Free Will vs Determinism

[henry quirk]

SoB,

The reason Doc doesn't defend me is cuz he knows I can do that myself.

As for Dave: he doesn't bother me...determinism does.

As I say: if you convince a man he's just a product and not a source, when you strip him of self-direction and -responsibility (actually make those qualities 'bad') then you can make him into an instrument.

I got a problem with that.

[Dave Mangnall]

Dave Mangnall wrote:

I feel free to go to the pub tonight. I’m not incarcerated, or impaired, or broke. My wife wouldn’t try to stop me. The only reason I won’t be going to the pub tonight is that I don’t want to. I’m thinking that so far my feeling of freedom is the same as yours.
Here’s the difference, trivial except for its philosophical import. For me, if I don’t want to go to the pub, it could not be otherwise. I read my inner script, and find it involves not wanting to go to the pub. For you, it could be otherwise. You’ve used your free will to choose to not to want to go to the pub. (For all I know, of course, you could be down the pub as I write!)

For all know not wanting to go to the pub may be one your most constant traits. If this is so, together with not wanting to go to the pub tonight, if you were to do violence to your feelings and go to the pub despite your established preference , to prove that FreeWill existed, would this act prove that your will was free?

Hi, Belinda.

As a Determinist, I’m unlikely to find myself doing anything in order to prove that my will is free. And the Free Willies are confident in (what I see as) their mistaken and unsubstantiated beliefs not to need to do so either. But if any one were to do violence to their feelings in order to prove that free will existed, then I would say it was because it was determined that they do so!

[Dave Mangnall]

Immanuel Cant wrote:

Several so-called paradoxes, including the famous “Newcomb’s paradox” are based on the idea that if determinism were to be true then, in principle, some fantastic being or supercomputer could know everything that was going to happen. There’s an example back up this thread. In practice, no such being or computer exists, and it never will.

That would be true if it were the case that the future is finite. This is possible, that the future is finite, and when the Universe ends so will time end.
We however are not supercomputers and moreover a supercomputer such as IC describes is impossible due to computers' depending upon truth relative to time. That is why determinism doesn't imply prediction.

I endorse Dave Mangnall in his opinion that while determinism is not proven it has some reason/evidence to it while Free Will has none.

Hi again, Belinda.

You're quoting me, not Immanuel. I'm guessing you remember Newcomb's paradox from Honderich's book. In my view, the apparent paradox stemmed from looking at the consequences of determinism from within a free will conceptual framework. When Honderich says "The problem of course is what you should do." there's a direct implication of free will and alternative choices. If the sentence is replaced by "The question of course is what you will do." then the paradox disappears.

You're right in saying that determinism doesn't imply prediction. A lot of attacks on determinism fall wide of the mark, because they assume that determinism implies prediction and then proceed logically from this incorrect premise to some absurdity or other.

[Dave Mangnall]

Gosh, you're a feisty little fellow aren't you?
Surely your opinion! Which are like as. ho..s, yes? Projection?

I've read all your ravings with interest,
A self stroking characterization! Projection?

and I hope that very soon you find the professional help that you surely need!
Again, A self stroking characterization! Projection?

But you are surely 'free' to dodge using those ploys. Or could it be that your response was in fact 'determined' by your fear! But then you have the 'free will to instead 'choose' to quell that fear, to finally think for yourself.

Fear, the mind killer!

Hi again, Spheres.

You’re going to an awful lot of time and trouble to be rude to me. At least when I’m rude to you, I’m brief. You may not be fairly stupid (I’m keeping an open mind on that) but the way you write surely makes you seem so.

I do like the fancy colours, though.

[Belinda]

To Dave Mangnall.

Sorry to ascribe your earlier post tp someone else.

I had to look up Newcomb's Paradox and studied the guardian article and the W------ia article. I probably found the problem to difficult for me also the first time I read it in Honderich's book.

