Philosophy Now Forum

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 1:23 am As a Wittgensteinian-Lichtensteinian I do think confusions arise when we use the word 'determine' to characterize what we mean when we talk about causality and its effect, and when we use the word 'will' to describe the thing that has this freedom we are talking about.

Maybe. But I think we can disambiguate the terms pretty quickly. In particular, Determinism requires that there is NO such thing as free will...thus, what seems to us to be "will" is actually nothing but the production of a prior chain of causes of some kind...usually said to be material-causal stuff, but sometimes divine fiat or something else like that.

The important part is that Determinism has no place for a genuine causal role for human volition. None. Zero. Nada. Nil. Zip. And if any such ever happened at all, even once, then Determinism's fundamental claim is erroneous, and Determinism is not true.

So can will be "compatible" with Determinism? Clearly not.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 1:23 am As a Wittgensteinian-Lichtensteinian I do think confusions arise when we use the word 'determine' to characterize what we mean when we talk about causality and its effect, and when we use the word 'will' to describe the thing that has this freedom we are talking about.

What would you propose then?

Here's the take on 'determinism' that shook me all up back when I was a proud young determinist. In any case, the following is essentially saying that causality exists, but there is nothing 'making' anything happen in the sense of directing or intending, conditions that we associate to the meaning of 'determining', except us, or other goal oriented machines. Are any of us machines 'free' in the sense freewillists mean? No. But we are determiners nonetheless.

She's (Rosa the Red) thinking that traditional determinism alienated and estranged man by placing responsibility for his actions and fate into the hands of the gods or the state. It was all bourgeois metaphysics and platonism. She's also standing on similar ground as Russell here regarding the idea of natural law.

....

"Here is my summary [of my ideas on 'determinism'], but comrades should not expect a water-tight solution to such a knotty problem in a few paragraphs.

This issue has always revolved around the use of terminology drawn from traditional philosophy (such as "determined", "will", "free", and the like), the use of which bears no relation to how these words are employed in ordinary speech.

For example, "determine" and its cognates are typically used in sentences like this "The rules determine what you can do in chess", "The time of the next train can be determined from the timetable", or "I am determined to go on the demonstration" and so on. Hence, this word is normally used in relation to what human beings can do, can apply, or can bring about.

As we will see, their use in traditional thought inverts this, making nature the agent and human beings the patient. No wonder then that the 'solution' to this artificial problem (i.e., 'determinism' and 'free will') has eluded us for over 2000 years.

To use an analogy, would we take seriously anyone who wondered when the King and Queen in chess got married and then wanted to know who conducted the ceremony? Or, whether planning permission had been sought for that castle over in the corner? Such empty questions, of course, have no answer.

To be sure, this is more difficult to see in relation to the traditional question at hand, but it is nonetheless the result of similar confusions. So, it is my contention that this 'problem' has only arisen because ideologically motivated theorists (from centuries ago) asked such empty questions based on a misuse of language. [More on this below]

When the details are worked out, 'determinism', for instance, can only be made to seem to work if nature is anthropomorphised, so that such things as 'natural law' 'determine' the course of events -- both in reality in general and in the central nervous system in particular -- thus 'controlling' what we do.

But, this is to take concepts that properly apply to what we do and can decide, and then impose them on natural events, suggesting that nature is controlled by a cosmic will of some sort. [Why this is so, I will outline presently.]

So, it's natural to ask: Where is this law written, and who passed it?

Of course, the answer to these questions is "No one" and "Nowhere," but then how can something that does not exist control anything?

It could be responded that natural law is just a summary of how things have so far gone up to now. In that case, such 'laws' are descriptive, not prescriptive -- but it is the latter of these implications that determinists need.

Now, the introduction of modal notions here (such as 'must' or 'necessary') can not be justified from this descriptive nature of 'law' without re-introducing the untoward anthropomorphic connotations mentioned above.

So, if we say that A has always followed B, we cannot now say A must follow B unless we attribute to B some form of control over A (and recall A has not yet happened, so what B is supposed to be controlling is somewhat obscure). And if we now try to say what we mean by 'control' (on lines such as 'could not be otherwise', or 'B made A happen') we need to explain how B prevented, say, C happening instead, and made sure that A, and only A took place.

