The Argument There Is Determinism And Free Will
We cannot change the future directly except when we meet a junction where multiple conjoined paths are to be selected from. We can change the future indirectly, if I push my eyebrows now, I will do otherwise in the future as to if I didn't push my eyebrows then. There's two assets of free will. However, I cannot change the mode of my physique nor can I change most of the physical world and/or 'the good'. Therefore, there's elements of free will and determinism - there are certain rules and regulations to existing here.
If there was no free will, our bodies would run off like criminals and try to take us for a ride. If there was 'pure' free will we would fully understand it and it would leave nothing to question. This supports my argument.
I walk up to a junction, what is determined about my choice-making here? That if I choose left it was determined before? That if I choose right it was determined before? And the same with back and front? There's no substance to this claim, it's pure mysticism. Choice making at junctions can't be determined rationally, they are break points in determinism.
To conclude, I have proven I can change the future indirectly by interrupting the flow of the present. I also assert that at junctions we can change the future directly. This is my argument that life is both determined and has free will, but neither purely.
If there was no free will, our bodies would run off like criminals and try to take us for a ride. If there was 'pure' free will we would fully understand it and it would leave nothing to question. This supports my argument.
I walk up to a junction, what is determined about my choice-making here? That if I choose left it was determined before? That if I choose right it was determined before? And the same with back and front? There's no substance to this claim, it's pure mysticism. Choice making at junctions can't be determined rationally, they are break points in determinism.
To conclude, I have proven I can change the future indirectly by interrupting the flow of the present. I also assert that at junctions we can change the future directly. This is my argument that life is both determined and has free will, but neither purely.
Comments (310)
Have you? Change the future from what?
You have not proven anything because you have not proven that you have willfully interrupted the flow of the present. The claim of determinism is based on materialism. All matter that we can think of reacts to outward stimuli. When a rock is pushed and rolls from the mountain, we can predict its course and speed when we have all the information about the material characteristics of the terrain and the force of the push. You are made out of matter. It follows therefore that your matter reacts to stimuli. One of the stimuli is the threat of punishment which causes you not to run around like a criminal. If you want to postulate something undetermined, such as your 'free will', you cannot lay the burden of proof on the determinist and say you have proven something. The onus is on you to show there is some matter that does not react to stimuli and makes choices out of its own volition. That is the hard part of free will.
Now I am a compatibilist so I think there are arguments, but the route you have taken is fruitless.
Your description of free will is consistent with compatibilism. The alternative is Libertarian Free Will (LFW) which most people treat as entailing the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). According to the PAP, when we make a freely-willed choice, we could have made a different choice. (I happen to think that's absurd). On the other hand, compatibilism is consistent with PAFP: the principle of alternative FUTURE possibilities - and that's what you describe. Mental causation is all that's required to account for the PAFP and compatibilism.
I don't understand the distinction that you are making between the PAP and the PAFP. Google returns no hit aparts from mentions of the concept in unpublished talks by William J. Brady. It does sound similar to something Peter Tse advocates in The Neural Basis of Free Will but I don't know if this corresponds to what you meant.
"The principle of alternative future possibilities in moral judgments" published by the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
The point is simply this: at the point we make a decision, there is a set of determining factors: beliefs, genetic dispositions, environmentally introduced dispositions, one's desires and aversions, the presence or absence of empathy, jealousy, anger, passion, love, and hatred. These factors are processed by the computer that is our mind to make a choice. No alternative decision could have been made given that specific set of factors. But future decisions will be based on an altered set of factors: one might learn more about the risks of a particular course of action, or become more risk-averse, aware of better alternatives, more empathetic, etc. Those are the future possibilities, and it is because such future possibilities exist, it can be reasonable to hold people morally accountable for their actions. Knowledge that one will be held accountable may very well result in better behavior than would be the case if no accountability were expected.
What about playing the lottery and having one's life changed by a random computer algorithm? Or a computer glitch that affects a streetlight causing a collision or death?
This thread turned out to be much more readable and robust than I thought it would. :smile:
Surely, there's no problem about one acting in accordance with one's beliefs and desires (and emotions are an aspect of one's desires). That's what freedom means. What would be it be like not to act in accordance with them? So even if you say these are determining factors, they are not factors that threaten free will.
Yes, I realize that sometimes we feel that our emotions have "carried us away", but other times our emotions are exactly what we want to do. The interesting question is to understand which emotions on which occasions threaten our freedom and which don't. In the same way, we sometimes talk of being in the grip of a desire - addiction and habit are the greatest threats with social expectations and manipulation a close second - and sometimes doing what we want to do just is freedom. Again, the interesting question is to distinguish the two. Beliefs also sometimes mislead us - it is better to act on what we know, but hard to be sure which beliefs are knowledge and which not, but that's the interesting issue. No-one wants to act on false beliefs. Everyone wants to act on knowledge. Sweeping generalizations just create fake philosophical problems.
In my opinion.
I'm not sure I understand your point. We have the potential to be changed by everything we experience, and this can impact the choices we make in the future.
No, because the future hasn't happened. My point is that your choices establish the future.
I agree with you. But I'm asking if what I said is the idea of the thread. Sorry, should have specifically asked .
No worries there, me and @Patterner are of one mind when it comes to understanding the underlying premise of the thread itself! :smile:
I heard once an argument, based on determinism I believe, that in theory a supercomputer could predict the future if, as you said, every painful, excruciating detail of every physical and environmental aspect of a given thing could be known. So for example, a bridge built in 1957. If somehow a computer could know the exact composition of every atom in the steel of the bridge, it's exact number of vehicles traveled and their weight, as well as any environmental factors such as salinity of the air that affect corrosion or weakening of integrity, etc, etc. x1000 for every single other factor (of which it admittedly is virtually impossible to. though not technically impossible) it could be predicted an exact date and time when the bridge would collapse and by what type of vehicle, etc. If that makes sense. Basically in short, your statement of "everything is based on factors" such as the rock being pushed and if every single factor was known (force, resistance, etc) basically any movement, trajectory, or location could in theory be determined. I was just suggesting the modern presence of certain factors that truly cannot be determined (random computer generation or glitches in technology), similar but NOT like the flipping of a coin (I had a debate earlier which a person asserted a coin flip is in fact not random as, much like your rock example, could in theory be measured by force, friction, etc.) whereas a true random event such as random number generation or a glitch cannot. I think? That's all I was trying to bring up, at least. The introduction of modern technology that creates truly random outcomes not based on any measurable or observable factors prior to said outcome, unlike a coin flip or dice roll.
This seems, at face value, at least to me, to be lacking in the depth or profoundness you yourself may find in it.
Short anecdote - and I promise it's related - during a tragedy, religious leaders often attempt to console the grieving by stating "God has a plan" or "it was part of God's plan". Which I've often observed if not delivered in the most delicate and tactful of ways and timing, can actually become quite infuriating, unsatisfying at least. It makes one, at least internally. question: "Oh so if I decide to take out a knife and stab you right now, that's part of God's plan too?!" Point being, I think your premise needs a bit of "dressing up" to be as profound or satisfying to others as you yourself find it to be. :smile:
I agree.
Quoting Outlander
Generally, computers don't really generate random numbers - they generate pseudo-random numbers. And computer glitches are also predictable, in principle (they aren't magic: they're consistent with laws of nature; you can't produce indeterminacy from deterministic processes). So these are still fully deteministic.
The only truly unpredictable thing is an event that is a consequence of quantum indeterminacy. But this still doesn't entail complete indeterminism- it implies probabilistic determinism. In principle, all possible quantum outcomes could be predicted - but it's impossible to predict which series of outcomes would be actualized.
Proponents of Libertarian Free Will seem to freak out about the fact that determinism implies that each choice is pre-determined. This sounds worse than it is. It ignores the fact that individually, we are causal agents - we cause things to happen that would otherwise not happen. And those things that we cause were the product of our mental processes, influenced by our genetic and psychological make-up.
If there are actual alternative future possibilities, why would we not have been able to do otherwise than we did in the past? By alternative future possibilities do you mean alternative ontological possibilities or merely alternative epistemological possibilities on account of the fact that we cannot know what the future will be?
Quoting Relativist
But is there any free 'self' that causes those mental processes or are they the result of neural processes of which we are completely unaware, and thus have no control over. The very idea of mental processes might be a post hoc rationalization/ fabrication.
Assuming there's no quantum indeterminacy in the mix, then there is only one possible future. But you nevertheless contribute to what that future will be.
Quoting Janus
Even though mental states are the product of neural processes, it's still the case that there is mental causation. So your thoughts and feelings actually do affect the world in a unique way. The 'self' is your consciousness; a "machine" that develops intentions and acts upon them. You are caused to be what you are, but you were not caused through prior intent (not entirely).
As do every chemical reaction or energy exchange and absolutely every change of any kind. The question really is 'what is that "you" apart from the totality of your physical being'? Seems to me the salient question is as to whether there is anything more than an illusion of agential control based on the reified self of reflection made possible by symbolic language.
I think, we falsely accuse our Bodies, when it is Mind which both constructed and projects gluttony.
As for running off if there was no free will, again, I think the opposite. Thank god Mind moves on a dynamic incessantly in pursuit of the most functional projection. Gluttons to the extent of criminals are an aberration in the conventional narrative. Thank god there's no free will or Mind would have gone extinct eaons ago.
I expect neuronal events ARE causal - the brain controls the autonomic nervous system, for example.
Are you you suggesting that all mental activities are just neuronal events and that mental causation is illusory? That's what Jaegwon Kim has said (he says mental causation would imply overdetermination). This is possible, of course, since theories in philosophy of mind are all conjectural. I'd just say that I consider Tse's theory more compelling because it jives with the intuition that mental causation is real.
IMO Tse's overall theory is flawed - he tries to make a case for free will by assuming quantum indeterminacy plays a role. I never bought into that, and more recently, Robert Sapolsky ("Determined") has shown it to be problematic. But Tse does make a case for "criterial causation" that I find compelling. If you still have the book, it's described in Chapter 3.
In what way is this robot less a casual agent, affecting the world less, less of a "self" than we are?
Quoting Barkon
I think this is the main problem here when we start from the logical premiss of "the future is what really will happen".
To change the future assumes a variety of "possible futures" that then don't happen, through our actions. Which goes against the definition that the future is what really will happen.
I argue that plans/acts do alter the future course, but that we can be in a mode where we're doing mostly one mind-module, for example, constantly picking the righteous choice, and thus we stray not too far from a determined path; however, the simple forced act of changing mode directly, indirectly changes the future.
It is a causal agent, but lacks a mind. Our minds mediate our actions, and provides our sense of self.
I have absolutely no idea what you mean. I will try to make heads and tails out of it, but we may be talking past each other. I do not think one question is more important than the other one. I simply mean that your defense of free will is flawed. There are many indirect or direct changes (direct being caused directly by something and indirect meaning caused by something but via something else) the onus is on you to show that some of these changes have been willfully chosen and that that will itself is not determined by something prior to it.
Various neuroscientists suggests that what is chosen is a response of the brain to some kind of outside stimulus. What sets apart humans is that they have a function in the brain which rationalizes choice and gives an account of this choice. Those choices, even if the ancient perceives having made the choice by his own volition, was actually triggered by an outside stimulus. These finding are in line with materialist metaphysics. Everything we hear, see and feel is made of matter. Matter behaves in determinist fashion, therefore it is logical to conclude that you, since you are made out of matter act in determinist fashion.
Of course it could be otherwise, but than you have to account somehow for this fee will. It is a kind of uncaused cause (If it was caused it would not be free at least not in your definition of free will as it appears to me). Uncaused causes are very very rare things. So before I conclude there is such an uncaused cause, you should give me a good argument to believe in it.
[i]The impossibility of self-causation has been at the root of the strongest criticisms of the possibility of mental causation (§§A2.2A2.5) or free will (§§7.17.5); criterial causation gets around this problem.
.... The criteria for what makes a neuron fire can change. For example, a given physically realized mental event can set up new criterial triggers for future input by changing the code for future neuronal firing, either in the neuron(s) realizing that mental event, or other neurons, presumably using the physical mechanisms summarized in §§4.544.60. Any future input that satisfies these new criteria will lead to a response that will in turn either lead to a physical action or a change in how information even further in the future will occur by again changing criteria for neuronal firing. Thus, even though mental events are realized in physical events, they (i.e., their physical realization) can cause subsequent physical and mental events by preparing new decoders, or changing the criteria for firing on already existing decoders. This kind of online and continual resetting of the criteria, or code, whereby decoders decode input, and thereby realize information, is crucial to all aspects of mental life, including volition and mental-on-physical causation. Thus, mental events are not epiphenomenal. They are informational states realized in neural decoders that play a role in determining how future information will be decoded by future neural activity and therefore in determining how the physical/informational system will behave in the immediate and more distant future. Of course, the information realized in a decoder cannot change the present physical system in which it itself is realized (there can be no causa sui). But it can lead to subsequent physical changes, such as the resetting of criteria for neuronal firing, in which future information will be realized upon the satisfaction of those neuronally realized criteria. Thus, we can talk about causation that operates at the level of information processing in the brain, rather than simply of causation at the level of energy transfer among elementary particles (see appendix 1).
[/i]
Tse, Peter Ulric. The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation (p. 47-49). MIT Press. Kindle Edition.
I found this diagram from Tse's book helpful in understanding criterial causation (which entails mental causation):
The prototypical sequence of criterial causation among neurons is represented in terms of the setting and resetting of physical criteria for neuronal firing. The triple arrow here represents physical criterial causation, where some proportion of the criteria C1, C2, . . . Cj, must be met before P2 is released. In this case P11, P12, . . . P1i at t1 are the dynamic neuronal inputs from multiple neurons to a second neuron that fires at t2 only if these criteria C1, C2, . . . Cj, which that neuron imposes on P11, P12, . . . P1i, are met beyond a certain threshold. The firing of this second neuron is P2, and information M2 [the mental state realized by physical state P2] is realized in this firing. The firing of this neuron at t2 can in turn change the criteria for the firing of multiple neurons at and after t3. For example, a neuron k that takes input from the neuron that fires at t2 might have criteria C3k for firing at t2, but will have criteria C3k' after t3. The double arrows represent noncriterial physical causation. The single arrow represents the supervenience relationship of the mental on the physical.
Tse, Peter Ulric. The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation (pp. 48-49). MIT Press. Kindle Edition.
Thanks for pointing me at these things. When a page or two after what I quoted last time says
I fear I'm not going to get too much out of the book.
The quote in your post before the diagram post makes me think of this analogy. I don't know if this is what he's saying, so let me know.
There are an uncountable number of air molecules in my living room. They are all flying about in various directions, at various speeds. We have nothing resembling the slightest hint of hope of tracking them all. But we can measure the temperature of the room. As Anil Seth writes in [I]Being You : A New Science of Consciousness[/I]
We, likewise, have no hope of tracking the activity of every neuron and synapse in someone's brain. As with the air molecules, the numbers, alone, make it impossible. But it's even more complicated, because, due to the nature of neurons, as Tse says, "The criteria for what makes a neuron fire can change." If we have no hope of mapping out the motion of the molecules of air in the room, then "no hope" is a pitifully inadequate way of expressing our ability to map out neutral activity. Nevertheless, if I'm understanding this, Tse is saying that, to paraphrase Seth, neural activity doesn't merely [I]correlate[/I] with thought this is what thought actually [I]is[/I]. Although we can measure the macro property of temperature in a room, but cannot map out the motion of the air molecules, we know that the temperature is nothing more than the motion of the molecules. And, although we can comprehend thoughts, but cannot map out the neural activity of the brain, we know that the thoughts are nothing more than the neural activity.
Am I correctly understanding what he's saying?
I can cut the legs off of my table, and screw skies onto it, thus changing my table into a sled.
I can add a floor to my house, changing it from a one-story to a two-story.
I can sell my Nissan and buy a Ford. I won't have changed the physical object, but I will have changed the car I own.
But if I take saw, hammer, nails, and wood, and build a chair, I will not have changed the future because I had said I was going to build a table. I only changed my intention, my plan of what I would have in the future. There was no table in the future that ceased to be and was replaced by a chair.
Quoting BarkonYes, I believe the opposition is saying that. However, I don't think they are saying the force that is controlling us is doing so with intent, thought, or purpose. I think they are saying it's the laws of physics, or physicalism, or whatever the best term is now.
If mental events just are physical events looked at from a different angle, then both would be causal. and mental events would not be illusory, but simply the elements of a different way of looking at what is going on than the neuronal view.
:up:
Exactly.
And here's what people don't get: the future that really will happen is out of bounds from us, because we have an effect on what the future is.
Yes, you can argue that there is exactly a way that things happened in history (in this dimension of the multiverse or whatever you think reality is) and hence there will be exactly one future that will happen. This is simply meaningless to us as we cannot know it. It simply goes against logic.
I don't think it "goes against logic", rather it is one logically possible way we can imagine things being.
I think so. Great analogy. (And your quote was hilarious!)
So if Tse is correct, let me ask about this:Quoting RelativistCertainly, the physical interactions taking place among the components of our brains are more complex than those taking place among the molecules of air in a room, among the robots parts and programming, and maybe even among the components of anything else in the universe. Still, our minds are the product of nothing but physical interactions. What is the value of our sense of self if it can do nothing other than move from one arrangement of its constituent parts to the next, as the laws of physics require? Even wondering about the value of itself is nothing but the progression of arrangements, as determined by the laws of physics. One person's thought that there is value in the self, and another person's that there is not, are, ultimately, both the result of the properties of particles and the forces that act upon them.
Perhaps I should have been more precise: We can assume that there's the future that will certainly happen. But it is illogical then to think that we, being part of the universe and actors in the universe, could then now this future, because there is a correct model of the future. It's similar basically to the measurement problem.
Did we really change the future or our belief of the future? We believed that we were going to have a ham sandwich, but are now preparing a pb&j sandwich, so we believe that we will be having pb&j for lunch except for the fact that we were ignorant to the fact that our friend is on their way to our house with chicken wings to share with us for lunch, so we end up having chicken wings for lunch and the pb&j is eaten for dinner instead. In this case, it wasn't any decision that I made that changed my possible future. It was my friends choices that determined my future.
there is a distinction between what the future is and our knowledge about the future. The same could be said of our knowledge about the past and even the present. We do not have access to all the information necessary to say with certainty why any particular event happens.
Ideas of possibilities, probability, randomness, etc. stem from the act of conflating our knowledge of the future with the future that is (the determined future). Where do possible futures exist relative to the present, past and the future that is, prior to us making some decision? Are possible futures ontological or epistemological?
Some future event will have a causal relation with another future event further down the causal chain. Do possible future events have any causal power? In what sense are possible futures real? In what way do possible futures exist independently of our minds to say that these things exist prior to making a decision and then change based on some decision that is made?
Possibilities and probabilities are just ideas in the present moment. They do not exist apart from the process of our making some decision in the present moment.
Quoting Relativist
I believe that what makes one morally accountable for their actions is that one's actions contribute to a much higher degree to the consequences of those actions than some event prior to making the decision. The Big Bang and the formation of the solar system and evolution have much less of an impact on the consequences of some action than the act of some individual does. Some "possible" future has nothing to do with it because "possible" futures are just ideas in the present when making some decision. There is no "possible" future that can exist independently from the act of making some decision in the present.
Well sure we cannot know it.But the really question is,could Laplace's Demon know it indeed?
Plus do we have a say on it??Even a tiny one?Or are we just automatic biological systems that just watch like in a theater what their brain does??
It is a damn deep problem and for me at the end it just lies on general consciousness problem.Do we accept that mind is just a different state of matter?Do we actually know if that matter can produced a 'self ' that can change the route of the "other matter" (neurons) just by having some degrees of "freedom"?Just breaking even for a second the pure deterministic laws?
Well personally i can't tell really.I just believe that in such issues you can never be dogmatic.You have to have a open mind.
And for one thing i m sure, if you support that there is not at all free will then you have to embrace the futility of everything.And that you cannot held people moral responsible for any of their acts.It is a tremendous existential thing to do.
Well in fact for those who support no free will the verb "do" also loses its meaning here ;)
I have heard many people argue about no free will and at the end they close their speakings,or articles with something like "..so what that tells us is that we have to think,do etc".Like urging people to act in a certain way (as if they can....).And they don't even understand that that is totally incoherent with what they have argued about for hours.
If you wanna support that we humans are just automatic biological machines you have to go all the way till fatalism my man.Sorry you can't have it all.
Not determined in the same way?
I happen to agree with your conclusion that, in the real world, FreeWill and Determinism co-exist in the paradoxical synergy of statistical Probability. But proving that union of opposites will be like prying apart a paradoxical black box. FWIW, here's my personal take on the philosophical Compatibility Question from a few years ago. :smile:
Paradox of FreeWill :
[i]Thus, the incompatibility of Fate and Freedom has been debated for millennia. . . .
So, it seems that any self-determination or freedom-from-causation we humans possess must be found in that tiny statistical gap between cause & effect.[/i]
https://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page13.html
Note --- The world is predestined by probability (maybe -- maybe not).
Mathematical Probability :
Probability means possibility. It is a branch of mathematics that deals with the occurrence of a random event. The value is expressed from zero to one.
https://byjus.com/maths/probability/
Note --- Einstein didn't like the gambling odds of quantum physics. But the sub-atomic world has since been proven to be founded on a crap shoot. So, the appearance of "pure" determinism is an illusion.
Not even so. Even if you have all the information, it still isn't possible. Let me explain:
Even if you would have all the information necessary to say with certainty why any particular event happens, that doesn't mean you can say the what will happen. You are part of the universe. You saying something can effect what is going to happen. Hence you saying anything, doing anything, can have an effect on what you ought to forecast. And what about when the future depends totally on what the forecast you give about it? You basically have the possibility of negative self reference and you cannot overcome that law of logic: you cannot say what you don't say.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Or I would say a great way make a useful model of the future what we cannot exactly know, especially many times when we do have this kind of interaction going on.
Quoting Harry Hindu
So, cannot we then define the future to be what really will happen? We can, but that doesn't help us much. Far better models perhaps can be the idea of a multiverse where we end up in some distinct reality.
Only if he doesn't interact with us, he can know. Then it is really that computable extrapolation with total information of the past on forward. The Demon simply cannot interact with us.
And since he cannot interact, it really is a fictional character to us. Or at least doesn't give us any information. Because just think of it when a person comes to the Demon and asks what should he or she do? Well, how does the Demon extrapolate from the facts the future when the future likely depends on the extrapolation? That's circular reasoning. And what if the person doesn't like what the Demon says and does the very opposite? Then the Demon obviously cannot say the future what the person will do, because it will be the opposite (hence wrong) what the Demon says.
Well imagine that the Demon at the very next second that he will tell the person what to do the data will change.
And according to the new data that supposingly the Demon would have ,he could predict that the person would do the opposite thing just because he would want to prove the Demon wrong.
Remember we suppose the demon has available all the data at any second and has the ability to make the calculations also at the same time.
Quoting ssu
Well i m not really sure why the Demon shouldn't interact with us as to be able to predict the future.Can you explain it a little more?
Quoting ssu
Well he is fictional in any case indeed..
Nope. Doesn't go like that. If the Demon predicts that it's the opposite, then the person does what the prediction says, hence the Demon was wrong in it's forecast. The simple fact is that you or the Demon cannot say what you don't say. Even in a game theoretic model this is totally clear.
D's forecast: A The person actually does: not A
D's forecast: not A The person actually does: A
D's forecast: something else or no forecast The person actually does: A
From the above you can see it's impossible for the Demon to give the forecast.
Yes, yet the Demon a) doesn't control everything and b) has to give a prediction.
Besides, you should note just how the Demon makes a computation and uses extrapolation. This is really a simple matter of logic. You cannot compute something which is illogical and then declare it to be mathematically truthful.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Because when it interacts, it is the subject. It's interaction effects what it should be looking objectively, that is the whole idea what Laplace was thinking about. Now it's the subject.
And if you think this isn't a problem, well, in physics the measurement effecting what is to be measured does complicate things.
I'll give you another example:
The Demon is interviewed in the media and ALL people really believe that it indeed has perfect knowledge of everything in the past and all the laws of nature etc. (because the Demon predicted a strong earthquake and got it's timing and location spot on and many lives were saved). So one person asks the Demon on live tv/radio: "What are the next lottery winning numbers tomorrow and how much will be won? Well, let's assume the Demon knows what the winning numbers will be, but how does he define how much will be won by the winners? That winning pot is divided by all those who bet on the winning numbers, and everybody believes that he is right, there's a problem. Let's say the lottery ticket costs 1 dollar and the winning pot is 10 million. Now there are 15 million listening to the broadcast and if everybody would pick the Demon's winning lottery number, when the winning lottery is only 10 million, then they would lose because the 66 cents that they would win doesn't go over the 1 dollar price of the lottery line.