Without fully understanding the problem I chose both boxes, because I don't believe in supercomputer predictors in real life situations which deal with chaotic futures. I am pretty sure that I have missed some bit of reasoning , and would be delighted if you could enlighten me.

[Dave Mangnall]

Then Dave, you can't imagine I will ever agree with you. After all, I must be just reacting to the causal forces behind my own position. Or if I change, it will not because of Dave Mangnall's argument, but only that I was predestinated to change.

You’re right, of course, that I don’t imagine you’ll ever agree with me. If you were to, though, hypothetically, then within my model the explanation would be that my argument, which for me is an effect of the Causal Nexus, would be for you a causal component of the Causal Nexus. Or, to use your words, you were predestinated to change because you were predestinated to hear my argument.

So there's no win for you at all..

This is a discussion, not a contest. At least, it is for me. But if it were a contest, the result would be predestined!

So the Determinist can always use what I call "nothing-buttery." It goes, "Mind? That's nothing but brain." "Consciousness? That's nothing but an epiphenomenon." "Morality? That's nothing but a manifestation of social arrangements." "Reason? That's nothing but post facto rationalization." "Self? That's nothing but the body." "Love? That's nothing but hormones." And so on. Every single answer I would say is reductional and inadequate, leaving the asker feeling like something important has been missed. But it's impossible to dissuade anybody who's sipping the Determinist cool-aid that those answers are real answers.

But flip it around. Do you remember Karl Popper and Falsificationism? He said that if a scientific theory is genuinely coherent, there will be terms specifiable upon which it is falsifiable. In other words, to say that we have reason to think it's RIGHT we owe it to people to say what the test would be to show it's WRONG, and then affirm that the challenge of that test has been sufficiently met. Then they ought to believe us.

So if Determinism is such a good, compelling, rational and scientific theory as you say, and not a reductional dodge, then let me ask you this:

What do you regard as a scientific test that would falsify Determinism?

I never thought I’d find myself writing this, but I agree with everything you’ve written here! And I have no answer to your question, so there’s a win for you! Now then, I know you’ll have seen this one coming. What do you regard as a scientific test that would falsify free will?

I guess you have not read all I've written on it to others, because I've said a whole bunch of times what phenomena seem to me to point strongly toward the existence of Free Will. I've even pointed to your own behaviour as evidence. Moreover, I've actually proposed a test to see if one can get in touch with the existential experience of Free Will. But you seem to have missed all that somehow...

You’re right. I’m only up to date on the stuff that’s addressed to me personally. I like to keep up to date with your latest thoughts, and those of Belinda and Henry and the others, and I don’t want to be late for the latest dose of vitriol flung in my face by old Spheres. But I’m also reviewing the whole thread, and for that I’m still three weeks back. So, apologies, and I retract what I said about your position. One caveat, though. I thought I’d explained to you, fairly lucidly, why my own behaviour was not evidence of free will. Please tell me where I’ve failed to do that.

You see, cause and effect actually admits of no "error." I don't mean that human beings cannot appear to do things "erroneously." What I mean is that the term "error" really has no referent in a Determinist universe, because effects ALWAYS follow their causes perfectly. What then can an "error" be, but merely a false attribution we make upon the actual phenomenon of things being as they were predestined to be?

So it is the Determinist view that has no place in it for the concept of "error." The very existence of that concept, if there is any reality to it, serves only the Free Will side.

There are two points here. “Error” as used by Nietzsche above just referred to being mistaken as to how things are. If I thought that seven times six were forty-three, or that a hundred and eleven was a prime number, these would be errors. So, at that level, there’s no problem with having errors in a deterministic universe.

The point you’re making, though is different. In answer to that, I refer back to my example that I gave to Belinda in discussing moral responsibility. If I damage someone’s car while parking, then according to determinism I did what I had to do. But determinism does not deny intentionality, it merely says that the intentionality is determined. I would describe my behaviour as being in error, just as you would, because the results were not in accordance with my intentions.

