the universe exists in noncontradiction with itself, so our knowledge of it should be similarly structured. Any entity which exists, exists completely and so if we know something we must strive to know it with certainty. Anything which exists both affects and is affected through its relationships to everything else which exists, and so our knowledge should be fully integrated with every idea related to every other idea. The law of identity is not to be applied piecemeal. Knowledge is not to be atomized.

Causality is completely compatible with Objectivism. Determinism is a type of causality, it is also compatible with Objectivism. Reductionism, the idea that no compound or complex entity really exists because it has more fundamental parts, is not compatible with Objectivism. So right away we are off track here, this will not be a discussion of free will vs. determinism it will be about the validity of the method of reductionism in understanding any aspect of reality whatsoever.

McCain character story in Slate.com It is also an interesting insight into the story of Mo Udall.

It is important to note that the very method of logic and its foundational principle the law of identity is derived from sensory experience. (Validated ostensively, in the Objectivist jargon.) Technically then, nothing is known 'a priori,' not even deductions from axioms. Even the imaginary elements of euclidean geometry, points, lines, and planes are inspired by and derived from the sensory experience of the real world. 'A priori knowledge' is an anti-concept, it negates and destroys the possibility of knowledge by detaching ideas from reality.

First, I don't understand how it is justified to think of Rand as a dualist. If I can look at a diamond and appreciate that it is at the same time both a specific mass of carbon and a particular crystal structure of carbon, am I now a dualist? If yes, then I don't think dualism means anything. I thought the whole point of dualism was to attach man to the supernatural. If there are now doctrines of dualism which are purely physical, what is the new point? If no, then Rand was not a dualist either because the specific properties of life, consciousness and volition are to a man what the crystal structure is to a diamond. Second, the mental is not reducible to the physical. Anomalous monism is definitely 'specific science' subject matter. I think it has some merit. When engineers build neural nets and then train them up to accomplish some task, there is no prinicple of explanation for the values assigned to the simulated synapses on the internal layers of the network. Of course one can step through training process and trace each calculation but the results of such an exercise provide no insights. This seems analogous to the token-identity and no-strict-laws principles as explained at SEP reference.

Response to the Original Post: This is from "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology." Your interpretation of Rand is a bit mistaken.

I have always found this and similar discussions of free will tedious because there is a subtle importation of the mind-body dichotomy. The "will" is an aspect of the mind, and it is purported to be free of the crude determinism that rules matter. The body is material and subject to the same crude determinism that rules all matter. The debate that ensues is doomed. The only way out is to recognize the inherent falsehoods smuggled into the debate by the words "free" and "determinism." Free does not mean free from identity and causality. The body includes the brain and whatever is the material manifestation of the mind. No aspect of the mind is supernatural as that would contradict its identity. Objectivism does not claim that the will is free to transcend the limitations imposed by blood sugar level, blood oxygenation, hormone level of melatonin or the myriad other antecedent factors that make consciousness possible at all. The only freedom of the will claimed by Objectivism is the very narrow and restricted freedom to choose to be more active or more passive as a conceptual conscious entity than in the previous moment. The fact of consciousness is logically and chronologically prior to the will that modulates it. Determinism is not crude. There have been many claims made in this thread about the nature of deterministic systems, their predictibility and calculability. I would direct your attention to the n-body problem (where n is much greater than 3), and then claim that not only is the realm of crude materialism not practically calculable for real systems but it is not even theoretically calculable. The idea of determinism as billiard balls whose positions, velocities, and masses are all perfectly known and theoretically predictable, is a fantasy realm which is not even a correct understanding of determinism. There is not yet any detailed explanation of "how consciousness works." Even if there was, explaining something in terms of lower level entities doesn't annihilate it. Free will obeys identity and causality, and causality is more general than determinism. There is no contradiction.