Doesn’t Occam’s Razor lead us to dump the assumption of determinism, since it yields no new results?
Are you using Occam’s Razor as a guideline or are you using it in drawing a conclusion?
Did you read the link provided?
I am compatibalist. Join us.
I think Occam’s Razor takes a swipe at you guys, too, MaikU.
How does determinism not yield new results?
From everything that I’ve gleaned Occam’s razor is about choosing the simplest choice so long as there is equal evidence supporting both choices. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with yielding new results. Indeed Occam’s razor would favor determinism.
Which is a simpler explanation?
The laws of causality effect everything except for the human brain which has the special ability to go against causality itself and originate its own destiny/thought/fate.
The implication then being that humans had free will and thier thoughts and actions were not determined, strictly speaking, by the physical makeup of the universe.
Or
The laws of causality effect everything.
The extention of this principle meaning that human action and though processes are determined by the physical makeup of the universe.
Ouch 
My argument for Free Will as opposed to compatibilism.
It is necessarily true since otherwise one couldn’t evaluate the truth value of the question “Is LFW true?” because you could only conclude what you were determined to do which gives no foundation for truth
Evolution likely takes care of that. If you can’t answer simple truth questions, then you die and don’t have offspring. Logic may be a spontaneous phenomenon.
Call me dumb, but I fail to see how determinism is effected by Occam’s Razor. I’m with Neodoxy; determinism seems more parsimonious (which doesn’t necessarily make it true).
my argument is as follows
-
If we assume determinism alone, but not free will, then all the results of Austrian economics are not derivable. Because the brain is a black box and we have no way of knowing what will happen if, say , a minimum wage law is introduced. It’s all up to the chemicals in the brain, which for all we know from determinsim in our present state of knowledge, could be any result whatsoever.
-
If we assume free will alone and not determinism, then all the results of Austrian Economics are derivable. And reality shows them to be true results, which is the same reason we give credence to the assumptions of physics.
-
Thus, all we know is derivable from assuming free will. Assuming detrminism adds nothing to our knowledge, and on the contrary, negates all the knowledge we have from assuming free will. [Note that this is a compound sentence, with two ideas. The first that determinsim adds nothing. The second that it detracts]. Occam’s Razor therefor tells us [based on either or both of the two ideas] to dump determinism.
but free will DOESN’T exist, dude. That’s the problem. People make choices, but they are not “free”, but infact, a result of chain of events, also known as “cause and effect”.
-
And your proof of that assertion is?
-
“a chain of cause and effect” and “choice” seem are opposites.
- and your refutation of occam’s razor applied here is?
Just make sure we are all on the same page. Prior to the revelation of the uncertainty principle, everyone thought it “self evident” that a thing has a particular velocity and a particular place at any given instant. The uncertainty principle was accepted, and it was assumed that the exact place and exact velocity are unknowable. Apllying Occam’s Razor, physicists just said "There is no such such thing as an exact palce and an exact velocity of an object. It introduces an unneccasary complication, that adds nothing to our knowledge, to say those things are “there’ but unknowable. So we’ll just shave them away and say they don’t exist.”
My line of reasoning above is doing the same thing, shaving away the uneecasary assumption, asssumed only because it makes some people feel comfortable, but adds nothing to our knowledge, that human actions are results of "Cause and effect’ the same way the motion of a billaird ball is.
I fail to see how assuming determinism means assuming that the brain is a black box. Can you explain?
At the risk of sounding obtuse, could you provide your own definitions for “free will” and “determinism”? I ask this because it seems to me that the results of Austrian Economics are underivable if we don’t assume determinism.
The results of Austrian Economics are all we know? Can you please substantiate this?
Logic by it’s ver nature is deterministic, so anything that is an actual logical proposition trying to define the nature of logic can not support free will. Free Will is a grammatical error at best .
Occom’s Razor is not a “guidline”,it states that anything uneccassary for the symbolism at hand is meaningless. This is full on determinism…as is Misean economics. “Choice” just functions as a convienet symbol word to speak of inter subjective relations.
