tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2246295769776967275.post5492590019336503068..comments2023-12-22T00:52:34.146-08:00Comments on The World of Dr. Justice: Notes towards an eventual essay on Causality (concluded)David Justicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12586387386542720405noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2246295769776967275.post-67914640175093514202011-08-09T10:17:05.866-07:002011-08-09T10:17:05.866-07:00I had just finished a glass of fine dry red Romani...I had just finished a glass of fine dry red Romanian wine, sitting in our flat in Bucharest, when I opened my email and was soon reading the following:<br /><br />Notes toward an eventual essay on Causality (concluded). Finally we turn to the matter of determinism.<br /><br />Being privileged to know the author, I smiled broadly and refilled my glass.<br /><br />A brilliant treatment of the topic, to be sure. While the modern tendency is to employ determinism in defense of depravity, it remains fascinating that the classical Calvinist belief has been toward urging virtue.<br /><br />I was raised in the Lutheran tradition before stumbling my way into the Historical Church, and so the Double Predestination (as we called their view) of the Calvinists was baffling to me. We taught, by the way, an importantly modified Single Direction Determinism--those who are damned damned themselves and good, those who are saved are saved by election. But the analogy that came with it still convinces me that it is ultimately no Determinism at all. Namely, if I offer you a dollar and you take it, then the most important thing is that I gave you a dollar. If I offer you a dollar and you, for whatever reason, refuse it, then most important this is that you rejected the dollar. And it's the same with Salvation. Of course on some level, you chose to take the dollar. But since the dollar isn't yours without the Gracious Giver, there's no point in dwelling on what significance your will in accepting the dollar is.<br /><br />And so it was that much of the Council of Trent was primarily directed against the Calvinists, whose Double Determinism (i.e., some dead babies rot in hell, because, well, that's how God wills it) was the first true heresy in Europe since the Waldensians.<br /><br />All that said, so often, when I see depravity and I assert that "There but for the Grace of God go I," it is not determinism, but a knowledge of my own willful sinfulness.Keith Andrew Masseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09974660907942721141noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2246295769776967275.post-85848878479101436662011-08-08T17:57:18.144-07:002011-08-08T17:57:18.144-07:00I honestly do not see where you are going with thi...I honestly do not see where you are going with this. Let me address some thorns in my thoughts before I try formulate a broader response.<br /><br />First, “Obvious Free Will”: Well, obvious for whom? Obvious for you or obvious in an ontological sense? If it were the later we should have a workable definition of it, a definition that is somewhat stable and that not only explains the process of willing and deciding, but that also, preferably, enables us to make predictions. From what I surveyed from the relevant literature there is actually no workable, stable definition (I've seen about ten so far), and this after 2000 years of discussion. (Just as a remark on the side: a school I subscribe to thinks that free will is not only pretty much undefined, but it also does not me the criteria of an explanation.) Furthermore, I am still waiting for a proof of the core claim of free-willers, which is that our will is not determinate. Was it Hume or Russel who pointed out that someone who showed real indeterminate behaviour, like singing a hymn in the middle of a business meeting, before making a head stand and then killing himself, would be judged to be insane and not a prime example for the expression of free will, and that even by the free-willers?<br /><br />Second, why are deterministic non-linear systems non-deterministic, as I think you claim? (As a side note, I think you are guilty of a grave confusion of “knowing in principle” and “knowing in praxis”. Just because we cannot know in praxis does not mean it cannot be know in principle.) Just because we cannot predict future events does not imply that they are indeterminate. As I see it, you are simply affirming the consequent here. So, to reiterate my point, just because events are not predictable does NOT imply that they are in non-deterministic! The latter is what I think you claim. For example, predicting the shape of an ice cube from the shape of the puddle it leaves behind after melting, is generally impossible (in praxis that is). Are you thus implying that the phase transition leading to the puddle was non-deterministic? I am honestly at a loss here. Also, how does our inability to predict an event rhyme with free will? How could we predict what is free and what is not? This leads us right back to point one.<br /><br />Third, determinism does not mean absence of control, while, of course, in some cases it does. If you, for example, due to a brain injury or the like, lose your capability for empathy, even for modelling your own feelings, are you then responsible for misdeeds you commit? This is not only a problem for a model relying on determinism, but it is also an issue for you. If you are dualist there is either no reason for lenience toward anyone, irrespective of how damaged their brains are, because free will is immaterial. You might of course say that the damaged brain distorts or filters free will, but that leaves you in no better situation than the determinist. And, of course, if you are a non-dualist free-willer, viz. you assume free will is a product of the brain, you again have to answer the question exactly when free will gets impaired by brain damages, and how much.<br /><br />Fourth, why are you looking at who interprets determinism how (MacWalAmerica)? I am still at loss whether you intend to discuss the epistemic issue of determinism v. free will, and if not, what you actually are addressing here. Are you just pestered that some people (in your eyes) seem to invoke a bastard version of determinism?<br /><br />All this been said I feel actually not emancipated to deliver any general conclusions from your entry, since I for one see SEVERE epistemic issues with it, and second I do not know what you actually want to say here.timeofwonder2009noreply@blogger.com