Free Will Vs Determinism

[Straw Dog]

Are you just a puppet? Or are you a person?

What makes the difference?

 

[Skwim]

Gotta give me some points for trying. I’m not writing a thesis for graduate school here. I’m just having a conversation with other people seeking their own self-determination.

This internal self-organization isn’t at the ‘mercy’ of determinism. It’s a product of it. I agree that ultimate reason rests within the endless chain of causality, but that doesn’t erase the context of independent action. There’s a nuance in awareness happening here, such that the concept of responsibility still makes sense within the context of determinism.

Are we just passive observers?

Or are we active participants?

I think the confusion in this conversation occurs along the line of identification.

Oh, we're active participants alright, and we do indeed have self determination; however, other than within an "I did it, not you" framework there is no sense in which one is responsible for what they do---one to which blame or praise can be ascribed. No more so than one can blame a rock for where it sits. We do what we do because we cannot do otherwise.

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[Straw Dog]

Oh, we're active participants alright, and we do indeed have self determination; however, other than within an "I did it, not you" framework there is no sense in which one is responsible for what they do---one to which blame or praise can be ascribed. No more so than one can blame a rock for where it sits. We do what we do because we cannot do otherwise.

.

I agree that compassion is almost always more rational than retribution.

But...

Is a human brain +mind as simple as a boulder rolling down a mountain?

We do what we do because we determine it so to a degree.

Imagine a boulder deciding to roll itself uphill. Not quite an inanimate object is it? Neither is consciousness.

Do you also reject the concept of consciousness?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It never ceases to amaze me how much BS is written about this by seemingly intelligent and thoughtful individuals. Whether the universe is strictly a deterministic system or not is an open question but the stark fact remains that if it isn't, then the only other possible ingredient is randomness.

But this is demonstrably not the case, at least not as stated, or at least it is not sensical or coherent enough to be meaningfully true. If there were a single kind of determinism, then its opposite could be non-determinism/indeterminism of various kinds or indeterminacy. Randomness, however, is either rather easy to define even in a rigorous fashion, but then is neither without a slew of philosophical problems when it comes to the interpretation of probabilities nor is it somehow the opposite of determinism. Nor is it the case that one can somehow say that even “pure” randomness (whatever that is) can somehow preclude either determinism or free will in the sense that seems to be asserted in the thread. After all, macroscopic determinism both from the perspective of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics by the manner in which macroscopic aggregates of systems governed by similar probability distributions will behave on average (so, for that matter, is the so-called “arrow of time”, both entropy and thermodynamics more generally). Constraints on random fluctuations, whether in oscillating chemical reactions or in neural substrates, enable self-organization and higher-level causal structures to function due at least in part to the manner in which they “order” random perturbations.

More generally, then, if the “other..ingredient” is indeed randomness then we can readily see how this characteristic property allows for all kinds of deterministic behavior, self-organizing behavior, and far more! Meanwhile, an actual alternative to determinism we find in physical systems is not so much indeterminism in the sense of random behavior but a kind of ontological indeterminacy:

"We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks." Mermin, N. D. (1981). Quantum mysteries for anyone. The Journal of Philosophy, 78(7), 397-408

Likewise, stochastic systems are often quite deterministic as well as random in that given any particular state, the next state is known exactly, but the overall behavior of the system is governed by randomness, precluding overall determinism.

Randomness cannot make anything more "free". In order for "free will" to mean anything, there must be some choice-making system that is free to do as it wishes and its wishes must be determined by who it is and it must be who it is because of reasons: nature, nurture and experience.

Randomness is actually required for a great variety of freedoms. It is also not true that we can know how randomness must be precluded from allowing for the kind of choice-making systems that you refer to or to other kinds of expression of free will. After all, we know quite a bit about how neural structures impose constraints on neuronal assemblies and thereby provide a mechanism for random perturbations to give rise to ordered, coherent macrostates and for information processing. Another kind of randomness absolutely essential to the practically the entire scientific enterprise is the capacity for the experimenter to be able to have subjects “chosen at random” or to “select at random” a particular initial condition or to otherwise freely “choose” a sample so as to generalize findings to the population, be it pions or people. What it means in clinical studies or in many materials science experiments to “select” or “choose” some subjects or one or more samples for a test vs. control is for the experimenter(s) to exercise freedom of choice precisely with the understanding that the “random” component of “at random” is justified on the basis that the choice was made freely or could have been made otherwise.

