Determinism!

[studiot]

 

Lucius EE

1. Probability is the measure of the chance a given event shall occur, you can also use this information to quantify how often an event occurs.

 

Yes I understand one man is knocked down and killed on our roads every 4.3 seconds.

 

I also understand that he is getting mighty fed up about it.

[Skeptic134]

 

That's a good question. I'd say it was when we invented hospitals. Because they benefit the sick people, but expose the nurses and doctors to dangerous diseases. Only humans would run such a risk of their own free will. The recent ebola outbreaks have show the superiority of humans to animals. The animals would just die, or run away. They wouldn't care for each other, as humans do.

 

I do wish you'd stop denigrating humans. I suppose your're doing it for fashionable PC or Green considerations. But please show some pride in your own species!

 

This clearly isn't going anywhere...

 

First, you claimed humans have free will and animals don't because dogs "see food and eat it, whereas humans can decide not too". Animals can decide not to accept food too, I've seen that myself when offering treats to dogs/pets before. And similarly young children who haven't learned manners can behave just as you describbed your hypothetical dog, eating what they can get their hands on.

 

Next, your evidence of why humans have free will over animals is because we study rats in labs but rats don't study humans in labs. As if this has anything at all to do with free will and determinism.

 

And now, hospitals are an example of free will in humans and since no other species builds hospitals they clearly don't have free will. Not a single explanation, assertion or "evidence" of yours has demonstrated or pointed to any fundamental difference in the cognition of homo sapien from any other species. The only things your attempt at rationale has demonstrated is differring levels of intelligence and ability to interact with the environment. Further, with just minimal searching, there is evidence of other species caring for sick or injured http://www.releasechimps.org/chimpanzees/chimpanzee-society so that isn't something only humans do. Now I suppose to you the lack of brick and motor buildings is where the free will difference really kicks in between chimps and humans.

 

You appear to be wanting to define free will as entirely a function of complexity and "superiority" but you cannot outside of providing examples of things humans do (like performing lab experiments or building structures) provide any criteria about how human neurology is fundamentally different, how human psychology is fundamentally different, how there is a major difference in what "choice" means between humans and every single other species.

 

Under this indescriptive assertion of yours all species aside from one do not exhibit free will despite that the range in variation in intelligence and complexity is staggering; ant to elephant. But you cannot provide a concrete foundation of why you are able to separate homo sapien from the millions of other species.

 

I have no idea how anything I've posted has dinegrated humanity and I have no clue how determinism is a green consideration... And I'm not sure homo sapien pride even makes sense as a concept...

[harshgoel1975]

For a while I have thought about humanity using scientific understanding and reason and I have come to the conclusion that all human beings are determined. Think about it, everything thing about us is caused by something else. Our genes, our environment all dictate who we are and will become. So where is there room for free will? What can you point to which will prove that we possess free will? Of course determinism has vast implications on the way view we our lives, I know from experience. One thing that drastically changes is our view on revenge. How can you blame someone for being exposed to certain beliefs and then acting based on his understanding or lack there of? Either way you look at it there's really no way you can logically justify revenge. For example, someone who harms your family does it because he lacks empathy, therefore understanding or has a chemical imbalance in his brain. But what about people who know that what they are doing is wrong and still do it? Can you hate them? This also doesn't logically indicate revenge since the person was just existing and how can you harm this person for just existing? Can you prove that we have free will? Either way comment below with your thoughts.

 

multiple concept though asked in unified manner....from my point of view... the circle of influence ...determine the impact of your free will... .. if things are within circle of influence ..we can influence them... if we are within circle of influence we are influence by them... now further....there is free will.. and limit of free will .....is tolerance limit of the system.. like a nut-bolt .... with tolerance limit 2mm+/- 0002 so all nut and bolt fit from 1.9998 to 2.0002 ... so here we can exercise the free will... though it is much more complex than this simple example.....humans has various degree... starting from primitive level influence like animals with basic need to... determine the future the future of country or more.....now coming to revenge....it is algorithm of human programming .. all growth and hate... multiple religion and multiple nations are nothing but revenge ...survival is basis hard coded need... ( probably you have seen terminator movie ).. all living things are not less than that in term of desire to live ... and desire to live respectfully... this desire to live respectfully .. sometime become a desire to dominate....I, Me and My become important...irrespective of what is right and correct....of course this chemical imbalance only....so your query have multiple separate sub thread and all linked to living being...and need to defined separably then need to integrated... i suggest ... do some mindfulness meditation... so some of these complex concept will be simplified by mind itself....

[Eise]

I do find it interesting that while determinist and compatibilist disagree on whether free will exists they both agree that what people think free will means isn’t the reality.

 

First of all, 'determinist' and 'compatibilist' is not an opposition. A compatibilist is a determinist, per definition. What you probably mean is what usually is called a 'hard determinist'; but I find this also a wrong term. The determinism of a compatibilist and a determinist is just as hard. Compatibilism is not determinism mixed with just a 'little free will'. So the best term is 'incompatibilist determinist'.

 

The compatibilist claims that, how hard the determinism might be, that there is a meaningful concept of free will that covers all necessary concepts that presuppose free will, such as blaming, praising, responsibility, punishment, etc, except a few wrong ideas that people have about free will. The basic idea is that all is needed is that people can act according their own wishes and believes, i.e. that their own wishes and believes are part of the causal fabric of the universe. That also means that the concept of free will that the compatibilist has, needs determinism. Without determinism, free will would be impossible, what people do would be random. It is difficult to see how random actions can be a basis for responsibility.