Now, you might say that there's some Nash equilibrium which will happen, but the real problem is that here obviously what the Demon says affects what will happen and this isn't what Laplace had in mind with his extrapolations. It's not something that you can simply extrapolate from the past: what the Demon says, actually does have an effect.
Or do you think it's mathematically reasonable to say this statement is true ...because I say so?
Well it is a nice example but the problem isn't if Demon will affect the result.Of course he would do it.But he would have known that will happen indeed even with his interference.
He would knew that people would react this way suppose he had access to everybody's neurons data.
By the way i could predict that too as to be honest..haha
Quoting ssu
He could change his answer every second calculating exactly humans brains activity plus etc etc.And when the bets are closed he could also say the result.
Anyway Laplace's Demon is way too fictional and can arise vague issues.Including observation effects in quantum physics as you mention.That isn't even clear either if indeed the observer affects the result.It is still an open issue.But it is a possibility.
OK, I see what you mean now. It doesn't follow from the fact that there will be a definite future that we can, or could even in principle, know what that future will be. I agree with that.
But here's the point. The Demon isn't omnipotent. From Laplace's example, it "simply" knows a) everything from the past and b) all the laws of nature. And using a) and b) it should through extrapolation forecast perfectly the future. But now it is an actor! That information a) and b) doesn't have the future effect on what the extrapolation (the forecast) will have. Why? Because you can have diagonalization: negative self reference to the extrapolation.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Which is waiting for what the Demon will say. And that's my whole point. You notice that this isn't anymore straight forward extrapolation, because the extrapolation itself defining how the humans do. And if you just assume that well, there's a way for the Demon to get around this, because there obviously is a correct model of what is going to happen. Nope! When that correct model is the opposite (or simply something else) than the forecast that the Demon gives, it's game over. Not a chance!
That's how powerful Cantor's diagonalization or simply negative self reference is.
Quoting Janus
Or don't know, yes.
Laplace's idea that with all information from the past and all the existing laws, one can extrapolate at the present the future. Now this would be totally correct, if the extrapolation wouldn't itself have an effect. Some occasions there's no effect, some occasions the effect can be taken into account. But unfortunately in one occasion (at least) it's impossible.
And I think here is still some very basic logical issue that mathematics, and basically philosophy has to get right. Because a typical philosophical question now is that if there's complete determinism, do we have free will? Or if we have free will, is there then determinism?
Why is this important? Well, because you have missing rule in logic/math to tell you why there separate issues.
I think that mathematics and logic has an clear answer to this. The problem now is we have just the paradoxes (Russell etc) and then the undecidability results showing that math is "incomplete". Those don't explain just what is this realm of non-computable math, which should be defined. My working thesis is that all that non-computable math, those Gödel numbers that are true but unprovable, are defined with the negative self-reference.
Perhaps it's for the this Forum to come up with it. :razz:
I don't see how any of this disagrees with what I said. All you are doing is just describing another instance of us lacking information about all the causes that lead to a particular effect.
Not only that but it is deeply flawed. Upon reading my post did you not formulate a response in your mind and then harness your intent to communicate it by typing it out and then clicking the Submit button? Did your response appear on the screen as you had intended? If yes, then you obviously can make predictions about the future that involve your own actions and what you have to say.
The fluttering of a butterfly's wings in Africa has no effect on your typing your post and submitting it. You don't need to know everything to be able to predict something. How were NASA engineers able to predict the New Horizons spacecraft's rendezvous with Pluto when it is billions of miles away and takes years to get there? How is it that the technology that you rely on keeps working as predicted? Your argument only carries weight if we are talking about the future of the universe as a whole, but not for particular instances of a local system within the universe. A lot of information is irrelevant to making predictions about specific, small-scale events.
Quoting ssu
I don't understand this. Can you clarify?
I was simply asking what the ontology of a "possible future" is. Are "possible futures" ideas that only exist in minds? Or are they external to the mind in the form of a quantum wave function or multiverses?
No, It's not the lacking information, it's that interaction creates new information/situation. With negative self reference, there really isn't the capability just to extrapolate it from the old information.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Sorry if I misunderstood you. Perhaps I didn't get the point.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Obviously we can forecast a wide variety of things by extrapolation. And we can also take into account the effect of our own actions. Yet at many times, we cannot and the factor isn't about us not knowing all the data, it's that us being an actor makes the Laplacian idea of "just having all info & laws" the extrapolation impossible. That's my main point.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I'll try, I hope you have the time and the patience to go through it. If I repeat too much, mark then just understood and I go further.
Let's define "the future" as the all the events that really happen. Hence it is incoherent of talking that the "future" changed, the future is what happens.
A correct prediction of "the future" is a model, that is a true model that depicts the future.
Classic determinism starts from this kind of World view that "the future" is this line of events that will happen in the block universe going from the present to the future. Hence everything is determined.
Now Laplaces argument goes that with all information of the past and present and knowledge how things work, an entity can then extrapolate the future precisely, extrapolate the correct model of the future.
What's the problem? The entity being an actor in the universe. A lot of his actions don't have an effect on the future (the Milk Way will collide with Andromeda 4,5 billion years from now or something...), and some of his effects of his actions can be taken into effect. But in some situations, the entity simply cannot predict the future from the way Laplace stated. The extrapolation is simply impossible, yet still, there does exist a "the future" and thus a correct model of the future.
Are you still with me or did I loose you?
What does then this mean. Well, you can say that the future is determined, but that there's a logical reason why we cannot know everything about the future. Why? Because the our actions at the present make a simple (hardly simple, but anyway...) extrapolation from the past information impossible.
Hence we have to use other many times not so exact models to describe the future. NASA engineers and astronomers can still rely basically on Newtonian physics to calculate the future state of the planets, but in some cases it isn't so.
Can you give a real-world example?
ANY interaction between the moment I predict a possible future and that potential future event occurring can render my prediction wrong. My actions are no different that anyone, or anything else's interaction with the world that causes certain effects.
Quoting ssu
After reading my post did you have some idea about how you would respond and then predict that typing on the keyboard would display your response on the screen? How did your interaction with the computer change your prediction that the computer will display your response on the screen? You had to have some model of the future in typing your words, or else why would you be tapping your fingers on the keyboard in the first place? Your model of the future was of your ideas being on the screen for me to see. If your interaction with the computer changes the outcome then how can you ever hope that what you intend to be on the screen is what ends up on the screen?
Quoting ssu If one does not have patience then one should not be engaging in philosophy. :cool:
Quoting ssu
I agree. Let me go further and say that I'm kind of in line with Einstein with his idea of block time, or block universe. One might say that the future has already "happened" and we are just playing it all out and perceive the flow of time as a result of participating in this block universe. Think about it like a first person computer game that has been coded in its entirety. The beginning, middle and end are all coded, but you as the player must play it out from beginning to end, with some parts of the world you never interact with even though they exist as code and are there to be called if you ever visit that part of the game world. You can even play the game differently each time doing things in different order but still eventually arriving at the end of the game. The game code is like the block universe in that everything has already happened and you are just a participant. It is the playing of the game that gives rise to the flow of time as a participant in this block universe.
Quoting ssuRight, so the model and the future are two separate things. The model exists in the present moment as an idea and the other is the actual events that are "yet to happen".
It is the model, not the future that causes you to behave in certain ways so that your prediction is realized. This is why you tapped your fingers on the keyboard because you predicted that the appropriate letters would appear on the screen as you typed them and that the post would be successfully submitted after you click the Post Comment button.
Quoting ssuYou simply said that the entity cannot predict the future but provide no reason as to why it would be impossible. But we know that we can predict the future accurately in many instances, but sometimes we cannot. What creates this distinction if not having access to the proper information or not?
I would need examples of what you are talking about - instances where we have a model of some moment in the future in the present moment that are not realized because of something we, as opposed to someone, or something, else. For instance, we can predict where a certain near-Earth asteroid will be in 100 years but some other event could happen within 100 years that could render our prediction wrong. It wasn't anything I did, or an interaction I had. It was something else entirely, like another asteroid colliding with it diverting its trajectory.
My point is that anything, not just you, could prevent your model from being correct. Any interaction you take is no different than any other interaction, like the two asteroids colliding, that could render your model as inaccurate. This is all that I mean by lacking information about what is happening now, in the past, or in the future that might affect your future model.
It depends on how far in the future we are talking about. Your model of the future where your ideas appear on the screen after typing them is more immediate than your model of where an asteroid will be in 100 years. There is a lot more information that needs to be known the more distant the future event is that you are tying to model, which is why you have less certainty of your model of distant events in the future.
Quoting ssu
But the present moment is the past relative the future model you have. For you to have an accurate model of the future, you must have an accurate model of not just the past, but the present and any future event that happens between now and the future you are predicting. Like I said, the further in the future you are trying to predict leads to a higher degree of uncertainty because its not just what is happening in the present that must be accounted for, but also any interaction in the future that happens before the event you are modeling. Again, all we are talking about is a lack of information about this block universe in all moments. Is it impossible to predict everything? Yes, because of a lack of information of all the events in the block universe, not for any other reason.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Thanks for your patience. And good that we agree on a lot of things, so I'll try to give examples.
Here's a real world example:
Let's say I will write in the next post at the start either the number 1 or 2. Now before that you have to make a forecast of the number I will write. It's something that will happen in the future of this thread. To help you I'll give you here how I will choose the number.
If you forecast me saying 1 - > I will write 2
If you forecast me saying 2 - > I will write 1
If you write something else, copy these rules or disregard this - > I will write 1
If you never even answer this thread (in the next week or so) - > I will write 1
Those are all the possible things for you to do, either make a forecast or not or then even disregard this message. And obviously everything depends now on your actions.
Is there a correct model of how things will go and what number I will write. Yes, there obviously is one.
Can you give the correct number? No, my action is based on the negation of your action or on your inaction. Or you have to hack to my account and write as me. Hence you have to have literally control me. So if that's not an option, then there is simply no way to say what would be the correct model of the future. This is the power of negative self reference. Hopefully you can spot the "diagonalization" from the rules that I will implement.
OK, does this go away by you sending a private message which says "I'll make SSU write 1" and then write something else disregarding this silly game example of mine, and then putting me to write 1. Nope, this actually just shows that your private message forecast didn't have an effect on the forecast, which just shows that Laplace's idea is OK when there is no interaction. The interaction part is the problematic thing.
And finally, is there something missing here at the present? Laplace's entity might well know what the correct model is when it isn't making the forecast itself. A what information is missing here, I gave above the rules of how I will start by next response by writing a number.
And if that problem isn't enough real word, I can give you a real world example of this from anti-aircraft gunnery.
But first, let's see what number I'm going to write after your next response. Hope you don't go away for a week... :yawn:
Chalmers adapted LD to accommodate quantum physics by just making it open ended. In other words, the demon knows how events unfold, however that may be (I think that's what he meant anyway). So couldn't we have an LD that know mental states and however it is they evolve?
Think about how I gave examples of sending a spacecraft to Pluto, or predicting where an asteroid will be 100 years from now, or your prediction that typing on a key on the keyboard will produce a letter on the screen, or your prediction that when you call a friend they will answer instead of going to voicemail, or what you will have for lunch tomorrow, etc.
It seems to me that there are many predictions that require your interaction to be correct, as in the case of you predicting that a k will appear on the screen when you type k on the keyboard. The k will not appear if you do not interact. In this case, your interaction is necessary for your prediction to come true, and necessarily absent for it to not be true (unless someone else comes along and types k on the keyboard for you).
LD is defined as knowing everything about everything, which I would assume would include the solution to the hard problem.
I think that's kind of what Chalmers was doing. That would make the LD irrelevant to the issue of free will, right?
however, if consciousness is not the result of, or at least not entirely the result of, physical events, of which LD has absolute knowledge, then it would not have absolute understanding of consciousness. LD only knows what it knows knows.
LD is defined as knowing everything about everything with infinite precision. I would think "everything about everything" does not limit LD to "physical" phenomenon. It just might be the case that the world is not physical at all and LD would know this and therefore be able to explain what consciousness is and it's relation with the rest of the world.
LD would also know that under special relativity there is no universal now. It would know the entire universe without any frame of reference - a view from no where. For LD there would be no present moment. All events would be accessible to it without limitations.
Demon can't predict the "veto" that someone could use you mean.
Well ok you do have a point.I m not exactly capable of wrapping my head around it but intuitively i think I m convinced.
What if though the Demon could progress exactly the data at the very same time?Seeing in "real time" through neurons analyzation how thoughts exachge in someone's brain??Seeing "yes,no, I will do the opposite,oh wait no... etc etc"??
Since every neuron activity that occurs in the present it simulatenously becomes past.As every moment in general does the same.
Wouldn't that mean that Demon can indeed have the "past" data( or better the present data also have the prediction effect) and make the calculations at the very same milliseconds??
Yea, I guess the revision is that however it works, LD knows how it works.
Quoting Patterner
That's if you limit LD to so-called physical events, which automatically excludes non-physical things like numbers and mental states. We could imagine an LD that has knowledge of the non-physical stuff, right?
I really have no idea. All I know is that quantum mechanics is supposed to be an argument against the LD. I don't know if that argument prevails or not, but not knowing would be an argument against LD, wouldn't it?
Hope you see the point why you could not give an accurate forecast here. And it's likely that people don't bother to make a forecast when the game is told to them. First they'll think it's a 0.5 chance of getting it right or something.
Quoting Harry Hindu
But this problem does come around in real world implications: anti-aircraft artillery could easily cover the airspace where modern aircraft fly, but they have a problem that cannot be overcome. Once you have made the firing solution, the shell follows a ballistic trajectory to the designated place where the gun was aimed. But with modern speeds the aircraft can change after the course the fire solution has been done and round has been fired. There's no way around the problem, however accurate the targeting radar and the fire control system is. One Finnish fighter pilot told the story that he flew while flying near Kronstadt, he flew in a direct line but immediately made a turn once he saw the muzzle flashes of the AAA on the Soviet line. He wasn't shot down and wasn't even hit by shrapnel.
The historical solution: the surface to air missile. And only few decades ago have SAMs system become so capable that just tight turns at the last minute cannot make the aircraft elude them.
When you think about, the problem is really similar: you can have all the flight data and tracking data of the target aircraft, know the perfomance specs of the aircraft and get a firing solution a the present for the future location some seconds in the future. If the aircraft isn't aware that it's shot and and follows the same line, it likely will get hit. But if the pilot has noticed your AA gun and will change the course after you have fired the artillery projectile, then no matter how accurate your targeting data and fire control was, you will miss or it's just a lucky chance you will hit the aircraft.
It doesn't go away with the assumption that the fire control system "takes into account" the firing solution and the effect on the aircraft. The aircraft can have as a countermeasure a computer calculating what the fire control would give and help the pilot avoid a typical response.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Of course, but that's not the issue here!
The issue is if we have classical determinism, let's say Einstein's block Universe, wouldn't then if you assume determinism that if you know everything from the past, then you could extrapolate the future? And if so, is there free will? Well, of course there's already quantum physics telling you can forget, but also there's this simple logical reasoning why such extrapolation isn't possible even with full knowledge...assuming interaction.
The problem here isn't that we don't have all the relevant information, it's that you can use that relevant data even make an extrapolation and then do something else. That is basically negative self reference.
And perhaps this went too much to what I spoke with @dimosthenis9 about the Laplacian idea of determinism.
Exactly, you got my point. :grin:
Quoting dimosthenis9
This is a good argument.
If look at the discussion above with @Harry Hindu, I gave the example of the problem that conventional anti-aircraft artillery (firing dumb rounds) has in estimating a firing solution when trying to hit a fast aircraft at a distance. Missiles are the historical answer (meaning continuous correction of the projectile), but so would be a laser (if they would be powerful and economical enough). Now with a laser, you wouldn't need to anticipate where the aircraft will be, just point out. And obviously you don't have any warning of an incoming laser.
But there's the catch: that isn't interaction.
And even worse: that isn't a forecast.
Explaining something when it happens would be obviously a great thing, but when that earthquake is destroying large parts of Los Angeles, perhaps the most accurate Richter measurement isn't then what people have in mind.
So one could argue that let's simply forget such nonsense of negative self reference. Well, a lot of our forecasts are made that we do adapt to what is going to happen. The problem really is about subjectivity and how it wrecks the objective extrapolations of classical determinism.
Yet I find it very interesting that there's a mathematical or basically logical reasoning to this.
The quote can be found on anything number of sites...
Quoting LaplaceI believe this is saying that LD knows everything about everything [I]IF[/I] everything about everything is deterministic. That, I believe, is the point of Laplace's thought experiment.
But if all of reality is [I]not[/I] deterministic, LD's calculations would not be able to figure everything out. Comparing what, based on its calculations, it says the universe would look like at any given point with what the universe actually looks like, there would be discrepancies. I suppose LD would say, "Something non-deterministic took place at that spot."
I agree. I guess where I was headed is that an idealist can also be a determinist. LD can be revised to know everything about a universe that is essentially mind.
Well though that leaves us to point zero again about free will problem it was an interesting ride.
The interaction effect in Laplace's Demon was something i hadn't considered before.
This is why pluralism and process philosophy are so important - you don't have to take this "nothing matters, nothing is real" view, EVEN IF you accept that everything is fundamentally caused by the lowest-level physical rules.
Just because all of the components of a clock are governed by physics doesn't mean "the cogs don't cause the clock to work" - no, to the contrary, the fact that the cogs are made of fundamental particles doing what fundamental particles do is what MAKES the cogs work, and in tandem what makes the clock as a whole work.
It's not one or the other, it's one because of the other.
The casualty of your mind can be similar. It's not "my mind is acausal because it's just physical stuff in my brain obeying the laws of physics", it's "my mind IS CASUAL and works how it works, and interacts with the things it interacts with, precisely because it's made of physical things following the laws of physics".
Your view kind of makes it seem like anything that's not fundamental isn't real - I understand that intuition, but I think that's why concepts like emergence are so important to understand. The fundamental is real, and the emergent things that emerge from the fundamental are also real.
Yeah, I understand that. But we're talking about free will. I'm not saying our minds don't cause things. I'm saying that, according to this view, our minds cause things in the same sense that the cogs cause the clock to work. And LD knows what is going to happen everywhere, including what we will all think and do, just as we know what a clock will do.
Quoting frank
I believe it is only the Copenhagen interpretation of QM that asserts that it is an argument against LD. I don't recall the definition of LD as restricting it's knowledge to physical events. It is simply defined as knowing everything about everything with infinite precision. As such, any criticism of LD based on our current knowledge of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics is flawed because our current knowledge of these things is incomplete so it is possible that reality is different than the way we describe it using terms like "physical". By definition, LD would have access to all dimensions and all space and time.
Actually, I predicted that you would type 1 based on the conditions you provided, so I was able to give an accurate "forecast". I wouldn't really call it a forecast as you told me what you would do. :meh:
Quoting ssu Then what use is it? A problem that does not come around in real world implications seems to be just a misuse of language.
Quoting ssu
You're missing a key point of LD, and that is it knows everything about everything with infinite precision. The pilot and the gunner are both part of the everything about everything with infinite precision, so by definition LD would know how the gunner and pilot will react. LD would have predicted that the ability to evade the shot from the AA gun would have been the catalyst to develop new technology that cancels out the pilots ability to evade.
All you have done is explain how certain events in the world whether they are acts of humans, stars, disease, etc. can have an impact on our predictions of the future. I don't disagree with that as that is what I have been saying as well. It is you that is making a special case for human behavior, as if it has some special power to throw a wrench into our predictions where other events do not. It seems like you are basically begging the question of free will by implying that humans have this special power of freedom that disrupts potential predictions. If LD knows everything about everything with infinite precision, then by definition "everything" includes human behaviors.
Quoting ssu
Yet we do it all the time. We use past experiences and an understanding of physics and calculus to make accurate predictions in getting to Pluto, using a computer, driving a car, riding a bike, etc. Even using our body parts in walking, holding, etc. is using our learned knowledge to be able to do these things. You don't remember but it took an effort to learn to walk and use your hands and only by repeatedly trying, observing the effects and trying again (a sensory feedback loop) do you become proficient. We use past information to acquire knowledge of the present and future. If all you can point to is some anthropomorphic notion of events in making a special pleading for human behaviors as a critique of using information to make predictions, then your argument is flawed.
Then define "interaction" and "forecast". It seems to me that every thing (atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organisms, societies, planets, solar systems, galaxies, and universes) is an interaction of smaller parts and technology is based on the science it is built on, and science is based on forecasting based on existing observations. Every time you use technology you are testing the forecast science has made regarding how the universe works.
And that would be perfectly accurate for LD to say because once you assert an event was non-deterministic it requires no further explanation. Only in asserting determinism does one either need to further explain what initial conditions existed that determined the subsequent conditions and so on ad infinitum, or until you arrive at some non-determined condition that has always existed or something comes from nothing.
Then LD isn't really useful in determining whether or not the universe is deterministic. It is assumed that it is, hence LD. We would need to determine whether or not the universe if deterministic ourselves to then determine the validity of LD, but LD was never useful in allowing us to discover that fact.
The question then is if the universe is not deterministic, then why does it appear that it is? How are we able to make consistent predictions and when our predictions fail we can point to some information we lacked in making the prediction. We only know that our prediction failed when we have access to new information.
That's my hesitation also to Ssu's argument.Though he has a strong point, still that "veto" ability seems to imply a free will as to be achieved and mislead Demon's forecast.
Seems to require at least some degree of free will that breaks the pure deterministic laws.
Anyway it is nevertheless an interesting opinion that worths consideration.Free will problem can easily frie your mind when you dive deep inside it.
A vexing question in regards to determinism is: what else besides you determined your actions at the junction? A simple objective glance at you performing this act ought to lead one to believe it was you that determined or willed it, and for the simple reason that nothing else did.
Since you say that life is at least partially determined, I pose you the same question, what else besides you determined your actions?
First of all, when you asked for a real world example, I assumed that kind of example didn't take into account LD.
As I've said, there is absolutely no problem for LD when it isn't making the firing decision. But if it would be assisting the gunner, do notice that the equations isn't what Laplace was talking about: LD has to take into account his own firing decision. After all, the pilot will correct his flight path when he see's the muzzle flash, and then LD has had to give the firing solution. So when does the pilot alter his flight path, when the gun is fired and when LD has made it's firing solution. So the correct forecast is dependent of the forecast made itself.
It's not simple extrapolation anymore, it's more of dynamic model or a game theoretic problem.
But here's the point: the LD having to take it's actions into account already refutes Laplace's idea. Laplace wasn't talking about game theory.
Quoting Harry Hindu
No. that is incorrect. It's not almighty God. It doesn't know the future. It knows only the past.
Let's remember what Laplace actually said:
And the problem isn't knowing human behavior, the problem is taking account of itself. The basic problem is the part "for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain".
Forecast = an accurate model of future
interaction means simply that LD or someone interacts with something in the universe. This means that an accurate model of the future (the forecast) has to take this action into account.
Similar scenarios regarding consciousness.
I wonder if it would know every DNA mutation that will ever take place.
Quoting Harry HinduCertainly, the macro physical universe is deterministic. We can calculate a whole lot of what's going to happen in the future. We know when Haley's comet will be back again. We know when the next high tide will be on any beach. We can shoot a moving target with a gun, drive cars, play baseball, and any number of other things.
Even if the quantum world is truly not deterministic, it's probabalistic to a very predictable degree, making the macro deterministic.
I think it's because LaPlace lived during the advent of mechanistic thinking, and contributed heavily to it, so his universe was kind of like a pool table.
With LD the solution would have included where the pilot would turn when they see the flash because the pilot is no different than any other obstacle, conscious or not, that might change the forecast between the moment one makes the forecast and the time the event that was forecasted to happen. The further ahead in the future the event is forecasted the more information you need to make an accurate forecast.
For a non-LD gunner, missing the pilot informs them what they missed in their prior forecast. You only know you made a mistake when you have more information.
Quoting ssu
How so when all of LD's actions that occur is part of reality that it is forecasting? Knowing everything about everything with infinite precision is knowing everything about itself too. If it has a causal relation with reality it is effectively part of reality and it's actions are no different than any other action, conscious or not, that must be accounted for in their forecast.