The use of "obey" here would give the game away, since if this word is used with connotations that go beyond mere description, then this will imply that events like A understand the 'law' (like so many good citizens), and always do the same when B beckons, right across the entire universe --, and, indeed, that this 'law' must exist in some form to make things obey it. Of course, if it doesn't mean this, then what does it mean?

Now, I maintain that any attempt to fill in the details here will introduce notions of will and intelligence into the operation of B on A (and also on C) -- and that is why theorists have found they have had to drag in anthropomorphic concepts here (such as 'determine', 'obey' 'law' and 'control') to fill this gap, failing to note that the use of such words does indeed imply there is a will of some sort operating in nature. [But, note the qualification I introduce here below. There were ideological reasons why these words were, in fact, used.]

If this is denied, then 'determine' (etc.) can only be working descriptively, and we are back at square one.

Incidentally, the above problems are not to be avoided by the introduction of biochemical, neurological, and/or physiological objects and processes. The same questions apply here as elsewhere: how can, for example, a certain chemical 'control' what happens next unless it is intelligent in some way? Reducing this to physics is even worse; how can 'the field' (or whatever) control the future? 'The field' is a mathematical object and no more capable of controlling anything than a Hermite polynomial. Of course, and once more, to argue otherwise would be to anthropomorphise such things -- which is why I made the argument above abstract since it covers all bases.

This also explains why theorists (and particularly scientists who try to popularise their work) find they have to use 'scare quotes' and metaphor everywhere in this area.

As I noted earlier, this whole way of looking at 'the will' inverts things. We are denied a will (except formally), and nature is granted one. As many might now be able to see, this is yet another aspect of the alienating nature of traditional thought, where words are fetishised and we are dehumanised.

And this should not surprise us since such questions were originally posed theologically (and thus ideologically), where theorists were quite happy to alienate to 'god' such control over nature and our supposedly 'free' actions'. Hence, we, too, that we have to appropriate such distorted terminology if we follow traditional patterns of thought in this area."

Excellent points

But at the same time, homegirl thinks that the basis of the error in the freewill argument is the idea of the cartesian private 'self' that has a 'will' living in your brain like wittgenstein's beetle in a box, that's separate from your body and behavior, sitting behind a little cockpit control panel driving u like a robot.

This would eliminate her from camp that would believe in freewill because they believe there is a soul or spirit that is casually independent of the physical body.

U can extract this general idea from other stuff written at her site. I don't recall (or have) anything she's written about freewill, so I'm not quoting.

The brain is a like a loop machine that can generate and hold an information matrix in a background and then create a character (you) and place it in the middle of that matrix with the feeling that it is controlling what the character does.

It's only because of the aggregate effects of the background apps running in your brain that u are able to feel like u have freewill. They decide what u will decide but create for u the feeling that u are deciding what u do. It's incredibly complex tech with wonderful investment opportunities.

And think of the dude in Metallica's One video. Johnny Got His Gun guy. Add that he is so paralyzed he can't move his head or even facial muscles. Where is his freewill. It manifests only in the deliberated streams of thoughts he's able to have. A perfect brain in a jar talking to itself with the feeling that it could think anything it wanted at any moment. Cream cheese. A baseball game that got rained out. Chuck Berry. His brother asking him not to enlist. Even here, the feeling of freewill is inescapable.

Wow.

You write that excellent post and then you poop on it with his weird dualism where brain apps are controlling "u" and free-will is an illusion.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 12:02 pm "It could be responded that natural law is just a summary of how things have so far gone up to now. In that case, such 'laws' are descriptive, not prescriptive -- but it is the latter of these implications that determinists need."

But they are prescriptive in the sense that we can assume that this is how things will continue to go in the future. What is the above quote trying to say?

U didn't like the amateur analogy i made between brains and computers to indirectly suggest by way of creative metaphor in a sense similar to Libet's that our feeling of freewill is due to a unique time lapse created by apps running in the brain that create Kantian 4d sim world space?