What are the requirements for free will to exist? If humans do have free will, do other species? Do chimpanzees have free will, what about dolphins? What about dogs, cats, or birds? How far down the ladder in neurological complexity can we go before we stop considering that the creature exhibits free will?

 

The biological basis of free will is the capability of animals to anticipate the future. Depending on what they expect, they act. They need to be able to see how their own future actions influence the future. Simple example: my cat says 'mow' when he is hungry, knowing that I will notice him and fill his top.

 

But the biological basis on its own is not enough: we need insight in our reasons for actions. Having such insights might evolutionary have arisen by the capability to have a 'folk psychology': to assign reasons to other animals. The next step is to assign reasons to yourself, and being able to evaluate them. At this moment 'free will is born'.

 

I think that the clearest sign in other species is behaviour that only can be reasonably be explained by animals that try to manipulate on the basis of what they think that other individuals think. So if we recognise compassion with other animals that are in pain, trying to hide food when nobody looks, cheating and mobbing, then these might be indications that we are justified to assign free will to them. So that would mean: certain crows, apes, whales and dolphins, and elephants can be assigned free will.

 

One important aspect of having free will is the capability to limit the free will of other individuals: one can coerce other individuals by creating a situation in which he does something that he normally would never do; or let him believe something to be true, which in fact is not true. Then this individual does not follow its own wishes or believes, but of somebody else. Seeing this should clarify the whole free will discussion: the opposite of free will is coercion; the opposite of determinism is randomness.

 

There is no opposition between free will and determinism.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Eise

[PeterJ]

I would rather say that a compatablist takes the view that freewill and determinism are not exhaustive and not mutually exclusive phenomena, thus would not form a true contradictory pair for the dialectic, and are thus a false dichotomy.

 

This would be the advaita view, or more generally mysticism. I think it would be correct to say that on this question compatabilism is the most popular option for philosophers of all persuasions. For the mystic specifically our 'actions' would be no more free than the movement of a raindrop in a thunder storm. Yet, at the same time, we would have a responsibility for them. This would be because we would have a responsibility for who and what we are, what sort of person we are and what we believe, thus how we react to stimulus. But given who we are, this is how we will react. There would be no opposition between freewill and determinism except as philosophical concepts. Rather, both on their own would be incorrect views. This would be the reason why neither on its own quite makes sense.

Edited September 16, 2014 by PeterJ

[pears]

This would be because we would have a responsibility for who and what we are, what sort of person we are and what we believe, thus how we react to stimulus.

 

This implies a choice - a decision to be what sort of person we are and what to believe. How is that any different from free will?

[Eise]

I would rather say that a compatablist takes the view that freewill and determinism are not exhaustive and not mutually exclusive phenomena

 

No. free actions are a subset of all determined processes. It is the subset in which causal explanations based on wishes and believes are valid. E.g: a stone does not fall to the earth because it wants to: a stone has no wishes or believes. However, when a human chooses to do something, based on his wishes and believes, and acts according to them, then it is valid to say that his wishes and believes caused his action.

 

This would be because we would have a responsibility for who and what we are, what sort of person we are and what we believe, thus how we react to stimulus.

 

We cannot be fully responsible who we are. Who we are is determined by my biological inheritance and my personal biography. Only as soon as I can get control of my life, I become responsible: not especially for what I am, but for what I do.

[Skeptic134]

First of all, 'determinist' and 'compatibilist' is not an opposition. A compatibilist is a determinist, per definition. What you probably mean is what usually is called a 'hard determinist'; but I find this also a wrong term. The determinism of a compatibilist and a determinist is just as hard. Compatibilism is not determinism mixed with just a 'little free will'. So the best term is 'incompatibilist determinist'.

 

 

Hrm, I don't disagree with your explanation here, just to be clear what I posted before was that a determinist does not believe free will exists whereas a compatibilist believes that free will is not mutual exclusive from determinism. How compatibilist define free will isn't perhaps identical with the common definition though.

 

 

The biological basis of free will is the capability of animals to anticipate the future. Depending on what they expect, they act. They need to be able to see how their own future actions influence the future. Simple example: my cat says 'mow' when he is hungry, knowing that I will notice him and fill his top.

 

Interesting. I've always liked definitions of intelligence which include the idea of being able to make accurate predictions based on previous experiences; pattern recognition. So you are saying that fundamentally pattern recognition is the basis for free will? If that were true would algorithms exhibit free will too simply because they are capable of pattern recognition?

 

 

But the biological basis on its own is not enough: we need insight in our reasons for actions. Having such insights might evolutionary have arisen by the capability to have a 'folk psychology': to assign reasons to other animals. The next step is to assign reasons to yourself, and being able to evaluate them. At this moment 'free will is born'.

 

Ok, so free will arises when we critique our choices after the fact? This is an interesting idea, but it matches what I pointed out about compatibilist and how they define free will. This doesn't suggest we are anything more than observers of what our brain decided but we "think" about it afterwards and that molds future "choices". How is this different from learning from experience (intelligence)?

 

 

I think that the clearest sign in other species is behaviour that only can be reasonably be explained by animals that try to manipulate on the basis of what they think that other individuals think. So if we recognise compassion with other animals that are in pain, trying to hide food when nobody looks, cheating and mobbing, then these might be indications that we are justified to assign free will to them. So that would mean: certain crows, apes, whales and dolphins, and elephants can be assigned free will.

