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Why can't free will or free choice exist in a 'totally' deterministic universe? What I mean by a 'deterministic universe' at least 'locally' is one where if you had 'enough' information regarding some 'locally' observed set of events and you had enough knowledge and computing algorithms ( in your hand held computer say) you could calculate with great accuracy various things that will happen in the next few moments within the observed events. But of course this sort of 'puts' you into the position of an outside or independent observer UNLESS some of the things you yourself do effect the needed calculations or the events themselves. Everything in this locally observable environment could be very accurately 'modeled' with computing algorithms that make great predictions what will happen next as long as your own actions as a non-independent observer don't interfere with the 'progress' of the events being observed. (Or nothing else interferes also) So the whole locally observable environment is 'deterministic' yet you can keep changing things or interfering with a set of observed events with various degrees of 'alterations' WHILE the events are taking place. So any analysis of whether the computing algorithms or predictive models are 'working' will have to 'wait' until the 'interfering changes' have occured.So assuming we can interfere with any set of events in how they unfold everything 'else' ( not counting ourselves) can be regared as deterministic events. Is this a way to reconcile determinism and free choice or free will?

201044
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  • Were the interfering changes not governed by the same deterministic laws? – nir Dec 27 '14 at 09:43
  • Yes , but the determining of which way to interfere with a situation , if one is aware of many distinct ( mutually exclusive) ways ; is not governed by deterministic laws. ( If it was Liebniz would have been right ; and two people who have a conflict with all sorts of competing motives could sit down have a machine plug into their brains and someone could say 'Let us Calculate!' The machine could then analyse all the motives of the two people in this conflict and with deterministic algorithms show the exact reasons for each set of motives and *measure* who has the best position.) – 201044 Dec 28 '14 at 02:45
  • how is this about free choice in a deterministic UNIVERSE as the title of the question declares? – nir Dec 28 '14 at 06:21
  • The interfering changes are not governed by the same deterministic laws. If someone could list 101 ways to interfere with some process he is about to interfere with then which method he chooses is not determinable by some strict governing laws that can somehow 'read' his mind 'indirectly' and say with great accuracy which method he is going to use. The fact he can choose to interfere with said process in various different ways which are not predictable ( because even if one comes up with all the relevant 'variables' he can always add new ones); this shows his choice is unpredictable. – 201044 Dec 30 '14 at 05:01
  • didn't you practically write the following circular argument? "The fact he can choose ... in ... ways which are not predictable ... shows his choice is unpredictable"; I believe circular arguments are invalid. Regardless, the kind of universe you are describing does not seem deterministic; consider for example the Wikipedia definition: ["Determinism is the philosophical position that for every event, including human action, there exist conditions that could cause no other event"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism) – nir Dec 30 '14 at 08:50
  • The fact he can choose..in..ways which are not 'predictable' shows his choices are not determinant or governed by determinant laws. So he can have 'choices' that are 'free choices' , free of any 'governing laws' restrictions. – 201044 Jan 01 '15 at 06:31
  • When a person is 'thinking' they have a kind of 'mental diary' where they are aware of the many pieces of info. one can pick up. ( Probably not an exact sequential recording of one's surroundings). The thing is we are also active participants in our own mental diaries. A person may ,right now be aware of many conceivable 'networks' of related ideas which he can analyse and coalesce into new ideas or he can slightly change his 'cognitive' view to 'see' other related networks of ideas and how they affect things. This ability to change one's cognitive viewpoint at any time is not predictable. – 201044 Jan 02 '15 at 06:22
  • can you see that your world view is not deterministic? If so, edit the question to reflect it; if not, I recommend you look into [_A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will_](http://books.google.co.il/books/about/A_Contemporary_Introduction_to_Free_Will.html?id=9BRiQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y) by Robert Kane – nir Jan 02 '15 at 09:26
  • I'm suggesting in a world that is entirely deterministic , in the sense any action of physical 'things' or even the identify-able changing patterns of things, these actions could be predicted or approximated 'adequately' if one had enough info. including info. on the processes involved. So I still think one's mind-brain is capable of 'changing' itself in ways that are 'predictable' ( in the way described) but ONLY relative to the 'individual's own' perspective. If any one else tried to predict the person's 'changing 'mind' they would have to know in great detail the person own thoughts. – 201044 Jan 08 '15 at 04:53
  • Instead of even using the terms 'free will' or 'free choice' one could just talk about the unrestrained ability to change ones behaviour; unrestrained by any influences or interference from ones 'environment' or any previous 'behavioural processes' one has committed oneself to. One could call this ' Unrestrained choice.' As such do we have the possibility of 'unrestrained choice' in a deterministic universe? – 201044 Nov 25 '15 at 02:17
  • You could say the ability to interfere with some set of 'behaviors' one is presently doing or 'activating' at ANY TIME one 'decides on ( either on the spur of the moment or part of some 'ad-hoc' planning or from some previously set-up conditions) ; this cognitive 'Interference ability' is a big part of free will or free choice. Obviously if one couldn't interfere with one's own present cognitive behavioral phenomena that is 'now on- going' then one could be considered a cognitive robot. – 201044 Dec 08 '15 at 08:25

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The issue is that we define it that way

We like to think of ourselves as having "free-will," well most of us do. However, the definitions of what "free-will" mean get very difficult in a perfectly deterministic scenario. We would need to come up with a system which can define something people accept as "free-will" but which is not in conflict with determinism.

One thing that will give solace: the current Quantum Mechanics(QM) theories predict that it is impossible to fully measure a waveform without disrupting it. This means that a QM "particle" can be considered to have freewill. It can act in a completely unpredictable way, so much so that we have Quantum Encryption built around the theory that it can never be predicted. This "guarantee" can hold until QM is superseded by a new theory with different rules (which happens to all scientific theories). This approach to free-will may be nullified if the new rules prove that perfect measurement without disruption is possible.

So what about macroscopic systems? Consider a chaotic system. Chaos theory is still in its infancy, so definitions of chaotics systems are still in dispute. However, three criteria seem to be generally accepted:

  1. it must be sensitive to initial conditions;
  2. it must be topologically mixing; and
  3. it must have dense periodic orbits.

The first and second combine to an interesting result: if the act of measuring the "being" disrupts it in any way after measurement (akin to QM interference), then that disturbance is quickly mixed into the rest of the system, and the system "evolves" differently than the simulated version. It has maintained freewill.

There is a timeframe, known as the Lyapunov time. It is a measure of how long it takes before a system becomes chaotic and hard to predict, given some initial information. During that region, your measured version will match very well to the real version. This suggests that freewill has been violated, or does it? On the scale of a few miliseconds, is the position of your body hard to predict? Freewill seems to be concerned more with the long term behavior.

