35
votes
Accepted
How can a person truly love another if hard determinism is true?
Hard determinism does not entail that your love is a chemical reaction in your brain.
Hard determinism is roughly the view that :
For every event, E2, there is another event, E1, that precedes E2 ...
- 34.7k
30
votes
Why do people still believe in free will?
Most academic philosophers (around 60%, according to the PhilPapers survey) lean toward compatibilism: the view that determinism (which is what you are getting at, more or less) is compatible with ...
- 2,607
29
votes
Accepted
Does True Randomness actually exist?
Like you, I think most uses of the terms 'probable' and 'random' are just epistemic, i.e. they relate to how much information we have. We say of a toss of a coin that it is random, and that there is a ...
- 15.7k
20
votes
Accepted
How should you respond to criminal behavior if you believe in hard determinism?
I found one writer (page 183) who seems to describe the Hard Determinist point-of-view in a way that allows for some response to criminal acts:
Can we say of an [ethically disabled] indvidual - ...
- 5,926
20
votes
Why do people still believe in free will?
Schiphol's answer is correct, in that you need to first say what kind of free will you're talking about. I'm going to answer your question assuming that you're talking about libertarian free will. It'...
- 3,759
16
votes
Accepted
Can I predict my future by observing all humans/events
Can I predict my future by observing all humans/events
According to Wolpert's theorem, no you can't.
What you are describing here:
I believe everything happened/happening in the universe is not ...
- 26.4k
13
votes
How should you respond to criminal behavior if you believe in hard determinism?
Dave's and James Kingsbery's answers are the best so far in the fewest words that gets at the crux of why a hard determinist would still punish criminals, but I wanted to flesh out some ideas a bit ...
- 11.4k
12
votes
Accepted
What is the point of creating for an omniscient being?
Definitions
One has to define "omniscient" (knowing all things) and "omnipotent" (being all powerful) properly, otherwise one runs into trouble without even considering your question.
Let's deal ...
- 619
12
votes
Accepted
How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?
There are ways to reconcile libertarian free will even with classical physics. One could say (as was common position in 19-th century) that the laws of nature are only approximations and do not ...
- 41k
11
votes
Any argument against determinism?
I would highly recommend learning QM (Quantum Mechanics). QM is science's strongest current theory for "how the universe works," and it has very interesting things to say about determinism. ...
- 17.3k
11
votes
Accepted
Why do modern materialists tend to favor determinism?
I tend to share your puzzlement. A lot of contemporary metaphysicians seem to have an outdated view of physics, not only about determinism but also about locality or mereology. (This was criticized by ...
- 5,243
11
votes
Accepted
Is there a causal influence of the mental on the physical?
The threat of epiphenomenalism is indeed a major issue intensively discussed in the last decades. But while there is a broad consensus against it, there is no agreement as to what exactly blocks it. ...
- 41k
11
votes
Aren't Determinism and Free Will indiscernible from the mortal perspective?
Your point, "Determinism and free will are not discernible from the mortal perspective" is indeed the third antinomy (paradox) of Kant. According to Kant, human capacity for knowledge is innately ...
- 3,582
11
votes
Why do people still believe in free will?
We believe in free will because — aside from a few people with particular psychological conditions — we experience ourselves as beings capable of making choices and exercising free will. When someone ...
- 14k
10
votes
How should you respond to criminal behavior if you believe in hard determinism?
Short answer: It doesn't matter, because there is no "should" in determinism.
Long answer: If you believe in hard determinism, then all of this - crime, society's handling of crime, our discussion ...
- 324
10
votes
Accepted
If hard determinism is true, why should we try to better ourselves?
Contrary to the other answer and the assumptions in your question: Hard determinism does not, in any way, mean that trying to better yourself does not work. Rather, under hard determinism, whether you ...
- 3,049
9
votes
Accepted
How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
The OP quote draws a distinction between determinism ("hard determinism"), and causal completeness ("less absolute determinism"). The former means that the current physical state ...
- 41k
8
votes
Accepted
Is there evidence for existence of destiny as opposed to free will?
The colloquial meaning of "destiny", "an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable" as SEP's Fatalism puts it, is in fact compatible with "...
- 41k
8
votes
How does Quantum Mechanics affect the modern account of free will and determinism?
First a point of clarification, from what you are describing, you are talking about libertarian freewill, not compatibilist freewill. More on that later.
At the heart of your question is a confusion ...
- 26.4k
8
votes
How can a person truly love another if hard determinism is true?
If hard determinism is correct then there is no other option so "true" love would be defined as you having the moments you've had and experiencing the corresponding chemical response that you have.
- 200
7
votes
What are some replies to the deterministic argument against free will?
If determinism is true, the will is not free.
1.1 Determinism is not true: One could argue for this from a dualist position, that the mind is separate from the body and part of a non-material ...
- 26.4k
7
votes
Can I predict my future by observing all humans/events
Whether or not you can predict your future actually depends on your definitions of the world. In particular, you have the emphasized "if" regarding the monitoring and processing of the data. ...
- 17.3k
7
votes
How can a person truly love another if hard determinism is true?
The usual question is whether free will is possible under hard determinism. However, love, particularly romantic love as conceived in the western culture, certainly is not construed as an act of free ...
- 357
7
votes
Proof for the absence of free will?
Seems like no one brought up Frankfurt and hierarchical compatabilism.
First-order desires: desires that are directed to objects or states of affairs.
We desire things like being healthy, being well-...
- 1,453
6
votes
How do defenders of libertarian freewill reconcile it with constraints imposed by the laws of physics?
The problem of freewill results from the fact that our subjective experiences from the first persons's viewpoint are different than our scientific observations and experiences from the third person's ...
- 20.6k
6
votes
Does Quantum Entanglement Disprove the Principle of Locality?
In the relevant sense the answer is "no", the appearance of a "yes" is created by projecting classical intuitions about locality onto quantum objects. This is confusing because the definition of ...
- 41k
6
votes
Physical laws and free will
How has this paradox been addressed, and what are the canonical views of its implications?
This paradox is directly addressed by mathematician David Wolpert, in a theorem named after him (Wolpert's ...
- 26.4k
6
votes
How can a person truly love another if hard determinism is true?
Love is a word we have created for an experience or a set of emotions related to something or someone. It is just a word to describe the experience of this cocktail of emotions.
The word in itself ...
- 187
6
votes
A Statistical Argument Against Naturalism from Pro Golf
I think this problem is actually a physical problem, not a statistical or philosophical problem. And I think you’ll get better answers than mine if you post this problem on Physics SE.
All pro ...
- 870
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible