It seems to me you made a bit of a mess here…

To begin with, there is no connection whatsoever between determinism and epistemology. We don’t say that things are justified to believe because our brain started believing them; the opposite—we want to bring our brain to believe things that are epistemically justified, to the extent that they are justified. So the question is what one is justified in believing—the connection between belief and reality. That is true both in a deterministic universe and in a non-deterministic one (not that it’s at all clear to me how a non-deterministic universe works, but never mind—if it somehow resembles our reality then it works the same way). Either a certain belief is justified or it isn’t; the way you arrived at that belief, and the ability to avoid arriving at it, does not make it justified or unjustified.

But the real tangle is in: “What judgment can he exercise regarding all kinds of hypotheses that are not 100% certain? In other words, does determinism imply within itself an extreme skepticism that accepts no claim about reality unless it is 100% certain?”

First, this confuses determinism—which includes the correct fact that judgment is “forced on us” (by previous causal events)—with the idea that these are *arbitrary* events, meaning that judgment doesn’t even *exist* and is merely an illusion. That’s one huge leap from “X is necessary and must exist in a certain way in reality” to “X doesn’t exist at all and has no meaning.”

It was correctly said here that science (and really any reasonable epistemology, when you think about it) must rely on induction, that is, on non-immediate cognition, and that therefore every conclusion we have about reality is conditional—at a level of probability below 100%, liable to error, and subject to change in light of the evidence. But from there there is some leap to the idea that if your judgment is deterministic, then you cannot “accept a claim” that is not 100% certain, because that somehow requires judgment?

That’s… really not how it works. You do not do epistemology by “accepting” claims as certainly true. If something has a 98% probability of being true, then it is justified to accept it as true at 98% probability, and to act accordingly. That is true *even if that’s not how our brain works* and we usually just rely on facts that we “accept as true,” because it should be understood that this is only an approximation of ideal epistemology, in which at no stage do you have a step of “accepting a fact as true.” Everything always remains somewhere between 0 and 1, and only rises and falls with the evidence. That also means that “judgment” has no connection here—Bayes’ theorem works mathematically even without someone calculating it, let alone someone with some vague and undefined “free will” who has “judgment” he can exercise for the magical effect of reaching a certainly correct conclusion.

If all our knowledge of reality is conditional, then one should say, “All right then, my feeling of certainty is at best a semi-reliable approximation and I need to stop thinking of uncertainty as some inherent defect in a claim.” The answer is not to keep thinking that uncertainty is yucky. There is no alchemy by which we take our God-given non-deterministic judgment, turn the uncertain claim into a claim we have “accepted” as certain, and then get to live again in the magical world of certainties.

Finally, the conclusion that determinism requires extreme skepticism (that is, that knowledge is impossible) is odd—since it is obvious and self-evident that the overwhelming majority of determinists do just fine and accumulate knowledge and do not claim that it does not exist, nor do they display any obvious inconsistency in that. That should indicate to you that a determinist will answer your question better than someone trying to undermine determinism.

How exciting… finally to speak with a determinist.
I’ll start from the end: the argument that determinists get along just fine with science doesn’t hold water, because it’s possible they simply live with a contradiction that needs to be exposed (and incidentally they have no problem with that, because that too is how they feel—and it’s forced on them).
As for the rest, I’ll try to sharpen my claims, though I assume that as a determinist they can’t make any impression on you, since it’s hard for me to understand how a determinist is capable of discussing and weighing things.
At any rate, to leave you in suspense, and to prove to you that I have free will, I’ll leave it for now and get back to it later..

I can’t understand you (apparently that too was forced on him). I’m talking about real-world situations that are not known to us with certainty. For example, repeated observations show me that an apple always falls from the tree; then along comes someone—you the determinist—and claims that this phenomenon is part of the more general phenomenon of gravity, etc. As you noted, there is no certainty in that inductive inference. So by what means are you able to weigh whether to accept that claim? If you are able to entertain two sides in thought and then decide that one side is more probable than the other, and sometimes change that in light of new observations, do you not think that proves that you have judgment regarding which conclusions to accept and which to reject?

“The argument that determinists get along just fine with science doesn’t hold water, because it’s possible they simply live with a contradiction that needs to be exposed (and incidentally they have no problem with that, because that too is how they feel—and it’s forced on them).”

A. The idea that determinists live comfortably with contradictions because they think it is forced on them is wrong, not to say pretty silly. Determinists want consistency in their worldview no less than anyone else. A determinist also recognizes that there is a causal connection between trying to build a more coherent worldview and actually having one, and therefore there is no reason he wouldn’t try to do so.

B. If there is a contradiction in my worldview, then I will try to formulate a more correct worldview. I recognize in advance the possibility of error, and I strive to correct errors as much as possible. Determinism does not affect this at all. As stated, there is no connection between determinism and epistemology.

“If you are able to entertain two sides in thought and then decide that one side is more probable than the other, and sometimes change that in light of new observations, do you not think that proves that you have judgment regarding which conclusions to accept and which to reject?”

C. Of course that proves that I have such judgment. But what does that have to do with determinism? Nothing at all. I have a brain, and it functions. It can weigh evidence and reach conclusions. All of that is true in a deterministic universe as well.

You’re welcome to try explaining to me what the connection is, because I don’t see it.

Hello Neil.
I disagree with you completely, and it seems to me you didn’t understand the focus of the argument.
In the deterministic worldview, a person is a kind of state-machine that receives output and produces input (= conclusions, decisions). You have no way of determining whether this machine produces correct output. Take scientific inference as an example. You measure a collection of specific facts in the lab and from them build a general theory (derive and formulate a law of nature). The overwhelming majority of machines will produce nonsensical output. And since you have no way of knowing and deciding what kind of machine yours is (= you), the simple assumption is that your conclusions are worth nothing. And even if it seems to you that they recover in light of observations, that very conclusion is itself the conclusion of an arbitrary machine, and there is no reason to take it seriously. Beyond that, of course there is no one who takes it seriously or not seriously. That is the output, period. In order to determine that the output is reliable, there must be something beyond the state-machine (a homunculus?) that observes it and concludes that it is reliable.
To that one can of course raise the evolutionary explanation that shows that our machine is not arbitrary. But two comments should be made about that: 1. The reliability of the senses does not always have optimal survival value. Evolutionary reasoning tells us that our senses and thinking are survivals, not necessarily that they are reliable. 2. Evolution itself is also the result of a scientific inference made by the machine.