Anything else leads to an infinite regress

1) It is not a basic principle of logic nor of philosophy or science more generally that infinite regresses must entail absurdity (or anything else, for that matter). It is a metaphysical presupposition:

“it is common to argue that some philosophical theory must be rejected because it leads to an infinite regress. For instance, if every event has a cause, and the cause of an event is also an event, then there must be an infinite regress of causes. To avoid this, some say, we should reject the idea that everything has a cause; instead, we should posit a ‘first cause’, something that caused everything else and was itself uncaused.

But almost as common as infinite regress arguments is a certain type of response, which claims that there is nothing wrong with the infinite regress. For instance, some say that we should simply accept that there is an infinite series of causes stretching into the past forever. Now, there seems to be wide agreement among philosophers that some but not all infinite regresses are bad; but there has been no consensus on which regresses are bad (‘vicious’) and which benign.”

Michael Huemer (2016). Approaching Infinity. Palgrave Macmillan.



Just about any kind of situation or reasoning about situations can and will lead to infinite regress. It is a sign that one is being careless terminology or inadequate definitions, is applying some model or theory or similar conceptual framework beyond its applicable scope or domain of validity, is demanding too much from informal language, or all the above. Hence Zeno’s infinite regress arguments that motion isn’t possible or the various attempts to require God to exist precisely because of the assumption that there must exist some kind of simplistic, linear causal chain such that every effect must have a cause: "There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate cause is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one only. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate, cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God." (from Aquinas; translation from Logic and Theism: Arguments For and Against Beliefs in God by Sober, p. 169).

Needless to say, few people including myself are convinced by such arguments.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It seems to me that here and elsewhere determinism is taken at least in part to mean a kind of physical determinism of the type espoused by Laplace; namely, that
1) At any given time the state of the universe consists of all the locations of all of its material constituents in their most elementary form(s) and the forces acting on and among these and
2) This state governs the evolution of the universe system completely deterministically and hence determines completely the future itself.

Ignoring for the moment whether free will in some sense is compatible with such physical determinism, we have several issues even to get to this stage or whatever modern version of Laplace’s vision might be consistent with modern physics.

I. Considering the simplistic linear causality which often seems to be assumed to operate somehow within a completely deterministic universe such as Laplace’s (despite the fact that even Laplace realized the difference between past and present is problematic for such a universe), it is perhaps most important to consider first the manner of what it means in modern physics for the universe to have a given state. Even in special relativity, classical relativistic mechanics and kinematics (not to mention basic causal principles along with fundamental laws of the universe) renders the notion of the universe even having a state at a particular time nonsensical. Firstly, this is because, as everyone knows, one cannot consider time separately from space. But more importantly, there is no one or even any finite number of “chains” of events proceeding linearly from prior to present to future such that the universe can have a fixed state that is unique or from which any uniquely determined states could evolve.

Put simply, the first major challenge to Laplacean-like determinism (or any argument that such a kind of causal structure somehow “follows” from common sense or the nature of reality or whatever) is that, if one considers any distinct pair of events A and B that occur simultaneously at points p1 and p2 from some (inertial) reference frame S, there are infinitely many other frames S’, S’’, S’’’… in spacetime for which the event B precedes A and infinitely many again for which A precedes B. The entire notion of “the state of the universe at a particular time” loses any meaning along with the notion of simultaneity.

