Philosophy Now Forum

I'm other words, regardless of how many ghosts you have in your machine, or if you even any ghosts at all, you're still responsible because your foot kicked the ball.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:34 pm I'm other words, regardless of how many ghosts you have in your machine, or if you even any ghosts at all, you're still responsible because your foot kicked the ball.

I think there is a slight difference between causing something and being responsible for it. Even if you (your body) caused it to occur, you are not responsible since you could not have prevented it.

oh no i mean consequences will be imposed on you, restrictions made on your body, your privileges and rights, etc. this is called 'being held responsible', the only sense that can be made of the phrase.

my use of the word involves no moral or ethical qualification. imma consequentialist. duddint matter if the guy was starving and stole a loaf of bread. we gotta prevent him from stealing if we're gonna have a society. we can also work on the reasons why this dude wuz starving and try to beat the problem to the lunch. punch i mean. damn why dies the P have to be up and to the right of the L at the very edge of the screen where your thumb can't get to?  

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:59 pm oh no i mean consequences will be imposed on you, restrictions made on your body, your privileges and rights, etc. this is called 'being held responsible', the only sense that can be made of the phrase.

my use of the word involves no moral or ethical qualification. imma consequentialist. duddint matter if the guy was starving and stole a loaf of bread. we gotta prevent him from stealing if we're gonna have a society. we can also work on the reasons why this dude wuz starving and try to beat the problem to the lunch. punch i mean. damn why dies the P have to be up and to the right of the L at the very edge of the screen where your thumb can't get to?  

That is something I agree with. In point of fact, this would call for significant reforms to our judicial system. For instance, the Supreme Court of the United States has made it abundantly clear that "a deterministic view of human conduct ... is inconsistent with the underlying precepts of our criminal justice system."

Scary. Something needs to change.

it's an impossible situation I'm afraid. I've thought about this matter for years and I've concluded that we can't get around it. the illusion and feeling of freewill is so strong that we'd not know what to do without it. at best, governments and legal systems could become more tolerant toward crime and address the causes of crime in an effort to prevent it.

and practically speaking (tho paradoxically), believing yourself to have freewill makes you feel culpable for your actions and in doing so modifies your behavior. in neurological terms, the networks producing the 'conscience', the immediate awareness or pre-reflective cogito, the sense of self, and therefore the feeling of freewill, served to increase fitness level by acting as a social governor and regulating behavior... maybe so that less risky, less aggressive, less criminal and/or violent tendencies increased your chances of survival. this is all by accident of course. I'm not making any teleological claims. but i wouldn't need to to explain how ethical, civil behavior evolves in intelligent mammals forming complex groups.

with all that in mind, I'm almost convinced I'd not want the world to know it has no freewill. know what i mean?

what or who would be the brain police?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:19 am it's an impossible situation I'm afraid. I've thought about this matter for years and I've concluded that we can't get around it. the illusion and feeling of freewill is so strong that we'd not know what to do without it. at best, governments and legal systems could become more tolerant toward crime and address the causes of crime in an effort to prevent it.

and practically speaking (tho paradoxically), believing yourself to have freewill makes you feel culpable for your actions and in doing so modifies your behavior. in neurological terms, the networks producing the 'conscience', the immediate awareness or pre-reflective cogito, the sense of self, and therefore the feeling of freewill, served to increase fitness level by acting as a social governor and regulating behavior... maybe so that less risky, less aggressive, less criminal and/or violent tendencies increased your chances of survival. this is all by accident of course. I'm not making any teleological claims. but i wouldn't need to to explain how ethical, civil behavior evolves in intelligent mammals forming complex groups.

with all that in mind, I'm almost convinced I'd not want the world to know it has no freewill. know what i mean?

what or who would be the brain police?

You are not alone in holding this viewpoint. Albert Einstein, for example, announced , "In a sense, we can hold no one responsible. I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect, I am not a Jew… Practically, I am nevertheless compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.” Saul Smilansky worries that if people discover their beliefs are false, they will be less moral and less likely to do good things. He doesn't even want the delusion discussed in public. Stephen Hawking also rejected free will. Still, like Einstein, he found it impossible to live by that belief.

I will not minimize the difficulties and obstacles, but I believe there is a way to overcome them. How the brain determines what it believes to be the optimal solution to a problem provides the answer. Nonetheless, it is getting late where I live, and a detailed explanation at this time would take too long. I will try provide a more thorough explanation tomorrow (actually later today, my time).

I meant to post this interview earlier. Searle describes the situation we're in quite well I think.

https://youtu.be/_rZfSTpjGl8

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:22 am I meant to post this interview earlier. Searle describes the situation we're in quite well I think.

https://youtu.be/_rZfSTpjGl8

OK, I see. This has thrown me off a little bit. I mistakenly believed that we were taking a different route. Now, I believe that you, like John Searle in the video clip you cited, got off the "evidence-following" train one stop too early, but I may be wrong. Are you referring to what he says between minutes 3:49 and 4:19 of the interview?
"But when it comes to free will, you can't live your life on the assumption of determinism. You go into the restaurant, and the waiter says, «Do you want the veal or the steak?» You can't say, «I'm a determinist. Que sera sera. I'll just wait and see what happens.» Because… and this is the point… if you do that; if you refuse to exercise free will, that refusal is intelligible to you only as an exercise of free will."