We're all busy, Dave. Honestly, I can't tell you when I'll have to bug out for a bit and then come back. I might go on vacation, or be preoccupied with work, or whatever. When I do, if I find I need to, I'm sure you'll be patient too. You seem a reasonable guy.

I try to be reasonable. And how could a drone be impatient!?

[Immanuel Can]

So if Determinism is such a good, compelling, rational and scientific theory as you say, and not a reductional dodge, then let me ask you this:

What do you regard as a scientific test that would falsify Determinism?

I never thought I’d find myself writing this, but I agree with everything you’ve written here!

Call the press!

And I have no answer to your question, so there’s a win for you!

Gracious. Thank you.

Now then, I know you’ll have seen this one coming. What do you regard as a scientific test that would falsify free will?

I haven't advanced Free Will as a scientific theory, but rather as one that is strongly existentially and sociologically compelling; but I did not promise to close the question so far as that. I don't think we can.

Free Will is like consciousness, reason, morality, selfhood, and a bunch of other "spiritual" realities: they're not the kinds of things that are amenable to scientific measurement, because science does not work on non-physical entities. It's not a universally-powerful methodology, just a very powerful way to deal with material problems. Put it in charge of stuff that's not physical, and its proponents can only cope by denying those realities even exist. (This is why Determinists notoriously profess skepticism about things like "selfs", "minds" (as opposed to "brains") and "morality": they're not physical properties.)

Determinism, however, is an ardently material theory. It deals with physical cause and effect, and denies the relevance of anything beyond that. Therefore, in principle, it ought to be able to be falsified by some test.

Now, if you only believe in Determinism as a preference, and not as a physical description of how real cause-and-effect work, you won't owe me any such explanation, of course. But if you do think it is THE truth about how things work, and an accurate scientific description of causality, then yes, you would owe some sort of test for falsification.

Got one?

I don’t want to be late for the latest dose of vitriol flung in my face by old Spheres.

I thought I’d explained to you, fairly lucidly, why my own behaviour was not evidence of free will. Please tell me where I’ve failed to do that.

I have the same old problem with Determinism. Sometimes you can't PROVE something wrong, but that doesn't make it right.

Remember the old story about Galileo? Forced by the Aristotelians and the Inquisition to recant the idea that the Earth isn't fixed, he is said to have muttered under his breath as he left, "And yet it moves."

That's probably an urban legend. But you get the point: just because you lack the present means to convince a particular audience of a point does not guarantee you aren't still right. None of us knows what the size of the universe is, and nobody can demonstrate it. But everybody also knows the universe has a size, because it's expanding. Can any of us PROVE what that size is? No. And yet it has one. Interesting.

Free-willians don't have to work to destroy all belief in Determinism. We all know that SOME elements of our past are set by others or by previous forces, without our consent. If nothing else, none of us is in charge of the circumstances of his birth, his gender, his physical potential, his eye colour, and so on. Much is settled. The whole question of free will hinges on this: is ANYTHING not simply predetermined like that?

And if there is one, or only a few, then Free-willians win the day. Determinism would then not be a comprehensive explanation of the universe. The upshot, then, is that Free-willians don't deny all causality: they deny there is ONLY strict, material causality, and maintaining that "human choice" is a causal agency in its own right.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Free Will is like consciousness, reason, morality, selfhood, and a bunch of other "spiritual" realities: they're not the kinds of things that are amenable to scientific measurement, because science does not work on non-physical entities. It's not a universally-powerful methodology, just a very powerful way to deal with material problems. Put it in charge of stuff that's not physical, and its proponents can only cope by denying those realities even exist. (This is why Determinists notoriously profess skepticism about things like "selfs", "minds" (as opposed to "brains") and "morality": they're not physical properties.)

Free Will is not like conscious states, reasoning, moral systems, or subjective perspective,
All of the latter have physical correlates. Free Will has no anatomical, physiological, chemical, physical, or anthropological correlate. None!

