This relates strongly to something I’ve been putting together recently in regard to criteria. The current Miss America is indisputably Miss America, just like your proton, but the criteria for determining what is “idealized American womanhood” could be argued about for days. Effective Altruism has a similar issue. It determines the “most effective charities” and the ones they choose are the ones that best fit their criteria for this but you could argue all day about the criteria’s validity.
Hello Dr. Bryan, I was wondering would you say words like GOAT, Great, Best etc and other similar descriptive adjectives face a problem of vagueness too with regards to their meaning? That despite how they are usually used to mean they still are vague like being Bald or Tall etc?
Yes, I agree with that. They exhibit both ambiguity & vagueness. They have ambiguity because they have multiple, subtly distinct meanings. They have vagueness because even after choosing a single meaning, they will have plenty of cases for which we simply can't know whether the term "great" applies, since the cases are borderline ones.
'Free Will & Determinism. I’ve encountered many people who are captivated by the “Does determinism rule out free will?” question. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but there’s no answer to that question. Anyone who gives you one is either an amateur or is offering a gross simplification, period. The free will/determinism question is wildly ambiguous, and different ambiguations are true while others are false.'
I must differ from you here. Granted that "free will" has multiple meanings, it is possible to define those meanings separately and evaluate the extent to which the statement "I have free will" is coherent and supported by facts. For example, one definition has it that free will means that people have an immaterial will or soul that is not subject to physical law. It's clear that people do not have free will in this sense, as will become apparent when you ask them for any evidence that immaterial will exists. Another definition has it that people do not have an immaterial free will, but that nevertheless forces like quantum indeterminacy, strong emergence, and the like enable people to behave in ways that are not determined by prior states operating according to deterministic laws. This definition can also be rationally assessed, as I have done here.
You didn't say anything that goes against what I said about free will. Indeed, you seem to endorse it: multiple meanings for "free will", and some make "We have free will" true while others make it false.
I don't agree with what you wrote, but it's consistent with what I wrote!
You imply in your article that discussions of free will are all bullshit. You are dismissive of these discussions because they're either based on ignorance of the question or "oversimplifications." However, both of the approaches that I sketched out in my comment are legitimate simplifications, but not oversimplifications. Oversimplification means a simplification that ignores complexities that are essential to the question at hand. However, free will can be productively discussed while still doing justice to the complexities of issue. Different definitions can be distinguished from each other and a total account of free will can be assembled from them.
No, you are still misreading me. I stand by what I wrote: "Anyone who gives you [a single answer to "Does determinism rule out free will?"] is either an amateur or is offering a gross simplification, period". I think that's just plain true.
But that doesn't mean, at all, that all discussions of free will are bullshit. That's a gross misreading of what I said.
I think the "a single answer" part is an important clarification, and you should have stated explicitly that there can be productive discussions of the free will issue if different definitions are appropriately distinguished. If you did, then I would agree with you that discussions of free will are kind of dumb if they don't acknowledge the polysemy of the term "free will." Perhaps my own work on free will should be more clear about the polysemy problem. And I also I don't think the free will question is at all similar to questions like "Who is the greatest actor?" because the former is susceptible to more exact definition.
Does it bother you that you’re putting a large body of philosophical and scientific work on the same level as debates about meaningless questions, like who the greatest actor is? Do you really think the debate over free will is meaningless?
This relates strongly to something I’ve been putting together recently in regard to criteria. The current Miss America is indisputably Miss America, just like your proton, but the criteria for determining what is “idealized American womanhood” could be argued about for days. Effective Altruism has a similar issue. It determines the “most effective charities” and the ones they choose are the ones that best fit their criteria for this but you could argue all day about the criteria’s validity.
Hello Dr. Bryan, I was wondering would you say words like GOAT, Great, Best etc and other similar descriptive adjectives face a problem of vagueness too with regards to their meaning? That despite how they are usually used to mean they still are vague like being Bald or Tall etc?
Yes, I agree with that. They exhibit both ambiguity & vagueness. They have ambiguity because they have multiple, subtly distinct meanings. They have vagueness because even after choosing a single meaning, they will have plenty of cases for which we simply can't know whether the term "great" applies, since the cases are borderline ones.
I'm writing a book on this very issue!
'Free Will & Determinism. I’ve encountered many people who are captivated by the “Does determinism rule out free will?” question. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but there’s no answer to that question. Anyone who gives you one is either an amateur or is offering a gross simplification, period. The free will/determinism question is wildly ambiguous, and different ambiguations are true while others are false.'
I must differ from you here. Granted that "free will" has multiple meanings, it is possible to define those meanings separately and evaluate the extent to which the statement "I have free will" is coherent and supported by facts. For example, one definition has it that free will means that people have an immaterial will or soul that is not subject to physical law. It's clear that people do not have free will in this sense, as will become apparent when you ask them for any evidence that immaterial will exists. Another definition has it that people do not have an immaterial free will, but that nevertheless forces like quantum indeterminacy, strong emergence, and the like enable people to behave in ways that are not determined by prior states operating according to deterministic laws. This definition can also be rationally assessed, as I have done here.
https://open.substack.com/pub/eclecticinquiries/p/the-pseudoscience-of-free-will?r=4952v2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
You didn't say anything that goes against what I said about free will. Indeed, you seem to endorse it: multiple meanings for "free will", and some make "We have free will" true while others make it false.
I don't agree with what you wrote, but it's consistent with what I wrote!
You imply in your article that discussions of free will are all bullshit. You are dismissive of these discussions because they're either based on ignorance of the question or "oversimplifications." However, both of the approaches that I sketched out in my comment are legitimate simplifications, but not oversimplifications. Oversimplification means a simplification that ignores complexities that are essential to the question at hand. However, free will can be productively discussed while still doing justice to the complexities of issue. Different definitions can be distinguished from each other and a total account of free will can be assembled from them.
No, you are still misreading me. I stand by what I wrote: "Anyone who gives you [a single answer to "Does determinism rule out free will?"] is either an amateur or is offering a gross simplification, period". I think that's just plain true.
But that doesn't mean, at all, that all discussions of free will are bullshit. That's a gross misreading of what I said.
I think the "a single answer" part is an important clarification, and you should have stated explicitly that there can be productive discussions of the free will issue if different definitions are appropriately distinguished. If you did, then I would agree with you that discussions of free will are kind of dumb if they don't acknowledge the polysemy of the term "free will." Perhaps my own work on free will should be more clear about the polysemy problem. And I also I don't think the free will question is at all similar to questions like "Who is the greatest actor?" because the former is susceptible to more exact definition.
I'll disagree with you on the "free will"/"greatest actor" detail, but that's pretty minor!
Does it bother you that you’re putting a large body of philosophical and scientific work on the same level as debates about meaningless questions, like who the greatest actor is? Do you really think the debate over free will is meaningless?