Everything acts as it does because it is some specific force, and all things that are or ever will be are necessary by the nature of their force and their relationship to one another.
Z is not ‘caused’ by X, Rather if Z and if X, both must be so.
Z and X being is determined in relationship to all prior and future A’s and B’s.
In other words: If something can not be clearly said - it can not be said at all. It disproves itself by it’s own murky phrasing.
I’m sorry dave but I believe that you have really some gross misconceptions here.
“1. If we assume determinism alone, but not free will, then all the results of Austrian economics are not derivable. Because the brain is a black box and we have no way of knowing what will happen if, say , a minimum wage law is introduced. It’s all up to the chemicals in the brain, which for all we know from determinsim in our present state of knowledge, could be any result whatsoever.”
False, determinism simply states that it’s a case of cause and effect, it does not say what this cause and effect entails. The brain functions differently than the billiard ball, the lever does not act in the same way as the pulley. Just because something is cause and effect does not mean that AE is negated. It could be in the nature of cause and effect that the praxeological assumption was true, that men have value and use that which they know to satisfy it, they are not incompatable in the slightest. Indeed the praxeological assumption states that “men aim at certain things”, simply because this is determined by chemical interactions and the formation of the brain itself does not mean anything, indeed as long as we know that the brain functions in such a way as to bring available knowledge to attempt to satisfy the wants praxeology applies so long as its further assumptions are met.
Also, the thing is that even under praxeological assumptions the result of any action could be “any result whatsoever”. Praxeology, as its unstated assumptions go, has to assume some sort of constancy of values. For instance if a minimum wage is imposed but at the same time there is a sudden jump in the value of labor at that moment that puts all laborers in question above that minimum wage and no unemployment would result. Or everyone could at that moment disassociate and the market system could collapse. These assumptions must be held, and they can be with determinism employed.
“2. If we assume free will alone and not determinism, then all the results of Austrian Economics are derivable. And reality shows them to be true results, which is the same reason we give credence to the assumptions of physics.”
You have committed a methodological fallacy here, historical events cannot prove or disprove the teachings of Austrian Economics. Furthermore history also favors other economic schools in most other cases
“3. Thus, all we know is derivable from assuming free will. Assuming detrminism adds nothing to our knowledge, and on the contrary, negates all the knowledge we have from assuming free will. [Note that this is a compound sentence, with two ideas. The first that determinsim adds nothing. The second that it detracts]. Occam’s Razor therefor tells us [based on either or both of the two ideas] to dump determinism.”
Occam’s razor has nothing to do with this, if you were correct then it would not involve Occam’s razor, it’s a case of the scientific method, it has nothing to do with how simple an explanation is, the deterministic belief is more simple. Occam’s razor is not a factor here.
At any rate, in the long run determinism is more or less impossible to disprove unless one takes the “argument from ignorance” way out. There is a reason why Mises favored the determinist side of the debate and stated explicitly that determinism V. free will has no implication on praxeology because the ultimate cause for human values is not adressed by praxeology, it could be free will or deterministic actions which determine values, it makes no difference, from then on we know how the human brain will act.
they are not. It is all obvious and supported by real world. That’s why I don’t buy neither hard determinism nor free will-ism. Thing is, people confuse free will with ability to make a choice. Now, whether it is influenced by external reality or inner psychology of human being is questionable, but it is an empirical fact, that humans - as rational animals - make decisions. And to argue, that they are not influenced by world (in general) is to fall into pseudo-religious free will camp.
And again, I think many people who believe in free will (and hard determinism) are just confused about these concepts and they would be compatibalists if they understood, that there is nothing free about the universe and that that is not a bad thing. And it has little to do with libertarian free will which is, according to me, just a useful metaphor. I use “free will” all the time, just like I use word “soul” when I speak about peoples’ minds and/or psichological state etc. Just like I accept conceptual dualism (it has to do with proving self-ownership, mind and a body). Well, better be if I called it “libertarian conceptual dualism”, because only libertarians assert (and truthfully) that people own their bodies.