II. For the other component in Laplace’s story (and those whose view of the cosmos is similar), namely the forces and particles in the universe, things are even worse. Laplace and his contemporaries had not much surpassed the Greek atomists in their ideas and conceptions over the ultimate constituents of matter, and though they were considerably superior in regards their knowledge of forces, this mainly centered around their ability to conceive of forces that allowed for dynamics (motion) without an agent or mover. But even for Newton, gravitational force was clearly a useful fiction. Nothing like it could possibly exist (or so he wrote in a famous letter to Bentley: “Tis unconceivable that inanimate brute matter should (without the mediation of something else which is not material) operate upon & affect other matter without mutual contact; as it must if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be essential & inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe {innate} gravity to me. That gravity should be innate inherent & {essential} to matter so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of any thing else by & through which their action or force {may} be conveyed from one to another is to me so great an absurdity that I beleive no man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent…”
But even after the initial discoveries of forces that were to be explained as fields, much of Laplace’s mechanistic universe could be maintained. After all, it took some time to realize that heat wasn’t a substance, let alone just what it would mean for everything in the universe to be explainable in principle by some interacting forces among elementary “bodies”!
Now we know better. For Laplace and other reductive mechanists, the amazing diversity of forms of matter and its organization in various systems was due ultimately to the tiny, simple indivisible atoms that made up all matter and the forces of interactions among them. Ultimately, everything complicated arises from the same simplicities and any system (including the universe) can be entirely explained and predicted by the laws governing its indivisible constituents. Now we know that there is no such thing as an elementary particle or atom in this sense. When particle physicists call this or that particle “elementary” it is primarily a matter of convenience. Not only this, but a similar issue of pragmatism allows for the descriptions of interactions in terms not only of particles (forces being a “particle” in particle physics), but also of fictitious or virtual particles. There is currently no consensus on the ontological status of virtual particles generally, only on the fact that there is no way to discern or distinguish them from so-called “real” particles either a priori or empirically (virtual particles are often called this because they are violations of conservation laws that can exist for small enough time scales, but this even this distinction simply allows us to say that in a particular interaction any “particles” violating conservation laws in this manner are to be considered virtual; it does not permit us to distinguish them from “real” particles or permit us to claim that “real” particles possess some property that prohibits them from similar violations). Worse still, there exists no elementary particle or any other kind of particle at the subatomic scale that ever has a completely well-defined state in the physical world so far as any theory could allow or that would be consistent with experiment and empirical results. As in classical statistical mechanics (although in a far more complicated matter), the classical determinacy of the properties of a system are supposed to arise from aggregate behavior (although there is no general agreement how; it is certain that the matter is more complicated than the averages of probable macroscopic states in classical statistical mechanics, but even for those whose interpretation runs similarly in the so-called statistical interpretation there is far more to the story).

So there is no “time” for the universe as a whole to be in any particular state, nor is it possible to consider its constituents to possess definite positions in spacetime (or space) that exist in a point in time from any particular reference frame or that exist in some definite manner at all. So, no “point in time” for the universe to have the necessary state Laplace spoke of, and none of the bodies with their corresponding forces which can be said to make up the universe even if there WERE such a time.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

III) We now know quite well that properties do not reduce to their most elementary constituents as reductive mechanism would have it. Firstly, there is the fact that the arrow of time is seen to arise most basically and fundamentally from the asymmetry that arises in the statistical properties of macroscopic aggregates over time. More relevantly, as complex systems interact, higher order structures and properties emerge that are irreducible. Some of these are rather trivial, such as “wetness”, which is a property of water but not of water molecules. Others are highly non-trivial but of relative unimportance for us, such as the impossibility of deriving most properties required for chemistry or molecular structures from the kind of point-particle representations in quantum mechanics. “Life,” however, is so non-trivial it cannot be said that we have yet a decent grasp of the physics of chemistry of living systems so as to properly be capable of distinguishing such systems at the level of chemistry. The ordered networks that allow for e.g., solids or for dynamical widespread synchronization in e.g., pendulums swinging free on a wall are vastly simpler yet are merely constrained in general by known physical laws. Similar examples of collective or coherent macroscopic states that cannot adequately be treated in a classical reductionist mechanistic manner include examples such as solitons or phonons or even hysteresis effects in sandpiles and the like. Entire careers have developed since Anderson’s famous “more is different” paper in the 70s, yet the more we study the manner in which complexity yields causal structures and functional properties that act non-reductively and/or top-down, the more we realize the capacity for higher level structures to possess a kind of order and structure that not only determines future states independently of universal or physical law (although by assumption constrained by these), but the very capacity for “elementary” particles to have definite states at all! Nor can it be said that even locally in the universe classical causal mechanism and therefore determinism should be somehow recovered in the same way that Galilean relativity can be “recovered” from special relativity in the appropriate limits (I should note that the common textbook presentation, along with any popular presentation, of how this is the case is misleading at best and arguably a lie; certainly it is a severe distortion). The determinism of Laplace, following Newton’s mechanistic philosophy but without the Designer Newton believed created the mechanism, is supposed to hold for simple, atomistic bodies “animated” only by interaction forces of the simplest possible kind. Thus even though it may fail utterly when trying to explain the mechanics sandpiles, it would not have been unreasonable to think that it should hold theoretically for such systems, as however many internal trajectories and collisions one must account for (not to mention external forcings), there is nothing we would recognize as “memory” or information processing in sandpiles and the like (which is why it is so discomforting to find in quantum mechanics that even the simplest “bodies” cannot necessarily be represented in terms of product states, displaying rather the nonseparability characteristic of many quantum).