 

I agree, arbitrarily defining free will as only a characteristic of humans seems inappropriate, but this sounds a lot like describbing cooperation which is another indication IMO of intelligence.

 

 

One important aspect of having free will is the capability to limit the free will of other individuals: one can coerce other individuals by creating a situation in which he does something that he normally would never do; or let him believe something to be true, which in fact is not true. Then this individual does not follow its own wishes or believes, but of somebody else. Seeing this should clarify the whole free will discussion: the opposite of free will is coercion; the opposite of determinism is randomness.

 

I understand the point you are making here but I can't help but still ask, how does an individual's ability to coerce require free will? Couldn't coercion be defined simply as a combination of a learned behaviour and ability to predict an outcome, basically intelligence? The individual has learned from previous competitive encounters that with certain behaviours a certain outcome is possible and this outcome is preferred. Would this not just be an innate programming of biological competitiveness?

 

 

There is no opposition between free will and determinism.

 

If you are a compatibilist

We cannot be fully responsible who we are. Who we are is determined by my biological inheritance and my personal biography. Only as soon as I can get control of my life, I become responsible: not especially for what I am, but for what I do.

 

When do we know this transition, becoming in control of my life, has occurred? When does the genes + environmental inputs = me equation run it's course and the new model of conciousness arise, genes + environmental inputs + FW = me?

 

How do we measure and know when this happens?

Edited September 16, 2014 by Skeptic134

[Eise]

Hrm, I don't disagree with your explanation here, just to be clear what I posted before was that a determinist does not believe free will exists whereas a compatibilist believes that free will is not mutual exclusive from determinism.

 

 

A determinist can believe in free will. I do, and I am a determinist (for all practical purposes).

 

How compatibilist define free will isn't perhaps identical with the common definition though.

 

No, but the common definition is wrong. I state that with everyone we would analyse the experience of free will, so to speak as a socratic dialogue, we would discover that being uncaused is not an element of free will, or at least, that we don't know if this is an element of free will.

 

I never mentioned pattern recognition. It may be part of it. But I would also add conceptualisation to it.

 

Ok, so free will arises when we critique our choices after the fact?

 

No, when we evaluate our choices before the fact.

 

I understand the point you are making here but I can't help but still ask, how does an individual's ability to coerce require free will? Couldn't coercion be defined simply as a combination of a learned behaviour and ability to predict an outcome, basically intelligence? The individual has learned from previous competitive encounters that with certain behaviours a certain outcome is possible and this outcome is preferred. Would this not just be an innate programming of biological competitiveness?

 

Possibly. In the end, we are organisms whose capabilities grew out of previous existing ones. But being 'innate programming of biological competitiveness' does not exclude that it is more than that. Always be aware when you place 'just' before such propositions. Nearly always people leave out the essential point. (People are just like stones: when they fall they do according the same Newtonian laws. A steam train is just iron, cokes and water.).

 

When do we know this transition, becoming in control of my life, has occurred? When does the genes + environmental inputs = me equation run it's course and the new model of conciousness arise, genes + environmental inputs + FW = me?

 

How do we measure and know when this happens?

 

I would suggest, talk with him. Or more scientifically, do a Turing test with him.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Eise

[Skeptic134]

No, but the common definition is wrong. I state that with everyone we would analyse the experience of free will, so to speak as a socratic dialogue, we would discover that being uncaused is not an element of free will, or at least, that we don't know if this is an element of free will.

 

 

I agree, the common definition(s) (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20will) are wrong.

 

 

I never mentioned pattern recognition. It may be part of it. But I would also add conceptualisation to it.

 

No, when we evaluate our choices before the fact.

 

Ok, analysis before and/or after making a decision which modifies future decisions; how is that different from learning and pattern recognition?

 

A machine learning algorithm combined with pattern recognition capabilities wouldn’t exhibit free will would it? I think some of your descriptions of free will are more applicable to general intelligence, however I suppose it is all in how you define free will.

 

 

I would suggest, talk with him. Or more scientifically, do a Turing test with him.

 

That is a fairly subjective way to determine whether a person has free will, or the person is still merely the sum of genetics and environmental interactions. From one judge to another there could be different conclusions after observing the same interaction.

 

 

I guess it comes down to how free will is defined; I agree that the common definition is clearly inappropriate. I think free will is a concept we invented that helps make sense of morality and accountability and not so much about providing the best explanation or description of reality.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Skeptic134

[Eise]

I agree, the common definition(s) (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/free%20will) are wrong.

 

Are they?

1: voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>

2: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

Number 1 is correct, 2 is obviously wrong. For a compatibilist, the opposite of 1 is when you are forced to do something, i.e. you act against what you normally would do, and act according the will of somebody else.

 

Ok, analysis before and/or after making a decision which modifies future decisions; how is that different from learning and pattern recognition?

 

I think I am not deep enough in AI to answer this. But my gut feeling is that pattern recognition simply is not enough. Say I recognise my girl friend. So some visual subsystem in my brain sends signals all around my brain 'Jane detected'. And then? How would follow an action from that? If I am freshly in love with her, I walk up to her and embrace her. If I see her in a bar sitting there with my one-night stand, I dive under the table so she won't see me.