Atla, it's a technical point that affects the meaning of the word 'determine' if we use it to describe what nature is doing. She's saying that nature isn't determining anything. Things happen and are causally related, but there is nothing determining anything sans intelligent animals and machines (and machines are questionable).

Atla wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 1:31 pm

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 12:02 pm "It could be responded that natural law is just a summary of how things have so far gone up to now. In that case, such 'laws' are descriptive, not prescriptive -- but it is the latter of these implications that determinists need."

But they are prescriptive in the sense that we can assume that this is how things will continue to go in the future. What is the above quote trying to say?

In the most general terms possible, surely there must be a *reason* why things have worked in this consistent way up to now, and will almost certainly continue working that way to our death and beyond. So even if the things we call laws are descriptive - which they are - I think the underlying reason why these descriptions are so consistently valid is because of some underlying reason which is in some sense "prescriptive", although I find that an awkward word to use. It should be understood loosely and metaphorically rather than literally.

"In the most general terms possible, surely there must be a *reason* why things have worked in this consistent way up to now, and will almost certainly continue working that way to our death and beyond."

Something also to consider. Pay attention to the meaning of 'reason' in other language uses for a second. The way u use it in that quote subtly implies anthropomorphic terms. Here's how. The semantic meaning of the word 'reason' implies a purpose in addition to the ordinary meaning of the word 'cause' used otherwise.

Compare the two statements:

"The reason the gutter crashed down was because it filled up with water"

"The reason Dave drove to the store was to get a klondike bar. One of the old out of date ones the arabic guy won't throw away and continues to try and sell for three years"

In the latter statement, the element that makes the causal connection a 'reason' and not just a cause, is the intentional nature of the act.

The rain, on the other hand, didn't have in mind causing the gutter to fall when it filled it with water. The water caused it to fall, but there was no reason it fell. Although the statement certainly reads right and we understand what is meant, we think. A minor if petty philosophical detail tho. We'd never need to stop a convo with someone when they said 'the reason was because the train ran off the rails' and demand that the derailed train was only a cause for the smashed water tower, not a reason.

To call a cause also a reason, u have to put some aristole sauce on it and make it teleological, otherwise u just have blind causes with no purpose or reason.

Just think of it like this. The 'reason' for something is not the cause of the event, but the thing desired by and through the event, and therefore in the future. The reason the hammer hit the nail was not because i swung at it. That's just part of the causes that drove the nail. The reason it hit the nail was because i want to build a deck. The former is behind the act and the latter is in front of it. Apologies if this sounds cryptically sartrean.

"if we say that A has always followed B, we cannot now say A must follow B unless we attribute to B some form of control over A (and recall A has not yet happened, so what B is supposed to be controlling is somewhat obscure). And if we now try to say what we mean by 'control' (on lines such as 'could not be otherwise', or 'B made A happen') we need to explain how B prevented, say, C happening instead, and made sure that A, and only A took place." - RL

Lol. The apple has fallen every time we've ever watched it break from the branch, but how can this mean that gravity exists so that the apple would do such a thing? How can gravity have as a reason 'to make the apple fall' prior to the apple falling if a falling apple has not yet happened?

To describe the falling apple effect as anything but descriptive is to say gravity knows exactly what it's doing and had the whole thing planned. Nature has to be anthropomorphized to be made a determining agency.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 12:02 pm Here's the take on 'determinism' that shook me all up back when I was a proud young determinist.

What did you believe then, that you no longer believe now, about how things are caused to happen?

This issue has always revolved around the use of terminology drawn from traditional philosophy (such as "determined", "will", "free", and the like), the use of which bears no relation to how these words are employed in ordinary speech.

It's the "ordinary speech" side that's betraying us there. Ordinary speech is often loose and imprecise. As philosophers, we try to do better than that.

For example, consider the sentence, "I am determined to get to the store today," in comparison with "I am determined not to be able to be in both Greece and Rome at exactly the same time." The first use only means, "I have a firm, personal intention to..." and implies will. The second one says, "The nature of reality is such that it is impossible for me to achieve..." Both are legit common-use applications of the word. But only the second is useful in speaking of Determinism as the metaphysical claim that one has no personal freedom or volition, but is the product of inevitable chains of prior causes and nothing else.

