Epistemology. How do you know what you claim you know? [Archive]

Soheran

29-03-2006, 04:46

Compatabilism at its most incoherent. I would be interested to know how you define free will. I define it as having the genuine, unconstrained choice to perform action A or not perform action A.

Okay. I think that's a reasonable definition.

If we are constrained to decide to do action A inevitably then it was not freely chosen, ergo our will was not free.

But the only thing that "constrains" us to do "action A" is ourselves, our own choice, our own thought processes. What people forget when arguing this issue is that we, the choosers, are part of that determined material reality. No outside force is compelling us to accept a certain course of action, only ourselves. Our decisions are still being made by ourselves; nothing is taking away our sovereignty. It is that "sovereignty" aspect that is essential to free will.

My decisions are free. I'm the only one forcing myself to accept a certain course of action - I am sovereign. It doesn't matter if my choices are completely predictable, because they're still mine. The decision is genuine - it is in accordance with my own values, because otherwise I would be inevitably performing another action. The decision is unconstrained - I am sovereign, and need only pay attention to myself and my own preferences.

Free will does not mean that your decisions arew uncaused, it means that there is an intentional element in the causes of our decisions. This intentional element has to be non deterministic (this does not mean random OK) if we are to be free.

No, because intentions still exist in determinism, and they still lead to certain choices. The only difference is that it is theoretically possible to claim certain knowledge of what those intentions and choices will be.

We tend in everyday life to make the distinction between ourselves and everything else. We tend to see our free will as a force interacting and interfering with objective material reality, and thus determinism bothers us. But we are material reality, and our free will is an expression of material reality. Our thought processes and decisions are material phenomena. We are still in control, because that portion of material reality which dictates our choices happens to be us.

Eutrusca

29-03-2006, 05:04

The close connection to religious texts is true, but not so much as it was in the C19th - the various Marxist influenced philosophers then took it and applied it not only to historical divides, but also cultural ones. It don't all start and finish with Dilthey, Gadamer and Habermas also have their say.

EDIT: one of those rare moments when you catch yourself discussing hermeneutics or the teleological suspension of the ethical or the like on NSGeneral and think 'how did that happen? shouldn't I just be posting "BUSH IS TEH SUXXORR!!!!'
LOL! I know whereof you speak! :D

AB Again

29-03-2006, 05:11

But the only thing that "constrains" us to do "action A" is ourselves, our own choice, our own thought processes. What people forget when arguing this issue is that we, the choosers, are part of that determined material reality. No outside force is compelling us to accept a certain course of action, only ourselves. Our decisions are still being made by ourselves; nothing is taking away our sovereignty. It is that "sovereignty" aspect that is essential to free will.
So you are assuming, incorrectly if current physics is correct, that the world is deterministic. Yes, I agree, our decisions are still made by ourselves. Where I feel that you have a problem is in how to account for these being decisions at all.

My decisions are free. I'm the only one forcing myself to accept a certain course of action - I am sovereign. It doesn't matter if my choices are completely predictable, because they're still mine. The decision is genuine - it is in accordance with my own values, because otherwise I would be inevitably performing another action. The decision is unconstrained - I am sovereign, and need only pay attention to myself and my own preferences. If however your preferences are determined, in the model of a deterministic world, all that can be claimed is that your preferences and actions are inevitable and in no way free. Predictability and determinism are not the same. I can predict, with pretty high levels of success which teams will finish in the tp five of the English Premiership. Does this mean that it was pre-determined that this would be the outcome? No. My choices, my actions are not predictable to this level. I may react to a particular post with serious discussion as here; I may post something apparently random or chaotic; I may be aggressive. I may even be reacting in two or more differewnt ways to different threads at the same time. My choices are not predictable.

No, because intentions still exist in determinism, and they still lead to certain choices. The only difference is that it is theoretically possible to claim certain knowledge of what those intentions and choices will be.
No one has deniered that intentions exist in determinism, what I have denied is that intentions have any meaning in determinism. They can be regarded as epiphenomena.

We tend in everyday life to make the distinction between ourselves and everything else. We tend to see our free will as a force interacting and interfering with objective material reality, and thus determinism bothers us. But we are material reality, and our free will is an expression of material reality. Our thought processes and decisions are material phenomena. We are still in control, because that portion of material reality which dictates our choices happens to be us.

We, as physical objects are indeed physical phenomena, and as such we are subject to the physical laws that govern such objects. What has not been shown is that our thoughts and ideas are material phenomena. You can not open a brain and point to an idea. If you adopt the ind-brain identity thesis then you are commited, in some way, to either denying free will or to looking for a non deterministic phenomenon in the brain. This latter can be considered to be the quantum level structure of the brain.

If you deny the mind-brain identity thesis, then you are left with the serious problems of dualism to deal with.

I, as should be clear by now, follow and support the quantum indeterminacy argument for free will.

Ladamesansmerci

29-03-2006, 05:13

That's why I use multiple sources, to ensure that no one source or claim from a source is left on its on. Cross-referencing and fact-checking with many texts ensures that I get my facts correct.
So you prefer appeal to authority AND appeal to majority? I'll admit it's better than only one, but that still does not guarantee truth, if such a thing exists. Besides, complete "correct-ness" is never attainable because we are subjected to the subjectivity of our own minds.

On the other hand, discussing epistemology for an hour and half in philosophy always ends up giving me a headache.

HotRodia

29-03-2006, 05:16

Ah, now you see, its all the strange little paradoxes and traps there that make that particular question interesting to me.

Likewise. I enjoy the deep questions that exercise my mind, much like I enjoy exercising my muscles to make them stronger.

Soheran

29-03-2006, 05:28

So you are assuming, incorrectly if current physics is correct, that the world is deterministic.

No, I never made that assumption. I assumed determinism because we were discussing determinism.

Yes, I agree, our decisions are still made by ourselves. Where I feel that you have a problem is in how to account for these being decisions at all.

You choose one of two courses of action. How is that not a decision?

If however your preferences are determined, in the model of a deterministic world, all that can be claimed is that your preferences and actions are inevitable and in no way free.

But since you're the one determining your preferences and actions, it doesn't matter that they're inevitable. Free will is irrelevant to inevitability, as long as there is no coercion in that inevitability. Since we are still sovereign under determinism, free will exists.

Predictability and determinism are not the same. I can predict, with pretty high levels of success which teams will finish in the tp five of the English Premiership. Does this mean that it was pre-determined that this would be the outcome? No.

Which is why I said "completely predictable" and not merely "predictable."

My choices, my actions are not predictable to this level. I may react to a particular post with serious discussion as here; I may post something apparently random or chaotic; I may be aggressive. I may even be reacting in two or more differewnt ways to different threads at the same time. My choices are not predictable.

Not with my insufficient knowledge, no, and perhaps not even with your insufficient knowledge either.

No one has deniered that intentions exist in determinism, what I have denied is that intentions have any meaning in determinism. They can be regarded as epiphenomena.

But they're not. I have a certain objective; I pursue that objective through my actions. If I pursued a different objective I would be performing different actions. They're essential to the choices we make, regardless of determinism. Or, at least, if they truly are epiphenomena, that is not the necessary result of determinism.

We, as physical objects are indeed physical phenomena, and as such we are subject to the physical laws that govern such objects. What has not been shown is that our thoughts and ideas are material phenomena. You can not open a brain and point to an idea. If you adopt the ind-brain identity thesis then you are commited, in some way, to either denying free will or to looking for a non deterministic phenomenon in the brain.

If personal identity is contained within the conscious mind, and the mind-brain identity thesis is true, then the actions controlled by the material phenomena of the brain will also be actions controlled by the being in question.

AB Again

29-03-2006, 05:49

No, I never made that assumption. I assumed determinism because we were discussing determinism.
We are discussing whether determinism is a reasonable position. That does not justify assumiung it, but whatever.

You choose one of two courses of action. How is that not a decision?
It would be if you were choosing between two courses of action, but you are implying that because no "outside force" is compelling us we are not compelled. If you view the mind as deterministic then we are compelled by internal forces. Yes we are still sovereign, but we can not do other than what we do. No real decision is taking place.

But since you're the one determining your preferences and actions, it doesn't matter that they're inevitable. Free will is irrelevant to inevitability, as long as there is no coercion in that inevitability. Since we are still sovereign under determinism, free will exists.
Please define sovereign then. It appears to me that ytou are arguing that because we a determined internally we are not compelled. We are not externally constrained, true. This was pointed out in the 18th century by Hume amongst others, but if we are internally constrained to act in a particular way, to do A, then we were never capable of not doing A, and as such we are not free. Constraint does not have to be external to be constraint.

Which is why I said "completely predictable" and not merely "predictable."
Nothing is completely predictable, outside of logic and mathematics. So the requirement to be completely predictable is not applicable to human action.

Not with my insufficient knowledge, no, and perhaps not even with your insufficient knowledge either.
An Einsteinian argument for hidden variables. I have to say that my knowledge of my behaviour is as complete as it is possible for it to be. My understanding of why I behave as I do may well be thought of as incomplete, but it is impossible for anyone else to know more than I do about why (Freud notwithstanding). If this knowledge isa insufficient to predict behaviour then we have to conclude that, for all practical purposes, our behaviour is non deterministic. We can not determine what it will be. There remains, however, the question of the 'truth of the matter'

But they're not. I have a certain objective; I pursue that objective through my actions. If I pursued a different objective I would be performing different actions. They're essential to the choices we make, regardless of determinism, unless certain other premises peripheral to this discussion are accepted as true.

If determinism is true then the choices, the desires, the objectives felt are all, necessarily irrelevant to the action. We act as we do because our brains are in certain physical configurations. They are in these configurations as a consequence of their prior state. Where in this is intention, is desire? nowhere. The whole of the mental realm is effectively impotent if we accept physical determinism. If you deny physical determinism and accept mental determinism, then you have the problems of dualism and the interaction between the mental and the physical to explain. A deterministic view has the coherent option of viewing mental phenomemna as epiphenomena or the incoherent option of viewing mental states as causal to physical actions.

If personal identity is contained within the conscious mind, and the mind-brain identity thesis is true, then the actions controlled by the material phenomena of the brain will be the actions controlled by the being in question.
True, but no freedom of action is retained. We act as we will, and our mental states are irrelevant to this, as I have argued above.

Vittos Ordination2

29-03-2006, 06:22

I would say that one can only know one's own perception. But that only leads to the knowledge of experience and not the knowledge of anything external. We could find a likelihood of knowledge by recreating this perception and finding consensus.

I would say that there is no such thing as certain external knowledge, with the exception of shared qualities and concepts.

AB Again

29-03-2006, 06:34

Soheran

29-03-2006, 06:45

We are discussing whether determinism is a reasonable position. That does not justify assumiung it, but whatever.

No, we weren't. We were discussing whether determinism allows for free will, and that does indeed justify assuming it.

It would be if you were choosing between two courses of action, but you are implying that because no "outside force" is compelling us we are not compelled. If you view the mind as deterministic then we are compelled by internal forces. Yes we are still sovereign, but we can not do other than what we do. No real decision is taking place.

"Internal forces," that is, ourselves. It is nonsensical to be "compelled" by yourself. You are again assuming that there is an "I" independent of these "internal forces" that is being compelled - but those "internal forces," mental phenomena, are the "I."

Please define sovereign then. It appears to me that ytou are arguing that because we a determined internally we are not compelled. We are not externally constrained, true. This was pointed out in the 18th century by Hume amongst others, but if we are internally constrained to act in a particular way, to do A, then we were never capable of not doing A, and as such we are not free. Constraint does not have to be external to be constraint.

We are sovereign when we control ourselves and our own actions. Since that "internal determination" is the process of our decisionmaking, that is, an aspect of ourselves and our own mind, we maintain control despite determinism.

I have to say that my knowledge of my behaviour is as complete as it is possible for it to be. My understanding of why I behave as I do may well be thought of as incomplete, but it is impossible for anyone else to know more than I do about why (Freud notwithstanding). If this knowledge isa insufficient to predict behaviour then we have to conclude that, for all practical purposes, our behaviour is non deterministic. We can not determine what it will be. There remains, however, the question of the 'truth of the matter'

Fair enough.

If determinism is true then the choices, the desires, the objectives felt are all, necessarily irrelevant to the action. We act as we do because our brains are in certain physical configurations.

Those "certain physical configurations" being "the choices, the desires, the objectives." That is the failure in your argument - you maintain that there is a distinction, and thus the "physical configurations" compel us to act in a certain manner. But in fact those "physical configurations" are our own mental processes. We do not compel ourselves, that is absurd. Thus we remain free.

Free Soviets

29-03-2006, 06:58

If there is one field of philosophy that leaves me cold, it's epistemology: yeah I know it's important, but it just kills my will to live.

aw, it's not so bad. sure, it turns out that we probably don't know much of anything, and perhaps can't know much of anything. but the fun comes from kicking the attempts at it in the nuts.

*wham*
take that, jtb account!

*pow*
how do you like that, internalism?

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 07:02

What system of knowing do you use?
Whatever works? :)

In the first place, I subscribe to some version of Quine's epistemological holism, in that I believe every test of a knowledge claim is really a test of the whole system, and that significant "shuffling" of key beliefs may sometimes (though rarely) produce a more workable whole.

In another sense I am attracted to the logic of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. I'd say I fall somewhere between him and Quine, which I admit is an ill-conceived position and probably an innately contradictory one. Nevertheless, there you have it.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 07:10

Indeed, I've always found it rather dull, myself, which is why I haven't read up as much on philosophy as I really should have.
Ahh... I would agree that academic epistemologists seem to get so caught up in technical intricacies that even they forget what the point of the argument was. My advice would be to try to find writers approaching epistemology more from the "philosophy of science" perspective (no, they are not the same). The philosophy of science, especially when it tackles knowledge in substantive scientific disciplines, tends to make a genuine attempt to keep itself "relevant," and it captures the most meaningful parts of epistemological debates without getting trapped in the deeper intricacies. (These intricacies are no doubt important, but they are also fairly inaccessible to us non-experts whose primary interests lie elsewhere.)

In truth, though, I find that it's the metaphysics concerning determinism that really leave me cold and kills my will to live.

Hmm, why is that? I hope it's not because you have become convinced by determinist arguments, and now you believe there's "no point" without free will... since determinism generally gets itself into contradictions that are at least as troubling as the contradictions of freedom.

There is hope yet. ;)

Free Soviets

29-03-2006, 07:25

Ahh... I would agree that academic epistemologists seem to get so caught up in technical intricacies that even they forget what the point of the argument was.

hey, arguments involving b knowing that p at time t based on reasons 1, 2, 3, and 4 are what life is all about.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 07:32

Compatabilism at its most incoherent.
Agreed!
I would be interested to know how you define free will.
My guess is that he subscribes to the compatibilism that prefers to use the term "free choice" precisely because defining "will" in deterministic terms is a problem for them. Instead, they deny "will" in the traditional sense and merely insist that however determined one's actions are, one is nevertheless presented with "choices" that are "free" in the sense that they are free of immediate external coercion. They believe that this "saves" moral responsibility, since the determined individual can still be held accountable for "free choices."

Obviously (to myself, at least, and I suspect to you), this does not really solve the problem: because if we have no "will" independent of deterministic laws, then the notion of "moral responsibility" is meaningless, since "moral law" is by definition the "law of the will."

I define it as having the genuine, unconstrained choice to perform action A or not perform action A.
That is a fine definition, although one could quibble and complain that the term "genuine" only begs the question.

Now this may be the case, determinism may be the real state of affairs, but if it is, we can no longer claim to have free will in any meaningful sense.
Right, and as a result we can no longer claim to talk about "moral responsibility" in any meaningful sense. We may argue pragmatically that criminal punishments (for instance) serve the useful purpose of deterministically shaping social behaviors, but what we cannot claim is that anyone has a moral "obligation"... (Of course, we will probably continue to make this claim as just another version of "deterministic" behavioral reinforcement... but it has no grounding without a concept of free will.)

From a quantum point of view (rather than from a nuclear one) the science is non deterministic and non random.
Maybe, but personally I don't buy the quantum "salvation" of free will, because I think that philosophers tend to misinterpret what physicists mean by "non-deterministic." They seem to mean something closer to "unpredictable" (within certain constraints)... which does not necessariliy mean "random" but which also does not necessarily open the space for free-will. ... Or, at best, it opens the space for free will without actually "proving" it.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 07:46

We tend in everyday life to make the distinction between ourselves and everything else. We tend to see our free will as a force interacting and interfering with objective material reality, and thus determinism bothers us. But we are material reality, and our free will is an expression of material reality. Our thought processes and decisions are material phenomena. We are still in control, because that portion of material reality which dictates our choices happens to be us.

Yet this is where you contradict yourself, at least if you want to claim that this argument describes free will in any morally meaningful sense.

If we assume your premises to be true (i.e. that material reality behaves in a determinist manner and that "I" am essentially and only a part of that material reality), then it follows that "I" am a product of deterministic causal chains that predate my own existence. From the time the soon-to-be-me zygote wandered into my mother's uterus through the first time I opened my eyes, the first sounds I heard, right up through my education and sex-life, I have been formed by deterministic processes. Thus, although any particular decision may be the result of processes occurring within my head (and not "forced" in any obvious way be external circumstances), those processes are themselves the determined result of processes that necessarily began outside of my person, since I am relatively new to the world.

On this reasoning, the only character in existence that could possess free will would be God, who existed before causation. (Not that I believe in God.) No human being could be held morally accountable for the material processes that result in her/his decisions.

Soheran

29-03-2006, 08:03

Yet this is where you contradict yourself, at least if you want to claim that this argument describes free will in any morally meaningful sense.

If we assume your premises to be true (i.e. that material reality behaves in a determinist manner and that "I" am essentially and only a part of that material reality), then it follows that "I" am a product of deterministic causal chains that predate my own existence. From the time the soon-to-be-me zygote wandered into my mother's uterus through the first time I opened my eyes, the first sounds I heard, right up through my education and sex-life, I have been formed by deterministic processes. Thus, although any particular decision may be the result of processes occurring within my head (and not "forced" in any obvious way be external circumstances), those processes are themselves the determined result of processes that necessarily began outside of my person, since I am relatively new to the world.

Yes, that is the case. If you think that denies free will, then any sensible system denies free will as well.

It isn't as if arbitrary will would offer any more freedom than determined will. But, of course, one might say, it's not arbitrary; we choose. Oh, we do? On what basis? From nothing? How is that anything but arbitrary? When making a decision I do not flip a coin, I weigh my preferences. If I have no preferences I am not "free" to choose them; in such a case free will is meaningless, because it's arbitrary.

In order to have choice you must have values, otherwise there is no basis upon which to make the choice. Those values thus cannot be chosen, because by necessity they predate choice. By this absurd definition of free will, that the values underlying free will must be created by free will, of course free will is impossible.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 08:27

If you think that denies free will, then any sensible system denies free will as well.
Maybe any "sensible" system does deny free will... and yet the assumption of free will remains nevertheless necessary to practical reason. Hence, a fundamental contradiction at the heart of life itself?

Maybe. This is the part of my thinking that tends to gravitate toward Kant's non-compatibilism, which basically shrugs its shoulders at the attempt to make a coherent picture out of a world that both necessarily includes, and necessarily excludes, free will. On the other hand, I think that the first few chapters of Hegel's Logic, especially as read with Gadamer's help, provide a dialectical answer to this contradiction in which the moment of active will transcends the contradiction between passive will ("wanting") and determinism (being)... i.e. the moment of will is the "truly infinite."

Of course, none of that makes any sense without either reading the Logic or an explanation of it that would probably be just as long and hard to read. (Interesting question: does that make it an "explanation" at all?) That's the problem with dialectical logic... the knowing is always in the doing.

It isn't as if arbitrary will would offer any more freedom than determined will.
Nope. That is (quite explicitly) why the German Idealists were driven to talk about "laws" of practical reason distinguishable both from the laws of nature and pure reason.

*snip*
I already said in this thread that I think both determinism and non-compatibilist conceptions of free will are prone to contradictions... but that the contradictions are equally damning for either of them. Thus, one must either conclude that our way of conceiving the world is fundamentally contradictory (as Kant did with his antinomies), or that a "different" variety of logic is required to transcend the contradiction (as Hegel did in the Logic).

Zagat

29-03-2006, 10:47

I believe that free-will like other human capacities, is quantitive as well as qualitive. I see the essential (ie necessary) element of free will being the capacity to intervene in the formation of one's own will. So people vary (both between people and for a single person across time) in the degree and quality of free will they are capable of.

I dont see that this is incompatable with a determinist view.

As for how I know what I know, well I dont kid myself into thinking I know too much. I act as though I know, whilst believing that there is a good degree of probability that the basic notions at the heart of my 'knowledge' are likely to be true, but knowing that I cant prove this without actually assuming the unprovable. Having no desire to be caught up in a nihilistic quagmire, I see this as a pragmatic solution to the constraints of subjective, incomplete observational/knowledge capacity.

Cameroi

29-03-2006, 11:22

how do you 'know' what you claim to know? to put it simply YOU DON'T!

nothing has to exist. nothing has to not exist. nothing that does exist, has to resemble what ANYONE thinks they know about it.

so what is 'knowable'?

only two things:

that some things happen more often then others
and
that some things happen more often when other things happen first

that's it
period

everything else begins and ends in speculation

we can learn, by objective observation and experimentation
endless levels of fine detail about those two things
how everything appears to behaive because of them
even make reliable predictions based on our understanding of them
assign probabilities to how things are likely to have happened in the past
and when, as well as how and when they likely will ahead of us

knowledge is not the begining and end of what can exist
not by a long shot
but it is the begining and end of actual knowledge

there are also something called feelings, gut and otherwise
these are also valid, but they are not the same as knowledge

it is quite possible that there are very real things that are dectectable
only with our feelings, but to claim, as many beliefs do, that they
begin and end with what anyone thinks they know about it
has no honest verasity.

cause and effect do exist, that's the some things happening more often
then other things happening first. and because they do, we can accept
the responsibilty for the probable outcomes of our choices of priorities
and preferances

we can even reduce our individual and collective contributions to the
suffering each of us and each other experience

and it doesn't take rocket science, nor for that matter, one flavour of
belief, more or less then another, to see that it is in our own best
interests and everyone else's to do so

but it does take honest objectivity to learn HOW
and no cookbook of arbitrary assumptions, be it of belief or anything
else, can do that for us

=^^=
.../\...

Anthil

29-03-2006, 13:26

I've been wanting to discuss this for quite some time now. This is a key issue in any sort of discussion or debate: how do you know what you claim you know? How do you arrive at your conclusions? What system of knowing do you use?

Many posters on here use one incident, or one article, or anecdotal evidence, or personal experience, or emotion, or any of a thousand other ways of knowing in an attempt to make their case. How valid are these various systems of knowing?

A difficult one, this. In the end solipsism always lurks around the corner, I'm afraid.
I'm not a solipsist, though, but it does take the acceptance of a couple of axioms.

AB Again

29-03-2006, 14:37

"Internal forces," that is, ourselves. It is nonsensical to be "compelled" by yourself. You are again assuming that there is an "I" independent of these "internal forces" that is being compelled - but those "internal forces," mental phenomena, are the "I."

We are sovereign when we control ourselves and our own actions. Since that "internal determination" is the process of our decisionmaking, that is, an aspect of ourselves and our own mind, we maintain control despite determinism.
A plain contradiction. If the 'I' controls our actions then this mysterious 'I' hasa to be either part of the dewterministic causal chain or outside of theis chain. If it is part of the chain then we do not control our actions, they are the result of factors beyond ourselves. If it is not part of the chain then deterinism does not hold as you are specifiying an uncaused agency.

In the deterministic model it always makes sense to ask why and this question is not answered until the efficient causes of the event in question are supplied. This series of questions and answers (why? and why.) forms an infinite regression. If the series is broken somewhere by an answer of 'just because' then the event for which this answer was given is undetermined and determinism is being denied.

As AnarchyeL pointed out, determinism removes any possibility of genuine moral judgement. What we consider to be moral may be instrumental, may be causally efficient in creating the society that we are determined to create, but to blame someone for doing something when they could not have done oterwise is pointless. Of course we will blame them as we, ourselves, can not do otherwise. The whole veneer of intentional action shows itself to be an illusion. The best ordinary explanation of this that I know of was given by Neil Peart:
There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance

A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
The stars aren’t aligned ---
Or the gods are malign
Blame is better to give than receive

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose free will

Those "certain physical configurations" being "the choices, the desires, the objectives." That is the failure in your argument - you maintain that there is a distinction, and thus the "physical configurations" compel us to act in a certain manner. But in fact those "physical configurations" are our own mental processes. We do not compel ourselves, that is absurd. Thus we remain free.

The assertion that we do not compel ourselves is what is absurd. Why do we not compel ourselves? Our desires are caused, they are not free. Our choices are given to us by the chain of causality. (This is the determinists view, not mine) The physical configurations just are us. We are nothing more than that and as such we are external to ourselves. What this implies is that the self is nothing more than an illusion that emerges in its full causal meaninglessness from the pysical configurations. It is powerless to drive our actions, it is powerless to intervene in the inexorable causal chain, it can observe and be deluded into believing that it is responsible for what we do. We, as physical entities, do compel what we do, and we as selves can not interfere in this process. These are the reasons why I prefer to discard determinism. (Of course I may be determined to do so!)

Willamena

29-03-2006, 14:54

How do you know what you claim you know?
Knowing is necessary for conscious being. We are, consciously, the sum of what we are thinking about in any instant. If I didn't know anything, I would be unconscious, and I'm not, so "I know that I know".

How do you arrive at your conclusions?
It's an unconscious process, so I can't honestly say how.

What system of knowing do you use?
Consciousness; that is, a mind labelling things with identities.

If, on the other hand, you're asking how I gather knowledge, mostly from books, TV and talking to others. Oh, and first-hand experience.

BogMarsh

29-03-2006, 15:09

I can't prove I'm not insane - and you cannot prove you're not insane either.

There is no such animal as definite knowledge, and we all have to make-do with intersubjectivity.
Meaning that we're pretty much free to doubt anything, without definite means to dispell doubts and doubters.
We believe things to be true, in the final analysis, because we like to, and not because they are true.

Unless you want to go with logopositivism, or anything like that.
Not my cup of tea, but as good as any other method to create definite knowledge, I suppose.

( I very much agree with the reasoning made by Cameroi ).

