Happy New Year David. 🙂

You are most kind. I'm glad that you enjoy my content so much. 🙂

Thanks for watching!

Glad it was helpful!

You're very welcome!

Right, based upon the principle of simplicity, we ought not assume that an event is determined unless we have good reason to think so. Well I'm happy to grant compatibility for the sake of argument. I kind of just don't care about compatibilism. Because even if it is granted for the sake of argument, we still will want to know if determinism is true even if it is compatible with free will. So granting compatibilism won't be a strike against indeterminism unless one's arguments for indeterminism depend upon an incompatibilist premise. But my argument doesn't include any incompatibilist premises.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Yeah, that's fine. I think the study of philosophy should be based on what we are interested in. I guess I do personally find the question of compatibility to be an interesting one in addition to the question of determinism

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Also, just so you know, I went in to this video thinking that we had no way of knowing which of determinism or indeterminism was true, even in principle. But your argument has convinced me that indeterminism is at least simpler, so it should be preferred (all else being equal)

@@PiRobot314 I'm glad that someone else finds my argument worthy of consideration. 😃

Why is that insufficient for free will?

The nice thing about modest arguments is that, even though their conclusions aren't as strong, they are usually harder to defeat. 😀

@@faithbecauseofreason8381Very true!

As one example, imagine someone is making a fairly random choice like choosing between different beers that they aren't familiar with. It seems plausible that they could choose differently in practice. You don't have "reasons" in that situation that are going to strongly push you in any direction. There could also be more important decisions that we are torn over. How do we know that the agent is "passive" and it's just a case that the "strongest desire wins out"? As I find it, when we make decisions, reasons build up with a logical order to them, but they don't strictly determine your choice or action. We still find ourselves having to settle things and choose between reasons and values. So how do we know that the agent isn't playing an "active role" in the moment they make the decision, and genuinely "settling things" between competing reasons and values? So you love chocolate cake for dessert, and it's available, but you have just made a new year's resolution to lose weight. You have competing values pulling at you. We definitely know from our own experience that we are merely "passive" in the process of which desire wins out, rather than taking an active role to settle our own most important value in this situation? Another point I would make, if we think about rewinding time by 10 seconds before a decision, then sure, in many cases it's going to be difficult to imagine we could have made a different decision in practice. But rewind time by 10 years, and things could play out very differently with your character developing in a different way. So you may reach an equivalent kind of dilemma with a different character, and can then make a different choice.

@@Henry-yh6vv Well in my experience if there are two beers(I don't drink but I'll go with it) and I don't know anything about either I would tend to choose based perhaps if I liked the look of the label/bottle or if I thought one was close to a beer I've had and liked. If I truly knew nothing about them for example if I was blind folded I might make a random guess but I don't think that would really be analogous to moral actions carried out with deliberate intent, I think most people would agree that there is no moral culpability to guessing wrong in a game of chance. As far as the cake vs diet example is concerned I like that one better because it does speak more to what choice is like for us as humans. Depending on a variety of factors one might value to the good of the taste of the cake more or the health benefits of not eating the cake more. Some people may not even deliberate for more than a second and yet in their mind the benefit of one is so much greater to make the choice clear to them. One important factor which comes to mind is habit, a man who's directed his will in accordance with the good of temperance will generally need less time to deliberate and will be able to reject the cake more times than not. The man who is a glutton will be notably less free than the temperent man because he has not subjected his passions to the intellect and acts off instinct like a beast. Humans have more freedom than robots and animals, I don't doubt that. Our choices(apart from habits and addiction) are free insofar as we incline our will towards goods and away from evils based on a comparison of the available options. I don't know if that's what you mean by free will but that captures the essence of what it is to me. Man can consider his options and choose from among them not based on randomness but based on what he is inclined to as the highest perceived good. Some people want freedom of will to be more than this but this is all that's necessary for moral responsibility. Man actually and really does evil because he chooses to do it based on an internal process. In evil we desire a lesser good as a higher good due to our bad character or bad will.