Cort Ammon
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  • What you describe involves very technical points and would not account for the 'common sense' view ( or what might be called the 'naive- philosophical' view) of what free-will is. I think a simple way to define free-will without all these problems is to say if any type of dynamic system can change itself without being restricted by any previous system states or processes then the system has a type of free-system-variation or a technical version of free-will. That is if a system can change itself 'freely' without being restricted by itself or outside 'sources' it can 'act' freely. – 201044 Dec 30 '14 at 04:50
  • @201044: It is an interesting word to define, isn't it. I have had major issues with the "common sense" view in the past. Your previous system state DOES matter -- if you are inside, and you want to be outside, you don't get to simply teleport outside; the previous position of your CG matters. If someone connects with a left hook, you do not have the ability to ignore their effect on your internal state. If you are bad at bluffing, you cannot call a hand without revealing your internal state. Restrictions abound, and that's what makes the definitions so interesting. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 06:18
  • Now if you subscribe to dualism or idealism, where the consciousness is a non-physical entity, the "common sense" view works well. However, much of your question's wording regarding local information vs. global information suggested a physicalist point of view. If that was not your intent, then the extreme wording I use to bend a deterministic physical world to admit free-will may not be necessary. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 06:20
  • What I find interesting is that we like to believe we can do anything thanks to free-will, but we are statistically reliable. We can go on a murder spree, but statistically speaking, society rely on most individuals not murdering most of the time. We predict that most 'free-willed' individuals will choose not to murder. The fact that an individual apparently *can* do anything, but shows statistical preferences is intriguing. It appears many of these behaviors are learned, suggesting others DO have an long-term effect on our free-will, it is just really challenging to pin down. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 06:29
  • So your saying a person can not change themselves in ways that are not in some way dependent on a previous system state of themselves? How previous? A 'state' from 5 minutes ago , or 1 minute or 1 second. If your actions now are partly dependent on a state from 5 minutes ago then that previous state and its effects will be 'cemented' into occurring now like an unalterable program. Of course one is effected by just occurring previous states but not necessarily by 5-minutes-ago states. – 201044 Dec 30 '14 at 06:30
  • @201044: That is where Lyapunov time comes in, and where topological mixing comes in. Lyapunov time is a timescale where a system can be replaced by an unalterable program (within some finite *nonzero* error). After that timescale, a chaotic system's unpredictability balloons exponentially. Topological mixing suggests that we usually are affected by *all* past events, but in an unpredictable manner. However, some states are clearly different than others. If you believe the brain is the seat of consciousness, then a 'stroke state' 5 *years* ago may still have a substantial visible effect. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 06:35
  • And if I misread the question, yes, I am starting from the assumption that a person cannot change themselves in ways that are not, in some way, dependnet on a previous state *of the universe.* I start from that assumption because your question was phrased in a way that requires it. If the phrase "make observations and calculate" can perfectly predict the future, then it by definition the future is perfectly predicted by the past observations plus calculations. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 06:39
  • If a system can change itself in some way not dependent or determined by any previous state from say more than a few seconds ago then this ability to change ( could call it a 'novel variation' ability) could be interpreted as a 'free-choice' of system states for the next few seconds. – 201044 Dec 30 '14 at 06:48
  • @201044: Yes, it could. This would create a dualist system where "almost everything" is physical, except for these "novel variations" which are pure consciousness and exhibit perfect free-will. This cuts the scenario in two parts regarding other minds. If other minds exist, then they can "interact" with the system while you are calculating, rendering your calculations inaccurate -- they clearly have freewill. If no other mind exists, then you have a dualist solipsist world where you have freewill, and the freewill of others is nothing but the illusion of free will. – Cort Ammon Dec 30 '14 at 07:01
  • Could the 'novel variations' or the ability to generate and manage new programs or 'behavioral algorithms' be 'embedded' within a physical system? Why couldn't the 'mechanisms' of 'pure consciousness' be embedded within a physical system? Isn't that one of the big problems of Duelism and the problems regarding consciousness? By analogy if an A.I. system was functional and could make new programs and manage them by its operating system its operating system would be like its 'mind' with its ability to make new programs all 'set-up' in its 'programming' which is embedded in its physical system. – 201044 Jan 01 '15 at 06:45