Pure Metal

29-03-2006, 15:17

I've been wanting to discuss this for quite some time now. This is a key issue in any sort of discussion or debate: how do you know what you claim you know? How do you arrive at your conclusions? What system of knowing do you use?

this is exactly the kind of shit i try not to think about any more. i studied political philosophy at uni last year and my brain ended up literally filled with thousands of swirling epistemological, existential, and any number of other bollocks questions that served me no good whatsoever to think about. especially as i tended to come to the conclusion that you can never know anything, everything is relative, and apart from the laws of nature/physics/maths there can be no truths but opinion.

Willamena

29-03-2006, 15:19

Vittos Ordination2

29-03-2006, 15:24

Mathematics?

What about them?

The Infinite Dunes

29-03-2006, 15:53

I should now a fair bit about epistemology as it underpins a lot of the knowledge claims in Political Science. However, it was quickly covered in my very first lecture while I was still getting used to whole layout of what I was doing at this weird institution.

Epistemology is important in Political Science in terms of the whether knowledge claims in the disipline are positivist or relativist. After studying PS for just under a year I feel it is probably relativist rather than positivist. Every claim seems to be affected (a or e here?) by bias. It doesn't appear to be infaliable. Nor does there appear to any convergence of theories to one truth, except within the neo-realist/neo-liberalist debate in International Relations, but then the neo/neo debate is dominated on both sides by US academics. Hence it is a mono-cultural debate.

PS is more relativist in that it appears very much historical with value judgements made within a particular culture and time period.

Positivism as I understand it to be: Scientific methology Objective infaliable One truth Universal Based on perception and experience

Relativism as I understand it to be: Faliable Historical Judgements are possible Many truths

Well there's my little bit. Testing the limits of my knowledge of the subject.

Eutrusca

29-03-2006, 15:56

this is exactly the kind of shit i try not to think about any more. i studied political philosophy at uni last year and my brain ended up literally filled with thousands of swirling epistemological, existential, and any number of other bollocks questions that served me no good whatsoever to think about. especially as i tended to come to the conclusion that you can never know anything, everything is relative, and apart from the laws of nature/physics/maths there can be no truths but opinion.
Which is actually a rather logical conclusion. :)

Philosophy never bothered me, but when I studied languages and would start thinking in another language, that startled me. No one had ever warned me that would happen and I wondered if I was going to lose my sterling capacities with the English language. :eek:

Bodies Without Organs

29-03-2006, 16:29

Unless you want to go with logopositivism, or anything like that.
Not my cup of tea, but as good as any other method to create definite knowledge, I suppose.

Assuming that you mean logical-positivism here: No, it ain't.

It's damned right out of the starting gates, after all, its key formulation - any proposition is meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable - itself isn't either analytic or empirically verifiable, and is thus meaningless according to its own standard.

Bodinia

29-03-2006, 16:59

Epistemology? I don't claim to know anything. I rarely even write letters to people.
...
I see you don't study Latin
And you don't study greek
It's epistemology not epistolology ;)

The Infinite Dunes

29-03-2006, 17:06

Enough of your snobbery, I wanna laugh at the joke!Epistemology literally translated is 'knowledge-word/speech'. I'll leave the rest up to you.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 18:52

However, it was quickly covered in my very first lecture while I was still getting used to whole layout of what I was doing at this weird institution.
Hmm, political scientists do have an unfortunate habit of overlooking what the philosophy of science has to say for our discipline. It should certainly be covered more rigorously than a single lecture would allow!!

Epistemology is important in Political Science in terms of the whether knowledge claims in the disipline are positivist or relativist.This is a curious dichotomy to draw, as the term "relativism" is not usually used in this way as an exclusive antithesis to positivism. Is this how you were taught?

After studying PS for just under a year I feel it is probably relativist rather than positivist.Well, most political scientists certainly consider themselves positivists, and for practical purposes they are. But we'll get to this in a moment.

Every claim seems to be affected by bias.Sure, possibly everything humans say is affected by some form of bias, if only in the form of selective perception. But scientific positivism does not require unbiased researchers: indeed, the whole point of scientific methodology is to make definitions and measurements explicit so that we can talk about the same things with some sort of common standard.

It doesn't appear to be infaliable.So? Is anything?

Nor does there appear to any convergence of theories to one truth,
Well, this is actually a problem for one particular strain of positivism (and one that was attempted, without success, by political scientists in the 70s), but it is not a problem for positivist science per se. For one thing, it is possible to conclude that while political science is capable of producing paradigmatic science, it is still (being young) a "pre-normal" science, in Kuhn's terms. More importantly, positivism really relies on falsifiability and a "best-fit" standard, which need not result in any sort of "convergence," especially as read through Quine.

Where we run into problems is your misunderstanding of positivism, which I shudder to think was taught to you by some real instructor in political science. Someone should have just handed you Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery and said "READ."

Positivism as I understand it to be: Scientific methology, Objective Positivism does not require "objectivity," if by that you mean freedom from observer bias or selective perception. What it does require is something we call "epistemological reflexivity"... or, in more common terms, "scientific methodology." The scientific method does not make the observer any more "objective," but it does explain exactly what was being measured and how, so that other scientists can repeat and/or critique the method. The whole purpose of the scientific method is to augment claims to "know" with explanations of "how I know."

infaliableNope. Scientists of all stripes, both physical and human/social, make mistakes all the time.
One truthNope. Technically speaking, a true positivist only cares about being able to make accurate predictions. In some cases, it may turn out that two completely different models result in equally accurate predictions... and from the positivist point of view, that means one model is just as good as another. At least, until some new data is used that may differentiate the two, in which case the positivist will work with whichever continues to produce accurate predictions. Again, technically speaking, the true positivist never makes an epistemological claim to "what the world is like really." In this most accurate sense, most scientists practicing positivist methodology do not really consider themselves positivists, since they believe themselves to be describing "what the world is like really."

This can actually cause serious problems, as we have seen in rational choice theory, which may produce very good statistical results in the aggregate (good predictions), but such that these results DO NOT justify the common misperception in political science that RCT describes how individuals "actually think." It is critically important for scientists to understand the epistemological underpinnings of their knowledge claims.

Universal
This is complicated, but the basic answer is: no, positivism does not require universality. Political science can proceed perfectly well in a positivist manner describing how people behave today without being contradicted (in a positivist sense) by the possibility that people have not always behaved this way, or will not always continue to behave in this way. Similarly we can describe the differences across cultures. We do not need to discover a "universal human nature" in order to do political science as positivists, especially if there would be no practical use (no testable hypotheses) resulting from this universality. (There may be, but positivism does not require it.)

Based on perception and experience.This is true of all science. If it is not empirical in at least some sense, then it is not scientific.

As it happens, I have my own problems with positivism... but before criticizing, one has to understand. ;)

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 20:02

From a quantum point of view (rather than from a nuclear one) the science is non deterministic and non random. This allows us to have choice, a non deterministic element in the causes of our actions, as has been argued by Roger Penrose. It does not mean that we can have choice and determinism. It means we can have choice and no uncaused events. A subtle difference but an important one.I am unfamiliar with that, we haven't gotten to that yet. What I was trying to point out with the nuclear science viewpoint is that there has yet not been any demonstration of free will in a laboratory. If free will exists, then we should be able to see some chemical reaction within the brain signifying it. Since we cannot, this tips the scales slightly in favor of determinism, as determinism does not require a demonstration of its existence, but free will does.
This doesn't mean that we will never be able to find such a chemical reaction, perhaps we just need better microscopes, but as yet we have been unable to do so.

The Infinite Dunes

29-03-2006, 20:28

Hmm, political scientists do have an unfortunate habit of overlooking what the philosophy of science has to say for our discipline. It should certainly be covered more rigorously than a single lecture would allow!!Not even a single lecture, but 1/4 of one. :eek:This is a curious dichotomy to draw, as the term "relativism" is not usually used in this way as an exclusive antithesis to positivism. Is this how you were taught?Taught is such a strong word. It implies the understanding of the reasoning behind a statement. It was what I was told.Well, most political scientists certainly consider themselves positivists, and for practical purposes they are. But we'll get to this in a moment.I know they consider themselves positivists, but does anyone else? After the university says that the degree I will get at the end is a BA, not an BSc.Sure, possibly everything humans say is affected by some form of bias, if only in the form of selective perception. But scientific positivism does not require unbiased researchers: indeed, the whole point of scientific methodology is to make definitions and measurements explicit so that we can talk about the same things with some sort of common standard.Hmm, one way PS claims to be scientific is the use of statistics to back up theories. Some of these statistics coming from surveys. The way questions are asked in a survey can effect the findings of a survey. For instance, 'Are you racist?' probably won't give an accurate finding, whereas 'Are you an environmentalist?' probably would give an accurate finding. The findings of these questions are repeatable and falsifiable, but if they offer accurate infomation to make a claim on is another question. You need to bring in subjective reasoning to analyse whether these questions offer accurate infomation.So? Is anything?No, but then I wasn't really thinking when I posted these lists. My apoligies. They are copied straight from my lecture notes, which where copied straight from a slide.Well, this is actually a problem for one particular strain of positivism (and one that was attempted, without success, by political scientists in the 70s), but it is not a problem for positivist science per se. For one thing, it is possible to conclude that while political science is capable of producing paradigmatic science, it is still (being young) a "pre-normal" science, in Kuhn's terms. More importantly, positivism really relies on falsifiability and a "best-fit" standard, which need not result in any sort of "convergence," especially as read through Quine.

Where we run into problems is your misunderstanding of positivism, which I shudder to think was taught to you by some real instructor in political science. Someone should have just handed you Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery and said "READ."Perhaps herein lies the true source of my frustration with PS. Some of my lectures seem to parade around theories as if they are products of generations of scientific enquiry, where in actual fact that are very new and circumstantial.<snip>

As it happens, I have my own problems with positivism... but before criticizing, one has to understand. ;)Thank you for the rest of your post. It was an interesting read and a postit note bearing the the words 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' is affixed to my monitor.

On a final note. Much of my disgruntlement with PS comes from my having a done all science a-levels and 1 year of a chemistry degree (I just couldn't cope with doing the same thing over and over again - I coping better with this degree as I'm doing a lot more outside of my degree). My perception is that PS is nothing like the natural sciences, and how dare it compare itself to natural science.

Free Soviets

29-03-2006, 20:36

What I was trying to point out with the nuclear science viewpoint is that there has yet not been any demonstration of free will in a laboratory.

well, what gave determinism it's force was the idea that science showed a deterministic world - otherwise we'd just go with our free will intuition/experience. When it turns out that science shows a world that allows for both deterministic and indeterministic events, it sort of undercuts the undercutting of that intuition.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 20:37

If free will exists, then we should be able to see some chemical reaction within the brain signifying it.Why? This assertion requires at least one assumption that cannot be proven. Since we cannot, this tips the scales slightly in favor of determinism, as determinism does not require a demonstration of its existence, but free will does. Again, why? If determinism is so obvious, why did it take human beings so long to decide that (maybe) it accurately describes reality? Why does anyone still oppose it, if it requires no demonstration? Hell, causality is hard enough, let alone the assertion that every effect is determined by some cause.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 20:54

Not even a single lecture, but 1/4 of one.Truly embarassing!I know they consider themselves positivists, but does anyone else?Sure. Any philosopher of science who reads a representative political science journal would recognize positivism throughout. After the university says that the degree I will get at the end is a BA, not an BSc.That's a (pretty much meaningless) institutional thing. My undergraduate college actually gave me a choice as to which abbreviation would appear on my degree in mathematics. My ex-girlfriend graduated in psychology, and she got a B.S. by taking one set of psychology courses, while another set would have been a B.A. If you go on to graduate school, you will really come to understand how completely meaningless these terms are. :)

Second, Hmm, one way PS claims to be scientific is the use of statistics to back up theories. Some of these statistics coming from surveys. The way questions are asked in a survey can effect the findings of a survey.That's true. And I am no fan of survey research, in fact a lot of my work in political science has dealt with criticizing them. Nevertheless, the methodology is positivist.

For instance, 'Are you racist?' probably won't give an accurate finding, whereas 'Are you an environmentalist?' probably would give an accurate finding. The findings of these questions are repeatable and falsifiable, but if they offer accurate infomation to make a claim on is another question.Yes, and that is certainly one of the things that readers of research based on such surveys would criticize. By the way, even if you are asking "are you an environmentalist," you need to operationalize your definition of "environmentalist" before you can convince me that it is "accurate." You might mean "someone who thinks the environment is a salient issue," or "someone who votes based on environmental concerns," or "someone who actively pursues an environmentalist agenda," or even "someone who is a member of an environmentalist group."

The key to positivist measures is always operationalized definitions: tell me what you are trying to measure, and how you are trying to measure it. If I am convinced that your measure works, then I will be interested in your results. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board.

You need to bring in subjective reasoning to analyse whether these questions offer accurate infomation.
Right. Operationism (which is part of positivism-as-we-know-it) always falls back on "plausibility" as a justification for its measures. Of course, if one looks closely this is true in many of the most advanced physical sciences as well. Physicists doing research with particle accelerators may claim, "based on what we know, measure x should tell us y about something we cannot measure directly." Other physicists may disagree, and this will be one of the debates playing out in physics journals. The same debates occur in political science, only more often... because our variables are so very often "intangible." We cannot hold out a ruler to measure them, so we have to be creative.

Perhaps herein lies the true source of my frustration with PS. Some of my lectures seem to parade around theories as if they are products of generations of scientific enquiry, where in actual fact that are very new and circumstantial.
Ahh, that is the frustration--but also the excitement!--of working in a budding scientific field. ;)

Thank you for the rest of your post. It was an interesting read and a postit note bearing the the words 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' is affixed to my monitor.My pleasure. It's a hefty book, but well worth the effort if you are interested in scientific epistemology.

My perception is that PS is nothing like the natural sciences, and how dare it compare itself to natural science.It is nothing like the natural sciences... and if you have encountered political scientists who are willing to make that comparison, then you really are learning from a bunch of jerks. Most of the field is still learning some of the deeper lessons of what it means to be a social science, but by now they have realized that it is fundamentally different than physical science.

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 21:12

well, what gave determinism it's force was the idea that science showed a deterministic world - otherwise we'd just go with our free will intuition/experience. When it turns out that science shows a world that allows for both deterministic and indeterministic events, it sort of undercuts the undercutting of that intuition.I am unfamiliar with any science which allows for interministic events...but we are just starting on the theory of determinism vs. indeterminism, and I was simply advancing Sir Roger Brain's theory of determinism.

Why? This assertion requires at least one assumption that cannot be proven.Well, can anything really be proven? Nonetheless, it seems that if something exists, then we should be able to demonstrate its existence. We are unable to demonstrate the existence of either determinism or indeterminism.

Again, why? If determinism is so obvious, why did it take human beings so long to decide that (maybe) it accurately describes reality?I didn't say it was obvious, I said that it doesn't require a demonstration of its existence. That is also an argument against it, as you can't exactly prove something that doesn't require a proof.

Why does anyone still oppose it, if it requires no demonstration?Because it is unappealing.

Hell, causality is hard enough, let alone the assertion that every effect is determined by some cause.But that's the point, that the assertion that every effect is determined by some cause doesn't have to be proven, it can only be disproven.

The Infinite Dunes

29-03-2006, 21:23

It is nothing like the natural sciences... and if you have encountered political scientists who are willing to make that comparison, then you really are learning from a bunch of jerks. Most of the field is still learning some of the deeper lessons of what it means to be a social science, but by now they have realized that it is fundamentally different than physical science.The concerning thing is that I am at one of the, supposedly, best institutions for teaching Politcal Science, especially relating to Europe, in the UK. I think it even boasts an international reputation. But to be fair, most of my lectuers aren't that bad. Does Colin Hay, David Marsh, Thomas Diez, Jill Steans or Mathew Watson ring any bells?

Daniele Caramani can't teach for shit though. Admitedly he's teaching the dreaded Methods module which no one else in the department wants to teach.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:02

The concerning thing is that I am at one of the, supposedly, best institutions for teaching Politcal Science, especially relating to Europe, in the UK. I think it even boasts an international reputation. But to be fair, most of my lectuers aren't that bad. Does Colin Hay, David Marsh, Thomas Diez, Jill Steans or Mathew Watson ring any bells?
Yes, at least one of them, and this may explain a lot. Mostly International Relations, right?

Those people have a serious attitude problem, in my experience, and they do tend to think they have a "different kind" of science than the rest of us... although they tend to compare it more to economics than to physical science.

At my Masters institution, the IR subfield eventually broke off into its own department, because they could not learn to play well with others (i.e. the other political scientists).

Fortunately, in my current program even the most successful, widely known professors don't get a big head about it. In International Relations, the names you are most likely to know are Myron Aronoff and Roy Licklider. Roy actually teaches the first part of the methods sequence, and he is a very honest "pragmatic positivist," as he likes to call it.

I'm in theory, of course, so I don't see much of those guys anymore.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:08

Well, can anything really be proven? Nonetheless, it seems that if something exists, then we should be able to demonstrate its existence. We are unable to demonstrate the existence of either determinism or indeterminism.Right, so why the bias toward determinism?I didn't say it was obvious, I said that it doesn't require a demonstration of its existence.Sure it does, if you want to make any claim to knowing it's true. Just assuming it doesn't get you anywhere.That is also an argument against it, as you can't exactly prove something that doesn't require a proof.Okay, if it doesn't require a proof, explain to me why it doesn't require a proof... Oh, wait! In making that explanation, you would be forced to give me some proof! (If you prove that it does not need a proof to be true, then you would be proving that it is true.)

But that's the point, that the assertion that every effect is determined by some cause doesn't have to be proven, it can only be disproven.
No, it can't.

You can't prove a negative. To disprove the hypothesis that "everything is determined by some cause (or causes)" you would have to prove that "for some thing, there is no cause." But how can you prove this? All you can ever know is that you have not discovered a cause... you can never prove that there is not a cause yet to be discovered!!

AB Again

29-03-2006, 22:12

I am unfamiliar with any science which allows for interministic events...but we are just starting on the theory of determinism vs. indeterminism, and I was simply advancing Sir Roger Brain's theory of determinism.
Which rather indicates a lack of understanding of Penrose's argument, which is that our behaviour is caused, but not determined. It is an anti-determinism argument, and Sir Roger's explication lays out quite clearly the indeterministic nature of modern physics.

I didn't say it was obvious, I said that it doesn't require a demonstration of its existence. That is also an argument against it, as you can't exactly prove something that doesn't require a proof.
The only things that do not require demonstration of their existence are those that are immediately obvious. So either determinism is obvious, which you deny, or it requires demonstration, which you also deny. Could you please choose (or state as you are fated to do if you prefer) which of these denials you wish to withdraw.

Because it is unappealing.
Why is it unappealing. If determinism were true we could not be blamed for anything. Nothing would be our fault, so if we spent our time in the bar rather than studying, womanising rather than sleeping, then that would be because we had no choice in the matter. It is unappealing because it conflicts with our personal experience. We feel that we have choices, that we can do A or we can not do A. This feeling is not evidence in any way that we do have free will, but determinism is counter intuitive.

But that's the point, that the assertion that every effect is determined by some cause doesn't have to be proven, it can only be disproven.
Why does it not have to be proven? Can you even show me that any event has a cause? Just because we think it does does not make it so any more than thinking we have a choice makes it so. If introspection and belief are not valid as evidence against determinism, they can not be valid as evidence for it.

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:15

Right, so why the bias toward determinism?Because indeterminism requires proof and determinism does not.

Sure it does, if you want to make any claim to knowing it's true. Just assuming it doesn't get you anywhere.That's the issue, you can't make a claim knowing that determinism is true, the claim that can be made is that indeterminism isn't true. The reason that this indicates that determinism is true is because other than indeterminism, there are no other options, and if you eliminate one option out of two, you're left with the other option. This doesn't mean that the option that hasn't been eliminated is correct, it simply means that it hasn't been eliminated.

Okay, if it doesn't require a proof, explain to me why it doesn't require a proof... Oh, wait! In making that explanation, you would be forced to give me some proof! (If you prove that it does not need a proof to be true, then you would be proving that it is true.)This exemplifies the Catch-22 position of many philosophical ideas.

No, it can't.

You can't prove a negative. To disprove the hypothesis that "everything is determined by some cause (or causes)" you would have to prove that "for some thing, there is no cause." But how can you prove this? All you can ever know is that you have not discovered a cause... you can never prove that there is not a cause yet to be discovered!!That's my point, though - determinism is the default position. It is the negative, you can't prove it. The positive is that free will exists, and in order to prove it, there must be evidence.

The Infinite Dunes

29-03-2006, 22:16

Yes, at least one of them, and this may explain a lot. Mostly International Relations, right?

Those people have a serious attitude problem, in my experience, and they do tend to think they have a "different kind" of science than the rest of us... although they tend to compare it more to economics than to physical science.

At my Masters institution, the IR subfield eventually broke off into its own department, because they could not learn to play well with others (i.e. the other political scientists).

Fortunately, in my current program even the most successful, widely known professors don't get a big head about it. In International Relations, the names you are most likely to know are Myron Aronoff and Roy Licklider. Roy actually teaches the first part of the methods sequence, and he is a very honest "pragmatic positivist," as he likes to call it.

I'm in theory, of course, so I don't see much of those guys anymore.Hmm... I guessing the name you reconised was Thomas Diez. He's the head of department and lectures on IR. Jill Steans is the other lecturer on IR.

I haven't actually heard of either of those two. My department has a very heavy focus on Europe than that reflects in its teaching.

I'm really curious what makes you think so lowly of the person that you spotted amongst the list I gave. Please do explain.

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:20

Which rather indicates a lack of understanding of Penrose's argument, which is that our behaviour is caused, but not determined. It is an anti-determinism argument, and Sir Roger's explication lays out quite clearly the indeterministic nature of modern physics. I've stated that I am unfamiliar with penrose's argument, so I can't really answer this question.

The only things that do not require demonstration of their existence are those that are immediately obvious. So either determinism is obvious, which you deny, or it requires demonstration, which you also deny. Could you please choose (or state as you are fated to do if you prefer) which of these denials you wish to withdraw.I don't agree with this statement. As AnarchyEl stated, "you cannot prove a negative". As determinism is the negative, it cannot be proven.

Why is it unappealing. If determinism were true we could not be blamed for anything. Nothing would be our fault, so if we spent our time in the bar rather than studying, womanising rather than sleeping, then that would be because we had no choice in the matter. It is unappealing because it conflicts with our personal experience. We feel that we have choices, that we can do A or we can not do A. This feeling is not evidence in any way that we do have free will, but determinism is counter intuitive. It is unappealing because people want to feel as though they have control over their lives. This is a problem, because while it's perfectly acceptable to make an 'I feel' argument, they don't amount to anything unless backed up by some concrete evidence.

Why does it not have to be proven? Can you even show me that any event has a cause? Just because we think it does does not make it so any more than thinking we have a choice makes it so. If introspection and belief are not valid as evidence against determinism, they can not be valid as evidence for it.Determinism is the counter argument against free will. In the absence of some third idea, it isn't necessary to prove that determinism is correct, only that free will doesn't exist.

AB Again

29-03-2006, 22:26

I don't agree with this statement. As AnarchyEl stated, "you cannot prove a negative". As determinism is the negative, it cannot be proven.

Determinism is the counter argument against free will. In the absence of some third idea, it isn't necessary to prove that determinism is correct, only that free will doesn't exist.

Um, do you see the contradiction?

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:30

Um, do you see the contradiction?No, though I did use the wrong language. It isn't possible to prove that free will exists, but in the absence of evidence, the theoretical tilt is towards determinism, because determinism doesn't require evidence.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:31

Which rather indicates a lack of understanding of Penrose's argument, which is that our behaviour is caused, but not determined. It is an anti-determinism argument, and Sir Roger's explication lays out quite clearly the indeterministic nature of modern physics.
Right, but this does not save moral responsibility. Penrose can only claim that behavior cannot be predicted (as you say, it is not necessarily determined). Yet if all behavior has some material cause, we still are not "free" in any morally meaningful sense. "Random" is just as indeterminate as "free." At best I read Penrose as opening slightly more "space" for the possibility of freedom than traditional determinism, since if behavior is caused but not determined by material reality, then the possibility exists that the "uncertainty" is decided one way or the other by "will." Yet this begs several questions about how we can define "will" if it does not "cause" our behavior, but "only" determines it.

The only things that do not require demonstration of their existence are those that are immediately obvious. So either determinism is obvious, which you deny, or it requires demonstration, which you also deny. Could you please choose (or state as you are fated to do if you prefer) which of these denials you wish to withdraw.
Exactly, it has to be one or the other!!
Can you even show me that any event has a cause?Right, it's not as easy as it sounds. As Hume so astutely pointed out, all we can ever observe directly is correlation, not causation. The German Idealists have some interesting responses to this, but they never quite cut all the way to the core of the problem.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:38

Because indeterminism requires proof and determinism does not.Why? If determinism does not require proof, then indeterminism must clearly be false... so it does not "require" proof, right? Are you asserting, as it seems, that determinism is true without proof... or is there something else you are trying to communicate?

That's the issue, you can't make a claim knowing that determinism is true, the claim that can be made is that indeterminism isn't true.How's that?

The reason that this indicates that determinism is true is because other than indeterminism, there are no other options, and if you eliminate one option out of two, you're left with the other option.Yes, and that would constitute what logicians call an "indirect proof" of determinism... which you claimed needs no proof. Every sentence contradicts the next with you. This doesn't mean that the option that hasn't been eliminated is correct, it simply means that it hasn't been eliminated.But you just said "there are no other options, [so] if you eliminate one option out of two, you're left with the other option [being true]"!!!Would you care to make sense of this mess? It would greatly help if you could demonstrate your proof of the falsity of non-determinism.

That's my point, though - determinism is the default position.Why?It is the negative, you can't prove it.Right, you can't prove it... but you cannot disprove it, either. To do so, you would have to show that for every phenomena in the universe, there is a determinate cause... and even if quantem mechanics didn't call that into question, the best you could ever do is to show that every phenomena you have seen is deterministic... OR give some a priori demonstration of determinism.The positive is that free will exists, and in order to prove it, there must be evidence.There is. I perceive myself as making my own decisions. You perceive yourself as making your own decisions. These perceptions certainly constitute evidence that favors the existence of "free will." Now, one may evaluate this evidence in light of other evidence, but one cannot discount it simply because it does not conform to the philosophical point one would like to make.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:40

I'm really curious what makes you think so lowly of the person that you spotted amongst the list I gave. Please do explain.

Oh, it's nothing personal. Just a low opinion of International Relations scholars in general (with a few rare exceptions), coupled with your descriptions of your epistemological training (or lack thereof) that lead me to believe that your instructors are characteristic of the field as I have come to perceive it.