​​​@@shamuscrawfordI wouldn't personally limit free will to just moral choices. I think it could be valuable to be able to choose different things when they are apparently morally neutral, like learning to play the drums rather than guitar. Also, if you can't make that kind of morally neutral choice, then I don't see why you would have the power to be able to make moral choices. With the beer example, it may be relatively trivial, but I was suggesting that we can see ourselves "doing otherwise" in that kind of scenario. There can still be reasons that may influence your choice, and you decide to select for such and such a reason, but they aren't particularly powerful. I don't think we experience ourselves being forced or compelled by those kinds of reasons. It's not like we would be irrational or acting out of character to select differently. I think moral responsibility does require libertarian free will, for reasons along the lines of the "consequences argument", and the "ought implies can" principle.

Compatibilism just doesn't much matter to me since I take determinism to be false.

Thank you. Yes, I've had the same thought. God gave us, to a more limited extent, the same power that he has as being the uncaused first causes of our own decisions.

Made it just for you ❤️

@faithbecauseofreason8381 I watched it when it came out but forgot to comment. Great reasoning, really solid ideas. I sent you a message on Facebook a while ago but I don't know if you saw it? I identified myself as Faith & Reason in the message.

@faithbecauseofreason8381 I watched it when it came out but forgot to comment. Great reasoning, really solid ideas. I sent you a message on Facebook a while ago but I don't know if you saw it? I identified myself as Faith & Reason in the message.

@@faithnreason446 I didn't receive such a message. Let me check my spam.

@faithbecauseofreason8381 I have no profile picture and my name begins with "P".

It is compatible with that, but it is not compatible with it being random. So if a decision can be both indeterministic and deliberate, as I say that it can, then we have a third way between a decision being random and a decion being determined.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381Sure, but if deliberateness is the explanation of our will being free and not random, and an action being deliberate is compatible with determinism and indeterminism, wouldn't this just be a compatiblist view of free will even if you wouldn't commit yourself to determinism?

@@nickolashessler314 it wouldn't be a compatibilist view insofar as my theory of free will entails indeterminism and so is therefore not compatible with determinism.

So I'm talking here about abilities. If the clock of time were rewound, then I agree that it is pretty unlikely that the agent *would* have chosen differently given the same reasons. But I see no reason to think they nevertheless *could* not have chosen differently given the same reasons.

I think the fact that people can make completly arbitrary choices between two even identical choices is proof positive enough that a libertarian type free will exists. Because if it didn't, being presented with two identical choices would always result in having to rely on non deliberate instinct/subconscious actions to take over there. Butbwe don't. Andvwhile it may not be common for a person to deliberate over two identical chores, given there's is no motive to ever do such a thing, we do In fact have capacity to do so.

When talking about choosing according to your greatest desire, I think it’s important to highlight the time at which this thing becomes one’s greatest desire. If it is their greatest desire prior to them choosing (just subconscious or unbeknownst to them), then I agree it would be deterministic. But I think something only becomes their greatest desire by virtue of them choosing it. I think both option a and option b can be equally desirable and given he has reasons to choose both, he chooses one, and only then does it make sense to say that it was his greatest desire because he made it such. In this framework libertarian freedom is maintained and the agent himself makes his choice his greatest desire.

@bilbobaggins9893 I don't see that it necessarily becomes deterministic if a greatest desire precedes a decision. Nothing about always choosing to act in accordance with one's greatest desire even remotely implies that they could not have acted in some other way.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381hmm, if one always chooses according to their greatest desire, what would be the evidence they could have chosen otherwise? It sounds like your saying it’s a logical possibility but maybe not a metaphysical possibility? Am I misunderstanding?

Well, I think that this ignores the third option. Why can't a decision be deliberate but not determined? Or are you stretching the definition of "random" so far that it includes deliberate decisions? And if so, then why is randomness incompatible with freedom?

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 if I make a deliberate decision to eat chicken nuggets right now and it’s not the result of any cause like my hunger then how am I in control of that choice. There’s no reason/cause that popped that into my head so then the choice is not attributable to me. I think the problem is determining were the self ends and the “external” causes begin. IE the question of Pluralism vs Monism.

