Free Will or Omniscience? (Sorry if i misspelled omniscience)

[Pineapple]

Determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism). It's not proven. Stop assuming it is.
If you want to assume it is, check out soft determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism).

[Kael Hate]

What desire changes when all the variables creating that desire stay the same?

An odd or capricious one.  A sudden or freakish one.  An unusual or unexplained one.  A random one.

You are conflating physical randomness such as a rolled die with a form of randomness we cannot measure.  Because we cannot measure it, we have no way of knowing with any accuracy whether or not the outcome of that randomness is based completely on inputs.  More to the point, if the inputs are themselves not measurable, the outcome will always be nondeterminable and thus nondeterministic.

I did say in every example that all variables were the same. It does not matter the accuracy of what is known, the variable is the same. Regardless of whether you can measure it or not the variable is the same.

Your answers are all not answering my question but rather creating false sitatutions or excuses to escape the question.


If ALL inputs are the same what would make the result change?

[Essence]

Straw man.  If you define the input of my will into the decision-making process as "the same", of course the outcome will be the same.  The argument here is whether or not the input of my will is determinable by previous conditions.  Or, to put it more clearly, if all measurable inputs are the same, will the outcome always be the same?  Or, to put it even more clearly, are there non-measurable inputs that factor into my decision making process?

If there are, free will exists.
If there are not, the universe is deterministic.

At least, that's the postulate put forth by the OP.  As previously stated, I don't buy into that false dichotomy.

Either way, the deterministic position is unprovable because it's impossible to measure all of the inputs that go into a human decision-making process.

[Kael Hate]

Determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism). It's not proven. Stop assuming it is.
If you want to assume it is, check out soft determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism).

Prove that it is wrong.
Create a situation where all variables are controlled, and show that a result will change.
Or if you like create an experiment where the results of the experiment change without being plausibly attributable to another variable.
Or let us take the foundations of science that any knowledge has to be deterministic, if is not deterministic it cannot be known.

Like Socrates may have said "The Only thing I know is that I know Nothing"

[Essence]

Argument from the extreme.  There is no reason to assume that the burden of proof is on him to claim that the neutral position (determinism is not proven) is correct. 

Similarly, life is more than scientific experiments.  Any determinist who gets two different results from two identical experiments will simply claim that there are inputs he was not aware of or cannot measure.  You cannot retreat into the laboratory to protect yourself from the unpredictability of real life.

But sure, let's take your challenge.

Take a chunk of thorium.  Measure how long it takes to lose a proton.  Bam!  Experiment done, result achieved: it took 4 days, 3 hours, and 12.23087230987234 seconds. 

Repeat the experiment.  You'll get a different result.  Again and again and again, you'll get different results.  Measure every variable you are capable of measuring, establish every bit of scientific knowledge that you can.  Try your hardest.

You cannot know when the next proton will fall off of the thorium.  Therefore, determinism is false.

[maverixk]

That experiment doesn't disprove determinism because in each time you retest there are variables that are different. even if you do your best to make sure all variables are exactly same, you can't. It's impossible.

[Essence]

OH, I GET IT!  Determinism is your RELIGION!

Because seriously, if you can't disprove it (because you can't measure everything you need to measure), then it's exactly the same as believing in an omnipotent incorporeal God with a plan for all of existence.  You can't measure Him, either.  So what makes determinism any better of a thing to believe in than God?

You have to make a decision -- either link determinism firmly to the measurable world, in which case the Thorium experiment makes it false, or link determinism to an unmeasurable world, in which case it's no more useful than a religion because there are so many things we can't measure. 

Newton's physics were proven false a long time ago.  Get over it.

[maverixk]

Ok, I don't think I fully understands determinism. But what I've been meaning on this thread is basically cause and effect, which I think we can all agree on the principle of that. Bring more specific, a specific event will always produce a specific result.

[Essence]

But cause and effect depends on knowledge.  If you don't have perfect knowledge of the cause, you can't have perfect knowledge of the effect.  Hell, there's not even any evidence that if you go back in time and wait for a Thorium isotope to lose a proton that it will lose that proton at the same time it did the last time you sat through the exact same moments in time.

[maverixk]

Cause and effect is not based on knowledge. If something happens then there WILL be an effect. There's not even evidence that we can travel back in time.

[Essence]

You're missing the entire point.  The existence of cause and effect as a concept is focused on the idea that we can use the notion of cause and effect to predict the future.

If all you want to do is say "causes make effects happen", you can do that -- and not one single person on Earth is going to care.  We're interested in understanding, not in making generic universal platitudes.

Cause and effect helps us understand many parts of our lives -- but centering our entire philosophical outlook on the notion of cause and effect is silly, because there are many, many, many cases in which we are incapable of witnessing all of the causes that go into an effect, and thus we cannot use our understanding of the causes to predict the effect.

It's true of thorium, but much more importantly, it's true of every arbitrary decision a human being makes -- which is where the whole free will vs. omniscience debate comes from in the first place.

[maverixk]

So, since we do not know every cause then we toss out determinism?