:)

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:44

Determinism is the counter argument against free will. In the absence of some third idea, it isn't necessary to prove that determinism is correct, only that free will doesn't exist.
But proving that "free will doesn't exist" would be to prove the truth of determinism!!

How can determinism be the "counter-argument" to anything when you contend that determinism makes no argument at all? Besides which, earlier you said that determinism is the "default position." How can it be both the "default position" and the "counter-argument" (presumably countering the default position)?!

How do you "prove" that free will does not exist?

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:46

Why? If determinism does not require proof, then indeterminism must clearly be false... so it does not "require" proof, right? Are you asserting, as it seems, that determinism is true without proof... or is there something else you are trying to communicate?Yes. What I mean to say is that the theoretical tilt tends towards determinism due to the lack of proof of indeterminism.

How's that?

Yes, and that would constitute what logicians call an "indirect proof" of determinism... which you claimed needs no proof. Every sentence contradicts the next with you. But you just said "there are no other options, [so] if you eliminate one option out of two, you're left with the other option [being true]"!!!Would you care to make sense of this mess? It would greatly help if you could demonstrate your proof of the falsity of non-determinism.I didn't say that non-determinism was provably false, I said that there was no scientific evidence for it.

Why?Right, you can't prove it... but you cannot disprove it, either. To do so, you would have to show that for every phenomena in the universe, there is a determinate cause... and even if quantem mechanics didn't call that into question, the best you could ever do is to show that every phenomena you have seen is deterministic... OR give some a priori demonstration of determinism.I agree with this, but that doesn't mean that the theoretical tilt doesn't tend towards determinism.
There is. I perceive myself as making my own decisions. You perceive yourself as making your own decisions. These perceptions certainly constitute evidence that favors the existence of "free will." Now, one may evaluate this evidence in light of other evidence, but one cannot discount it simply because it does not conform to the philosophical point one would like to make.The problem with the idea of perception is that it isn't possible to show it in a scientific manner. We cannot demonstrate such perceptions to others.

AB Again

29-03-2006, 22:47

Right, but this does not save moral responsibility. Penrose can only claim that behavior cannot be predicted (as you say, it is not necessarily determined). Yet if all behavior has some material cause, we still are not "free" in any morally meaningful sense. "Random" is just as indeterminate as "free." At best I read Penrose as opening slightly more "space" for the possibility of freedom than traditional determinism, since if behavior is caused but not determined by material reality, then the possibility exists that the "uncertainty" is decided one way or the other by "will." Yet this begs several questions about how we can define "will" if it does not "cause" our behavior, but "only" determines it.
All Penrose claims to do is to show how our actions may be non deterministic. How exactly this possibility would work to allow the 'will' to be causally efficient is not explained. As you say, his work merely makes it slightly more conceivable that we have free will in some sense. It is at this point that my mental grasp on the situation looses grip. I know that it may be possible that our desires and intentions are not determined and that they are in some way causally effective, but how this works is beyond me at the moment. Probably because I am conditioned and accustomed to thinking of deterministic chains and this would not fit such a schemata.
[/QUOTE]

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:47

But proving that "free will doesn't exist" would be to prove the truth of determinism!!

How can determinism be the "counter-argument" to anything when you contend that determinism makes no argument at all? Besides which, earlier you said that determinism is the "default position." How can it be both the "default position" and the "counter-argument" (presumably countering the default position)?!

How do you "prove" that free will does not exist?You don't prove that free will does not exist, you simply show that there isn't any provable evidence in favor of free will.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:48

No, though I did use the wrong language. It isn't possible to prove that free will exists, but in the absence of evidence, the theoretical tilt is towards determinism, because determinism doesn't require evidence.

Sure it does. It is a fairly new idea precisely because it is counter-intuitive. Our immediate perception is of personal moral freedom. If a theory comes along that contradicts that immediate perception, it had better be able to muster some evidence in its defense.

To say that "determinism doesn't require evidence" makes about as much sense as to claim that "we don't really breathe, we just perceive ourselves as breathing." Okay, fine. Maybe our perception is wrong... but given that the perception is so immediate, and its negation so counter-intuitive, anyone who wants to convince me that I do not breathe has some serious convincing to do. Similarly someone who wants to claim that I do not make autonomous moral decisions.

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 22:58

Sure it does. It is a fairly new idea precisely because it is counter-intuitive. Our immediate perception is of personal moral freedom. If a theory comes along that contradicts that immediate perception, it had better be able to muster some evidence in its defense.There is a lot of evidence for determinism. Many determinists hope to someday explain human actions as the result of physical reactions that take place in the body.
Even Aristotle, one of the better known indeterminists, acknowledged that human thought manifested itself in a pattern.

To say that "determinism doesn't require evidence" makes about as much sense as to claim that "we don't really breathe, we just perceive ourselves as breathing." Okay, fine. Maybe our perception is wrong... but given that the perception is so immediate, and its negation so counter-intuitive, anyone who wants to convince me that I do not breathe has some serious convincing to do. Similarly someone who wants to claim that I do not make autonomous moral decisions.Breathing can be shown in a laboratory, but free will cannot (yet) be shown in a laboratory.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:58

Yes. What I mean to say is that the theoretical tilt tends towards determinism due to the lack of proof of indeterminism.
We lack proof of determinism. We lack proof of non-determinism. To this point, they are the same... but suddenly you come along and insist that determinism is the "default" position, without justifying that claim. There should be no "theoretical tilt" toward either of them until you can explain what makes one preferable to the other.

I didn't say that non-determinism was provably false, I said that there was no scientific evidence for it. Fine. But there is no more scientific evidence for determinism, so why should there be any "tilt" in its favor?

I agree with this, but that doesn't mean that the theoretical tilt doesn't tend towards determinism.There may be a positive theoretical tilt towards determinism among many scientists... but the fact that they "like" it does nothing to justify that preference. That is what we are asking you to do.
The problem with the idea of perception is that it isn't possible to show it in a scientific manner. We cannot demonstrate such perceptions to others.We cannot demonstrate any perceptions to others, so if you take this route you cannot do science at all.

This is how we do science:

Scientist A: "Hey, I see that light reflects off the surface of water."
Scientist B: "Hey, I see that, too."
Scientists A and B: "Wow, it looks like light reflects off the surface of water!"

Scientist A: "Hey, I perceive myself as having an autonomous will."
Scientist B: "Hey, I percieve myself as having an autonomous will."
Scientists A and B: "Wow, it looks like we have autonomous wills!"

Now, such perceptions can always turn out to be wrong. Scientist A and B also perceive the table as being "solid" or "impenetrable," but if they look at it under a powerful microscope they see that it is mostly empty space. It may be possible that when they look at the "will" using measures other than immediate experience, they will see that this perception is also incorrect. But until they see contradictory evidence, they are perfectly reasonable to take their immediate perception as representative of reality.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 22:59

You don't prove that free will does not exist, you simply show that there isn't any provable evidence in favor of free will.Yes, but that gets you nowhere if there is also no provable evidence that free will does not exist. Especially when immediate experience indicates very strongly that it does.

To contradict the obvious, you need very strong evidence indeed.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 23:06

There is a lot of evidence for determinism. Many determinists hope to someday explain human actions as the result of physical reactions that take place in the body.They hope to. Their hope is not sufficient evidence to contravene the immediate perception of free will.

When they have something better, let me know.

Even Aristotle, one of the better known indeterminists, acknowledged that human thought manifested itself in a pattern.
So? The German Idealists insisted that there had to be "laws of reason" distinguishable from "laws of nature." That does not reconcile them to determinism in any sense.

Breathing can be shown in a laboratory, but free will cannot (yet) be shown in a laboratory.

A) Why does it have to be in a laboratory? Perhaps you are not aware how little science actually occurs in laboratories these days, considering that things like stars, planets, governments and societies do not "fit"--and even if they did, experimental methods are not necessarily appropriate. Experimental results provide a high degree of internal validity, but a very very low degree of external ("real-world") validity.

B) Free will manifests itself in the laboratory all the time. That's why psychologists and political scientists have to go to such great pains to do things like concealing the real purpose of our experiments. As soon as people know what we're testing them on, free will kicks in and the chances of our making valid causal inferences drops to near zero.

Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 23:08

We lack proof of determinism. We lack proof of non-determinism. To this point, they are the same... but suddenly you come along and insist that determinism is the "default" position, without justifying that claim. There should be no "theoretical tilt" toward either of them until you can explain what makes one preferable to the other.There is scientific evidence of determinism.

Fine. But there is no more scientific evidence for determinism, so why should there be any "tilt" in its favor?As I've said, human thoughts form patterns. Determinists would take this further and say that these patterns are unbreakable.

There may be a positive theoretical tilt towards determinism among many scientists... but the fact that they "like" it does nothing to justify that preference. That is what we are asking you to do.
We cannot demonstrate any perceptions to others, so if you take this route you cannot do science at all.I didn't say that those scientists happened to like the idea of determinism, but rather that they believe the evidence to be in its favor.

This is how we do science:

Scientist A: "Hey, I see that light reflects off the surface of water."
Scientist B: "Hey, I see that, too."
Scientists A and B: "Wow, it looks like light reflects off the surface of water!"

Scientist A: "Hey, I perceive myself as having an autonomous will."
Scientist B: "Hey, I percieve myself as having an autonomous will."
Scientists A and B: "Wow, it looks like we have autonomous wills!"

Now, such perceptions can always turn out to be wrong. Scientist A and B also perceive the table as being "solid" or "impenetrable," but if they look at it under a powerful microscope they see that it is mostly empty space. It may be possible that when they look at the "will" using measures other than immediate experience, they will see that this perception is also incorrect. But until they see contradictory evidence, they are perfectly reasonable to take their immediate perception as representative of reality.Yes, they are reasonable to do so, but it would help their position if their perception had some scientific backing.

My professor likened it to the idea of humours causing diseases. Most people, for hundreds of years, thought that tiny spirits with varying different colors called humours caused diseases, explaining diseases as a result of these humours.

Then the field of microbiology developed, showing that diseases seemed to be caused by microbes and not humours at all.

Does this prove that diseases are not caused by humours? No, but it does give an alternate view of disease that does not refer to humours, so it is unnecessary to do refer to them when coming up with a theory of why diseases happen.

Likewise, determinists hope to one day explain human actions as a result of physical and chemical reactions within the body, and so it will be unnecessary to refer to free will when talking about why humans do what they do.
However, even people who believe in free will believe that there are physical and chemical reactions within the body. That is the difference.

AnarchyeL

29-03-2006, 23:28

There is scientific evidence of determinism.
There is scientific evidence that there are external influences on human behavior of which we are usually unaware. Even when we understand these influences, however, rarely (if ever) does it make human behavior predictable in the sense that we can exclude the possibility that "will" may overcome the stacked deck. We understand how people get addicted to substances; we understand it on a chemical level. What we don't understand very well at all is the person who suddenly and successfully stops cold turkey.

Moreover, we only understand a bare minority of the influences on the human being. If anything, you should be saying that the "default" (obvious; experiential) position is "free will"... and that science is gradually building a case that many aspects of human behavior are more deterministic than it seems "from the inside." It is the worst kind of science to assume that because some behaviors/emotions/cognitions are determinate, all of them must be. It would be a better inference if you could claim that science has shown that most human behaviors have been explained... but this would be a lie.

As I've said, human thoughts form patterns. Determinists would take this further and say that these patterns are unbreakable.Right, but that assumption would not constitute any sort of proof.

I didn't say that those scientists happened to like the idea of determinism, but rather that they believe the evidence to be in its favor.Name these faithful determinists. The only dedicated determinists I know are teaching philosophy of mind or analytic philosophy... not science.

Yes, they are reasonable to do so, but it would help their position if their perception had some scientific backing.Pure, unmediated observation is the most scientific thing in the world. It is the very basis of science. If we could not rely on our perceptions of the world, we could not do science at all.

It would be one thing if some people claimed to have the perception of free will, while others do not. But so far, I don't know of a single case in which a healthy adult has been able to claim that he/she does not sense her/his own autonomy... at least, not without ultimately contradicting her/himself.

My professor likened it to the idea of humours causing diseases. Most people, for hundreds of years, thought that tiny spirits with varying different colors called humours caused diseases, explaining diseases as a result of these humours.
Well, you can tell your professor that is a horrible analogy. The "spirits" were a theory--an explanation for perceived phenomena. With free will we are dealing with the perception itself. It's not that we perceive ourselves behaving in a certain way, and we think, "Hmm, I bet we do that because we are free." The fact of the matter is that we perceive ourselves as free.

A better example, for your professor's purposes, would be the rotation of the Earth. For millenia, people believed that the Sun goes around the Earth... because we perceive the Sun rising on one horizon and setting on the other, every day. Eventually, scientists discovered that this perception is caused by the rotation of the Earth, not the orbit of the Sun. Similarly, people have always perceived themselves as being free. While it is possible, in theory, that this perception is false, the burden of proof is on those who would deny it. And ultimately, in order to explain it away, they will have to do more than show that human behavior is determined: they will also have to explain the mechanism that causes us to perceive ourselves otherwise, just as scientists had to show that what causes the Sun to "rise and set" is the rotation of the Earth.

I see little evidence that scientists have made any advances toward such an explanation.

Likewise, determinists hope to one day explain human actions as a result of physical and chemical reactions within the body, and so it will be unnecessary to refer to free will when talking about why humans do what they do. Some of them may have this hope... but the question up for discussion is whether they have much justification for this hope.

At least you have backed down from your earlier assertion that determinism need not be proven (since clearly that is what the scientists to whom you refer are "hoping" to do).

Jello Biafra

29-03-2006, 23:44

There is scientific evidence that there are external influences on human behavior of which we are usually unaware. Even when we understand these influences, however, rarely (if ever) does it make human behavior predictable in the sense that we can exclude the possibility that "will" may overcome the stacked deck. We understand how people get addicted to substances; we understand it on a chemical level. What we don't understand very well at all is the person who suddenly and successfully stops cold turkey.Many determinists believe that it is possible to both make choices and yet have those choices be determined - it wouldn't be necessary to predict how someone will react in this case.

Moreover, we only understand a bare minority of the influences on the human being. If anything, you should be saying that the "default" (obvious; experiential) position is "free will"... and that science is gradually building a case that many aspects of human behavior are more deterministic than it seems "from the inside." The reason that free will isn't the default position is that it relies on "I feel" arguments. I'm sure we can see the slippery slope on basing everything on "I feel" arguments.

It is the worst kind of science to assume that because some behaviors/emotions/cognitions are determinate, all of them must be. It would be a better inference if you could claim that science has shown that most human behaviors have been explained... but this would be a lie.It is evidence in favor of determinism that some behaviors/emotions/cognitions are determinate. It isn't proof, though.

Right, but that assumption would not constitute any sort of proof.Not in and of itself, no.

Name these faithful determinists. Being a scientist myself, I certainly don't know any. My father and my best friend are both psychologists, and they say the same thing of their field: it is decidedly not composed of determinists.

In fact, the only dedicated determinists I know are teaching philosophy of mind or analytic philosophy... not science.Sir Roger Brain, a nuclear scientist.
John Hospers, a psychoanalyst.
Daniel Oeunett (sp?) and
Arthur Schopenhauer.

Pure, unmediated observation is the most scientific thing in the world. It is the very basis of science. If we could not rely on our perceptions of the world, we could not do science at all.True, but perceptions themselves are not enough.

It would be one thing if some people claimed to have the perception of free will, while others do not. But so far, I don't know of a single case in which a healthy adult has been able to claim that he/she does not sense her/his own autonomy... at least, not without ultimately contradicting her/himself.Determinists would argue the opposite, that those who profess free will contradict themselves, but I can't as yet argue this point, so I'll drop it.

Well, you can tell your professor that is a horrible analogy. The "spirits" were a theory--an explanation for perceived phenomena. With free will we are dealing with the perception itself. It's not that we perceive ourselves behaving in a certain way, and we think, "Hmm, I bet we do that because we are free." The fact of the matter is that we perceive ourselves as free.There are some people who perceive themselves in a certain way and think that they do so because they are free, so I would have to disagree.

A better example, for your professor's purposes, would be the rotation of the Earth. For millenia, people believed that the Sun goes around the Earth... because we perceive the Sun rising on one horizon and setting on the other, every day. Eventually, scientists discovered that this perception is caused by the rotation of the Earth, not the orbit of the Sun. Similarly, people have always perceived themselves as being free. While it is possible, in theory, that this perception is false, the burden of proof is on those who would deny it. And ultimately, in order to explain it away, they will have to do more than show that human behavior is determined: they will also have to explain the mechanism that causes us to perceive ourselves otherwise, just as scientists had to show that what causes the Sun to "rise and set" is the rotation of the Earth.

I see little evidence that scientists have made any advances toward such an explanation.I agree with you on this point, but at the same time see little reason why a person's perception should be the basis of proof.

Some of them may have this hope... but the question up for discussion is whether they have much justification for this hope.They believe they do. I don't know whether or not they do, but there is evidence that they do.

At least you have backed down from your earlier assertion that determinism need not be proven (since clearly that is what the scientists to whom you refer are "hoping" to do).I shouldn't have asserted that determinism itself need not be proven, but determinism does not need to be proven in order to have the theoretical tilt in its favor.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 00:00

Many determinists believe that it is possible to both make choices and yet have those choices be determined - it wouldn't be necessary to predict how someone will react in this case.No. By definition, if a cause "determines" the result, the result is predictable given knowledge of the cause. It may be practically impossible to gather all of the relevant information, but for a determinist it has to be at least theoretically possible.

The reason that free will isn't the default position is that it relies on "I feel" arguments. I'm sure we can see the slippery slope on basing everything on "I feel" arguments.
No, I can't. You had better enlighten me.

Psychologists rely on "I feel" all the time. Hell, they want to show that human emotions are determinate, but they can't measure the emotions? The only way they know how someone feels is to get them to say "I feel ____." No one would ever be able to claim that "chemical X causes sadness" if they could not rely on the reports of subjects who say "I feel sad" whenever they have high levels of chemical X in their brains.

It is evidence in favor of determinism that some behaviors/emotions/cognitions are determinate. It isn't proof, though.That's better. :)

Sir Roger Brain, a nuclear scientist.Don't know him. Could you provide a link to some of his work?
John Hospers, a psychoanalyst. The only John Hospers I know is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He wrote a really bad paper once claiming that psychoanalysis is compatible with determinism, but he is not a psychoanalyst. Perhaps I have him confused with someone else?
Daniel Oeunett (sp?)Daniel Dennett? Philosopher of Mind.
Arthur Schopenhauer.Philosopher.

Only one (possible) scientist in the bunch. I would like more information on him.

True, but perceptions themselves are not enough.Often, no. But if you want to contradict perception, the burden of proof is yours.

I agree with you on this point, but at the same time see little reason why a person's perception should be the basis of proof.It's not, in itself. But with a lack of proof either way, it is the most natural "default position."

AB Again

30-03-2006, 00:17

Sir Roger Brain, a nuclear scientist.

Don't know him. Could you provide a link to some of his work?

Sir Roger Brain is the non academic name that has been given to Penrose. He is not a nuclear scientist as both you and I know, but it appears Jello Biafra does not.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 00:22

Sir Roger Brain is the non academic name that has been given to Penrose.

Aha!

Well, it seems I do learn something new every day... ;)

Zagat

30-03-2006, 04:19

Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.
Near perfect understanding about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history and environment, has never to my knowledge been obtained...

And in fact your own (later) assertion
Moreover, we only understand a bare minority of the influences on the human being.
seems contrary to such perfect knowledge being available to us.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 04:26

Zagat

30-03-2006, 04:35

The point was that even if this were available it would not enable us to predict human behaviour. That it is not currently available is immaterial to the point he was making.
That's an odd interpretation. Surely rather than
Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted...
the poster ought to have said "if it is a fact"?
In fact the entire argument is undermined. The argument rests on the availability of the information since without the information how can we possibly know whether or not it would be possible to make such predictions given the availibility of the information?

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 04:51

Wouldn't free will require a supernatural force of some sort?

I find it hard to believe that a human brain can rise above natural consequence.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 04:55

Wouldn't free will require a supernatural force of some sort?

I find it hard to believe that a human brain can rise above natural consequence.

The difficulty in shifting our thinking out of our normal deterministic causal pattern is the problem. You find it hard to believe because it is literally hard to believe. However it is just as hard to believe that when you choose between posting here and writing an essay, that it is not your choice, that you are posting here because you can not do otherwise.

Now which hard to believe option are you going to take?

(And no, no supernatural force is required in either case. Just a deterministic universe in one case and a non deterministic universe in the other.)

Zagat

30-03-2006, 05:02

The difficulty in shifting our thinking out of our normal deterministic causal pattern is the problem. You find it hard to believe because it is literally hard to believe. However it is just as hard to believe that when you choose between posting here and writing an essay, that it is not your choice, that you are posting here because you can not do otherwise.

Now which hard to believe option are you going to take?

(And no, no supernatural force is required in either case. Just a deterministic universe in one case and a non deterministic universe in the other.)
I dont see that choice has to be excluded unless one gives choice such a definition that it requires non-determination. So far as I can tell choice is simply the mental process that is the cause of action (or inaction). I dont see why the mental process that is the cause of action (or inaction) must necessarily not be determined by prior causes.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 05:08

However it is just as hard to believe that when you choose between posting here and writing an essay, that it is not your choice, that you are posting here because you can not do otherwise.

It seems logical to me that a natural deterministic algorithm lead me to posting on here. It isn't so much that I can't do otherwise, it is just that I only had one instance with which to make the decision, and all previous occurrences lead me to choose to post here.

I am not necessarily saying that we don't have free will, only that our free will is always a one shot occurrence and will be governed by past occurrences. Given that exact same instance over and over again, we will make the same choice over and over again.

We choose, but our choice is a consequent.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 05:08

I dont see that choice has to be excluded unless one gives choice such a definition that it requires non-determination. So far as I can tell choice is simply the mental process that is the cause of action (or inaction). I dont see why the mental process that is the cause of action (or inaction) must necessarily not be determined by prior causes.

I am using choice in the sense of free will. This means to me that I could do A or I could not do A and the cause of A or not A is my choice.
If the world is deterministic then the cause of A, or not A is not my choice, it is whatever caused my choice to be what it was. If the mental process that results in my choice is fully determined by prior events then by what standard was it ever a choice? It was not. The possibility of doing other than I did never existed. There has to be some underdetermined aspect to the choice for it to be a choice. So yes - I am giving choice a definition that requires non determinism.

How do you understand choice in a deterministic model? What does to choose mean if you can not have done other than you did?

AB Again

30-03-2006, 05:13

It seems logical to me that a natural deterministic algorithm lead me to posting on here. It isn't so much that I can't do otherwise, it is just that I only had one instance with which to make the decision, and all previous occurrences lead me to choose to post here.

I am not necessarily saying that we don't have free will, only that our free will is always a one shot occurrence and will be governed by past occurrences. Given that exact same instance over and over again, we will make the same choice over and over again.

We choose, but our choice is a consequent.

If you want to hold the first paragraph as true then you have to, logically, reject your second paragraph as false. Or you have to redefine choice as meaning compelled.

If our choice is a consequent of the state of affairs then it is not a choice, it is a necessary action. This has consequences of its own for the justification of the punishment of wrongdoers. Manson had to do as he did. It was a consequence of the state of affairs, so why is he being punished for something that he could not have not done?

Zagat

30-03-2006, 05:23

I am using choice in the sense of free will.
Which is somewhat circular given that we have no concensus on what free will is.

This means to me that I could do A or I could not do A and the cause of A or not A is my choice.
Which does not necessitate that there be no determination in regards to that choice.

If the world is deterministic then the cause of A, or not A is not my choice,
I dont see that 'not your choice' necessarily follows from 'the world is deterministic'.

it is whatever caused my choice to be what it was.
Well you are still describing it as a choice, and since the locus of the choice is you then it would be 'your's'. So in fact it would still be your choice.

If the mental process that results in my choice is fully determined by prior events then by what standard was it ever a choice?
By the standard of conforming to what I understand a choice to be, (an understanding that has not so far as I can tell been countered in this thread) aka the mental process that causes action (or inaction).

It was not.
Nothing you have stated demonstrates as much. Unless of course you define choice so that your argument is circular - which evidently by citing 'free will' a disputed (in this discussion concept) you more or less have done.

The possibility of doing other than I did never existed.
That may well be the case. But since choice (is so far as I can tell) the mental state that causes action (or inaction) I dont see that possibility is necessarily relevent except in that what is chosen be possible. In other words the only necessary possibility is the one that occurs.

There has to be some underdetermined aspect to the choice for it to be a choice. So yes - I am giving choice a definition that requires non determinism.
So in other words you are arguing circularly. You still have not defined choice, merely posited that it be characterised by traits that necessitate the conclusion you are arguing. Essentially you are arguing that 'if everything is as I say it is, then everything is as I say it is, therefore everything is as I say it is. A perfectly valid argument of course, it's just not necessarily sound.

How do you understand choice in a deterministic model? What does to choose mean if you can not have done other than you did?
It is a mental process that causes action (or inaction) as I have already stated. What is missing here is your statement as to the definition of choice. If you can provide one that is non-circular (in the context of this discussion) then perhaps it would be helpful for you to post it.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 05:30

If you want to hold the first paragraph as true then you have to, logically, reject your second paragraph as false. Or you have to redefine choice as meaning compelled.

The person has the conscious act of choosing. However, the conscious act is predetermined by past events.

If our choice is a consequent of the state of affairs then it is not a choice, it is a necessary action. This has consequences of its own for the justification of the punishment of wrongdoers. Manson had to do as he did. It was a consequence of the state of affairs, so why is he being punished for something that he could not have not done?

Manson was punished because it was his choice. Were I to have the power over those people as Manson did, I would not have made the same choice. Manson would behave no differently whether he was placed in the same instance, but were someone else placed in the same instance, they may have acted differently.

Regardless of whether Manson was predetermined to act the way he did, he was still incredibly horrible in his actions and should be punished.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 05:33

Near perfect understanding about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history and environment, has never to my knowledge been obtained...

And in fact your own (later) assertion

seems contrary to such perfect knowledge being available to us.

Re-reading it, I see that in the first statement my meaning was not as clear as I should have liked.

My statement was meant to be hyperbole predicated on our previous interlocutor's faith in the "hopes" of scientists and their supposed "success" in "proving" that human beings are fundamentally determined creatures.

In other words, with all of the impressive knowledge we have about the human creature (and it is, in fact, impressive), little of it seems to "prove" a pre-determined will.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 05:36

I dont see why the mental process that is the cause of action (or inaction) must necessarily not be determined by prior causes.
It's not that it must necessarily be free of determination, but that it actually seems to be. While this does not disprove determinism, it must necessarily put determinism on the defensive until it can actually "explain" how self-consciousness is the result of material processes, rather than merely promising to do so, or assuming that it can.

