Free will Vs Determinism

[ydoaPs]

I havent seen a convincing account for how choice can exist in a truly deterministic world.

Why wouldn't an agent be able to choose between epistemically open options in a deterministic world?

 

The two things seem to lead to instant contradiction.

How?

 

Again, how does adding in randomness make the situation better rather than worse?

Edited February 15, 2012 by ydoaPs

[FrankQuietly]

What do you mean by epistemically open options ? If the action taken has a sufficient cause and is determined doesnt that make these options impossible?

Randomness, true randomness that is, an effect without a sufficient cause, suggests we dont have a deterministic world, so the question is meaningless as there is nothing to be compatible with?

[ydoaPs]

What do you mean by epistemically open options ? If the action taken has a sufficient cause and is determined doesnt that make these options impossible?

 

A deterministic world does not have an ontologically open future; that is, there is only one possible result. However, non-omniscient entities do not know what that will be. So, for those with limited options, the future is epistemically open. What the human will does is take the epistemic options, deliberate them, and determine the ontological future.

 

Let's take an example from my previous profession. We have a tank whose level is regulated by a valve. In a deterministic universe, we could calculate exactly what the level of the tank would be at any given time. This in no way means that the valve doesn't regulate the tank level.

 

It is the act of deliberation which causes the future course of action regardless of whether or not such a course could theoretically be predicted.

[Marqq]

Free will is a ruse to imply that each entity is ethically responsible for its actions. It allows us to enforce ethical rules and have social contracts, as doing so is greatly hindered by an understanding of determinism; We can't hold fire responsible when it burns us, it has no choice. Truly, we also cannot hold terrorists responsible for their actions until we imagine that their 'free will' was to act as they did. Contrary to FrankQuietly's post, this does not destroy our 'beautiful ethics', but rather shows it as its true form: behavior modification. Punishment for wrongdoing is not done because the wrongdoer deserves it, but to alter the behavior of those in the future who would do wrong (including the original wrongdoer). In essence, the fiction of free will is in place to make behavior modification easier to understand for the masses, as well as to instill the sense of responsibility for one's own actions. Rather, that's why we should allow it to stay in place. A man/woman is no more responsible for poking a bear than the bear is for its..er...reaction, but that predictable reaction and many like it are the basis of ethics, not the notion of personal responsibility stemming from the survival tool that is the belief in free will. Strangely, both ways of thinking about it lead to very similar ethical rules.

 

A note on the possibility of free will: What would it be anyway? If it is not the effect of some group of past causes, it is completely random, and thus not a decision-making tool to flaunt (unless you're the DM this weekend). Even on the off-chance that 'free wills' are spontaneously created everywhere and only persist within qualified minds, offering some random mix of its own subjective rights and wrongs, wouldn't it then be just a random seed, entered early in the equation of our life-long trains of thought? And if so, what randomness has ever been observed to exist; could each free will be a digit of pi? If it were random, wouldn't we be a lot more confused? I realize this sounds like I'm saying, "Well, I just can't comprehend it, so it must not be so," but we're slowly proving that everything is predictable, that all effects follow a cause. Free will is a leftover concept of early philosophers living in a very poorly-explained world. Essentially, the notion of free will is a byproduct of mysticism and storytellers whose proof of existence is no more than previous note. Humans may tend to latch onto it to feel special, or validate the assumption of consciousness, or just so they can act like they understand the world to their satisfaction, but those reasons aren't valid in cold, logical analysis.

 

I suppose I'd suggest that free will be redefined as a thing that is predetermined (which is not to say chosen, by some higher being or whatnot) and acts in accordance with causality. It's just a function of a brain, using processes developed over time to interpret and make choices. Oh, and about the 'imaginary choices', it's not like they don't really exist, they have an effect expressed in the time it takes to consider them (if one chooses to do so). It's like at a crosswalk, in that moment when the sign changes from "WALK" to "DON'T WALK"; If you just stop and consider your options for too long, they both become imaginary and you become street pizza. Exercise your will, don't worry about how free it is, and remember that everything is 100% predictable, only not to you due, among other things, to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Marqq

[FrankQuietly]

Marqq, I am struggling to follow your lgoic. A deterministic universe without free will contains ethically driven behaviour modification of humans? How can behaviour modification occur if people are not choosing between alternative actions?

 

It is often said that determinism destroys ethics, but I'm not so sure.

 

In a universe with free will it is clear that punishment and removing certain people from society can lead to behaviour modification and ethical progress.

 

But if the universe is deterministic then history shows that the determined universe develops ethical and social structures that remove certain people from society anyway.

 

So does it really matter either way?

[Marqq]

Marqq, I am struggling to follow your lgoic. A deterministic universe without free will contains ethically driven behaviour modification of humans? How can behaviour modification occur if people are not choosing between alternative actions?

Behavior modification does not at all require ethical consideration. When a child touches a hot coffee cup, for example, the child experiences pain. Pain is an evolved tool to discourage actions damaging oneself. The child's behavior from that point is altered by the memory of that pain. This could not be said to be an ethical decision by any stretch. Ethical decisions involve only the choices we make that affect other living things, or more believably, other people. If one person causes another person pain or loss, the natural reaction is retaliation (especially in children). From this point, the birth of the golden rule, ethics evolves. Doing 'wrong' means only that doing things that produce personally unwanted results. This would seem to allow anything, ethically, so long as consequences to the self can be avoided, but then, that's always a gamble, so doing 'right' is the smarter and more survivable choice. And we do choose, but that is only to say that the sum of our causal past is logically followed by our choice, and structured in our decision-making mental process.

 

In a universe with free will it is clear that punishment and removing certain people from society can lead to behaviour modification and ethical progress.