  • @201044: I believe they could be embedded, exactly as you said. The only reason my answer does not go that way is because your title wording refers to a "deterministic universe," which usually means the consciousness itself must be deterministic as well. If you were really seeking a dualist point of view, with a deterministic physical realm and a non-deterministic free-will admitting conscious realm which affects the physical realm with "novel variations," then I believe your position is consistent with the answer above. – Cort Ammon Jan 01 '15 at 18:45
  • (Consistent meaning I believe there are no *physically measurable* differences between them, so if the evidence gathered is consistent with the physicalist view above, it is equally consistent with the dualist view you refer to, and vice versa). The only requirement is that these "novel variations" grow slow enough such that it is impossible for an outside observer to distinguish between them and the result of sensitivity to initial conditions. Fortunately, it has been shown that there exist infinitesimal perturbations of chaotic systems which *do* have a deterministic probabilistic effect. – Cort Ammon Jan 01 '15 at 18:49
  • A deterministic physical realm yes ,but a deterministic-based free-will admitting conscious realm which affects the physical realm with novel variations. So the whole mystery of how any 'mental' system like one's consciousness can affect the deterministic physical parts of the brain ; if 'consciousness' is part of the physical system 'it' can 'make' certain 'mental software' ( which is a physical system yet where timing and scheduling of the any of its parts are very important; so it is in a sense a 4-dimensional physical system), this mental software can cause physical changes in the brain. – 201044 Jan 01 '15 at 19:07
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    @201044: Ahh, that makes sense. I was going after a slightly different wording in order to admit freewill as part of a deterministic physical realm by defining a physical "self" which cannot be predicted perfectly by any external "other" because of chaotic effects. In fact on timescales greater than its Lyapunov time, it is completely unpredictable. Such "physical freewill" would be completely indistinguishable from any "metaphysical freewill" from within the system barring any "metaphysical measurement devices" which work outside of physics to identify "true" consciousnesses. – Cort Ammon Jan 01 '15 at 19:46
  • My original purpose of the model was to identify a physical structure sufficiently indistinguishable from a "true consciousness" using physics such that a true consciousness which admits the possibility of other minds would be unable to distinguish between a fellow consciousness and such a physical structure. If one admits the possibility of such a structure, the search for consciousness in animals, aliens, or computers becomes easier because one admits that the furthest we can prove is "consciousness like." – Cort Ammon Jan 01 '15 at 19:50
  • It drops the burden on science from "X is conscious" to "to the limits of our understanding, X is indistinguishable from conscious," which is a test which science is much better at handling. It leaves the final question of testing whether an entity is *actually* conscious to the religions while giving science enough of a foothold to shape the search for Others. – Cort Ammon Jan 01 '15 at 19:52
  • Not thinking about all the religious connotations and implications ,what if the physically manifested parts and programs of the mind could be considered a self- oriented ( and self orienting) 'conglomeration' of what I term 4-dimensional ( or 4-D) 'behavioural programs'. That is programs where scheduling and timing of all the interacting subprograms is very important to the programs functionality ; this conglomeration is constantly reconfiguring itself ,'writing' new programs , altering older ones and selectively changing many of its info. packages. – 201044 Jan 02 '15 at 06:05
  • @201044: That might be a discussion far enough away from my answer that it would be better discussed in chat (I really like chat in comments when it expounds an answer, but this may take us further away from the answer into novel theories). It may take us some time to agree upon why 4-D is important, and what the minimum requirements for a "program" is. We actually have a chat room open for this question, http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/19841/discussion-between-cort-ammon-and-201044, would you like to take it there? – Cort Ammon Jan 02 '15 at 17:43
  • I don't like chat rooms where someone in these stack exchange sites wrote one can 'say anything'. I get enough criticism in the regular s.e. exchange sites. – 201044 Jan 05 '15 at 17:08
  • What I mean by a 4-D program is one were the timing of how each sub-program is scheduled and the timing of how they interact is ESSENTIAL to the functioning of the whole program. Any variation in how things 'within' the program occur ,if the 'timing' of 'internal events' is different the program won't function. Like a precisely timed plan to rob a bank ; this is an 'algorithm' but it also requires 'precise timing , what I call a 4-D algorithm. – 201044 Jan 11 '15 at 04:02
  • @201044: It sounds like what you call 4-D algorithm is any algorithm where you can't halt part of it to inspect that part, because it will wreck timing elsewhere. May I recommend looking at Von Neuman Universal Constructors? They are a concept in simulated automata which seeks to be able to create almost any shape possible (including a copy of itself). A key limitation of these UCs is that they can only create "quiescent" shapes. I'd recommend looking at "quiescence." I think it might be the opposite of what you are calling 4-D, and identifying an opposite might be useful for your exploration. – Cort Ammon Jan 11 '15 at 05:52