We are not talking about proof. We are talking about burden of proof.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 05:39

*snip*We choose, but our choice is a consequent.
This is just a re-wording of the same compatibilist argument we have already seen. It still entails that we are not free of deterministic causality, and it fails to preserve moral responsibility.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 05:42

Re-reading it, I see that in the first statement my meaning was not as clear as I should have liked.

My statement was meant to be hyperbole predicated on our previous interlocutor's faith in the "hopes" of scientists and their supposed "success" in "proving" that human beings are fundamentally determined creatures.

In other words, with all of the impressive knowledge we have about the human creature (and it is, in fact, impressive), little of it seems to "prove" a pre-determined will.
Aha, but as impressive as it may be it is still so far as I can tell far more incomplete than it is complete. I dont see how the paradigms in which the impressive knowledge you refer to is established hold without determinism.:confused:

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 05:43

This is just a re-wording of the same compatibilist argument we have already seen. It still entails that we are not free of deterministic causality, and it fails to preserve moral responsibility.

You will forgive me for not reading the last few pages, I hope.

I am not stating that we are free of deterministic causality, my entire point is that we aren't.

However, why must moral responsibility be preserved? Going back to another discussion, it would be nearly impossible to apply moral responsibility in the first place, so why is it necessary?

AB Again

30-03-2006, 05:45

Which is somewhat circular given that we have no concensus on what free will is.
Which is not circular, it is just undefined at that point. I go on to define it. (It sometimes helps to read the entire reply before posting a response. )

Which does not necessitate that there be no determination in regards to that choice.
The critical word, the one you are choosing to overlook is the possesive pronoun. In this case 'my'. What is my choice is something that derives from me, from my awareness. It is not the choice of the universe, it is not the choice of a 'god', it is my choice.

I dont see that 'not your choice' necessarily follows from 'the world is deterministic'.
So please define choice then. It is easy to criticise the other, but you have not yet said anything positive. What do you understand by choice?
What I understand by it requires that I could do A or I could do not A. If my actions are determined, as they would be in a deterministic world, then this is not a situation I am ever in. So I never have a choice.

Well you are still describing it as a choice, and since the locus of the choice is you then it would be 'your's'. So in fact it would still be your choice. Choice has two uses in English. One is to indicate that ther are options for you to select between, and the other is to indicate that of the logical possibile actions one was carried out. Choice here, in the phrase "whatever caused my choice to be what it was" is the latter of these.

By the standard of conforming to what I understand a choice to be, (an understanding that has not so far as I can tell been countered in this thread) aka the mental process that causes action (or inaction).
An understanding can not be challenged if it is not presented. I have repeatedly asked you to present it, and you have chosen not to. (Or were you compelled not to by the state of the universe?)

That may well be the case. But since choice (is so far as I can tell) the mental state that causes action (or inaction) I dont see that possibility is necessarily relevent except in that what is chosen be possible. In other words the only necessary possibility is the one that occurs.
Aha, finally we have some indication of what you mean by choice. It appears that you choice to be a state of affairs, not an option or a selection process. That would make it difficult for you to consider anything other than determinism. Me, I find that "I" have to decide between possible actions and not just accept whatever action is presented to me.

So in other words you are arguing circularly. You still have not defined choice, merely posited that it be characterised by traits that necessitate the conclusion you are arguing. Essentially you are arguing that 'if everything is as I say it is, then everything is as I say it is, therefore everything is as I say it is. A perfectly valid argument of course, it's just not necessarily sound.
If you want to think that defining choice as being inherent in the concept of free will, where free will is about having the possibility of doing A and not doing A is circular, then who am I to argue with that.

It is a mental process that causes action (or inaction) as I have already stated. What is missing here is your statement as to the definition of choice. If you can provide one that is non-circular (in the context of this discussion) then perhaps it would be helpful for you to post it.
I have done. You seem to think that choice is a motor impulse of some kind. I see it as being the selection between possible future states of affairs.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 05:50

The person has the conscious act of choosing. However, the conscious act is predetermined by past events.

Manson was punished because it was his choice. Were I to have the power over those people as Manson did, I would not have made the same choice. Manson would behave no differently whether he was placed in the same instance, but were someone else placed in the same instance, they may have acted differently.

Regardless of whether Manson was predetermined to act the way he did, he was still incredibly horrible in his actions and should be punished.

How, if the conscious act of Manson was predetermined by past events was it his choice. It was determined, not chosen. We punish people because we believe them to have acted wrongly. If they can not act other than the way in which they did, then the evaluation of right and wrong acts is unfounded and impossible to justify. You say he was horrible, he wasn't by your system, just the acts were horrible, he is blameless as he could not have done otherwise.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 05:53

It's not that it must necessarily be free of determination, but that it actually seems to be. While this does not disprove determinism, it must necessarily put determinism on the defensive until it can actually "explain" how self-consciousness is the result of material processes, rather than merely promising to do so, or assuming that it can.

We are not talking about proof. We are talking about burden of proof.
Er no. Determination seems to be an essential and pervasive (ie universal) aspect of reality, if as you state choice seems to be free of determination then the burden is equally shared since we have a case of 2 apparently contrary states both seeming to be so.

If the world is deterministic then the cause of A, or not A is not my choice, it is whatever caused my choice to be what it was.
I dont interpret AB's statement as you appear to have. To me it seems to clearly be an argument. That being the case it appears unsound since it posits a assumed premise that is so far as I can ascertain not true.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 05:54

Which is somewhat circular given that we have no concensus on what free will is.
Since when?

Everyone else in this thread has agreed that we know what we mean by free will. We simply disagree as to whether the concept "free will" describes an actual phenomenon or not. You are the first one to complain that you do not know what we are talking about.

I should think it would be obvious what we mean by "will." If you have a problem with this too, just say so. Of course, I have to admit I am still confused, since I cannot fathom how you do not know the meaning of the simple word "free." Clearly, in this context free means "not determined."

Thus, "free will" = "a will that is not determined."

I dont see that 'not your choice' necessarily follows from 'the world is deterministic'.If the world is genuinely deterministic, then my choice is determined by the physical circumstances that immediately precede it. But these circumstances are necessarily determined by the circumstances that immediately precede them. And so on.

Thus, my "choice" was determined long before I was even born. It is "mine" in a trivial sense, at best.

Well you are still describing it as a choice, and since the locus of the choice is you then it would be 'your's'.What do you mean by "locus of the choice"? I am merely the product of a variety of causal chains. Again, I am a "locus" in only a trivial sense... Indeed, if I am a deterministic scientist I should not buy into this anthropocentric bias that the causal chain becomes somehow "special" when it centers around a collection of cells operating as coordinated organs that include a central nervous system foolish enough to believe itself "free."

Right?

AB Again

30-03-2006, 05:55

I dont interpret AB's statement as you appear to have. To me it seems to clearly be an argument. That being the case it appears unsound since it posits a assumed premise that is so far as I can ascertain not true.

What assumed premise? That determinism implies our being bound and helpless puppets in a causal chain of events?

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 06:01

How, if the conscious act of Manson was predetermined by past events was it his choice. It was determined, not chosen. We punish people because we believe them to have acted wrongly. If they can not act other than the way in which they did, then the evaluation of right and wrong acts is unfounded and impossible to justify. You say he was horrible, he wasn't by your system, just the acts were horrible, he is blameless as he could not have done otherwise.

I have stated that were other people thrust into his place in the instance of his choosing (take for a second that a person takes on the action of choosing, yet their choice is pretermined) they, more often than not, would have made a different choice.

So yes, in the end Manson's choice was determined by things that were out of his control (by my view, nothing is under our control). However, if others would have made a different decision, then it is Manson's decision to be wrong.

Manson may have been the victim of circumstance, but that doesn't change the fact that his actions were reprehensible. And as a matter of practicality, we cannot let those reprehensible actions go unpunished.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 06:06

Aha, but as impressive as it may be it is still so far as I can tell far more incomplete than it is complete. I dont see how the paradigms in which the impressive knowledge you refer to is established hold without determinism.:confused:

They don't.

Your evident confusion arises from a misunderstanding of the positivist epistemological assumptions of modern science. Scientists care about making predictions about the observable world. Whatever assumptions and models turn out to produce reliable predictions about empirical data, they adopt as positive scientific "knowledge."

But, being positivists, they never claim to know what the world is like really. If two completely contradictory models both produce equally reliable results, the positivist scientist shrugs his shoulders and says, "one is as good as the other."

But you want to know which one is "really" true of the "real world"? Science can't answer that question. It doesn't pretend to anymore.

So the fact that the assumption of deterministic laws leads to useful scientific models tells us nothing about whether the world really obeys deterministic laws. (In fact, cosmologists are starting to question the usefulness of deterministic, symmetric laws... on the belief that they may act as "blinders" blocking our ability to recognize deeper processes.)

As I mentioned before, the same confusion results in political science with respect to rational choice theory (RCT). It produces such good results in the aggregate, some readers get confused and think that this "proves" that RCT describes how the human mind actually functions. They constantly need psychologists to remind them how to follow the epistemological chain of reasoning.

What is "useful" is not necessarily "really true."

Even so, deterministic science has so far done rather poorly at predicting human behavior. Therefore, some social scientists have begun to abandon the basic assumptions, in favor of things like "paradox theory" in family therapy.

But to return to the original point, the purpose of my post was to criticize the previous claim that science has (already) "proven" that the human mind behaves according to deterministic laws.

Finally, whatever usefulness determinism has, it is particularly not useful as a guide to action. If one accepts the determinist assumption, then there can be no answer to the question, "what should I do?" After all, whatever I'm going to do has already been determined.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 06:09

Going back to another discussion, it would be nearly impossible to apply moral responsibility in the first place, so why is it necessary?

Because without it we lose all possibility to answer the practical question "what should I do?" Not just in the ethical moral sense, but literally in the general sense of "what to do now?" If my will is not free to conform to the determinations of reason, since my actions are already determined, there is utterly no basis for practical discussions premised on the notion that reason can tell us anything about action.

According to determinists, behavior is subject to natural laws, not laws of reason.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 06:09

Which is not circular, it is just undefined at that point. I go on to define it. (It sometimes helps to read the entire reply before posting a response. )
Relying on an undefined concept to prove something is entirely circular. Of course I read the entire post before posting AB.

The critical word, the one you are choosing to overlook is the possesive pronoun. In this case 'my'. What is my choice is something that derives from me, from my awareness. It is not the choice of the universe, it is not the choice of a 'god', it is my choice.
I didnt ignore it at all. In fact I explicitly stated that the choice was your's due to you being the locus of the choice.

So please define choice then.
A third time? Very well. Choice is the mental process that causes a particular beings's action or inaction.

It is easy to criticise the other, but you have not yet said anything positive. What do you understand by choice?
I was critiquing not criticising. I had stated twice before you posted what I defined choice as. I have now done so a third time...I am reminded of advice I was recently offered by a poster, it might be appropriate for you to follow it.
(It sometimes helps to read the entire reply before posting a response. )

What I understand by it requires that I could do A or I could do not A. If my actions are determined, as they would be in a deterministic world, then this is not a situation I am ever in. So I never have a choice.
I dont see why choice necessarily requires that you could do otherwise in an absolute sense, only in a relative sense. We dont know for a fact that you ever could have done otherwise in any objective absolute sense. We know that if you choice to do one thing rather than another and carry through with that choice, that you chose, we dont know that reality would have allowed you to do otherwise. Indeed how ever could we know such a thing without access to say a time machine?

Choice has two uses in English. One is to indicate that ther are options for you to select between, and the other is to indicate that of the logical possibile actions one was carried out. Choice here, in the phrase "whatever caused my choice to be what it was" is the latter of these.
Right, which fits fine with my definition of choice but does not necessitate non-determinis.

An understanding can not be challenged if it is not presented. I have repeatedly asked you to present it, and you have chosen not to. (Or were you compelled not to by the state of the universe?)
What on earth are you on about AB?:confused: You have not asked me to state anything. As it happens in the very paragraph you are replying to I state what I understand choice to be.....:confused:

Aha, finally we have some indication of what you mean by choice.
There's no finally about it. :confused: Did you read my earlier posts?

It appears that you choice to be a state of affairs, not an option or a selection process.
Choice is a process, it involves selection, so it is a selection process.

That would make it difficult for you to consider anything other than determinism. Me, I find that "I" have to decide between possible actions and not just accept whatever action is presented to me.
And so? Determinism does not necessitate that you have to accept whatever action is presented to you.

If you want to think that defining choice as being inherent in the concept of free will, where free will is about having the possibility of doing A and not doing A is circular, then who am I to argue with that.
Of course it is circular when whether or not it is possible to in the exact circumstances A to choose other A is what is being disputed....

I have done. You seem to think that choice is a motor impulse of some kind. I see it as being the selection between possible future states of affairs.
I see it as both. What you have not done is link selection to non-determinisn. If choice is merely selection then nothing necessitates that selection is not a motor impluse of some kind, nor that it necessarily is free from determinism.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 06:14

Er no. Determination seems to be an essential and pervasive (ie universal) aspect of reality,Actually, by now AB and I have named more than a few exceptions to this "universal" rule. Some of them take the form of "random" events--which are not the same as "free" events, but which are also non-determinist. I have alluded to others referred to as "paradoxical" events, in which the cause is the same as the effect... and this may, in fact, be closer to a description of free will.

For most sciences, determinist assumptions are very useful. But they remain assumptions that cannot be proven, and which for the purposes of positivist science are not even required to be "true of the world."

if as you state choice seems to be free of determination then the burden is equally shared since we have a case of 2 apparently contrary states both seeming to be so.

Here at last is the point of our agreement. As you would see if you read back a few pages, I think that neither determinism nor its opposite can be proven or disproven... and in fact that both can be derived from the same basic observations about the world. This implies, as Kant realized, a fundamental contradiction in the very way in which human beings conceive the world. Personally, I think that Hegel mastered it in the first few chapters of the Logic.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 06:16

In other words, when you say "determinism" you mean "self determination". Isn't that kind of contradictory?

No, it's not. I am arguing that what could potentially exist is self-determination in the context of determinism - that is to say, free will exercised through processes that are deterministic.

Determinism does not necessitate a removal of control from ourselves, merely a rejection of randomness.

A plain contradiction. If the 'I' controls our actions then this mysterious 'I' hasa to be either part of the dewterministic causal chain or outside of theis chain. If it is part of the chain then we do not control our actions, they are the result of factors beyond ourselves. If it is not part of the chain then deterinism does not hold as you are specifiying an uncaused agency.

It is part of the chain, and our actions are indeed the ultimate result of factors beyond ourselves. The problem with your argument is that there is no contradiction between us controlling our actions and our actions being the ultimate result of factors beyond ourselves. We are the ultimate result of factors beyond ourselves, and it is only through us that our actions are the ultimate result of factors beyond ourselves. We do control our actions, but since we are, deterministically, the result of factors preceding us, and thus beyond us, our actions are also the result of factors beyond ourselves.

As I pointed out in my reply to AnarchyeL, if this denial of free will's self-causation and self-containment amounts to a denial of free will, then any system holding to logic amounts to a denial of free will, since any initial choice of preferences will be arbitrary and not truly free. That conception of free will is self-contradictory, and thus untenable regardless of determinism or indeterminism.

As AnarchyeL pointed out, determinism removes any possibility of genuine moral judgement. What we consider to be moral may be instrumental, may be causally efficient in creating the society that we are determined to create, but to blame someone for doing something when they could not have done oterwise is pointless.

Since the person is still controlling his actions, he most definitely has responsibility for them. As long as he has identity with the processes that lead to his actions, as he does, his sovereignty is maintained, as is his responsibility.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 06:21

Since when?

Everyone else in this thread has agreed that we know what we mean by free will. We simply disagree as to whether the concept "free will" describes an actual phenomenon or not. You are the first one to complain that you do not know what we are talking about.

I should think it would be obvious what we mean by "will." If you have a problem with this too, just say so. Of course, I have to admit I am still confused, since I cannot fathom how you do not know the meaning of the simple word "free." Clearly, in this context free means "not determined."
I already stated that I believe free will is a quantive as well as qualitive capacity. That is because free will is subject to determinism should it be that determinism is in fact the true state of reality.

Thus, "free will" = "a will that is not determined."
Sorry not buying.
I see free will (as I have already explained) as a capacity. Capacities are so far as I can tell determined.

If the world is genuinely deterministic, then my choice is determined by the physical circumstances that immediately precede it. But these circumstances are necessarily determined by the circumstances that immediately precede them. And so on.
Aha.

Thus, my "choice" was determined long before I was even born. It is "mine" in a trivial sense, at best.
It's yours in the same sense that anything that is yours is yours.

What do you mean by "locus of the choice"?
That the choice occurs at the point that is you. It doesnt occur down the road from you, in your friend's head or on the moon (unless of course you are on the moon).

I am merely the product of a variety of causal chains.
Aha.

Again, I am a "locus" in only a trivial sense...
Whether or not it is trivial isnt relevent.

Indeed, if I am a deterministic scientist I should not buy into this anthropocentric bias that the causal chain becomes somehow "special" when it centers around a collection of cells operating as coordinated organs that include a central nervous system foolish enough to believe itself "free."
If you are any kind of scientist why would you abandon the cause and effect chain without good reason and if you do how can you not question your own doing so since it might be that you do so without cause. In fact you loose even observation at this point since nothing determines that you observe what you observe. Unless things are determined your observations need not be determined by any actual happening. Your observations could simply 'happen' even without something that causes them. Cause and effect fall down unless cause determines effect.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 06:23

Because without it we lose all possibility to answer the practical question "what should I do?" Not just in the ethical moral sense, but literally in the general sense of "what to do now?" If my will is not free to conform to the determinations of reason, since my actions are already determined, there is utterly no basis for practical discussions premised on the notion that reason can tell us anything about action.

According to determinists, behavior is subject to natural laws, not laws of reason.

1) Why isn't reason a natural function?

2) Even determinism requires a "What should I do?" question. It just states that, given a certain unrepeatable instance, the "What should I do?" question will have one set answer. A person cannot rethink a decision and go back to the instance to change his choice once he has hindsight. He will make what he considers to be best decision according to his reason, desire, and knowledge at the time, and at that one instant in time, the combination of those three can only have one result.

EDIT: 3) I misunderstood what you meant by moral responsibility. I thought you meant external moral accountability, not moral obligation.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 06:35

1) Why isn't reason a natural function?

It may be. But if the rational is rational only because natural laws determine that this is what creatures like us will think is rational, then it does not set its own standard. It is "rational just because" or "defined to be rational." In this sense, there is no reason to call it "rational," because it is just the same as any other determined thought we can have.

The thing that makes reason reason is that it can be criticized. Determinations that could not be otherwise are not subject to criticism.

2) Even determinism requires a "What should I do?" question.

You may think "what should I do," but it has no critical import. It's not a should in the sense that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. Whatever answer there is, has already been decided.

Of course, someone who realizes this might be motivated not to bother thinking about much at all. Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen... so why bother thinking about it?

But maybe you will behave exactly as if you have free will, knowing that you don't... for whatever reason. In this case, you should recognize that when making a claim that changes nothing, one is probably not saying anything meaningful at all. That is, your concept of "determined" must be contradictory, if you continue to behave as if you are not determined.

On the other hand, perhaps one turns this on its head and says that "free will" is meaningless if people who have it still behave as if they are perfectly determined.

It works either way, and either way it proves the contradiction: neither one means anything unless one gives it a point of view. The scientist's point of view is determinist when he is studying human behavior... then suddenly it is free when he thinks about himself (for he can only perceive himself as free).

Again, this is Kant... and I tire of reciting it to people who don't care to take up the conversation on a deeper level. That, and my fingers hurt.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 06:44

What assumed premise? That determinism implies our being bound and helpless puppets in a causal chain of events?
The assumed premise that If the world is deterministic then the cause of A, or not A is not my choice,
It is entirely possible that the world is deterministic and the cause of A or not A is your (or someone else's) choice.

They don't.
So basically the knowledge that only holds true if determinism holds true somehow is evidence that determinism doesnt hold true? I'm not finding that particularly coherent.

Your evident confusion arises from a misunderstanding of the positivist epistemological assumptions of modern science. Scientists care about making predictions about the observable world. Whatever assumptions and models turn out to produce reliable predictions about empirical data, they adopt as positive scientific "knowledge."

But, being positivists, they never claim to know what the world is like really. If two completely contradictory models both produce equally reliable results, the positivist scientist shrugs his shoulders and says, "one is as good as the other."
I dont claim to know what reality is really like. I rather expect that human beings as we currently are simply dont have the capacity to cognate reality as it really is. I therefore adopt the pragmatic approach of going with what appears to work.

But you want to know which one is "really" true of the "real world"? Science can't answer that question. It doesn't pretend to anymore.
Of course I want to know. I didnt suggest that science can answer the question. Rather I questioned your interpretation of what answers science has got. You stated that with the knowledge we do have determinism is in doubt, but that being the case the knowledge is in doubt and so is doubtful when used as an argument to prove something, for instance the doubtfulness of determinism.

So the fact that the assumption of deterministic laws leads to useful scientific models tells us nothing about whether the world really obeys deterministic laws.
Which is exactly why I question your use of knowledge that stems from such deterministic laws. If the assumption of the laws tells us nothing about the truth of the laws, then I'm not certain that knowledge stemming from the assumption of the laws tells us much about the truth of the laws either.

(In fact, cosmologists are starting to question the usefulness of deterministic, symmetric laws... on the belief that they may act as "blinders" blocking our ability to recognize deeper processes.)
Aha, and yet as a pragmatist I wont be giving up on such laws until there is something equally as useful in their place. It isnt necessary to abandon a place in order to explore others. One can have a look around elsewhere without giving away their actual habitat.

As I mentioned before, the same confusion results in political science with respect to rational choice theory (RCT). It produces such good results in the aggregate, some readers get confused and think that this "proves" that RCT describes how the human mind actually functions. They constantly need psychologists to remind them how to follow the epistemological chain of reasoning.
I dont see the relevence...

What is "useful" is not necessarily "really true."
Aha, and so your point is....?

Even so, deterministic science has so far done rather poorly at predicting human behavior. Therefore, some social scientists have begun to abandon the basic assumptions, in favor of things like "paradox theory" in family therapy.
Given that determinism requires a much fuller knowledge of causal factors than it appears we have in regards to human behaviour, it's inability to predict is frankly predictable. It is not proof or even evidence of the possibility or non-possibility of predicting human behaviour.

But to return to the original point, the purpose of my post was to criticize the previous claim that science has (already) "proven" that the human mind behaves according to deterministic laws.
OK, so now we are back to science has neither proven nor disproven that the human mind behaves according to deterministic laws. That being the case, I dont disagree with that.

Finally, whatever usefulness determinism has, it is particularly not useful as a guide to action.
Hang on, you've already stated that the knowledge you described as impressive only if determinism holds (which isnt the same as saying it's only true if determinism holds, but rather that our only reason to believe it is true stems from holding determinism to be true). So it's at least useful in the sense of facitiliating the acquisition of a body of knowledge that you personally find impressive...

If one accepts the determinist assumption, then there can be no answer to the question, "what should I do?" After all, whatever I'm going to do has already been determined.

Er no. What you would do if you asked the question 'what should I do' is not necessarily what you would do if you didnt ask the question. In the first case the factors that contribute to the nebulous that is the determining cause is different to the second case.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 07:01

So basically the knowledge that only holds true if determinism holds true somehow is evidence that determinism doesnt hold true? I'm not finding that particularly coherent.
Well, your horrid misreading is not coherent at all. I did not say that the scientific knowledge built on the deterministic assumption is "evidence that determinism doesn't hold true." What I said is that the fact that positivist science relies on (many/largely) determinist assumptions is NOT evidence that determinism is true.

But to understand that, you have to understand the difference between positivism and realism. I tried to explain it, and clearly that didn't work. I leave it to you to look into for yourself, since you obviously have little interest in reading what other posters here have to say.

I dont claim to know what reality is really like.Then you can make no claim to knowing that free will does not really exist. Indeed, even if you could predict everything using determinist assumptions, you would not be justified in claiming that the world is "really" determinist, only that it appears to be so.

For the last time (really, this is getting tedious), my contention (which no one bothers to discuss) is that this is a matter of "perspective" (in a sense). When I observe the world external to myself, I observe a deterministic world. Indeed, I may even be able to look at my own previous behavior and identify the deterministic sets of motivations and preferences that resulted in that behavior.

But when I move from reflection to action, from observation to decision, I necessarily perceive myself, immediately, as the actor. And if I am going to act, I have no choice but to perceive myself in this way. If, instead, I wait around to "see" what I would "inevitably" do... I will just be waiting--and, in fact, I will realize (too late) that what I decided to do was wait. I cannot get around my own perception of myself as free.

These "perspectives" are contradictory, yet I claim that they are both equally true.

I rather expect that human beings as we currently are simply dont have the capacity to cognate reality as it really is. I therefore adopt the pragmatic approach of going with what appears to work.

Fine. Then you have to admit that determinism "works" for scientific purposes, while "free" will "works" for moral/decision-making purposes. And neither works for the other.

You stated that with the knowledge we do have determinism is in doubt, but that being the case the knowledge is in doubt and so is doubtful when used as an argument to prove something, for instance the doubtfulness of determinism.

Forget I said that. It was an attempt to attack the problem along a line that I thought another poster would find more understandable, rather than the answer provided by the German Idealist tradition, which is the one to which I really subscribe. My previous statements were contingent on a particular conversation with a particular person. I do not intend to support them as general principles.

Which is exactly why I question your use of knowledge that stems from such deterministic laws. If the assumption of the laws tells us nothing about the truth of the laws, then I'm not certain that knowledge stemming from the assumption of the laws tells us much about the truth of the laws either.

It doesn't. You're still confusing positivism and realism. They need to be kept separate.

So it's at least useful in the sense of facitiliating the acquisition of a body of knowledge that you personally find impressive.
Yes. It's just not at all useful when I need to decide a course of action.

What you would do if you asked the question 'what should I do' is not necessarily what you would do if you didnt ask the question. In the first case the factors that contribute to the nebulous that is the determining cause is different to the second case.

Right, but according to you whether or not I asked the question was also already determined.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 07:06

2) Even determinism requires a "What should I do?" question.

You may think "what should I do," but it has no critical import. It's not a should in the sense that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. Whatever answer there is, has already been decided.

Not exactly.

All of our thought processes are "us," and therefore the actions caused by our thought processes are our actions, chosen by us. We choose a course of action, and thus "choose" the future.

