Is there a skeptical/scientific argument against predeterminism?

[Myriad]

You don't ask to put the computer in jail. Go to the police station and try. They'll look at you like you're crazy.

That's only because what we do to a computer, should it misbehave in such a way as to injure or kill a human, would be inhumane by present-day moral standards if applied to a misbehaving human. Not because the computer is not held responsible.

 

[David Mo]

Therefore, even if contemporary moral systems are incompatible with determinism (which you have not shown), that points to a possible flaw in the design of contemporary moral systems, not to any logically valid argument that the universe cannot be deterministic.

Philosophies such as determinism also change. The same as moral systems.

 

[David Mo]

That's only because what we do to a computer, should it misbehave in such a way as to injure or kill a human, would be inhumane by present-day moral standards if applied to a misbehaving human. Not because the computer is not held responsible.

I don't see that difference. The computer can have a piece changed, the human being can have his behavior modified. You can treat your old computer very well and if it fails your attitude will be very different from if your child fails in something morally important. Stealing, for example. Don't you see it?

 

[Roboramma]

Philosophies such as determinism also change. The same as moral systems.

Things are either true or they aren't.

Moral systems are either valid, or they aren't.

Determinism is either true or it isn't.

 

[David Mo]

Things are either true or they aren't.

Moral systems are either valid, or they aren't.

Determinism is either true or it isn't.

Either it is neither false nor true.
Take the hammer by the handle. False or true?

 

[Roboramma]

Or it is neither false nor true.

You're saying that the universe may be neither deterministic nor not deterministic?

 

[Myriad]

Philosophies such as determinism also change.

No, they don't. We keep coming up with new ones and with neo-whatever variations, but all the old ones are still there unchanged (and many of them are still on the exam in philosophy courses). Determinism was defined perfectly well by Democritus.

What changes is our understanding of how a given philosophy might apply to systems in the real world. Democritus had no idea a deterministic machine could solve problems, remember past events, or form plans of action. We know better now.

 

[Myriad]

I don't see that difference. The computer can have a piece changed, the human being can have his behavior modified. You can treat your old computer very well and if it fails your attitude will be very different from if your child fails in something morally important. Stealing, for example. Don't you see it?

You don't think removing parts from a person or wiping a person's memory to correct their behavior, or destroying them completely to replace them with a smarter person, would be considered excessive punishments? We routinely do those things to computers to correct their behavior.

Of course my attitude is different. I would never treat a person that way. We treat people more kindly and correct their misbehavior in much gentler ways, for a variety of good reasons.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

How can I be responsible for an action I haven't committed? If my grandfather killed his neighbor I cannot be responsible for that death.
You use metaphorical language when you say that the computer is responsible for your defeat. We are talking about moral responsibility. You don't ask to put the computer in jail. Go to the police station and try. They'll look at you like you're crazy.

While TECHNICALLY moral responsibility -- well, "moral evil" -- is defined as "something 'bad' that was caused by intentional action or inaction of a human agent", and thus a computer wouldn't qualify, it changes less than you seem to think. I can still decide whether what the computer did was good or bad, and I can still decide if a different course of action would be better.

E.g., google "the story of Mel". It contains a literal case of someone working at a computer manufacturer coding a blackjack program, and the management, which was showcasing it at conventions to win over customers, deciding that it's "bad" if it wins every time, and "good" if it 'cheats' a bit to let the customer win. Presumably because people get in a good mood if they win, and in a bad mood if they lose, and because happy people are more likely to spend money. So management decides that 'good' towards that set of criteria is to ask Mel to change the program to play worse. Sort of like how you would give a new set of rules to a human dealer at a real casino, IF your goal wasn't as much to make money at the blackjack table, as to get them happy enough to spend a LOT more money elsewhere. (We're talking about an age where computer prices were measured in millions of dollars. Costing ONLY a couple tens of thousands made a computer a 'mini'.)

(Mel was obviously aghast at the idea that someone's goals could possibly be anything else than to show off how well he can program the damned thing.)

At any rate, it shows that without asigning moral blame, and without wanting to take the computer in handcuffs to a court, one can still decide what is 'good' or 'bad', and one can still decide on a way to remedy it. And at no point does anyone find it obvious to go, 'well, if we can't blame it, just delete the program, discontinue the computer, burn down the factory, and plough and salt the ground'

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Philosophies such as determinism also change. The same as moral systems.

Yet that is not what you have claimed.

Well, except as a dodge when I asked why would philosophy school X, Y or Z give up on their approach and go 'ah, just gas the retarded then.' THEN you suddenly are aware that there's more than one school of moral philosophy, and one may have different criteria than another.