I’ll conclude with two remarks that complement one another, and one more:
1. The fact that determinists live perfectly well and accumulate information about the world proves nothing except that they are inconsistent (and that too is not their fault, because according to them they are forced into it. But according to me they are mistaken, so the truth is that this conclusion is indeed their own decision, and that is yet another failure found in them).
In other words: this argument begs the question. I claim they are wrong, and you explain to me that I should simply observe them and see that they think they are not wrong. By the same token I will claim against you: look at those who come to undermine determinism—they are convinced that determinists are wrong. Conclusion: the determinists are wrong.
2. Beyond that, they are wrong because they are not deterministic machines, and therefore they really can infer conclusions.
3. I would not turn to determinists to clarify this topic, because a great many of them fail in basic reasoning errors. No less, and perhaps more, than those who attack them (= try to undermine their doctrine).

“You have no way of determining whether this machine produces correct output.”

…Of course you do.
If the output the machine produces is “I can fly,” and that causes me to jump from a fifth-floor window, I’ll discover the error very quickly—it simply won’t match the observations.

“And even if it seems to you that they recover in light of observations, that very conclusion is itself the conclusion of an arbitrary machine, and there is no reason to take it seriously.”

That is wrong twice over.
First, the claim that the machine is arbitrary is grounded in nothing. Why should a determinist think the machine is arbitrary? That does not follow in any way. I can argue with you about the evolutionary matter—I know Plantinga’s argument that you paraphrased, and it is completely crooked—but that is unnecessary, because from the outset the determinist is not committed to the thought that his brain operates arbitrarily. He is only committed to the fact that the brain operates *causally*, in a way determined by the circumstances. If anything, that points away from the idea that it is arbitrary. It seems you think the determinist is supposed to think that thinking machines are simply drawn from some uniform distribution of arbitrary computational machines, but that’s absurd and there is no reason to think that—and it also does not follow from the deterministic position in any way.

The second mistake is even bigger. From the outset I compare things to experiences. After all, I have experiences—that’s fairly clear; and those experiences are determined by something—I call that something reality. Then I try to think how reality works based on my past experiences. Sometimes my models succeed in predicting future experiences. Sometimes they don’t, and then I try to correct them. But in any case, *and entirely independent of determinism*, this method produces models that succeed in predicting at least some experiences (for example, what I’ll feel if I jump from a fifth-floor window). Once again people are trying to force determinism into epistemology, but there is no connection between the two. I say that this mistake is such that even if I granted you the claim that I’m supposed to believe that my computational machine is arbitrary (I’m not), you would still have a category error—confusing correct epistemology with the machine trying to infer it.

As for the three remarks at the end:

1+3) I said that they seem not to think they are wrong and that they *do not display any obvious inconsistency in that*. If you see an inconsistency, you can try to point it out. In any event, the defense both of you proposed (“I live with contradictions because it is decreed for me”) is *not* the defense a typical determinist gives, and therefore you are plainly not dealing with their real arguments—so presumably it is better to ask a determinist what his strongest argument is, instead of building straw men.

2) Just plain silly—what prevents a deterministic machine from “really inferring conclusions”? Nothing.

I’ve already answered all this, so it’s unclear why you think I didn’t understand the argument. Clearly nothing new has been added.

Somehow one of my sentences got deleted and cut off halfway through.

It should read: “I say that this mistake is even bigger because it does not depend on the nature of my computational machine, so even if I granted you the claim…”

Hello Neil.
Again, you didn’t understand my claim. I didn’t say that you assume the brain operates arbitrarily. What I said is that this is what you ought to understand. And the reason is that you have no indication, and cannot have any indication, that this is not so. Therefore, assuming we have no a priori information, one may assume as a model that all possible machines are equally weighted, and out of all the machines the number of those that operate reliably is negligible. Now even if you bring a posteriori confirmations (like flying out the window), that has no significance, because that very inference (= learning from experience) you are making with the same machine—and how do you know it has validity?
My claim is not about specific facts (though one could argue about those too, as I noted above) but mainly about general claims (like laws of nature). Predictive ability does not say much about the general law (unless you accept an assumption that there is a connection, but that itself is an assumption of your machine, with no reason to accept it).
As for your claims based on what determinists answer, your words simply reflect a misunderstanding. First, no one said that the determinist claims he lives in contradiction. I (not he) claim that he lives in error. He lives in such an error that he doesn’t even understand that he lives in error. So what relevance is there in asking him anything about this? If I think a certain person is delusional, should I ask him what his view is on the matter? What they think is forced on them in that movie, and has no necessary connection to the truth. By the same token, one might speak with parrots or a random computer program and ask them for their opinion.

I feel I may have been a bit too wordy, so maybe it’s better to focus on one and only one point of disagreement. And it is this: determinism does not have the epistemological implications you claim it has.

I can be a dualist theist who thinks God created all of us with a soul (the spirit in your “homunculus”), and that He intentionally gave all of us reliable thinking about reality; and that everything (including that soul) is deterministic and predetermined by God. There is no contradiction or inconsistency here. There is no reason to think determinism prevents you from inferring conclusions. This whole line of argument goes nowhere from the outset.

Until you establish how determinism makes inference impossible, you have no way to advance the argument.

I’ll repeat the argument. You may perhaps think that God created you with a soul and with reliable thinking, but that conclusion itself is inferred by a mechanism for which you have no way of determining whether it is reliable—especially if you identify yourself with it.
For the sake of example, think of a machine that receives input and produces some output. You have no idea what is inside it. You want to know the multiplication result of two numbers. To do that you enter the two numbers into the machine and it outputs a third number. What are the chances that it will be exactly their product? Negligible, I assume.
Now that same machine outputs the following statement: “I am a multiplication machine.” Supposedly, this is a conclusion it itself reaches about itself. The statement is of course its own product and not that of some programmer. Does that change in any way the trust you can place in it? And now continue and discuss what happens if you yourself are the machine, and not a person observing the machine. That is: can the machine place trust in that conclusion/statement?

Everything you wrote is equally true in a non-deterministic universe. Suppose I have free will (whatever that means)—what makes that soul some supreme arbiter that cannot err? Nothing. How can it be sure of its conclusions, or of its self-conceptions? It cannot be sure.

Likewise, this is not an answer. Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that it is given to us that God gave us correct thinking. Where is the contradiction here? You claim that the determinist, if he is consistent, must think that this is not the case. Why?

Hello Neil.
You quite rightly proposed focusing the discussion on the main question, and asked me to formulate my claim. I offered a formulation that presents an orderly outline for the question we’re focusing on, but you are not addressing what I wrote.
I have what I think are satisfactory answers for a non-deterministic universe and why that differs from what happens in the deterministic picture, but I suggest that first we finish the discussion in order. Do you agree with what I wrote regarding determinism and only claim that libertarianism suffers from the same problems? If so—we can move on. If not—please respond to what I wrote before moving to the next stage.