A rock does not make decisions. If a rock were sentient, it still would not be free; all its actions are caused by external forces that have nothing to do with that sentience. It would not perceive itself as free because its thoughts would have nothing to do with its actions.

With the human mind it is different. Our actions are still determined, but the deterministic processes pass through our sentient selves. All our thoughts, all our decision-making, all our choices, are relevant, because they lead to the ultimate action. Even if those mental processes are determined, they are still free, because if they had been resolved differently, if our preferences had been different, if we had been different, unlike in the case of the rock the resulting action would also have been different. The decision is internal, contained within us, and since it is internal we do not perceive it as "determined" - nor should we, since it is not determined externally at all. It is determined by our own freedom, which is rooted deterministically - but our perception isn't concerned with that, nor need it be.

All of our decision-making, including that initial question of "what should I do?", is part of the process, and thus it does indeed have importance.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 07:15

snip

OK, both 1 and 2 bring us to the same conclusion. Even if reason is natural, we cannot possibly understand all of the natural processes behind it, and we must act as if it were supernatural, of sorts. So it is useless to define the process behind reason as natural or supernatural.

Even if a behavior is predetermined, we cannot possibly make a definitive prediction of the behavior, so we act as if it were not predetermined. So it is useless to define behavior as predetermined.

As such I won't address point 1.

You may think "what should I do," but it has no critical import. It's not a should in the sense that there is a right answer and a wrong answer. Whatever answer there is, has already been decided.

It still has a critical import, because, as I said, any number of people, when thrust into the instance, may come up with any number of different conclusions. Because of this lack of interchangeability, we can say that the individual decision making process is of utmost importance. While a person may simply be a victim of circumstance, we can go a long way towards judging his character based on the result of the decision he made. And as a matter of practicality, we cannot let the wrong decisions go unpunished.

But maybe you will behave exactly as if you have free will, knowing that you don't... for whatever reason. In this case, you should recognize that when making a claim that changes nothing, one is probably not saying anything meaningful at all. That is, your concept of "determined" must be contradictory, if you continue to behave as if you are not determined.

On the other hand, perhaps one turns this on its head and says that "free will" is meaningless if people who have it still behave as if they are perfectly determined.

It works either way, and either way it proves the contradiction: neither one means anything unless one gives it a point of view. The scientist's point of view is determinist when he is studying human behavior... then suddenly it is free when he thinks about himself (for he can only perceive himself as free).

Again, this is Kant... and I tire of reciting it to people who don't care to take up the conversation on a deeper level. That, and my fingers hurt.

I keep finding myself in arguments that are practically useless.

I'm not sure how you expect conversations to continue when you show that both sides of the debate are meaningless. I have reread this post over and over, and cannot come up with a way to make predetermination or free will universal.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 07:16

The decision is internal, contained within us,We start out as a cell, created from the genetic material of two people, subject to the deterministic processes of the external world. That cell multiplies, according to physical deterministic processes, and subject to external deterministic processes.

At what point does this change?

If determinism is consistent, the answer is never. That cell is the rock. Like the rock, it could not have been different, and like the rock, it could not have reacted differently to the forces exerted upon it.

It grows into a determined child, a determined adolescent, a determined adult. It dies a determined death.

To draw some inside/outside boundary and claim that at any point this person is "free" to do other than be the rock all grown up is completely arbitrary.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 07:31

It still has a critical import, because, as I said, any number of people, when thrust into the instance, may come up with any number of different conclusions. Because of this lack of interchangeability, we can say that the individual decision making process is of utmost importance.You misunderstand what I mean by "critical." I mean critical as in "criticize," "critique"... "having the capacity to make better."

While a person may simply be a victim of circumstance, we can go a long way towards judging his character based on the result of the decision he made. And as a matter of practicality, we cannot let the wrong decisions go unpunished.

But it's not a matter of practicality. It's a matter of what we were going to do anyway. Right?

I'm not sure how you expect conversations to continue when you show that both sides of the debate are meaningless.

Well, there are two ways. Kant argued that one has to accept that human beings cannot have complete knowledge of the world. Science must always be kept separate from practical reason, since they rely on fundamentally incompatible assumptions. Hegel, on the other hand, has a more complex solution... one which, alas, I am loathe to get into here. The short version, which is not likely to make much sense, is that determinism and freedom are both inseparable moments, opposites, that pass into each other in the moment of will. When we think of "free will" we are actually thinking of something other than willing itself, since will is fleeting...we cannot really grasp it in thought at all. Because of this fleeting quality--because it does not sit still to be grabbed by formal logic--it transcends logic, redefining the secondary logics ("freedom" and "determinism") in its own terms.

It may make more sense in terms of an actual social science puzzle. Here's the problem with people: I may discover, after long empirical research, that if stimulus X is applied to people, it will generate response Y. Or I may find that population A always votes for Democrats. The problem is that if I actually tell them what I "know" about them, there is always the chance that they will use this self-knowledge to change themselves. (It's like the psychoanalytic situation writ large.) Thus, the very statement of truths about human behavior, since the object is also subject and capable of knowing itself, undoes or transcends the truth of the statement.

Here's a more concrete example. I used to bite my lip all the time. Really fucking hard, too. Anyway, one day I noticed that I bit my lip right after I had "held my tongue" (metaphorically) when my girlfriend said something with which I disagreed, but which I did not want to make the basis for a fight. I realized that the cause of my biting my lip (in proper psychoanalytic fashion) was these moments of restraint: I was punishing myself (whether for the restraint or for the mean thought, I'll never know).

Now I knew something about myself. But just as a psychoanalyst might expect, as soon as I knew why I did it, I no longer did it. My self-knowledge was falsified by the very act of knowing... which is a transcendence of the fact.

This is the scientific problem of objects that are also subjects. It is an illustration (though unfortunately not a very good explanation) of the logical/metaphysical movement that transcends the contradiction between "freedom" and "determinism."

Zagat

30-03-2006, 07:37

Well, your horrid misreading is not coherent at all. I did not say that the scientific knowledge built on the deterministic assumption is "evidence that determinism doesn't hold true."
You stated
Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.
Given the context (ie arguing against a person's ascertions in favour of determinism) I dont see how my interpreting your statement as I have done is a 'horrid misreading' at all. Nor that it is incoherent.

What I said is that the fact that positivist science relies on (many/largely) determinist assumptions is NOT evidence that determinism is true.
No actually what you stated was in effect that there was strong evidence in favour of free will derived from science.

But to understand that, you have to understand the difference between positivism and realism. I tried to explain it, and clearly that didn't work.
I dont have to understand the difference between positivism and realism in order to understand the statement we are discussing.

I leave it to you to look into for yourself, since you obviously have little interest in reading what other posters here have to say.
There is no need to resort to personal remarks. You either can either make a point on the strength of your arguments or you cannot. Personal remarks (most especially utterly untrue ones) does nothing to strengthen your argument in this context.

Then you can make no claim to knowing that free will does not really exist.
By joves it appears you are correct. This may possibly explain why I have never claimed that free will does not exist...do ya think?

Indeed, even if you could predict everything using determinist assumptions, you would not be justified in claiming that the world is "really" determinist, only that it appears to be so.
Right, I'm not sure why you feel the need to post as much though since my earlier posts make it clear that I dont believe we can 'know' reality as it objectively is.

For the last time (really, this is getting tedious), my contention (which no one bothers to discuss) is that this is a matter of "perspective" (in a sense). When I observe the world external to myself, I observe a deterministic world. Indeed, I may even be able to look at my own previous behavior and identify the deterministic sets of motivations and preferences that resulted in that behavior.

But when I move from reflection to action, from observation to decision, I necessarily perceive myself, immediately, as the actor. And if I am going to act, I have no choice but to perceive myself in this way. If, instead, I wait around to "see" what I would "inevitably" do... I will just be waiting--and, in fact, I will realize (too late) that what I decided to do was wait. I cannot get around my own perception of myself as free.
Really I have no idea why you think I dont understand this.

These "perspectives" are contradictory, yet I claim that they are both equally true.
I dont believe that they are contradictory or even necessarily contrary.

Fine. Then you have to admit that determinism "works" for scientific purposes, while "free" will "works" for moral/decision-making purposes. And neither works for the other.
No I dont have to do that at all. I see determinism as useful, I dont see it as excluding free will as I understand free will. Rather I see that free will is in all liklihood a result of deterministic forces.

Forget I said that. It was an attempt to attack the problem along a line that I thought another poster would find more understandable, rather than the answer provided by the German Idealist tradition, which is the one to which I really subscribe. My previous statements were contingent on a particular conversation with a particular person. I do not intend to support them as general principles.
Well it was that particular comment that I was responding to. Perhaps instead of making personal accusations about my willingness to read what other posters have said you should consider that I did read what was said and responded accordingly rather than responding according to your intentions which I am only able to ascertain to a very limited extent and only via what you actually post...

It doesn't. You're still confusing positivism and realism. They need to be kept separate.
I'm not confusing anything. You made a statement that you now claim was so stated in the hope of being more understandable to a particular poster. I questioned the statement as it was made. I'm not confusing anything, rather you confused matters by making a statement that you would not defend as a general principal. If you wish (which apparently you do) to abandon that statement (since it was made for a particular purpose) that's fine.
But you can hardly expect my comments made prior to your retraction to reflect that retraction can you?

Yes. It's just not at all useful when I need to decide a course of action.
Perhaps, I wouldnt know. I find it very useful when I need to decide a course of action.

Right, but according to you whether or not I asked the question was also already determined.
Aha.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 07:50

We start out as a cell, created from the genetic material of two people, subject to the deterministic processes of the external world. That cell multiplies, according to physical deterministic processes, and subject to external deterministic processes.

At what point does this change?

At the point of consciousness, which is the first point where we can talk about an "I", and thus about internal processes and free will.

That cell is the rock. Like the rock, it could not have been different, and like the rock, it could not have reacted differently to the forces exerted upon it.

It grows into a determined child, a determined adolescent, a determined adult. It dies a determined death.

To draw some inside/outside boundary and claim that at any point this person is "free" to do other than be the rock all grown up is completely arbitrary.

No, it's not arbitrary at all. The question of free will is whether a given being is sovereign over its own actions. The rock is never sovereign over its own actions - its thought processes, if they exist, are totally irrelevant to its actions. We, on the other hand, are always sovereign over our own actions - our throught processes, an aspect of ourselves, lead to our actions. We choose, because what we are, what we think, matters. If we thought differently our actions would also be different.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 07:57

You stated
Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.
Given the context (ie arguing against a person's ascertions in favour of determinism) I dont see how my interpreting your statement as I have done is a 'horrid misreading' at all. Nor that it is incoherent.

No actually what you stated was in effect that there was strong evidence in favour of free will derived from science.
I already asked you, nicely, to ignore the above-cited paragraph as a tangential attempt to coax reason out of a particular poster. I have since posted my own considered opinion several times, but you have declined to respond to it.

When I stated that the fact that determinist science produces reliable predictions that does NOT imply the "real truth" of determinism, I did mean it. That is the definition of positivist science.

I dont have to understand the difference between positivism and realism in order to understand the statement we are discussing.
Yes, you do. In your ignorance you may not realize that, but it is obvious to the rest of us.

Positivist: I will posit assumptions, and if they produce reliable predictions I will keep using them. I do not claim that my assumptions reflect any "really real" reality, however. Ah! In particular, I choose this assumption of "determinism." Gee, it produces really good predictions. I like it... but I better be carefule! Some people might get confused and think that it "must" be "true" because it works so well!! Silly kids.

There is no need to resort to personal remarks.Actually, there is. If I do not periodically vent my frustration with your refusal to understand common English, I may not have the wherewithal to keep repeating myself in the ever-fading hope that it will sink in.

By joves it appears you are correct. This may possibly explain why I have never claimed that free will does not exist...do ya think?
Then why do you persist in criticizing my recital of the positivist doctrine that scientific success is no evidence of metaphysical truth? If you agree with it, why do you keep saying that I am wrong?

Right, I'm not sure why you feel the need to post as much though since my earlier posts make it clear that I dont believe we can 'know' reality as it objectively is. Then, once again, what are we arguing about?

Really I have no idea why you think I dont understand this.I have made a reasonable inference from the fact that I keep saying it, and you keep telling me that I am wrong.

I dont believe that they are contradictory or even necessarily contrary.In a logical sense, either the will is determined, or it is not determined. When I claim that it is both at the same time, assuming that I am not equivocating on the term "determined," I am contradicting myself as far as ordinary formal logic is concerned.

I see determinism as useful, I dont see it as excluded free will as I understand free will. Rather I see that free will is likely to be a result of deterministic forces.

Yes, but the issue is that "free will as the result of deterministic forces" is not the "free will" that is the fundamental assumption of practical (moral) reason. If you believe in some other free will, then you are welcome to be as consistent as you want... you just can't also be moral.

Perhaps instead of making personal accusations about my willingness to read what other posters have said you should consider that I did read what was said and responded accordingly rather than responding according to your intentions which I am only able to ascertain to a very limited extent and only via what you actually post...
I think it's pretty clear that when I say "ignore this, I don't care to defend it in this discussion," to "respond accordingly" would be to ignore it... since something I am not interested in defending is irrelevant to our conversation, and can only serve as a rather lame red herring.

Yet, you began your latest post with precisely the argument I suggested you ignore. Have you made up your own definitions for the terms "read," "responded," and "accordingly," as you have made up your own definition for "free will"?

I'm not confusing anything. You made a statement that you now claim was so stated in the hope of being more understandable to a particular poster. I questioned the statement as it was made.Yet when I asked you to ignore it, you persisted. Why?
I'm not confusing anything, rather you confused matters by making a statement that you would not defend as a general principal.People say things all the time, very usefully, that they would not claim as true in an absolute sense.

If a three-year-old asks me what shape the Earth is, I am likely to respond "a ball" or "a sphere" rather than "an oblique spheroid." The former answers are not true, or at least not as true, as the final answer... Yet since my audience is more likely to understand the first two, I will use them, because when I am done talking my audience will be better off than when I started. Had I used the correct term, my little child might have walked away more confused than when he asked his question.

If you wish (which apparently you do) to abandon that statement (since it was made for a particular purpose) that's fine. But you can hardly expect my comments made prior to your retraction to reflect that retraction can you?
No. But how about the ones made after that retraction, as those above?

I find it very useful when I need to decide a course of action.
Would you care to explain that? How does thinking, "Everything I am going to do is already determined" help you to make decisions?

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 08:02

At the point of consciousness, which is the first point where we can talk about an "I", and thus about internal processes and free will.

But if those processes are all predetermined by the external processes that preceded them, what difference does it make that they are now "internal"?

If I build a robot and program it with functions that determine its every behavior forever, the processes that execute the program are all internal to the robot in the same sense that my thought processes are internal to me. Does that make it "free"?

The rock is never sovereign over its own actions - its thought processes, if they exist, are totally irrelevant to its actions. We, on the other hand, are always sovereign over our own actions - our throught processes, an aspect of ourselves, lead to our actions.The robot's programming leads to its actions.

We choose, because what we are, what we think, matters.
The robot "chooses" because what it is, what it thinks, matters?
If we thought differently our actions would also be different.If the robot were programmed differently, its actions would be different.

Free or not?

Soheran

30-03-2006, 08:06

But if those processes are all predetermined by the external processes that preceded them, what difference does it make that they are now "internal"?

If I build a robot and program it with functions that determine its every behavior forever, the processes that execute the program are all internal to the robot in the same sense that my thought processes are internal to me. Does that make it "free"?

If the robot is conscious, and its consciousness is contained within those processes, then yes, the robot is free.

If the robot is conscious, and the consciousness is seperate and irrelevant to those processes, then no, the robot is not free, and the robot would also not experience the "contradiction" you refer to.

If the robot is not conscious, then the robot has no identity, and thus the question of free will in its case is meaningless.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 08:07

You misunderstand what I mean by "critical." I mean critical as in "criticize," "critique"... "having the capacity to make better."

A person can be criticized for his actions by assuming that someone else, when put in the same instance, would have behaved in a better way. While we may just be judging the culmination of prior occurrences, we can still judge the merits of the decision.

Well, there are two ways. Kant argued that one has to accept that human beings cannot have complete knowledge of the world. Science must always be kept separate from practical reason, since they rely on fundamentally incompatible assumptions.

That seems like a cop out. If that answers the problem, then there wasn't really a problem in the first place. We can just go on with the contradiction as if the contradiction wasn't even there.

I could have just said that we know that there is predetermination but assume for ourselves that we have free will, but I didn't figure that would be satisfactory in solving the contradiction.

Hegel, on the other hand, has a more complex solution... one which, alas, I am loathe to get into here. The short version, which is not likely to make much sense, is that determinism and freedom are both inseparable moments, opposites, that pass into each other in the moment of will. When we think of "free will" we are actually thinking of something other than willing itself, since will is fleeting...we cannot really grasp it in thought at all. Because of this fleeting quality--because it does not sit still to be grabbed by formal logic--it transcends logic, redefining the secondary logics ("freedom" and "determinism") in its own terms.

It may make more sense in terms of an actual social science puzzle. Here's the problem with people: I may discover, after long empirical research, that if stimulus X is applied to people, it will generate response Y. Or I may find that population A always votes for Democrats. The problem is that if I actually tell them what I "know" about them, there is always the chance that they will use this self-knowledge to change themselves. (It's like the psychoanalytic situation writ large.) Thus, the very statement of truths about human behavior, since the object is also subject and capable of knowing itself, undoes or transcends the truth of the statement.

So in the "instance" of the decision that I have referred to, there is a moment of self awareness that occurs that allows a person to act free of causal determination. The person recognizes the cause and can adapt his behavior to the realization.

I think I am misinterpreting because that doesn't sound convincing in the slightest.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 08:15

*snip*

Define "conscious".

Soheran

30-03-2006, 08:20

Define "conscious".

Self-aware. Capable of thought. Sentient. In this particular case, I am using it to include self-recognition as an entity also.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 08:33

A person can be criticized for his actions by assuming that someone else, when put in the same instance, would have behaved in a better way.

A person is passed out on the ground, not breathing and with no heartbeat.

Person A does nothing. Person B would have given CPR, which is a better thing to do. Therefore, Person A should be criticized.

Oh wait, Person A didn't know CPR.

You cannot be criticized for what you could not have done. If your actions are determined, by definition you could not have done anything other than what you did. Therefore you cannot be criticized for what you did.

While we may just be judging the culmination of prior occurrences, we can still judge the merits of the decision.No, all we can do is say, "that turned out good" or "that turned out badly." At best, we can say, "Person B did good," and "Person A did badly." What we cannot say is "Person B did right," and "Person A did wrong." We are stuck with "Persons A and B did the only things Person A and B could have done."

That seems like a cop out. If that answers the problem, then there wasn't really a problem in the first place. We can just go on with the contradiction as if the contradiction wasn't even there.More or less, that was Kant's solution... and it isn't that bad a solution. That is, after all, what we usually do anyway. Clearly we are capable of living with the contradiction. Kant just said, "It's a good thing we can live with it, because it's insoluble." (He thought he had demonstrated the fact that it is insoluble... It was on this point, and others, that Hegel criticized him.)

I could have just said that we know that there is predetermination but assume for ourselves that we have free will, but I didn't figure that would be satisfactory in solving the contradiction.
No, that is not accepting the contradiction, that is denying it. The contradiction is that we live in a world that is determined, but we also have (really, not "assume for ourselves") free will.

So in the "instance" of the decision that I have referred to, there is a moment of self awareness that occurs that allows a person to act free of causal determination.No, that also denies the contradiction. The problem is that everything I will is both completely determinate and completely free... but not "free" in the compatibilist that you people have been arguing: free in the non-compatibilist, non-determined metaphysical sense.

The person recognizes the cause and can adapt his behavior to the realization.Well, as soon as the person decides whether to continue the behavior, the cause is no longer the cause, even if the behavior continues. Now the new cause is the will.

I think I am misinterpreting because that doesn't sound convincing in the slightest.
It shouldn't, it should sound completely contraditory. There is no way you will understand it without following the full flow of the dialectical logic. Unfortunately, I am not up to the task of presenting it to you.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 08:36

Self-aware. Capable of thought. Sentient. In this particular case, I am using it to include self-recognition as an entity also.

Okay.

Now, explain to me how being completely determined yet self-aware (presumably in a determined way) makes me any more free than being completely determined but not self-aware.

All I see is:

DETERMINED

DETERMINED + CONSCIOUS

I don't see what difference being conscious makes to my being determined.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 08:51

Okay.

Now, explain to me how being completely determined yet self-aware (presumably in a determined way) makes me any more free than being completely determined but not self-aware.

All I see is:

DETERMINED

DETERMINED + CONSCIOUS

I don't see what difference being conscious makes to my being determined.

That's not the formulation I suggested, actually.

I wrote:

If the robot is conscious, and its consciousness is contained within those processes, then yes, the robot is free.

If the robot is conscious, and the consciousness is seperate and irrelevant to those processes, then no, the robot is not free, and the robot would also not experience the "contradiction" you refer to.

If the robot is not conscious, then the robot has no identity, and thus the question of free will in its case is meaningless.

Thus, if the robot is merely conscious, with his consciousness irrelevant to his decisions, the robot is not free at all.

The robot has to be conscious, and the decision-making processes leading to the ultimate action have to be part of that consciousness.

Consciousness provides the identity; its involvement in decision-making is the sovereignty of the identity, that is, freedom.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 09:00

Thus, if the robot is merely conscious, with his consciousness irrelevant to his decisions, the robot is not free at all.

The robot has to be conscious, and the decision-making processes leading to the ultimate action have to be part of that consciousness.

Consciousness provides the identity; its involvement in decision-making is the sovereignty of the identity, that is, freedom.

Sorry, still not seeing it.

If you have a consciousness whose every decision is predetermined, it is not free. The program still comes across his desk, and he may have something to do with it, but he does not decide what he will do with it: that was already decided. Of course, he'll feel like he did the deciding, but only because he's programmed to feel like he did the deciding.

That's not sovereignty. It is conscious slavery to inevitability.

I think the ancients sometimes understood freedom better than we so-called liberals. We would usually say that a person who satisfies his every whim is "free,"... even if he cannot help himself but to do so (he has no restraint). Plato would have called him a slave to his desires.

But being a slave to one's desires is still more free than being a slave to the laws of physics.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 09:28

Sorry, still not seeing it.

If you have a consciousness whose every decision is predetermined, it is not free. The program still comes across his desk, and he may have something to do with it, but he does not decide what he will do with it: that was already decided.

He most definitely does decide. His preferences, his values, his thoughts, all lead to the decision made.

Of course, he'll feel like he did the deciding, but only because he's programmed to feel like he did the deciding.

Maybe, but that point is irrelevant to determinism or indeterminism. It rests on the assumption that instead of consciousness being synonymous with, or an elevated state of, the brain processes that lead to actions, it is merely a result of those brain processes, an irrelevancy deluded into thinking it is relevant. That is indeed incompatible with free will, but it is also not what I am talking about.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 09:33

I already asked you, nicely, to ignore the above-cited paragraph as a tangential attempt to coax reason out of a particular poster. I have since posted my own considered opinion several times, but you have declined to respond to it.
I dont know what you are referrring to when you state I have declined to respond, you will need to be more specific if you wish me to respond to some particular thing.
I am aware that you asked me to ignore the statement but you also commented on my responses to the statement. It seems to me that asking me to ignore the statement is one thing. Expecting me not to justify my responses to the statement in accordance with the statement (when you criticise my responses to the statement) is entirely another. You said it. My comments about your statement do not suddenly become wrong just because you ask me to ignore the statement. It simply is disengenious to tell me I am wrong because you asked me to ignore your earlier statement and those comments of mine that you are claiming are wrong only make sense in light of that statement.

When I stated that the fact that determinist science produces reliable predictions that does NOT imply the "real truth" of determinism, I did mean it. That is the definition of positivist science.
So? I have never stated that determinist science produces reliable predictions that do imply the 'real truth' of determinisn. You stated that it provides evidence about a certain thing. I replied to that statement. You then said ignore that statement while proceeding to pick apart comments of mine that only referred to that statement.

So basically you want to pretend that the context of my comments (your own statement) doesnt exist in order to pick apart my comments which only make sense in the context of your own....I call that disingenious.

Yes, you do. In your ignorance you may not realize that, but it is obvious to the rest of us.
I do not need to understand what these two concepts mean in order to correctly interpret the statement
Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.
If you toned down the personal insults you might save enough energy to devote to strengthening your arguments.
You made a statement that you now want me to ignore. Fine but dont use your decision to posit then recant a statement as an excuse to call me ignorant, to state that I am not interested in reading other people's posts or to otherwise aim sly, niggling flames my way. It isnt my fault you posted an ill-advised argument that you now wish to disown. Now you either wish to ignore that you made the statement (which precludes all this arguing about what you meant about it and certainly precludes calling me ignorant based on my interpretation of it, since doing so requires that one considers what you insist we ought to ignore) or not. Please let me know when you have made up your mind.

Positivist: I will posit assumptions, and if they produce reliable predictions I will keep using them. I do not claim that my assumptions reflect any "really real" reality, however. Ah! In particular, I choose this assumption of "determinism." Gee, it produces really good predictions. I like it... but I better be carefule! Some people might get confused and think that it "must" be "true" because it works so well!! Silly kids.
None of which proves or even implies that it is essential to understand what is meant by realism and positivism in order to interpret the statement that is the referent of the particular comments of mine that you were addressing when you stated that there was some need to understand the two concepts 'realism' and 'positivism'.

Actually, there is.
No there is not. Your argument either stand on their own or do not regardless of my personal qualities. So not only is there no need to do so (in order to argue your point) but in fact doing so serves no purpose with regards to arguing your point.

If I do not periodically vent my frustration with your refusal to understand common English, I may not have the wherewithal to keep repeating myself in the ever-fading hope that it will sink in.
There is no refusal on my part to understand common English. Resorting to petty personal insults in order to prove that there is a need for petty personal insults reeks of desperation. Perhaps your frustration stems from some other source - possibly you are frustrated because you dont like the way the discussion is going. Whatever the cause your temper tantrum does nothing to improve the strength of your argument, I suggest that it may even detract from it since many people perceive personal insults to be the last recourse of people frustrated at not being able to make a constructive argument.

Then why do you persist in criticizing my recital of the positivist doctrine that scientific success is no evidence of metaphysical truth? [quote]
I dont.

[quote]If you agree with it, why do you keep saying that I am wrong?
You need to be more specific. I honestly think the problem here stems from your inability to move past the recanting of your earlier statement. If you take out the comments of both of ours that relate to the recanted statement (instead of wanting to pretend the statement doesnt exist whilst picking apart the responses of mine that only make sense in the context of replying to that specific statement), that might simplify and clarify matters for you.