But otherwise what you repeatedly claimed is that there's some inevitable causal connection between (A) believing in determinism, and (B) wanting to gas the retarded, just like Hitler.

What you're effectively trying to have is both an "All A are B" claim, AND a convenient excuse to handwave why counter-examples don't really count. It doesn't work that way.

So which one is it, silly? DOES it follow that inevitably, or can you dodge behind some version of 'well, there's more than one school of moral philosophy, and they change all the time'? One or the other. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

[winter salt]

I was quoting HansMustermann

This was the quote,

The problem there is that it seems to assume that your words and actions don't ALSO cause conditioned behaviours. E.g., that, say, Ted Bundy was conditioned by X, Y or Z in his past to kill all those women, but society deciding that it's wrong to kill would totally not also cause a difference in his behaviour.

But, regardless of whether decisions are deterministic or not, they are based on the WHOLE set of available data. Which includes how society will react to it, possible punishments or rewards, etc.

And generally, the decision taking in the brain -- which by now we can even watch in real time on MRI -- is essentially a voting process. The reasons for doing it are weighed against the reasons for not doing it.

Essentially if we all just shrug and go "poor guy, he must have been conditioned to kill those women" and let him get away with it, then he'll just do it again. Because a bunch of reasons not to do it just disappeared from that column.

And this was your response,

Skinner affirms that familiar or social pressure determines the behaviour. Therefore a person can be influenced if he is blamed by a parent or a friend. But this is not due to moral reasoning but to personal or social influence. Therefore this personal influence can be used in more efficient ways than moral sermons.

Determinism does not imply any kind of too compassionate morality. Quite the opposite.
If either what matters is only efficacy or morality is only a weaker way to modify the behaviour, aggressive means are justified over compassionate ones. If a brutal beating is more efficient than reasoning, go and beat your son until you got tired. If cutting off the hand of the thief in a public square prevents robberies, go and cut off hands, take off eyes, heads and every else you need to.

If efficiency is the rule, there are no limits to violence. It is not a comfortable conclusion for the determinist.

 

[winter salt]

We blame things (systems) as well as people based on their perceived capacity to sense, decide, and act. That's why we don't blame young children or the intellectually disabled when they do some things we would blame neurotypical adults for. It's not because we suppose the behavior of young children or the intellectually disabled is somehow more deterministic than that of neurotypical adults. It's because we have lower expectations of good social decision-making from them (or from rocks or bolts) than from other people.

Is that "perceived capacity to sense, decide, and act" a description of free will ?
How do they develop?
Just asking.

 

[David Mo]

The same applies to designing a better society, silly. That's all I'm saying.


And none of your silly excuses hold any water, especially since they are the SAME regardless of whether things are deterministic or not.

Yes, there are conflicts of interest, and yes things can't be solved to a PERFECT state. That's why we went at figuring out even just the legal system for at least the last 5000 years straight, and are still at perfecting it. Yes, it's a hard problem. But guess what? It's still hard regardless of whether things are deterministic or not. And nobody sane is giving up on the problem entirely just because it's hard.

You accused ME of wanting simple answers. But actually in the whole thread YOU are the only one proposing to go by just the over-simplistic notion that only one thing matters, and to just give up on solving the problem at all, if things are too hard.

Honestly, I think you're getting tangled up in your own words. Partly because you use them as fetishes.

A real conflict of interest problem is not solved by proclaiming its "optimization. You recognize that conflicts of interest are "hard to solve".
"Optimizing" is the same as "finding the best solution" and what we are talking about here is what criteria are used to seek a "better" solution to moral problems. With what criteria can you justify or not justify a decision such as forced euthanasia. To say that it is a justification that benefits "society as a whole" or that "optimizes" the options is not to say anything. For the question is: How can forced euthanasia be justified or not as a good for society as a whole? The majority you tried to introduce I think I have already shown that it is not a moral principle. And abstract words excepted, you have not produced anything.

And I think it's silly for you to make up children's stories to explain what we've all already understood. What you have to do is explain the cases that I have proposed, which are much more complex than the tales of puddles of water. It is this what I call "simplify".

 

[David Mo]

You're saying that the universe may be neither deterministic nor not deterministic?

Metaphysical determinism is a philosophical theory about the whole universe. Things are not deterministic, but the idea we have of them.
Simply put, determinism states that everything has a cause or set of causes and that the same causes produce the same effects. What I'm saying (it is not said by me only, but it's a fairly widespread philosophical thesis today) is that metaphysical determinism cannot be proven or refuted. That is why it is metaphysical.