Living systems are fundamentally information processing systems. They are much more, but this is characteristic feature. A related feature is the ability to internally represent past states in the present one in forms that range from the kind of simple memory of multicellular life or plants or sea snails to those found in animals with a CNS. Thus any interaction with such systems means that the dynamical laws of mechanistic systems will ultimately fail unless supplemented by laws that allow for functional emergence of some sort. Living systems not only retain a memory of the past but alter their structure and function constantly in reaction both to these retained past states and current environment as well as in anticipation of future possible states. Thus they can be anywhere from highly self-organizing and self-determined in their autonomous reactivity to something like abstract conceptual processors capable of self-determinism and strongly emergent functional autonomy more akin to what humans and similar animals are capable of.

IV) Finally, we must recall that unless one is reasoning alongside the ancient philosophers in a manner almost purely speculatively that has failed over and over again when notions of what is “obvious” and “necessary” truths have turned out to be false, one must rely on empirical methods to inform theories about reality. We can suppose that physics continued to progress onwards from Laplace and that there were no other forces or mechanics or fields or anything that couldn’t be explained via the kinds of interactions he imagined in the kind of “absolute” space endowed with “absolute” time he likewise imagined. The only manner in which physics or empirical science more generally can progress (and had before Laplace) is for humans to assume they have the ability to manipulate their environment and choose the manner and form of observation in such a way that they could have done otherwise. It is this ability to view our experiments as if they were isolated universes of our own (as Newton imagined the entire universe was for God) that allowed Newtonian mechanics and all other empirical science to flourish, and it was very likely assumptions like fatalism or predestination or similar worldviews/cosmology that prevented the scientific endeavor from emerging before the early Modern period. If we cannot even so much as regard the time at which we observe celestial bodies as a matter of choice (let alone a designed experiment in which a particular sample is generalized to a class or kind and the particular methods of isolation, including what processes and sources of noise and so forth to ignore), then we can never infer from such empirical inquiry anything beyond that which we happened to have been determined already to have found.

And most importantly, even if we made the decision to schizophrenically engage in such an logically grounded intellectual endeavor as is the scientific one by assuming that any observation must be determined before we were even aware we were going to make it, but also that we were free to have not made it, so that we can somehow retain classical deterministic materialism and reductive mechanism based on inferences that are logically incoherent, we are still left with one thing: evidence. We would still have to face a kind of problem that Descartes imagined when he considered the ultimate skeptic prepared to doubt the truth of anything including his own existence. We would have to weigh what seems to be the empirical evidence we have gained through a vast number of carefully made “free” choices on the logic that we determined the manner of investigation and were able to have done otherwise against our general experience of seeming to be able to make choices that aren’t determined (which is why we recognize the difference from what is literally a knee-jerk reaction and a carefully thought out plan of action). And thus, even if modern physics were akin to Laplace’s scheme, should still find ourselves having to explain away our most basic experiences, including those that allowed for Newton and others to construct the scheme Laplace lays out for us, because of certain things that some people have inferred after making deliberate choices and carrying out carefully planned actions in order to test theories and discover the laws of the type Laplace describes!

Luckily, perhaps, we aren’t in this position. Neither physics nor the sciences more generally has supported Laplace’s worldview. We are in a better position then ever to reject the decision as to whether we should trust in the theories we have based upon collective experiments or the experiences that these self-same experiments were some part of when it comes to physical determinism.

V) Nothing within the simplistic, “every effect must have a cause” attempt to equip physical determinism with a linear, causal structure precludes the capacity for self-determinism. That is, if all one has to say is that everything is either determined or random and causation is somehow involved here, then it is easy enough to recover free will by asserting that one manner in which future events are caused to unfold as they do is via our ability to self-determine, i.e., to make choices such that we could have made otherwise.

