Your Aversion To Determinism Is Itself Predetermined

[boost]

Yeah, looks like I conflated a lack of freewill with a determined universe.

But even with the quirkiness of quarks, there is no obvious place to rest the claim that we exert agency over our decisions.

And even then, I think I may have layered the explicit reference to freewill onto this idea unnecessarily. The key point is that the causal regression is functionally infinite. Picking a starting point is prone to being influenced by bias, and even when there is no bias, the starting point itself will bias the following narrative.

[MadMojoMonkey]

But even with the quirkiness of quarks, there is no obvious place to rest the claim that we exert agency over our decisions.

Quite the opposite.

The QM description of particles and their interactions and evolution applies to the particles which make a brain. That description would be different if agency mattered. The predicted probabilities would not be observed.

I.e. if QM predicts something in a brain will happen at X%, without invoking any agency of mind, then evidence of the mind having agency would be to observe anything other than X%. If the QM description is enough, which all current experiments fail to show evidence that it isn't, then the claim that we exert agency is on paper thin ice.

If we never observe any particle interactions which are not in line with the predicted "allowed" outcomes and their associated probabilities of QM, then what possible influence could we exert?

(Just for clarity, we commonly use the term allowed state in QM, but we have to be careful that we mean "allowed by the axioms of QM," and not "given permission.")

[boost]

Quite the opposite.

I'm a bit confused. Everything that follows seems to back up my claim that we lack agency. Did I miss a double negative somewhere?

[Poopadoop]

I'm a bit confused. Everything that follows seems to back up my claim that we lack agency. Did I miss a double negative somewhere?

I think he's saying 'if we could show probabilistic events were affected by agency, we could prove agency' or something like that. So, we could prove agency in theory.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'm a bit confused. Everything that follows seems to back up my claim that we lack agency. Did I miss a double negative somewhere?

The sense I meant it is "no obvious place to rest the claim [...]" should be replaced with "indication [...] is not the case."

It's poorly worded. I almost changed it days ago, but no one was calling me out on it, so I guessed that it wasn't as misleading as I was reading it.

[boost]

The sense I meant it is "no obvious place to rest the claim [...]" should be replaced with "indication [...] is not the case."

It's poorly worded. I almost changed it days ago, but no one was calling me out on it, so I guessed that it wasn't as misleading as I was reading it.

The metaphor of a claim resting on a foundation of evidence is pretty standard, no? But yeah, I suppose I could have been a lot clearer.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The metaphor of a claim resting on a foundation of evidence is pretty standard, no? But yeah, I suppose I could have been a lot clearer.

Your wording was fine. It was mine that I was criticizing.