[ajuc]

> If free will doesn't exist, then our lives, thoughts and choices are predetermined, and thus they can't be "influenced" by our belief in free will (or lack thereof).

Something that is predetermined can be influenced. See a collision of 2 balls in Newtonian universe - it's predetermined, yet you're justified in saying "collision influenced paths of these balls".

The only thing determinism takes from you is choice. There is still causality (stuff influencing other stuff), there can still be thoughts and beliefs influencing behavior of people and (indirectly) the state of the universe. The only difference is - these people had no choice how to react to these ideas.

[coldtea]

>Something that is predetermined can be influenced. See a collision of 2 balls in Newtonian universe - it's predetermined, yet you're justified in saying "collision influenced paths of these balls".

Not beyond its initial cause. If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

(A fundamental existence of free will is not the same scenario with e.g. taking a person and specifically (e.g. surgically) alter them to not have free will).

[ajuc]

> Not beyond its initial cause.

Who cares about the initial cause? Initial cause of everything in deterministic universe is the initial conditions + the set of rules that govern it.

And it's also the main influence on anything that happens in our universe, no matter if it's deterministic. If Earth wasn't there you wouldn't write this comment. Who caused your comment, then - you or Big Bang?

It's our arbitrary convention to stop looking for a root cause when we hit a person. It's useful for social organization, but it's not objectively more true than looking up the chain of "why" till you hit the Big Bang, or stopping on the first step.

> If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

Influence = cause change. When you're born you interact (and influence) very many things. That's true no matter if the universe is deterministic or not.

You might be confused about change in predetermined universe. There's in-universe change (particle moves as laws of physics dictate), and external change (universe was going to develop one way, but then something changed the future and it will develop differently). I don't think only the second kind of change deserves to be called "influence". I don't think the second kind of change ever happens.

> If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

Even assuming your weird definition of "influence" this is still not true, you can have nondeterministic universe without free will.

[coldtea]

>And it's also the main influence on anything that happens in our universe, no matter if it's deterministic. If Earth wasn't there you wouldn't write this comment. Who caused your comment, then - you or Big Bang?

The key difference determined by the existence or not of free will is whether the comment is solely or partly caused by the Big Bang (or the first cause).

What we're discussing is not whether the writing of a comment is possible in a non-free will universe. Of course it is.

But we're discussing whether free will exists (the very subject is "Discovering free will"), and then, what does that entail if it does or if it doesn't. It surely doesn't entail that comments can't be written.

>It's our arbitrary convention to stop looking for a root cause when we hit a person. It's useful for social organization, but it's not objectively more true than looking up the chain of "why" till you hit the Big Bang, or stopping on the first step.

Well, it's not just a convention. You seem to take for granted what one should prove: whether free will exists or not.

Society stops looking for a root cause when it hits a person not as an "arbitrary convention", but because it does believe in free will.

(And it also believes that it's limited by external events. So that it doesn't stop looking for a root cause always on a person, but can go beyond that. E.g. "yeah, the driver caused an accident, but they were forced to swerve because a rock fell on the road, so they're not to blame").

>Influence = cause change. When you're born you interact (and influence) very many things. That's true no matter if the universe is deterministic or not.

If the universe is deterministic you don't cause or influence anything. Those things would have happened anyway. At best you're a medium through an already determined casual chain moves.

But you can not be said to influence something to happen, because that requires that not influencing it was also a possibility.

>Even assuming your weird definition of "influence" this is still not true, you can have nondeterministic universe without free will.

Not really "weird". It's the very dictionary definition.

"influence: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself: the influence of television violence | I was still under the influence of my parents | [count noun] : their friends are having a bad influence on them. • the power to shape policy or ensure favourable treatment from someone, especially through status, contacts, or wealth: the institute has considerable influence with teachers. • [count noun] a person or thing with the capacity to have an influence on someone or something: Fiona was a good influence on her"

You can't have an influence on something happening (or someone's thoughts etc) if that is beyond your control.

[ajuc]

> But we're discussing whether free will exists

No, we were discussing whether the argument in the article was circular. It's not circular, because your assertion that influence requires free will is wrong.

> If the universe is deterministic you don't cause or influence anything. Those things would have happened anyway.

No, they wouldn't. Deterministic universe is like a compiler. You give it source code and it produces output. Given different source code (such that you aren't born) the output is different.

> But you can not be said to influence something to happen, because that requires that not influencing it was also a possibility.

No it doesn't. It's not in the definition you provided.

> Society stops looking for a root cause when it hits a person not as an "arbitrary convention", but because it does believe in free will.

Yes, and it's arbitrary, because we don't know if that assumption is true (and I might add it's very unlikely to be true - even if universe is nondeterministic. The rules of physics still work in our heads just as well as elsewhere).

[coldtea]

>No, we were discussing whether the argument in the article was circular.

Actually, on this subthread we were discussing whether the argument of the grandparent ( dziungles) was circular. That's what I called circular and started the circularity discussion -- not something in the article.

>No, they wouldn't. Deterministic universe is like a compiler. You give it source code and it produces output. Given different source code (such that you aren't born) the output is different.

That's not an option in a deterministic universe. Everything you've described, like the ability to give a compiler different source code, depends on non determinism.

In a non-deterministic universe there's only one source code that is given to the compiler, and it's predetermined at the first of the universe's deterministic causal chain. That's the whole point, or the very definition of the universe being deterministic: that it cannot change course.

>Yes, and it's arbitrary, because we don't know if that assumption is true

We haven't proved it, but we do believe it to be true. And that's not arbitrary (it's based on people's inherent experience of free will). It might be illusory, but not arbitrary.

[ajuc]

The source code is "given" from outside of universe. It's the initial conditions during big bang + the rules of physics.

It was you who started the hypothetical "Those things would have happened anyway". That's obviously false - the laws of physics work, so if something was changed in the initial conditions - then results would be different.

It doesn't matter that you can't change the initial conditions from inside the simulation, the code of the simulation still has "if this then that", so "this" influences "that".

> And that's not arbitrary

Ok, then illusory. In any case it's not justified (and in fact you using this make the same mistake you accused dziungles of doing - assuming free will and using it in an argument about free will).

> we do believe it to be true

"You" not "we" :) Free will doesn't fit an universe described by laws of physics (no matter if deterministic or not). Even if universe is nondeterministic it just means sometimes it throws dices to decide if neuron fires or not.

Calling that "free will", is like calling a Geiger counter beeps decisions" :) The fact that they are (probably) random doesn't mean there's some magical entity choosing which result it gives.

[BoiledCabbage]

> Not beyond its initial cause. If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

This is false. If the sun were to explode right now it would influence the earth. Neither of them have free will.

Even in a completely deterministic universe, where we could predict to the second when the sun would explode from initial conditions, its explosion still influences the earth.

You're mixing influence with choice.

[coldtea]

>>If free will doesn't exist (in the universe), then nothing that happens after our birth can influence it.

>This is false. If the sun were to explode right now it would influence the earth. Neither of them have free will.

I didn't mean "nothing can influence the universe".

I meant nothing can influence someone's will (if free will doesn't exist).

Hence the "after our birth" qualifier.

[dragonwriter]

> I meant nothing can influence someone's will (if free will doesn't exist).

But it's still wrong. Just because will isn't free doesn't mean it isn't influenced by events in the physical universe (in fact, the alternative to free will is will completely determined by events in the physical universe.)