Quoting ssu That's not how I interpreted what Laplace said. What it knows is basically the "Theory of Everything" in the present. It is not defined as knowing the past. The past is something it has to extrapolate from the present state of the universe and it's Theory of Everything, just as it has to do with the future. For LD, it wouldn't actually be a "Theory" of Everything. It would be the Law of Everything.
What would an inaccurate forecast be called? A weatherman's forecast is not always accurate. It seems to me that a forecast is simply a mental model of the future in the present. Whether it is accurate or not is a different matter.
Regarding "interact", LD is part of the universe it is forecasting so it's actions aren't any different than any other action it needs to account for in making an accurate forecast.
The observer effect in QM seems to indicate that we might be confusing the map with the territory, or the measurement with what is being measured. It appears that the events on the atomic scale are indeterministic, but it is actually our measurements (consciousness is an act of measuring and what we experience in our mind is really a measurement of the world, not the world as it is) that are incompatible with what is being measured. We are trying to use macro-scale measurements on quantum objects.
Yes, it is complicated. I have not had any luck trying to find out how we determine which slit a photon goes through. What kind of device can detect which slit a photon goes through without actually intercepting the photon? How else would it know? we don't see photons unless they hit our retina. What kind of device sees it without the photon hitting its visual receptor? I don't even know how to ask the question. Lol
Again your not getting the point. That turn hasn't happened yet, it's in the future. The pilot is flying the aircraft ordinarily, because the aircraft hasn't been attacked. He's looking at the potential AA site, but as the pilot observes he's not fired upon, no reason for evasive manuevers. Maybe the site is simply a fake or the gunners simply haven't observed him. The LD giving the firing solution and the firing of the gun only alerts the pilot to make evasive maneuvers. The LD solution is defined from the LD solution itself, you cannot get around it, sorry.
Let's just remember how the LD makes the forecast in general. It knows everything at the present, and it can then extrapolate perhaps one nanosecond at a time to the future to millions of years from now. But this isn't anymore a simple extrapolation: here the correct model of future has to take into consideration the model itself. The LD solution happens partly because of the LD solution. That's circular reasoning. And here we come to the interesting philosophical issue at hand: here the LD has to make a subjective decision. It cannot be just an objective observer here. If it would be, then it wouldn't give any LD solution, the anti-aircraft gun wouldn't be fired and the pilot could perhaps fly aircraft in a straight line through the airspace where the AA gun could reach the aircraft. The gunners would angry at such fire control.
Again, the pilot alters his flight if the aircraft is attacked (sees the muzzle flashes), that happens only after the LD's firing solution, so LD cannot just extrapolate from the present something that isn't yet done.
Here's the most important issue: LD just cannot extrapolate from the past, it has to make a choice when to give the firing solution and what firing solution. That's different what Laplace had in mind. There's many ways to do this, but it isn't simple extrapolation.
This actually is very crucial to our usual way of looking at this: if there's determinism, can there be free will? That's the typical way to look at it. The LD example gives another way to look at this: here the LD has to make a subjective decision because it cannot be just an objective onlooker. And once it does, so, then not all computations can be done as earlier. A lot sure, but not all.
Perhaps in a way our free will simply limits our ability to calculate/prove/extrapolate everything about the future, if it is deterministic.
In the strict sense, a model that is false.
Or simply a model that gives us something true, but it isn't a perfect example of the future.
Quoting Harry Hindu
So can it say something that it doesn't say? No. Again, when the accurate forecast is the opposite of any forecast the LD gives, it simply cannot give an correct forecast.
The interaction part is when the whole way how such game is played out depends on the forecast, then you cannot just assume everything is fine and dandy and there's just some information missing, but LD has it so it won't be a problem.
If you think of some restricted problem, such as the movements of the planets in our solar system, this seems to work. But it treats the solar system as a closed system and restricts the predictions that are made about it. Laplace is generalizing from that to everything. That's not a defined system and it posits a range of predictions restricted to those that physics can make or a final and complete physics of the future. Don't you think that is a rather generous assumption?
Even if you swallow that assumption, consider:-
1 If LD cannot figure some things out, what follows? Does it follow that determinism is false? No.
2 If LD can predict everything accurately for the next nyears where n is any number you like. Does it follow that determinism is true? No.
Laplace's demon proves nothing.
Worse than that, if LD can accurately predict some things, does it follow that they happened because of LD's prediction? No.
Laplace's demon is irrelevant.
Nonetheless, it is treating the universe as a closed system.
Quoting Ludwig VI answer Yes to both. Why not? That's the premise. Determinism rules all things, and LD has the perception and intellect to figure everything out.
Suppose something is casual on our physical world, but outside the physical world - perhaps a mind or spirit realm, wherein mental and spiritual events occur. And suppose there's bidirectional causality between the physical realm and this mind realm.
One need not think of specifically the physical realm as a closed system, one can instead imagine (physical realm plus mind realm) as a combined closed system. And an LD that's fully aware of what's going on in all the relevant realms of the combined closed systems is still conceivable.
Ty, fixed
Shirley you don't mind.
Quoting Laplace
It's just a day-dream.
You can summarize this as "If determinism is true, it would be possible to predict everything". Not very exciting, is it?
Quoting flannel jesus
"IF the universe is a closed system.." we can make all sorts of deductions and predictions. But is it? What's your evidence?
Quoting Patterner
"IF determinism rules all things..." but does it? What's your evidence? Laplace is perfectly clear that "we may regard the present state of the universe..." He doesn't pretend that this is any more than a possible way of looking at things.
Similiarly, he says clearly " An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces ... and all positions of all items..., if this intellect were also vast enough...". He doesn't even suggest that this is possible. (Interesting that he doesn't mention that God would be such an intellect.)
Quoting Patterner
You need to establish the premises in order to assert the conclusion.
Still, consider your answers:-
1 If LD cannot figure some things out, what follows? Does it follow that determinism is false? Yes.
The catch is that you have to wait until LD has figured everything out before you know whether there are some things it cannot figure out, and even longer before you know that it has not just made a mistake.
2 If LD can predict everything accurately for the next [i]n years where n is any number you like. Does it follow that determinism is true? Yes[/i]
No, it does not follow that determinism is true, even if you can predict for any finite number of years ahead. Even if the universe is finite and time will run out, and LD predicts that, it will not follow that it got things right because it's calculations were correct.
That's... now what I said. That's not even a response to what I said.
Quoting Ludwig VMy guess is that he didn't want to get into God, because that would be a discussion about why God set things in motion in exactly that way. What's the plan, what's the purpose. That kind of thing. He only wanted to discuss the positions, properties, and forces.
I'm sorry if I confused things. I'm happy to take answers from anyone who is moved to provide one.
Quoting flannel jesus
All I was saying is that it makes no difference whether one thinks of the universe as a closed system or as a combined closed system. It is just one way of thinking about the universe. It may be useful, but is it true? What is the evidence one way or the other?
Quoting Patterner
That's fair enough. I'm just trying to say that it isn't an empirical idea - no amount of empirical evidence will confirm it, or refute it.
"Closed" just means "everything that matters for calculating the future of this system is here." So what's the evidence that, regardless of whether the physical universe is closed itself, there's SOME closed system that contains the uinverse? Well, I don't have scientific evidence, but consider this intuition: there is a set of things that are the answer to the question, "what are all the things, physical or otherwise, that go into deciding future states?"
Future states are, in fact, realized, so something must realize them, so there must be a set of things relevant to the process of realizing the future. That set of things is "the closed system", whether that's exclusively physical or also contains other "realms".
The alternative is the claim "there is no set of things that go into deciding the futre states".
And it would be able to tell us if quantum events are truly uncaused, and if there is free will.
but, we don't have this marvelous demon. It's just a fun thought. Although the demon could help us quite a bit, the thought cannot.
Second, if it has free will, it could fully calculate the consequences that all of its own actions would have on the rest of the universe.
My second thought was that you thought it's own non-determined actions would make calculations impossible.
If neither of my guesses was correct, what is the reason you think that, even in principle, the demon cannot exist inside of the same universe it's capable of predicting, even if that universe is 100% physicalist and 100% deterministic?
Let's imagine a super simplified case. Forget quantum mechanics, imagine the world is classical, space and time are Cartesian, the world is composed of atoms which are more or less like tiny little billiard balls bouncing around.
Why, in such a simplified world, could an LD not possibly be able to predict the future with perfect accuracy?
Well, our LD is made of atoms, is he not? Some fraction of his atoms are for his brain, the rest are for his body. Even just to calculate his own future, only 1 second into the future, he would have to know the precise location and velocity of every atom inside his own body and brain, and know the location and velocity of every atom that's going to interact with his body in the next second.
He doesn't have enough atoms in his brain to store all that information, never mind do calculations on it.
And then you've got the computing speed problem - you can't compute the universe faster than the universe can compute itself, from within the universe . I mean there are some scenarios maybe where you could jump ahead because you know this particular thing is flying in a straight line and won't interact with anything, but mostly you don't have a bunch of simplified things like that, you have thousands of things bouncing into thousands of other things all the time. Not a lot of space for computational shortcuts available.
So a leplace demon is impossible to exist inside the universe - you could have one outside the universe looking in, but not inside
Demons are made of atoms? I had no idea.
It's a supernatural being in a thought experiment. I don't know how to put limits on that. It's all silly.
So it doesn't sound like you're disagreeing with me then, when I say "it can't exist in the universe it's predicting". If it's predicting a universe of atoms, it can't just exist in that universe as a thing made of atoms and also be able to perfectly predict the future faster than it happens - it has to be "super natural" - super meaning ABOVE, meaning above the nature of the universe it's supposed to predict. I agree, it has to be SUPER to the nature of the universe it can predict.
If we had a demon outside of the universe, it could predict the future even given Quantum Mechanics - the catch is, if we live in a quantum universe (and I think we do), its predictions must be probabilistic (probably). It could in principle perfectly predict the probability distributions of various future states.
Although some interpretations of quantum mechanics go a step further, like Bohmian Mechanics, and say that actually underneath it all there's a true single deterministic path to the future, so if that were the case, that type of QM would still allow for a normal Leplace Demon, who can still perfectly predict a single future.
Sure. Demons are supernatural. I've never heard of a story with one that wasn't.
Hey, how about this idea... To try to put a natural entity in this role, it would, obviously, need to be made of particles. A quantum computer, or whatever the next step would be, made up of enough particles could calculate the rest of the particles. If there are finite particles in the universe. It wouldn't work for infinite particles.
No, it still couldn't. It couldn't do it faster than the universe. To represent the location and velocity of a single particle, you need MANY particles. Hundreds, probably thousands, maybe millions at minimum. So just to calculate what 100 particles are going to do, you'd need to have hundreds, at minimum, particles per particle you want to predict - and that's just for storing information about them, not even running computations on that stored information.
By the time you start your simulation, the particles you gathered the information for have already been evolving into their future, leaving the computer simulation in the dust, and the simulation will never catch up. It will necessarily be many many many times slower.
In fact there's a real example of this, an example of computing a universe within a universe - Minecraft. People built Minecraft in Minecraft, and that's an amazing accomplishment, but there's that catch - Minecraft in Minecraft always necessarily runs many many many times slower than the first layer of Minecraft.
You can't simulate reality perfectly, faster than reality can do it itself.
You can simulate it imperfectly faster - we do that all the time, it's easy. But not perfectly.
https://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/s/nsfBtiBGE5
And here's another one that's probably even more relevant than the above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40071773
Why are we simulating? Where will Voyager 1 be in fifty years? We don't simulate it's existence for every moment of the next fifty years. We just calculate.
Also, I don't think LD supposedly knows where every particle will be at every moment for the rest of time. I think it only has to be able to calculate the answer to specific questions. After it tells me where Voyager 1 will be in fifty years, I ask it where a particular particle in Jupiter's red spot will be next week. Then I ask it something else.
Of course, the farther into the future I'm asking about, the more other things will have an impact on it. But LD's intellect is vast enough.
And I really don't think Laplace was trying to convince us that such a demon is likely, or possible. He was just saying, in a universe where everything is deterministic, anything at any point in the future would be, in theory, calculable.
Because Leplace Demon is supposed to be able to predict EVERYTHING perfectly, not just simple toy examples. Chaos, right? When a system is chaotic, you can't just do a simple calculation, you can really only find the answer with a simulation.
That's right
As I pointed out before, you are speaking from a position of ignorance. You simply don't know what LD knows. As I said, LD has a "Law of Everything". You do not, yet here you are arguing what would be impossible for LD.
Quoting ssu
Which would certainly be a possible (non)action by LD as it knows more than the gunner. Let the gunner learn his lesson by firing at the pilot and never hitting them. If LD's goal was to bring down an incoming bomber then his knowledge would have given him some other options that you and gunner could not comprehend, much less think of yourself.
Maybe you should make a flowchart of how LD would make the decision. I think that the only thing that matters is what LD knows the pilot will do. LD's solution is based mostly on that.
Quoting ssu Yet here you are without a Law of Everything predicting that the pilot would perform evasive maneuvers in the future. Now, expand that to an infinite level of precision as LD would have and would you be able to say the same thing about what LD can forecast?
Quoting ssu
How so? Isn't that how we make any decision in that we must choose what and when to do it? We have to choose how and when to launch a space probe to Mars and we've done it multiple times successfully, more than just random chance would allow.
My question is, why did the NASA scientists not need to account for the solution to get to Pluto in the solution to get to Pluto and New Horizons still arrive at Pluto? Sure, it seems that if they tried to include the solution in the solution the New Horizons project would never moved past the planning stage, but it did by not accounting for it and the solution was a success. As I said before, some information is irrelevant to the forecast being made. NASA scientists also did not account for the speed at which the weeds in my yard grow to get to Pluto either.
Quoting ssu
I've never denied that determinism does not allow for free will. LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything in the present and can then extrapolate what it will do based on this understanding. Sure, it must account for it's own actions and decisions which makes it exponentially more complicated, but that just means it is impossible for you, not LD.
And as I pointed, Laplace never talked about and LD or a "Law of Everything" that we don't know, but assumed if some extremely well informed entity could make the extapolation from the present (or past), into the future. Laplace wasn't speaking of any divine power. As I said, what he was talking about is simple "Newtonian" physics extrapolation. That should be clear.
However coming back to your idea of LD having the "Law of Everything":
Let's first discuss this as this is one crucial factor here and should be discussed. Actually you aren't the first to make this argument.
Your argument (and please, do correct me if I'm wrong) is basically the "Black box" argument with LD: we don't know what logic, information and laws which LD is using (that we don't know, which is the Law of Everything. LoE) and hence for LD solving the problem is easy, even if it's not for us.
Ok,
The first question is then: If LD solves this problem using LoE, is then LoE equivalent to our logic that we use? Well, when one situation is that the correct forecast is a forecast that the LD doesn't give, obviously it isn't so, or then we really have understood very wrong basic logic.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Well, now you went ahead of me. Assuming that LD has no free will because it knows everything about everything and can extrapolate the future from the past with (LoE) is definately not something the Laplace had in mind. The point that LD would have no free will is quite a statement.
In fact, this is my point: One can say it that our free will limits this kind of simple extrapolation. Yet is this the correct way to state that theorem? Would it be perhaps better to say that simply there are limitations to what we can compute (or give a direct proof or), because we have free will?
Well neither.Even proving Laplace's Demon wrong in some forecasts cause of the veto ability that doesn't consist as a proof for free will existence.
Supposing you are right,even that veto could occure randomly in human brains.And remember neither randomness is on favour of free will.
But you are right about what Laplace had on mind about his Demon.He never mentioned LoE and stuff like that.
That's Hindu's Demon or maybe God :)
Exactly, "Hindu's Demon" or God is beyond logic.
Yet when we keep to the logic, it is a limitation because of logic, not just the assumption "that we don't have enough information" that hints that we may have, at least theoretically.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Where it occurs isn't the question, that it occurs is the important point. Remember that with Turing Machines nobody is suggesting they would have free will, but they fall to the same problem. Turing machines cannot compute functions that are not computable by any algorithm.
The important issue here is that we are talking about logical, mathematical limitation here.
Well i mean that it occurs might also be a random brain function.Just another human thought that pops up from randomly neural activity.So i guess we agree that this isn't free will proof right?
Logic limitation was something that Gödel proved also with his theorem so i don't doubt about that.
Did he at the time? The undecidability results (Gödel, Turing, Tarski etc.) aren't so directly understood as you say.
For example, just read this article in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy done by Panu Raatikainen in 2013 (revised 2020) about the Gödels Incompleteness Theorems. Not only going through the two theorems of Gödel, Raatikainen also in the writes about of the "Philosophical ImplicationsReal and Alleged". Raatikainen writes nothing about this.
In fact, the only paper I find talking about this is from David Wolpert (from 2008) in his Physical limits of inference, where the abstract states the following:
As Raatikainen doesn't write at all about anything above what Wolpert is saying or perhaps isn't aware of this, this isn't a clear cut deal. Wolpert maybe just one of those "anti-mechanists" Raatikainen is talking about. So I think is really something still debated...and hence something really worthy of a discussion here.
Notice that the similarities aren't so easy to pick, even for Gödel it took a while to understand that his and Turings findings are equivalent. And quite often many people still attack Gödel's results accusing him of just finding the paradox of "this statement is false" and simply purpose banning all self referential statements. And not just on the PF site. These opinions just show how people haven't got around to understand the undecidability results.
Well that's normal I guess, since the undecidability results are connected to the root of the deepest philosophical questions.Such as free will, the observer problem,etc and downline even consciousness itself.
Of course interpretations of what Gödel's theorem actually shows vary.I read an article long time ago about how Gödel's theorem proves God's existence!(wtf?!!!?).People still debate for less complex things than that.So I guess this isn't a surprise.
For me though (from the things i have read at least so far) his theorem actually shows logic limitation when it comes to self-refference systems.If we actually accept that mathematics are the highest form of Logic of course.
Shows that Logic simply isn't enough when it comes to statements about self refference systems.Maybe not about all statements but at least to some of them it fails.
Well which exactly are these statements and what these Logic limitations actually mean though on issues like the free will problem for instance, is a different thing and still open of course.
Yes, that's right. But that form of determinism does not amount to anything that could threaten freedom. There's a difference between being able to determine which horse will win the race, in the sense of being able to predict the result of the race and being able to determine which horse will win the race by fixing the race. Laplace's demon can do the first, but not the second.
I hope you are not winding me up with that question. I certainly am extraordinarily complex, but I am also certainly not a toy. Partly, its a question of attitude. We have a physical existence, so, in a way, the answer has to be yes. In fact regarding the body as a complex mechanism is very useful. (Medicine, for example.) More to the point, when that mechanism fails, we die. Yet that mechanism allows us to laugh and sing and fall in love, as well as destroying the planet and each other. Reconciling those two facts is, for me, the only game in town, or out of it. Notice that I have not answered your question which has presuppositions that require definition or at least explanation.
Let's go back over what Laplace said:
The first sentence defines determinism.
The second sentence describes an intellect as having a Law of Everything. The Law of Everything is the law that defines all the forces that set nature in motion and all the positions of all items of which nature is composed...
The second part of the second sentence describes the intellect as being vast enough to submit these data to analysis, or logic.
In this sense, the LoE and logic are different things. Think of the difference between intelligence and wisdom. The former entails what you know. The latter entails how you use what you know. LD has both to such a degree that surpasses our capacity by factors reaching to infinity. LD has both all knowledge and access to all logical systems to the point where all of it's conclusions are valid. There could be more than one solution to a problem that ends up accomplishing the same result. Sure we can get to Pluto using our existing means of propulsion, but LD knows of other, more efficient ways of doing things.
I was really hoping you'd answer the question I posed earlier:
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting ssu
It seems to logically follow that determinism and free will in the sense that most people think of it as being a decision that was not determined, are incompatible.
But decisions are made based on some reason and it is our reasons that determine a decision, or else we would say that we made an unreasonable decision.
To me, freedom entails options. The more options you have when making a decision, the more freedom you have, but this does not mean that you could have actually chosen another option because your actual decision was made based on certain reasons and you filtered those other options based on certain reasons to eventually arrive at the last option standing. You would have always made the same decision given the same options and the same circumstances. As I have said before, you only know that you made a mistake or could have made a different decision when you have more information (more options), but that is after the fact of your decision. Sure, if you had the other options you could have made a different decision, but at the moment of decision you didn't which is why you will always make the same decision given the same set of circumstances which includes the options you have at that moment.
Here's what I don't get about determinism. That process may determine my decision. But how does it force me to do anything? What sense does it make that I might be forced to do the right or rational thing, when the right or rational thing is what I want to do?
Why do you want to do the rational or right thing? Don't you have reasons?
Yes, of course. That's why, when I do something for those reasons, there is no compulsion, no restriction of freedom - except in the sense of opportunities voluntarily foregone.
Quoting Ludwig V
Are you familiar with the work of nerobiologist Robert Sapolsky? He presents a kind of extreme version of determinism. For him, our reasons are conditioned so tightly by past experience and biological shapings ( hormonal, genetic, physiological) that there is barely any room for to r addition of novelty. I agree with his claim that seeing ourselves determined in this reductive way by our past leads to more ethical, compassionate behavior toward those who commit acts of violence and other anti-social behaviors than religiously based notions of feee will, which tend to embrace harsh, retributive forms of justice. My problem with Sapolskis determinism is that it isnt deterministic enough.
The power of a determinism is in the power of science to predict and explain events that would otherwise be experienced as ordered, chaotic and arbitrary. Sapolskis determination substitutes the arbitrariness of reductive mechanism for the even more arbitrary notion of divine will, which makes its way into traditional ideas of individual free will. But he relies on models of simple causation, and as a result human metering is treated like a machine with parts that have pre-assigned functions. What is lacking is the concept of reciprocal, relational determinism, which puts the organism in dynamic touch with its environment on the basis of its moment to moment functioning. In this way of thinking, our present actions are still the result of a determined history, but they dont simply regurgitate pre-assigned properties.
I don't know. Does a decision that was determined based on prior circumstances necessarily have to feel like it was forced? It seems to me that if it was already determined based on existing circumstances that it would feel natural to reach the decision you made, and not feel forced.
What would a decision that was forced feel like compared to one that was freely chosen?
I still believe that we should hold people responsible for their actions. Holding others responsible has an effect on theirs, and others, future behaviors, which is more of the point of punishment, not necessarily to take revenge on past behaviors but provide reasons to behave differently in the future.
You may or may not be right about those empirical claims. I wouldn't know. But do they constitute an argument for believing that determinism is true?
Quoting Joshs
That's certainly an advance on traditional forms of determinism.
Quoting Harry Hindu
If determinism is true, people's behaviour is not governed by reasons, but by causes. Similarly, holding people responsible is never possible if determinism is true.
BTW, the empirical evidence is that what deters people from committing crimes is not the severity of the punishment, but the likelihood of getting caught.
Have you never done something that you didn't want to do - sometimes something you had decided not to do?
You may have felt that you did it without deciding to do it.
Quoting Harry Hindu
If it felt like that, it was probably based on reason, as opposed to some causal chain.
Reasons are a type of cause.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. I should rephrase. The likelihood of getting caught is a reason to not commit a crime.
The likelihood of getting caught implies the punishment.
Risking getting caught is an option, but is it worth it? This is something that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. For each person, in different parts of their lives, and under different circumstances it will be different. For some, it is a simple solution as they would never consider committing a crime, but it may depend on the circumstances, of which there are many that we can choose from in the many philosophical discussions on ethics.
Not every moment is the same. It seems to me that both determinism can be true and it also be true that each moment is unique. Even though each moment is unique each moment has similarities to past moments. We can make predictions of the future thanks to these similarities but they fail when the novelty of the situation isn't taken into account. Some predictions don't need to take into account the novelties because they are irrelevant to the prediction.
Quoting Ludwig V
Reasoning is a causal process. It takes time to reason. Your reasons determine your decision. I don't see a distinction between "physical" and "non-physical" causation so the act of reasoning is just a type of causal chain.
In what way did you make a decision you didn't want to? I think you're talking about making a decision you didn't like, or wouldn't fulfill some imaginary future where everything works out to perfection. You may not always make the decision you want, but you always make the decision you need to. It seems to me that what you are actually saying is that when your options are limited you feel less free - the more options the more freedom. This is what I mentioned before. The options available at any given moment are determined depending on the situation and your current knowledge.
Yes. But the difference is that a reasoning chain justifies its conclusion, whereas a normal, non-reasoning chain does not.
This is pretty damning for Laplace, actually.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Exactly.