Then, once again, what are we arguing about?
I'm not going to recap every post we've made in the thread. Go back, read through and follow along as you go. Pay attention to which comments respond to which and you should be able to pick things up.

I have made a reasonable inference from the fact that I keep saying it, and you keep telling me that I am wrong.
Do I? Can you be more specific?

In a logical sense, either the will is determined, or it is not determined. When I claim that it is both at the same time, assuming that I am not equivocating on the term "determined," I am contradicting myself as far as ordinary formal logic is concerned.
I didnt realise you were claiming it was both, just that it appeared to be one from one perspective and to be another from another perspective. Given that perspective is a critical factor in the determination (if one believes in such a thing as determination ;) ) of appearance, I dont see that contrary appearances from variant perspectives is contrary or contradictory, but rather something we would expect to occur at least some of the time.

Yes, but the issue is that "free will as the result of deterministic forces" is not the "free will" that is the fundamental assumption of practical (moral) reason. If you believe in some other free will, then you are welcome to be as consistent as you want... you just can't also be moral.
That's not how I see it.

I think it's pretty clear that when I say "ignore this, I don't care to defend it in this discussion," to "respond accordingly" would be to ignore it... since something I am not interested in defending is irrelevant to our conversation, and can only serve as a rather lame red herring.
Except that you keep referring back to comments of mine whose only context and referrent is the comment you want me to ignore. You put the statement out there, I respond in a way that only makes sense given the statement you make, you then say 'ignore the statement I made' and proceed to point out why my comments dont make sense if one ignores the statement that is their context and referrent.
You can either have the statement you made ignored in which case stop calling it back up by commenting on comments that are contingent on the statement, or we can discuss comments that are contingent on the statement in which case the statement cannot be ignored. Please do let me know when you get around to making your mind up about that one.

Yet, you began your latest post with precisely the argument I suggested you ignore.
That would be because I was responding directly to the comments you made and the ultimate originating referent of those comments is the statement you want me to ignore. You either need to not comment on comments that are contingent on the existence of the statement or stop demmanding that I ignore the statement.

Have you made up your own definitions for the terms "read," "responded," and "accordingly," as you have made up your own definition for "free will"?
Have you made up a novel form of debating in which you make a statement, wait for comments about the statement that only make sense in the context of the statement then insist both of having the statement ignored and criticising the comments that only make sense in the context of the statement you expect to have ignored...?:confused:

Yet when I asked you to ignore it, you persisted. Why?
Because you keep bringing up comments of mine that were made only in the context of your statement. You can either comment on those comments and accept the inclusion of the context of them (your statement that you want to ignore) or you can ignore the comments along with their context. Anything else is illogical.

People say things all the time, very usefully, that they would not claim as true in an absolute sense.
Yes but most people dont then pick apart comments about the statement as though the statement didnt exist and then insist that the person who's comments they are picking apart also ignore the context generating statement.

If a three-year-old asks me what shape the Earth is, I am likely to respond "a ball" or "a sphere" rather than "an oblique spheroid." The former answers are not true, or at least not as true, as the final answer... Yet since my audience is more likely to understand the first two, I will use them, because when I am done talking my audience will be better off than when I started. Had I used the correct term, my little child might have walked away more confused than when he asked his question.
.......:rolleyes: ......

No. But how about the ones made after that retraction, as those above?
Please be more specific.

Would you care to explain that? How does thinking, "Everything I am going to do is already determined" help you to make decisions?
I dont need to think that everything I am going to do is determined in order to make use of determinisn, (in fact thinking as much doesnt really make any difference either way). I use the determinism of myself, others and the 'world at large' as a knowledge device. It helps me to consider things that are important to me when making choices, such as likely and/or possible consequences/outcomes.

Palaios

30-03-2006, 11:47

This is a key issue in any sort of discussion or debate: how do you know what you claim you know? How do you arrive at your conclusions? What system of knowing do you use?

*ahhh!!! TOK flashback*

First of all, what do you define as being knowledge?
Is it a justified true belief as Plato defined it?
If it is (in your opinion), is what you call knowledge, justified and true? how do you know that? One can not just look at one factor in classifiying something as knowledge, there are several factors that have to be taken into consideration.

1. Where did it come from, from one's own experience, the internet (if so, then where from?). A book, in this case, is it up to date? A newspaper, was it a tabloid or an actual newspaper. In other words, reliability.

2. Rational thinking, has it been thought through, does it seem logical or exceptable?

3. Induction

4. or is it just a belief/passionate conviction

5. language itself (not just spoken, but also body language), perception

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 13:25

No, I can't. You had better enlighten me.Well, to go back to the analogy that you so thoughtfully provided, we'll use the earth rotating around the sun idea. "It feels as though we are stationary, so we must be." Do you see the problem with such a statement? I would liken this to "it feels as though we have free will, so we must."

Psychologists rely on "I feel" all the time. Hell, they want to show that human emotions are determinate, but they can't measure the emotions? The only way they know how someone feels is to get them to say "I feel ____." No one would ever be able to claim that "chemical X causes sadness" if they could not rely on the reports of subjects who say "I feel sad" whenever they have high levels of chemical X in their brains.True, and while this doesn't make psychology an irrelevant science, it does mean that psychology would be much more impressive if those feelings could be demonstrated by some method other than "I feel."

Don't know him. Could you provide a link to some of his work?
The only John Hospers I know is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He wrote a really bad paper once claiming that psychoanalysis is compatible with determinism, but he is not a psychoanalyst. Perhaps I have him confused with someone else?I don't know as we haven't gotten to Hospers yet, but it seems to be that in order to be able to say that psychoanalysis is compatible with determinism that he must be at least somewhat familiar with psychoanalysis. Or is that the reason that the paper was bad, that we wasn't familar with psychoanalysis?

Sir Roger Brain is the non academic name that has been given to Penrose. He is not a nuclear scientist as both you and I know, but it appears Jello Biafra does not.It seems as though AnarchyEl also did not know this. Looking Penrose up on wikipedia shows that he is a scientist, even if he isn't a nuclear scientist, and scientists are what AnarchyEl was looking for.

However, why must moral responsibility be preserved?I'm glad you asked this, otherwise I would have.

Then you can make no claim to knowing that free will does not really exist. Indeed, even if you could predict everything using determinist assumptions, you would not be justified in claiming that the world is "really" determinist, only that it appears to be so.

For the last time (really, this is getting tedious), my contention (which no one bothers to discuss) is that this is a matter of "perspective" (in a sense). When I observe the world external to myself, I observe a deterministic world. Indeed, I may even be able to look at my own previous behavior and identify the deterministic sets of motivations and preferences that resulted in that behavior.

But when I move from reflection to action, from observation to decision, I necessarily perceive myself, immediately, as the actor. And if I am going to act, I have no choice but to perceive myself in this way. If, instead, I wait around to "see" what I would "inevitably" do... I will just be waiting--and, in fact, I will realize (too late) that what I decided to do was wait. I cannot get around my own perception of myself as free.I came to this conclusion between yesterday and today myself. Even if we do not have free will, we must act as though we do.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 13:53

Well, to go back to the analogy that you so thoughtfully provided, we'll use the earth rotating around the sun idea. "It feels as though we are stationary, so we must be." Do you see the problem with such a statement? I would liken this to "it feels as though we have free will, so we must."
No one here is making that argument. What is being said is that the default position is the one which fits with what we feel, and if one wants to overturn the default position one needs to have fairly strong evidende. Thus it is for the determinists to find the evidence that the phenomenon of freedom of choice that we all seem to have is illusiory. i.e. determinism needs to be demonstrated. (This evidence does not have to meet the demands of proof, but it has to be sufficient to cause doubt in our perceptions.)

True, and while this doesn't make psychology an irrelevant science, it does mean that psychology would be much more impressive if those feelings could be demonstrated by some method other than "I feel." It would though cease to be psychology and become biochemistry or physics, but that is another issue.

It seems as though AnarchyEl also did not know this. Looking Penrose up on wikipedia shows that he is a scientist, even if he isn't a nuclear scientist, and scientists are what AnarchyEl was looking for.
Roger Penrose is a mathematician, as such he is an academic, but he is not an empirical scientist. Additionally he denies determinism, which sort of eliminates him from your list.

I'm glad you asked this, otherwise I would have.
Why is morality important? It is the basis of nearly all human activity in the sense of motivation and explanation of our actions. Our society, our political structures, our religions (if they matter), our family relationships, our interactions with other people are all informed and guided by our morality. If that is not important then I do not know that anything is important.

I came to this conclusion between yesterday and today myself. Even if we do not have free will, we must act as though we do.
It is not even that we must act as though we have free will, we are not human without free will, or at least a belief that I am the author of my actons.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 14:05

No one here is making that argument. What is being said is that the default position is the one which fits with what we feel, and if one wants to overturn the default position one needs to have fairly strong evidende. Thus it is for the determinists to find the evidence that the phenomenon of freedom of choice that we all seem to have is illusiory. i.e. determinism needs to be demonstrated. (This evidence does not have to meet the demands of proof, but it has to be sufficient to cause doubt in our perceptions.)I would say that the scientific evidence of determinism outweighs the evidence of simple perception, because the scientific evidence so far can be demonstrated. I would also say that we all agree that at least some things are determined by forces out of our control, and that the default position should be that everything is determined by forces out of our control, not that some things aren't determined because we feel as though they aren't.

It would though cease to be psychology and become biochemistry or physics, but that is another issue.True.

Roger Penrose is a mathematician, as such he is an academic, but he is not an empirical scientist. Additionally he denies determinism, which sort of eliminates him from your list. Well, if Sir Roger Brain and Roger Penrose are the same person, then I don't understand why my professor would have stated that Brain was a determinist if he is not.

Why is morality important? It is the basis of nearly all human activity in the sense of motivation and explanation of our actions. Our society, our political structures, our religions (if they matter), our family relationships, our interactions with other people are all informed and guided by our morality. If that is not important then I do not know that anything is important.I don't dispute this, I think the question (or at least the question as I would have asked it) would be asked because the one of arguments against determinism goes something along the lines of "if things are determined then how is moral responsibility preserved?" I would agree that moral responsibility should be preserved, but whether or not it is is not an argument against determinism if moral responsibility needn't be preserved.

It is not even that we must act as though we have free will, we are not human without free will, or at least a belief that I am the author of my actons.An interesting idea that I can't disagree with.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 14:48

I would say that the scientific evidence of determinism outweighs the evidence of simple perception, because the scientific evidence so far can be demonstrated. I would also say that we all agree that at least some things are determined by forces out of our control, and that the default position should be that everything is determined by forces out of our control, not that some things aren't determined because we feel as though they aren't.
We have no evidence of determinism at all. We have no evidence that our universe is even causal in nature. We all interpret the phenomena that we experience as being causal, that much is agreed. We also see causal behaviour as being deterministic in our everyday lives. But where is the evidence, the science. Positivism rests on human psychology, not on any evidence in the world. Science depends upon observation of phenomena - I hope you agree. We observe, we extrapolate, we generate an explanatory and predictive theory, we test the theory. That is basically the scientific method. Now let us apply this to the idea of causality.
We observe - we see one event (A) followed by another (B), every time that we observe event A it is followed by event B. We also observe event C and note that this is followed by event D. Now we deduce from this that there is something about event A that leads to event B happening. Do we examine event A to discover what this is? Well we should if we are going to be scientific about causation, but we don't. What we would be looking for is some connection, some necessary link, between A and B. What connection do we find if we look for this? Contiguity - A comes before B; constancy - whenever there has been an A there has also been a B. Where in this is causation, what is causation? What is there in common in the connection between A and B with the connection between C and D? Nothing more than the two relationships of contiguity and constancy. However are these sufficient to be causation. If I pray every night that the sun will rise in the morning this meets these criteria. Did my prayer 'cause' the sun to rise? If not, what is the difference?
What comes out of this is that causation is not proven, or even supported, by science. However we use it all the time. The explanation given for this is simply that we understand (feel) the world to be causal in nature. We have no evidence for this interpretation of the world, but we all interpret it as such. Now how is that any different from our interpreting our actions as being of our own authorship? The evidence for determinism is no stronger or more scientific than the evidence for free will.
If you have a different explanation for our belief in causation I would like to hear it.

Well, if Sir Roger Brain and Roger Penrose are the same person, then I don't understand why my professor would have stated that Brain was a determinist if he is not.
Either they are not the same person or your professor is wrong. If you search for "Sir Roger Brain" you will find that he has no references to him on the internet (an improbability for an academic).

I don't dispute this, I think the question (or at least the question as I would have asked it) would be asked because the one of arguments against determinism goes something along the lines of "if things are determined then how is moral responsibility preserved?" I would agree that moral responsibility should be preserved, but whether or not it is is not an argument against determinism if moral responsibility needn't be preserved.
As we are dealing with internal psychological matters, (see the long first section to my reply) then ur morality does enter as a factor in the issue. If you see the debate as being about facts in the world, then we are just whistling in the wind as no one knows, nor are we ever likely to know. The true nature of the universe as being deterministic or non deterministic is probably unknowable.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 17:53

A person is passed out on the ground, not breathing and with no heartbeat.

Person A does nothing. Person B would have given CPR, which is a better thing to do. Therefore, Person A should be criticized.

Oh wait, Person A didn't know CPR.

That analogy doesn't quite fit what I was describing, as to be thrust into the instance, the person would have all of the capabilities of the original individual.

You cannot be criticized for what you could not have done. If your actions are determined, by definition you could not have done anything other than what you did. Therefore you cannot be criticized for what you did.

You have said that several times. However, just because there was only one choice for that person, the choice can still be judged by comparing it to all possible choices. Just because a man's character is set by forces not of his own (the person has no forces of his own, he is only a manifestation of the forces) that does not mean his character does not have definable value. The individual becomes a victim of circumstances, but his actions can be criticized.

Assume a man murders another individual. There is a point where he decides to kill the victim, the decision is irreversable and ultimately ends with an attempted murder. Now this individual can go back to the instance of the decision and all external and internal stimuli will be entirely the same as was present for the first decision. If all of these external and internal stimuli are the same, it is seems ludicrous to assume a different result. If an individual when faced with the same situation will always make the same decision, it destroys the opportunity for chance, but does not destroy the free will of the individual making the choice.

Tell me this, am I out is some philosophical wasteland, or does this line of thinking have some established foundation?

No, all we can do is say, "that turned out good" or "that turned out badly." At best, we can say, "Person B did good," and "Person A did badly." What we cannot say is "Person B did right," and "Person A did wrong." We are stuck with "Persons A and B did the only things Person A and B could have done."

Their decision to do what they did was contingent upon their moral value and beliefs. The predetermination of their character does not forbid us from judging it.

No, that is not accepting the contradiction, that is denying it. The contradiction is that we live in a world that is determined, but we also have (really, not "assume for ourselves") free will.

I cannot possibly accept the contradiction, it makes absolutely no sense.

Your basis for arguing the contradictions seems to be that without the contradiction, no one is responsible for their actions. And while that may be true, why should it force us to accept a contradiction.

Also, morality is important for its effects, not its origination. Regardless of whether our present morality is just the present amalgamation of nearly infinite factors in an algorithm or some independently developed thing, its importance and effects are the same.

No, that also denies the contradiction. The problem is that everything I will is both completely determinate and completely free... but not "free" in the compatibilist that you people have been arguing: free in the non-compatibilist, non-determined metaphysical sense.

This "will" sounds very much like a religious construct. People who can't accept the meaningless of body and mind invent concepts that allow them to sleep better at night.

Well, as soon as the person decides whether to continue the behavior, the cause is no longer the cause, even if the behavior continues. Now the new cause is the will.

It seems easier to me to assume that the will is a product of circumstances and not some metaphysical ability of a person to render himself free of the natural forces that govern his situation.

It shouldn't, it should sound completely contraditory. There is no way you will understand it without following the full flow of the dialectical logic. Unfortunately, I am not up to the task of presenting it to you.

Well, now I plan on reading Hegel, or at least an in-depth summary. I have a feeling that I should have ample reason to write in the margins, and I will probably have occam's razor as a constant companion.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 18:14

He most definitely does decide. His preferences, his values, his thoughts, all lead to the decision made.
Okay, I got you. It's "his" in the sense that, say, his foot is his.

But my point is... who the fuck cares? It has no bearing on moral responsibility or obligation, because one cannot be obligated to do that which it is impossible to do.

You may as well tell me I have a moral obligation to flap my arms until I fly.

It rests on the assumption that instead of consciousness being synonymous with, or an elevated state of, the brain processes that lead to actions, it is merely a result of those brain processes, an irrelevancy deluded into thinking it is relevant.

Blah blah... Heard it all before. Lacan said the same damn thing without even bothering to make it "the brain"...

My point is only that if you are going to be consistent and hold this view, you have to admit that you no longer have any basis for moral judgment... or "judgment" of any kind at all, because judgment implies a rational standard--while reason cannot be held to a "standard" if it could not have run any other way.

Imagine programming a computer to think that 2+2=7. How are you going to tell it that it is wrong?

Zagat

30-03-2006, 18:22

My point is only that if you are going to be consistent and hold this view, you have to admit that you no longer have any basis for moral judgment... or "judgment" of any kind at all, because judgment implies a rational standard--while reason cannot be held to a "standard" if it could not have run any other way.

Imagine programming a computer to think that 2+2=7. How are you going to tell it that it is wrong?
Of course you dont have to posit a lack of basis for judgement and/or moral judgement. In fact if one holds determinisn as true and one observes judgement and moral judgement then one would have to conclude that both judgment and moral judgement are inevitable.

There is no contradiction or contrariness involved unless one starts making assumptions about morality and moral judgement. Morals and judgements based on morals are relative. They are socially constructed value judgements. If as a result of determination we value things differentially then moral judgements are not excluded, in fact they're quite likely, and apparently occurent.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 18:38

I dont know what you are referrring to when you state I have declined to respond, you will need to be more specific if you wish me to respond to some particular thing.In at least five separate posts I have expressed the opinion that determinism and free will can both be derived from the same basic knowledge of the world, despite the fact that they are mutually exclusive in a logical sense. You have, to this point, not once commented on that view.
I am aware that you asked me to ignore the statement but you also commented on my responses to the statement.Are we still talking about this? Really?

I commented on a statement regarding the logic of positivism. If you claim to have had my previous statement in mind when you said this, I imagine I cannot contradict you: but if it did, your response had so little to do with what I said in the first place, that it was effectively a new conversation. I had no way of knowing that you were responding to something to which your statement did not, by all appearances, actually respond.
It simply is disengenious to tell me I am wrong because you asked me to ignore your earlier statement and those comments of mine that you are claiming are wrong only make sense in light of that statement.Clearly, someone got confused. And can't drop it. There is no point in discussing this further.

I do not need to understand what these two concepts mean in order to correctly interpret the statement
Given the fact that very, very little of human behavior can be predicted, even with near-perfect knowledge about a person's physiology, neuro-chemistry, psychological and family history, and environment... This seems to constitute strong evidence in favor of free will. For all our efforts, and all our scientists' "hopes," we are very, very bad at predicting human behavior.There it is again.

NOTICE: WE ARE DONE WITH THAT NOW.
If you toned down the personal insults you might save enough energy to devote to strengthening your arguments.If you would stick to the argument at hand rather than a several-page-old red-herring, perhaps you could do the same.
You made a statement that you now want me to ignore. Fine but dont use your decision to posit then recant a statement as an excuse to call me ignorant, to state that I am not interested in reading other people's posts or to otherwise aim sly, niggling flames my way. It isnt my fault you posted an ill-advised argument that you now wish to disown.It was a contextual thing. If I were still in that particular argument, I might still be using it. But we are in a different argument now. It is not my fault you cannot tell the difference.
Please let me know when you have made up your mind.I have. Several times. Fucking drop it.

None of which proves or even implies that it is essential to understand what is meant by realism and positivism in order to interpret the statement that is the referent of the particular comments of mine that you were addressing when you stated that there was some need to understand the two concepts 'realism' and 'positivism'.I have a feeling you make yourself feel smart by writing overly self-referential statements. This may be the problem. It makes it extraordinarily difficult for people to figure out what you mean when you are referring to several posts in one sentence, without citing any of them.

No there is not. Your argument either stand on their own or do not regardless of my personal qualities.I never said the didn't. I said that I had emotional needs that needed to be satisfied in order to continue the conversation, not that the argument would be any weaker if I simply stop posting. So not only is there no need to do so (in order to argue your point) but in fact doing so serves no purpose with regards to arguing your point.Sure it does. If I did not occasionally vent my frustration with the tiny brick that is your head, I would not be arguing the point at all.

Of course, I suppose that whatever I'm going to do, I was going to do anyway. So why are you complaining?

Resorting to petty personal insults in order to prove that there is a need for petty personal insults reeks of desperation.Well, desperation of a sort, yes. I think we have hit a wall (curiously reminiscent of your cranium), and further rational discussion is probably not going to get us anywhere. Therefore, I have turned to other pursuits to amuse myself. Perhaps your frustration stems from some other source - possibly you are frustrated because you dont like the way the discussion is going.Oh, that's absolutely right! Just not for the reasons you think. Whatever the cause your temper tantrum does nothing to improve the strength of your argument,What difference does it make? Whatever is going to happen would have happened anyway. I suggest that it may even detract from it since many people perceive personal insults to be the last recourse of people frustrated at not being able to make a constructive argument.So? There's nothing I can do about it.

You need to be more specific. I honestly think the problem here stems from your inability to move past the recanting of your earlier statement.No, clearly it stems from your inability to move past it. You're the one who keeps bringing it up. If you take out the comments of both of ours that relate to the recanted statement (instead of wanting to pretend the statement doesnt exist whilst picking apart the responses of mine that only make sense in the context of replying to that specific statement), that might simplify and clarify matters for you.Here I thought that's what we had done. Clearly I did not realize that the comments of yours I sought to criticize were in any way related to my earlier one. But I'm happy to throw them all out the window if it means we can have a real conversation.

I didnt realise you were claiming it was both, just that it appeared to be one from one perspective and to be another from another perspective. Given that perspective is a critical factor in the determination (if one believes in such a thing as determination ;) ) of appearance, I dont see that contrary appearances from variant perspectives is contrary or contradictory, but rather something we would expect to occur at least some of the time.Yes, and that's fine, if all you're concerned with is appearances. The problem comes for those of us who actually care about which one is true... and that turns out to be a problem that cannot be easily side-stepped.

That's not how I see it.I know. You've just been too interested in complaining about something I said in another conversation to actually explain yourself.
You can either have the statement you made ignored in which case stop calling it back up by commenting on comments that are contingent on the statement, or we can discuss comments that are contingent on the statement in which case the statement cannot be ignored. Please do let me know when you get around to making your mind up about that one.How about you just respond to my real argument and stop bringing it up? I shall await your decision.

I dont need to think that everything I am going to do is determined in order to make use of determinisn, (in fact thinking as much doesnt really make any difference either way). I use the determinism of myself, others and the 'world at large' as a knowledge device. It helps me to consider things that are important to me when making choices, such as likely and/or possible consequences/outcomes.

Sure. We all do that. It's only sensible. But you didn't answer the question, which was about practical (moral) reason.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 19:11

In at least five separate posts I have expressed the opinion that determinism and free will can both be derived from the same basic knowledge of the world, despite the fact that they are mutually exclusive in a logical sense. You have, to this point, not once commented on that view.
Actually I have commented on this view. I have commented that the two are not mutually exclusive in a logical sense.

Are we still talking about this? Really?
I suppose if by this you mean this then apparently so.

I commented on a statement regarding the logic of positivism. If you claim to have had my previous statement in mind when you said this, I imagine I cannot contradict you: but if it did, your response had so little to do with what I said in the first place, that it was effectively a new conversation. I had no way of knowing that you were responding to something to which your statement did not, by all appearances, actually respond.
I was responding to the comment quoted directly above the comments of mine to which you refer. I really didnt know that you were unable to ascertain that comments directly under quoted content are in response to the quoted comments. In fact I was under a contrary impression based on my observation of your posting habits....

Clearly, someone got confused. And can't drop it. There is no point in discussing this further.

There it is again.

NOTICE: WE ARE DONE WITH THAT NOW.
We are not done with it so long as you keep raising it by referring to comments made contingent to it. If you make a comment and someone responds your critique of their response prevents them from dropping your original comment unless they wish to simply ignore your critique. Why ought I do so? You want to drop the comment you initially made, fine then stop complaining and picking apart comments that are contingent on the existence of that comment....

If you would stick to the argument at hand rather than a several-page-old red-herring, perhaps you could do the same.
It was a contextual thing. If I were still in that particular argument, I might still be using it. But we are in a different argument now. It is not my fault you cannot tell the difference.
I have. Several times. Fucking drop it.
There is no need for cussing. You seem to not realise your role in this. You keep bringing up comments of mine that are contingent on the comment you want to ignore. Stop bringing up comments that require me to reference that original comment and I'll no cause to do so - it's really rather simple and much more effective than swearing. Dont want to discuss comment A stop criticising comment made contingent on comment A. How hard is that?

I have a feeling you make yourself feel smart by writing overly self-referential statements. This may be the problem. It makes it extraordinarily difficult for people to figure out what you mean when you are referring to several posts in one sentence, without citing any of them.
Feel away. Other than quoting every relevent post how else am I to communicate to you the silliness of your behaviour? If you dont want to have the comment concerned raised stop quoting and commenting on comments that were made contingent to it...

I never said the didn't. I said that I had emotional needs that needed to be satisfied in order to continue the conversation, not that the argument would be any weaker if I simply stop posting. Sure it does. If I did not occasionally vent my frustration with the tiny brick that is your head, I would not be arguing the point at all.
blah blah blah,

Of course, I suppose that whatever I'm going to do, I was going to do anyway. So why are you complaining?
Honey, I'm not the one complaining, you are.

Well, desperation of a sort, yes. I think we have hit a wall (curiously reminiscent of your cranium), and further rational discussion is probably not going to get us anywhere. Therefore, I have turned to other pursuits to amuse myself. Oh, that's absolutely right! Just not for the reasons you think. What difference does it make? Whatever is going to happen would have happened anyway. So? There's nothing I can do about it.
Aha, do you always throw temper tantrums when you get frustrated with your own inability to take part in rational discourse?

No, clearly it stems from your inability to move past it. You're the one who keeps bringing it up. Here I thought that's what we had done. Clearly I did not realize that the comments of yours I sought to criticize were in any way related to my earlier one. But I'm happy to throw them all out the window if it means we can have a real conversation.
No, it is you that keeps bringing it up. If B only makes sense in the context of A, bringing up B is bringing up A and you keep bringing up B..