 

But if the universe is deterministic then history shows that the determined universe develops ethical and social structures that remove certain people from society anyway.

 

So does it really matter either way?

Not really, no. The only use I've found in this understanding is the ability to forgive things that would otherwise be unforgivable. The knowledge that each person is really nothing more than the result of past influence makes it more difficult to be judgmental of a person as a whole.

[PeterJ]

The poll is unanswerable since it does not include compatibilism, which may be the most popular stance for philosophers. It's mine anyway. Here's a bit about Schroedinger's compatibilism. This would be the solution for the perennial philosophy. ('God' here is not what the Pope proposes.)

 

"Schrödinger encapsulated the problem of consciousness in the form of two premisses:

 

My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the laws of nature.

 

Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I forsee the effects, that may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take full responsibility for them.

 

To avoid a contradiction here, he said, 'the only possible inference from these two facts is, I think, that I I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt "I" am the person, if any, who controls the "motion of the atoms" according to the laws of nature.' … [t]his would lead you to say, Schrödinger provocatively suggested, 'Hence I am God almighty'."

 

Editors' Introduction, The Volitional Brain

Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will.

Ed. Libet, Freeman, Sutherland

Edited February 17, 2012 by PeterJ

[imatfaal]

There is a nice article here from the Telegraph for those who want a gentle start to the ideas of monism/compatibilism and dualism as they relate to free will and science

Edited February 17, 2012 by imatfaal

[immortal]

The poll is unanswerable since it does not include compatibilism, which may be the most popular stance for philosophers. It's mine anyway. Here's a bit about Schroedinger's compatibilism. This would be the solution for the perennial philosophy. ('God' here is not what the Pope proposes.)

 

"Schrödinger encapsulated the problem of consciousness in the form of two premisses:

 

My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the laws of nature.

 

Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I forsee the effects, that may be fateful and all-important, in which case I feel and take full responsibility for them.

 

To avoid a contradiction here, he said, 'the only possible inference from these two facts is, I think, that I – I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt "I" – am the person, if any, who controls the "motion of the atoms" according to the laws of nature.' … [t]his would lead you to say, Schrödinger provocatively suggested, 'Hence I am God almighty'."

 

Editors' Introduction, The Volitional Brain

Towards a Neuroscience of Free Will.

Ed. Libet, Freeman, Sutherland

 

But you're still an ordinary human who don't even have control over his thoughts and his body as long as you're still subject to the causal forces of God. In real sense, Yes, you're God but not before transcending an anthropomorphic God.

[FrankQuietly]

And we do choose, but that is only to say that the sum of our causal past is logically followed by our choice, and structured in our decision-making mental process.

 

 

Thanks for clarifying Marqq, I am still struggling to grasp what you are arguing for.

 

Is it that compatibilism is true, we have a determined universe and peoples free will is expressed as behaviour modification?

 

The analogy you make to learning about hot things the hard way doesn't seem to support your claim. As learning the hard way does not require free will.

 

So how do you support your claim that we do choose? And how / why is this choosing not causally bound to the universe?

 

I am still struggling guys to hear any compatibilist argument that allows free choice within a determined universe.

[CharonY]

If we look at proximate mechanisms then there is little left for a free will per se (esp. in the libertarian sense). The closer we go in time to the actual execution of a decision the more locked the pathways appear to be. Decisions for movements and other decisions are apparently all prepared in the brain before we become conscious of the actual decision, for instance.

 

However, given the complexity of neuronal activities the predictive power (in a deterministic sense) diminishes as the biological noise overwhelms the data we get. For instance, if we measure brain activities in the ms to second regime it is possible to observe decisions being made even before they become conscious (Libet and later Hynes have done some nice work on it). But move back the timeline further it will become almost impossible to foretell when and which decision is going to be made. The mechanisms however, are still more or less deterministic, just the activities and resulting outcome are complex enough that they appear not to be.

[Marqq]

Thanks for clarifying Marqq, I am still struggling to grasp what you are arguing for.

My argument is for determinism. In saying, "the sum of our causal past is logically followed by our choice, and structured in our decision-making mental process," I'm saying our will is not free from causality, and our decision-making is entirely illusory.

 

In reading imfataal's link, I saw that some philosophers redefined free will as what could more accurately be called 'will', nullifying the initial question. This is a cop-out.

 

PeterJ's quote of Schrödinger has an issue, as well, in its second premise: "Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions..." Direct personal experience has been shown through Plato's Cave Allegory and solipsism to be quite controvertible. Direct personal experience is mere perception, and our senses, even our internal interpretation of thought, does not present any absolute truth beyond that of the existence of the perception. Though this does not remove all certainty from Schrödinger's second premise, it weakens it considerably, namely by removal of the word 'incontrovertible'.

That we participate in the process does not necessarily remove it from causal constraints. ydoaPs said it quite well:

Let's take an example from my previous profession. We have a tank whose level is regulated by a valve. In a deterministic universe, we could calculate exactly what the level of the tank would be at any given time. This in no way means that the valve doesn't regulate the tank level.

[Ben Banana]

@JustinW

 

Sure your options are molded by circumstance. But your free will can't be.

Then what can your free will be? The quality of a strong soul? So, weak souls are weak and always will be? Therefore, weak souls were immediately determined to a foul destiny (hell)? Well, that's more deterministic than the landing of dice!

 

If you are walking down the street and have to change your direction to keep from getting run over, your options are then weighed upon by circumstance. But your options are only molded because you want to survive.

Why do you want to survive? Why not give yourself lethal injections, sterilize the water supplies and extinguish humanity? This aspect is where the belief of free-will thrives; around a deep curiosity over "the meaning of life."

 

This is a classic situation in philosophy, but I suggest, free-will is a poor and insufficient solution.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Ben Bowen