I thought my response to your words was clear—what you are formulating is a version of the problem of induction, and this is an open problem for all worldviews—deterministic and non-deterministic, monistic and dualistic, and so on and so on. “The lens examining itself” can never prove that its rationale is valid.

So yes, I am saying explicitly that this problem applies to all worldviews, and it makes no difference whether we are talking about a mechanical automaton in a deterministic universe, or a soul free of constraints in a world of ideas—both run into the same problem.

Nor will an “external” soul outside the body help you judge its conclusions, for how does it know that its judgment is valid? The rationale it operates is subject to the very same problem. And again this is true whether its fate is predetermined or whether it is free from the chains of causality (which in my opinion would actually require it to be maximally random, but never mind).

Do you have a way to connect this problem with determinism? So far, everything you’ve said is true in all cases, including those that are not deterministic.

Fine, so we’ve made progress. You agree there is a problem, except that you claim it exists for me too.
To answer you, I first need to explain why you are mistaken and why this is not the problem of induction. The problem of induction is not rooted in a basic distrust of our inferential system. On the contrary, it is a result of our inferential system. The main claim is that for every set of particular facts there are infinitely many possible generalizations (all of which can be reached from within our inferential system), and therefore the choice between them is arbitrary and there is no justification for choosing one particular generalization (or even for assuming that there is any correct generalization at all). If I had a good argument that could sort among the possibilities (probabilistic, or even Ockham’s razor preferring the simpler possibility—though that requires philosophical clarification that I won’t go into here), the problem of induction would not exist. By contrast, the problem I raised against you is far more difficult. I claim that even if you had justifications for selecting one of the possibilities, from your perspective it would still not be right to select it, because the selection itself is made by an unreliable system (or one whose reliability is unknown). This is a matter of essential skepticism, not the problem of induction. These are two completely different problems.
And now I can explain why in my view my situation differs from yours as a determinist; that is, why the skeptical doubt does not arise against me (as distinct from the problem of induction). You assume that your thought and cognition are arbitrary boxes that function mechanically. From the example I brought (the “multiplication” machine) you can see that this assumption has no justification without prior information, and you have no such information. The overwhelming majority of boxes will not give the correct result, and if you know nothing about the box there is no way to assume that it indeed gives the correct result. By contrast, I as a libertarian claim that I have judgment, meaning that I am not a machine making mechanical decisions. My judgment (which is not a mechanistic machine but a considered decision) says that my system is reliable. You can of course raise skeptical doubts regarding my judgment—perhaps it is an illusion and really I am a machine—but that is merely skeptical doubt, and most people are not troubled by it (nor am I). If I think something and I have no good reason to doubt it, I do not doubt it. To reject something I think, you need to bring me good arguments.
In short, regarding you the skeptical possibility is a positive doubt (it is very plausible that you are mistaken), since I have raised a positive argument that attacks the reliability of your system; whereas regarding me it is a negative doubt (= how do you know not?). Doubts of the second kind trouble only skeptics (those who do not believe what they themselves think), unless a positive undermining argument is brought, and there is no such undermining here. Doubts of the positive kind (based on a reason indicating to you the unreliability of the system) are doubts you cannot dismiss without an explanation and an answer.
By way of analogy: if I know that the die before me is fair, then the result distribution will be one-sixth for each outcome. Now someone may claim against me that perhaps I am mistaken, but that is a skeptical question unless he brings a positive reason to undermine my confidence in the knowledge I have. By contrast, someone who has no idea what kind of die is before him and proposes the prediction that the distribution of throws will be uniform (one-sixth for each outcome) is saying something absurd. The claim against him is not negative skepticism but a positive question based on probabilistic calculation (what is the chance that just any die standing before you with no prior knowledge will be fair?).

It would be a shame to get bogged down in hair-splitting over the connection of this issue to the problem of induction. Fine. Let’s speak only about the problem as you presented it and call it absolute skepticism.

Unfortunately, your argument still doesn’t work—every one of your arguments is still reversible.

You, as a libertarian, say you have judgment. But if we think about all the possible judgments of all the possible free souls, then the overwhelming majority of them produce complete nonsense with no connection whatsoever to reality. This supposedly generates for you the same “positive doubt” you attribute to my position.

Your soul also cannot judge that its output is sensible, for exactly the same reasons you mentioned regarding “machines that make mechanical decisions.” You say you have a “considered decision,” but you have no way of knowing that. If you want to dismiss this as a “negative doubt” that you may ignore, then I can do the very same thing and ignore absolute skepticism, because I see that my experiences are consistent and that is enough for me. Here too there is symmetry between the two positions with respect to the problem of skepticism.

You *must* show how mechanistic systems, which work causally with the universe around them, are essentially different from that libertarian free soul, in the context of the ability to judge their own reliability and/or the probability that their output is connected to reality—or else agree that determinism has no effect on this question.

(As a side note—“You assume that your thought and cognition are arbitrary boxes that function mechanically.”—at no stage did I claim or agree that my thought and cognition are arbitrary boxes. But if we assume for the sake of discussion that I have no way of evaluating whether that is true or not, then neither do you have any way of evaluating whether it is true or not regarding yourself.)

(Second side note: one could also argue that if that soul is free from the chains of causality, then from the outset not only is there no reason for it to produce results connected to reality, but its output would in any case be detached from reality. That would put you not only in the same position as me, but in a worse one than mine—at least in my conception there is a reason that the system would produce output connected to reality, because it is causally influenced by reality.)

Neil, you don’t sound to me like a determinist, but like a libertarian in disguise.
There’s ambiguity in your definition of the term “judgment.” And you’re trying to present the possibility that you can remain a determinist and at the same time possess judgment to weigh any idea and decide how reliable it is. As a determinist you’re not supposed to have such a capacity.

I suggest you begin with a clear definition of what judgment is and why, in your opinion, a determinist can possess judgment.

Hello.