Yes, and that's fine, if all you're concerned with is appearances. The problem comes for those of us who actually care about which one is true... and that turns out to be a problem that cannot be easily side-stepped.
No side-stepping is involved unless you get yourself mixed up by considering that appearance is absolutley identical and/or representive of actuality.

I know. You've just been too interested in complaining about something I said in another conversation to actually explain yourself.
Are you still confused about this? I was responding to your comments (you can tell that because the comments I was responding to were posted directly above my comments)....

How about you just respond to my real argument and stop bringing it up? I shall await your decision.
How about you tell me what the heck your argument is? Is it that if something has different appearances from different perspectives it must be a paradox?

Sure. We all do that. It's only sensible. But you didn't answer the question, which was about practical (moral) reason.
And by practical moral reason you mean what exactly? Value judgments? I dont see why determinism excludes the value judgements.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 20:03

AnarcheL. I would cease and desist if I were you. It is apparent that Zagat is incapable of reading anything that either you or I post that does not suit his point of view. Selective word blindness I think would be the appropriate term for it.

Of course Zagat, if you want to continue the debate, please go back and read the at least a dozen explanations as to why determinism excludes moral judgements. Oh, and by the way practical reason is just another name for moral reason, you don't need both adjectives but AnarchyeL was making sure you had understood what practical reason is.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 20:18

Of course Zagat, if you want to continue the debate, please go back and read the at least a dozen explanations as to why determinism excludes moral judgements.

While determinism does create a situation where a person is not responsible for what he has done, he can still be judged based on what he has become. A person that has been molded by an algorithm of forces can nevertheless be turned into something bad, and as such can be judged.

Determinism would only state that human life and mind are not inherently bad or good, only that the forces controlling them can make them bad or good.

You want to say that since no one is guilty, then no one can be bad, and that is not true.

Zagat

30-03-2006, 20:19

AnarcheL. I would cease and desist if I were you. It is apparent that Zagat is incapable of reading anything that either you or I post that does not suit his point of view. Selective word blindness I think would be the appropriate term for it.
It's not obvious, in fact it's not even true...

Of course Zagat, if you want to continue the debate, please go back and read the at least a dozen explanations as to why determinism excludes moral judgements.
I see no point to re-reading what I have already and believe comprehended. I happen to disagree. In case you didnt realise disagreeing with you is not the same as not having read what you said or not having read what you said.

Oh, and by the way practical reason is just another name for moral reason, you don't need both adjectives but AnarchyeL was making sure you had understood what practical reason is.
I've already responded by communicating that I understand such reasoning to be value judgements, I dont see that value judgements necessitate non-determinisn. I've read nothing in this thread that convinces me otherwise.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 20:23

I've already responded by communicating that I understand such reasoning to be value judgements, I dont see that value judgements necessitate non-determinisn. I've read nothing in this thread that convinces me otherwise.

I have have been unsatisfied in that as well. Apparently morality that is the result of determinism cannot hold our civilization together.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 20:32

While determinism does create a situation where a person is not responsible for what he has done, he can still be judged based on what he has become. A person that has been molded by an algorithm of forces can nevertheless be turned into something bad, and as such can be judged.
What is it you are judging. The person - who has no control over the actions - or the actions which are not the reponsability of the person. Yes you can judge, (well no, actually, a judgement is made if you are going to be deterministic as "you" can not actually do anything being an epiphenomenon) but what is it that is being judged. Are you trying to say that the causal chain that resulted in the Manson killings was evil in itself? Or are you saying that Manson was evil becasuse he happened to be in that causal chain?

Determinism would only state that human life and mind are not inherently bad or good, only that the forces controlling them can make them bad or good. The forces that control the can not make them good or bad witout those forces themselves being good or bad. The moral status of a thing would depend upon where it is in the deterministic rigidly defined universe. Morality then becomes something similar to a physical characteristic. It has no normative effect, it can not change my behaviour, after all that behaviour is fixed, immutable. Paint the world good, bad or indifferent, morality becomes meaningless if it is not a factor in our decisions as to how to act. Determinism says we do not decide on how to act, we simply act as we are determined to do. Morality ceases to be any more significant than the colour of your socks.

You want to say that since no one is guilty, then no one can be bad, and that is not true.

No one can be judged to be wrong. Bad can be seen as a description of a state of affairs, or it can be seen as an intentional state. In the former case then determinism certainly admits for things being good or bad, but this is not good or bad in a moral sense, just in a utility sense. (I hope you are not a utilitarian) Determinism eliminates intentionality as a factor in anything. You yourself in another thread were arguing that morality depends on the intent of the agent. Under determinism the intent of the agent is irrelevant, and thus, by your own argument, so is morality.

Vittos Ordination2

30-03-2006, 20:51

What is it you are judging. The person - who has no control over the actions - or the actions which are not the reponsability of the person. Yes you can judge, (well no, actually, a judgement is made if you are going to be deterministic as "you" can not actually do anything being an epiphenomenon) but what is it that is being judged. Are you trying to say that the causal chain that resulted in the Manson killings was evil in itself? Or are you saying that Manson was evil becasuse he happened to be in that causal chain?

We judge him to be evil for his evil actions. However, he is evil because of the causal chain. The being and the cause are seperable.

The forces that control the can not make them good or bad witout those forces themselves being good or bad. The moral status of a thing would depend upon where it is in the deterministic rigidly defined universe. Morality then becomes something similar to a physical characteristic.

Yes, this is correct. A deterministic chain does not have a purpose, it only exists. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that results that we consider good or bad will occur. All human characteristics, morality, appearance, ability, will be the result of an instant output of the chain.

It has no normative effect, it can not change my behaviour, after all that behaviour is fixed, immutable.

No. Morality is still a part of the chain. Our behavior is still contingent upon our morality, however our morality is contingent upon prior events and qualities as well. So while there is no human control over morality, morality still has control over behavior.

Paint the world good, bad or indifferent, morality becomes meaningless if it is not a factor in our decisions as to how to act. Determinism says we do not decide on how to act, we simply act as we are determined to do. Morality ceases to be any more significant than the colour of your socks.

Determinism states that we still decide how to act, but our decisions are determined by prior events that are out of our control.

One person who is subject to the same set of internal and external stimuli will make the same decision.

No one can be judged to be wrong. Bad can be seen as a description of a state of affairs, or it can be seen as an intentional state. In the former case then determinism certainly admits for things being good or bad, but this is not good or bad in a moral sense, just in a utility sense. (I hope you are not a utilitarian) Determinism eliminates intentionality as a factor in anything. You yourself in another thread were arguing that morality depends on the intent of the agent. Under determinism the intent of the agent is irrelevant, and thus, by your own argument, so is morality.

The intent of the person is still responsible for the action and the morality, it is just not the result of some metaphysical quality of humans.

The intent of a person to act is still present whether it is predetermined or not, and as such can still be the deciding judge of morality.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 21:15

We have no evidence of determinism at all. Sure we do. I'll give an example. The very fact that we exist at all is something which is beyond our control, (with the exception of a rare few theological arguments). Clearly, our existance is determined by something other than ourselves.

We have no evidence that our universe is even causal in nature. We all interpret the phenomena that we experience as being causal, that much is agreed. We also see causal behaviour as being deterministic in our everyday lives. But where is the evidence, the science. Positivism rests on human psychology, not on any evidence in the world. Science depends upon observation of phenomena - I hope you agree. We observe, we extrapolate, we generate an explanatory and predictive theory, we test the theory. That is basically the scientific method. Now let us apply this to the idea of causality. Yes, but it is difficult to make a statement of truth if one person observes one thing and one person observes another.

We observe - we see one event (A) followed by another (B), every time that we observe event A it is followed by event B. We also observe event C and note that this is followed by event D. Now we deduce from this that there is something about event A that leads to event B happening. Do we examine event A to discover what this is? Well we should if we are going to be scientific about causation, but we don't. What we would be looking for is some connection, some necessary link, between A and B. What connection do we find if we look for this? Contiguity - A comes before B; constancy - whenever there has been an A there has also been a B. Where in this is causation, what is causation? What is there in common in the connection between A and B with the connection between C and D? Nothing more than the two relationships of contiguity and constancy. However are these sufficient to be causation. If I pray every night that the sun will rise in the morning this meets these criteria. Did my prayer 'cause' the sun to rise? If not, what is the difference? Well, a good experiment to use is to one day not pray that the sun will come up the next day. If it does come up the next day, then it seems reasonable to conclude that the sun's rising is not contingent upon your prayer.

What comes out of this is that causation is not proven, or even supported, by science. However we use it all the time. The explanation given for this is simply that we understand (feel) the world to be causal in nature. We have no evidence for this interpretation of the world, but we all interpret it as such. Now how is that any different from our interpreting our actions as being of our own authorship? The evidence for determinism is no stronger or more scientific than the evidence for free will.
If you have a different explanation for our belief in causation I would like to hear it. I can agree with this, but our belief in causation (in certain events) seems to be concluded by experiments regarding those events. For instance, if I drop a pencil 100 times, it will fall to the ground 100 times. We call this force gravity. However, simply because things fall every time we drop them does not mean they always will do so. Nonetheless, the belief in causation seems to be supported by this type of experiment.

Either they are not the same person or your professor is wrong. If you search for "Sir Roger Brain" you will find that he has no references to him on the internet (an improbability for an academic).I will need to ask him about that after my next class.

As we are dealing with internal psychological matters, (see the long first section to my reply) then ur morality does enter as a factor in the issue. If you see the debate as being about facts in the world, then we are just whistling in the wind as no one knows, nor are we ever likely to know. The true nature of the universe as being deterministic or non deterministic is probably unknowable.Well, if you look at the list of reasons why we put people in jail, yes, one of those reasons is that we wish to punish them, which stems from the idea of free will, but another reason that we put people in jail is to keep those out of jail safe from that person.
If the universe is determined and a person has no control over their actions, we can still put them in jail because we would need to do so to feel safe from them.
Therefore, even if we are doing it for different reasons in a determined or indetermined world, our actions can still be the same. So I really don't see why moral responsibility must be an issue if we could be doing the same things. That is what I meant by asking that question.

As far as your last sentence goes, I agree, whether the world is deterministic or indeterministic is unknowable.

Soheran

30-03-2006, 21:37

But my point is... who the fuck cares? It has no bearing on moral responsibility or obligation, because one cannot be obligated to do that which it is impossible to do.

You may as well tell me I have a moral obligation to flap my arms until I fly.

Try to flap your arms as much as you can, and you will never fly. Try to act according to a certain moral code, and within the limits of your physical capabilities, you can do so.

If a human being fails to act according to a given code of morality, the failure is his; his own values led him to make a decision contrary to that code. If a human being fails in an endeavor because of external limitations, such as the law of gravity, the failure is not his, because regardless of his values, his thoughts, or any other aspect of himself, he would still have failed.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 21:37

Well, to go back to the analogy that you so thoughtfully provided, we'll use the earth rotating around the sun idea. "It feels as though we are stationary, so we must be." Do you see the problem with such a statement? I would liken this to "it feels as though we have free will, so we must."
Yes, that would be a problem. Fortunately, no one is saying that. We have only been arguing that "since it feels as though we have free will, it makes sense to believe we do until/unless proven otherwise." Just as it makes perfect sense to say that "it feels as though we are stationary, so the belief that we are is a sensible one until proven otherwise."

True, and while this doesn't make psychology an irrelevant science, it does mean that psychology would be much more impressive if those feelings could be demonstrated by some method other than "I feel."Actually, I think what is so impressive about psychology is that it has managed to scientifically study subjective phenomena, i.e. phenomena that cannot be measured objectively. If psychology could measure feelings objectively, its work would be easier, but its accomplishments much less impressive.

I don't know as we haven't gotten to Hospers yet, but it seems to be that in order to be able to say that psychoanalysis is compatible with determinism that he must be at least somewhat familiar with psychoanalysis.Well, then you would be surprised how many people talk about psychoanalysis who know nothing or next to nothing about it.Or is that the reason that the paper was bad, that we wasn't familar with psychoanalysis?In essence, yes. He looks at the surface results of psychoanalytic practice and theory, without trying to understand the principles that give life to the theory. His claims are particularly ridiculous when held up to the realities of psychoanalytic practice.

I came to this conclusion between yesterday and today myself. Even if we do not have free will, we must act as though we do.
Yes. And is there any better definition for "reality" than "the circumstances to which we must conform?"

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 21:45

I would say that the scientific evidence of determinism outweighs the evidence of simple perception, because the scientific evidence so far can be demonstrated.Not until the scientific evidence can actually account for that perception. Until you can provide an alternate answer to the question "why do I feel free?" I am going to have to maintain that the answer is "because I am."

I would also say that we all agree that at least some things are determined by forces out of our control, and that the default position should be that everything is determined by forces out of our control, not that some things aren't determined because we feel as though they aren't.Why? No logic allows one to go from "some" to "all." Even scientific inference is more limited: we are permitted to infer "all" from "all so far," but never "some." Science cannot make the claim that "everything so far" is determined, partly because of our immediate perception that some things are not, but also because of scientific examples of randomness and causal paradox. If we have at least three scientifically demonstrable causal modes--determinism, randomness, and paradox--then on what basis are we to claim that the human will obeys one of them, and not the others? More importantly, on what basis shall we claim that these present an exhaustive list?

Well, if Sir Roger Brain and Roger Penrose are the same person, then I don't understand why my professor would have stated that Brain was a determinist if he is not.
There would seem to be two possibilities:

1) Brain and Penrose are the same person, and your professor is an idiot.
2) Brain and Penrose are not the same person. In this case, your professor may or may not be an idiot. In either case, it would be helpful for you to post a link to Brain's work, or at least the title of a book or article by the man, so we can judge for ourselves.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 21:49

Yes, that would be a problem. Fortunately, no one is saying that. We have only been arguing that "since it feels as though we have free will, it makes sense to believe we do until/unless proven otherwise." Just as it makes perfect sense to say that "it feels as though we are stationary, so the belief that we are is a sensible one until proven otherwise."Whether or not it is sensible doesn't mean that it is correct.

Actually, I think what is so impressive about psychology is that it has managed to scientifically study subjective phenomena, i.e. phenomena that cannot be measured objectively. If psychology could measure feelings objectively, its work would be easier, but its accomplishments much less impressive.Well, if psychology were to do those same accomplishments objectively, then that would be less impressive, but I think that if psychology were objective (which it can't be, but let's say that if it was) then it would have accomplished more. After all, if every psychologist agreed on everything, then they wouldn't be spending so much time trying to prove each other wrong.

Well, then you would be surprised how many people talk about psychoanalysis who know nothing or next to nothing about it.In essence, yes. He looks at the surface results of psychoanalytic practice and theory, without trying to understand the principles that give life to the theory. His claims are particularly ridiculous when held up to the realities of psychoanalytic practice.Ah. Unfortunately, the textbook that we are using for the course only has one determinist in it, and that determinist is most definitely a philosopher, so he doesn't provide a ton of scientific backing for his claims. If I had read the works of these other determinists, I'd be able to much more effectively support or oppose their claims.

Yes. And is there any better definition for "reality" than "the circumstances to which we must conform?"I kind of like that definition, I can't think of a better one.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 21:56

Not until the scientific evidence can actually account for that perception. Until you can provide an alternate answer to the question "why do I feel free?" I am going to have to maintain that the answer is "because I am."I don't blame you for believing that you are free because you are free, but it seems to me that the evidence just isn't there for you to maintain that.

Why? No logic allows one to go from "some" to "all." Even scientific inference is more limited: we are permitted to infer "all" from "all so far," but never "some." Science cannot make the claim that "everything so far" is determined, partly because of our immediate perception that some things are not, but also because of scientific examples of randomness and causal paradox. True, but most logic also does not allow us to state that our feelings about the world around us are accurate simply because we feel them.

If we have at least three scientifically demonstrable causal modes--determinism, randomness, and paradox--then on what basis are we to claim that the human will obeys one of them, and not the others? More importantly, on what basis shall we claim that these present an exhaustive list?I'm not familiar with paradox as a causal mode (I know what one is, of course) but randomness would be another argument against free will.

There would seem to be two possibilities:

1) Brain and Penrose are the same person, and your professor is an idiot.
2) Brain and Penrose are not the same person. In this case, your professor may or may not be an idiot. In either case, it would be helpful for you to post a link to Brain's work, or at least the title of a book or article by the man, so we can judge for ourselves.I wasn't there during the lecture that he gave the title of the book or article (if he did so, though he usually does) so I will also have to ask that when I talk to him.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 22:03

That analogy doesn't quite fit what I was describing, as to be thrust into the instance, the person would have all of the capabilities of the original individual.Well, it seems you've nicely restricted the meaning of "capabilities" to fit your argument... since obviously if this person behaves differently in a determinist world, he/she had at least one capability that the first person did not; namely, the capability to do the right thing.

However, just because there was only one choice for that person, the choice can still be judged by comparing it to all possible choices.

But on what moral basis do you suddenly expand the realm of "possible" choices beyond what is "possible for me"?

Just because a man's character is set by forces not of his own (the person has no forces of his own, he is only a manifestation of the forces) that does not mean his character does not have definable value. The individual becomes a victim of circumstances, but his actions can be criticized.
Right. Like I said, "good or bad," but never "right or wrong."

Assume a man murders another individual. There is a point where he decides to kill the victim, the decision is irreversable and ultimately ends with an attempted murder. Now this individual can go back to the instance of the decision and all external and internal stimuli will be entirely the same as was present for the first decision. If all of these external and internal stimuli are the same, it is seems ludicrous to assume a different result.Only if you've already assumed determinism. You're begging the question.

If all of the external and internal stimuli are the same, but the response to those stimuli is not determined by them, the person has a choice.

If an individual when faced with the same situation will always make the same decision, it destroys the opportunity for chance, but does not destroy the free will of the individual making the choice.
Yes, it does. The circumstances "chose," not the will of the person. The will is not an independent variable in the determinist equation. (Actually, one of the things that makes determinism nonsensical is that it has no independent variables... unless one goes back to the beginning of time: and then what? We allow one "random" moment in all of existence, but no more? On what basis?

Tell me this, am I out is some philosophical wasteland, or does this line of thinking have some established foundation?No, it does. Broadly speaking its called "compatibilism" with respect to free will and determinism.

Their decision to do what they did was contingent upon their moral value and beliefs. The predetermination of their character does not forbid us from judging it.Yeah. "Good or bad," but not "right or wrong."

I cannot possibly accept the contradiction, it makes absolutely no sense.Yes, but the question is whether it is avoidable. If it is not, then it must mean that something fundamental is wrong with the way human beings reason about the world. This was Kant's answer... He thought the very categories that made reason possible led to certain unavoidable antinomies. Of course, this does not invalidate reason where it can arrive at answers: it merely entails that "there are some questions we cannot answer." They are beyond the reach of reason, and hence beyond the reach of science.

This is not a particularly uncommon or indefensible view. Many philosophers, mathematicians, and even scientists have argued that there are some questions that simply cannot be answered by science. "Free will" may be one of them.

Your basis for arguing the contradictions seems to be that without the contradiction, no one is responsible for their actions. And while that may be true, why should it force us to accept a contradiction.You are misreading me. My argument for the contradiction is that our behavior is premised on freedom. When we actually act (not when we just think about acting), we have no choice but to believe ourselves to be choosing and acting. It is in the very nature of what it means "to act." At the same time, when we study the world and search for natural explanations, we must think in terms of determined causality. It is the very essence of what it means to "make sense" of reality. In this sense, determinism (in some form) is the basis for all our knowledge, and is itself an unavoidable assumption.

Also, morality is important for its effects, not its origination.That is an open question for a debate on morality. Regardless of whether our present morality is just the present amalgamation of nearly infinite factors in an algorithm or some independently developed thing, its importance and effects are the same.Except that it cannot tell me how to act.

This "will" sounds very much like a religious construct.It's not religious at all. It does not require faith in something we cannot experience. On the contrary, it is the most natural experience in the world. People who can't accept the meaningless of body and mind invent concepts that allow them to sleep better at night.People who cannot accept that there are some questions science cannot answer develop a blindly religious faith that science possesses all the answers.

It seems easier to me to assume that the will is a product of circumstances and not some metaphysical ability of a person to render himself free of the natural forces that govern his situation.That's the contradiction. He cannot be free, but he has to be free.

Well, now I plan on reading Hegel, or at least an in-depth summary. I have a feeling that I should have ample reason to write in the margins, and I will probably have occam's razor as a constant companion.You shouldn't need it. Far from introducing unnecessary categories, Hegel begins with the most basic categories of all and only expands them when they cannot get him any further. On a metaphysical level, he is damn near reductionist.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 22:16

Try to flap your arms as much as you can, and you will never fly. Try to act according to a certain moral code, and within the limits of your physical capabilities, you can do so.

But it's already been determined whether or not I am going to try. On determinist logic, if person X never tries to be good, he never could have tried to be good. He cannot even "try to try" to be good. It would be impossible.

If a human being fails to act according to a given code of morality, the failure is his; his own values led him to make a decision contrary to that code.His own values in which he had no choice.
If a human being fails in an endeavor because of external limitations, such as the law of gravity, the failure is not his, because regardless of his values, his thoughts, or any other aspect of himself, he would still have failed.
How do you distinguish the "external" limitation of gravity from the external limitation of having no capacity to do good? If it were somehow his fault that he had no capacity to do good, I would understand... but it's really the fault of the arrangement of atoms and the pull of the tides at his birth, combined with many other factors outside his control.

It still seems that in the determinist argument this "outside/inside" distinction is arbirary. You're pulling that old sophist's trick of confusing the thing with its name. "We call this person 'him' so processes that conclude 'inside' him are 'his'..." But you can give no reason for distinguishing those processes from others. I can: I say they are distinguishable because they rest on a principle of moral freedom. But from your perspective, I don't see how they are any different, except that you arbitrarily decide that it's convenient for them to be.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 22:20

Whether or not it is sensible doesn't mean that it is correct.No, it doesn't. Which is why (in this vein of argument, at least), I am not drawing the conclusion. I am not saying, "since it is sensible to continue in my belief until it is proven false, it must be true." I am merely saying, "since it is sensible to continue in my belief until it is proven false, I will do the sensible thing and continue in my belief until it is proven false. I am merely stating where I believe the burden of proof to lie.

Well, if psychology were to do those same accomplishments objectively, then that would be less impressive, but I think that if psychology were objective (which it can't be, but let's say that if it was) then it would have accomplished more.Probably. But that's not the world we live in. In this world, we may have to accept the fact that there are some things science will never know.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 22:23

I don't blame you for believing that you are free because you are free, but it seems to me that the evidence just isn't there for you to maintain that.Then you have to show me the evidence. You have to explain why I feel this way if it is not true.

True, but most logic also does not allow us to state that our feelings about the world around us are accurate simply because we feel them.No, but it does allow us to rely on our feelings until some better evidence comes along.

I'm not familiar with paradox as a causal mode (I know what one is, of course) but randomness would be another argument against free will.Basically, paradoxical causality occurs when the cause is also the effect. It comes up in family therapy with abuse, for instance, and I believe that it has also been studied in mathematical physics and string theory.

Some logicians argue that the formal logics developed to handle paradoxical situations are the best formal models we have for freedom of the will.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 22:23

No, it doesn't. Which is why (in this vein of argument, at least), I am not drawing the conclusion. I am not saying, "since it is sensible to continue in my belief until it is proven false, it must be true." I am merely saying, "since it is sensible to continue in my belief until it is proven false, I will do the sensible thing and continue in my belief until it is proven false. I am merely stating where I believe the burden of proof to lie.Ah, I see what you mean.

Probably. But that's not the world we live in. In this world, we may have to accept the fact that there are some things science will never know.I don't have a problem with this statement.

Then you have to show me the evidence. You have to explain why I feel this way if it is not true.Not necessarily. I could point out other examples of your feeling a certain way that isn't true. This wouldn't negate the possibility that your feelings must be correct, but it is evidence against them.

No, but it does allow us to rely on our feelings until some better evidence comes along.I suppose if an individual has had pretty good luck (for lack of a better word) relying on their feelings then they would continue to do so.

Basically, paradoxical causality occurs when the cause is also the effect. It comes up in family therapy with abuse, for instance, and I believe that it has also been studied in mathematical physics and string theory.

Some logicians argue that the formal logics developed to handle paradoxical situations are the best formal models we have for freedom of the will.Ah, I understand this. It seems to me that determinism would have at least some of this theory as part of it.

AB Again

30-03-2006, 22:41

We judge him to be evil for his evil actions. However, he is evil because of the causal chain. The being and the cause are seperable. Only if the being is independent of the cause, which in determinism the being is not. They are inherently and inseperably linked and any judgement of one is a judgement of the other.

Yes, this is correct. A deterministic chain does not have a purpose, it only exists. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that results that we consider good or bad will occur. All human characteristics, morality, appearance, ability, will be the result of an instant output of the chain.
Agreed, except that morality does not exist under these circumstances.

No. Morality is still a part of the chain. Our behavior is still contingent upon our morality, however our morality is contingent upon prior events and qualities as well. So while there is no human control over morality, morality still has control over behavior.
Morality has effect on behaviour if the person takes it into account when deciding what to do. However with determinism the person does not decide what to do, so morality can not have a causal role. Unless you are going to say that the moral judgements that are necessarily made by others have some direct causal influence on the brain state of the agent, without passing through any reflective, self - determining process.

Determinism states that we still decide how to act, but our decisions are determined by prior events that are out of our control.
No it does not. It stated that we still feel like we decide how to act but this feeling is delusionary. We have no decision as our action is determined and outside of our control.
The way you have put it you arew requiring us to decide about something that is out of our control. That is obviously an impossibility.

One person who is subject to the same set of internal and external stimuli will make the same decision.

The intent of the person is still responsible for the action and the morality, it is just not the result of some metaphysical quality of humans.
You just said that the action was a result of events beyonfd our control and now you say our intent isresponsible for the action. You arew wanting to say then that our intent is beyond our control. In which case how is it 'our' intent?

The intent of a person to act is still present whether it is predetermined or not, and as such can still be the deciding judge of morality.
Only if the person could have intended otherwise. Note that this means that person in those circumstances. It does not mean that there were other logical or physical possible actions. It means that there was a real possibility of the person having done otherwise.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 22:53

I could point out other examples of your feeling a certain way that isn't true. This wouldn't negate the possibility that your feelings must be correct, but it is evidence against them.No, just the ones that were incorrect.

Besides which, I don't think you are getting the sense of "feeling" that I mean to communicate.

