Are free will and determinism compatible?

[Dave1001]

Your obviously insufficently sceptical of other people's claims to be sceptics. Not that it's your fault - I blame the distribution of quanta at Big Bang...




And GET BACK TO WORK!

today's wit, tomorrow's uniform, homogenous, matter-energy.

 

[Dave1001]

I make exactly the choices I am disposed to make - that's free will. I can make only the choices I am disposed to make - that's determinism. These statements are compatible - that's compatibilism.

Why is that free will? They both sound like determinism to me.

 

[Dave1001]

From Ambrose Bierce's Devil's DictionaryHard determinist here. Yes, there is a thing we speak of as free will. There is also a thing we speak of as a sunrise, but the sun does not rise, the earth turns. We may speak of the illusion of a thing as if it were the thing itself...that does not make it the thing itself.

Well put. I'm less certain that we exist in a deminist reality than you are, but I lean in the same direction. That free will is illusory. I have no idea why we have it, perhaps it's a non-essential artifact of more essential cognitive processes.

 

[roger]

What about the distinction between apparent free will and actual free will? I think few would argue that apparent free will exists in our possibly deterministic universe. That doesn't mean that it actually is free will, it could be illusory.

That's where the title Elbow Room comes from. His argument is that all our behavior is deterministic (in a 20th century QM sense, not a 19th century classical sense), but that since the way our mind works lends the illusion of free will, it is adequate to assume free will. For example, if we are trying to figure out the morality of a given situation, we assume that the agents in the scene have free will, since in practice they act as they do. They judge cost/benefits, put values on things like human life, honor, stealing, etc. Free will is a emergent behavior of our brains by his argument, and mine.

Sort of the same way we talk about "solid" objects. We know the desk we are setting at is not some kind of "solid", but that it resists our hand sinking into what is essentially a vacuum via the electomagnetic force between widely dispersed particles. It's tiring and unnecessary to say that or consider that in classical mechanics or everyday life, so we just talk about solids in most cases.

 

[roger]

A structured but chaotic system

If you are using the term chaotic in a mathematical sense, I believe you are using it incorrectly. Chaotic systems are deterministic, yet unpredictable.

 

[Darth Rotor]

For the purposes of the poll;

Compatibilist = one who believes free will and determinism are compatible

Incompatibilist = one who believes that free will and determinism are not compatible

Libertarian incompatibilist = one who believes that at least some persons have free will and that, therefore, determinism is false

Hard determinist = one who believes thatdeterminism is true and that no persons has free will.

agnostic incompatibilist, one who remain agnostic as to whether people have free will

hard incompatibilist = one who belives that there is no free will regardless of determinism's truth or falsity

and it's necessary to have a stab at defining free will and determinism while we're at it.....

1.1 Free Will
What is needed, then, as a starting point, is a gentle, malleable notion that focuses upon special features of persons as agents. Hence, as a theory-neutral point of departure, free will can be defined as the unique ability of persons to exercise control over their conduct in a manner necessary for moral responsibility.[2] Clearly, this definition is too lean when taken as an endpoint; the hard philosophical work is about how best to develop this special kind of control. But however this notion of control is developed, its uniqueness consists, at least in part, in being possessed only by persons.

1.3 Determinism
A standard characterization of determinism states that every event is causally necessitated by antecedent events.[4] Within this essay, we shall define determinism as the metaphysical thesis that the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future. According to this characterization, if determinism is true, then, given the actual past, and holding fixed the laws of nature, only one future is possible at any moment in time. Notice that an implication of determinism as it applies to a person's conduct is that, if determinism is true, there are (causal) conditions for that person's actions located in the remote past, prior to her birth, that are sufficient for each of her actions.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ has a comprehensive essay on the subject which is well worth reading.....)

So, what do you think? Are you a compatibilist or an incompatibilist?

Why is it necessary for a physical characteristic (1.3), in micro, to be assumed as globally applicable in macro?

Why is free will assumed to be thus comparable to 1.3, and a 100% physical phenomenon?

Where is your allowance for synergy?

DR

 

[andyandy]

Why is it necessary for a physical characteristic (1.3), in micro, to be assumed as globally applicable in macro?

Why is free will assumed to be thus comparable to 1.3, and a 100% physical phenomenon?

Where is your allowance for synergy?

DR

the first line of the essay is

It would be misleading to specify a strict definition of free will since in the philosophical work devoted to this notion there is probably no single concept of it.

equally what people understand by "determinism" appears to be contentious.....