First, let me sharpen once again the core of my argument. I am not saying that you are necessarily mistaken, but that you cannot have any indication that you are right (actually, in your picture there is no “you” at all).
By way of analogy, I’ll bring an argument of the philosopher Richard Taylor (in his book *Metaphysics*). A man is traveling by train to Scotland, and suddenly he sees on the mountainside a sign made of stones saying: “Welcome to Scotland.” He has two possible ways of relating to it: a. The sign was formed by chance (a result of surrounding circumstances), in which case the conclusion is that he should remain seated. b. The sign was created by the government of Scotland (an intelligent agent) informing him that this is Scotland. On this interpretation he can begin packing his things and preparing to get off. One thing is impossible: to say that it was formed by chance and start preparing to get off.
Why not? After all, what was formed by chance can also be correct—by chance! Indeed it can, but he himself has no way of knowing that. If he had independent information that this chance outcome happened to be successful, there would be no difficulty. Such a sign could arise by chance anywhere, including Scotland. But if he has no independent source of information besides the very existence of the stone sign, then inferring that he is at the gates of Scotland is absurd. Not because it is necessarily false, but because in light of the data available to him he has no way to know it. This is a positive claim against his conclusion, not mere negative skepticism.
The decision that the sign was formed by chance and yet that this is a successful chance (meaning that we really are at the gates of Scotland) is attacked by positive skepticism, meaning there is a good argument against it, by virtue of which one should abandon it. This is not the negative skepticism of “Who told you? Maybe the opposite is true?”, about which one who is not a skeptic should not be especially troubled. By contrast, if I decide that the sign was created by an intelligent agent and infer that I should prepare to get off, here one can attack me only by means of a negative skeptical argument (maybe you’re mistaken? who told you?). Negative skepticism troubles only professional skeptics (and it is the subject of Russell’s teapot argument). If I think something, I need positive evidence to make me give it up.

And now back to us. You compare the two approaches as though there are two boxes here, and the only question in dispute is whether the box is mechanical or not.
But my position is not that there is a box, but that it is not mechanical-deterministic. My claim is that it is not a box at all. A person is not a box but a subject that has the ability to examine his decisions or to make rational and clear-sighted decisions. To that you can only claim: who says that’s so? Maybe not? That is a negative claim, whose meaning is that the conclusion is not necessary (not that it is improbable). By contrast, according to your position—that this is a deterministic box operated by the environment (like the stone sign)—the attacking argument is positive. It is an improbable conclusion because there are many kinds of boxes and only a negligible minority of them are reliable.
Put differently: in your view the box does not actually make decisions, but performs operations whose character is mechanically determined by the input. By contrast, for me this is not blind computation (a result of the influence of circumstances) but a decision. In my case there is a subjective dimension that observes the decision-making, or actually it is what makes the decisions, whereas in your case there is no such factor. There is a box that does what it does, and that’s it. In my case there is the owner of the box, and he can think about it as he wishes, but in your case there is only the box itself, given over to circumstances like clay in the hands of the potter. They will do with it whatever they want.
In such a case you are exposed to a positive attack: your conclusion is improbable (not merely non-necessary). By contrast, I claim that I have some grasp of the manner of my thought and cognition (because I am not a box). I know that I was created in the “right” way (that is, with reliable tools of thought and cognition). My claim is that I arrived at such a conclusion, not that it was produced in me by the force of circumstances. Such a claim can indeed be attacked with a negative skeptical argument (who says? maybe not?), but not with a positive argument. Therefore it is perfectly correct to say that it is not necessary, but there is no basis for claiming that it is improbable.

There is still symmetry here. Why, in your view, can one say “there are many kinds of boxes and only a negligible minority of them are reliable,” but not say “there are many kinds of subjects and only a negligible minority of them are reliable”? You still have a complete parallel here—whether this objection counts for you as positive or negative, it should be so in both cases. And whatever this thing of yours is that “makes rational and clear-sighted decisions,” it is not somehow inherently more likely that its results actually correspond to reality—if anything, less so.

In general I see no coherent difference between the things you describe—the “box” versus the “subject.”

How does your “subjective dimension” make “decisions,” and how is that different from processing input and producing output? What does that even mean? How did you infer that as a “subject” I can have “some grasp of the manner of my thought and cognition” that a “box” cannot have, and why should that grasp be more reliable?

Are you claiming that you have here, supposedly, something entirely different—where the difference is that this subject is not dependent on circumstances? On the contrary, if your process is detached from circumstances, then surely it will not produce output (“rational and clear-sighted decisions”) that corresponds to the circumstances, and from the outset we should expect such a process to be unrelated to reality. Whereas my process is at least causally connected to the rest of reality.

You may object that I represent your process too, and not only mine, as processing and output; but I don’t see what else it could be. We both agree there is output (“decisions,” “determinations”), and if there is no processing, then where does this output come from and how is it connected to reality? I’d be glad if you could explain some coherent difference between the things and how it breaks the symmetry in the arguments.

This reminds me of a story about Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz. One day a priest came to him and asked: why don’t you Jews adopt Christianity? After all, we are the majority, and in the Torah it says, “Follow the majority.” Rabbi Jonathan answered him: I follow the majority when I’m in doubt, but about this I am not in doubt.
People see this as a joke, but it is actually a completely serious answer. When I find a piece of meat in the street, Jewish law says we follow the majority of stores in that city. If most are kosher—we may assume the meat is kosher, and if not—it isn’t. Now think about the case where one finds a piece of meat with a high-standard kosher seal, but most stores in the city sell non-kosher meat. Would we declare it presumptively non-kosher? Of course not. Why not? Because we follow the majority if we have a doubt (about the status of the meat). When we have no doubt, there is no reason to follow the majority. So too in probabilistic calculation. You make a calculation when there is ignorance. But when there is knowledge there is no reason to make a probabilistic calculation.
And in our case, my claim is that in your picture there is built-in ignorance with respect to the nature of the box. Therefore there we have to examine the sample space (how many boxes there are and what they are like), and make a probabilistic calculation. But in my case there is no ignorance (no doubt), so why make a probabilistic calculation?! I claim that I have judgment because that is how I understand myself. So why examine how many kinds of judgments there are and whether they are reliable? The subject perceives that it has judgment (therefore here only a skeptical-negative objection can arise). By contrast, you claim that you are nothing but a mechanical box. You have no knowledge about the nature of the box (and even if you do, it has no basis. As I explained, that is a positive doubt). Therefore there you need to make a probabilistic calculation: how many types of boxes are there, and how many of them are reliable. That is the basis of the asymmetry between these pictures.

And as for your comparison, again there is an error in it. When I say I have judgment, that does not mean that I do not do so on the basis of observations of reality. On the contrary, certainly I do. After all, I make claims about reality, and obviously I don’t invent them out of my overheated imagination. I simply do not see this as a mechanical influence of reality upon me, but as the subject’s determination of what that reality is that I am describing and seeing.
This is similar to common claims against libertarianism, which say that if my determinations are not a mechanical product of the environment then they are arbitrary (if there is no cause, then this is arbitrary indeterminism). These claims set before themselves a caricature of libertarianism, a straw man, and attack it. But a sober libertarianism does not see a person as acting in a vacuum and without relation to various influences (genetic, environmental, and the like), but as acting under their influence. The determinist holds that these influences “determine” what he will do and think, whereas the libertarian holds that they merely “influence” (but do not determine). The subject makes a decision in light of its observations of reality.

