Is there a skeptical/scientific argument against predeterminism?

[Robin]

Again: Even if everything is deterministic, we can still have a reasonable model of blame and merit based on a unity of cause and intent.
If you intentionally did X and X is a bad thing, we can blame you for X.
If you intentionally did X and X is a good thing, we can praise you for X.
Predeterminism or not, we can still have reward and punishment, and we can still teach individual responsibility and discipline. So the free will discussion is not practically relevant in the manner in which some try to direct the discussion.

But then again you could blame someone for something they didn't do if you wanted to. There are no rules about who you can and can't blame.

But here is the thing - would you feel responsible for something that you couldn't possibly have prevented?

Would you feel responsible for something that no-one could possibly have prevented?

Would you feel responsible for an event that was already inevitable long before you were born?

If determinism is true then nothing that you do is something that you could have possibly prevented.

If determinism is true then nothing that you do is something that anyone could possibly have prevented.

If determinism is true then everything that you have done and will ever do was already inevitable long before you were born.

So why would you feel responsible for anything if determinism was true?

On the other hand I am not sure that indeterminism would help either.

 

[Robin]

For the question in the OP, this is the best I could do:

Imagine that one day science finds a way of sending information back in time. Maybe faster than light particles, maybe some weird solution to the Einstein equation, or whatever.

So you are participating in an experiment. You are seated at the table and you are watching a video of everything that you will be doing from 3pm to 4pm that afternoon.

You are offered one million dollars if you can avoid doing just one thing that the video shows you doing.

For example the video shows you taking a sip of coffee at exactly 3:10 pm. So if you can avoid taking that sip until 3:11 pm then you will be one million dollars richer. One million dollars for delaying a sip of a cup of coffee for one minute. Maybe you know in advance that it isn't very good coffee.

But you pick up the cup of coffee and take a sip at 3:10, foregoing the million dollars.

Taking it a step further, you see in the video that you grasp your throat and start choking, coughing up blood - the coffee was poisoned.

You keep on taking sips of the coffee that you know is poisoned, already knowing the painful death that will result.

It does not seem to me that I would do that. I feel that this is enough to be a little skeptical that about determinism. I am not saying that this is conclusive, but enough to think that *maybe* determinism is wrong.

 

[dann]

Trying to understand the debate topic, I have some simple questions, if I may.

If I believed in my free will does it mean that I believe that I have a soul that "can" make me make decisions free from (or even against) the influences of my body and my experiences and my surrounding world?

People make decisions against "the influences of" their bodies all the time. Ask any person with anorexia nervosa.

Is there an agenda in the free will argument for supernatural agencies?

Why do you think that there is only one "free will argument"?

Is the argument for free will scientific in its origin?

The argument?! But no. (Wikipedia)

 

[Chanakya]

Considering that what is repeatedly stated is that if you take decisions for reasons, you can't be morally blamed for anything you do, I'm not sure how personal responsibility is even possible in that setup.

I may have misunderstood you. It seems we're saying the same thing, but using somewhat different terms.

Just to confirm:

In as much as causality can be seen as responsibility, yes, there is responsibility. Beyond that, there is no such thing as responsibility.

And nor is this a bad thing, if we can keep our heads.

Just like a theist coming to realization of God's non-existence may well go nuts, but, in practice, if we keep our heads, we function just fine with an atheist worldview. Thus with determinism.

Are we on the same page?

 

[Chanakya]

I am not going to prove that determinism is true or false. I am going to show a logical/moral consequence of admitting determinism.

I am not averse to discussing this, it is an interesting enough subject, but why pick on that topic? It has nothing to do with this thread.

The effects of determinism is a non sequitur, as far as its truth value, which is what this thread is about. As Hans put it clearly enough in his post.

How does it matter, the effects of determinism, after all? You won't pretend it is false, after all, despite its being true, just because its effects are baleful, will you now?

Do you have a view on whether or no the universe is deterministic?