@alexbleyker5816 so I think you are conflating reasons with causes. One can act for reasons without those reasons thereby determining or causing their action (as I explained in the video). Not all reasons are causal in nature. One can make some decision because of some desire, but this does not mean that the desire causes the action or that one could not have acted in accordance with some other desire.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 if you act on reason then that reason caused you to act because without it you wouldn’t have acted. If you act without reason/thought then that act is not attributable to you because you didn’t reason/think of that choice.

@alexbleyker5816 the reason may play a causal role, but if it does, there is no reason to think that it plays a *sufficient* causal role.

Well, indeterminism just entails that this is a possibility. Since my theory holds that we act on reasons, and since our reasons stay the same, I think that it is unlikely that, if the clock were wound back, then our decisions would be substantially different. Indeterminism is a claim about what is possible. We possibly could have done otherwise. It doesn't entail that we actually would do otherwise.

​@@faithbecauseofreason8381 So, do you believe that, even if i have a bias towards, say, decision A, given enough time, the traveler would eventually observe me choosing B?

@@gabri41200 no. All that my view entails is that you could choose B. You retain the categorical ability to choose B. But it might be the case that even if you *could* choose B, you never *would* choose B.

​@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Sorry, i can't understand what do you mean by "could" in this case. If i never ever chose B, how is it possible to assert that possibility?

@@gabri41200 because there is a distinction between what is possible and what is actual. It is not necessary that one ever actually choose to do B in order for that to be possible. I don't know how to break it down any further. This distinction seems pretty basic to me.

Do you think that determininits deny that we make choices?

​@faithbecauseofreason8381 Yes, determinists will simply deny free will, which raises the question as to why they bother to argue with people who they say have no freedom to change their minds. 😊 My argument is that free will is a self-evident experience which no one actually denies because even those who claim to rejects free will still behave as if it exists. They can claim fire is not hot, and that free will doesn't exist, but they still recoil from fire, and they still react to other's behavior as if it is volitional.

@@stevedoetsch then with all due respect, I don't think that you understand determinism. Determinists agree that we make choices. They just deny that we have a categorical ability to make different choices than we, in fact, make.

Yes, I understand that, but such language is just sophistry. Like saying that fire is cold, but a coldness which humans happen to experience as extreme heat. Academic hair splitting that posits a distinction without a difference is rudimentary sophistry we should all be able to recognize and ignore fairly early on in our intellectual development. Unless you're a teenage learning the basics of critical thinking there's no reason to scold someone for ignoring the distinctionless definitions of determinists. Unless you believe that saying "water is dry in a way that makes it wet" is an example of doing philosophy 😊 My argument is that free will is a fundamental self-evident experience which cannot be denied, the same way the hotness of fire cannot be denied, and the way that the wetness of water is directly experienced. You don't prove free will exists; you prove that those who deny that it exists are lying by showing that their behavior is inconsistent with their claims. Of course, a determinist believes that I had no choice but to follow my own free will to write that, so why should such a person argue with me?

I said it can be explained by the agent's having a reason, not necessarily the agent having reasoned. And no, acting based upon a desire is not the same as having one's action determined by a desire as I explained in the video. And this is different from randomness because I take randomness to mean having happened apart from a reason.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 But what do you mean by "having a reason?" This is an assertion. You're saying an agent's choice can be explained by "the reason" but not telling us how this is a sufficient explanation other than it is. In my door example what reason can be given? This needs to be explained. What part in the video did you explain that acting upon a desire is not the same as having one's action determined by a desire? Which by the way yes I agree is different from randomness but I never said acting on desires was.

