Timeline for Is the existence of free will even important?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 7 at 14:44 | comment | added | Pertti Ruismäki | @user369070 Determinism excludes both free will and randomness. Both represent a kind of unpredictability. Evolution is random, as it is unpredictable but not controlled by a free will. Your comment was equally unpredictable, but it was not random, as you deliberately decided what to write. | |
| Jan 7 at 13:38 | comment | added | user369070 | @PerttiRuismäki You are misdefining the word "determinism". Determinism does NOT mean "externally controlled". It means "all effects have a cause" and "exact same causes always has exact same effect". As for "randomness", people usually have it mean "unpredictable"(the only real way to get a result is simulation step by step, no shortcuts) or "chaotic"(small changes in initial conditions have unpredictable changes in results), and sometimes "not deterministic", so its a bit problematic. | |
| Jan 7 at 9:28 | comment | added | Pertti Ruismäki | @Futilitarian Those biologists are misusing the words "deterministic" and "random". Neither is a reference to "orderliness". Evolution is indeterministic in the sense that determinism denies any kind of evolution. Evolution is random in the sense that no-one is controlling it towards a predetermined goal. | |
| Jan 7 at 7:42 | comment | added | Futilitarian | See also: 'Evolution is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude from Multi-species Study'. This goes directly against your claim. Summary: "Biologists have concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms. The researchers note that even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not". Can you provide any references I can look at for balance? | |
| Jan 7 at 6:58 | comment | added | Pertti Ruismäki | @Futilitarian When every event is completely determined by the previous event (the definition of determinism, not my claim), there is always only one possible effect for each cause. There is no concept of alternative. A causes B, B causes C, etc. The Galton board is a probabilistic device where the balls have a 50/50 chance to fall to the right or to the left at each pin. In determinism there are no chances, a deterministic Galton board has no pins, only one straight line. | |
| Jan 7 at 5:50 | comment | added | Futilitarian | This article describes how randomness (albeit 'random-seeming behaviour') can arise from determinism. Perhaps this is what he means: quantamagazine.org/…. The seeming randomness of evolution might be deterministic in the same fashion. Do you have any references for your claim that there is 'no evolution' in a deterministic system? Also, it should be noted that even Einstein believed randomness is merely a sign of our ignorance of a deeper level of deterministic causation. | |
| Jan 7 at 5:43 | comment | added | Pertti Ruismäki | @Futilitarian Deterministic randomness is an oxymoron. All randomness is completely excluded from determinism by definition. But Dennett is a compatibilist, he has a completely different definition for determinism and free will and apparently for randomness, too. | |
| Jan 7 at 5:37 | comment | added | Futilitarian | I just watched a video with Dan Dennett who states "The randomness of evolution isn't quantum randomness. It's deterministic randomness". | |
| Jan 7 at 5:29 | comment | added | Pertti Ruismäki | @Futilitarian In a deterministic system there is no evolution, nothing ever changes as every effect is completely (=with absolute accuracy) determined by its cause. Only probabilistic systems can evolve. Also life itself requires the ability to do something else than causality would suggest. Even microbes make choices: If the environmental conditions are favourable, they remain in place and multiply. If the conditions are bad, they try to move away. | |
| Jan 7 at 4:43 | comment | added | Futilitarian | When you say 'no life', do you mean that evolution could not occur in a deterministic framework? Or is it more that what we consider life would still exist but it couldn't be labelled life without free will/agency/indeterminacy? Or something else entirely? | |
| Jan 5 at 5:30 | history | answered | Pertti Ruismäki | CC BY-SA 4.0 |