 

Now you can call these reactions also the result of pattern recognition (I know that diving under a table helps in not being seen), but I think that all these endless pattern recognitions lead to something new, that a pattern recognition on its own cannot do. One could say that all these myriads pattern recognition modules are the atoms of our 'possible-action-dependent-on-anticipated-futures machine'.

 

One cannot explain the life of a plant by looking at its atoms alone: one must see how these are organised. One could say that everything that is organised in the way that a plant is, is a living organism, even if the building blocks were not atoms. So I think that only a very specific organisation of pattern recognising modules gives rise to consciousness and with that the possibility of free will.

 

Maybe it helps (I am aware I'm just throwing in a few new concepts, but maybe it helps to see where I stand) to say that conscious animals are universal future anticipating entities.

 

That is a fairly subjective way to determine whether a person has free will, or the person is still merely the sum of genetics and environmental interactions. From one judge to another there could be different conclusions after observing the same interaction.

 

Yep. Very true. But such is life. Therefore it is sometimes so difficult for a judge to decide if a defendant is responsible for his action. Did he really act from his own free will? Is he a well functioning 'possible-action-dependent-on-anticipated-futures machine', or does he lack some of the conditions for it (Down syndrome? Psychologically impaired?)?

 

I think free will is a concept we invented that helps make sense of morality and accountability and not so much about providing the best explanation or description of reality.

 

Yes, more or less. 'Free will' is a social construct. It needs some physical basis (as described above and in my other postings here). But one should not make the error to say that social constructs do not exist: taxes, marriage, institutions, law etc are all social constructs. So to ask for the extra (meta)physical explanation apart from the afore mentioned physical (biological...) basis and its social functioning in our society, is a category error. So free will exists, as a social construct, and can only exist in physical entities with a certain specified complex structure.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Eise

[MigL]

From a 'hard' science background, determinism is the Newtonian view of the world. Once the initial conditions are set, the universe unfolds like a clockwork according to certain laws and causality. This is also a religious/creationist viewpoint where all events are predetermined and an omnipotent knows and determines everything that has happened, is happening and will ever happen.

 

How is free will then possible under these circumstances ? Determinism or more accurately, pre-determinism, precludes free will. Religion/creation is inconsistent since it involves both determinism by a diety and the notion of free will.

 

The development of Quantum Mechanics in the 1920s brought about a paradigm shift in the way we view reality, from a deterministic view to a probabilistic view, along with several instances of causality violation. The clockwork, deterministic view has been supplanted by one which makes the notion of free will possible.

 

Note that I may be using a non-standard definition of determinism and that there seems to be no consensus on the definition of 'free will' in this thread either.

[Eise]

The development of Quantum Mechanics in the 1920s brought about a paradigm shift in the way we view reality, from a deterministic view to a probabilistic view, along with several instances of causality violation. The clockwork, deterministic view has been supplanted by one which makes the notion of free will possible.

 

No, QM at most limits free will. QM knows of real, irreducible random events. If you think that for free will we need randomness, then let me know, and how you build a concept of responsibility on random events.

 

Without determinism, free will is impossible.

 

Note that I may be using a non-standard definition of determinism and that there seems to be no consensus on the definition of 'free will' in this thread either.

 

 

Yes, I noted that. Now it would be interesting to know what you think of the standpoint of others here, why your idea of determinism and your idea that QM 'makes the notion of free will possible' would be better than other ideas mentioned above.

[PeterJ]

MigL. Your view of determinism seems correct to me, but it would not be correct to say that the new probabalistic view allows freewill. This idea has been well tried and tested in philosophy and it does not pass the tests.

It is true, as someone noted earlier, that relgion is often incoherent on this issue. But outside of naive theism religion usually takes a compatabliist position. The advaitan philosopher Ramesh Balsekar writes this, giving the meaning of ‘Wu Wei’, or non-volitional living, as it is found in Taoism.

 

 

"Living volitionally, with volition, with a sense of personal doership, is the bondage. Would, therefore, living non-volitionally be the way in which the sage lives? But the doing and the not-doing - the positive doing and the negative not-doing - are both aspects of ‘doing’. How then can the sage be said to be living non-volitionally?

Perhaps the more accurate description would be that the sage is totally aware that he does not live his life (either volitionally or non-volitionally) but that his life - and everyone else’s life - is being lived.

What this means is that no one can live volitionally or otherwise; that, indeed, ‘volition’ is the essence of the ‘ego’, an expression of the ‘me’ concept, created by ‘divine hypnosis’ so that the ‘lila’ of life can happen. It is this ‘volition’ or sense of personal doership in the subjective chain of cause-and-effect which produces satisfaction or frustration in the conceptual individual.

Again, what this means is that it is a joke to believe that you are supposed to give up volition as an act of volition! ‘Let go’ - who is to let go? The ‘letting-go’ can only happen as a result of the clear understanding of the difference between what-we-are and what-we-appear-to-be. And then, non-volitional life or being-lived naturally becomes wu wei, spontaneous living, living without the unnecessary burden of volition. Why carry your luggage when you are being transported in a vehicle? "

Here is the the infamous Gurdjieff saying the same thing in a chat with Ouspensky. .

 

“I asked G. what a man had to do to assimilate this teaching.

“What to do?” asked G. as though surprised. “It is impossible to do anything. A man must first of all understand certain things. He has thousands of false ideas and false conceptions, chiefly about himself, and he must get rid of some of them before beginning to acquire anything new. Otherwise the new will be built on a wrong foundation and the result will be worse than before.”