@jrodtriathlete well your example seems to me to be a poor one since it stipulates that the person is blindfold and so probably does not know which door he is choosing. I am denying that there is a sufficient explanation. To demand one begs the question against indeterminism.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Ok sure, perhaps the thought experiment wasn't great. But we can surely come up with another that illustrates my point. You've highlighted the main problem though. You've simply decided that indeterminism is true and that therefore the principle of sufficient reason can be violated because, according to you, agents do not need a sufficient explanation for their own reasoning. There's no argument here. It's your assertion against the determinist. Even as a non-determinist, though, I would be very cautious dismissing the PSR. It seems like there's no where to go from here so I'll let it be. Not convincing but again I appreciated the video.

@jrodtriathlete well strictly speaking, I don't need an argument here. The randomness argument is supposed to establish that indeterministic freedom is logically impossible. I just need indeterministic yet deliberate choices to be logically possible in order to evade the conclusion of the argument. And I did give an argument for thinking that indeterminism is true. I argued that this was the simpler hypothesis. You haven't given any arguments for an unrestricted PSR.

It's not strange, it's a legitimate way of talking. We can say "the brick caused the window to break by hitting it", or we can phrase that as "the brick's hitting the window caused the breaking of the window". The latter sentence is not incorrect, but it's parasitic on the former (since the event-designators are just nominal transforms of the verbs "hitting" and "break" in the former sentence).

@@legron121 sure, but if you're trying to be precise it's better not to be so indirect

Well as explained in the video, the evidence from neuroscience is not nearly as clear cut as the determinist who makes this argument is making it out to be. As noted, the decisions which are predicted are not like the ones we care about. The fMRI scans were able to predict which from among two buttons participants were going to select. But there was a quite large error margin in the predictions, there was a 50/50 chance of getting the prediction right in any case, and the button picking was essentially arbitrary. It is too hasty to infer anything significant about the human will from this data.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381The point is that, because of the fMRI data, determinism now enters into the realm of plausible scientific conceivability. This isn’t a matter for ontology anymore, and the philosophical questions become pragmatically irrelevant. What happens if MRI’s start getting miniaturized, and AI starts being able predict our more complicated actions even further back in time by statistically analyzing real time brain scans? The only way to demonstrate that this isn’t possible or likely is through more neuroscience. And the evidence on that front doesn’t look promising.

@williamcurt7204 well my point is that it doesn't. The data is much too limited in scope to have any bearing on the question of whether or not determinism is true.

@@williamcurt7204 If one is to posit such an extraneous "what if or what happens if...", that person needs to provide legitimate data that includes multitudes of possibilities that supersede the two-button experimental data. Until that is done, the argument from scientific data is irrelevant to the argument on free will. Also in some case studies of human neurology (1980 Benjamin Libet), determinists try to argue that from blips in data (the study called them "readiness potential"), they were able to see that people prior to choosing an option had energy signals leading to make a decision, supposedly showing that we do not make decisions ourselves. This data was shown to be false in some years after that supposition in another experiment in 2012, showing that the blips were existent in everything, not just decision-making; thus, it makes the argument for determinism unverifiable from scientific data (Source: Justin Brierley: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God Page 179 to 182)