 

[Myriad]

It does not seem to me that I would do that. I feel that this is enough to be a little skeptical that about determinism. I am not saying that this is conclusive, but enough to think that *maybe* determinism is wrong.

I think it's a better reason to be a lot skeptical about the possibility of sending information back in time. What you've ended up with is a straightforward time travel paradox, in that with the information from the future, you would not do what that information said you would do(/had done).

Take away the time travel and there's no longer any "force of determinism" making you do something detrimental for no reason. You're at a meeting about to have your regular cup of coffee. Someone says, "I've just got credible information from a reliable source that that coffee's poisoned!" Would you drink it anyhow, just because in the absence of any such information you would have drunk it normally just as you'd done any other day? No; your brain would do what it always does and is evolved to do: keep you alive, by stepping on the path and not over the cliff.


ETA: You can do your time-message thought experiment with a completely deterministic machine and have the same problem. The machine starts in state A, and is programmed to remain that way, unless there's a message from the future that says it's in state A in the future, in which case it's programmed to switch to state B. Now the message from the future comes that says it remained in state A. Would some force prevent the machine from switching to state B as it's designed to do in that situation? If so, it's not the removal of free will causing that, because it never had any in the first place.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I may have misunderstood you. It seems we're saying the same thing, but using somewhat different terms.

Just to confirm:

In as much as causality can be seen as responsibility, yes, there is responsibility. Beyond that, there is no such thing as responsibility.

And nor is this a bad thing, if we can keep our heads.

Just like a theist coming to realization of God's non-existence may well go nuts, but, in practice, if we keep our heads, we function just fine with an atheist worldview. Thus with determinism.

Are we on the same page?

Well, it was David Mo, not I, who was proposing that if you believe in determinism you'll want to gas the retarded like Hitler did and whatnot. Personally I expect people to basically do whatever they were doing anyway, good or bad, and then find some way to rationalize away the stuff they're not proud of.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

For the question in the OP, this is the best I could do:

Imagine that one day science finds a way of sending information back in time. Maybe faster than light particles, maybe some weird solution to the Einstein equation, or whatever.

So you are participating in an experiment. You are seated at the table and you are watching a video of everything that you will be doing from 3pm to 4pm that afternoon.

You are offered one million dollars if you can avoid doing just one thing that the video shows you doing.

For example the video shows you taking a sip of coffee at exactly 3:10 pm. So if you can avoid taking that sip until 3:11 pm then you will be one million dollars richer. One million dollars for delaying a sip of a cup of coffee for one minute. Maybe you know in advance that it isn't very good coffee.

But you pick up the cup of coffee and take a sip at 3:10, foregoing the million dollars.

Taking it a step further, you see in the video that you grasp your throat and start choking, coughing up blood - the coffee was poisoned.

You keep on taking sips of the coffee that you know is poisoned, already knowing the painful death that will result.

It does not seem to me that I would do that. I feel that this is enough to be a little skeptical that about determinism. I am not saying that this is conclusive, but enough to think that *maybe* determinism is wrong.

That is not what (most flavours of) determinism says. The idea is not that you're magically predestined to do something even if you don't want to.

The idea is more like, the same "voting" pro and con an action goes in your head as an MRI shows, and you only do it if there are better reasons to do it than not to. (Immediate gratification does count as a pro, btw.) However, since the data that goes into the pro and con columns is your previous experiences, determinists say that you can't take any other decisions GIVEN THAT DATA.

If you change the data by telling the guy that the coffee is poisoned, OF COURSE it's still expected that he'd use the new data and maybe choose something else.

In essence it would only be pre-determined in the same sense as a domino chain. Everything you saw, heard, or did previously sets up the next domino piece, and so on. But if you move a domino piece, it may not continue down the same path at all.


Just for the record: In reality, all the synapses involved in those pathways have a chance to fire or not, even if you have an association. The brain does a sort of (very loosely speaking) bayesian learning, but the synapses don't do analogue values and they don't do binary coded reals like a computer. So what they do instead, is they have a chance to fire or not to fire for a given association.