They don't refute each other! You can have (and have) both determinism and free will. People find this strange because the unintentionally believe Laplace's idea (that a LD with LoE knows everything from the future). If you believe Laplace's idea, then you have a problem.
Quoting Harry Hindu
That's a good way to put it. Let me continue from this: How would you model this procedure? How do we get that "option" that entails "freedom"? How could you logically or mathematically model free will?
Here's an attempt. (I hope you follow and if you get lost or notice a mistake, please mention it.)
We do use algorithms, step-by-step procedures for solving a problem or an issue at hand, and then with the knowledge of the past of how our algorithms have worked, we can judge if the algorithm is optimal or if we have to alter it. For example, one algorithm could be how to stay dray when being outside when it rains. Let's say it's the "When in rain" algorithm (WIR).
Let's assume that the WIR algorithm that we have used to keep us dry and has given us the solution of carrying an umbrella.
But then we stumble into a situation that we have to do some work and use both hands in the rain on a boat at sea where the rain and splashes of water can come sideways. Even if we attach the umbrella to our body somehow to free our hands, the situation with the wind and being on a boat makes the umbrella solution not optimal (likely it would be a nuisance). We can instantly notice that our old algorithm doesn't give us the best answer, hence we start occasionally using a raincoat when at sea. Just an attachment to make a "hands free" umbrella won't do as being at sea on a boat is different from the past. The algorithm itself has to be changed.
Here's the radical thing we have just done.
Not only have we changed the WIR algorithm, but we have changed it quite radically and dismissed the idea of an umbrella to something else to WIR(sea). Using the WIR solution in the boat would be (or was) a bad choice, hence had to alter the algorithm itself. The prior WIR algorithm didn't at all mention using a raincoat (or pants). The solution doesn't have anything to do with an umbrella. This is something that computers have a huge problem with, because they follow algorithms. If a the engineer writing the algorithm (the computer program) for the computer doesn't take into account the totally different situation, the computer cannot adapt. But for us the easy thing "Do something else" is pretty hard for a computer: it needs to know just how does it change it's algorithm. "Do something else" isn't a computer algorithm.
So where's the Free will?
Hypothesis: Free will can modelled by having the ability to change the algorithm we use by negative self reference to the prior algorithm we have used. The basically the diagonalization part of the algorithm.
Why would this be free will?
Because the diagonalization part cannot be part of the original algorithm. Computers cannot follow the order "do something else". They have to have the order "how to do something else". Doing the diagonalization is for them impossible because of the negative self reference. They cannot follow an algorithm that states "don't follow this algorithm". All the results of Gödel, Tarski and especially Turing show this.
Why is this so important? Because when
And this comes back LD using LoE, where we agree that LoE isn't logical (or otherwise LD has this problem). Because our algorithm (when in Rain) WIR, which gave the solution of using an umbrella, is actually changed once we have the problems working on a boat in rain. The algorithm is now (WIR)sea and it didn't have the previously the solution. In other words, WIR(sea) is self-refential to WIR and has changed it, hence there's the negative self reference.
OK, so what's Laplace's misunderstanding?
We have talked about this already, but here's one way to put it: Simply that non-algorithmic mathematics exists and plays a crucial part in our lives. Laplace makes the mistake he assumes as premiss that everything can be handled by algorithmic mathematics. This is the basic idea behind LD using LoE and knowing then everything.
And also the link to the undecidability results is obvious, when we look at the definition of non-algorithmic mathematics:
Obviously something that a Turing Machine has difficulties with. Now non-computable math sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn't, yet that's the whole problem here. Mathematicians don't want to give much if any importance to such a field of mathematics like non-computable mathematics.
Quoting dimosthenis9
For example in the case that I mentioned Raatikainen mentions in the philosophical implications of the incompleteness results the debate about if "Gödels theorems demonstrate that the powers of the human mind outrun any mechanism or formal system" etc.
There's not much if any talk of the above. Of course the above reply to @Harry Hindu comes actually close to Roger Penrose's and J.R. Lucas argument of the human mind not being a computer.
But note the catch, we are also limited by "the veto" as you stated, that for example I cannot write an answer that I never will write. But clearly the issue is here that the definition of a computer as a Turing Machine might be a limiting factor.
Its kind of stoic, but with an existentialist awareness.
Freedom and determinism are both there. We dont prove it exists by causing some effect and placing our free selves between these two. We are the cause when we are the freedom. We are its existence by claiming something as a cause in the first place, or consenting to something as my effect, something I claim responsibility for.
Freedom is in the thought of freedom, born in the thinking.
It explains why determinists write articles and books defending determinism, as well as why others believe in free will. It explains why one chooses to vacation in Majorca rather than Melbourne, and why individual members of a jazz quartet head off into their own improvisational frontiers during a musical performance. In short, nothing is left unexplained to a determinist because determinism explains it all. Relativist says it well:
Quoting Relativist
So there is no convincing, no reasoning, no weighing different alternatives, no initiating action its all billiard ball cause-and-effect.
Its funny because some may mistakenly argue that a determinists writings are so persuasive that those who hitherto believed in free will upon learning the strength of these deterministic arguments will consider all the evidence and, in the end, choose to believe that determinism makes the most sense. But they would be wrong.
Determinists are not, in fact, trying to convince others of their position when they argue for the merits of determinism. Determinists are compelled to believe what they do because of their own antecedent causes (i.e., physical, chemical, biological, genetic, environmental and social conditions) just like everyone else. Their arguments are the result of a chain of causes that go back to their births and social environments.
Determinism, likewise, dictates the beliefs of those who favor free will. Advocates of free will consider a determinists arguments and, as a result of their own genetic makeups and social environments, are compelled (determined) to disagree with these arguments.
And so it is with everything else. Determinists would presumably argue that there are no differences between migratory patterns of birds and vacation plans of retirees. Despite the amount of time retirees may spend evaluating their financial situations, weather forecasts, sightseeing interests, etc., their decisions to vacation in one locale rather than another are more akin a birds photoperiodic response than reasoning or choosing.
Similarly, what jazz musicians do is more akin to blindly following the dictates of sheet music than inventing new melodies. Why? Because everything is determined.
So here I am at the end of my little diatribe. Was I really determined to write all this? Are the responses I receive (if any) really the result of a similar chain of inevitability? Are there no reasons for supporting what we consider, or argue about, or believe in, or offer evidence for just a series of cause-and-effects? Is determinism really the ultimate explanation for everything? How can it be so right if it feels so wrong? (Apologies to David Houston and Barbara Mandrell.)
I recently posted the following to @Relativist when we were talking about Peter Tse's [I]The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation[/I].
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There are an uncountable number of air molecules in my living room. They are all flying about in various directions, at various speeds. We have nothing resembling the slightest hint of hope of tracking them all. But we can measure the temperature of the room. As Anil Seth writes in [I]Being You : A New Science of Consciousness[/I]:
We, likewise, have no hope of tracking the activity of every neuron and synapse in someone's brain. As with the air molecules, the numbers, alone, make it impossible. But it's even more complicated, because, due to the nature of neurons, as Tse says, "The criteria for what makes a neuron fire can change." If we have no hope of mapping out the motion of the molecules of air in the room, then "no hope" is a pitifully inadequate way of expressing our ability to map out neutral activity. Nevertheless, if I'm understanding this, Tse is saying that, to paraphrase Seth, neural activity doesn't merely correlate with thought this is what thought actually is. Although we can measure the macro property of temperature in a room, but cannot map out the motion of the air molecules, we know that the temperature is nothing more than the motion of the molecules. And, although we can comprehend thoughts, but cannot map out the neural activity of the brain, we know that the thoughts are nothing more than the neural activity.
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I asked Relativist if that's what he thought Tse was trying to say. It seems some people here are saying the same.
That's not what I'm saying. You omitted the part in bold when you quoted me. We indeed reason, weighing alternatives; we can convince and be convinced. That we do these things seems obvious. Determinism is consistent with it- that's what I was arguing.
My sincere apologies, Relativist. I was actually using your list of determining factors for making a decision as a general description of how determinism explains decision-making. I thought this list was well written. Please know that I was not critiquing your take on determinism, and I am sorry to have confused things. I should have just stuck with some version of my own description, which I mentioned later in my post:
antecedent causes (i.e., physical, chemical, biological, genetic, environmental and social conditions) .
My goal in posting was to express my own thoughts about the determinism-free will debate in general, and not to drill down into the details of your and the other interlocuters views. I just wanted to express my overall reaction to determinism. Obviously, I could have done it better.
Thank you for bringing this idea to my attention, Patterner. I really like how a seemingly hopeless situation like uncountable air molecules can by their motion actually bear fruit by giving us definitive information namely temperature. And expanding this idea to firing neurons and thought is interesting.
For some reason, this brings to my mind the principle of Operationalism, which gained some popularity among certain logical positivists in the 1920s-30s. It goes something like this: Scientific concepts that lack direct, empirical evidence can be saved by linking them to experimental procedures. Gravitation, for example, can not be seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched, but it can nevertheless be determined operationally by observing phenomena such as planetary orbits.
Im doing this from memory, so I probably botched this explanation! And Im not saying what you wrote is Operationalism it just happened to pop in my mind when I read your words. :cool:
Of course, there is much debate over whether or not consciousness is explained by this physical system.
Quoting ThalesWe can take that a step further. Knowing what we know about gravity, we cannot fully explain the motion of stars and galaxies. it has been determined that there must be something that we cannot detect in any way, but which has a gravitational effect. It is called dark matter, and the amount of it that exists has been calculated.
Turn it around: can you then point to the event that didn't have any reason or cause to happen?
Yet this determinism (of everything being billiard ball cause-and-effect) still doesn't answer a multitude of questions. What's the insight if you cannot know for example the future even if there is one way things go? It's like saying that "There are specific dates when it rains and when the sun shines in the city of New York for the next 10 000 years." That doesn't help now an outdoors event planner that is looking arranging something for summer 2026.
Determinism doesn't say much. It also doesn't limit our choices.
The problem is that people don't distinguish between different ideas about determinism. Saying "there are certain days next year when it will rain" and saying "It isn't possible to identify which days will have rain for next year" are very different claims. Both are true. Both can be described as determined or not determined. Though actually, in a case like that, we would retreat to probabilities.
Quoting ssu
That's true. But I think that's because everyone is treating it as an empirical hypothesis, forgetting that not all propositions are empirical hypotheses. Effectively, determinism defines what a complete and final explanation of an event (past, present or future) would be. It's a "regulative ideal", to steal a phrase.
You are missing a trick here. Sure, the final arrangement rocks and dirt is not of any interest. But the outcome of the causal sequence of events in a calculating machine is of interest, because it instantiates a calculation, because we arranged it that way. Again, there is a causal sequence from the keys you press to my reading what you write, and that is extremely interesting. In their various ways all causal sequences are of some interest, but some are more interesting than others. The causal sequences in my brain are much more like those in a computer than they are like the final outcomes of an avalanche.
Your Fork-in-the-Road argument may illustrate the notion of Free Will choices. But as a philosophical proof, it may or may not be convincing to determinists. Nevertheless, I agree that world Causation is both Deterministic and Indeterminate (undecided, uncertain). Which leaves gaps (junctions?) in the chain of causation for the exercise of personal willpower to choose (decide) the next step. Yet the unconstrained choice itself is not random (chaotic)*1, but determined by future-aimed intention.
Materialist arguments against FreeWill tend to be based on Physics, not Metaphysics. So, here's a physical analogy of that BothAnd process, both universally deterministic, and locally indeterminate. It can be found in Chaos Theory, sometimes labeled "deterministic chaos"*2. In the 1960s, meteorologist Ed Lorenz did experiments in weather simulations, and summarized his findings in the Lorenz Equations. The math, when graphed, looked a bit like a butterfly*5 {image below}, and eventually inspired the meme of a "Butterfly Effect" : a butterfly in Brazil could indirectly cause a tornado in Texas --- depending on initial conditions, and statistical absences (missing data points).
The Lorenz equations are completely deterministic, but inherently unpredictable. From preset Initial Conditions, the dynamic process will evolve over time into a graph that cycles around so-called "Attractors", as-if bound by gravity. But there's no mass at the center, only empty statistical space (potential). In Incomplete Nature, Terrence Deacon used that physical principle of a self-organizing dynamic system as an illustration of "downward causation"*3. However, "An attractor does not "attract" in the sense of a field of force; rather it is the expression of an asymmetric statistical tendency"*4.
The statistical nature of Nature was found to be fundamental in Quantum Physics. So perhaps, that mathematical structure has gaps like the Cosmic Voids*6 {image below} in the distribution of spatial matter. Anyway. it's a neat metaphor for the gaps in Determinism that leave empty space (junctions ; decision points) to be filled by human Choices. :nerd:
*1. Does freedom mean chaos?
Freedom is an adjective describing a state of being. It means one can act without limit or restraint in some form or manner. Example being freedom of speech, one is allowed to speak his opinions without feeling limited from federal law. Chaos is describing the landscape in which the being is making those decisions.
https://www.quora.com/Does-freedom-lead-to-chaos
*2. Deterministic Chaos :
This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. The theory was summarized by Edward Lorenz as: Chaos: When the present determines the future but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
Note --- I assume that, by "approximate", Lorenz meant local causes and effects. That's why the eventual Butterfly Effect (Texas Tornado) is typically far from the initial state (Brazil Butterfly). In other words, the effect is indirect. Likewise, my mental choice to start or stop my 3500lb material car, is indirect --- mediated by machinery.
*3. MInd has Causal Efficacy :
"In the end, mind has causal efficacy because it is itself a hole, an attractor, and by disturbing the metaphorical shape of its own attractor"
https://ruminations.blog/2017/06/27/review-deacon-incomplete-nature/
Note --- Deacon called that "hole" at the focal point of a chaotic attractor an example of "causal absence". Hence, the choosing Mind is a Determining Factor of subsequent events.
*4. https://herdingcats.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/01/we-need-better-analogies.html
*5.
*6.
What is the sham here is thinking that determinism limits your actions or you don't have the ability to choose... because it's somehow preordained, because there is the deterministic future.
Think about it this way: if we define that the future is what really happens, then there's that one defined reality. Now how does it limit your choices? Well, you make the choices you make, yet you cannot make the choices you don't make. That is actually what determinism requires. But is that a limitation on your choices? No!
As I've earlier (perhaps on other threads), you cannot give here a comment that you don't give. Yes, these kinds of comments exist and someone else can give them, but that doesn't limit what you can write here. It isn't a limitation on what kind of comments you can make.
Exactly how it hits is the result of exactly how it was knocked off the table. Again, not preordained. It's just physics. Did I throw a pillow across the room and hit it? That pillow was going at exactly this speed, and was spinning in exactly such and such a manner, and, when the impact came, the glass could only moved on one exact way.
We have nothing close to the ability to see the pillow flying, and calculate exactly how it will hit the glass, exactly how the glass will fly and land, and exactly how the glass will break. But, in principle, it's all calculable. It's just physics.
There's nothing preordained in any of that. There's also no "choosing."
The question is this: Did I let go of the pillow in exactly the way I did because all the constituents of my brain - whether we examine them as particles and physics, or molecules and chemistry, or structures and biology, or whatever - acted in the only ways each of them could, all purely physical interactions driven by the physical laws?
Did I throw the pillow because all the constituents of my brain acted in the only ways each of them could, all purely physical interactions driven by the physical laws?
If the answer is Yes, then we are not choosing things any more than the glass is choosing to break exactly as it does, or the debris is choosing to come to rest exactly as it does after an avalanche. We merely have awareness of things that the glass and mountain lack.
Sorry. Not ignoring you. I would answer you as I just did ssu. Ssu's was last, so I just quoted that post.
Back when I was young and innocent, I read an article by Richard Taylor, a Brown University philosophy professor. Taylors view was that some phenomena have causes and can be described accordingly, whereas others namely, actions performed by agents are different. Agents initiate action, he argued, while causes and effects are links in a long chain which, in principle, can be traced back in time indefinitely.
Consider this description:
Someones legs move when there is activation of their muscle spindles, which initiates a series of neural responses that stimulates motor neurons which, in turn, cause muscle tissue to move their legs.
According to Taylor, this description works well to capture how a human organism moves, but it doesnt explain how a human acts. Specifically, such a purely physiological analysis of someone (an agent) walking to the grocery store (an action) would be inadequate to describe what happens. Why?
Because there is no antecedent chain of cause-and-effects that is relevant to explaining why such a person takes that walk. Instead, he or she had reasons to go shopping, made the decision and walked to the store.
Which reminds me. Im getting hungry and I need to run to the store myself and grab some grub! :cool:
Thanks for the thought. As it happens, I do understand. If one tries to respond to everything, it quickly becomes too much (and I, at least, get muddled). Even if one limits oneself to actual mentions, it still gets too much - especially if some of the replies overlap. But it is nice to get an acknowledgement.
In physics, we know of this problem as the measurement problem: when the measurement itself effects what is measured, taking a classic measurement won't do. For example quantum models are preferred from Newtonian models.
The logical side here is self reference. It shows logically why here just a simple extrapolation won't do, as does it works perfectly for example in predicting the movements of planets. So yes, the question here is of the actor, who initiated something. When do you initiate the letting go, from what height do you drop it, etc.
The logical problem is when the model would have to take itself to account. Sometimes this can be done, but which is here crucial here, not always. Not especially when you have negative self reference. You cannot overcome that. Just as you cannot write and answer that you don't write. It simply goes against logic.
Quoting Patterner
We do start from a courageous premiss that you are aware of what you are doing and you can decided when to throw the pillow. The basic problem comes when someone would have to forecast when you through the pillow with you hearing the forecast. That forecast might make you not to throw it or throw it another way you first intended. Hence the model itself has an effect on how you will act. How could an accurate forecast be made, when the forecast itself effects what it should model? Hopefully you see the problem is similar to the measurement having an effect on what is measured.
Does this refute the idea that you let go of the pillow in exactly the way I did because all the constituents of my brain? Actually not. The determinism holds. But it shows that this determinism isn't at all a limit here.
If all is deterministic, then every decision I've ever made was exactly as it was because that's the only decision I could have made. Pointing out things like stored memories that affect how I react to stimuli, or how hearing a forecast of when I will take action affects when I do, don't change the fact that it's all just physical events. Even if our decisions are the result of more physical events, more kinds of physical events, and physical events that interact far more than anything else that we are aware of.
We call the glass breaking an event, but what I do a choice. But, despite the different levels of complexity, the only actual difference is that I am aware of what's going on, and the glass is not. and if the determinists are correct, my awareness is also only physical events, and it doesn't have any causal power.
And that just shows how meaningless the idea is. Because you have to make decisions. That determinism says that with probability 1 you make or abstain from making a decision has no value, because it doesn't give you any more information.
We make models about reality and those models are useful if to give us some more information. The Block Universe model of determinism itself doesn't give us much. Newtonian physics gives us useful models for many things, but not to everything.
Is reality deterministic is a metaphysical question for the obvious reasons and itself isn't such helpful. But understanding our limitations that we have in models using mathematics or logic is important.
Quoting Patterner
But even if your awareness is an physical event, that's not the problem here. The problem is with the modelling when you have interaction. And obviously you have interaction when somebody is making a choice. If you have a choice to make, you obviously understand that there is a choice to make and you have to think about the alternate effects different actions would make. That's not extrapolation! The determinist model of you making a choice doesn't help you.
For the hard-core determinist, there's no difference between causes and "actions" performed by "agents". But of course this making the division between causes and actions does understand they have to thought of differently.
The orthodox articulation of the debate requires either positing free will as a magical kind of cause that is causally determined and/or a gap in causality that allows this unique kind of event to occur. Neither is at all plausible.
Quoting ssu
This is a promising approach, but nonetheless seems to leave our supposedly freely made decisions vulnerable to the apparently controlling force of determinism. It may not give me any information, but it will certainly influence the attitude of others to my decision, and may even influence my own attitude to my own decision.
Quoting ssu
I think it's more like to hinder me. (There's a classic argument against fatalism, that it tends to make us lazy, since the causally determined outcome will happen "whatever I do" or at least whatever I do will make no difference. I realize it's a muddle, but still...)
Quoting ssu
That's certainly true. The practical syllogism, which models rational decision-making about action, is quite different from the paradigm syllogism. Practice syllogism require values, desires &c and lead to action. Neither is true of the paradigm syllogism.
But that's the point. Thinking about actions (people) is a different language game from thinking about events. But it's not a matter of two different kinds of event, but a different way of thinking about some events. Most philosophers leave the argument there, but that won't do. We have to understand how actions can be (need to be) explained in two apparently incompatible ways - as actions, and as events with causes.
If that's the key problem - and I'm sure it is - then here are a couple of out-of-the-box thoughts.
(This will only be a starting-point.)
Quoting Ludwig VCan you give me an example of a free action?
Also, by [i]"reasonably[/I] reliable", do you mean the casual network is not always reliable? If that is what you mean, can you give an example of it not being reliable?
Your post brings a post on another site to mind.
https://kevinswatch.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=1098685#p1098685
It's a site dedicated to a series of fantasy books, and the author in general. But we have forums for various other things.
Thank you, Patterner. I really enjoyed that post by Zarathustra. Great stuff! Maybe I'm in the wrong forum here, and should switch over to science fiction fora. :cool:
Youre exactly right, ssu. And upon reflection, I should really throw in the towel. Because even hard-core free willists believe in determinism albeit self-determinism. I remember when some philosophers grabbed onto the new physics of quantum mechanics to save us from the onslaught of determinism, but that only gave us indeterminism random, uncaused events instead of reasoned, well-considered actions.
Theres just something about determinism that seems odd to me. I keep coming back to asking what it is that determinists are doing when they argue. It seems as if they are trying to convince someone who believes in free will of the strength of their arguments that a free willist will consider all the evidence and, in the end, choose to believe that determinism makes the most sense. But according to determinism, this is not what determinists are doing.
According to determinism, determinists are not, in fact, trying to convince others of their position when they argue for the merits of determinism. Determinists are compelled to believe what they do because of their own antecedent causes (i.e., physical, chemical, biological, genetic, environmental and social conditions) just like everyone else. Their arguments are the result of a chain of causes that go back to their births and social environments.
And this just seems odd to me. For some reason, this deterministic explanation for what determinists do when they argue their point doesnt seem right. They do seem to be reasoning, considering the evidence and trying to convince others of their position. Don't they? And if they are doing these things, doesnt this belie their deterministic position?
That's a very long thread, and he has some great stuff to say.
And you can't go wrong with scifi. :grin:
Yes. I'm aware that my "articulation" of a Causal Gap in Determinism is un-orthodox. But it's based on science, not magic. Beginning in the early 2000s, scientists began to study Complexity and Chaos seriously. The Santa Fe Institute was established specifically to bring together physicists & mathematicians, and a few philosophers, to learn about some of the Uncertainties in Nature that puzzled the early Quantum pioneers. Quantum Mechanics seemed to be missing a few gears. So, the Uncertainty Principle has been postulated as an opportunity for the exercise of FreeWill. In opposition, the Conjecture of SuperDeterminism*1 has been proposed, but as the link below notes, its argument seems circular.
For my own philosophical purposes, I'm trying to think ahead of pragmatic science. The metaphor I'm postulating is not yet "plausible" for scientific purposes, but I think it can provide fodder for philosophizing. Most traditional arguments against Fatalistic Determinism are based on Morality. But this metaphor is based on physical Contingency*2 : opportunities for innovation.
Based, in part, on the studies linked in my previous post, I have concluded that Magic is not necessary to control Destiny. Instead, Physics has found Gaps in Natural Determinism for Meta-Physics to fill with the kind of statistical Potential that Terrence Deacon described as "Causal" or "Constituitive Absence"*3. That counter-intuitive notion may begin to make sense though, if you combine it with Ed Lorenz's non-linear complexity equations that, when graphed by a computer {dynamic image below}, reveal an absence at the center of Chaos, that has been labeled a Strange Attractor. Complexity is indeterminate, due to the Contingencies of Initial Conditions.
That hole at the center of Determinism may be "strange" but it's not a god-of-the-gaps conjecture. It's a feature of Nature that the human mind may be able to exploit in order to impose its will on Nature. We know it happens --- we call it Culture*4 --- but explaining exactly how mind-over-matter works may take more time. For now, we can draw upon Complexity & Chaos science for philosophical metaphors to help us understand how human Will can evade Fate.
Lorenz's equations have already been used to explain why the weather is unpredictable. Maybe, in time, they will also reveal why the human mind is unpredictable. It's called Creativity. :smile:
*1. Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will? :
[i]In a recent video, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, whose work I admire, notes that superdeterminism eliminates the apparent randomness of quantum mechanics. . . .