Likewise, nothing within the “every effect must have a cause” argument itself denies the impossibility of teleological causes or of any number of supernatural excercise of will (let alone free will) and certainly doesn’t preclude top-down causation in its most non-reductive, immaterialist, dualist, even spiritual form. Such arguments have been advanced as “proof” that God must exist for eons (literally), not to mention various claims about the necessity of the soul or vitalism or creationist-type arguments.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This simply doesn't follow. There is nothing at all about scientific experimentation, that transfers information from one part of the universe (the experiment) to another (the mind of the experimenter) through a process of interaction, that requires an intervention that is outside of physics.

That's not what Primas asserted. His point (and mine, and others, increasingly so in recent years due in particular to closing loopholes in the various proofs of Bell's theorem) is that it is a basic principle of scientific experimentation that one can...well.. actually do experiments in the manner we do. When we design an experiment or even decide to treat some observation of some system like the orbits of planets as we do, we necessarily make claims about our freedom of actions and choices. That's how, for example, random sampling works:

More generally, when on makes a choice in empirical sciences to determine that a particular system is representative of the phenomenon or phenomena under investigation and that such-and-such a set-up that will e.g., be encoded as the initial conditions for some equations of state or in the difference or differential equations of a model or what have you, it is tacitly understood that said choices were not predetermined by anything or it would invalidate the whole procedure. One can naively think of this in terms of the attempts by good scientists to remove or account for possible biases. What allows us to say that under circumstances other than the ones that we conducted some experiment in allow us to infer that our results would hold? The fact that we chose to conduct the experiment in such a way in such a place at such a time so that none of these would effect the results. Likewise, representative samples are chosen "at random" in such a way as to allow for the claim that they are indeed samples. That's how we get around Heraclitus' claim about our inability to even step in the same river twice, let alone say something is true of e.g., electrons that we will never interact with or the vast majority of populations never tested given what we found in what we call representative of electrons or some population.

In fact, evolution by natural selection does something similar in transferring information from the environment into the genome by "trial and error" over generations

This is nothing like science. We call it trial and error, and to equate this with actual trials is a gross misconception of the type one finds too often in popular literature or general discussions on evolutionary theory. It endows natural processes with a kind of intent or volition or "desire" that are supposed to be useful analogies or metaphors, not mistaken for scientific inquiry by Nature.

and no nonsensical notion of "free will" outside of physics, not even a mind, is required. All that is needed is a process of investigation that is effectively (for all practical purposes) independent of the specific experiment.

Sure. For random processes that don't result in any discoveries and for bad descriptions of these we don't need any freedom of choice, just misconceptions.

This is just an example from a lot of philosophical waffle

Primas is not a philospher but a theoretical chemist whose primary work was in the development of algebraic quantum theory, primarily in W* algebras and other work in operator theory. He worked mainly in foundation physics and quantum chemistry, and is no more a philospher than quantum physicist Bernard d'Espagnat. Yet nothing precludes physicists from contributing to philosophy, as d'Espagnat did in Physics and Philosophy, noting on the freedom of choice assumption (see above for details) "the choice of the experiments is taken to be a free one means that the experimentalist must be thought to be able to choose them at will...This condition has an important role in the proof of the theorem [Bell's theorem]. It is often left implicit because of its apparent obviousness...But let it be observed that, when all is said and done, it appears as constituting the very condition of the possiblity of any empirical science" (emphasis added; p. 64).

All of which have little or no relevance to the point.

If you are to base your understanding of the nature of causality and determinism on more than idle metaphysical speculation of the kind that e.g., requires a Creator to avoid the infinite regress underlying "there must be a cause for everything" or similar claims that belong more to antiquity and antiquated philosophy than anything that can be said to be in line with our knowledge of the physical universe, then it is absolutely relevant. Even if you wish to remain in realm of pre-scientific reasoning with Aquinas, you must still then deal with the fact that your evidence on the nature of determinism and causality comes from your experience (including experience learning from what others have done) and this experience presumably includes that one having made choices which differ from the actions of a mindless automaton in that some at least were experienced as if you determined the results. Scientific inquiry rests on the metaphysical assumption that this is possible for everyone and that it is possible to infer from certain sets of freely made choices in experimental settings or observations, but I have outlined this part elsewhere. What is important here is that the relevance rests on the extent one wishes to engage at all with any kind of physics or science whatsoever. Then one has assumed that experimental choices were just those: free choices within the kinds of limits Primas discusses in the portion of my previous post you quoted. Elsewise, you are free to decide your own experience learning about the nature of reality precludes yours ability to do anything at all that wasn't predetermined and that you cannot have any ability to exert free choice or possess any kind of free will.