When you feel hungry, you are hungry. When you feel warm, you are warm. When you feel cold, you are cold. When you feel sad, you are sad. When you feel angry, you are angry.

These are the sorts of feelings I am talking about. I hope you would agree that for someone to convince me that I am not "really" angry when I feel angry, they would need to muster some serious evidence. I am not presenting an impossible case: when I feel warm, someone may convince me that I am not really by measuring my temperature, and explaining my perception as the result of alcohol or illness, perhaps. But without an explanation that a) tells me what the "reality" of the matter is; and b) explains why I nevertheless have a different sensation, I am perfectly justified in believing that my feeling is accurate.

I suppose if an individual has had pretty good luck (for lack of a better word) relying on their feelings then they would continue to do so.It's not so much a matter of luck, as of inevitability. When we feel hungry, we usually seek food rather than wait for a scientist to tell us to; when we are cold, we seek shelter or put on clothing; when we are warm, we turn on a fan or remove layers; when we are sad, we mourn or seek solace; when we are angry, we express ourselves or deal with it.

Similarly, when we act, we act as free, intentional creatures... It is the very essence of what we mean by "to act." Now, if determinists can tell me how I can behave otherwise, or how I can base my actions on something other than the assumption that I am free, I will be willing to listen. But I have never heard any of them so much as attempt it.

It seems to me that determinism would have at least some of this theory as part of it.As exceptions to the rule, perhaps. But exceptions are all we really need.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 23:04

No, just the ones that were incorrect.

Besides which, I don't think you are getting the sense of "feeling" that I mean to communicate.

When you feel hungry, you are hungry. When you feel warm, you are warm. When you feel cold, you are cold. When you feel sad, you are sad. When you feel angry, you are angry.

These are the sorts of feelings I am talking about. I hope you would agree that for someone to convince me that I am not "really" angry when I feel angry, they would need to muster some serious evidence. I am not presenting an impossible case: when I feel warm, someone may convince me that I am not really by measuring my temperature, and explaining my perception as the result of alcohol or illness, perhaps. But without an explanation that a) tells me what the "reality" of the matter is; and b) explains why I nevertheless have a different sensation, I am perfectly justified in believing that my feeling is accurate.Well, let's use the example of a hypochondriac. A hypochondriac may feel as though they have a particular illness 10 times, and may be demonstrably proven that they do not have the illness 10 times...and then the hypochondriac feels as though they have the illness an 11th time. What will most people conclude from this, without testing the hypochondriac? Would their conclusion be at least a little bit justified?

It's not so much a matter of luck, as of inevitability. When we feel hungry, we usually seek food rather than wait for a scientist to tell us to; when we are cold, we seek shelter or put on clothing; when we are warm, we turn on a fan or remove layers; when we are sad, we mourn or seek solace; when we are angry, we express ourselves or deal with it.But aren't these feelings themselves things outside of our control, and don't they often result from things outside our control?

Similarly, when we act, we act as free, intentional creatures... It is the very essence of what we mean by "to act." Now, if determinists can tell me how I can behave otherwise, or how I can base my actions on something other than the assumption that I am free, I will be willing to listen. But I have never heard any of them so much as attempt it.That would be interesting to hear.

As exceptions to the rule, perhaps. But exceptions are all we really need.I don't know about that. It seems to me that a determinist could argue that event A caused event B, and then event B caused subsequent event Bs and be consistent with determinist theory.

AnarchyeL

30-03-2006, 23:21

Well, let's use the example of a hypochondriac.Exceptions like this don't prove anything. You may as well argue that we cannot rely on our vision because one person in one hundred is color blind.

But aren't these feelings themselves things outside of our control, and don't they often result from things outside our control?Sure. I've already said that I think we have no choice but to act as free, intentional creatures. Any time we try to "act" on a philosophy of human determinism, we catch ourselves acting contrary to that belief... or we try to tell ourselves that "acting" on determinism leads to precisely the same behaviors as acting on the premise of freedom (nonsense, I think, but people do it)... in which case we are admitting that determinism is a useless idea in terms of practical reason.

I don't know about that. It seems to me that a determinist could argue that event A caused event B, and then event B caused subsequent event Bs and be consistent with determinist theory.

Sure, they could. But that's not what paradox theory claims. It claims that event A caused its very own self.

Jello Biafra

30-03-2006, 23:26

Exceptions like this don't prove anything. You may as well argue that we cannot rely on our vision because one person in one hundred is color blind.Ah, I get it. You view the hypochondriac as the exception, and I view the hypochondriac as happening often enough to be part of the rule.

(Of course, the color blindess gene has been found, but we won't go there.)

Sure. I've already said that I think we have no choice but to act as free, intentional creatures. Any time we try to "act" on a philosophy of human determinism, we catch ourselves acting contrary to that belief... or we try to tell ourselves that "acting" on determinism leads to precisely the same behaviors as acting on the premise of freedom (nonsense, I think, but people do it)... in which case we are admitting that determinism is a useless idea in terms of practical reason.Ah. Well I did agree with you on this a few posts back, and still do.

Sure, they could. But that's not what paradox theory claims. It claims that event A caused its very own self.Oh, then I misunderstood. You gave the instance of abuse, and I know about the cycle of abuse, and so I thought that's more of what you were implying.

Zagat

31-03-2006, 00:35

How do you distinguish the "external" limitation of gravity from the external limitation of having no capacity to do good?
I wouldnt do so, however I dont know that having no capacity to do good is often the case. While some few human beings may for instance have no capacity to be good, I believe most do. However they also have the capacity to do bad. Their opportunity to realise either capacity is determined by a huge range of contributing factors.

If it were somehow his fault that he had no capacity to do good, I would understand... but it's really the fault of the arrangement of atoms and the pull of the tides at his birth, combined with many other factors outside his control.
Which doesnt exclude his acts from arosing emotional responses from others, including blame and damnation directed at him.

It still seems that in the determinist argument this "outside/inside" distinction is arbirary.
Not for me, for me it is classificatory.

You're pulling that old sophist's trick of confusing the thing with its name. "We call this person 'him' so processes that conclude 'inside' him are 'his'..." But you can give no reason for distinguishing those processes from others.
It seems clear to me that he is distinguished because he is the one that is most easily identified with the undesirable results. I suspect that emotive responses (from which processes such as blaming, being angry at etc stem) were acquired (in the human evolutionary trajectory) well ahead of 'theory of mind'. Remove 'theory of mind' and ability of a person to choose or not choose their actions appears irrelevent to the emotive responses of those exposed to their actions.

I can: I say they are distinguishable because they rest on a principle of moral freedom. But from your perspective, I don't see how they are any different, except that you arbitrarily decide that it's convenient for them to be.
To call it a matter of deciding seems backwards to me. It seems to me that people cognate the difference before they put any thought into deciding if such a difference exists.

AnarchyeL

31-03-2006, 00:49

I wouldnt do so, however I dont know that having no capacity to do good is often the case. While some few human beings may for instance have no capacity to be good, I believe most do. However they also have the capacity to do bad. Their opportunity to realise either capacity is determined by a huge range of contributing factors.
All of which, however, would be perfectly determined. For a determinist to be consistent, he has to always judge "capacity" after the fact. If a person did good, he had the capacity to do so. If he did not, he could not have done otherwise.

Which doesnt exclude his acts from arosing emotional responses from others, including blame and damnation directed at him.Sure. But that does not imply that he deserves any of it. Neither is anyone ever deserving of praise. In no case could they have done otherwise.

As I have said before, actions in a determinist world may be good or bad, but they can never be right or wrong. We are left with aesthetic judgments, not moral ones.

Remove 'theory of mind' and ability of a person to choose or not choose their actions appears irrelevent to the emotive responses of those exposed to their actions.Yes, he can predict how other people are likely to react. But what he cannot do is make judgments about what he "should" do... especially if he is doing something that he does not expect others to discover.

Zagat

31-03-2006, 01:23

All of which, however, would be perfectly determined. For a determinist to be consistent, he has to always judge "capacity" after the fact. If a person did good, he had the capacity to do so. If he did not, he could not have done otherwise.
The capacity and the opportunity to realise capacity are not the same thing. I dont see any reason to believe that in reality as reality is a person could have actually done differently to what they did. While the capacity to do differently was present if the opportunity to realise it doesnt arise then the capacity remains inert. Frankly, short of inventing a time machine I know of no way of ever demonstrating that a person could have done something differently given the exact same determining factors. Of course it cannot be proven that they couldnt have done differently, I infer that they couldnt have because such an inference is consistent with my observations and understanding to date.

Sure. But that does not imply that he deserves any of it. Neither is anyone ever deserving of praise. In no case could they have done otherwise.
I dont see that deserving is the point. I do see that in at least some cases apportioning praise or blame is effective in achieving more desirable results. Further there does appear to be a propensity for human beings to have emotions that motivate them to blame or praise others. I dont see blaming as necessarily a choice in every instance evidently. I've often intellectually preferred not to have feelings of blame yet felt them none the less. In other instances my intellectual preference has won out over my emotive impulses. This I consider to be an example of the varient degree of free will. It is such experiances that lead me to veiw free will as a capacity - a skill that can be developed or left to wither way, rather than an all-or-nothing inherent attribute.

As I have said before, actions in a determinist world may be good or bad, but they can never be right or wrong. We are left with aesthetic judgments, not moral ones.
Morals are value judgements. Unless you wish to posit some kind of morality that exists independently of human constructors (of it), then I dont see the problem. A moral judgement about right or wrong is nothing more than a valuation of the percieved goodness or badness of the thing being judged. Moral right and moral wrong so far as I can tell is simply another way of expressing the positive or negative values we percieve in particular things/acts/ommisions/what-have-you.

Yes, he can predict how other people are likely to react. But what he cannot do is make judgments about what he "should" do... especially if he is doing something that he does not expect others to discover.
I think you have misunderstood. The person acting is the person who others (in the demonstrative scenario I am positing) do not have a theory of mind for. They percieve the effects that appear to be generated by the person, and in the absence of their having a 'theory of mind' their response will not take into account whether or not he could possibly have done differently. Without theory of mind their only response would be based entirely on his act and their perception of it. Any anger or blame would not be contingent on the goodness/badness/rightness/wrongness of the actor, but merely on their perception of the goodness/badness of his act as they percieve it. Since I contend that such emotive responses were acquired in our evolutionary trajectory well before the far more complex capacity of 'theory of mind' it seems obvious to me that people were blaming and being angry at others well before they capable of considering whether or not the person had any ability to act otherwise. That being the case unless we have some reason to believe that emotions are always subsumed by intellect, we have good reason to conclude that people are likely to blame and/or be angry at others independently of making any determination about the 'deservedness' of the person they are aiming the blame/anger at.

Vittos Ordination2

31-03-2006, 03:08

Well, it seems you've nicely restricted the meaning of "capabilities" to fit your argument... since obviously if this person behaves differently in a determinist world, he/she had at least one capability that the first person did not; namely, the capability to do the right thing.

Desire and capability are completely different. A person thrust into the situation may have different desires than the first person, and the difference in choice is created by the desire, not the capability.

All along I have been saying that a person maintains his free will because there are infinite number of choices he can make and he will choose the want according to his desire. However, the desire is governed by a deterministic chain, given all stimuli can be replicated, the desire would be the same at all times.

The person's desire is responsible for the choice, but the person is not ultimately responsible for the desire.

But on what moral basis do you suddenly expand the realm of "possible" choices beyond what is "possible for me"?

By saying what would I have chosen in that situation, what would you have chosen in that situation. The same deterministic force that gives us a rigid path also creates us as different entities with different desires.

Only if you've already assumed determinism. You're begging the question.

If all of the external and internal stimuli are the same, but the response to those stimuli is not determined by them, the person has a choice.

As an extension of my statement, it seems ludicrous to assume that the response is not contingent upon those stimuli.

Yes, it does. The circumstances "chose," not the will of the person. The will is not an independent variable in the determinist equation. (Actually, one of the things that makes determinism nonsensical is that it has no independent variables... unless one goes back to the beginning of time: and then what? We allow one "random" moment in all of existence, but no more? On what basis?

There is a will but it is not free. How about that, that works, right?

Yes, but the question is whether it is avoidable. If it is not, then it must mean that something fundamental is wrong with the way human beings reason about the world. This was Kant's answer... He thought the very categories that made reason possible led to certain unavoidable antinomies. Of course, this does not invalidate reason where it can arrive at answers: it merely entails that "there are some questions we cannot answer." They are beyond the reach of reason, and hence beyond the reach of science.

This is not a particularly uncommon or indefensible view. Many philosophers, mathematicians, and even scientists have argued that there are some questions that simply cannot be answered by science. "Free will" may be one of them.

I can hardly begin to comment on whether science will ever understand everything, I would say that it would be impossible, but that wouldn't have any reasonable basis.

You are misreading me. My argument for the contradiction is that our behavior is premised on freedom. When we actually act (not when we just think about acting), we have no choice but to believe ourselves to be choosing and acting. It is in the very nature of what it means "to act." At the same time, when we study the world and search for natural explanations, we must think in terms of determined causality. It is the very essence of what it means to "make sense" of reality. In this sense, determinism (in some form) is the basis for all our knowledge, and is itself an unavoidable assumption.

Isn't it easier to question our assumption of free will than to deny determinism? If we assume determinism, even inaction is destined.

That is an open question for a debate on morality. Except that it cannot tell me how to act.

That's the contradiction. He cannot be free, but he has to be free.

That is not the contradiction. He cannot be free, but he must think he is free is the contradiction you are proposing. Put that way it is debatable whether that is truly a contradiction.

AB Again

31-03-2006, 03:22

Morals are value judgements. Unless you wish to posit some kind of morality that exists independently of human constructors (of it), then I dont see the problem. A moral judgement about right or wrong is nothing more than a valuation of the percieved goodness or badness of the thing being judged. Moral right and moral wrong so far as I can tell is simply another way of expressing the positive or negative values we percieve in particular things/acts/ommisions/what-have-you.

What you are describing is simply a value judgement. there are many of these that we make, but that are not moral judgements in any way. I can judge that Glenfiddich is better (or worse) than Dimple. That is a value judgement but it has no moral dimension. It is not normative. It does not say anything about how one should act or behave. Moral right and wrong is far more than just a positive or negative response to an act/person, it is an assertion that that act or person is to be approved/disapproved and the act or person is to be held as amodel of how to be/not be. A moral judgement commits us to a practice. It says that is what I should/should not do. However if we are not in control of what we do, then no moral judgement can exist; only value judgements can.

(Apologies for the interval RL places demands on me.)

Vittos Ordination2

31-03-2006, 03:35

Only if the being is independent of the cause, which in determinism the being is not. They are inherently and inseperably linked and any judgement of one is a judgement of the other.

Sure, we can view an evil person as a failure of the causal chain.

Agreed, except that morality does not exist under these circumstances.

This seems like an unfounded assumption. Morality can still exist if it is not controlled by the individual. All that we must say is that a human life is amoral, yet those qualities given to it by the causal chain are moral or immoral.

Morality has effect on behaviour if the person takes it into account when deciding what to do. However with determinism the person does not decide what to do, so morality can not have a causal role.

Why can't morality be a predeterminate for action? It would be ridiculous for me to argue that determination would cause a person to act against their moral beliefs or desires.

To the contrary a person still acts specifically to fill those moral beliefs and desires, those personal moral beliefs and desires are dependant on past occurences that were not under his control.

To further my point, to assume that there is a he or a she is troublesome, as it assumes so independant entity.

Unless you are going to say that the moral judgements that are necessarily made by others have some direct causal influence on the brain state of the agent, without passing through any reflective, self - determining process.

I don't have a clue what you are talking about here.

You just said that the action was a result of events beyonfd our control and now you say our intent isresponsible for the action. You arew wanting to say then that our intent is beyond our control. In which case how is it 'our' intent?

It is only our intent in that it passes through us. Much like we say that a car has a driver, the driver doesn't belong to the car, it is only associated with the car.

The intent is responsible for the action. The intent is what guides to action, but in no way is generated from nothing by our consciousness.

Only if the person could have intended otherwise. Note that this means that person in those circumstances. It does not mean that there were other logical or physical possible actions. It means that there was a real possibility of the person having done otherwise.

The morality is there, the intent is there, as such it can be judged. Now if you want me to judge the biological entity that was imbued with the morality and intent, I cannot. However, I can judge the morality and intent as it exists.

AB Again

31-03-2006, 04:08

Sure, we can view an evil person as a failure of the causal chain.
So the person then is not evil. The causal chain is. That somehow does not stack up with what we understand morality to be about. (I take it to be about our consistant selection of actions, which makes it difficult to consider it in a deterministic senses at all.)

This seems like an unfounded assumption. Morality can still exist if it is not controlled by the individual. All that we must say is that a human life is amoral, yet those qualities given to it by the causal chain are moral or immoral.
Do you make moral judgements about hurricanes? Or gravity as AnarchyeL pointed out? These are influenced by the causal chain, their actions are innevitable and indifferentiable from those of a person under determinism. If you do not, then what is it about the action being made by a person that makes it susceptible to moral evaluation, if the person is as constrained in their actions as the hurricane is? These qualities are given to anything that is the cause of any action. Unless you mean the qualities concerned are those of freedom of choice, of the ability to have done otherwise. Then we have morality bac in the frame, but determinism has been pushed out to obtain this. As I have consistently maintained, determinism and morality are incompatible.

Why can't morality be a predeterminate for action? It would be ridiculous for me to argue that determination would cause a person to act against their moral beliefs or desires.
Why would it be ridiculous. Are you implying that the causal chain was aware of the moral beliefs and desirews of each and every one of us at the start of the universe, or that these beliefs and desires are actually delusional and we use them simply to justify actions that we had no choice but to do. The first case does seem far fetched, but it is logically possible (see Leibniz on the best possible world for example). The alternative makes morality a sham. So for me, Leibnizian considerations apart, morality can not be real and coincident with determinism.

To the contrary a person still acts specifically to fill those moral beliefs and desires, those personal moral beliefs and desires are dependant on past occurences that were not under his control.
OK, so the person acts so as to fulfill desires, not according to the physical state of the univers. Unless you wish to define the desire as being part of the physical state of the universe. If you accept the second part, that the desires are defined by events outside of the person's control, then they are not 'his' desires. they are simply desires without belonging to him. Stop sliding between his desires and the desires that act as causal agents. The two are different. One, 'his' desires are explicitly derived from the self, from him. the other, are simply mental states that bear no relationship to the individual (in fact there is no individual, there is only a moment in the causal sequence of predetermined events.

To further my point, to assume that there is a he or a she is troublesome, as it assumes so independant entity.
Exactly, and this prevents morality from functioning.

I don't have a clue what you are talking about here.
A moral judgement only becomes a moral judgement when we reflect upon it and approve of it morally. There are two aspects to this, one is that we use morality to evaluate our morals - reflexivity - and the second is that we decide for ourselves whether the action is moral - self-determining (others may advise us, others may demand judgements of us, but in the end the judgement is ours and ours alone.)

It is only our intent in that it passes through us. Much like we say that a car has a driver, the driver doesn't belong to the car, it is only associated with the car.
The driver and the car can exist independent of one another. Thus they are only associated. How can my intent exist independent of me? It can not. An intent may certainly exist independent of me, but not my intent. The internal/external division and the necessarily personal/impersonal division seem to be confused here.

The intent is responsible for the action. The intent is what guides to action, but in no way is generated from nothing by our consciousness.
No, it is generated by our will, freely, non deterministically. This makes me responsible for my actions. If this were not the case, then the exact physics of the big bang would be responsible for the intent that is responsible for the actions. (notice there is no 'me' in the second half of this disjunction).

The morality is there, the intent is there, as such it can be judged. Now if you want me to judge the biological entity that was imbued with the morality and intent, I cannot. However, I can judge the morality and intent as it exists.
The morality is there only if "I" am the cause of my actions. You can judge the intent, but as I have said, value judgements are not necessarily moral judgements. Without the person, there is no morality and determinism removes the person.

Peechland

31-03-2006, 04:43

Hell....at first glance of this in the thread list I read "Episiotomy"....so in so.

AB Again

31-03-2006, 04:47

Hell....at first glance of this in the thread list I read "Episiotomy"....so in so.

Well it was started by Eutrusca, so an understandable mistake.

The Jovian Moons

31-03-2006, 05:24

I use the information I've gathered over a life time of having no life. And I'm God.

Zagat

31-03-2006, 05:52

What you are describing is simply a value judgement. there are many of these that we make, but that are not moral judgements in any way.
Aha, and so you are informing that even though all moral judgements are value judgements, not all value judgements are moral judgements? I should have thought that was self-evident...

I can judge that Glenfiddich is better (or worse) than Dimple. That is a value judgement but it has no moral dimension. It is not normative. It does not say anything about how one should act or behave. Moral right and wrong is far more than just a positive or negative response to an act/person, it is an assertion that that act or person is to be approved/disapproved and the act or person is to be held as amodel of how to be/not be.
It's still just a value judgement. It's of a qualitively different kind to a judgement about Glenfiddich vs Dimple, but that isnt relevent to my argument so far as I can ascertain.

[/quote]A moral judgement commits us to a practice. It says that is what I should/should not do. However if we are not in control of what we do, then no moral judgement can exist; only value judgements can.

(Apologies for the interval RL places demands on me.)[/QUOTE]
It isnt true that a lack of control over what we do excludes the possibility of making moral judgements. Moral judgements dont lie outside the determining factors (of a particular act of ommission) but rather an example of a contributing factor.

Willamena

31-03-2006, 17:25

Sure, we can view an evil person as a failure of the causal chain.
How can a chain fail? Unless it is broken, but then you no longer have determinism. A chain is what it is, events following each other.

Soheran

31-03-2006, 20:48

But it's already been determined whether or not I am going to try. On determinist logic, if person X never tries to be good, he never could have tried to be good. He cannot even "try to try" to be good. It would be impossible.

Yes, true. But if he had been different, he could have tried to be good. Thus judgement of human beings is possible, because what a person is has a direct connection to what actions they take. If we judge those actions to be immoral, we can also judge the actor to be immoral.

His own values in which he had no choice.

Having choice in one's initial values and preferences is an impossibility.

How do you distinguish the "external" limitation of gravity from the external limitation of having no capacity to do good? If it were somehow his fault that he had no capacity to do good, I would understand... but it's really the fault of the arrangement of atoms and the pull of the tides at his birth, combined with many other factors outside his control.

It still seems that in the determinist argument this "outside/inside" distinction is arbirary. You're pulling that old sophist's trick of confusing the thing with its name. "We call this person 'him' so processes that conclude 'inside' him are 'his'..." But you can give no reason for distinguishing those processes from others. I can: I say they are distinguishable because they rest on a principle of moral freedom. But from your perspective, I don't see how they are any different, except that you arbitrarily decide that it's convenient for them to be.

If we are dealing with human free will then we are dealing with human identity. Human identity creates a barrier between that which is "me" - my thoughts, my emotions, my values - and "everything else." If we lack this distinction we cannot talk about "free will" at all, because there is nothing to be free.

If I am free, then the things that fall within that "I" are the determinant factors in my actions. If I am not free, then the things that do not fall within that "I" are the determinant factors in my actions. The distinction is built within the very concept of "I", within the subjective human perception of the world that gives us the impression of free will in the first place, and thus is not at all arbitrary.

Vittos Ordination2

04-04-2006, 23:18

How can a chain fail? Unless it is broken, but then you no longer have determinism. A chain is what it is, events following each other.

Failure in the moral sense.

Vittos Ordination2

04-04-2006, 23:54

So the person then is not evil. The causal chain is.

As I have stated, we can look at a person as being nothing but a momentary link in the causal chain. As such we can judge it to be an evil embodiment of the chain. Since the person and the causal chain are one and the same, a judgement on one is also a judgement on the other.

That somehow does not stack up with what we understand morality to be about. (I take it to be about our consistant selection of actions, which makes it difficult to consider it in a deterministic senses at all.)

That is because we have a tendency to seperate and organize. We see the individual as just that, an independent individual, and we judge our morality as an extension of that.

When we assume that there are no "individuals" in a sense, we cannot make moral judgements as if there are individuals, but we can still make these judgements regardless.

Do you make moral judgements about hurricanes? Or gravity as AnarchyeL pointed out? These are influenced by the causal chain, their actions are innevitable and indifferentiable from those of a person under determinism. If you do not, then what is it about the action being made by a person that makes it susceptible to moral evaluation, if the person is as constrained in their actions as the hurricane is? These qualities are given to anything that is the cause of any action. Unless you mean the qualities concerned are those of freedom of choice, of the ability to have done otherwise. Then we have morality bac in the frame, but determinism has been pushed out to obtain this. As I have consistently maintained, determinism and morality are incompatible.

Two things:

1. Determinism does not eliminate alternatives, it merely states that one person will choose an alternative based on preexisting conditions.

2. Morality is contingent on consciousness. Regardless of predetermination, the person has morality while gravity does not based on his conscious determination of want. If a person desires to help, to do well by his fellow man, he can be judged to be moral, gravity can have no wants.

Taking these two points, we can still say that one can judged relative to alternative paths because it is his conscious desire that leads him to take his chosen path and conscious desire is the basis for morality.

Why would it be ridiculous. Are you implying that the causal chain was aware of the moral beliefs and desirews of each and every one of us at the start of the universe, or that these beliefs and desires are actually delusional and we use them simply to justify actions that we had no choice but to do. The first case does seem far fetched, but it is logically possible (see Leibniz on the best possible world for example). The alternative makes morality a sham. So for me, Leibnizian considerations apart, morality can not be real and coincident with determinism.

As an agnostic, I believe that Leibniz's argument is pointless. We cannot know the nature of the chain, only its forces and results.

I am just saying that it is ridiculous to assume that a person does not have moral beliefs or desires under a deterministic system. If there are no moral beliefs or desires, then there is no action, and no action completely undermines a deterministic system.

Morality needs to originate in the person for the person to be judged. A person will be judged moral or immoral if and only if the person is responsible for the moral or immoral behavior. But, as a deterministic stance casts out the idea of an independent person, stating that person is simply a part of the chain, there is no cause for judgement on the person, only the chain.

Now, as came up in another of our discussions, morality is only judgeable when it manifests itself in our behavior. The origins of morality are inconsequential as they cannot be observed. This means that morality can still be judged within a deterministic system, as, though it doesn't originate in the person, it quite plainly manifests itself in the person's behavior.

Therefore, the necessity of judging a person to be moral is cast out, but the necessary criteria for casting moral judgement is still met.

Responding to the rest would only rehash what I have already said.

NationStates Jolt Archive

Epistemology. How do you know what you claim you know?