Determinism is not like conscious states, reasoning, moral systems, or subjective perspective.
Neither has determinism any anatomical, physiological,chemical, or anthropological correlate.

You are mistaken that determinists don't believe in minds or selfs. You seem to be conflating determinism with naive physicalism. It's possibly true that, regarding theories of existence, most determinists believe in neutral monism; this is because, in order to believe in Free Will you have tp believe that at least one human event originates in a substance i.e. 'will' which is outwith nature.

[Belinda]

I looked up 'causal nexus in philosophy'. The phrase "causal nexus" was first mentioned in these forums, as far as I can remember, by Dave Mangnall.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10. ... 3095555933

I have checked with a professional physicist about Hume's constant conjunction finding that there is no detectable 'cause' event C that intervenes between the association of events A and B.There is in fact a physical event C that intervenes between associated events A and B.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Free Will is like consciousness, reason, morality, selfhood, and a bunch of other "spiritual" realities: they're not the kinds of things that are amenable to scientific measurement, because science does not work on non-physical entities. It's not a universally-powerful methodology, just a very powerful way to deal with material problems. Put it in charge of stuff that's not physical, and its proponents can only cope by denying those realities even exist. (This is why Determinists notoriously profess skepticism about things like "selfs", "minds" (as opposed to "brains") and "morality": they're not physical properties.)

Free Will is not like conscious states, reasoning, moral systems, or subjective perspective,
All of the latter have physical correlates. Free Will has no anatomical, physiological, chemical, physical, or anthropological correlate. None!
.

All acts of will are determined by the state of your brain. If you don't believe me I can prove that to you with a blunt spoon and a Stanley knife.
The only thing 'free' about an act of will is that your conception of it is free of reason and common sense.

[Dave Mangnall]

To Dave Mangnall.

Sorry to ascribe your earlier post tp someone else.

I had to look up Newcomb's Paradox and studied the guardian article and the W------ia article. I probably found the problem to difficult for me also the first time I read it in Honderich's book.

Without fully understanding the problem I chose both boxes, because I don't believe in supercomputer predictors in real life situations which deal with chaotic futures. I am pretty sure that I have missed some bit of reasoning , and would be delighted if you could enlighten me.

Hi, Belinda.

This is my take on Newcomb’s paradox. I’d like to know what you think of it.

The reason it appears to be a paradox is that the question is placed within a free will framework. What should you do? How should you choose? There’s an irrefutably good reason for opening both boxes. They contain what they contain, and nothing can change that. There’s an irrefutably for good reason for not opening the two boxes, if you believe in the Being and his predictive power. The Being will have known you were going to do that, and put nothing in the second box. Hence the apparent paradox, which we’re supposed to believe is due to determinism and the conditional predictability which it is supposed to entail.

Within the determinism framework, however, there is no “should”. The only question is “What will you do?” Either you will open both boxes, for what seems like a good reason, because it is determined that you do so, or you will open just the one, for what seems like a good reason, because it is determined that you do so. Depending on whether the powers of the Being are up to snuff, it will be determined that the outcome is pleasing or disappointing.

It may be determined that you “choose” badly, but there’s no paradox there.

I find that the arguments we’ve seen against determinism, to the effect that it’s inconsistent or illogical, or that at least believing in it is inconsistent or illogical, are invariably based on this kind of outside-looking-in thinking, whereby belief in determinism is evaluated according to the principles of the free will model and, naturally enough, thus found to be paradoxical.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I looked up 'causal nexus in philosophy'.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10. ... 3095555933

I have checked with a professional physicist about Hume's constant conjunction finding that there is no detectable 'cause' event C that intervenes between the association of events A and B.There is in fact a physical event C that intervenes between associated events A and B.