The exact nature of time doesn't matter because the universe is clearly "lawful", in that it is possible to examine one point in time and make deductions about the future (or the past) from that - either fully deterministically or involving some uncertainty or randomness.

This is not only not "clear", it isn't even true.

The best understanding we have of time comes from general relativity and that gives us a causal structure within an atemporal "block universe" or space-time manifold

This doesn't give us a causal structure as Gödel showed in his proofs of CTCs. Special relativity provides us with causal structures because affine spaces still are fixed. The nonlinearities of GR have been known for ~50 years allow for trajectories violating causal structures. The "block universe" is basically graphed on to GR from the spacetime manifold of the special theory as a possible manner in which to understand relativistic cosmology. It is not a logical consequence. Nor does GR fix any spacetime structure at all, as indeed a fundamental component of the theory is the dynamical interaction of spacetime with other physical systems (namely, those of matter/energy).
Finally, this doesn't provide us with a temporal direction. It suffers from the same problems as Newtonian absolute time when it comes to the deterministic laws governing physical systems. There is no inherent directionality.

All of this is utterly irrelevant however, because the very existence of thinking minds that can understand the universe and make choices requires directional time and a causal structure.

Why?
“Our realization of Wheeler’s delayed-choice gedanken experiment demonstrates that the behavior of the photon in the interferometer depends on the choice of the observable that is measured, even when that choice is made at a position and a time such that it is separated from the entrance of the photon into the interferometer by a space-like interval.”
Jacques, V., Wu, E., Grosshans, F., Treussart, F., Grangier, P., Aspect, A., & Roch, J. F. (2007). Experimental realization of Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment. Science, 315(5814), 966-968
Recall that Wheeler himself designed his thought experiment from (at least later) the perspective of his participatory universe, in which (radically) there isn't any past reality without our existing to have cast it into being. It is for such reasons that Bell famously (and sarcastically) asked in his papr "Against Measurement" if the past wavefunction required humans in particular or indeed had to wait for a PhD.

We make choices based on information gathered from the past and our understanding of the possible consequences in the future - otherwise they would be purposeless and meaningless.

I think "we make choices" is enough for me. Granting that doesn't preclude the impossibility of making sense out of future and past in a purely objective way or of a percieved arrow of time, but I regard the capacity to make choices as fundamental not only for physics or my own work but for the sciences in general. It is the logical basis for inference and a metaphysical prerequisite. It is also neither random nor something that is deterministic.

The idea of free will (compatibilism aside) is simply incoherent - and nothing in your protracted post seems to come close to addressing the basic contradiction it represents.

That's because I don't accept pre-scientific claims about causation of the type I typically find in proofs for God. If your conception of causality requires such a form of reasoning (or one in which the necessary truth value of a proposition concerning a future sea battle to be predetermined) to be coherent, so be it. Then you have no other choice. Personally, I like to do my research without making the assumption that all of it as well as all of it that any colleagues ever have or ever will be capable of rests on a fundamental assumption that is necessarily wrong because of some simplistic claims about the nature of causality or propositional logic or suchlike.

 

[Skwim]

Do you also reject the concept of consciousness?

Don't know what you're referring to by "also," but I don't reject the concept of consciousness.

.

 

[wellwisher]

The term free will or free choice is composed of two words, with the first word being "free". Free refers to something without cost and without profit. If I give you a book for free there no exchange of money. Free choice is a choice that does not have any emotional, instinctive or psychological cost or profit, since it is a free choice. Once we add cost or profit it becomes deterministic.

Determinism is implicit of a type of choice that has a cost or profit. If I place an apple and orange on the table, some people will prefer apples over the orange and will choose that. This is predetermined, since the apple will turn a profit in terms of their preferred tastes, while the alternative will have some form of emotional, instinctive or psychological cost. This may feel like they lost out on something.

Free will is not something that is all or not. Rather it takes work to develop. In the apple and orange example, I could train myself to eat the fruit, that I like less, until I develop a liking for it. When the apple-orange choice is once again made available, the cost or profit will start to approach zero. Now I have a free choice.