Thank you for the reply—you made a nice attempt to break the symmetry, but it remains intact.

“You have no knowledge about the nature of the box”—I can claim that “you have no knowledge about the nature of the subject.”

“I claim that I have judgment because that is how I understand myself.”—I can claim the same thing. My experiences feel reliable; therefore I have no special doubt; therefore I have no need to go examine all the boxes in existence; therefore your argument falls.

The symmetry is fully preserved. In every “tool” you use to show that your view is not arbitrary, I will probably be able to use it too with the same degree of “precision.”

It is still not at all clear what the justification is for claiming a difference between the two. Why in one case is “that’s how it feels to me” a reasonable argument, and in the other it isn’t? How does this connect to the existence of a non-causal factor in your decisions? The things still seem completely disconnected to me. Could you explain?

(As a side note, there are more than enough problems even if the non-causal component is only this—a component in your processing. You still have a “box,” only an even blacker one, because supposedly there is in it a component that cannot be predicted. But it still receives input, processes it, and produces output. It has no way of knowing that it does so with any degree of reliability except by examining itself—exactly as I do in the deterministic universe where that non-causal component is absent from the box.)

As I see it, the two of us are standing on that same street of non-kosher stores, each holding meat found on the same bench, with the same kosher stamp on both pieces, from the same date and the same rabbi; and you’re trying to convince me that for you the stamp is enough to know your meat is kosher, whereas I need to check all the stores on the street and infer from them that my meat is probably non-kosher—because in your hand is beef and in mine is chicken…

A powerful objection, Neil! It seems the Rabbi’s answer needs some serious qualification, and not because of some casuistic line…

Hello Neil.
It seems to me we’re repeating ourselves. I explained why we are indeed holding the same piece of meat, but the situation is completely different. Mine has a kosher seal and yours does not (or you don’t see it). You simply assume it is kosher, and I claim that you need to do store statistics (= a positive skeptical refutation), whereas I recognize the kosher seal and therefore the statistics say nothing about my case (except the claim that maybe I’m mistaken. That is of course possible, but that is a negative skeptical claim).
In the terminology you used here, your remarks contain two claims that you keep repeating without justification even though I already explained why they are incorrect: 1. The analogy of the box does not fit my case (because I am a subject and not a box. My claim is that I am the owner of the box who looks at it and uses it. You can claim that perhaps I’m mistaken, but that is my claim and your objection to it is negative). 2. In your case the analogy of the box describes the situation exactly. Therefore you cannot say that you trust your box (because there is no “you” and there is no such thing as “trusting.” There is a given state and feelings forced upon you, and they have no meaning. You are the box).
All this depends on the distinction between negative doubt (which troubles only skeptics and one need not be troubled by it) and positive doubt (which everyone must answer or abandon his position), but I already explained all that very clearly (to my mind). You are repeating those two sentences again without addressing the explanation I gave. It seems this is the stage where it is fitting to part as friends, and let the chooser choose. 🙂

From where did you infer that you have a kosher seal and I do not? By what tools did you examine that you “recognize the kosher seal” and I do not? Why in the non-deterministic universe does your soul have the possibility of feeling that it is reliable, but in my deterministic universe I cannot say the exact same thing—that I feel my experiences are consistent and that is enough for me? You merely *say* that the situation is completely different, but the connection between the difference in situation and the implications you claim for it is not clear at all. It was never explained at any stage except with hand-waving.

As for #1 and #2, I asked you what the essential difference is between the subject and the box, with a number of specific questions. You did not explain.
I went further and explained myself how your “subject” is not different from a box at all—it receives input, processes it, and produces output—even if in your case there is a non-causal element inside the box that affects its result, but that does not turn your process of drawing conclusions into “not a box.” You have no answer to that.
I also explained why talking about a kind of “external soul” holding the box changes nothing—the soul cannot know that it is reliable any more than the box can know it is reliable. You changed nothing. The symmetry remains.

I did in fact respond several times precisely to the explanation you gave, and my answer remains as it was: the distinction between positive and negative doubt is not relevant at all, because you have not yet clarified why it is appropriate to apply one to the one case and the other to the other case. It should be clear to everyone that the cases are parallel and the same evidentiary standard should be applied to them. Every argument that raises any doubt—of both types!—is valid for both.

In short, I did address all your points, but you did not manage to break the symmetry—you still claim that the difference requires a different conclusion, but you do not manage to show how. As far as I’m concerned, the answer remains what it was—there is no difference in the ability to assess your reliability in a deterministic universe as opposed to a non-deterministic one; and there is no reason to think such a difference exists.

Correction: of course, “in my deterministic universe,” as distinct from “in my non-deterministic universe.”

In any case, I agree that at the moment we are not making progress; that is because your argument is flawed at its root, and you are not succeeding in fixing it. If you want to leave it at that, I have no special objection.

“It’s getting late and we’re not making progress,” said one Jew to the other. “If you still don’t understand why the stamp I see on the beef is different from the stamp you see on the chicken, I can’t help you. Let us part as friends.”

Neil, you seem to me like a libertarian in disguise.

What’s missing here is a definition of the concept of “judgment,” and how the determinist can live with it peacefully.
If you too accept that as a determinist you have judgment to weigh data and infer from it non-necessary conclusions (but only conclusions with some probability, as in inductive inference), and to choose, from among infinitely many possible inferences, one specific inference in particular, even without necessity—then you are necessarily not compelled to do so, and I can’t see any reason why you would choose precisely that specific inference, with whatever probability it has of being correct.

In short, define judgment in the eyes of the determinist, and also define who the owner of that judgment is, and we’ll try to examine how your definitions do not contradict determinism.

All right, Shlomi. You could also have tried to provide the definitions and see whether they are acceptable to me, but I have no problem explaining my view. Let’s see.

We have some process that tries to produce a model of reality. Let us call the model a “set of beliefs” about reality, and the process, “thinking.”
Thinking encounters a new experience. This process processes the new experience—let us call that processing “judgment”—and produces an update to the set of beliefs and the predictions derived from it.
And… that’s it. That’s all “judgment” is—processing input. It exists in a deterministic universe as well.