What definitions would you choose instead? Or would you choose not to ask the OP question?

by synergy, do you mean emergent behaviour?
Ie. a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales....?

Could you expand on how this relates to compatibilism?

 

[Dave1001]

That's where the title Elbow Room comes from. His argument is that all our behavior is deterministic (in a 20th century QM sense, not a 19th century classical sense), but that since the way our mind works lends the illusion of free will, it is adequate to assume free will. For example, if we are trying to figure out the morality of a given situation, we assume that the agents in the scene have free will, since in practice they act as they do. They judge cost/benefits, put values on things like human life, honor, stealing, etc. Free will is a emergent behavior of our brains by his argument, and mine.

Sort of the same way we talk about "solid" objects. We know the desk we are setting at is not some kind of "solid", but that it resists our hand sinking into what is essentially a vacuum via the electomagnetic force between widely dispersed particles. It's tiring and unnecessary to say that or consider that in classical mechanics or everyday life, so we just talk about solids in most cases.

With all due respect, I think the desk is a terrible analogy to illusory free will "if we are trying to figure out the morality of a given situation". We don't even need to factor in free will, illusory or not, when making cost benefit analyses to put values on things. As a law student, I find it mucks up the analysis anyways, and departs from what I think are the more useful principles of empirically determined social objectives and social aesthetics that underlie the social contract that law should be.

As a side note, I don't think one needs a concept of free will to still look at concepts like incentives and a variety of other things that indicate knowledge that humans and human organizations tend to make influenceable choices, since very basic computer programs (flow charts even) can have choice trees as well.

 

[andyandy]

With all due respect, I think the desk is a terrible analogy to illusory free will "if we are trying to figure out the morality of a given situation". .

i think the desk is given as an example of the argument

"that all our behavior is deterministic but that since the way our mind works lends the illusion of free will, it is adequate to assume free will."

 

[Dave1001]

i think the desk is given as an example of the argument

"that all our behavior is deterministic but that since the way our mind works lends the illusion of free will, it is adequate to assume free will."

I disagree. I think the example of the sun rising and setting by Mercutio is more apropos.
That our mind lends to us the illusion of free will may lead us towards bad models for analysis and decision making (for example, in determining the best punishment mechanisms). Another example would be how our mind lends the illusion that vivid dangers are to be avoided more than less vivid but objectively more harmful ones.

In contrast, the molecules in our hand objectively do not pass through the molecules in the table, in that sense the table is solid. It's not an illusion our hand can't pass through it (or that it's vanishingly improbable that it would). But it may be an illusion that we have free will, in the same sense that it's an illusion that vivid dangers are necessarily the more harmful ones.

 

[andyandy]

I disagree. I think the example of the sun rising and setting by Mercutio is more apropos.
That our mind lends to us the illusion of free will may lead us towards bad models for analysis and decision making (for example, in determining the best punishment mechanisms). Another example would be how our mind lends the illusion that vivid dangers are to be avoided more than less vivid but objectively more harmful ones.

In contrast, the molecules in our hand objectively do not pass through the molecules in the table, in that sense the table is solid. It's not an illusion our hand can't pass through it (or that it's vanishingly improbable that it would). But it may be an illusion that we have free will, in the same sense that it's an illusion that vivid dangers are necessarily the more harmful ones.

what do you disagree with? My comment that I think the desk is given as an example of the assumptions that our mind makes rather than as an example of judging morality?

 

[Darth Rotor]

the first line of the essay is
equally what people understand by "determinism" appears to be contentious.....

Indeed, not the world's simplest concept to nail down.

What definitions would you choose instead? Or would you choose not to ask the OP question?

There are times that I consider the question a false dillemma, in the either-or sense, though I find this path of inquiry intriguing. I am not an ace at philosophy, so I walk with care around it. What the hell, I'll take the plunge:

Could you expand on how this relates to compatibilism?

My concern is that determinism and free will as an apples to apples tension, or a dialectic, is dependent on precise definitions to ensure two like qualities are being considered.

by synergy, do you mean emergent behaviour?
Ie. a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales....?

By synergy I mean the matter of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts due to dynamic interaction of all parts (multichannel interaction? multimode interaction? the best fit term term escapes me.) Your emergent behavior is a term I am not familiar with. Learn a new concept each day, so I will ask: what is that exactly?

DR

 

[Dave1001]

what do you disagree with? My comment that I think the desk is given as an example of the assumptions that our mind makes rather than as an example of judging morality?