  • By a 4-D algorithm I also mean an algorithm that is partly time-dependent. I call an algorithm that is not time-dependent a 3-D algorithm . ONE that is basically an algorithm that causes a whole sequence of 3-D configurations of a system to occur one after the other. As if the algorithm and the last known 3-D set-up of relevant subsystems in the 'system' that 'contains' the algorithm cause the very next 3-D 'state' of the system to occur. There would be no 'setting-up' of a process that 'according' to the algorithm's plan is supposed to be active AFTER a short interval were it is not active. – 201044 Jan 12 '15 at 05:28
  • That makes sense. I would recommend looking at alternative names. I happened to answer a question on WorldBuilding a while back on higher dimensional computing. We have computers that operate on a 5-D spatial interlink, so the nomenclature could be confusing. Consider flatland, the famous fictitious 2D world. Would it be reasonable for them to call such an algorithm as you describe as "3D?" It seems to me the important part is that some of the program shape is "interesting" in a time dimension, because that's one dimension we're not good at manipulating. – Cort Ammon Jan 12 '15 at 15:49
  • If a program has essential qualities in a temporal dimension then it is time-dependent and it and the 'systems it is 'within' would have to be able to set-up potential 'sub-algorithms' that are essential to the 'program' when 'they' are 'activated' but they are inactive now and for a pre-determined duration. So in a sense the program would be able to set-up its 'near-future' behaviour now. I think the 'mind is an info. program and 'behavioural' program manipulation and management system that deals primarily with time-dependent behavioural algorithms. – 201044 Jan 16 '15 at 06:50
  • If everything we do or 'cognitively change' or act on now can all be determined by some complex system of analysis by some 'historical simulation' computer 100 years from now ( assuming these future historians don't know much of what went on) ; given 'enough' info. about the relevant systems involved and there is enough computing power and time, then would someone 'now' ever 'be in' a 'choosing event'? An event where he could do at least two different 'things'. If it's all predictable on 'some level' and to the future 'historians' how could he 'have a choice'? – 201044 Feb 14 '15 at 05:43
  • @201044 That is truly a question for all time, and we each find our answer. My preference is to redefine the "self." I always push on the "given 'enough info'" line. What if "enough info" was "all the information that makes up our being." If the bar has to be set that high, is it not unreasonable to redefine "self" to include both what we think of as our self today, and the numeric simulation?" With such a definition, we become a being that "escapes time" by becoming pure information, at the cost of recognizing we are copyable. – Cort Ammon Feb 14 '15 at 18:01
  • However, I have no reason to believe it is possible to create such a "historical simulation." The topological mixing effects of chaos suggest that, while the information to do so is out there, it is hopelessly muddled. If a civilization can undo all of chaos (and possibly reverse entropy), at what point do we even *mind* that they think of us as nothing more than numbers? – Cort Ammon Feb 14 '15 at 18:03
  • I like to draw a line on a famous phrase in science: "All models are wrong; some are useful." If they have such an advanced device as to have a "model that is right," at some point it has crossed the line and is now something much more powerful than our mere word "simulation" entails. – Cort Ammon Feb 14 '15 at 18:05
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Newcomb's problem might help us understand our difficulties between freewill and determinism. There are two boxes; one box is opaque and the other is translucent. In the translucent box is one thousand pounds. The opaque box contains either a million pounds or nothing. There is an omniscient being capable of accurately predicting our choice before we execute it. If the being predicts we shall take only the contents of the opaque box, there shall be one million pounds in it for us to share. However, if we select the contents of both boxes, there will be nothing in the opaque box. According to the principle of maximizing expected utility, we should select only the contents of the opaque box and leave the other one alone. However, according to the principle of dominance, we should select the contents of both boxes because our action occurs after the contents of both boxes are already set up by the predictor. Here is the difficulty with the principle of maximizing expected utility: Suppose we decide to take the contents of only the opaque box. As we walk away with our loot, we look back at the transparent box and realize there is a thousand pounds in it. What is stopping us from going back and taking it? After all, we already received the million pounds and the thousand pounds in the translucent box just cannot disappear into thin air and we would also prove the predictor is unreliable. Suppose, we open the contents of just the opaque box and find nothing, then we can just leave the other box alone, it's just a paltry thousand pounds, to prove the predictor is unreliable. So, an omniscient being capable of accurately predicting our actions, in a deterministic universe, can easily be shown as being unreliable by doing as outlined above. I believe we have freewill (determinism doesn't pass muster), as we are able to outwit an omniscient being.