The arguments seem circular : the world is deterministic, hence quantum mechanics must be deterministic.[/i]
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-quantum-mechanics-rule-out-free-will/
*2. Contingency vs Destiny :
[i]"Stephen Jay Goulds Wonderful Life used the story of the origin of animals during the Cambrian radiation to argue that contingency has had a dominant role in the history of life. . . . .
Although contingency may play a central role in many other complex adaptive systems, few have explored the importance of contingency and determinism, and this discussion has been largely lacking at SFI".[/i]
https://santafe.edu/events/contingency-and-determinism-in-complex-adaptive-systems
*3. What is Constitutive Absence?
A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html
*4. Nature vs Culture :
Nature didn't give us wings to fly to the moon. But it gave us the ability to impose our collective Will upon the physical world by means of Culture : human intellectual & intentional acheivements.
PS___ Notice that the moving dot --- a point in statistical phase space --- cycles over time toward infinity, but it never crosses its own path, and it never enters the Destiny Gap in the center. This may be the Absence that Deacon labelled "Causal".
But that's the incredible thing: there isn't the influence or a controlling force with determinism!
Quoting Ludwig V
I'll try to explain my point by making the following thought experiment.
Let's assume that everything you have said has been recorded and written down into a book. Or if that's too unrealistic, then let's look at all the comments that @Ludwig V makes in the Philosophy Forum. The time I'm writing this you have been here 2 years and posted 1037 times. Now a determinist would argue that just as there's the 1037 exact unique comments that you make, there will be the n number of exact comments that you will make (or then no 1037 was the last one). And we all hope there's going to be 1038, 1039 and perhaps 1050!
Now, does this deterministic view of there being your answer 1038, 1039 and 1050 limit what you can write? No. Could they be forecasted? Again no, this isn't simple extrapolation from what has become for. Now if you're active on this thread, 1050 might come soon, yet you might have quite easily changed a lot of ideas that you have now when participate here in 2025 or 2026. At least I've change some thought since I first came (to the old, previous) PF.
And when you think of it, it would be totally impossible to show you all those next post that you haven't yet written. If it would be true, then you wouldn't have any free will: your post 1038 would be exactly what you have been shown, which would be quite absurd. This doesn't break determinism, it's simply shows that such future knowledge in this case is impossible. Hence there are the number n future post you do (or don't), but that cannot be simply modeled.
So one could argue that free will (or interaction) is a limit to making models, extrapolation or forecasting, but it doesn't refute determinism.
I think this is more of a way of argumentation, just like the person who insists that he bases his views on scientific facts and science, makes the not so veiled accusation that others don't believe in science. Or then the person makes the point that a lot of our behaviour is taught, is similar to others and hence our "Free Will" isn't so free as we want to believe. But this in my view doesn't approach the philosophical side of the World views.
Quoting Thales
Determinists in this way can make huge leaps like first you were a child and then you learned and was taught by experience that molded you to be the way you are now. Yet notice just how radical these changes are: the way you think about a lot of things has changed, the way you interact with people has changed, a lot has changed since you were a toddler. Yet something like learning is still quite a black box in social sciences.
At least historians understand this: they talk about the uniqueness of different historical times. And that history doesn't repeat itself, but it can rhyme. That someone calls a historical period unique just shows how difficult the determinism really is.
Well, I guess if you believe a multiverse or single universe or that there's "Chance" and "fate" that has an effect on our lives while others don't, I think there's enough differences to define some to be determinists and some others as indeterminists. Especially if one believes that there's events without causes, then those who disagree would be (I think) determinists.
Yes, and they are less than persuasive for that reason. However, I think that while fatalistic determinism is easy to confuse with causal determinism, it does not pose the same problems. (I'm assuming you mean by "fatalistic determinism" what I think you mean - the ancient form that did not appeal to science and causality, but to logic and metaphysics) Roughly, Laplace's demon is a version of fatalistic determinism and easier to refute on logical grounds than causal determinism.
Quoting Gnomon
If we think of it like that, we are making a mistake. The human mind is a product of Nature and part of it. Or, to put it another way, to think of Nature as something to exploit perpetuates the practices that have landed us with climate change. Worse than that, although we can and do exploit Nature in some ways, Nature also imposes itself on us - witness climate change and antibiotic resistance. It has to be a balance.
Quoting Gnomon
Yes, I'm aware that there are many examples of systems and situations that reveal that the systems at work in the world are much more complex and much less predictable than our classical models have recognized. They do give us a basis for thinking that human life may be, in the end, not incompatible with scientific explanation. But they do not get us there, any more than simple randomness gets us there. I think that the research into self-constituting autonomous systems, feedback loops and ideas like Conway's Game of Life are much more to the point.
I don't think that unpredictability is a significant phenomenon here. Volcanoes and football matches, not to mention the weather, are all unpredictable. But no-one thinks that free will is involved.
Quoting ssu
Well put. Though perhaps we might say that the causal network is sometimes a limit on what we can do, and sometimes an opportunity to achieve what we want to achieve. Which it is, depends on the context of what we value, what we want, what we need on different occasions. So our attitude to the fact (insofar as it is a fact, as opposed to an aspiration) of causal determinism depends on us, not on what the facts are.
Quoting ssu
Yes. I'm impressed by your articulation of this argument. It is very tempting to think that the causal network in our world imposes things on us; we forget that it also enables us to do the things that we want to do, or at least some of them. With respect to our values and desires, it is neutral.
Quoting ssu
Yes. This is essentially the argument against fatalistic or logical determinism, but chimes with the neutrality of the causal network.
Quoting ssu
I don't think that "Chance" or "fate" have an effect on our lives. "Chance" is just a basket into which we put events that we don't have an explanation for. "Fate" is another basket into which we put the things that actually happen, whatever the explanation may be.
It's important that "determine" or "determined" or "determinism" has more than one meaning. It can mean "fixed" or "exact"; it can mean "discover" or "reveal"; it can mean "control" or "influence".
Quoting Thales
Yes, that is self-contradictory. But you don't seem to recognize that the importance of this. Insofar as we are rational, calculating (in the widest sense) animals, with goals and preferences, what we do needs to be explained in particular ways, which are not the same as the ways that we explain the way the world works. There are different, but related, language games here; our problem is to understand how they are related.
I think we can begin to get a handle on this by thinking about why we consider that computers can do calculations. A physical process can output the result of a calculation. It is clearly possible, but how?
I'm asking for a definition. I've been expressing what I take determinism to be. I tried to be as clear as I could here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/910043
I honestly can't be sure, but it seems that you are saying we are in a deterministic reality, but you disagree with my post. If so, then I ask what determinism means.
Like Augustine and most of Socrates' interlocutors, I can participate in normal life, but that doesn't mean I can give a definition. The language-games around actions are unbelievably complicated and very difficult to summarize. The same is not true of events.
Quoting Patterner
Tempting. But it wouldn't be a clear case. Almost everything we do can be described as free from some perspectives and not free from others. I scratch my nose because it is itching. Free or not free? What about going go to work in the morning? or signing a mortgage contract to buy a house/car? or asking a question?
The important point is that we can meaningfully ask the question about actions, but not about gas leaks or car breakdowns or pandemics or the weather. That's because actions can be free or constrained. The weather is neither free nor constrained - at least in philosophical discussion, which tries to impose a radical distinction.
Quoting Patterner
I had an attack of realism, remembering that my car is pretty reliable, but does break down sometimes. Causal determinism is at work either way. The distinction depends on my perspective as a human being. Do we have the same perspective on eclipses? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Quoting Patterner
The answer to those questions is yes. But the questions are asked in the context of the glass breaking and so lead us to neglect the conceptual difference between the glass breaking (an event) and my throwing the pillow (an action, normally).
Quoting Patterner
So you are an epiphenomenalist?
I don't agree. If the answer is yes, that doesn't justify your conclusion. It defines our problem. If the answer is no, that also doesn't justify any conclusion. It also defines our problem.
I think you missed the point of my post in favor of FreeWill for moral agents. Moral arguments carry no weight for scientists. But shouldn't they be indicative for philosophers? I wasn't presenting empirical evidence of freedom from determinism, but merely a suggestive analogy, to indicate that, in natural processes, Determinism is not absolute. So, why assume human choices are forbidden by the gapless Chain of Cause & Effect?
Laplace's Demon was a metaphor*1, similar to my own Determinism Gap conjecture. Obviously, he was not talking about an actual Demon, but a hypothetical fiction. Is there some logical error in his If-Then model? If an omniscient entity exists, then all future states are pre-known. But Determinism is actual & absolute in effect, only if that Causal entity freely chooses to make it so. :naughty:
*1. Spooky Science : Laplace's Demon
The future is determined. This is known as scientific determinism. Laplace expanded this idea to the entire universe if some creature knew everything's position and motion at one moment, then the laws of physics would give it complete knowledge of the future. That creature is Laplace's demon.
https://elements.lbl.gov/news/spooky-science-laplaces-demon/
Note --- Although Laplace responded to Napoleon's question about a place for God in his science with : "I have no need for that hypothesis", he felt the need to conjecture a different supernatural agency, whose omniscience is necessary to pre-determine every step into the future.
Quoting Ludwig V
Sorry if my term "exploit" offended your liberal sensibilities. I intended the word to be taken literally --- in the sense of manipulating Nature to derive some benefit to humanity --- but not politically. Everything artificial in the world "exploits" some feature of nature to give humans an advantage over animals. If humans hadn't "exploited" the natural phenomenon of fire, how would they survive the Ice Ages with no natural fur to keep them warm. Yes, the influence works both ways as give & take. But that's a whole other issue.
When we exploit the Causal Gap in Determination, the effect is literally un-natural. I didn't intend to start a Nature vs Culture argument. However, your cell phone is a multifaceted example of such exploitation. It serves the human purpose of storing & transmitting artificial ideas & images in an unnatural manner, by exploiting radio waves to impose artificial patterns that only humans can interpret as meaningful. :nerd:
Quoting Ludwig V
Personally, I don't think human Life, or Culture, is incompatible with scientific explanation. We are just at the early stages of a science of Complexity & Chaos. Your examples of research into complex feedback & looping systems are along the same lines that the Santa Fe Institute is trying to make compatible with scientific methods. :cool:
Quoting Ludwig V
Again, I was using weather complexity as a metaphor, from which to draw inferences about human exploitation of natural properties. I wasn't implying freewill in Natural phenomena, but in Cultural noumena, which is commonly assumed to result from collective human intentions & purposes & willpower. Here's just one of many examples of someone who thinks FreeWill is associated with the unpredictability of Complexity*2. Google "Emergence" and you will find many articles with similar associations. :smile:
*2. Emergence and Free Will :
[i]"Free will is the ability to make choices, but if our bodies and brains are governed by deterministic physical laws, our choices are completely determined. . . .
The complex systems in this book suggest the alternative that free will, at the level of options and decisions, is compatible with determinism at the level of neurons (or some lower level). In the same way that a traffic jam moves backward while the cars move forward, a person can have free will even though neurons dont.[/i]
https://runestone.academy/ns/books/published/complex/HerdsFlocksAndTrafficJams/EmergenceAndFreeWill.html
Note --- Emergence is a Holistic phenomenon, which is overlooked by Reductive scientific methods.
PS___
although Laplace and Napoleon argued about who had created the universe a chain of natural causes, which was also responsible for its preservation, according to Laplace; that plus divine intervention according to Napoleon and Herschel himself Laplace does not seem to have used that brilliant phrase as an answer.
https://institucional.us.es/blogimus/en ... n-and-god/
Simple Events > Complex Events > Simple Actions > Complex Actions.
Quoting Ludwig VYou said, "We could not act freely..." What do you mean?
Quoting Ludwig VCan you explain the conceptual difference?
Quoting Ludwig VCan you tell me what the definition of our problem is if the answer is Yes?
I am as far from an epiphenomenalist as can be. I am playing Determinist's Advocate, presenting the case for determinism as I see it. Not knowing the definition of our problem, I don't know how you can both agree that the answer is Yes, and not be an epiphenomenalist. At the moment I typed this post, given every bit of sensory input I've ever received, every bit of information I've ever learned, the physical structure of my brain that my DNA is responsible for, the physical structure of my brain that was determined by other factors, and every other variable we can think of, could I have posted a different response? Could I have posted the same ideas, but in different words? Could I have chosen to respond later tonight? Could I have chosen to not respond at all?
Exactly!
Our senses and our abilities are of course limits to us, but that actually is quite a different thing. A simplistic determinist might argue that as we can know how people behave in general, how they react to certain events, then in the future with better understanding or theoretically with a higher entity with more knowledge could then deduce how all humans behave and react in any occasion. Here the determinist is making a false extrapolation because he or she doesn't take into account the limits in making extapolations. From the fact that "people in general answer a short quiz if you ask them one" you cannot come to the conclusion that "people always respond to a quiz when asked" or to even the more outrageous idea "what people answer in a short quiz, can be known before". A police officer writing you a speeding ticket likely won't answer your quiz, he just wants your driving license and registration number.
Quoting Ludwig V
And do notice that it's a limitation due to logic.
If a "fatalistic" determinist argues that this kind of determinism (where all of our reactions can be forecasted) is perhaps possible in the future (as we don't know what the future holds and what kind of technological/scientific advances there are), then one has simply to remind them that this science then simply can't be logical. Let that just sink in for them for a while. And before he or she thinks that you are attacking the whole idea of determinism, it should be told that the issue in the limitations of modelling that determinism, not the determinism itself!
And if someone then argues, OK, it might be then an illogical procedure then, then for them there's the joke in math circles that goes like this: "The "strongest" system where everything is provable is with sytem where 0=1". Good luck with that!
Quoting Ludwig V
Our questions define the models and the reasoning what we use to get answers. That someone thinks that everything could be computed just like we compute the movements of planets makes an obvious mistake. Once we use probability theory or game theoretic models, we have already accepted that our models aren't exact and just give some glimpses of the true reality, but surely not everything.
I think the real misunderstanding is to think that our models could vastly improve in time, that for example social sciences could develop more into what physics is now. That's not the case.
I don't think that there's anything wrong in your expression about determinism. This isn't a question about a definition of determinism, it's a problem of modelling determinism.
Like what you described about throwing a pillow and hitting a glass. There your decision to throw the pillow, your movements and releasing the grip from the pillow where just taken as given. Naturally there your decision is just taken as a given too. And here lies your question: where's then your choice? Isn't the argument mean that there's no choice? Or did I misunderstand here?
Well, how many open choices do you see in history? There aren't any, there just are decisions what people have made. And the idea of alternative history, to ask what if, is just a way to study the actual events. But does that then mean that politicians don't have choices to make? Obviously not. In fact, they choose so much that basically history isn't treated as a science: the typical way a historian explains what has happened is to use the narrative approach. That's why historians describe historical events to be unique: it's not realistic at all to think that somehow we could regress into a time exactly like the 16th Century. But estimating where Jupiter was four hundred years ago and where it will be after four hundred years in the future is computable. Our computations don't have an effect on how Jupiter goes around the sun. Where the modern society will be in 2400 isn't so easy.
The crucial part here is that modelling the past there's no interaction and the model doesn't have to take itself into account. What has happened has happened. That you did make choices isn't relevant for the determinist model: your choosing to throw the pillow is just given. But you hopefully understand that it's different to model this when it hasn't happened, especially you know about the model before you have thrown it. Then a whole Pandora's box has been opened from the determinist view.
I see below that you just responded to a previous post of mine. Off I go! :grin:
This question comes to the crucial point.
In a huge number of cases where there is self reference (or in other words, the model has to take itself into account), this is totally possible. But not when there is negative self-reference. You cannot write a comment that you don't write, even if obviously those kind of comments that you don't write do exist.
There's no way around this problem or a way to "input this fed into the algorithm".
The limitations to this is evident actually from the undecidability results from Gödel and Turing and show that this isn't just a trivial matter. There's no way around it (...except something that is illogical, perhaps). When a Turing Machine cannot compute it, that does actually mean a lot.
If, in principle, something with the perceptions and intellect to understand how all those physical events interacting translates to decisions and actions, and can forecast what response I would type, why would it not be able to forecast that I would choose to not respond? It's still a choice. Surely, the choice to not move is not, in principle, of such different nature from the choice to move.
Yes, they limit us, but the also, at the same time, they give us opportunities.
Quoting ssu
"From a contradiction, anything you like follows." Calling that strength is a bit counter-intuitive. But I'm not going to argue.
Quoting ssu
So you are saying that the world is deterministic, even though our models will never demonstrate that?
Quoting ssu
Yes. Physics doesn't have the conceptual apparatus to describe or even acknowledge choices. Ordinary life requires a whole different way of thinking.
Quoting ssu
Yes. Past and future are different, even if physics can't acknowledge the fact.
Quoting Ludwig VI'm basically asking the same thing again. Does ordinary life require a whole different way of thinking in the same sense that we need to think of large numbers of air molecules as thermodynamics, because we simply can't perceive such a gargantuan number, much less calculate all the interactions that will take place between all of them within the space they occupy?
Good point! Until the advent of Quantum physics, scientists had no need for a "conceptual apparatus" of "choices". But the necessity for Observer choices --- in experimental set-up, and interpretation of evidence --- resulted in "a whole different way of thinking". For example, Multiverses and Many Worlds conjectures would never have occurred to classical physicists. The Uncertainty Principle has raised many questions & eyebrows : not least about the continuity of Cause & Effect in the physical world, and the role of mental Choices in material physics. :smile:
Choices in Physics :
[i]According to quantum physics, when we choose a path in decision making in our life, do we also create an alternative branch reality that we chose a different path? . . . .
Quantum physics has no model of human intention and decision-making. Usual physicalists would deny any actual decision happening, thinking of consciousness as an (emergent) effect of millions of microscopic neuronal processes.[/i]
https://www.quora.com/According-to-quantum-physics-when-we-choose-a-path-in-decision-making-in-our-life-do-we-also-create-an-alternative-branch-reality-that-we-chose-a-different-path
World being deterministic or not is a metaphysical question. If reality is actually a multiverse where the worlds are constantly changing, how would we know that from the determinist Block universe? And any way, how we model reality is the essential question.
You can assume that the World is deterministic, but that doesn't limit your free choice. You have that because it's simply impossible to model everything even if the World is deterministic. There are simply limitations on just what you can model from the deterministic World. And that's my point.
We cannot logical deduce or find out answers to metaphysical questions. If we could, they wouldn't be metaphysical.
Quoting Ludwig V
Mmmh...how is it then with quantum physics and the use of probabilities.
But generally this is so: we use totally different models in economics or other social sciences. Even biology isn't so simple as Newtonian physics.
Quoting Patterner
Because you cannot do something you won't do or cannot do.
Quoting Patterner
Yes. And obviously there exist then other decisions that you didn't make when you made a certain decision. A lot of others, actually.
Quoting Patterner
Because there's the interaction! (If there would be NO interaction, if that something not part of this world, it could do it. At least the determinist would think so.)
Just think about it: if this something with the perceptions and intellect to understand everything would now write here what you @Patterner will say, how could it get it right? Because before you write you next comment you would read it, think about and comment on it. You usually do comment on what others write, you know. You have the ability to use the forecast itself and it isn't surely in control of you.
If you give any forecast m, which should correctly model what is going to happen, you cannot give the correct forecast when the correct model would be ¬m. That's the reason negative self-reference limits modelling the future.
Quoting Patterner
In my view, definitely.
For classic physics you have objectivity and clarity, assuming you have enough accurate data. In other realms you have subjectivity and things like learning, which makes everything far more different. Also reductionism goes only so far. If I remember correctly, Zygmunt Bauman said that the difference between the social sciences and natural sciences is that the social sciences themselves are a subjective. (Meaning that what social sciences think the human society operates has an effect on how humans view the human society.)
This means that extreme reductionism usually falls flat. So you can make a diagram like below, but don't think you can skip some levels and explain everything from physics.
No, I think that our limits to modelling, extrapolation and forecasting do not show anything about free or constrained choices, because actions are a different category or language-game from events. For a start, they are explained by references to purposes and values, which have no place in theories of physics, etc. BTW, I think that the concept of free will is hopelessly loaded with metaphysical assumptions, and it would be much better to talk about freedom, free choices or free actions.
Quoting Gnomon
Any events that are not determined by cause and effect are indeterminate. Freedom (or at least the philosophical version of it) is a language-game distinct from physics, etc.
Quoting Gnomon
Nor do I. On the contrary, I think that scientific explanation is a part of human life of culture.
Quoting Patterner
I don't know about "in the same sense", because the cases are very different. But along the same lines, yes.
Quoting Patterner
I don't think that the idea that everything in this reality is deterministic is an empirical hypothesis. It is a completely different kind of proposition. Think of it as a research programme that defines what questions can be asked about phenomena and when they have been answered. Does that help?
Quoting Gnomon
H'm. I probably don't know enough to evaluate that. But I would have thought that observer choices in setting up experiments and interpreting evidence have always played an essential role in science. Though it is true that scientists have mostly assumed that it is possible to observe phenomena without affecting them, and that only becomes inescapably false at the sub-atomic level.
Quoting ssu
I like that. Can we stop talking about it now?
Yes. I was using physical indeterminacy as a parallel analogy to the philosophical question of Freedom vs Determinism. Do you consider philosophy to be an ideal "language game" of no importance in the "real" world?
Classical Physical Determinism (cause & effect) implied that only one course of events is possible*1. But Quantum Physics is uncertain and indeterminate at the fundamental level, allowing more than one path from Cause to Effect. Some scientists inferred that the mind of the scientist could play the role of a Cause in the experiment.
Do you see any philosophical implications of that well-known fact? Indeterminacy is a mathematical concept ; whereas Freedom is a human feeling, derived from lack of obstacles to Willpower*2. Do you see any relationship between physical freedom (mathematical value) and mental freedom*3 (metaphysical value)? :smile:
*1. Quantum indeterminacy is the assertion that the state of a system does not determine a unique collection of values for all its measurable properties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_indeterminacy
*2. Indeterminacy, in philosophy, can refer both to common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications and to another kind of indeterminacy deriving from the nature of definition or meaning. It is related to deconstructionism and to Nietzsche's criticism of the Kantian noumenon. ___Wikipedia
*3. Quantum Consciousness :
New research indicates that consciousness may rely on quantum mechanics. Perhaps the brain does not operate in a "classical" way.
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/brain-consciousness-quantum-entanglement/
Yes. But, at the macro level, the minuscule "observer effect"*1 could be ignored. Only after scientists began probing into the microscopic level of physics did the Observer play a significant role in the outcome of an experiment.
Although the Double-Slit Effect is well-attested, its philosophical & metaphysical implications are still debatable. Some think the Cause of the effect is physical nudging, while others infer that Conscious probing can affect entanglement. No need for us to untangle that conundrum here. We can still draw analogies from physics to metaphysics. :smile:
*1. The observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it. Observer effects are especially prominent in physics where observation and uncertainty are fundamental aspects of modern quantum mechanics.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8423983
Quoting Gnomon
That's a difficult question to answer. Language-games are not well-defined entities. They are mostly useful as heuristics the "battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language." Some of those bewitchments are very important. How effective philosophy is in neutralizing them is hard to discern. I don't justify philosophy any more than I justify science or art. All of them are worthwhile for their own sake, though one always hopes to be fighting on the side of the angels.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Not really. I think that freedom is contextually defined, except where it is inapplicable. In each context, one needs to understand what counts as a constraint or compulsion, and that can be different.
If determinism is true, freedom and constraint or compulsion are inapplicable, at least in physics and similar sciences. On the other hand, there are ordinary language uses of "free" that do give a sense to saying that insensate objects are free or constrained, but philosophy seems unwilling to recognize them.
I try not to mention metaphysics, since I don't know what it means. :smile:
Quoting Gnomon
Well, if you are really desperate, it's worth considering. I'm surprised the parapsychologists haven't got in there years ago. It's really a wild west out there.
Quoting Gnomon
If indeterminacy is a mathematical concept, then so is determinism. At last, we'll get an answer. Oh, wait, mathematicians don't agree about anything, either.
Being able to do what you want to do is not a bad definition of freedom. But then, are those choices necessarily free? It seems that sometimes they are not, so it's not enough. There's something about needing to be in good physical and mental health, living in a healthy society if one is to be free.
Willpower is very problematic concept for me; it is metaphysically loaded and poorly defined, even though there are ordinary language uses that are unobjectionable. It is awkward that if someone is trying very hard to achieve something, we say that they are determined to do it.