Most people prefer to promote their natural strengths and guard their natural weakness. This makes them more deterministic. They have very little free will in terms of reversing this, due to the emotional or psychological cost. However, one could choose to develop their weakness, and accept one's strengths, until a balance appear. The irony is, free will is not free, but takes a lot of work to develop. It requires we confront our determinism and try to shift the balances.

I am a creative thinker and like to come up with ideas outside the box. Outside the Box is not a place where most people show free will, since this place does have high cost, in terms of how the environment will feed back to you. In this case, free will requires growing a thick skin and learning not to allow your ego to be defined outside yourself.

If you were a diehard Progressive or Conservative, you may be deterministic in terms of your values and beliefs. Free choice will require you find a place in your mind where you can accept both at the same time. Free will is one of the most demanding disciplines with very few phDs.

 

[Skwim]

The term free will or free choice is composed of two words, with the first word being "free". Free refers to something without cost and without profit. If I give you a book for free there no exchange of money. Free choice is a choice that does not have any emotional, instinctive or psychological cost or profit, since it is a free choice. Once we add cost or profit it becomes deterministic.

Determinism is implicit of a type of choice that has a cost or profit. If I place an apple and orange on the table, some people will prefer apples over the orange and will choose that. This is predetermined, since the apple will turn a profit in terms of their preferred tastes, while the alternative will have some form of emotional, instinctive or psychological cost. This may feel like they lost out on something.

Free will is not something that is all or not. Rather it takes work to develop. In the apple and orange example, I could train myself to eat the fruit, that I like less, until I develop a liking for it. When the apple-orange choice is once again made available, the cost or profit will start to approach zero. Now I have a free choice.

Might want to reconsider these statements because they're certainly not in accord with contemporary philosophical thinking.

.

 

[ratiocinator]

Actually it isn't. Simply look it up.

I've done more than look it up and you seem to be just assuming that the word "free will" in your quotes refers to the logically impossible kind.

From the wiki article:

Compatibilists often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had freedom to act according to their own motivation. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."
...
This compatibilist free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation.
...
Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition(s) of free will...

 

[ratiocinator]

This is nothing like science. We call it trial and error, and to equate this with actual trials is a gross misconception of the type one finds too often in popular literature or general discussions on evolutionary theory. It endows natural processes with a kind of intent or volition or "desire" that are supposed to be useful analogies or metaphors, not mistaken for scientific inquiry by Nature.

This has nothing to do with the point I made. Evolution is a natural process with no indent but it does gather information about the environment and encode it in genomes. My point was that there was no magical "free will" needed to transfer information about the world and encode it somewhere else.

More generally, when on makes a choice in empirical sciences to determine that a particular system is representative of the phenomenon or phenomena under investigation and that such-and-such a set-up that will e.g., be encoded as the initial conditions for some equations of state or in the difference or differential equations of a model or what have you, it is tacitly understood that said choices were not predetermined by anything or it would invalidate the whole procedure. One can naively think of this in terms of the attempts by good scientists to remove or account for possible biases. What allows us to say that under circumstances other than the ones that we conducted some experiment in allow us to infer that our results would hold? The fact that we chose to conduct the experiment in such a way in such a place at such a time so that none of these would effect the results. Likewise, representative samples are chosen "at random" in such a way as to allow for the claim that they are indeed samples. That's how we get around Heraclitus' claim about our inability to even step in the same river twice, let alone say something is true of e.g., electrons that we will never interact with or the vast majority of populations never tested given what we found in what we call representative of electrons or some population.

Lots and lost of words but you haven't really said anything relevant. What is it specifically about formulating hypotheses, designing and performing experiments that you think is incompatible with determinism?

Because every part I focused on had similar problems and lots and lots of words that say very little of any relevance. - I'm not going to go through it all.

How about a short summary of how you think free will can work if choices are not entirely the result of their antecedents but involve no randomness?

 

[ratiocinator]

Now some compatibilists may resort to redefining "freewill" in order to to make it work within a deterministic world, but this is not only philosophically dishonest, but almost laughable.

And what, pray, do you regard as the correct philosophical definition, and why?

 

[Skwim]

I've done more than look it up and you seem to be just assuming that the word "free will" in your quotes refers to the logically impossible kind.

From the wiki article:

Compatibilists often define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had freedom to act according to their own motivation. That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained. Arthur Schopenhauer famously said, "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."