Michael Lee
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  • If there are deterministic principles governing any of the choices one makes 'using free will' then if these governing rules are accurate you don't need any omniscient being in Newcomb's Problem. the 'governing rules' can be substituted for the omniscient being. The 'governing rules' would be capable of accurately predicting our choice before we execute it , if run like a set of algorithms. – 201044 Jan 01 '15 at 18:36
  • The omniscient being doesn't necessarily need to be all knowing, but rather with the perfect ability to predict our choices prior to us making them. Free will is necessary or our choices do not really matter. – Michael Lee Jan 02 '15 at 19:01
  • Is 'free-will' an ability to do 'one thing' ( instead of possibly others ) independently of ANY 'outside' influences or 'changing forces'? – 201044 Jan 05 '15 at 17:12
  • A person can be in an deterministic universe and still behave with free will or in a non-deterministic way. So assuming every set of actions of anything is deterministic in that given enough information of the things and processes one can determine how the actions are occurring and what will happen next. One might say a person's 'mental' actions are just 'activities' 'within' determinism so no 'free-will'. YET determinism only applies if one has 'enough' info. and the ONLY person who could 'collect' enough info. is the person themselves. Anyone else would not be in the 'persons shoes'. – 201044 Jan 08 '15 at 23:23
  • So a person might have enough info. to figure out the processes of what they are doing and what they might do in the next few moments. Anyone else trying to 'read the mind' or 'read' all the processes a person is using now and what the person might do will never be complete. The slightest difference in the analysis of some outsider and the personal analysis can be magnified as the person's mentality 'develops'. So the person's mental activity is deterministic to himself but not to others. A person can 'change' in ways that can't be predicted by others and so would seem to have free will. – 201044 Jan 08 '15 at 23:48
  • I'm unsure what you mean by 'the person's mental activity is deterministic to himself but not to others.' But do allow me to add the assumption that we humans are rational, moral agents, it follows we must have 'free will'. For without it, punishing people for infractions of the law would be meaningless. I know I'm arguing by social convention but does that help? Determinism, given how things were a moment ago, things cannot be any different than they are right now, has its fair share of difficulties too. – Michael Lee Jan 10 '15 at 21:42
  • What I mean is a person's 'mental activity' is potentially deterministic to himself in that he can find enough info. about his own 'present' 'thoughts' and his own 'relevant network' of points of view ; he has enough 'accessible personal info.' to 'try' to determine were his 'thought processes' are 'leading'.But other people , persons 'outside' his point of view could not have enough info. without 'reading' the individual's mind. So his mental activity could 'follow' deterministic processes relative to him , but not seem deterministic to other people. – 201044 Jan 11 '15 at 03:49
  • I'm sorry I do not follow your argument. Could you bring it down a level? – Michael Lee Jan 11 '15 at 18:58
  • A person's whole 'network of ideas' they 'fiddle' with and arrange and rearrange within their own 'mind'. The person can change their 'thinking' in all sorts of ways ONLY the person themselves would be able to follow if they tried. So if they tried to determine what 'rules' of thought they were using while 'doing' this 'thinking' they might be able to say what their 'deterministic' reasoning processes were. Anyone else not aware of all the involved personal points of view the person is 'using' could not figure out the person's deterministic rules of thought they followed. – 201044 Jan 12 '15 at 05:12
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    @201044, thank you, that helps. The predictor in Newcomb's problem is reliable and is able, by determinism, to know what choice I shall make. But remember, the predictor must go first, it must fix the contents of the boxes before I make my choice, since the contents of the boxes cannot be causally related to my eventual decision, I should select both boxes. However, if I do so, the predictor would know this an leave me nothing in the opaque box. But if I open that box first and find nothing, there is nothing to prevent me from just walking away, to prove the predictor is wrong. – Michael Lee Jan 14 '15 at 18:14
  • Does Newcomb's problem show free-will is paradoxical , thereby denying free-will exists? And if free-will does not exist as a 'process' humans can use then the idea of choice doesn't exist. Also the idea of a perfect predictor can't exist because there is no 'choice' to predict.. – 201044 Jan 19 '15 at 05:50
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Freedom of choice must be defined before talking.