I disagree with* your leap from something being an artifact of our mind to the conclusion that we can treat it as if it is reality. Just as it would be unwise for our linguistic shorthand to be "vivid dangers are more harmful than less vivid ones" -although we're wired to intuit that, it may be unwise for our linguistic shorthand for illusory free will** to be "free will", if in fact, it is as illusory as the notion that vivid dangers are more harmful. With calling a table solid, I don't see the same danger in promoting a belief that could lead to harmful social results.***

*(what I perceive to be)

**(if it is illusory)

***( although I suppose that position could be revised if the future requires a utilitarian purpose for the masses to pass objects through tables. )

 

[hammegk]

A structured but chaotic system

Someone once asked, "And how often do you randomly run red lights?".

 

[andyandy]

By synergy I mean the matter of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts due to dynamic interaction of all parts (multichannel interaction? multimode interaction? the best fit term term escapes me.) Your emergent behavior is a term I am not familiar with. Learn a new concept each day, so I will ask: what is that exactly?

DR

i think "emergent behaviour" may just be a different term for synergy as you are using it....it's kinda a new term for me too

here's wiki's take on it.....

An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties. These are two of the major reasons why emergent behaviour occurs: intricate causal relations across different scales and feedback. The property itself is often unpredictable and unprecedented, and may represent a new level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities: they are irreducible. No physical property of an individual molecule of air would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit sound. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds or shoal of fish are also good examples.



In physics, emergence is used to describe a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems. Some examples include:

Color. Elementary particles such as protons or electrons have no color; it is only when they are arranged in atoms that they absorb or emit specific wavelengths of light and can thus be said to have a color.
Friction. Elementary particles are frictionless, or more precisely the forces between these particles are conservative. However, friction emerges when considering more complex structures of matter, whose surfaces can convert mechanical energy into heat energy when rubbed against each other. Similar considerations apply to other emergent concepts in continuum mechanics such as viscosity, elasticity, tensile strength, etc.
Classical mechanics. The laws of classical mechanics can be said to emerge as a limiting case from the rules of quantum mechanics applied to large enough masses. This may be thought of as puzzling, because quantum mechanics is generally thought of as more complicated than classical mechanics- whereas lower level rules are generally less complicated (or at least less complex) than the emergent properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_behavior

 

[Darth Rotor]

This sort of fits where I think free will meshes with reality.

ETA: At the mind level, what I will is what I do. Thus I do what I rationally desire to the limit of my rationality with perfect fidelity of control. The freedom of will is self-evident from our current understanding.

I would add to that that human exercise of free will, or of will, is necessarily bounded by the set of inherent human limitations.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

i think "emergent behaviour" may just be a different term for synergy as you are using it....it's kinda a new term for me too

here's wiki's take on it.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_behavior

Thanks, I'll chew on that for a bit. Some things take a bit of time to digest.

DR

 

[Mercutio]

But surely when we talk about free will we mean the freedom to act (or to attempt to act, we are talking about freedom of will not necessarily of action) in accordance with our "dispositions" as Hume put it. To choose something not in accordance with our "dispositions" is not the kind of thing we want the freedom to do - it wouldn't really count as freedom. In fact it couldn't be a choice at all. Our dispositions are, by definition, those things that we would choose so, tautologically, all our choices are in accordance with our dispositions.

I make exactly the choices I am disposed to make - that's free will. I can make only the choices I am disposed to make - that's determinism. These statements are compatible - that's compatibilism.

Your post here describes you as exactly as free as the leaf in Bierce's definition. I humbly suggest that this redefines "free will" into something very different from what we commonly mean. If we define "free will" as "doing what we want to do" (to paraphrase your definition--if I oversimplify, please correct me), then we are easy prey for the determinist who can figure out how to make you want to do something. Defining free will as a feeling is, frankly, dangerous. It means that we will not recognize the influence of others on our actions, so long as they can be sufficiently subtle in their manipulation of our desires.

...if he be so resolved,
I can o'ersway him, for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers:
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;
For I can give his humor the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

Julius Caesar, II ii

 

[Mercutio]

This sort of fits where I think free will meshes with reality.
I would add to that that human exercise of free will, or of will, is necessarily bounded by the set of inherent human limitations.

DR

"Necessarily"? Or simply circularly?

Read this excellent thread for a discussion of circularity in the concept of "will".

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Folks, this is a classic mush-bag free will thread. As Merc says, stop talking about feelings.

Are we discussing a compatibilist free will, where my actions are compatible with determinism but otherwise appear to be my own free choices? Or are we discussing a libertarian free will where my actions are "truly free," something more than entirely deterministic or random?

~~ Paul