““How can one get rid of false ideas?” I asked. “We depend on the form of our perceptions. False ideas are produced by the forms of our perception.”

G shook his head.

“Again you speak of something different,” he said. “You speak of errors arising from perceptions but I am not speaking of these. Within the limits of given perceptions man can err more or err less. As I have said before, man’s chief delusion is his conviction that he can do. All people think that they can do, and the first question all people ask is what they are to do. But actually nobody does anything and nobody can do anything. This is the first thing that must be understood. Everything happens. All that befalls a man, all that is done by him, all that comes from him - all this happens. And it happens in exactly the same way as rain falls as a result of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere or the surrounding clouds, as snow melts under the rays of the sun, as dust rises with the wind.

Everyone finds that nothing is being done in the way it ought to be done. Actually everything is being done in the only way that it can be done. If one thing could be different everything could be different. … Try to understand what I am saying. Everything is dependent on everything else, everything is connected, nothing is separate. Therefore everything is going in the only way it can go. If people were different everything would be different. They are what they are, so everything is as it is.”

This was very difficult to swallow.

“Is there nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be done?” I asked.

“Absolutely nothing”.

“And can nobody do anything?”

“That is another question. In order to do it is necessary to be. And it is necessary first to understand what to be means.”

And here is Keith Ward from his brilliant book on God.

“Most philosophers, whether they believe in God or not, think that everything in the universe is caused. So if we knew the laws of physics or the will of God completely, we would see that things just have to be the way they are. There are no alternatives. But they also think that human beings are properly held responsible for their actions, at least sometimes, and therefore that they are somehow free to do otherwise. So they have the problem of seeing how somebody can be free to do otherwise, when there is no alternative to what he or she does.

Most philosophers … have thought that you have to believe both of these things, that there are no alternatives to what happens, and that people are sometimes free to do otherwise This is called compatibilism. Augustine believed it. Aquinas believed it. Calvin believed it. Kant believed it. Spinoza believed it. Almost everyone believes it.”

 

Keith Ward

God - A Guide for the Perplexed

Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2002 (131)

Edited September 17, 2014 by PeterJ

[Skeptic134]

Are they?

Number 1 is correct, 2 is obviously wrong. For a compatibilist, the opposite of 1 is when you are forced to do something, i.e. you act against what you normally would do, and act according the will of somebody else.

 

 

The second definition is definitely inaccurate; it is much more specific than the first. It is the vagueness of the first that I suppose makes me dismiss it; what is humorous about the first definition is that it uses the word voluntary to define free will, when the definition of voluntary is defined as acting on one’s own free will, nice circular definition!

 

It is difficult to pin down a good definition for free will as the concept does mean different things to different people. I believe we are on the same page though that “typically” what someone means when they say free will isn’t what compatibilist mean.

 

You bring up that for a compatibilist the opposite of a voluntary choice is being forced to do something. I don’t see a difference and thus I suppose that is why I’m not a compatibilist. I feel that on the most fundamental level all of our actions are forced. As an example, suppose there is a gun to your head and you are being told to do something. All the events of your life have lead to the current circumstance you find yourself. If you do as instructed you would consider that a forced action and not free will? Whereas, what if you don’t comply, you would claim that would be free will?

 

But the reality is that both compliance and non-compliance in that situation were forced on you due to the circumstance of the sum of your existence that lead to that point. As far as accountability in that situation, I believe logically and judiciously there is a difference between performing an action for immedidate self preservation or not, even if all actions are forced; all aren't forced by equally dire circumstances.

 

 

I think I am not deep enough in AI to answer this. But my gut feeling is that pattern recognition simply is not enough. Say I recognise my girl friend. So some visual subsystem in my brain sends signals all around my brain 'Jane detected'. And then? How would follow an action from that?

 

 

So I think that only a very specific organisation of pattern recognising modules gives rise to consciousness and with that the possibility of free will.

 

Agreed, pattern recognition alone is not sufficient for consciousness which would be a prerequisite for a compatibilist's free will. Pattern recognition is a large part of general intelligence though and so is learning. We don’t know yet what all it takes to create genuine AI or consciousness but I see no reason that it is something that cannot be figured out. I don’t think there is anything magical about consciousness and to create strong AI I don’t think there will need to be considerations on how to instantiate free will. Instead, focus will be on producing general intelligence as opposed to specific expert systems.

 

 

So free will exists, as a social construct, and can only exist in physical entities with a certain specified complex structure.

 

I agree with the first part entirely and I suppose halfheartedly with the second part. If free will is a social construct there must exist some level of complexity necessary for socialization to exist. I think the second part alone is not as meaningful; sufficient complexity leads to free will because the concept is then able to be invented by the entities with the necessary complexity. It is merely a conceptulaization and not necessarily reality.

 

I don’t know of a better way to make accountability and morality make sense without a concept similar to free will, that doesn’t mean something couldn’t be devised that worked as well or better. Until then perhaps free will needs to exist as a social concept. It just isn’t a convincing explanation of the reality of consciousness though.

The development of Quantum Mechanics in the 1920s brought about a paradigm shift in the way we view reality, from a deterministic view to a probabilistic view, along with several instances of causality violation. The clockwork, deterministic view has been supplanted by one which makes the notion of free will possible.

 

Note that I may be using a non-standard definition of determinism and that there seems to be no consensus on the definition of 'free will' in this thread either.