Thank you for watching. Here are my thoughts on your ‘problems’ with my take on free will: “1. If you include "Deliberation" into the indetermined category of random, it is still random, because the final result of deliberation or how the deliberation is done is still random.” So first off I said “deliberate” by which I meant “intentional” or “done for a reason” - I did not say deliberation. If your definition of “random” allows intentional actions to qualify as random, then I must confess that I don’t really know what you mean by the word. Randomness is only a problem insofar as it is incompatible with something being done for a reason. To the extent that you are not including that feature in your definition, I don’t really care about avoiding randomness. “You have just pushed the problem back one step. Why did you deliberate one way rather than another? Did you deliberate to deliberate to deliberate....a certain way?” Again, I’m talking about an action being deliberate in the sense of being intentional or done for a reason. I am not talking about the process of deliberation. “2. I don't think your conception of simplicity is correct.” According to Merriam-Webster simplicity is defined as “the state of being simple, uncomplicated, or uncompounded.” I am specifically understanding simplicity in this latter sense. A theory is simpler if it includes fewer parts. This is a fairly standard usage of the term in metaphysics. “Positing there is a single first entity that causes all subsequent events (people and their decisions) is much more simple than countless entities every time a person makes a "free" decision creating new causal event chains.” How is that simpler? This theory includes as many parts as my theory, and then some since it commits you, not just to the existence of the same number of entities as my theory, but also to a large number of deterministic relations between this first entity and all subsequent events. “LFW posits almost infinite buglers coming in to take your money.” How so? “3. Although the Libbet experiments are not conclusive (science is never conclusive) I still think it points to determinism as a single piece of evidence.” Why do you think so in light of my discussion of the matter? “I think abiogenesis and evolution are better abductive reasons to believe determinism is true.” These seem irrelevant to the question of determinism to me. “Given the scientific evidence points to life starting as replicating chemicals and thru evolution we humans have developed after billions of years, I think it unlikely at some point chemicals became "object causal". Sure, but who is saying anything to the contrary? I take conscious agents (basic particulars which serve as the center of conscious experience) to be the uncaused first causes of their decisions. I never suggested that chemicals have this ability. “Additionally, I think LFW entails chemistry in brains works different than chemistry we have observed everywhere else in the universe. I find no evidence of that happening.” The I would have to ask you to show that entailment. This is far from obviously true. “4. About the only descent evidence of LFW is we feel like we made a "free choice". I believe this feeling is because the conscious brain is not aware of the mechanistic processes of the subconscious brain and decisions appear to us and we feel like they are "free".” This concedes a critical part of my argument, namely that we lack any awareness of a causal relation prior to our decisions. If you think that they are there, then you are adding new things to our ontology and so you bear the burden of proof. “This feeling/ of being free is one of the lowest forms of evidence. We have numerous examples of the brain doing things mechanistically we are not aware of like beating your heart or telling muscles to move in specific ways, retrieving memories, etc. As I'm typing this, most of the words just appear. I didn't deliberate, yet they are presumably free choices. Most likely, each word is created by the mechanistic processes of the subconscious even though the words seem to be free choices.” This appears to just beg the question against my perspective. “5. Like you, I have asked myself, did I really have a choice. With introspection, I gotta say no. I have to say I acted on my highest want, but when I ask, where did this want come from, my only answer is from ultimately outside, usually biology or experiences no matter how much I deliberate.” Irrelevant. I’m fine with the idea that our desires originate outside of ourselves. I’m even fine with us acting in accordance with them. Nothing about this implies that we don’t have a categorical ability to act in another way. “I also think, had the universe been rewound a billion times to anytime in my life I would make the exact same decisions and if I didn't, I'd consider my decisions random. Although not definitive, I do think this is some evidence of a causal relationship similar to your billiard ball example.” This cannot be evidence for your perspective since it equally compatible with both of our hypotheses. “6. Although you didn't cover this in your video is the "Agent" in LFW stripped of all "reasons" or "influences" seems to be nothing.” A conscious immaterial mind is not nothing. It is a simple substance which cannot be reduced to something more basic. But that’s not the same as it being nothing. “7. Lastly, although not definitive, induction seems to favor a deterministic relationship that stretches to the foundation of reality (first cause).” Which inductive evidence supports that conclusion? “Just because we think we sense qualia and thoughts is placing too high an importance on our own perspective” We literally only have our perspective. Even someone else sharing their perspective with you has to be acquired from your own perspective. Without your own perspective, you’ve quite literally got nothing. “and is not enough to override the mountain of deterministic evidence of the universe.” I don’t see that you’ve cited any evidence for this whatsoever, let alone a mountain. “No one knows the qualia of an ant or bacterium or virus or the sun, but I find it highly unlikely they have object causation. People are infantessimally small dust compared to the observable universe.” So? We have no reason to think that these sorts of entities are anything like ourselves. I mean no offense, but who really cares? What’s the point of comparing us to things which are nothing like us?