So basically if you've always flipped the switch and the light came on, that's almost guaranteed to fire, but if you got zapped twice this year by a faulty switch, that actually might not fire as a reason not to flip the switch when you do the action on auto-pilot, so to speak.

Since there is some quantum randomness involved in the synapse firing or not, actually there is very very often a real chance to take the opposite choice. Just because a different set of pros and cons actually fired or didn't fire when the brain did the vote whether to do the action or not. It may be very improbable, but it' still possible.

So, yeah, personally I'm not a determinist.

 

[Myriad]

1. If every human behaviour is caused or determined by a sequence of causes a man is not morally responsible of his acts. The same that you don't blame (morally) a rock for the damages caused by its fall.

Can we pass to the following premise?

Suppose I did morally blame the rock for the damages caused by its fall, in all the same ways I morally blame a person. What actions might I then take as a result of this blaming?

- I could scold or lecture the rock. But I know the rock does not comprehend speech, nor experience emotions such as guilt, so I don't bother.

- I could punish the rock corporally, by striking it or beating it. But I know the rock doesn't experience pain or regret, so I don't bother.

- I could place the rock somewhere it's unlikely ever to cause harm by falling again. Now, this actually makes sense to do. (Who would put the rock back up on the high place it fell from, risking another likely fall and further damage?) Note that I could also do the same to a person I blamed for a misdeed, and it would be considered a harsh punishment.

- I could break the rock into pieces, or otherwise destroy it to varying degrees. This might also make sense to do, under certain circumstances, such as if the rock were too large to remove it from the place it had fallen in one piece. Note that doing the equivalent to a person would be considered an extremely harsh punishment.

- I could look for other rocks that present a similar danger of falling and causing damage, and take measures to prevent that happening, such as by securing them more firmly in place, or moving them to low ground where they're not able to fall. This also is a reasonable thing to do, and is in fact routinely done (e.g. by landscapers and highway engineers). Doing the equivalent to people would be considered punitive, and in most cases unjust, but history has plenty of examples of it being done.

So, let's say you observe a rock has fallen and damaged something of mine. You subsequently observe me moving the rock from where it had fallen and putting it in a far low corner of my yard. You then observe me checking for other loose rocks near where the rock had fallen from, and moving some of them to the same place. Based on this, could you determine whether or not I blamed the rock morally for the damage it caused? If not, what other information would you need?

(See "deodand" in English common law for cases of inanimate objects being blamed for people's deaths in a manner involving practical consequences, that was in effect for some seven centuries.)

 

[winter salt]

People make decisions against "the influences of" their bodies all the time. Ask any person with anorexia nervosa.




Why do you think that there is only one "free will argument"?




The argument?! But no. (Wikipedia)

Thanks for taking the time to enlighten me. I bookmarked the link. This topic has been in the back burner for me. Couldn't resist following the post.
I've only read Chapman Cohen's book on this, which was written exactly a 100 years ago

 

[Chanakya]

Since there is some quantum randomness involved in the synapse firing or not, actually there is very very often a real chance to take the opposite choice. ...
So, yeah, personally I'm not a determinist.

It seems to me that quantum randomness makes the issue non-binary.

Absolutely, given randomness, true determinism is not possible -- provided quantum randomness does impact things meaningfully at the macro scale.

On the other hand, even if you otherwise believe in free will, nevertheless this randomness alone would probably make true free will impossible, in the exact same way that it makes true determinism impossible.

Perhaps it may make sense to take a step back and define our terms first. What is will'? And 'free' of what? It could be that we sometimes argue across one another by using these terms differently from one another.