BigMike wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:37 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:12 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 8:12 pm
I believe that the commonly accepted definition of what it means for the will to be free differs from yours (that free will is unbiased will). How can I be sure that we are discussing the same thing if you define it differently?

A decision is either free or determined. There is no other option. This is the definition from Wikipedia: Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.

Does unimpeded mean the same as unbiased in your book?

They have different meanings. We can stick to unimpeded if you wish for sake of discussion.

bahman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:36 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:37 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:12 pm
A decision is either free or determined. There is no other option. This is the definition from Wikipedia: Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.

Does unimpeded mean the same as unbiased in your book?

They have different meanings. We can stick to unimpeded if you wish for sake of discussion.

Fine. And unimpeded in this context means that natural laws are not interfering. However, the neurons responsible for every movement and action are governed by physical laws. Conclusion: Either free will does not exist, or if it does, it cannot control your body's actions and is therefore irrelevant.

You guys aren't getting the problem at all. Sorry, but you're way off track.

If Determinism is true, you can't arrange social policy. In fact, you can't change or choose anything. Not a thing. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Every action that happens in the universe is caused by nothiing other than some other previous mechanical action. The machine that is this universe is going to turn its cranks and churn out whatever is going to happen. You have no say about it. None.

That's Determinism.

Now, you're all talking as if you DO have a choice. (And I would say you do.) But then, Determinism is not true.

What you've stumbled over is the word "free," as used in "free will." Bahman does this, as he (wrongly) thinks "free" means "unimpeded." But no proponent of what we call "free will" thinks that's true -- because "free" is not the operative term there. "Will" is. People's free choices get "impeded" all the time...but they aren't all prevented thereby. My desire for a car may be impeded by the necessity of getting money to pay for it; that doesn't mean I won't get a car. It just means I have to get the cash together first.

You see, what some people call "free will" is just a bad word choice. The word "volition" is better. Because "volition" doesn't suggest "unimpeded." But even that isn't quite enough, because you must understand "volition" to included "the ability to change things by way of your will," or to "choose" among outcomes. Determinism insists that NO SUCH THING IS EVEN POSSIBLE.

So the question really is, "Does anybody have volition?" And you guys are all chattering away as if you do, even while insisting on Determinism.

In other words, you're acting like Compatibilists, who are people who fail to realize that Determinism and Volitionism are totally incompatible.

Why is it so difficult to comprehend that people make the choices they have to make?

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:09 pm Why is it so difficult to comprehend that people make the choices they have to make?

Because then, THEY are not "making" any "choices" at all!

If you "have to make" a "choice," then it wasn't a "choice," and "you" didn't "make it."

It's like if I gave you a choice between going to jail and going to jail. The outcome is totally fixed.

But it's worse than even that: you don't even have the choice not to WANT to go to jail. Whether you want it or not is also something predetermined, fixed by prior forces, and is not even subject to your will.

Why is this hard for anybody to understand?

Answer: because it's not true. Determinism is false.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:02 pm

Immanuel does not understand how memory and learning works at the molecular level. He doesn't know how dopamine and serotonin (both of which are neurotransmitters as well as hormones) cause catalytic subunits to break off of protein kinase A enzymes in the axon terminals causing, in the first instance, an increased influx of Ca++ ions upon the arrival of action potentials.
The increased number of Ca++ ions stick to more neurotransmitter vesicles causing them dock to and fuse with the neuron's inside walls, opening a channel to the synaptic cleft into which the vesicles' contents are emptied. That process, aided by the increased Ca++ influx, is what strengthens the synapse in the short term. This is how short term memory works.
As the catalytic subunits break down and disappear, however, the short term memory fades. However, repeated dopamine and serotonin stimuli cause, by chance, that sooner or later one of the subunits floats all the way up to the neuron's soma, where the cell's nucleus is. It enters the nucleus, where the cell's DNA is, and turns on a gene there that via an mRNA produces a protein that causes the growth of new axon terminals. This strengthens the synaptic connection permanently, or at least until its owner reaches old age or gets a neurological disease of some kind. Long term memory, thus established, will, of course, change the flow of nerve signals and affect future behavior.
The hardwired logic in the brain thus finds better ways for the organism to meet its needs. This improved response pattern is what we, from the outside, view as the person making better decisions.
I hope this helps Mr. Can to understand a little better, or at least give him some clues as to what he may want to study closer. He needs to advance beyond his current level of understanding.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:36 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:02 pm

Immanuel does not understand how memory and learning works at the molecular level.

Yeah, he does.

But your explanation assumes the existence of those brain chemicals and the structures to make them operative. That means it doesn't explain their origins, or the fact of their complex interrelationship...let alone their correspondence with the universe.

It's a total non-explanation.

I'm afraid you've fallen into the "correlation equals causality" fallacy. That's when a person assumes that when two things happen together (brain chemistry and volition) the one must be the cause or explanation of the other. It's a philosophy-101-level logic error.

You've misunderstood the problem, not answered it.