Quoting Gnomon
Now there's something to agree with, so long as it isn't taken to have metaphysical implications.
I think there is a real problem about understanding how physics relates to human action, and the blanket free or determined is very unhelpful. At this stage and for our purposes, it is the detailed analysis of cases that will help us most.
This is a good point. Free will is quite a loaded term, especially when you juxtapose free will with determinism. I think that's one of the problems here.
And when you just talk about limitations to modelling and forecasting, the debate can avoid drifting to metaphysical questions.
Well, I prefer it because it is so much easier to understand what is being said. But people seem to believe in it, and I can't work out why. The encyclopedias are not much help.
Quoting ssu
Quite so. But nobody seems to be interested in teasing out the complexities. It's all Freedom (capital F) and never free (attention to context and cases.) What are the differences between addiction and preference? Can people who do something in a temper plead provocation? Can a sincerely held, but completely unjustified, belief excuse a crime? (I thought the person I killed was an alien invader). And so on. Endless real questions.
Without ever trying it, you and I are smart enough to see the problem that will arise if the thing with the perceptions and intellect to understand everything [Maybe we can just call it Laplace's Demon (LD)?] declares what my next post will be. I don't see any reason to think LD would not also see the problem. It would, in fact, have perfect knowledge of what my response would be. And it would be unable to state [I]that[/I] ahead of time without changing what I would have said. On and on and on.
That doesn't invalidate the idea of determinism. Requiring LD to announce the forecast, and an endless chain of revised forecasts, is just setting up an impossible condition. LD wouldn't announce the forecast ahead of time. But it would know, if everything I think and do is the result of determinism. Maybe it could write it down, only to reveal it after I made my post.
There is a science fiction book called ]I]Thrice Upon a Time[/i], by James Hogan. A scientist puts his friend in front of a computer. A small piece of paper prints out. The scientist looks at it, but does not show his friend. Then the scientist tells his friend to type six characters on the computer and hit enter. After the friend does that, the scientist shows him the print out from a minute earlier. It matches what the friend just typed. The scientist found a way to send that amount of information back in time one minute. So what was printed out a minute before it was typed. At that point, of course, the friend tried to outsmart the machine. After the scientist gets a print out, the friends typed nothing. And the scientist revealed a blank printout from 60 seconds earlier. And then the friend tries to double-fake the machine, and on and on.
Quoting Ludwig VIs it not the proposition of this thread? Some think it is, some think it isn't. Not to say we can prove it one way or thre other. If we could, there wouldn't still be new threads about it.
That's great! :blush: Yet in actuality, this is quite hard, especially to understand the link to the undecidability results in mathematics. The link to a more general consequences what this means (what I know) has been made first by just one mathematician David Wolpert at the start of this Century (actually). At least in Wikipedia in the text about Laplace's Demon in arguments against it in "Cantor Diagonalization" it's cited. But it's not yet something in the logic textbooks and hence people don't know about it.
Quoting Patterner
Well, assuming LD would have quite an awesome knowledge base, it could give a year-long lecture about everything we have thought wrong about science. And likely many people would simply not get what it would try to explain to us. And just how many would be devastated when LD told us all the limitations of science and would refute any hopes of further advances! Poor LD with that perfect knowledge of science, a real party stopper.
Quoting PatternerExactly. You got it perfectly. It's a logical limitation on modelling or forecasting.
Quoting Patterner
Yet notice that it's not anymore interacting. LD is then more of a historians ultimate event checker. But the issue of course is settled when LD doesn't interact with the World it's forecasting. But this naturally wasn't at all what Laplace had in mind. We are part of the universe ...and so are our models too.
Quoting Patterner
Sending information back in time, well, that's one way to say it ...but it's basically the LD argument. And the situation you earlier wrote (with the LD writing it down, but not showing to you).
And here you see the obvious difference: there is no negative self reference loop. The friend doesn't know the information. As I've not read the book, I think the friend doesn't then say to the scientist "Why don't you do it yourself? Are you going obey and write what the paper says you to, or can you write something else?". How the writer would continue on, would be interesting...
Hopefully this discussion thread (and PF in general) makes the exception. :smirk:
Quoting ssuWell, naturally, the scientist tested it himself at first. I don't remember all the specifics of the conversation (it's been decades. But I have the paperback, so I'll check.), but I can't imagine he did not try to trick it.
If assumed that LD has God-like abilities, that's a different issue. The basic idea didn't start from the entity have other abilities except perfect knowledge of the laws of nature and perfect knowledge of the data about everything. Nowhere is it hinted that LD is in control of everything, the idea is really that the LD can perfectly extrapolate from current data and knowledge what the future will be.
Quoting Patterner
How does that go? The computer prints the paper first, then the person writes what should be in the paper, that was printed earlier. At least that's how you described it. Fine if it's the friend who doesn't know what is on the paper. But here if the scientist himself reads the paper, then writes, you do have the illogical causality where LD got it's name. Because if the printed paper then defines what the scientist does, he's not anymore in command of himself and lacks that free will: he has to write or do what the paper tells him. That's why basically LD is said to be a D (unlike Laplace himself). Yet seeing some piece of paper usually doesn't somehow control scientists, hence it cannot be. Just as nobody cannot write here what you are going to write (or @Ludwig V will write in his future posts) before you have written it.
You might check it, if you find the book.
Here's what in 2014 Josef Rukavicka wrote in The American Mathematical Monthly Volume 121, 2014 Issue 6, which goes total the same lines as we have discussed:
It's the same thing we have been talking about here, and here's the catch:
I think it's too easy, too obvious when you stated as above (once people get it), and people don't understand how important the whole issue is. People will go just: "Huh? Well, Laplace's ancient history, anyway". The fact that this really is important in math doesn't come up. Or hasn't yet as do note that the timeline here: Wolpert made his papers 2000-2008 and Ruckavicka stated the simplified version in 2014.
Why I'm so obsessed about this (one could argue)?
The limitation is essential part of logic, yet it's not understood as to be so. And I think it actually defines a part of mathematics that hasn't been accurately describe: the non-computable. How does mathematics even have a field that is non-computable and the link of the non-computable to objectivity and subjectivity isn't made clear either.
[quote=Ruckavicka above]No matter what the device says, we are free to choose the other option.[/quote]
Yes. That's why we could only ever conclude from the LD that prediction is not control and though the D may be said to determine, at least sometimes, in the sense of "discover", it cannot be said to determine in the sense of "control".
The effects of feedback of predictions on future action is very well known in economics, isn't it? Though perhaps it is the self-fulfilling prophecy that is more to be feared. That said, I do think that feedback loops in general are very important in understand how the body works, so they will contribute substantially to our understanding how we are able to do what we want - without being incompatible with determinism. That's the only way to go, in my opinion.
Quoting ssu
I'm not quite sure what you mean. But I think that the important logical part of this is that the future is unlike the past in the sense that a prediction is not really true or false, but fulfilled or not. Compare G. Ryle "Dilemmas" Lecture II 'It Was To Be'. But I'm not aware that it has been discussed in the context of the symmetry of past and future in science.
Actually as I've studied economics in the university in the 1990's, at least it wasn't so back then. Economics just tries to use dynamical models which don't blow up. Yes, speculative bubbles, self enforcing expectations, Keynesian Beauty Contests are known, but their use is the problem! The math isn't there to use. Economics tries to use mathematical models. And, well, I think you can guess the problem lies (as we have been talking about a limitation on mathematic modelling).
(Sorry, I misspelled the name, it was Rukavicka.)
Quoting Ludwig V
The limitation on the modelling isn't generally known, although some discussion about it has been said.
Take for example economics: in the 1930's two later-to-become Nobel economists had a debate in an American economic journal where the other pointed out this basic problem in forecasting (if forecast itself effects the future). The other one simply attempted to refute this by stating there simply has to be a correct model, because there is an outcome. He just stated that perhaps in the future we will know how to do this model. Well, this didn't actually answer the question, but economics simply attends those kind of events where forecasting can work (mathematically).
And secondly, the result here isn't generally accepted or public knowledge. Just look at the references, videos or writings about LD. The usual idea is that since we have quantum physics, LD isn't happening because the physics isn't all Newtonian. But that's it.
I've enjoyed discussing the old Freedom vs Determinism question with you. But if you are going to place Metaphysics*1 off-limits in a philosophical forum, my arguments will be nullified, because the whole point is to explore the "metaphysical implications" of physical observations.
From my personal perspective, Philosophy is not Physics, but Meta-physics*2 --- in the scientific Aristotelian sense, not the religious Scholastic sense. Philosophy is about Ideas, not real things. And Freedom is an Idea, that can't be placed under a microscope, but under the penetrating eye of Reason. If you don't like the medieval connotations of the term "metaphysics", let's just call it "Philosophy". :smile:
*1. Aristotle. metaphysics: he calls it first philosophy and defines it as the discipline that studies being as being.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/first-philosophy
*2. Meta-physics :
[i]The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled physics - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled metaphysics - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: Ideal as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal forms (concepts) were prior-to the Real substance (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the formal cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).[/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Quoting ssu
Well, perhaps I'm ahead of the curve, for a change.
Quoting Gnomon
I'll buy that. I'm sure we can get along and maybe occasionally agree to disagree. Most topics in philosophy seem to have only contested definitions, so there's nothing new here.
This is a philosophy forum, not a Communist Re-education Camp. So of course we are free to disagree. But, I suspect that we are not that far apart on the topic of this thread. So, once more into the breach . . .
The traditional arguments against human Freewill were typically based on the assumption that the whole world, from Big Bang onward, is a linear deterministic physical system. But 20th & 21st century physics has cast doubt on that 17th century Classical assumption. LaPlace's Demon may have been a prescient insight about that presumption ; he described inevitable gapless Demonic Determinism as supernatural instead of natural. Modern physics has found a limited role for non-linear Chaos*1 --- butterfly effect --- within natural systems, that might conceivably have allowed freethinking humans to evolve from dumb robotic apes.
Even skeptical Daniel Dennett claims to be a compatibilist*2, in his book Freedom Evolves. So, that's all my linear-Determinism-vs-non-linear-Freedom analogy is proposing. The rest is up to the individual, to decide if her willpower is capable of imagining and implementing un-predetermined novelties within the physical (phenomenal) and metaphysical (noumenal) realms of reality. For example, is it possible that a long-standing human metaphysical desire/will for a short-cut from Atlantic to Pacific oceans could have a physical causal effect on the geology of Panama --- not moving mountains by faith, as suggested by Jesus, but moving mountains by dynamite, as implemented by French & American engineers.
Anyway, all I'm suggesting is that FreeWill is not incompatible with the mathematics of natural processes, as sometimes argued. Instead, physics has instances of both boring linear and surprising non-linear changes over time. With that in mind, what is your positive or negative "definition" of Freedom within Determinism? Yea or Nay? :smile:
*1. Does Chaos Theory Allow For FreeWill?
[i]The two things are not directly connected. We certainly have free will (the ability to make decisions that are ours), and chaos theory certainly works for complex physical systems, so the two must be compatible.
The brain/mind, however, is the kind of complex system that chaos theory describes, so how we perceive ourselves is predicated on the kind of systemic consistency and specific unpredictability which chaos theory helps describe[/i].
https://www.quora.com/Does-chaos-theory-allow-for-free-will
*2. Determinism-Freedom Compatibilism :
Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist the view that, although in the strict physical sense our actions might be determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Evolves
That's true only because of quantum indeterminacy. So, instead of strict determinism from big bang to present, there's numerous instance of probabilistic determinism along the way. It remains to be seen if quantum indeterminacy plays a role in mental processes (some think it does), but if so- it would only seem to add a random element to the otherwise fully deterministic processes, which doesn't make it more free (in a libertarian free will sense).
Yes. That's why I'm only advocating FreeWill in a Compatibilist sense. Humans obviously don't have god-like magical freedom to do anything they want. But they are also not constrained from exercising a few degrees of freedom from absolute locked-in Determinism. If I choose to reach-out and pick-up a cup of coffee, I don't have to stop and think whether this choice was allowed by the all-powerful Big Bang roll-of-the-dice 14 billion earth-years ago. I just do it. My freedom is not an illusion, if the cup actually rises to meet my mouth.
Physical actions are indeed constrained by the limiting laws of physics. But meta-physical (mental) choices are not subject to physical laws --- perhaps only the laws of Logic. So, our few degrees of freedom lie in the gray transition zone between Physics (matter) and Meta-physics (mind). You could say that Quantum Physics forced us to acknowledge that nothing in the world is absolute. It's governed, not by certainty, but by probability. Instead, the statistical nature of Nature, randomness, adds an element of uncertainty to any action.
Unfortunately, Las Vegas gamblers imagine that the odds favor the clever or lucky, instead of the house, holding all the cards. That's what a compatibilist would call "pushing your luck". :joke:
The statistical nature of Nature :
[i]A deterministic model is a mathematical model in which the output is determined only by the specified values of the input data and the initial conditions. This means that a given set of input data will always generate the same output.
A statistical model is a mathematical model in which some or all of the input data have some randomness, for example as expressed by a probability distribution, so that for a given set of input data the output is not reproducible but is described by a probability distribution. . . . Statistical models can be run by using Monte Carlo simulation.[/i]
https://www.sv-europe.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-the-various-types-of-statistical-models/
Are you assuming reductive materialism is false? Otherwise, I don't see how you get any freedom from physical laws. There is only an illusion of freedom.
One has to be careful about language here. What we can do is obviously constrained by our physical limitations. But what we can do is also enabled by our physical capabilities. The physical both constrains and enables what we do.
When I choose my sushi from what's on offer or a book from the shelf, is that a physical action, a mental action or a metaphysical action? (What's a metaphysical action?)
When you say that my mental choices are not subject to physical laws, you are using language that is at home and perfectly clear when we are talking about the law of the land. What it means when we are talking about physical laws is not at all clear. What would it be like to be not subject to physical laws? I don't think that any of the many non-conformist phenomema that have been identified, both in classical physics and in quantum physics, take us any nearer to understanding human action. Freedom of the gaps is no more helpful than God of the gaps was.
In a way, I would agree with you; human actions and choices are a distinct category from events taking place among inanimate objects, and perhaps that's what you mean when you say they are metaphysical. I think it is clearer to say that they and physical events are embedded in a distinct language games. The law of the land operates as part of the language-game of human actions; it doesn't operate at all in the language-game of physical events and their causes. If we speak of law it is a distinct kind of law, almost a metaphor, derived from the idea that God makes (and presumably enforces) the laws of nature. I don't think we need that idea any more; certainly, part of the point of the 17th century was to abandon that resource in natural science; making room for the new theories absolutely required that.
Quoting Gnomon
I think we cannot get away with just saying that human freedom and laws of nature apply to different categories/language games. They obviously interact, and it is that interaction that we have to understand.
Quoting Relativist
That's an interesting half-way house. But can deterministic theories explain how there can be an illusion of freedom?
Here's my opinion.
Decision-making is a mental process, but mental processing is fundamentally a physical process of the central nervous system.
Under a physicalist metaphysics: metaphysical = physical; although when we account for mental activity, we don't do so at the microscopic level of particle behavior. It's somewhat analogous to a hurricane: we track them as functional entities, not as the activities of water and air molecules.
Mental states are functional entities, like hurricanes. They cause other mental states. We analyze them at the functional level.
Well, everything is basically a physical process in the physical universe. At least in one metaphysical World view.
In fact then when @Gnomon's idea is viewed as an ontological idea, that "Physical actions are indeed constrained by the limiting laws of physics. But meta-physical (mental) choices are not subject to physical laws --- perhaps only the laws of Logic", it can be argued that he is making the argument that there's something else than the physical. But has there to be a separation?
Above all, do we have to fall into the pit of metaphysical discussions that we have no way of solving (and hence no way to climb out from)? There's no ladder there to reason your way out from the pit.
It's false to draw conclusions from a materialist World view that then free will or making decisions doesn't happen / is meaningless. @Ludwig V has to choose the sushi he wants to eat and he really has to make that decision. Metaphysical questions of what reality really is, don't give an answer to this and deterministic world models are quite useless models to use in this place. That in 200 years we are all dead and @Ludwig V behaved exactly the way as he did when next to sushi table is useless information when our friend has to choose what sushi he eats. And similarly the question just where the decision process happened, or was the @Ludwig V at the sushi table -event predetermined right from the Bing Bang is useless. And neither will it be useful if we go with @Gnomon's idea that there's a mental choice for Ludwig to do, which is different from the physical reality.
We use models about reality to get answers to certain questions. Many times, those models aren't declarations of our views on ontological questions. Yet often the models are interpreted as how we think what reality actually is. The difference between reality and a certain model of reality (that answers certain questions about it) is blurred.
I don't quite understand this. I could understand if you were talking about hypotheses. The journey from hypothesis (possibility) to theory (proven) is a long and tortuous one - blurred, if you like. But a model doesn't have a similar journey - unless there is a way in which a hypothesis can be a model or vice versa. Is that your point?
Quoting ssu
That's how I feel about it. But people keep using the word.
Quoting ssu
Are you saying that any theory that is incompatible with freedom (free will) is false on that ground alone? That's a good start. But many people speak as if determinism was true and we have to bear the consequences, yet seem to believe that determinism is an empirical claim. Even when there's empirical evidence against it, they don't give up on it. I think it has to be classified along with hinge and grammatical propositions, perhaps as a research programme.
Quoting ssu
There are ways of determining what is real and what is not. Those ways differ depending on the kind of thing you are talking about, but they exist. Asking what's Real, as if there could be a single-non-context-dependent answer, is the metaphysical way and goes nowhere.
What material evidence do you have to support your belief that personal choice is illusory?
Do you think I'm being fast & loose with my language here? In my thesis and my posts, I provide specific definitions of such terms as "physics" and "meta-physics", giving examples from the history of science & philosophy. For example, I specify that my use of the "meta-" term is Aristotelian, not Scholastic ; psychological, not religious. Are you uncomfortable with my use of "meta-physics" in reference to mental processes. Are Ideas subject to physical laws of gravity, or is there some other force that gives "weight" to opinions?
Is there some other "language" in my posts that give you pause? I haven't been indoctrinated in the legalistic "linguistic turn" in philosophy (Wittgenstein, etc). So my language is generally vernacular & informal, and may sometimes run afoul of "legal" usage. We tend to use physical metaphors to describe psychological concepts, but are the analogies intended to be taken literally & physically?
Of course, physics "constrains" what we do physically. But does it also limit what we think, and how we reason? How do physical limitations affect abstract ideas? Do you know how laws of physics could roboticize your beliefs & behaviors? Or is that just an unfounded Physicalist belief? :smile:
Metaphysics :
[i]1. the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
2. abstract theory with no basis in reality.[/i]
___ Oxford dictionary
Note --- Which definition do you think applies to my use of the term? Are the "abstract concepts" listed above physical or meta-physical? Is Space a physical thing or an abstract idea about the extension of physical things? Is Being constrained by physics or ontology?
That's not what I said. I said there "is an illusion of freedom".
I'm a compatibilist, and deny the PAP (Principle of Alternative Possibilities) - IOW, whatever choice we make, we could not have made a different one. Each choice is the product of a person's memories, beliefs, dispositions, and impulses at the point in time the choice is made. When we examine a choice in hindsight, we think of alternatives we might have made - and this gives us the "illusion of freedom".
Still, I acknowledge that we are free from external control - so we are free in that (compatibilist) sense. So we are (in this sense) freely making the choices we make. The memories, beliefs, dispositions, and impulses are our own; they are part of what makes us the individual we are.
Aristotle intuitively made a distinction between physical and mental processes in the world. He divided his treatise of Phusis (nature) into an encyclopedia of observations by early scientists. Then in a separate (meta-) chapter, he summarizes some of the opinions of theoretical scientists (philosophers) to explain those facts. That "separation" was later formalized by others into categories of A> Physics : particular material objects and B> Metaphysics : general mental ideas (universal principles) about those objects.
Those Generalizations and Categorizations -- "something else" than material/temporal specimens -- are computed by Reason/Logic, which he regarded as a timeless power, capacity or force, accessible to philosophically-inclined humans. For non-rational animals though, there may be only observed things, and no inferred species of things. So, yes, for those who seek holistic Principles instead of isolated Instances, there has to be a separation. :smile:
Metaphysics :
The word 'metaphysics' was coined by an ancient editor of Aristotle's works, who simply used it for the books listed after those on physics. The physics books discussed things that change; the metaphysics books discussed things that don't change.
https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-metaphysics/
What did Aristotle mean by reason? :
Perhaps, then, Aristotle means that scientific reason is distinguished by thinking about the necessary, unchanging principles of things, and also about the things which have these as their principles and causes.
https://academic.oup.com/book/4546/chapter-abstract/146639079?
Do you believe there is an element of randomness (or unpredictability) to the decision making process? Or does antecedent state A always lead to resultant state X, never Y.
When you come to a fork in the road, do you stop and imagine taking the road less traveled, or do you start walking in the desired direction? In what sense is an actual choice an illusion? :smile:
The only true randomness in the world is quantum indeterminacy. It's possible there is some small degree of quantum indeterminacy involved, but I'm aware of no evidence to support it. So yes, I believe the antecedent state will necessarily result in the consequent state.
The choice is not an illusion: we are actually making the choice - we have to actually go through the mental process to reach that choice.
The illusion is that of hindsight: that we could actually have made a different one. In actuality, we could have only made a different choice had there been something different within us (a different set of beliefs, disposltions, impulse...).
This looks like a definition of philosophy, rather than a branch of philosophy.
Here's my problem:-
Quoting Gnomon
I don't understand the question. I could probably invent some sort of meaning for it, but I would have no idea whether that was in any way relevant.
Quoting ssu
I don't understand what you are saying here.
Quoting Gnomon
I suppose you are aware that "indoctrinated" and "legalistic" have presuppositions and overtones that anyone who had been indoctrinated into that legalistic turn would not accept? So why ask the question?
Quoting Gnomon
I don't understand what "meta-physical" means in that question. It doesn't conform in any obvious way with your definition.
Quoting Gnomon
Metaphors are not ever intended to be taken literally. I don't know what it would mean to take a metaphor physically. I don't know what it would be to take analogy literally or physically.
Quoting Gnomon
Of course ideas are not subject to physical laws of gravity - they are not physical objects. If there is any force that gives weight to opinions, it is an appropriate kind of force, and then the concept of opinions having weight is no longer a metaphor.
Quoting Gnomon
Good question. I've no idea what it means.
Quoting Gnomon
On this definition, if natural laws don't change, then they are not to be studied by physics. The definition must be incomplete.
There are different philosophical dialects, which enable different approaches to philosophy to articulate their ideas. I'm happy to spend some time and effort to decode what you say into something I can respond to, but I expect you to do the same for what I say.
I agree that when we come to a fork in the road and take one rather than another, we are, under normal circumstances, making a choice. Sometimes, when we make choices, we weigh the options, thinking of benefits and costs and so forth. But I don't agree that we always go through any particular mental process when we do so.
Well, models can be for example simplified. In economics we can make the premis of ceteris paribus, all other things being similar, and then assume to model something from the economy. In reality hardly anything stays the same and our ceteris paribus -argument wouldn't be valid, if we were really making a model of everything in the economy. Economical models typically try to model a certain part of the whole economy or a certain phenomenon.
Quoting Ludwig V
What I'm trying to say that there being a certain future simply doesn't limit in any way free will. If you respond to my argument here, it's going to be exactly made in one way (of course you can modify and rewrite your answer), but this fact doesn't limit you in any way how you respond to me.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. Our questions themselves define just what our answers are. There's no ultimate answer, as there is no ultimate question. (Or it's 42, as in the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.)
As we have a lot to thank Aristotle for his ground braking effort to understand the world, I think our scientific understanding has progressed from his time (starting with the scientific method etc). However I do agree that there's a lot we don't understand and have difficulties is grasping the link between the physical and what can be called processes. Strict materialism and physicalism simply leads people to make silly generalizations and to wrong conclusions.
Quoting Gnomon
I didn't know that. I meant metaphysics as things before physics, like the nature of existence (and universal principles) and as the study of mind-independent features of reality. It's really hard to prove something with the scientific method of these kind of basic questions. Hence even if very important, it's not a field you can assume to have dramatic breakthroughs.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, I think that animals are also rational, so they don't have to be just "philosophically inclined" to have rational thoughts. That we just have and advance language and even the abiltiy to store it (written language) makes us quite different in my view, but still we are animals (even if smart ones).