 

I'm not sure how a probabilistic factor changes the idea of determinism. Just because there are weighted outcomes possible does not mean there aren't governing physical laws by which all events still abide.

 

 

And yeah, theism is highly inconsistent in regards to the concept of free will.

And here is Keith Ward from his brilliant book on God.

“Most philosophers, whether they believe in God or not, think that everything in the universe is caused. So if we knew the laws of physics or the will of God completely, we would see that things just have to be the way they are. There are no alternatives. But they also think that human beings are properly held responsible for their actions, at least sometimes, and therefore that they are somehow free to do otherwise. So they have the problem of seeing how somebody can be free to do otherwise, when there is no alternative to what he or she does.

Most philosophers … have thought that you have to believe both of these things, that there are no alternatives to what happens, and that people are sometimes free to do otherwise This is called compatibilism. Augustine believed it. Aquinas believed it. Calvin believed it. Kant believed it. Spinoza believed it. Almost everyone believes it.”

 

Keith Ward

God - A Guide for the Perplexed

Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2002 (131)

 

Huh...

 

That almost makes me think I am a compatibilist....

 

I really don't like the word free will though...it isn't an accurate explanation of reality, its an invention for moral clarity

Edited September 17, 2014 by Skeptic134

[Eise]

The second definition is definitely inaccurate; it is much more specific than the first. It is the vagueness of the first that I suppose makes me dismiss it; what is humorous about the first definition is that it uses the word voluntary to define free will, when the definition of voluntary is defined as acting on one’s own free will, nice circular definition!

 

Yeah, that's funny, isn't it? So maybe we should accept that a free action, i.e. an action that arises from my own will, and therefore is my free will, and therefore the action can also be called voluntary. A free action is just a synonym for a voluntary action.

 

But the reality is that both compliance and non-compliance in that situation were forced on you due to the circumstance of the sum of your existence that lead to that point.

 

No, that is misuse of the concept of the concept of 'forced'. My history made me what I am, but that is not 'forced'. That is an anthropomorphism. Can you tell me if a stone falling to the ground does so while it is 'forced' by gravity, or because it 'wants' to go to a centre of gravity? Facts is that we notice the regularity that a stone always falls when we drop it in a gravitational field. I came into existence not because I was forced, but because nature just has such regularities that given the beginning condition this happened. 'Forced' is only correctly used in the context of free will as 'doing the will of somebody else'.

 

We don’t know yet what all it takes to create genuine AI or consciousness but I see no reason that it is something that cannot be figured out. I don’t think there is anything magical about consciousness and to create strong AI I don’t think there will need to be considerations on how to instantiate free will. Instead, focus will be on producing general intelligence as opposed to specific expert systems.

Fully agree, with this one addition: free will will never be programmed. It will arise automatically when the 'general expertise system' is capable of reflecting its reasons, and can act autonomous.

 

I don’t know of a better way to make accountability and morality make sense without a concept similar to free will, that doesn’t mean something couldn’t be devised that worked as well or better. Until then perhaps free will needs to exist as a social concept. It just isn’t a convincing explanation of the reality of consciousness though.

 

I think that accountability, responsibility and morality only make sense when we also have a concept of free will. What is non-accountability other then not having done an action out of free will?

[MigL]

I was having trouble sleeping this morning so I posted on this thread, but I'm not at all versed in philosophical matters.

I'm using standard word definitions and realize that there may be subject specific definitions.

 

Determinism implies to me, that choice is meaningless. The clockwork laws evolve the system in a way that is determined solely by the initial conditions. In effect the initial conditions, constrained by the clockwork laws, pre-determine the state of the system at any later time.

Consider for example a pool table. knowing the initial position of all the balls on the table and their initial velocities, we can use Newton's laws of motion to determine their positions and velocities at any later time. The balls do not have a choice of any other position or velocity.

 

What Quantum Mechanics does is introduce a probability distribution associated with the position or velocity of The pool balls. Specifically the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle makes knowing the velocity of any ball impossible if we fix the position of that ball, and knowing the position impossible if we fix the velocity. The future states of the balls are therefore no longer specified by the initial conditions and the clockwork laws. Choice is re-introduced to the system.

 

And is that not what we mean by free will ? The existence of choice ?

[Eise]

And here is Keith Ward from his brilliant book on God.

“Most philosophers, whether they believe in God or not, think that everything in the universe is caused. So if we knew the laws of physics or the will of God completely, we would see that things just have to be the way they are. There are no alternatives. But they also think that human beings are properly held responsible for their actions, at least sometimes, and therefore that they are somehow free to do otherwise. So they have the problem of seeing how somebody can be free to do otherwise, when there is no alternative to what he or she does.

Most philosophers … have thought that you have to believe both of these things, that there are no alternatives to what happens, and that people are sometimes free to do otherwise This is called compatibilism. Augustine believed it. Aquinas believed it. Calvin believed it. Kant believed it. Spinoza believed it. Almost everyone believes it.”

 

'Brilliant book'? Ward has a very particular view on some of these philosophers.

 

Kant himself:

 

According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect, the determining physical cause of which lies within the acting thing itself, e.g., that which a projectile performs when it is in free motion, in which case we use the word freedom, because while it is in flight it is not urged by anything external; or as we call the motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands itself, which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according to our own pleasure. This is a wretched subterfuge with which some persons still let themselves be put off, and so think they have solved, with a petty word- jugglery, that difficult problem, at the solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface.