And following right on the heels of that statement is:

"In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to a motive, the nature of that motive is determined."​

My question is, where does this freedom enter the picture? If free will is taken to mean, the ability to "choose what I want," what governs that want? Why was A wanted rather than B?

This compatibilist free will should not be understood as some kind of ability to have actually chosen differently in an identical situation.

Then how should it be understood?

Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition(s) of free will...

Could it be because it's germane to the compatabilist assertion? I would say, very likely.


In all, the compatabilist position is one of "don't pay any attention to that man behind the curtain, just take what I say at face value." Their defense is always specious if not absurd: "First of all, let us redefine free will." IOW. Defendant: "Please note your honor, I'm redefine 'murder' so as to avoid being found guilty of it."

And what, pray, do you regard as the correct philosophical definition, and why?

I don't know of any "correct philosophical definition," but at the most basic level I think it means the ability to have done differently. Why? because it's the definition most frequently brought into play in philosophical discussions of free will, and is one I've found to be most fitting when pitted against the notion of determinism. People who contend that determinism is false typically take the position that "I could have done differently."

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[ratiocinator]

I don't know of any "correct philosophical definition," but at the most basic level I think it means the ability to have done differently.

But that is exactly the absurdity that compatibilists are pointing out. If you could have done differently in exactly the same circumstances, that isn't freedom, it's randomness, because there couldn't possibly be any reason for the difference.

I really don't understand why people think the ability to do as you want should not be referred to as freedom, especially when the alternative on offer doesn't even make coherent sense.

 

[Skwim]

But that is exactly the absurdity that compatibilists are pointing out. If you could have done differently in exactly the same circumstances, that isn't freedom, it's randomness, because there couldn't possibly be any reason for the difference.

No it isn't randomness because the act is determined. And I'm sorry, but it's thee prevailing concept of free will. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

". . . acting with free will requires alternative possibilities. A natural way to model this account of free will is in terms of an agent’s future as a garden of forking paths branching off from a single past. A locus of freely willed action arises when the present offers, from an agent’s (singular) past, more than one path into the future. On this model of human agency, [free will] then, when a person acts of her own free will, she could have acted otherwise."
source​

I really don't understand why people think the ability to do as you want should not be referred to as freedom, especially when the alternative on offer doesn't even make coherent sense.

It is referred to as freedom, it's just that those who champion free will don't understand its implications. Unfortunately, those of us who understand those implications can't help it if free willers haven't thought it through. And even sadder yet are those who feel their compatibilism saves their lack of understanding.

But go ahead and define free will however you like. Just make sure it does its job of successfully countering determinism, because that's what the issue is all about: Determinism says there are no exceptions to its doctrine, whereas compatibilism says there are.

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[ratiocinator]

No it isn't randomness because the act is determined. And I'm sorry, but it's thee prevailing concept of free will. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I really don't care what the Stanford Encyclopedia says (it is, after all, just documenting the various claims), if the situation was exactly the same (both internal and external to the mind) then if someone could have done differently, there can be no possible reason for it, so it's just random variation, not freedom.

Philosophy is a curate's egg of a subject. There are some profound insights and some utter nonsense.

But go ahead and define free will however you like. Just make sure it does its job of successfully countering determinism, because that's what the issue is all about: Determinism says there are no exceptions to its doctrine, whereas compatibilism says there are.

I'm not trying to counter determinism, I don't think there are are any exceptions, and that isn't what compatibilism says.

 

[Skwim]

I really don't care what the Stanford Encyclopedia says

Of course not. Why bother with an accepted definition when you can resolve the conundrum by simply redefining free will however you like.


Have a good day.

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[ratiocinator]

Of course not. Why bother with an accepted definition when you can resolve the conundrum by simply redefining free will however you like.

I don't actually understand why you are arguing this so "robustly", and ignoring most of what I said, when we basically agree about determinism. The point is that different philosophers have different definitions for exactly the reasons we are discussing.

As I said before, I actually had my mind changed by reading Daniel Dennett (Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University) but if you're only interested in defending a particular point of view, then fine - we disagree.

 

[Straw Dog]

Don't know what you're referring to by "also," but I don't reject the concept of consciousness.

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I’m just getting a better idea of your overall worldview to see how determinism fits in. Leaving the subject of free will and compatibilism off to the side for a moment, do you accept any degree of indeterminism in the universe?

Does randomness or chance play any role?

Or do you think it’s strictly deterministic and nature is mechanistic?