For example, some mammal living in a herd in the Serengeti might have a mathematical system of counting as "no predators, one predator, two predators, three predators, many predators". It is totally rational and can be totally satisfactory for the animals. If there's more than three predators lurking around the around the herd, it's "Stampede time!" and the time to get the hell out of Dogde. Doesn't matter how much more there are than three, it's far too many. Yet if there's just three, one has to be able to count them: if suddenly there's just two, then one can be lurking in ambush behind you preparing to chew your ass off. So for example the ability to count things is important.
Now we can argue that a math system of counting of "zero, one, two, three, many" is illogical, because why stop there (what happened to four, five, six)? But for a mammal that eats, mates and tries to avoid predators a more advanced system with irrational numbers and imaginary numbers is useless.
But now I went away from the topic.
.
Yes, I hear you. One of the basic issues I have with determinism is understanding why people equate it with being forced to do things.
Quoting ssu
Strict idealism, empiricism also lead to silly generalizations and wrong conclusions. I realise that we can't avoid generalizations, but I think we have to be pragmatic about them. There's a lot to be said for treating them as useful or not (so long as we assess that in context) or not, rather than true or not. But I wouldn't be dogmatic about that.
Quoting ssu
Quoting Gnomon
... which demonstrates why metaphysics is so confusing. But I can see that there might be philosophy to be done with concepts; but then, I don't see how concepts can exist without language and I gather that some people regard a turn to linguistics as problematic. "Mind-independent features of reality" are more problematic, unless you just mean tables, trees and so forth. On the face of it, I would have thought that the empirical sciences are more likely to be useful than philosophy.
Have you thought about the possibility of them not understanding the issues at hand well and having misconceptions?
Quoting Ludwig V
Also, yes.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's the magic word: useful.
Yet that aside, ontological questions are important. To understand that the empirical sciences have a philosophical and hence also metaphysical foundation is extremely important. When these foundations are understood, you also understand the weaknesses and limitations of the empirical science, where it can get tangled up in basically ...nonsense. Modern science has huge problems of dealing with Qualia. Add a materialist / physicalist World-view with a staunch belief reductionism, and you will have problems.
Sure, but every choice was preceded by some sequence of one or more thoughts. Given that sequence, the resulting choice will follow.
Fair enough, which is the standard Determinist view, I guess I'm not seeing the Compatibilism in your outlook, since by your own description there are no viable alternatives to the final outcome. I don't believe it is accurate when you use the term "choices" to describe impossible alternatives.
Quoting RelativistQuoting RelativistQuoting RelativistIt seems to me that we could call the physical events that involve rock and snow being pulled down a mountain by gravity an avalanche, the physical events that involve air and water moving In a huge circular pattern a hurricane, and the physical events of bio-electric impulses moving through a brain a choice. They, and every other example we can make, are all entirely the result of the laws of physics that we are familiar with. Their settings and materials are different, but the difference between the setting/material of the human brain and any other setting/material is not more significant than three difference between any other two setting/materials.
Is that an accurate statement about your position?
You did have a choice. And you made one. I'm saying that the choice you made could not have differed. That's because something precipitated the choice. Even impulses must have some cause - unless you think they are truly random, or magic. I don't believe in magic, and the only true randomness in the world is quantum indeterminacy- and this doesn't seem to entail quantum mechanics.
Quoting Patterner
Essentially right, but it glosses over our agency. Hurricanes and avalanches don't involve agency. We have thoughts (series of brain states), and these thoughts can ultimately affect the world.
Compatibilists believe in a sort of free will that is consistent with determinism, therefore there is always only one possible way a decision process can come out (IOW, the principle of alternative possibilities is not met).
But we still consider our choices to be freely willed, because we actively make them, and it's as a consequence of our mental activity.
Perhaps I misunderstand your use of the words "choice" and "agency." What you describe still sounds like an avalanche. It's possible for a boulder to roll absolutely straight down a mountain, or to some degree to the left or right of straight down. Probably any given angle of descent has happened at one time or another in the past, and will again. But, every time a boulder has or will roll down a mountain, it can only follow one exact path. Rocks in its way, shaped and composed exactly as they are; changing incline; changing tilt on the other axis; texture and compactness of the soil; plants holding the soil together to different degrees in different places; moisture; air pressure; precipitation; etc. It's all far beyond our ability to calculate exactly where a boulder will land once it gets moving, even if we could freeze time whenever we wanted to and take measurements. But there is only one exact way it's going to fall and land.
It sounds to me that you're describing our choices the same way. Possibly more factors and/or types of factors, but the principle is identical. We can even say the specifics of the mountain's topography are memories of things like past rainfalls and landslides, which affect the boulder's path as surely as our chemically stored memories affect which path we take at the cusp of decision.
What are "choice" and "agency," and how do they change any of that? Every hurricane and avalanche affects the world. Sometimes in incalculably complex and powerful ways.
How is an act intentional if there is no option but to act, and in that exact way?
If a single path suddenly & surprisingly branches into two paths, with completely different end-points, is that not a true philosophical dilemma? One end-point may be my original intended destination, and the other a different unintended destination : as in Robert Frost's Path Not Taken. But if I didn't know that alternative when I set out, my choice to change destinations would be a change of personal intention (goal selection). Was that new information also eternally destined to make the choice for me?
The "mental process" of choosing may be a change of intentions, based on new information. Or perhaps, in the case of the "road less traveled", merely the desire to experience something new, or unknown, or mysterious. In Physics, the well-traveled road might be the path of least resistance ; in which case, Nature would always "choose" that option. But humans are not so mechanical, and sometimes "choose" to take the more resistant path.
According to Pre-destination, even that desire for novelty is programmed into us by all-powerful Nature, or LaPlace's Demon. But what about the statistical uncertainties in natural processes? Are our intentional choices certain, or probabilistic? What about physical Relativity vs physical Absolutism? Was Einstein wrong to conclude that Newton's space & time were not as rigid as his calculations assumed? What if human choices are locally Causal, just as the Demon's determination is universally Causal?
An old saying is that "hindsight is 20/20"*1, implying that we see the meaning of events more clearly after they happened. But you seem to be saying that the meaning -- in this case the new destination -- was never a real option. Instead, the Destiny Demon had the foresight to force me to make an un-free Choice. As an omniscient Demon, if you had to choose between Fate & Freewill*2 for your little deluded choosers, which would you decide on, and why? :smile:
*1. Hindsight is the ability to understand and realize something about an event after it has happened, although you did not understand or realize it at the time.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/hindsight
*2. Fate Vs Free Will :
[i]Fate is a predetermined course of events. Its what makes some people say things like it was meant to be or it was written in the stars. Free will, on the other hand, is your ability to make choices and control your own destiny. If you have free will then that means what happens with your life depends on what you do and how you live it. . . .
There are two different ways in which we can look at the idea of free will. On one hand, theres the philosophical view that all our actions are pre-determined by events prior to them (Determinism). On the other hand, theres the philosophical view that we have some control over what we do in life and how we behave (Compatibilism) essentially saying what if I could make my own decisions regardless of what happens before me?[/i]
https://os.me/destiny-or-free-will-what-do-you-choose/
IN THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS, ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME?
We are frequently surprised because we aren't omniscient, not because there are indeteministic things occurring in the world. Intent does not entail a certainty of action, it entails an intent (at a point of time) to act a certain way.
Quoting Gnomon
We aren't directly mechanical in the way mindless objects are, but that's because our minds mediate our activities. That occurs even if minds are purely a consequence of physical brain activity.
Quoting Gnomon
The only true indeterminism (and true randomness) in the world is quantum uncertainty. Einstein never accepted that, but most modern physicists do.
This doesn't seem to be a factor in everyday life.
Intentional choices do not seem a product of quantum uncertainty. The development of an intent, seems to me to be consistent with determinism.
Quoting Gnomon
[b]No. I'm saying the opposite: we actually make choices. We consider the options before us.
Envision making a decision (i.e. forming an intent) through a (mental) deliberative process. You consider some set of options, and weigh the pros and cons of those options (both objective and aesthetic). Maybe you google a few things to get more information. You settle on a particular choice.
That decision was entirely the product of your mental processes - you own it. Could you have made a different choice? Only if something had been different: e.g. you had considered more (or fewer) options; you had identified different consequences or weighed the differently, or perhaps your internet connection dropped - so googling was not possible. But this entails a different set of antecedent conditions. Given the actual set of conditions, you could only make the decision you actually made. (Setting aside the possibility of some quantum mechanical interaction that injects true uncertainty somewhere in the process).[/b]
There ARE options. See my above reply to Gnomon (the bold part).
Suppose your mind is immaterial, (at least partially) operating independently of the laws of nature. You have chosen a path down the mountain, but you might have taken a different path if you knew it to be more scenic, offering more shade, or if you knew a rattlesnake awaited you on your chosen path. You were, at all times, free to choose a route based on your knowledge, the aesthetic appeal, fears, and your skills. Do you agree this is different from the boulder?
Now suppose your mind is entirely the product of physical brain function. You have the exact same freedom to choose a route based on your knowledge, the aesthetic appeal, fears, and your skills. In both cases, these factors are the result of events in your life (e.g. the DNA that produced you, your studies, your physical conditioning and mountaineering skills). Why should the fundamental basis of these factors (physical vs immaterial) matter? I don't think it does. You have no more, and no less, freedom.
Historically, Enlightenment era scientists & philosophers were forced into Materialist & Physicalist positions by the Catholic church's Spiritualist & Dogmatic positions & propaganda. Burning at the stake as punishment for Mental transgressions (unbelief or heretical belief) would tend to radicalize freethinkers. But, since then, the world has moved toward more liberal positions, that allow for broader worldviews.
So, by the 20th century, the hardline (strict) Physicalist position was no longer mandatory for philosophers. And the Quantum science departure from Classical Physics*1 opened the door for investigations of formerly taboo topics for science, such as : the Mind/Body problem (Mind over Matter), and Freewill*2. Hence, today, we have classical physics hardliners, who burn holistic heretics at the scornful sarcasm stake. :wink:
*1. Classical Physics versus Quantum Physics :
https://vixra.org/pdf/1408.0241v1.pdf
*2. Quantum Mechanics, the Mind-Body Problem and Negative Theology :
Philosophy addresses questions that probably cant be solved, now or ever. Examples (and these are of course debatable, some philosophers and scientists insist that science can answer all questions worth asking): Why is there something rather than nothing? Does free will exist? How does matter make a mind? What does quantum mechanics mean?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-mechanics-the-mind-body-problem-and-negative-theology/
Quoting ssu
The term "meta-physics" was applied by medieval scholars to certain aspects of Aristotle's ouvre (collected writings), that were of special interest to theologians*3. Literally, it referred to the later books, that discussed opinions & interpretations (philosophy) instead of observations & investigations (science). But metaphorically, "meta-" came to be associated with "above" in the sense of spiritually transcending the material world.
That's why I refer to OP topic -- Freewill vs Determinism -- as a holistic metaphysical question, not answerable by reductive scientific methods, as you said. However, modern philosophy still finds logical conjectures & conclusions unacceptable, unless supported with hard (empirical) evidence. Hence, the hardline position of Scientism. It's the transcendent implications of "meta-" that are offensive to immanent Materialism. :nerd:
*3. Metaphysics :
mid 16th century: representing medieval Latin metaphysica (neuter plural), based on Greek ta meta ta phusika the things after the Physics, referring to the sequence of Aristotle's works: the title came to denote the branch of study treated in the books, later interpreted as meaning the science of things transcending what is physical or natural.
___Oxford Languages : https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
Quoting ssu
I agree. But I was referring to the formalization of Reason & Logic that is characteristic of Philosophy in the Greek tradition. Mathematical Logic pervades all aspects of the world. But only humans have made Language & Logic into systems appropriate for online forum discussions. :cool:
However, it would mean that my mind, at least partially, operates independently of the laws of physics that we have been able to discover and understand so far. (Let's just say we understand the laws of physics entirely, for the sake of an easier discussion.)
Quoting RelativistI certainly agree it's different from the boulder. Because, in this scenario (which I agree with) our minds are not nothing but an incredibly complex expression of the laws of physics.
Quoting RelativistIn this scenario, there is nothing other than the laws of physics at work. The dominoes fall/the billiard balls bounce around. There is no possibility of anything happening that is not the result of those physical interactions, and the result can only be one exact thing. There is literally no possibility of any other outcome.
I'm not fond of strawberry ice cream. But if there's a dish of it on the table, and the dishes of chocolate, salted caramel, and vanilla ice cream are inside of unbreakable glass cases, then I'm going to choose the strawberry. Did I make a meaningful choice? Of course not. No choice is meaningful if I literally cannot choose otherwise, regardless of the reasons I can't.
But the mind's operation is functionally identical- it is no less autonomous. It's grounded in physics - but the decision process is the same.
Earlier in the thread, we discussed Peter Tse's physicalist account of mental causation. If something like this is correct, it means that the product of our thoughts truly has causal efficacy. We're not just going along for the ride (as you seem to be suggesting) we're driving.
I missed the earlier discussion. But I Googled "Peter Tse's physicalist account of mental causation", and found the contrary argument below*1. We could argue the rational vs empirical merits of Physical vs Mental Causation forever. But Quantum Physics has contradicted the Classical Physics assumption*2 of Determinism (causal completeness) by revealing the role of Randomness in the chain of causation. For me, that's enough to allow me to believe that I am in command of my little jello-like bundle of cerebral Causation. My car is not a self-driving Tesla, it's a Myself-driven conveyance. :smile:
Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation :
The second reason to doubt Tse's account is the causal closure of physics, or the causal completeness of physics (CCP). If CCP is true, then no such thing as free will is possible because there is no sense in which there is any form of free action
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/neural-basis-of-free-will-criterial-causation/
*2. Determinism is an unprovable metaphysical belief, just as FreeWill is. So I freely choose to believe that when I drive my car I am in command, not the laws of nature or sparking neurons. If I get to my chosen destination, that's enough evidence for me. And those CCP commies can't force me to believe otherwise. :joke:
Many would say then that you believe in Free Will. But anyway, I agree on the unprovability of these metaphysical beliefs. The thing is that what we can rigorously prove is quite limited. However if and when we make models about reality, why not use them?
In my view both are very useful concepts. I will argue that you can have determinism and free will. Free will is a great concept to use as it easy describing various events and phenomena extremely well. Yet so is determinism too. What we have is logical limitations in understanding a deterministic reality, making predictions about it or calculating what will happen. Additionally people tend to overemphasize in the reductionist the basis, as if on a "lower" level (physics, quantum theory, quarks etc) are more important and profound than other subjects.
I agree with this. But there are some questions.
A popular way of having both is to argue that they are compatible. There's been a lot of discussion of that possibility, but I haven't seen anything that really resolves the differences between them. There's either freedom in the gaps or reduction of freedom to causality. Or have I missed something?
Another way of having both is simply to treat them say that they are different concepts (language-games), not in competition with each other. That would support the pragmatism that you seem to be suggesting, at the price of giving up on the question of truth.
I truly don't understand how you can say the things you are saying. It occurs to me that we're miscommunicating. Thinking we're talking about things the same way, when we're not. So let me try this. This is an equivalent of our conversation, as far as I can tell.
R: "We are circles, but we are squares."
P: "Something that is a circle cannot also be a square. They are mutually exclusive. How can that be possible?"
R: "It is possible. The circle can have four 90° corners, and four equal sides."
P: "You have given different wording for a square, but you have not explained how it is possible for a circle to be a square."
R: "But if it is true, then circles can be squares."
P: "But what reason do we have to think it is possible?"
And now substitute our topic.
R: "We are the product of physical interactions, which are determined entirety by the laws of physics, and none of our choices could ever have been, or ever will be, other than exactly what they were, or will be. But we have agency."
P: "Something that is entirely governed by physical determinism cannot have agency. They are mutually exclusive. How could that be possible?"
R: "It is possible. We are governed by physical determinism, but we are autonomous."
P: "You have given different wording for 'agency,' but you have not explained how it is possible for something ruled by physical determinism to have it."
R: "But if it is true, then we can be ruled by determinism, yet make independent choices."
P: "But what reason do we have to think it is possible?"
Am I not understanding something you are saying? Or are we defining our terms differently?
I think it would be productive for this thread if either you or anyone gives the most compelling case just why they cannot be both at the same time. Even if one doesn't personally agree with the argument.
Quoting Ludwig V
Can you be more specific what this means?
Fair summary. You believe agency and physicalism are mutually exclusive. I don't agree.
Here's a high level explanation of why I think it's possible:
1. compatibilism is consistent with agency.
2. Physicalism is consistent with compatibilism
3. Therefore physicalism is consistent with agency.
FWIW, I earlier acknowledged that Tse was not successful at accounting for LFW, but that I think he IS successful at accounting for mental causation. Bishop picks a few nits with the language Tse uses, but he doesn't really undercut Tse's model of criterial causation (=mental causation). Mental causation is sufficient grounding for compatibilism.
I agree with your Both/And conclusion. My latest BothAnd Blog post is on the topic of Synchrony*1. The author of the 2003 book SYNCH, Steven Strogatz, says "These, then, are the defining features of chaos : erratic, seemingly random behavior in an otherwise deterministic system ; predictability in the short run, because of deterministic laws ; and unpredictability in the long run, because of the butterfly effect*2." The physical universe is an almost infinite system of malleable Matter and deterministic Thermodynamic laws that is also chaotic at the core, but with pockets of sublime order, such as our own blue planet. which defies the destiny of Entropy with emergent Life & Mind.
,
The "logical limitations" can be observed in physical Phase Transitions, where a stable organization of molecules can suddenly transform from one structural state (water) to another (ice), but scientists can't follow the steps in between. Another logical difficulty is with the non-linear mathematics of Creative Chaos*3 as opposed to the linear math of stable Organized systems. Strogatz says, "In a linear system, the whole is exactly equal to the sum of its parts". He doesn't use the taboo term, but what he's talking about is Holism.
Reductive Science looks for predictable linear systems, but has difficulty with non-linear effects, such as the emergence of a metaphysical willful Mind from a network of physical neurons. That may be why some posters on this forum have difficulty seeing the Mental forest for the Neural trees. The human mind is a holistic effect of neural cells that cooperate and inter-communicate to produce a state of mind that is sometimes unpredictable and willful. Holism doesn't break physical laws, but it does bend them into novel directions.
Long story short : our world is both linearly Deterministic and spontaneously Creative. :smile:
*1. Synchrony :
Emergence, as a natural phenomenon, is controversial, since it has implications for the evolution of Life from inanimate Matter, and of Consciousness from Gray Matter. For some thinkers, the discontinuous appearance of Life from Non-life, seems to defy the laws of gradual evolution.
http://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page21.html
*2. Butterfly Effect :
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
*3. Creative Chaos Theory :
Scientists once believed that events or occurrences in nature were predictable or able to be mathematically calculated and predicted. Then along came chaos theory, proposing that many events are, in fact, chaotichaving no order or predictability, occurring in a completely random way. But more recently, even the most chaotic occurrences have been found to contain pattern and order,
https://www.secondwindonline.com/creative-chaos-theory?journal=239
Yes. Causal Closure (Determinism) was a simplifying assumption of 17th century physics. But 20th century physics has complicated the math with non-linear Chaos, and causal Uncertainty at the physical roots of reality. :smile:
Thanks for the invitation. I can try. But as long as people think that the search for free will is the search for an uncaused cause or a search for indeterminacy, I doubt that anyone will be interested.
The basics, which I confess I though were universally known are that actions performed by people require for their explanation purposes, values and reasons. Values cannot be recognized in standard scientific determinism, because of the fact/value distinction. Purposes require orientation to a future state, which clearly cannot be the cause of action (in the standard sense of cause). Reasons are easily confused with causes, but they justify actions by linking the aim, purpose, ambition, goal or target of action to what is to be done (this is sometimes referred to as the practical syllogism) which is a form of explanation that has no role in causal determinism.
All of this is at least over-simplified and is possibly wrong. But unless this agenda is discussed, we cannot even articulate the difference between what people do and what happens in the inanimate world, never mind decide whether one is compatible with the other.
Forgive me if I've seem short-tempered, but I've been looking for a chance to put this on the table for a long time.
The logical limitations start from what we can calculate and prove. What you are describing is more physical limitations that we notice in our empirical tests.
The logical part here is of course when a measurement effects what is being measured. This is something that isn't at all trivial. And then there's things that you simply cannot model in a laboratory.
I'm not so sure about this in a time when algorithms rule our lives and data mining and big data is extremely popular.
Quoting Ludwig V
Well I can easily confuse reason with causes.
In fact, when doing a quick search on the definitions of reason and cause, I got:
reason: a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.
cause: a reason for an action or condition : motive, something that brings about an effect or a result, a person or thing that is the occasion of an action or state
When you say that practical syllogism has no role in causal determinism, I think you mean that self-cause is something that causal determinists avoid. But this is a bit of chicken and an egg: the causal determinist will simply say that a person, thanks to his thinking, reasoning and experience came to this conclusion because of the current situation that was can be traced to the past occurences, which can be then traced back to, well, the Big Bang. That there's a practical syllogism there doesn't in my view make the determined determinist change his or her dogma.
The "Logical Limitation" I referred to is both a measurement problem and a modeling problem. And the Logic in both cases is Mathematical (1+2+X=?), not necessarily physical*1. The physics happens, presumably according to the rules of physics and logic. But the steps between phases are hidden in a fog of Chaos. :smile:
*1. Phase Transition in a Chaotic System :
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00415-3
Quoting ssu
Yes, that's a classic example of what dictionaries can do, otherwise known as a circular definition. I believe it is somewhat frowned upon in philosophical circles. Fortunately, we are free to disagree with a dictionary, even if we have to be a bit cautious about it. It doesn't make it easier to articulate what's going on here.
There is a truth here. It is perfectly possible to apply the concepts (language-game) of persons to inanimate objects, and we are very familiar with partial cases - animals (anthopomorphization) - and even applications to inanimate objects (polytheistic gods, personification). It is also perfectly possible - even helpful - to apply the concepts (language-fame) of inanimate objects - machines - to persons and partial persons. So the radical move of applying both language-games simultaneously to everything is just pushing those tendencies to the extreme - and much philosophy depends on tactics like that. (Hume called it "augmentation".)
But I really don't think that my "thinking, reasoning and experience " is particularly amenable to the scientific method (methods, approach). Certainly, much philosophy has derived from those difficulties. Sweeping them all away with a few key-strokes is not an appealing solution.
That's the best I can do for now.
Expecting more of a dictionary would be a mistake. A dictionary is limited to describing words with other words - there's inevitable circularity to it. There's something of a Munchausen Trilemma involved in writing a book full of words describing other words.
Thinking and reasoning itself actually isn't so much about using the scientific method. The scientific method is really just a bigger method: it's about how you try to experiment or prove your thinking/hypothesis. Of course sometimes people can be in the happy situation that while studying something else or doing an experiment, they just stumble something they have no clue what it is and where it came from. That's then notice to try to figure what it is, or have you simply made an error.
Now if you go (not meaning @Ludwig V himself) too far with applying the scientific method, the you can hold a bit extreme views of scientism. Usually comes from that the person doesn't understand that other fields do use logic too.
You are quite right. But it's not often that I come across such egregious examples.
.
Quoting ssu
Dear, oh, dear. I thought it was the causal determinist who was guilty of scientism. I'm more than happy to insist that the methods (and concepts) of science do not apply when thinking about thinking. It's not really a strictly a question of logic, but of a more general conception of rationality. Or, put it another way, of a different kind of syllogism (though it was also invented by Aristotle) known as the practical syllogism.
No no no! Sorry, I wrote badly. I didn't mean you, I meant in general "Now if you go" referring to people who go for scientism. And I'll change it to be more readable! :yikes:
There was no need to do that. It was my misinterpretation of you. But I appreciate the gesture.
Umm... you answered the question yourself: our awareness of the whole thing. That's it.
Easiest way is simply compare yourself to a computer.
Ask a computer to do something else that isn't in it's program. As a computer just computes. calculates, follows orders and as such, it cannot do this. "Do something else" is a total impossibility, that you can only divert by programming to the computer what to do when asked that. However, the problem doesn't go away. Now before someone argues that we too can't know what our "meta-program" controlling our judgement is, let's think of it another way:
Ask yourself, if you have ever learned something.
If @Patterner of 2024 thinks even a bit differently than the @Patterner that was half of the age as now in 2024. So in the later half of your life, have you have learnt and do differently now, or anything that you think about differently? As the answer is extremely likely yes, then let's go forward.