For example, "determine" and its cognates are typically used in sentences like this "The rules determine what you can do in chess",

But this is another use of "determine": the analytic. One might paraphrase it this way: "If one does not follow these rules, then by definition, the game you're actually playing is not really chess." It's analytic that "chess" means conforming one's actions to a preset group of rules, but it is not the implication of the speaker that he is "determined" in a philosophical and metaphysical way, to play chess, and can do nothing but play chess.

...it is my contention that this 'problem' has only arisen because ideologically motivated theorists (from centuries ago) asked such empty questions based on a misuse of language.

I think that's too hasty a conclusion.

While I agree with you that the language has been mixed and misleading, particularly from the "ordinary usage" practices, it's not the case that Determinism has not been well understood by philosophers, or that the reason for its continued debates is simply some kind of linguistic confusion. Rather, I would say that the problem is that Determinisms (there are multiple materialist and theological varieties, usually varying only by mechanism, though, not by essential claim of determination) all are unfalsifiable. That is, they do not allow any basis of checking to see whether or not they're true. One can always say, "Well, you think you had freedom, but really, you were a pawn in that," and nobody has means to prove beyond all possibility that you're right. They can show you're being illogical, but they can't show that the metaphysical postulate is incorrect...or correct.

So, it's natural to ask: Where is this law written, and who passed it?

I think that Determinists, particularly the Materialsts and their kin, would want to say that's a question one cannot ask. Things are "determined" without being turned into anything so anthropomorphic as a "law." It's just how things are, they would say...I think. But they can speak for themselves.

It could be responded that natural law is just a summary of how things have so far gone up to now.

Well, and I think they'd add, and forever.

Now, the introduction of modal notions here (such as 'must' or 'necessary') can not be justified from this descriptive nature of 'law' without re-introducing the untoward anthropomorphic connotations mentioned above.

"Necessary" is different, though. In philosophy, it means that the entity in question could not not exist, or could not not do what it does. And it's the opposite of "contingent."

Be careful not to drag the volitional back in with a word like "necessary." In common usage, again, the matter is ambiguous and misleading. "It is necessary we get to the store today," is a statement of will; but it does not mean (as it would philosophically) "No condition exists, or could exist, under which we will not get to the store."

The use of "obey" here would give the game away,

That's the same problem: you'd fault Determinism by way of falling back on common usage, and that would be unfair to it as a philosophical position. Again, we're better to get away from common usage when we're dealing with highly technical questions, and if necessary, even to stipulate more precise definitions than common usage would allow.

Incidentally, the above problems are not to be avoided by the introduction of biochemical, neurological, and/or physiological objects and processes. The same questions apply here as elsewhere: how can, for example, a certain chemical 'control' what happens next unless it is intelligent in some way?

Now, that's a good question. If I may try to shore up Determinism here, I would say the answer coming back would be that "control" can be a purely physical process, and requires no assent or volition from the entity being "controlled." In other words, that human cognition isn't even really a part of the causal chain that produces actions in the world (except that we humans imagine it is, when it's not). Instead, the truer, deeper fact is that chemicals and physical processes "determine" everything we wrongly interpret as "our cognitions."

(This answer has serious flaws, of course; but I think it's bound to be the one they have to give...or something close to it.)

As I noted earlier, this whole way of looking at 'the will' inverts things. We are denied a will (except formally), and nature is granted one.

I think the Determinists would object to this conclusion, though I do find it an interesting paradox. I think they'd say that nature is not being "granted a will," anymore than a rock falling off a mountain face is being "granted a will" to fall. Gravity is present, mass and potential energy are present, things shift, and then it's just how things happen.

Lame answer, I know: but again, I don't know that they can come up with a better one.

As many might now be able to see, this is yet another aspect of the alienating nature of traditional thought, where words are fetishised and we are dehumanised.