But that does not detract value to the principle of causality. It just has to be interpreted in a different way. Hence my question:
"Take the hammer by the handle.
Is it a true or false proposition or neither?

 

[Roboramma]

Nothing can be proven, but any particular thing is still either true or false, though for some things we may never know which.

For many unprovable things we can still examine evidence in favor (or not) and thus change the credence we put in those ideas. This is all we can do.

 

[David Mo]

No, they don't. We keep coming up with new ones and with neo-whatever variations, but all the old ones are still there unchanged (and many of them are still on the exam in philosophy courses). Determinism was defined perfectly well by Democritus.

What changes is our understanding of how a given philosophy might apply to systems in the real world. Democritus had no idea a deterministic machine could solve problems, remember past events, or form plans of action. We know better now.

Say it however you like, but modern determinism is very different from that of Democritus, even in its very formulation because it is a philosophical system. Also moral relativism already existed in Greece. But it was quite different from today's relativism. Philosophical systems change just as moral philosophies change. They are philosophy.

You don't think removing parts from a person or wiping a person's memory to correct their behavior, or destroying them completely to replace them with a smarter person, would be considered excessive punishments? We routinely do those things to computers to correct their behavior.

Of course my attitude is different. I would never treat a person that way. We treat people more kindly and correct their misbehavior in much gentler ways, for a variety of good reasons.

It doesn't seem to me either that brainwashing a person is morally acceptable. Even if it can be done. Because I believe that the moral person has a dignity. But I don't think the deterministic has any reason to condemn such practices. If there is no freedom, men are like machines. And machines have no dignity. As Hans says in this forum, it's all a question of whether "the majority of society" is interested. If a majority considers it fair to apply aggressive therapies to criminals or our enemies, why not? Or even people who are not properly speaking criminals. If immigrants bother me on the street, why not let them die at sea or in the desert trying to get to my city? Why can't we shoot to kill if they get too close to the border? This is not a mere theorical problem, you know.

Of course, determinists are offended when you explain this. They say they have their morals. I don't doubt it. It's usually one form or another of utilitarianism. But it seems to me that utilitarianism is inconsistent with their deterministic principles.

 

[David Mo]

While TECHNICALLY moral responsibility -- well, "moral evil" -- is defined as "something 'bad' that was caused by intentional action or inaction of a human agent", and thus a computer wouldn't qualify, it changes less than you seem to think. I can still decide whether what the computer did was good or bad, and I can still decide if a different course of action would be better.

That the computer did a bad operation, that's not disputed. You can say that it was responsible, if you want, but that responsibility is very different from a person's responsibility. For example, the programmer. The programmer can be taken to court if it is considered that there was negligence or malice in programming the computer. Hence,there seem to be two different types of responsibility. That's the question. Do you understand the difference? I do. It lies in intention. But if the programmer did it wrong because he had a terrorist pointing a gun at him, things change again. He can no longer be held responsible or not so responsible. Why? The answer lies in freedom or lack of freedom of the agent of the harm. It seems obvious to me.

 

[David Mo]

Yet that is not what you have claimed.

Well, except as a dodge when I asked why would philosophy school X, Y or Z give up on their approach and go 'ah, just gas the retarded then.' THEN you suddenly are aware that there's more than one school of moral philosophy, and one may have different criteria than another.

But otherwise what you repeatedly claimed is that there's some inevitable causal connection between (A) believing in determinism, and (B) wanting to gas the retarded, just like Hitler.

What you're effectively trying to have is both an "All A are B" claim, AND a convenient excuse to handwave why counter-examples don't really count. It doesn't work that way.

So which one is it, silly? DOES it follow that inevitably, or can you dodge behind some version of 'well, there's more than one school of moral philosophy, and they change all the time'? One or the other. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I'm sorry you misunderstand what I write. What I have said several times is that there is a logical incompatibility between being deterministic and condemning forced euthanasia. That determinists try to overcome the difficulty with incoherence is another issue. I do not accuse determinists of being monsters, but of being inconsistent.

 

[David Mo]

Is that "perceived capacity to sense, decide, and act" a description of free will ?
How do they develop?
Just asking.

There are two things where it seems that a computer is different from a human being. In the ability to act outside the margins for which it has been computed and in the ability to feel compassion. This seems indisputable.

 

[David Mo]

Nothing can be proven, but any particular thing is still either true or false, though for some things we may never know which.

For many unprovable things we can still examine evidence in favor (or not) and thus change the credence we put in those ideas. This is all we can do.

"You must take the hammer by the handle."
How do you prove this is true?
A hint: this statement is an order or a recommendation. An order is not true or false.