We may define from the perspective of negative liberty: I can do what I want with my resources (body, mind, stuff I am allowed to use ...) because I don't have external factors (this concept is usually tied to human violence) that would threaten me if I take certain action courses. It also sounds that NL can be expressed somehow as a sentence inside the PL.

We may define it from many perspectives involving positive liberty (I would call them "degrees"):

  • Positive liberty "as long as I can do whatever I know now and fullfill my needs". Althought this approach is the one supported by socialist governments, I could take it out from the politics scope to this practical scope: "I would like to do X. Can I?"
  • Positive liberty "as long as I can do whatever I can imagine". This is harder, but perhaps thinking about teleporting or flying could match here. This one has problems because I could imagine stuff that is actually contradictory in the physical world.
  • Positive liberty "as long as I can do whatever I can imagine, and I can imagine anything without dependence on previous events of my life". For non-believers in the soul, it is frequent that they argue that our generated ideas came from stuff that happened and happens (similar to the brain being a state-machine or actually more-than-just-close-to a neural network computing model).
  • Positive liberty "as long as I can include the idea of randomly generating AAAANYYYY idea at all" (like being absolutely able to describe any crap from inside the tao, either whether I currently have language tools to describe it, or not). This could also include the concept of "ideas that somehow cannot be thought by any human" (and I'm a human and I think the OP is also one).

If your definition of liberty is 1 (negative) or 2 (positive in the main needs), you will have no trouble at all with a deterministic world. Deterministic world has no place to random, but these definitions do not imply random at all.

Please note that certain recent news regarding QP described that the universe does not seem to be deterministic (God plays dice) at the quantum level (this does not talk about the macroscopic levels like human body). But let's analyze the cases 3, 4, and 5:

  • What can you imagine? Can you imagine alter the time (the past events) to disallow you ever being free-willed?
  • Can you generate a thought independently from past events? This adds a problem to neurologists and scientists of many disciplines, althought not to religion-based disciplines. The problem in the former point still exists.
  • Can you generate any thought? Do you have all the tools to generate any thought at all? I dare you to say "I want to buy exactly an amount of X lb of bread" and replace X with absolutely any irrational number (irrational numbers you can think about are enumerable since they come from known mathematical operations and finite numbers you can enumerate; however irrational numbers are not enumerable and so there's like m^K (m > 0; perhaps CH is true) numbers you cannot even imagine, where K is aleph-0). So to generate ANY thought you need an infinite brain size (irrational numbers are made of infinite fractional positions).

No: there are cases you cannot even try to figure, like case 5.

Yes/No: If we can choose to not count the quantum level, we can say our brain is deterministic and so we cannot make it in the case 4. Otherwise we can. It is not proved (don't think if ever studied, or at least don't know about) that such quoted news' described effects reach the neurological/cellular level.