It's not just "traditional." In some ways, you might say that many modern and even postmodern thinkers have been Determinists. Hegel and Marx, for example, have a strong set of statements about human will; but they always bracket those with deterministic forces. Hegel's big one, later borrowed by Marx, is "HIstory." For Marx, "History" was a thing he could read...he thought he knew its secret language (class) and its trajectory (class struggle) and its teleology (the Communist utopia); and everything that might resist History, was really, as Obama once put it "on the wrong side of History."

He didn't capitalize that, but he should have. The notion of "History," in Hegelian-Marxist thought, replaces both the idea of God and the idea of indifferent, material determination. And the individual, no longer having any genuine volition that is not dictated by his class or socialization, is no longer an individual, but rather always a representative of his class and indoctrination. And here we see again that Hegel and Marx are swimming causually between the language of free will and of Determinism, -- not admitting their duplicity, even to themselves, perhaps: the worker must exercise his will to rise up and throw off his chains; but History will determine whether he will count in the future at all or not, depending on whether or not he got on its right side. "Capitalism" is doomed, fated, predestined to explode. Socialism is predestined to arrive -- the only question being, "when?" All this is the same duplicitous sliding between the assumption of Historical Determinism and the assumption of the potency of human choice.

But then, Marx was wrong so often that he could get used to it.

And this should not surprise us since such questions were originally posed theologically (and thus ideologically),

Well, yes; but we can't make much of this, because there were times when NOBODY was essentially secular. To do science, in the 17th Century, for example, you were most likely to have to endure a formal education: and that education would invariably include theology. Newton's back-and-forth between physics and theology is not at all surprising, therefore; there was a time when theology was recognized as equally important as any other -ology: more important, in fact, since she was called "queen of the sciences."

But we don't need to appeal to any theology on the Determinism question. Materialistic Determinism is every bit a true Determinism, as much as, say, Calvinism is. So now the problem shifts to the Materialist plane: in a universe believed to be governed exclusively by impersonal, natural laws and processes, where is the place for human identity, volition, morality, science, value, and so forth? And the answer, if Determinists were determined to be honest, would be "There is none," not "They are compatible."

I am aware of the tedius nature of concern about how the word 'determine' is used when we make causal statements. RL's post was meant for hobby philosophers not ordinary folks on the street, i don't think.

Like how often in real life would it be so important that her point be made that u literally stop a person half way through what they're saying and suggest they not use the word 'determine' when talking about x and hand them a copy of RL's post?

I've never done that except here among the PN intellectual barbarian hordes.

"So now the problem shifts to the Materialist plane: in a universe believed to be governed exclusively by impersonal, natural laws and processes, where is the place for human identity, volition, morality, science, value, and so forth?"

That's not a problem per se, that's just u expressing your own sentiments about what u think are the consequences of materialism.

The beauty about us is that we can plan well into the future and manipulate environments to host more and more of us. And really the skies the limit if u don't count the sun contracting in several hundred million years (i think) and obliterating the solar system when it explodes. Meanwhile, what mortal material creatures like us can be inspired by is the continuation of our species and the creation of better quality mortal life for future humans. That's all we can do.

What gives this attitude precedence over the religious view is that is gives itself a reason to live based on the immediate facts, as disagreeable as they may be. Therefore, it is cleaner and more honest. Man is a mortal creature that can only hope to continue to exist for the sole purpose of happiness. Of creating the possiblity of it, even at a price.

What's the first thing u do when u have a great feeling or epiphany? U wanna tell somebody. U wanna share it to see if they've had it and know it, too. That's the inner hedonist party animal eros making an appearance. And when a mother and father look at their mini-mes and feel that sense of extraordinary pride in having created this/these childrens. Same eros.

The fact is everybody wants everybody else to have a good time until and if the time they become enemies. But the default state is amazement at the world and a good will that wants everyone else to be as amazed as it is.

And because everybody dies, nobody gets left out or cheated of that special thing that they all share. Cue the scene where the bitter enemies make amends in the end when they're both about to die. That bond right there is the stuff. All good will springs originally from the recognition of everyone's mortality, and the sympathy/empathy drawn from that, I think.