 

[David Mo]

This is my complete argument (first part):

1. If every human behaviour is caused or determined by a sequence of causes a man is not morally responsible of his acts. You can't morally condemn a killer for killing. The same that you don't blame (morally) a rock for the damages caused by its fall.
2. If freedom does not exist the arguments including moral premises or rights are false. The only premise I can admit is in terms of personal usefulness: it suits me or it doesn't suit me. The good is what suits me and the bad is what doesn't suit me.
3. Application of the two previous premises: It is not convenient for me that the state is maintaining mentally retarded or seriously chronically ill . They produce expenses that I pay for and they do not produce any benefits for me.
4. Therefore, the elimination of retarded, chronically ill and other similar members of society is a good thing and should be carried out.

NOTE: The argument can be used with other disadvantaged or minority groups by changing the means and results a little.

COROLLARY: It is obvious that this conclusion repulses our moral sense and, in fact, whenever it has been posed in to a deterministic he has tried to avoid it in some inconsistent way. Generally they covertly introduce the free decision. The Nazis and others like them are not so inconsistent.

This concludes the first part of my argument. If there are no objections I can move on to the second part.
I would ask to all those who are doing general objections to my argument to wait it is over. If you have particular objections to what I have write above, this is the moment.
Thank you.

 

[David Mo]

Well, it was David Mo, not I, who was proposing that if you believe in determinism you'll want to gas the retarded like Hitler did

You should notice that there is a difference between don't have arguments against and don't want. If you don't see the difference you will not understand my argument.

 

[David Mo]

I am not averse to discussing this, it is an interesting enough subject, but why pick on that topic? It has nothing to do with this thread.

The subject of this thread is what kind of argumentation can a sceptic (sic) oppose to determinism. I am skeptical (sic) and have an argument against determinism. I have a view about what the principle of causality applied to men is. I am not out of the thread.

I remind you the subject of the thread:

Is there a skeptical/scientific argument against predeterminism?

Where is said that I cannot refer to consequences of determinism as a part of my argument?

 

[Chanakya]

True. That's one way to interpret the OP, sure. Agreed.

But what is the point of this line of thought? Determinism is either true, or it is not.

If it is true, and if you find that its effects are harmful, then do you propose deliberately pretending it isn't true? Surely not?

And if it is false, and you find that its effects are beneficient, then again, do you propose to deliberately pretend that it's true?

I really don't see the point of this line of thought.

But sure, as an academic exercise, absolutely, it's a valid topic. And you're right -- and I'm wrong -- in that the wording of the OP means this is not off-topic.


ETA :
I agree, studying the effects of determinism in order to align those effects as best we can with our own interests, makes sense. But isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Because if it turns out determinism is false, then this becomes moot! So surely the question to ask, first, is whether the universe is actually deterministic, or not?

 

[David Mo]

Suppose I did morally blame the rock for the damages caused by its fall, in all the same ways I morally blame a person. What actions might I then take as a result of this blaming?

- I could scold or lecture the rock. But I know the rock does not comprehend speech, nor experience emotions such as guilt, so I don't bother.

- I could punish the rock corporally, by striking it or beating it. But I know the rock doesn't experience pain or regret, so I don't bother.

- I could place the rock somewhere it's unlikely ever to cause harm by falling again. Now, this actually makes sense to do. (Who would put the rock back up on the high place it fell from, risking another likely fall and further damage?) Note that I could also do the same to a person I blamed for a misdeed, and it would be considered a harsh punishment.

- I could break the rock into pieces, or otherwise destroy it to varying degrees. This might also make sense to do, under certain circumstances, such as if the rock were too large to remove it from the place it had fallen in one piece. Note that doing the equivalent to a person would be considered an extremely harsh punishment.

- I could look for other rocks that present a similar danger of falling and causing damage, and take measures to prevent that happening, such as by securing them more firmly in place, or moving them to low ground where they're not able to fall. This also is a reasonable thing to do, and is in fact routinely done (e.g. by landscapers and highway engineers). Doing the equivalent to people would be considered punitive, and in most cases unjust, but history has plenty of examples of it being done.