 

 

From Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason', one of Kant's main works. Kant, a compabilist?

 

And about Spinoza:

 

VII. That thing is called 'free,' which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone.

 

But alas, that does not go for us normal mortals, while:

 

Corollary II—It follows: 2. That God is the sole free cause. For God alone exists by the sole necessity of his nature (by Prop. xi. and Prop. xiv., Cor. i.), and acts by the sole necessity of his own nature, wherefore God is (by Def. vii.) the sole free cause. Q.E.D.

 

So I have a strong impression Ward does not know what he is writing.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Eise

[Skeptic134]

Yeah, that's funny, isn't it? So maybe we should accept that a free action, i.e. an action that arises from my own will, and therefore is my free will, and therefore the action can also be called voluntary. A free action is just a synonym for a voluntary action.

 

 

I can tolerate these definitions; I just have a hard time embracing the totality of the baggage associated with the concept of volition.

 

 

My history made me what I am, but that is not 'forced'.

 

Can you tell me if a stone falling to the ground does so while it is 'forced' by gravity, or because it 'wants' to go to a centre of gravity?

 

I came into existence not because I was forced, but because nature just has such regularities that given the beginning condition this happened.

 

'Forced' is only correctly used in the context of free will as 'doing the will of somebody else'.

 

A synonym for forced is involuntary. I would say a stone falling is involuntary, coming into existence is involuntary, who you are is involuntary, and making a decision with a gun to the head is involuntary.

 

I suppose you could ask if the concept of involuntary makes sense if everything is involuntary. I think it does because it still accurately describes the reality of the situation and the opposite, voluntary, even if non-existent fundamentally, still has meaning too.

 

This is all starting to be highly linguistic, perhaps that is inevitable when discussing philosophical ideas like free will.

 

 

I think that accountability, responsibility and morality only make sense when we also have a concept of free will. What is non-accountability other then not having done an action out of free will?

 

So this makes sense in my head...

 

Disregard the messy idea of free will and assume that (hard) determinism is the reality of existence.

 

Even if an individual arrives at a final choice where the next action will lead to what society has deemed illegal (detrimental to others) entirely due to determined genetics and environment, it doesn’t matter. It is the proper, moral thing to attempt to provide the environmental stimulants (punishment, rehabilitation) to modify the E in the G + E of this individual to prevent subsequent detrimental actions to minimize future harm to others and also improve the circumstance of the individual.

 

Maybe, you don't need to have the concept of free will for morality and progression of civilization...

I was having trouble sleeping this morning so I posted on this thread, but I'm not at all versed in philosophical matters.

I'm using standard word definitions and realize that there may be subject specific definitions.

 

Determinism implies to me, that choice is meaningless. The clockwork laws evolve the system in a way that is determined solely by the initial conditions. In effect the initial conditions, constrained by the clockwork laws, pre-determine the state of the system at any later time.

Consider for example a pool table. knowing the initial position of all the balls on the table and their initial velocities, we can use Newton's laws of motion to determine their positions and velocities at any later time. The balls do not have a choice of any other position or velocity.

 

What Quantum Mechanics does is introduce a probability distribution associated with the position or velocity of The pool balls. Specifically the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle makes knowing the velocity of any ball impossible if we fix the position of that ball, and knowing the position impossible if we fix the velocity. The future states of the balls are therefore no longer specified by the initial conditions and the clockwork laws. Choice is re-introduced to the system.

 

And is that not what we mean by free will ? The existence of choice ?

 

From what I can tell there are 3 potential ways to define free will. The first, the common definition, is something along the lines of the ability to make choices that are not subject to fate or prior causes. I don’t believe most philosophers agree with this definition.

 

The next, is the compatibilist’s definition of free will which is something along the lines of acting according to your own motivations, but these motivations are determined. A compatibilist being anyone that feels there isn’t any mutual exclusion between free will and determinism.

 

And then, the final way to view free will (how I lean) is that it is entirely an invented concept that isn’t an explanation of consciousness at all.

 

In your pool table example above, I don’t see how choice was introduced simply because a probabilistic term was part of the state equations.

 

The outcome of the system is still not the result of a choice. Much like when I throw dice, they don’t choose to come up snakeyes.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Skeptic134

[MigL]

Once probability is introduced you cannot know the initial conditions exactly. Without this information you cannot write an equation of state that describes the future evolution of the system. Once there is ambiguity in the future state of the system it is no longer pre-determined. It can in effect, take any state possible ( within reason and the restrictions caused by the HUP, of course ).

 

Determinism has been lost.

[Skeptic134]

Once probability is introduced you cannot know the initial conditions exactly. Without this information you cannot write an equation of state that describes the future evolution of the system. Once there is ambiguity in the future state of the system it is no longer pre-determined. It can in effect, take any state possible ( within reason and the restrictions caused by the HUP, of course ).

 

Determinism has been lost.

 

I have to disagree. Probability isn't choice, it isn't volition so determinism isn't lost.

 

Just because you have several potential next states from the current and therefore as you correctly point out all known past and future states cannot be 100% calculated from one known state that doesn't mean the system isn't still determined. The next state (whichever that turns out to be of the possible states) is still determined based upon the physical laws of the universe even when they contain weighted terms. Neither the universe (fundamentally) nor the conscious entity (specifically) is making a choice simply because there exist probabilistic conditionals; the next state can only be one of the potential ones determined by the nature of the universe.