Now because there was the younger you of the past, who thought or acted at least slightly differently than now, obviously your thinking has changed. You can describe this and tell it, you understand it, you totally can think about these kind of things that have changed subtly along the way. And this is the crucial part: If you are asked "Do something else", you can think what you have done earlier and then really do something else that you haven't done. You can even innovate, do really something that hasn't been there before in your mind. And here it's absolutely no coincidence that this subjective decision making and subjectivity itself poses such a problem, for instance why in neuro-science we have in the hard problem of consciousness. You just said awareness, but it could be described too by consciousness.
Does this refute determinism? Nope. But for entities that are conscious and sentient, free will is a really great model to use!
Quoting ssu
For the sake of argument, if one imagines a human mind as a "decision-making machine", then the freedom of the will is "free to act on the desires and decisions of that machine", in particular as opposed to "forced to act on the desires and decisions of other machines.
Yes, but in order to be "free to act on the desires and decisions of that machine", which is yourself, you have to have the awareness that you are making a choice / decision. Awareness, consciousness, subjectivity are essential to understand free will.
We started this discussion because you said:-
Quoting ssu
I think I may have interpreted this in a way different from you. It's complicated. You can't play both language-games at the same time, any more than you can play chess and draughts ("checkers" in the USA, I think) at the same time. The tricky bit is that, while there is no problem about playing both those games on the same board, there does seem to be a problem about playing both language games in the same world. Moreover, while I would like to say that it is just a question of how you consider or articulate the phenomena, I don't think it is as simple as that. So I think there is scope and need to see if some bridges might not be built. But we might need to revise the rules of both games.
It would be reasonable to think that one cannot have one's cake and eat it, but here are some possibilities:-
Here's one possibility. Follow this link to Rubin's vase. It is both a picture of two profiles and of a vase, depending on how you look at it. Because there is definitely just one "it" that you are looking at, there is also a third possibility, that "it" is neither, though it is arguably a picture, even if one cannot say, in the normal way, what it is a picture of. Wittgenstein features this issue, but it was a big topic in the early 20th century in psychology.
Here's another, simpler, possibility. The same events can be a meteorological event, a humanitarian disaster, an economic set-back at the same time.
This is about analogies. None of them is true, all of them are suggestive.
The first point to get one's head around is that it is sometimes very helpful to think of a person as a machine. That doesn't mean they are a (simply) machine. (Nor does it mean that the solar system is a machine). The second point to get one's head around is that although homo sapiens (a misnomer if ever there was one!) is the only animal that is a person (that we know of, so far), other animals have person-like traits, and that we can attribute person-like traits to machines - in fact, it is possible to attribute full-blown personhood to certain inanimate objects or phenomena - then we call them gods. What follows? "Machine" is not simply a classification of objects, but a way of thinking about objects. Similarly "person" is not a simply a classification of objects, but a way of thinking about them.
Quoting Patterner
The person who comes down the mountain is not in a free fall, as the boulder is - though they might be. Their descent is under control. It's not about which path they take.
Quoting ssu
I'm not at all sure this is relevant for our problem. In the first place, the billiard balls can travel along paths they have never travelled before. In the second place, if we are only free when we innovate, then we are in chains for most of our lives.
Quoting ssu
I don't disagree, but I do wish we could stop talking about free will, with all its baggage, and concentrate on freedom.
Quoting Ludwig V
Then I have to remind about the problem that LD had in predicting the future. I don't think LD has any problem in predicting billiard balls as they follow exceptionally well even Newtonian physics. Yet LD has a problem of making an equation when the future depends on his equation, especially the negation of it.
The negative self-reference that can be seen in Cantor's diagonalization has in my view profound consequences. Remember that this negative self-reference is in both Turing's Halting Problem and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. It's been long argued starting from J.R. Lucas (1961) and then continued with Penrose that human mind is different because we can understand Gödel's incompleteness theorems and computers cannot, but that argument is a confusing. (Anyway, I think it's nearly pointless to refer to this extremely important theorems because somewhere a logician will jump out and declare that's not what Gödel meant and go through the tedious two theorems until everybody has forgotten what the debate about.)
We do have the limitations that LD has too, yet obviously we can do something that we haven't done, which is hard for a computer computing equations. We can do a lot more than equations, like inequations and simply throw reasonable sounding wild guesses, even.
Are we in chains for most of our lives? Hopefully not literally. But naturally a lot is predictable in our behaviour, yet this shouldn't be a way to denigrate us. Other species are predictable too. What's the problem in being predictable? Large societies need predictability, for example when driving in traffic, I think everybody is happy if you predictably stay on your own lane.
I think was arguing for compatibility of natural human FreeWill, not as an abnormal exception to Causation, but as a statistical option within causal Determinism. Not for supernatural freedom from Causation, as in the ex nihilo Big Bang Theory. Compatibility does not require total chaotic indeterminism, but only a few short-cuts on the road to destiny.
As a philosophical position, Compatibilism*1 assumes that the world system is a dynamic blend of linear Causation (1+1+1+1=4) and non-linear (1+1+1+X=?) Randomness*2. Including both dependent and independent variables ; both global regularity and small-world spontaneity. For example, the highly interconnected human brain is both a linear logic machine, and a non-linear insight producer*3. Our physical actions may not be free, but our meta-physical intentions are free as a bird, to defy gravity by flapping. "If god intended man to fly, he would have given him wings". Instead, he gave us imagination.
In footnote 2, please add Philosophers to the list of professionals who are "interested" in non-linear causation as a shortcut that allows some Freedom within Determinism*4. :smile:
*1. Compatibilism. Soft determinism (or compatibilism) is the position or view that causal determinism is true, but we still act as free, morally responsible agents when, in the absence of external constraints, our actions are caused by our desires. Compatibilism does not maintain that humans are free.
https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%207%20Freedom/Freedom_Compatibilism.htm
Note --- The man is not free --- he can be imprisoned --- but his mind is free : to roam the world of ideas.
*2. Non-linear Math :
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other scientists since most systems are inherently nonlinear in nature. ___Wikipedia
Note --- In a Small World network, like the human brain, some interconnections are non-linear in that the output (novelty) is more than the input (data). Hence, spontaneous and not rigidly determined.
*3. Small World Network, brain insights :
https://jewishcamp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Schilling-2005_A-Small-World-Network-Model-of-Cognitive-Insight.pdf
*4. Freedom Within Determinism :
Compatibilism is the doctrine that determinism is logically compatible or consistent with what is said to be a single idea of freedom that really concerns us and with a related kind of moral responsibility -- the freedom in question being voluntariness.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwTerminology.html
LINEAR CONNECTIONS BETWEEN NODES
NONLINEAR SHORTCUT BETWEEN CLUSTERS
Quite so. Only, if at all possible, I would like to be regarded as only coerced by the law when I do so. Keeping the law means that one could break it.
That nicely reveals some of the complications about freedom.
When, exactly can someone who is capable of being free be said to be coerced? We say a blackmailer coerces their victim, but, from another perspective, the victim collaborates with the blackmailer. When I walk into my favourite bar (pub) and the person behind the bar pours my usual drink for me, I would normally be said to be choosing freely even though I am entirely predictable.
As the sun rises over the horizon, is it appropriate to say that the air is coerced to become hotter? If determinism excludes the possibility of freedom, as it seems to, then it also excludes the possibility of coercion. This is about what are called categories or language games. Certain concepts are said to be inapplicable (neither true not false, but rather meaningless) when applied outside their home language game. How much does the number 2 weigh? Does it weigh more or less that the number 3? Are both numbers weightless? The earth is neither free nor coerced as it orbits round the sun.
Quoting ssu
Well, that might be right. Though I would be a bit concerned if people who did not understand Godel were then to be classified as not free.
Quoting ssu
But the billiard balls do not roll as they do because LD predicted how they would.
Quoting ssu
Well, yes. I think feedback loops are an important part of enabling us to control our actions and hence act freely.
I get the first half of the sentence. But the meaning of the second half is not at all clear to me. Your diagram in your "Small world model" doesn't help.
Quoting Gnomon
Are you suggesting that an imagined freedom is any substitute for the real thing? Seems like a very poor exchange to me.
Quoting Gnomon
No, it is not the case that the man is not free just because he can be imprisoned. If he is not imprisoned, he is free. In case, the freedom to "roam the world of ideas" is no substitute for the freedom to go home to you partner and kids.
[quote=The Chapter you cited entitled "Compatibilism"]3) the causes of voluntary behaviour are certain states, events, or conditions within the agent: acts of will or volitions, choices, decisions, desires etc... [/quote]
So an action is free if its causes are inside the agent. If the causes of those causes are outside the agent, can we conclude that his acts of will, etc are not free?
By the way, can you identify his acts of will etc independently of the actions they cause to provide the basic empirical information you need to carry out an induction?
[quote=The Chapter you cited entitled "Compatibilism"] Compatibilism is determinism with a slight modification for the sake of appearances and for our language use. It is a position taken because of the perceived need to have some idea of accountability or responsibility for human behavior. [/quote]
So compatibilism is window dressing - a concession to the ignorant. Why would I be interested in this?
Coercion usually means forcing someone to do something he or she doesn't want to do.
Quoting Ludwig V
That kind of idea of determinism does away with lot of things. Anyway, if we want to hear some who thinks that with determinism there's no free will, then there's for example Susan Hossenfelder:
What is noteworthy is that she talks about emergent properties and decoupling of scales. At 6:40 she describes that the underlying laws still exist, and then at 7:20 even refers to some articles that refer to the Halting Problem, but as they talk about infinates, she disregards them. She also admits that the majority of philosophers believe in compatibilism. Finally on 12:20 she explains why she believes that determinism eliminates free will.
I would argue that this is one usual way people that hold physics to be this all encompassing all answering field, which obviously has all the correct theorems at hand, just look at the world. Great that they are enthusiastic of their field of study. Yet they disregard then the "more is different" argument, the emergent properties, and make simply a category error. The idea that everything is physics is reductionism at worst, when people assume that ontological questions can only be discussed in the realm of physics and through it's models. Because matter is made of quarks etc.
Good antidote would be to understand that the limitation on the predictive ability of LD is mathematics and logic.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes.
But even you or I could make good predictions about billiard balls at least on a billiard table. LD would easily.
What is crucial to remember in the LD example what Simon Laplace gets wrong is the every part: that LD can forecast everything. In many occasion giving a prediction doesn't affect what is predicted. That the Earth revolves around the Sun even a hundred years from now is a sound prediction. Giving that doesn't effect the future, the Earth or the Sun.
That little word actually is interesting. What does it mean? Either I have a choice, or I do not.
Quoting Patterner
In one way, you are right. But there are some kinds of coercion that are compatible with the capacity to choose. Determinism eliminates the capacity to choose, and so eliminates the possibility of coercion.
When the cop arrests me and asks me to hold out my hands for the cuffs, do I have a choice? When I drag myself in to work on a Monday morning, do I go because I have chosen to go? When my opponent forces me to take his rook (castle) in order to get my queen, what choices do I have? When I pay my taxes, what choice do I have? Assume in all these cases that I have a normal capacity to choose.
Quoting ssu
Quite so. Does the sun want to rise in the morning?
Quoting ssu
Interesting. Is that because she thinks that determinism forces me to do things, or because choice is meaningless in a determinist framework?
Quoting ssu
Yes. That means that the prediction does not force me to do anything.
Quoting ssu
Yes, it is a category error. I'm not sure about emergent properties. There doesn't seem to be much agreement about them and maybe those arguments are giving too much away. Yet we are physical beings, and physics doesn't have exceptions. Understanding that is the problem.
Sorry. I'm currently reading a book that gets into Small World math & physics. I didn't really expect you to grasp the concept of "short-cuts" without a long digression. But I liked the neatness of the concept, in the context of this thread. So I wrote it down.
The "small world" Wiki link mentions "short-cuts", but not in detail. The most well-known example of Small World networks is the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" meme from the 1990s. A 'degree of separation' is a measure of social distance between people. In the WWW diagram below, the long lines between clusters are the "short-cuts" that reduce the number of steps between any two nodes. And their arbitrary placement can be spontaneous & indeterminate
Suffice it to say : in a Small World network, like the World Wide Web, most interconnections are to neighboring nodes (necessary & deterministic). But a few (optional) long-distance connections between major nodes reduce the number of links (degrees) required to connect to any other node (arbitrary & in-deterministic). Philosophically, just a few "short-cuts" convert a deterministic-but-chaotic tangle, into a freer and more accessible system. This ad hoc interpretation might make a good Phd thesis for some mathematical philosopher ; but it's too-much-too-late for me. :smile:
Quoting Ludwig V
As Daniel Dennett, in Freedom Evolves, concluded : " although in the strict physical sense our actions might be determined, we can still be free in all the ways that matter, because of the abilities we evolved". The example I gave before is the Panama Canal, which was only an imaginary dream for over a century, until many people, motivated by that dream, devised ways to move mountains. That small-world social mind-meld (inter-communication of motivation) is one of the "abilities" that Dennett noted. I think it's a pretty good trade-off as a substitute for non-human impotence or super-natural magic. :wink:
Quoting Ludwig V
It's not the heavenly ideal, but a free-roaming mind is better than being a sentient mind trapped in an imprisoned body. N'cest pas? In a Matter-only world, "it is what it is" ; but in a Mind & Matter world, what is imagined might also become realized. As one writer put it : "I feel that as human beings with free will, the mind tends to limit itself from living to the fullest when we become prisoners of our own mind." Is your mind locked-in? :chin:
Imagination becoming reality :
Creativity and Invention: Imagination often precedes innovation and creation. Many of the inventions and creations that shape our world start as ideas in someone's imagination. When these ideas are acted upon and brought into the physical world through effort, experimentation, and implementation, they can become a reality. This process involves turning abstract thoughts into tangible products, technologies, or works of art.
https://www.quora.com/When-does-imagination-become-reality-for-humans
Quoting Ludwig V
Perhaps, but the "cause" of willful action --- as contrasted with physical actions --- is presumed to be within the agent. That's why we call it "Will Power". Otherwise, the action would be pre-determined instead of free-will. :cool:
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Note the few long lines between clusters of short lines.
I'm afraid I don't see that the Small Worlds model affects the issue at all. Sorry.
Quoting Gnomon
I have a lot of time for Dennett. But that doesn't mean I agree with everything that he says. This is just throwing in the towel. We all have limitations - things we cannot do. But doesn't really affect the issue.
Quoting Gnomon
But I'm not a sentient mind trapped in an imprisoned body. I'm a person, as free as anyone is.
Quoting Gnomon
I wouldn't know. I don't live in a mind-and-matter world, nor in a matter-only world, not, for that matter, in and ideas-only world. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I'm a monist. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I'm a uncountable pluralist. On Sundays, I don't do philosophy.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, I suppose I can make some sort of sense of that. But not enough to add up to a philosophical position.
Quoting Gnomon
Either we are free all day and every day, or we are not free. It is entirely mundane, not special in any way. But perhaps you just want to change the subject.
Quoting Gnomon
What is wilful action as contrasted with physical action? In what way is a cause "within" me any different from a cause "without" me? How can an internal cause not determine the action unless it is not a cause or it is in some way special? What reason is there to suppose that an internal cause is in any way special - apart from the fact that it is inside me? (We have opened people up and not found any special causes.)
Quoting Ludwig V In any scenario, let's just take the cop, there are numerous things it is possible for a human to do.
-Hold your hands out as requested.
-Punch the cop.
-Run away.
-Beg and plead.
-Etc.
Even within each of those, there are numerous variations. If you hold your hands out as requested, you can:
-Simply hold your hands out.
-Say "Yes, officer" and hold your hands out.
-Say "Does this makes you feel like a big man?" and hold your hands out.
-Roll your eyes and hold your hands out.
-Many many other things, and many many combinations.
If I roll my eyes and hold my hands out, and, because of physical determinism - because the trillions of physical events in my brain play out and resolve in the one-and-only way they could have given the initial conditions (just as the pool balls settle into one-and-only configuration they could have given the initial conditions when the cue hits them) - there is no possibility of me doing anything else, despite all the possibilities available to a person in that situation, then I do not have free will. I'm not "actually choosing" if physical determinism literally prevents any other possibility. A couple pages ago, to Relativist, I said it's not a "meaningful choice".
If this is correct, then coercion is just another physical factor that goes into the mix. We experience it as coercion, but it's all reducible to physical events in our brains.
It also means our subjective experience of everything is epiphenomenal. If I'm aware of all the possibilities, but I have no possibility of "choosing" from the myriad options, and can do only the one that the physical factors determine, then awareness is only watching the show.
That's OK. As I said, I wrote that for me, just to express the aha! idea in words, as it occurred to me.
Quoting Ludwig V
Come on. It's a metaphor. You seem to have a problem with both Metaphors and Metaphysics. Do you remember how I define "meta-physics", not as religious doctrine, but as philosophical reasoning?
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm getting the impression that you don't do philosophy. I'm not sure what you think this forum is all about, if not attempts to construct or destruct a "philosophical position". Do you have a "position" on the Freewill question, other than "I just don't get it"? Maybe everyday is Sunday for you. FWIW, my philosophical position is Both-FreeWill-and-Determinism Compatibilism .
Quoting Ludwig V
But this thread is about how free-effective-willful-mental (meta-physical) choices can Cause changes in the real world outside the imagining mind, despite the dominance of linear physical Determinism. Is that a "special", perhaps supernatural power for you. Or is it simply a normal "ability" of the human mind to reach-out and to exert influence on (affect) the non-self world? FreeWill : the ability to make choices that affect, not just the body, but other minds, and the physical world. Are you a "free person" in that sense, are you an Agent in the world, or just an object? Or do you want to change the OP subject : Freedom and Determinism?
Quoting Ludwig V
The June 2024 issue of Scientific American magazine has an article on how human babies learn that they can control material objects with their power of Agency : their WillPower. It's what the article calls "ability". The causal ability "within me" is different from physical causation, in that it would never happen in a million years without Purpose (goal setting) within me. Intellectual Purposes may be difficult to achieve, but not denied by Destiny, and not chosen by Determinism.
As I have repeatedly insisted, there's nothing magical or supernatural or "special" about FreeWill. But it seems to be a talent (ability) that is expressed most fully in homo sapiens. What essentially distinguishes Sapiens from apes, and other animals is in degree of control : Agency : the ability to impose our Will upon the world : as illustrated in Culture and Technology. That internal Causation (willpower) is different from external Determinism (energy) in the sense that a meta-physical Mind is different from a physical Rock. Even a willful ape can break a nut with a rock ; just not very efficiently.
FreeWill is not a physical (empirical) question, it's a metaphysical (theoretical) inquiry. My compatibility position is ultimately a Monism : Causation comes in many forms. :smile:
Quotes from SciAm :
"How humans develop the ability to willfully make things happen still remains a mystery . . . the act of discovering their ability to influence the world." . . . . "origins of agency" . . . . "birth of agency is a dynamic, self organizing process" . . . . "Goal-directed action emerges spontaneously when the organism realizes that its movement cause the world to change" . . . . "Historically, the entire issue of purpose and agency in living things --- and dare one say "freewill" --- has been clouded in philosophical debate and controversy."
The difficulty is to understand metaphors. If one takes them literally, they are usually false or meaningless. They can have a meaning, and even a truth, of their own.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun!
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2. 2. 23)
Of course, Juliet is not the sun. But, at the least, the comparison expresses how Romeo feels about her, and so tells us a truth about the place of Juliet in his life.
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
(James Joyce, Ulysses, chap. 2)
This takes a simple metaphor which states a perspective on history. (Since we often apply "nightmare" to anything disastrous or upsetting that happens to us, it is perhaps not even a metaphor.) One could reply, calmly, that there are good bits as well as bad bits. But do the good bits outweight the bad bits? Stephen thinks not, but that the bad bits far outweigh the good bits and maybe even that the good bits aren't really good at all. Adding "from which I am trying to awake" makes it into a metaphor, and tells us that he thinks it may be possible to see things differently.
How would you feel if I said that Determinism is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake?
I do have a problem with metaphysics. I had forgotten your definition of it. I can work with that, although there are still problems.
Quoting Gnomon
It depends what you think doing philosophy is. Does Heidegger or Derrida do philosophy. Many people (including most analytic philosophers) think not? Did Wittgenstein or Ryle do philosophy? Many people (including many analytic philosophers) think not. That's how it works.
I usually find it very difficult to construct or destruct philosophical positions. So I improvise. Jazz philosophy? A metaphor! Too pompous, certainly if I reference Wittgenstein.
Quoting Gnomon
This changes everything. But let me ask whether you think that determinism is not a physical (empirical) question? I'll tell you now that I don't think it is. It is a way of thinking about the world and science. Whether it would count as metaphysical inquiry, I wouldn't know. But I certainly think it is a theoretical enquiry. Freedom (Free Will) is a way of thinking about certain parts (components - people) of the world. Understanding these two as ways of thinking, especially whether and how far they are compatible, not deciding between them, is (should be) the project.
Quoting Gnomon
Well, we can talk about that.
Quoting Gnomon
There are some specialized causal processes that seem to be crucial to our functioning. They are not often found outside living things, so we may be fairly close to each other.
Determinism is a necessary assumption in order to do practical Science. But it may be optional to do theoretical Philosophy. In any case, Determinism is a metaphysical (philosophical) generalization, based on incomplete evidence.
If you want to talk about "Causation comes in many forms", I have a thesis and blog with numerous examples and interpretations. For example, Terrence Deacon's "Power of Absence" is Causation in Absentia. You may, or may not agree with my unconventional interpretation of Causation, beginning with a hypothetical First Cause. But that kind of unorthodox thinking might lead us off-topic, and down the rabbit hole of holistic thinking. :smile:
We all have our idiosyncracies and few of us come up with the perfect phrase every time. I tend to be a bit cautious, if you like, and perhaps scrutinize the text more closely than I need to. The reason is that one of the ways I come to understand meaning is by asking what the opposite would be and what would make it apply. (See below). The dictionary definitions of cause and reason were a bit of a blow. The philosophical use of "cause" and hence of "reason" is, if you like, specialized.
Quoting Patterner
That start me wondering what it would mean if physical determinism only metaphorically prevented any other possibility. But I'm not arguing that we are not prevented from some choices in one way or another. The question is whether this is always the case or just sometimes and what the factors are that can prevent choices. See?
Quoting Patterner
The question is whether you have no possibility of choosing from the options. But determinism effectively says that you have no options, because an option is by definition something you could choose to take.
Quoting Ludwig VCertainly it is impossible to do anything and everything we can think of. I can't jump up and fly to the moon. I can't walk through the earth to find lost treasures or mine diamonds. And sure, coercion happens. But even if coercion prevents me from accomplishing a particular goal, it doesn't prevent me from taking all but one exact action.
Quoting Ludwig VRight. What are the words for this kinds of ideas? "Numerous things it is possible for a humsn to do in a given situation" is not the same as "choices" if, despite being actions that it is known humans can perform, determinism only allows one. But, to my knowledge, we don't have a word that expresses that, because our languages were developed by beings who thought we could have done other than we did.
But the difficulty here is that the proponent of such a definition of freedom still wants to say that the world in some way determines our actions. We can't be free to "jump into a river to save a child," unless the child's being in the river can condition our actions in at least [I]some[/I] way. Likewise, we preexist our individual choices and we'd like to say that "who we are" and "who we have chosen to become" in some ways affects our actions. Our memories are prior to actions, yet we would like to think they affect our actions. If they didn't, our actions would be arbitrary.
To my mind, this is just a spurious definition of freedom. If one takes the classical view of freedom as the "self-determining and self-governing capacity to actualize the good," a host of thorny issues dissolve. Yet this view is often rejected precisely because people are already committed to the idea of freedom as potency. They claim that the good must be thought of as completely unconditioned, something we are free to define however we want, as an act of pure will, precisely because this is what ensures freedom. So the thinking goes, if the good is already in some way definite, then our pursuit of the good (practical reason, pragmatic concerns) ends up being determined, and in turn this makes us unfree because freedom is the ability to "do anything." Taken to an extreme, this view makes all government, all human relationships, marriage, parenthood, all moral teaching, etc. a constraint on freedom, rather than its perfection.
Nagel's view on the absurd can even be taken in this light. Seeing everything as comical, and in a way ridiculous, allows us to avoid the constraints of caring too much about anything. Imagine Gandalf hitting a pipe as he watches the armies of Mordor set to bring darkness upon the world and quipping his Hobbit companion, "do not worry, for nothing really matters and nothing is truly dark or evil."
(Note: you could obviously take Nagel differently. I vastly prefer his take to Camus or Sartre at any rate)