So, let's say you observe a rock has fallen and damaged something of mine. You subsequently observe me moving the rock from where it had fallen and putting it in a far low corner of my yard. You then observe me checking for other loose rocks near where the rock had fallen from, and moving some of them to the same place. Based on this, could you determine whether or not I blamed the rock morally for the damage it caused? If not, what other information would you need?

(See "deodand" in English common law for cases of inanimate objects being blamed for people's deaths in a manner involving practical consequences, that was in effect for some seven centuries.)

The difference between a rock and a person from a moral point of view is that the rock is not free. Therefore, the rock has no rights.

The difference in practice is that if the rock threatens my property the most effective way to prevent it is to destroy the rock. And no one will condemn me for it. If a person threatens my property the most effective way to avoid the threat is to eliminate him. But I will end up in a criminal court. Why? Because human have rights.

For a determinist this doesn't make much sense because the human being is not free. He should look for some explanation to why we can't eliminate the human beings that bother us just like we do with rocks. I don't know that explanation.

 

[David Mo]

True. That's one way to interpret the OP, sure. Agreed.

But what is the point of this line of thought? Determinism is either true, or it is not.

If it is true, and if you find that its effects are harmful, then do you propose deliberately pretending it isn't true? Surely not?

It would be absurd.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

@David Mo

Well, point 2 is where you start to go into gaga land already.

The problem is that just because both have "moral" as an adjective, doesn't mean that any serious theory of morality hinges on appointing moral blame. In fact no serious school of moral philosophy depends on that at all. They all actually deal with what is best for everyone, or at least for the largest number of people.

As a self-proclaimed philosopher that is something you should know.

E.g., since you proclaimed yourself to favour intersubjectivism in another thread -- never mind that then you actually argued AGAINST actual intersubjectivism -- the focus there is basically optimizing that most people get as much of what they actually want (e.g., not being murdered), in as much as possible. Apportioning blame is NOT a part of the optimization problem there. It's not even a factor.

Neither is the requirement that people's decisions are random or anything. IF things are deterministic, it just makes the optimization problem easier.


Which incidentally is also something that has no reason to change, regardless of how one believes that decisions are taken. You just pull out of the butt the postulate that then suddenly it would become about personal usefulness for one person, i.e., basically just everyone becoming an amoral sociopath. But you have presented no reason why for example utilitarianists would suddenly give up on the consideration of what's best for the largest number of people and just go full tilt sociopath just because they can't point fingers at someone. It's not the apportioning blame that they're trying to maximize, silly.

Hell, even proponents of State Consequentialism, which seem the most in line with the considerations you propose -- i.e., determinist consequences for the state -- didn't manage to come up with the nonsense idea that then they should just gas the mentally retarded if they can't blame someone.


But generally, I think point 2 and the other thread give me the idea of what got you into gaga land with that thought process: in the other thread you were hammering on -- and rationalizing around -- maximizing freedom as the only criterion. Or at least the main one.

Point 2 seems to just be saying that if you can't work on that one variable, then you're packing your toys and slamming the door behind you. *AHEM* I mean basically giving up on morals altogether.

But the problem is that that's just YOU and your own misunderstanding of morals.

Even the rest of intersubjectivism can still concern themselves with the actual things that other people want, same as it always did. Such as staying alive, for example. Virtually nobody else will do the brainfart that if they can't maximize the one variable they unilaterally proclaimed to be the only one that matters, then they'll give up on the whole optimization problem. Or at least nobody who actually understands how multi-variable optimizations actually work.


And it's based on your own equivocation of "freedom" at that. Because you're equivocating between the "freedom" as in, whether someone is forcing you to do something, and "freedom" as in you whatever constraints are in your own head when you take a decision. And not only they're not the same thing, but most of the time they're actually at odds with each other. Most people are actually quite able to distinguish between the two.