 

 

Why do you feel that probability or randomness equates to volition or choice?

 

 

[Eise]

A synonym for forced is involuntary. I would say a stone falling is involuntary, coming into existence is involuntary, who you are is involuntary, and making a decision with a gun to the head is involuntary.

 

No: for a falling stone the concepts voluntary - involuntary simply do not apply. A stone cannot say if it wants to fall, or that it was forced to do so. And we, as third party observers have no reason to think it was forced or that it falls because it wants to: simply because a stone doesn't have wishes and believes, so the question if it falls according these is meaningless. Compare what Schopenhauer says about Spinoza:

 

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.

 

Disregard the messy idea of free will and assume that (hard) determinism is the reality of existence.

 

The compatibilist concept of free will is not messy at all. Determinism is the reality of existence (for all practical purposes), and without determinism we could not have free will.

 

From what I can tell there are 3 potential ways to define free will. The first, the common definition, is something along the lines of the ability to make choices that are not subject to fate or prior causes. I don’t believe most philosophers agree with this definition.

 

Yep. But there are still a few, e.g. Robert Kane.

 

The next, is the compatibilist’s definition of free will which is something along the lines of acting according to your own motivations, but these motivations are determined. A compatibilist being anyone that feels there isn’t any mutual exclusion between free will and determinism.

 

Just to repeat myself: I think that all compatibilists defend that determinism is a necessary condition for free will to exist. Without determinism, free will would be impossible.

 

And then, the final way to view free will (how I lean) is that it is entirely an invented concept that isn’t an explanation of consciousness at all.

 

Hmm, somehow you are mixing free will and consciousness now. The relation is the other way round: consciousness is a necessary condition for free will. It is difficult to see how one can talk about wishes and believes without consciousness.

Determinism implies to me, that choice is meaningless.

 

Then I can comfort you: no, determinism does not make choice meaningless. You confuse determinism with fatalism.

 

Fatalism would mean something like: everything is determined, so it does not matter what you do. But that is a wrong argument. Of course it does matter what you do!

 

Say, a comet is on a collision course with the earth. Now you can be a fatalist: whatever you do, it will collide with the earth. But does it make sense to say the course of the comet does not matter, in the end it is determined to fall on the earth? Of course not, that does not make any sense.

 

And now compare you, knowing the comet will fall on the earth anyway, whatever you do. Why is that? Well, of course because it is far beyond your power. So you decide to go to your favourite restaurant for the last time. You get the menu card, look through it, and the waitress comes and asks "What is your choice?". Do you say: "Sorry I am a fatalist determininist, whatever I choose, you will bring the menu that is already determined." You see, that that does not make sense? Your choice plays a causal role in what will happen, and therefore, even in a determined world, choices matter. They are caused by previous conditions, of course, but you choose, and what happens depends on your choice.

 

I don't know what free will can be more than that: that what happens depends on your choice,

Edited September 18, 2014 by Eise

[Eise]

From what I can tell there are 3 potential ways to define free will. The first, the common definition, is something along the lines of the ability to make choices that are not subject to fate or prior causes. I don’t believe most philosophers agree with this definition.

 

O, sorry, forgot: there is a huge category of philosophers that use this concept of free will. Namely, those incompatiblist determinists who say we have no free will. This is the concept of free will that they deny, and for them it is the only meaning that makes sense (because most people believe this is free will).

 

For the compatibilist, this is a stupid procedure: first to define free will in such an absurd way, and then deny that it exists. Only some neuroscientists are even more stupid: they say that we have discovered that we have no free will. How, for God's sake can you discover that we are determined, when determinism is the necessary presumption of the possibility of the natural sciences überhaupt?

 

So there are many philosophers who believe this is the correct definition of free will. But, and there you are right, there are only a few that really believe that it exists.

[MigL]

I figured I was using wrong definitions Eise, but I'm dipping my toe in new waters here.

 

My views are based on science, not philosophy Skeptic134. I do hope I'm not being insulting, but there is a difference.

Probability results in choice from a quantum mechanical point of view because any observation/interaction changes the probability distribution. The chances are no longer fixed. They have been altered. You, by observing/interacting have affected the outcome.

Determinism ( my wrong definition ) has been lost

Edited September 18, 2014 by MigL

[Eise]

The question if we have free will is not a scientific question, Migl. It depends on what you think is the correct definition of free will, and that is simply not a scientific question.

 

What is a scientific question is if all single events are completely determined by previous conditions. And then it is obvious that they are not: in QM chance distributions are determined, but not single events. So yes, reality is not fully determined.

 

But QM offers us, in the limits of its chance distributions, only randomness. Now you must explain how randomness can contribute to your free will and responsibility. Does unpredictability make for responsibility? Is your decision based on the throwing of a die more responsible then your decision based you your wishes and believes?

 

And the link that is still missing, is that QM events influence your behaviour. Estimates of physicists, based on the number of particles involved in neural processes, temperature, the 'wet environment', etc, suggest that we can approach neural process in a classical, i.e. determined way. Quantum randomness just cancels out.

 

And then, the brain is a 'massiv parallel processing system', which is also massively redundant. So one neuron, which reacts a few times differently than it would normally do, goes under in the normal firing neighbour neurons.

 

So at most, when QM effects sporadically would make it to visual behaviour, it can explain some funny twitch of you, but not a well deliberated decision.

 

So rejoy! We are determined, and therefore our choices, our free will, matter.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Eise