(I didn’t understand what it means “who is the owner of the judgment” that I am supposed to define—the specific person, of course. If you believe in souls, then it is the soul. If you are a monist, then it is the brain, or the consciousness derived from it. But the answer is the same whether you are a determinist or not.)

Now, perhaps it feels to you as though in a libertarian universe it is somehow different, but I don’t see how. After all, in practice, we cannot simply decide what to believe. Even if you have some kind of “free soul” that “makes determinations,” you cannot simply decide to believe that you currently have a million dollars in your bank account. You’re welcome to try, but it isn’t possible.
At most you can choose what evidence to look for, but from the moment you saw the evidence, either you were convinced or you weren’t—and that is completely forced on you. And that is true *even if you have free will to make decisions in a non-causal way*.

So where is the difference here? In both cases we have some process that is forced on us by the circumstances. The only difference is that I think all the circumstances arose from previous circumstances, whereas you think that one of the circumstances that forced you to decide this way or that is some kind of “personality” that has no previous causes, and that has one preference or another for how it tends to do this processing. But for me and for you alike, the conclusions are forced by the circumstances. And for me, like for you, there is judgment that performs this processing.

That is yet another reason to think that determinism has no bearing at all on epistemology.

(By the way, I reject the claim that some process of “choice” is involved as part of updating the model. If my consciousness processed all the data and reached the conclusion that there is a 96% probability that there are currently tomatoes in the grocery store nearest my home, where is the choice here?)

Okay, and do you agree that those same experiences for which we want to build some model allow for infinitely many possible models?

If so, from where do you choose to decide which model to take? What are the circumstances that led you to a specific model? After all, as a determinist there is no possibility that judgment led you to it without circumstances.

On the other hand, your possibility of relying on those very circumstances is itself pure judgment without circumstances. In short, as I understand it, what you are claiming is a kind of circular argument: the claim that judgment is necessitated solely by circumstances does not allow you to accept those very circumstances without exercising judgment on them.

For some reason what I wrote didn’t go through, so I’m posting it again, and sorry if there’s duplication.

And do you agree that those same experiences allow for infinitely many possible models?
If so, on what basis do you decide which model to choose?
If you claim that there are circumstances that prioritize a certain model over others, I’ll ask you again on what basis you accept those circumstances. What circumstances cause you to accept them?
In short, the claim is that there is here a kind of circular argument. Or an infinite regress.

You claim that you choose a certain model not because of pure judgment but because of certain circumstances—but what guarantees your reliance on those circumstances? (What circumstances cause you to rely on them?) In the end, you will be forced to accept that there is such a thing as pure judgment that does not require reliance on circumstances, but rather weighs the circumstances and decides among them.

And do you agree that those same experiences allow for infinitely many possible models?
If so, on what basis do you decide which model to choose?
If you claim that there are circumstances that prioritize a certain model over others, I’ll ask you again on what basis you accept those circumstances. What circumstances cause you to accept them?
In short, the claim is that there is here a kind of circular argument. Or an infinite regress.

You claim that you choose a certain model not because of pure judgment but because of certain circumstances—but what guarantees your reliance on those circumstances? (What circumstances cause you to rely on them?) In the end, you will be forced to accept that there is such a thing as pure judgment that does not require reliance on circumstances, but rather weighs the circumstances and decides among them.

I noticed that you simply ignored my argument. For I showed that you have no power to choose what to believe; rather, the decision what to believe is forced on you—whether the universe is deterministic or not. You can test this yourself: try to believe that I just admitted I was mistaken and agreed with you, and there, we solved the problem and no longer have a disagreement. But I claim that it is not in your power to do so; rather, what you have seen so far forces you to believe that we still disagree.

I also noticed that although I gave you a definition of judgment, you do not use it and also do not say how you would define judgment differently. So why did you ask?

Instead of dealing with my argument or with my simple definition, you simply repeated your original argument, which is also the Rabbi’s argument. But I already showed the problem at the basis of that argument: everything you say is completely reversible and symmetrical, because it has nothing to do with determinism at all.

“On what basis do you decide which model to choose?”—On what basis *do you* decide which model to choose? How exactly does the absence of determinism enable *you* to deal with infinitely many possible models? It doesn’t.

“If you claim that there are circumstances that prioritize a certain model over others, I’ll ask you again on what basis you accept those circumstances. What circumstances cause you to accept them?”—The same question is directed back to you.

The ending of your words is simply vague and meaningless (perhaps because again you leap to definitions you haven’t spelled out). What makes your judgment “clean” or “pure”? For as I established, your judgment too, in your version, relies on circumstances, only it has one additional circumstance—some kind of “personality” or “subject”—that has no previous cause, but it joins all the other circumstances that bring you to some conclusion. What guarantee *do you* have for relying on that “subject,” along with all the other circumstances that lead it to believe as it believes? The same reasons I have to rely on my judgment, I suspect. Just suspect—because neither of you explains how that free soul is more reliable in examining itself than I am in examining myself.

So what remains for you is still:

1. To refute the claim that in your actual existence, whether deterministic or libertarian, you do not have the freedom to believe anything you want to believe, but all your beliefs are forced on you by the circumstances.
2. To break the symmetry and show that the alleged problems you point out (infinitely many models, etc.) are problems that exist only in a deterministic world but from which libertarian agents are exempt. So far you have not done that.

What does his honor think of Neil’s words?
“So what remains for you is still:
1. To refute the claim that in your actual existence, whether deterministic or libertarian, you do not have the freedom to believe anything you want to believe, but all your beliefs are forced on you by the circumstances.
2. To break the symmetry and show that the alleged problems you point out (infinitely many models, etc.), are problems that exist only in a deterministic world but from which libertarian agents are exempt. So far you have not done that.”

I’ve written what I think, and I don’t see what remains to be done.
1. He assumes that I have no freedom because my beliefs are forced on me, but that is just the determinist’s begging the question. I claim they are not.
2. I showed the difference (the asymmetry) until I was blue in the face, and I don’t know what I could add to what has been written.

Correction: I did not assume that you have no freedom because your beliefs are forced on you.

I claim that as a matter of fact, your beliefs are forced on you. You can prove me wrong by changing one of your beliefs simply by an act of will. But I claim that this is not possible.

That, in itself, does not prove determinism—because it does not address at all the question whether you can perform *actions* without their being determined exclusively by prior circumstances, all the way back (that is, it does not say whether you have “freedom” or not). But it *does* illustrate that determinism has nothing to do with epistemology, which is what I said from the outset.

(Regarding the asymmetry, we already agreed to disagree. But so far I’ve managed to reverse all the claims and present them as claims for the opposite side too, which shows that the symmetry is in fact preserved. I am open to being shown a claim that I have not been able to reverse in this way, or to undermine in some other way.)