The only problem with causality here is how we are capable of perceiving it. We can turn on a light with a switch. We know what will happen, but we cannot see the deeper chains of causality.
This is not to say that determinism is wrong, but that we can only see this as discrete events for reasons of perceptual convenience.
I throw a ball in to the air and this causes my neighbour to kill his wife. Whilst is is true that the murder would not have occurred had I not thrown the ball, or bought the ball in the first place. And whilst I do not realise that the glasshouse breaks, and the man thinking his wife has finally carried out her threat to destroy his beloved hobby kills his wife! There is always so much more to the story. The state of his brain; the previous relationship between the murderer and the murdered; the fact that I was passing the shop were I bought the ball.
There is no end to the infinitely divisible chain of possible events you might wish to posit for the cause of the murder, and these could go back the the big bang.
But for convenience throwing a switch makes the light work. But there is much more here.

[Dave Mangnall]

Is the argument you would wish to make from that, "If nobody has given a detailed account of free will, then free will cannot exist"? That seems an odd postulate to me. After all, nobody has given a detailed account of the universe.

No, that is not the argument I would wish to make. There are two points I would make, which aren’t even arguments. The first is that lacking some sort of account of free will, I have no reason to believe in it. The second is that lacking some sort of account of free will, I wonder why others do believe in it. I mention this just to clarify my position. I’ve taken on board that you’ve told me you have given an account of free will, together with a test, further down the thread. I will get there shortly.

The whole field of Philosophy of Mind is hot with this debate. Everybody's trying to explain, alright; but the necessary explanations seem to be complex and subtle, rather than the sledge-hammer simplicity of "causes did it." And why should we be surprised if the right explanation for human consciousness, personhood, volition and rationality itself turns out to be more complex than the very simple, single explanation of cause and effect?

You’re oversimplifying the simplicity a bit. Try Honderich’s “How Free Are You?”, if you’re interested and if you have the time. It is a book, not just a postcard saying “It was causes wot did it!” Meanwhile, I will attempt to seek out and digest the relevant areas of the Philosophy of Mind. And if you fancy summarising some of these complex explanations of consciousness etc. for me, I promise to read your words very carefully.

[Dave Mangnall]

As for Dave: he doesn't bother me...determinism does.

As I say: if you convince a man he's just a product and not a source, when you strip him of self-direction and -responsibility (actually make those qualities 'bad') then you can make him into an instrument.

I got a problem with that.

As it was never my intention to give offence, I’m glad that I’ve given none. (So far! And I’ll keep trying not to!)

I confess to being puzzled by the passion that can be engendered by this debate. Why does determinism bother you so? As you believe it to be false, determinism itself can do no harm, so I assume it’s the determinists who bother you. But I can’t see how determinists pose any threat. We don’t go around beheading people for believing in free will. The limit of our ambition is to attempt to persuade, and in this endeavour we’re strikingly unsuccessful, as this thread shows!

Speaking for myself, my sense of direction comes from within, caused though it be. I regret actions that harm others and feel responsible for them, caused though those actions be. As for being instrumental, used as an instrument by who or what?

We determinists aren’t aliens, you know.

[Belinda]

Thanks Dave Mangnall for your explanation of Newcomb's paradox. In view of tour explanation I may be a little further forward with it, as your disapproval of the almighty supercomputer echoes mine.

You wrote " Try Honderich’s “How Free Are You?” ". May I recommend the shorter and paperback version?

I do believe that Henry Quirk has stated the problem with determinism, and I am thankful that he was typically concise about it. There is the problem of personal responsibility. We do need personal
responsibility for any society to exist. What Free Willers omit is that Free Will is not so much free as random. If an event is uncaused it is random. If Free Will is claimed to be bona fide cause then Free Will in humans apes the Free Will of God which even I an atheist disapprove of.

Personal responsibility is maintained in societies by religious traditional ethics, and in more advanced societies by reason and science too. In oppressive regimes personal responsibility is maintained by punishments for infringements of the Leader's edicts.