Point 3 though gets an honourable mention for pencils-up-the-nose underpants-on-head stupidity too. Mainly because it's already been pointed out to you that that's not a given, and just repeating it one more time won't magically make it true. Yet instead of supporting it, what do you do? Yeah, repeat it as a bare postulate one more time

AGAIN, the wellbeing of a country depends on a lot more factors than saving a few bucks on caring for literally 0.001% of its citizens. Which, one sigma for IQ being defined as 15 points, is literally how many are below the threshold of 35 IQ, i.e., worse than moderate retardation. It's not some hyperbole number, it's literally what the maths works out to for 34 IQ or lower.

In fact, if it helps with the morale, national unity, etc, of the other 99.999% of your citizens, giving some help to the 0.001% is probably the best bang per buck you can get in government investments. Even if you gave each of them a full time personal nurse, that's using another 0.001% of the population to keep the other 99.998% happier and more productive.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

The subject of this thread is what kind of argumentation can a sceptic (sic) oppose to determinism. I am skeptical (sic) and have an argument against determinism. I have a view about what the principle of causality applied to men is. I am not out of the thread.

I remind you the subject of the thread:

Is there a skeptical/scientific argument against predeterminism?

Where is said that I cannot refer to consequences of determinism as a part of my argument?

Well, I think it was still kinda implied that you'd know elementary logic. Or at the very least what the words mean in logic. In both logic and more generally philosophy, an argument is intended to determine the degree of truth of the conclusion.

So, yes, if you go into any other considerations than its truth value and still call it an argument for or against X, then you are committing a fallacy. And specifically if what you are considering are the consequences of X, and still call it an argument for or against X, then you are comitting specifically the appeal to consequences fallacy.

 

[Roboramma]

Suppose I did morally blame the rock for the damages caused by its fall, in all the same ways I morally blame a person. What actions might I then take as a result of this blaming?

- I could scold or lecture the rock. But I know the rock does not comprehend speech, nor experience emotions such as guilt, so I don't bother.

- I could punish the rock corporally, by striking it or beating it. But I know the rock doesn't experience pain or regret, so I don't bother.

- I could place the rock somewhere it's unlikely ever to cause harm by falling again. Now, this actually makes sense to do. (Who would put the rock back up on the high place it fell from, risking another likely fall and further damage?) Note that I could also do the same to a person I blamed for a misdeed, and it would be considered a harsh punishment.

- I could break the rock into pieces, or otherwise destroy it to varying degrees. This might also make sense to do, under certain circumstances, such as if the rock were too large to remove it from the place it had fallen in one piece. Note that doing the equivalent to a person would be considered an extremely harsh punishment.

- I could look for other rocks that present a similar danger of falling and causing damage, and take measures to prevent that happening, such as by securing them more firmly in place, or moving them to low ground where they're not able to fall. This also is a reasonable thing to do, and is in fact routinely done (e.g. by landscapers and highway engineers). Doing the equivalent to people would be considered punitive, and in most cases unjust, but history has plenty of examples of it being done.

So, let's say you observe a rock has fallen and damaged something of mine. You subsequently observe me moving the rock from where it had fallen and putting it in a far low corner of my yard. You then observe me checking for other loose rocks near where the rock had fallen from, and moving some of them to the same place. Based on this, could you determine whether or not I blamed the rock morally for the damage it caused? If not, what other information would you need?

(See "deodand" in English common law for cases of inanimate objects being blamed for people's deaths in a manner involving practical consequences, that was in effect for some seven centuries.)

I would just like to say that this and other posts by Myriad do a good job of exposing the errors of thought that I see in much of the discussion in this thread (and in regards to free will in general, both on and off this forum).

Because Myriad has always been much better at expressing himself than I am, I think I'll leave my contribution to this thread as simply a recommendation for those who may have passed over his posts to give them another look and carefully consider the implications of what he is saying. That's actually good advice in regards to Myriad's posts in general, to be honest.

Of course you may be no more inclined to listen to me than to him. If so fair enough.