1) As I understand it, the claim is not that the beliefs are forced on you in a deterministic way.
Rather, because even on your own view you think there are correct and incorrect beliefs (even if in your view this happens through examination and judgment!), in the end in practice you are forced to believe what you think is correct.
In other words, your beliefs are forced on you just as they are forced on the determinist.

First, my beliefs do not depend on will but on judgment. Therefore they are not forced on me. Judgment is not compulsion. Therefore changing beliefs by will is beside the point. If it were so, then it would be bias rather than determination. But none of this is important, as I will explain again now.

I understand/see that X, and therefore my view is that X. Even if you call that compulsion (and as I said, in my opinion it is not correct to call it that, but that is not important). By contrast, for the determinist beliefs are dictated to him by certain circumstances, but not necessarily by reality itself. That is, it is possible that he is forced to think X even though reality is Y, simply because that is how he is built. In other words, in his case it is not clear what is forcing him, and there is no reason to assume that it is specifically reality that is forcing this upon him. In my case my beliefs are determined by reality (if you like, call that compulsion), because I determine that this is what reality is like (that is what I called judgment. My judgment is the decision that what compels me is reality itself, not deception. That stage does not exist for the determinist because he is the box).
I have repeated and explained this again, though it has already been explained. In my opinion there is no symmetry, and you have shown no symmetry here. On the contrary.

1. A libertarian does not claim that there are no thoughts forced on him; sensory data, logic, etc. are forced on every person as such, so arguments of the type you opened with (I’m not arguing with you anymore, etc.) can be taken off the table.

2. The discussion is only about various hypotheses, such as the inductive inferences we brought here as an example.
You, as a determinist, claim that you have judgment, whose meaning (in this context) is your ability to take a cluster of phenomena and by means of inductive inference describe a general phenomenon, even though you too agree that there are infinitely many possible models. Up to this point we both agree.

3. My definition as a libertarian of judgment in this context is my ability as a subject to choose, among several models, the most probable model. So yes, the model’s probability is built from circumstances, but the circumstances do not force the choice on me (unlike sensory data, etc., which are forced on me).

4. You, as a determinist, claim that the definition of judgment in this context is your ability as a subject to accept, among several models, the model that the circumstances force you to choose. For you do not accept such a thing as circumstances that do not force you. And precisely here lies the problem. If judgment is an ability based on circumstances that force you to believe in them (and without circumstances forcing you there is no judgment), it is hard to call such a system judgment, since you are compelled toward a specific possibility, and the question arises on what basis you accept one specific possibility over others.
In addition, the question what kind of subject you are directly bears on the matter. It is very hard to accept a subject that is forced into certain ideas arbitrarily and see in him a reliable subject, who chooses the correct ideas.
By contrast, a subject whose judgment is the ability to examine facts and present several models, examine the circumstances and then decide among them, without seeing himself as forced by those circumstances—that is reliable judgment.
5. Just a side note: if you are observant, as seems to emerge between the lines, maybe you can explain how determinism fits with the concept of religious commandment?

First, as I understand it, you too agree that the basic beliefs were forced on you, such as first principles and foundational assumptions.
And afterward, all the second-order beliefs derived from the basic beliefs were learned in an almost deductive way. If so, one can indeed claim that all beliefs are forced on you, especially the first principles.

With your permission, I’ll answer in the reverse order—first to Shlomi.

1+2) Indeed, I am speaking about inductive inferences. For example, if my wife says the sentence “I put the pasta in the refrigerator,” my model of reality will be updated and I will now assign a high probability to there being pasta in the refrigerator, that if I open the refrigerator I will see the pasta, etc.

3) We have a problem of definition here. You say there is “my ability as a subject to choose, among several models, the most probable model,” but it is not clear to me what you mean by “ability” and “choose.”
Usually when we speak of determinism, the opposing position advocates a kind of “free will”—the possibility of doing actions disconnected from the causal chain (even if only partially)—the possibility of a “will” that is non-causal, that decides among possible outcomes.
Do we agree that this is *not* what you do as a subject when you decide among models? For neither of us can believe things just by will. So in what sense is this a “choice”?
Do you mean by “ability” simply that it can happen, as distinct from it being an action that you as subject perform? Do you mean by “choice” simply that a determination was made among several possibilities? If these are the meanings, then it should be clear that in the deterministic conception too the same thing happened, and there we have the symmetry again. If that is not the meaning, then I would appreciate clarification, because it should be agreed between us that it is not the product of will (and the Rabbi agrees with that too).

4) “You, as a determinist, claim that the definition of judgment in this context is your ability as a subject to accept, among several models, the model that the circumstances force you to choose…”

No. Read my words carefully. I intentionally formulated the definition so that it applies both in a deterministic universe and in a non-deterministic one. In both, “thinking encounters a new experience. This process processes the new experience—let us call that processing ‘judgment’—and produces an update to the set of beliefs and the predictions derived from it.” Exactly as I defined from the start. There is here, neither explicitly nor implicitly, an assumption that we do not accept “such a thing as circumstances that do not force you.” Why is this not a good definition of judgment?

Everything else continues to suffer from the same symmetry I already described before:
– “The question arises on what basis you accept one specific possibility over others”—the question arises on what basis *you* accept one specific possibility over others.

– “It is very hard to accept a subject that is forced into certain ideas arbitrarily and see in him a reliable subject, who chooses the correct ideas.”—As you’ll recall, I did not claim or agree that the way I am forced into certain ideas is arbitrary; and if you think it is arbitrary here, then for you, as for me, there is no way to show that *your* subject is not arbitrary. If you remember, I answered the Rabbi earlier: “In every ‘tool’ you use to show that your view is not arbitrary, I will probably be able to use it too with the same degree of ‘precision.’” That answer is still valid for you too. If you have such a tool that you think I cannot use, you are invited to describe what it is.

– In both cases we agree that “judgment is an ability to examine facts and present several models, examine the circumstances and then decide among them.” The difference is that in your view the part “without seeing himself as forced by those circumstances” is also necessary in order for it to count as reliable judgment. But that does not follow at all—after all, all combinations are possible. There could be reliable and correct judgment that correctly thinks (in a deterministic universe) that it is forced by the circumstances; there could be reliable and correct judgment that correctly thinks (in a non-deterministic universe) that it is not forced by the circumstances. On what basis can one say that one is more probable than the other?
(I know what the Rabbi’s answer is, with positive and negative doubt, but as you recall there is symmetry, and there is no reason to assume that in one case one doubt applies and in the other case, the other doubt.)