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 My thoughts on your thoughts: 1:"So first off I said “deliberate” by which I meant “intentional” or “done for a reason”" My bad. Your intention is still in the "random category". Random is random even partially random especially since your intentions don't track outside reasons. I would say you were at least partially insane. If your intentions do track outside reasons it is like a machine or a brain that processes information. 2:"How is that simpler? This theory includes as many parts as my theory, and then some since it commits you, not just to the existence of the same number of entities as my theory, but also to a large number of deterministic relations between this first entity and all subsequent events." In my theory, there is only one entity, the foundation of reality. As deterministic causes, we are not entities. A rock or an ocean or planet is not an entity. Most likely, everything we observe including ourselves is a manifestation of underlying quantum fields. One entity. If people break the chain of causation from the foundation, I would consider people and other animals who have LFW, entities. 3. What I meant by aboigenesis and evolution was... life seems to have started as replicating chemicals and there seems to be an unbroken chain from the earliest replicating chemicals to us. We are still chemicals. It is hard to see where this object causation happened and what caused it to happen from replicating chemicals. We are not that different than lots of current animals and our ancestors. 4. "This concedes a critical part of my argument, namely that we lack any awareness of a causal relation prior to our decisions. If you think that they are there, then you are adding new things to our ontology and so you bear the burden of proof." I was merely pointing out a plausible/probable explanation for this feeling of "freedom" (the main reason for LFW) and I gave several examples of how the conscious brain is not aware of the mechanistic functions of the subconscious brain as an under cutting defeater to this feeling of freedom. You can also add how many times our feelings about reality was shown to be wrong. 5. About my introspection..."Nothing about this implies that we don’t have a categorical ability to act in another way." This is just my introspection. I don't feel like I could have acted another way. In terms of words just appearing, it is not begging the question. I'm making an observation I don't feel I intentionally select these words over other possible words. They just appear. The selection of these words is probably one of the most "free" actions I can think of. 6. "A conscious immaterial mind is not nothing. It is a simple substance which cannot be reduced to something more basic. But that’s not the same as it being nothing." I guess that's a point of contention. There is the interaction problem and the far scientific consensus from several fields of cognitive research is minds are working brains. There are more problems with immaterial minds. Theists will obviously dispute this. It seems to me an immaterial mind stripped of outside reasons seems to be nothing. No thoughts, no desires, no actions, no senses. I cannot even call it a mind. Also, do we need an immaterial mind to have LFW? If it is required, why was that not in the video? 7. What I meant was... our "feeling" of making free choices is really nothing compared to a seemingly deterministic universe. It's like using induction. We see uncountable white swans, but we "feel" like a black swans. Please be charitable, I don't know how to explain this like a philosopher. "What’s the point of comparing us to things which are nothing like us?" The point is.... We are a lot like bacteria, ants, trees, monkeys, rabbits, even stars. There is common ancestry, atoms, molecules, chemistry and the underlying quantum fields manifesting time, space matter and energy. 8. Like you, I have used abduction and I think the best explanation is decisions are determined totally and sufficiently by antecedent reasons most likely chemistry of the brain. The feeling of freedom is not enough to outweigh the reasons above for me.

Do you disagree that determinism entails more causal/deterministic relations than indeterminism?

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, It is folly and shame unto him." Proverbs 18:13

Keep watching. He addresses your concern in the first 5 minutes. Also, no one defines faith as you have, not secular or religious people. The only person who holds to that definition is Aaron Ra and that’s because he made it up. I hope you’ll be a little more open minded and give this video a fair chance.

@@faithbecauseofreason8381 "He that don't wasteth his time on a matter when the creator of the video displays incredible ignorance withineth less than a minuteth precious timeth-savethed."ActualGoodAdvice 18:13

@@bilbobaggins9893 as a secular person, i've defined faith that way because even religious people define it that way "you just gotta have faith!" A.K.A. no logic or facts, just believe for belief's sake, i'll watch the first 5 minutes and then reply to you again when he definitely fails to address what i said in my first comment

@@bilbobaggins9893 i watched up to 6:41, you just lied, nowhere does he address anything i said, why lie?