Yes: there are cases you can accomplish in a deterministic world. Case 1, 2, 3, provided that in case 3 you don't enumerate a thinkable-but-contradictory thing.

  • If there is no free choice and the 'universe' is deterministic , in that one can given enough info. and enough time predict any finite sequence of behavior as to it's outcome then no one can actually believe in anything..Because any 'set' of ideas that one thinks is 'probably' true, one has no free choice or free will ( according to the assumptions). One HAS to ascribe to a set of ideas one 'has' because everything is deterministic and no one has a choice in 'changing' the set of ideas they think are true. – 201044 Dec 08 '15 at 07:42
  • Another way to see , in a deterministic world one can't believe in anything because the sets of ideas one 'has' one must follow them as one has no free choice to choose to change these set's of ideas or reconfigure them.; So if one is looking for arguments to support the claims there is no free will or free choice and there are more than one useful set of arguments for this ; what does one do then? One can't choose between the arguments. One can't settle on one specific argument as a choice.... – 201044 Dec 08 '15 at 07:49
  • By definition (Fides et Ratio), faith/believe is an act of choice. If choice is not free, so neither is faith. But saying that faith is not free (of its deterministic nature) is not the same as saying it does not exist. It is also bound to the expected definition of freedom you want to use. –  Dec 08 '15 at 14:53
  • If faith or belief in something is not free because one can't choose whether to maintain the faith or belief system or change it then it's like a belief without any substance. If one says one believes in something this implies they are willing to maintain it against criticism or doubt ; they are willing to 'keep the belief going' as it is an ongoing process and as knowledge systems change belief systems are 'maintained' or not. If one has to believe in something because of their present 'states of existence' due to determinism then they can't maintain this as it has to be this way. – 201044 Dec 20 '15 at 06:10
  • It may be without any substance, indeed. EVERYTHING would lack of substance for someone who becomes aware that free choice (free wrt determinism) does not exist. –  Dec 20 '15 at 23:29
  • Yes we would all be puppets behaving in various ways that are determinate or predeterminate based on previous 'configurations of ones thinking. Including any beliefs , they would just be sets of behaviour and info. that one uses while one is exercising the belief ; one wouldn't have a choice in this , the belief would just be a 'path' of behaviour the 'puppet' has to follow. So as it is pre-planned or required behaviour it is not really a belief as I said. – 201044 Dec 20 '15 at 23:38
  • If belief is a choice (Fides et Ratio), and choice is meaningless or does not exist at all, then belief is also meaningless or does not exist. Bare categoric logic. –  Dec 20 '15 at 23:56
  • That's similar to what I'm saying , if the universe is deterministic including every thought or action one does then one can't believe anything as a real belief can be changed or maintained as the case maybe. For example an actor speaking and acting according to a script that shows he 'believes' in a certain thing , and in real life he doesn't , the scripted belief is not real just a 'sequence' of behaviours. – 201044 Jan 01 '16 at 18:22
  • If we're all just behavioural puppets acting and thinking and 'believing' in ways that are just following some scripted events whether there is a puppeteer or not , then we can't think or believe in anything ; all thoughts and beliefs are as automatic 'input' following the requirements of being a scripted puppet. So just as some have written free will is an illusion ( because of the determinant nature of thing) so is the free will to believe in some set of ideas.... – 201044 Jan 03 '16 at 14:34
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We must understand that free will is not dependent on determinant or indeterminate nature of the world. If there is no principle possibility to determine what will happen on next step, this does not implicate that free will exists, because results will be symmetrical to situation if there is no free will. Also, if any next step is determinable it also has no problem for free will, because free will doesn't mean random choice, any choice has it's reason, free will is "acknowledged necessity". So, determinism or randomness of the world dose not tell us if we have or not have free will.

P.S. It was big problem in early period of Christianity, because by Christianity we have freedom of choice, but god is omniscient.

Deo
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