5) Here you touch on somewhat larger questions, such as moral liability in a deterministic universe, which in my opinion is too large a topic for this format (the discussion is complicated enough as it is). My view is that a deterministic universe does not contradict moral liability between man and his fellow, (and I am aware that this requires a long explanation), but it does empty of content moral liability between man and God if God intentionally created all the circumstances. Under such a conception, God’s reasons for imposing the yoke of commandments are His own reasons for reaching the results He wants, and there is no explanation of that for us, nor reward and punishment. This position is evident, for example, in the book of Job, where God rebukes the participants in the discussion for presuming to understand heavenly calculations. He demands obedience, and that’s all, and does not promise any result for it.
So much in brief.

(The Muslims, by the way, think otherwise—in the Quran there are many verses describing God as intentionally causing people not to believe in Him, and then punishing them for not believing in Him. Needless to say, I’m not a fan of that approach.)

(And of course, it should be clear to us that the question of determinism is agnostic regarding the question of God’s existence and the obligation of the commandments—the universe can be this way or that regardless of one’s conception of divinity.)

Now, my response to Michael Abraham:

I’m glad we agree that belief is not the product of will, but of another process. It does not involve a decision to do this or that, but only that elusive “judgment.”

As usual, all your sentences are reversible, except for the ending, which is simply wrong, so I’ll focus on that:

“In my case my beliefs are determined by reality (if you like, call that compulsion), because I determine that this is what reality is like (that is what I called judgment. My judgment is the decision that what compels me is reality itself, not deception. That stage does not exist for the determinist because he is the box).”

To that my answer is:
As I said before, there is no reason to think your judgment is not arbitrary just because it decided that it is not arbitrary. That magical “judgment” of yours that is “not the box” has no way to assess its own reliability, because if it is not reliable then its determination that it is reliable helps not at all. This is *completely identical* to, for example, your multiplication machine. You can continue to complain that your subject is not a box, but as you’ll recall, you:

1. Are not succeeding in explaining how it differs from a box—I asked several specific questions about the differences, to remind you: “How does your ‘subjective dimension’ make ‘decisions,’ and how is that different from processing input and producing output? What does that even mean? How did you infer that as a ‘subject’ I can have ‘some grasp of the manner of my thought and cognition’ that a ‘box’ cannot have, and why should that grasp be more reliable?”
You did not answer even one of these questions.

2. Are not succeeding in answering my argument that positively shows that your process *is not* different from a box, because it receives input, processes it, and produces output. The difference is only that in your box there is an additional element, which has no previous causes, that affects the result; but that does not make your box more reliable.

You need to explain the differences if you want us to accept that your subject is different from my “box” that computes things in a way relevant to the issue under discussion—its reliability, that of the subject/box.

So that is the error in the last sentence trying to illustrate some difference (unsuccessfully). All your other sentences, as usual, are reversible:
– “I understand/see that X, and therefore my view is that X.”—Symmetrical; I can say the same thing.
– “For the determinist beliefs are dictated to him by certain circumstances, but not necessarily by reality itself”—Symmetrical; your beliefs are dictated by a combination of the circumstances and some non-causal “judgment,” but there is no guarantee that the output is connected to reality.
– “That is, it is possible that he is forced to think X even though reality is Y, simply because that is how he is built. In other words, in his case it is not clear what is forcing him, and there is no reason to assume that it is specifically reality that is forcing this upon him.”—Symmetrical. We have no knowledge at all about your mysterious and non-causal “judgment,” and no reason to think the output it produces is connected to reality.

“In my opinion there is no symmetry, and you have shown no symmetry here. On the contrary.”
…Strange, then, that I manage to reverse all the arguments and counter-arguments, and there is not a single one that cannot be reversed.

This reminds me of a tale about two Jews in a dispute over kosher status.

The first says, “You must accept that I am right.” “How so?” asks the second. “Because I said so!” answers the first.

The second complains, “But I too can say the same thing, and then you won’t accept it!”

The first replies: “True, but I’m a rabbi, and therefore I can issue rulings.”

The second asks suspiciously: “How do I know you’re a rabbi?”

The first answers in astonishment: “What do you mean—didn’t the rabbi just tell you so!”

I can do that kind of reversal too. Simply substitute one subject for another and that’s it. That is a syntactic move that of course is very easy to make. But I presented distinctions in semantics that explain why this reversal is not correct.
But pardon me, we have really exhausted this. Let the chooser choose.

The contradiction between determinism and religious command is not only in the motif of reward and punishment or in the reasons of the commander.

The problem is much deeper: there is no meaning at all to commanding creatures who have no control over their actions. Determinism empties of content the very possibility of commanding human beings in any way.

To Shlomi: if by giving the commandment the Creator thereby changed our behavior—for our knowledge of the commandment changes our behavior and produces a different result—then for Him there can be a purpose in giving the commandment, just like any other initial condition the Creator could have produced and any other method He could have used to reach the outcomes He wanted. There is no contradiction here, just a not especially pleasant conclusion.

To Michael Abraham: indeed, let the reader judge whether I merely played meaningless semantic tricks here; or whether, on the contrary, the reversed arguments retained their full force, and substantial objections were raised to which no answer was given. For me the answer to that is clear.

Neil Jordan sounds like a young and promising genius. Is it possible that this is actually a pseudonym of Dr. Eliezer Malkiel? (the only philosopher who is both religious and deterministic)… Neil, what do you think of Malkiel’s book/your book on the problem of will?

It was forced upon Shlomi to ask this question, and upon the Rabbi to answer as he did, since their opinions were fixed by deterministic mechanisms.

Sorry, I haven’t read his book. Do you recommend it?

The comparison is flattering, but I’m afraid you won’t find me among the famous.
(Not yet?)

Michi gave Neil an enormous knockout. The guy didn’t understand the flaw in his symmetry. A real miss. What a shame that the guy doesn’t get it. Sad.

Gal, why? They both proceed from basic assumptions—one about the whole system and one “only” about his control system.

Very sad indeed, Gal. I read the Rabbi’s words several times over and still can’t understand the flaw in the symmetry.

If it is so clear and self-evident to you, you are welcome to try to explain it to me. Just make sure not to say things I already answered (for example, it is not enough to say that under the libertarian approach you are “not a box,” because I showed the problems with that; and explaining to me the difference between positive and negative doubt will also not help, because what is missing is a good reason to apply one in one case and the other in the other case).

As I see it, I refuted each and every one of the Rabbi’s relevant claims. If there is one that you think I did not address, you are welcome to point out which one.