The unsolved problem of "free will"

[Dancing David]

And the old saw:

Question:

Who is this "I" that seems to stand behind all my perceptions, always there facing outward, experiencing all, unifying everything.

Answer:

Who is asking?

An illusion, to quote a wiseguy

"If you removed your eye would you not see more clearly?"

A response to the atma argument later refurbished by Descarte.

 

[Mercutio]

Perhaps, as the editorial first person pleural may find out one day, interconnected neurons exhibit queer behaviour. We shall be surprized, because our deterministic models are found wanting, much as Newtonians were surprized when quantum indeterminacy was revealed.

Perhaps, at a given level of processing, a form of spontaneity erupts that is perceived subjectively as free choice and is observed objectively as unpredictability within limits, i.e. human behaviour.

There is here no suggestion of anything "else," no spirit worlds, no souls, no dual reality. Lack of constraint, lack of rigid causality, is a property of complex interconnection, that's all.

An interesting hypothesis. I wonder what experiment proves it wrong?

Indeed...how would you discriminate between this, and simple inability to account for all relevant causal variables?

Have fun with your hypothesis. I think I will prefer to stick to answerable questions.

 

[cooper1958nc]

I could say the same for "your" hypothesis.

In fact, there are huge consequences from adopting either hypothesis, though perhaps neither are testable.

In most situations, if a jury accepts that the defendant (and everyone else) was compelled to act the way she did by antecedent circumstances or environment, however complex or hard to understand that might be, that defendant will be exonerated or at least her sentence or penalty reduced.

If a behaviourist testifies to the proposition that freedom to act is an illusion and that conscious intent is just a mentalist conspiracy, a jury might determine the actors lacked personal responsibility for their actions.

None of those terms would be defined, either. Just used.

So it matters. Is it really untestable?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

In most situations, if a jury accepts that the defendant (and everyone else) was compelled to act the way she did by antecedent circumstances or environment, however complex or hard to understand that might be, that defendant will be exonerated or at least her sentence or penalty reduced.

If a behaviourist testifies to the proposition that freedom to act is an illusion and that conscious intent is just a mentalist conspiracy, a jury might determine the actors lacked personal responsibility for their actions.

The jury is free to act but the defendant was not? This analysis seems based on a misunderstanding of the behaviorist position.

 

[Mercutio]

I could say the same for "your" hypothesis.

You could, if you misunderstood it.

In fact, there are huge consequences from adopting either hypothesis, though perhaps neither are testable.

Huge consequences that are not testable. ok...

In most situations, if a jury accepts that the defendant (and everyone else) was compelled to act the way she did by antecedent circumstances or environment, however complex or hard to understand that might be, that defendant will be exonerated or at least her sentence or penalty reduced.

Under our current assumptions, yes. Because we are more concerned with mens rea, personal responsibility, and blame than about managing people's actions. But your claim was about "adopting either hypothesis", not about taking one aspect of my view and cobbling it onto a framework composed predominately of yours.

A better understanding might include knowledge that the unacceptable behavior should be reduced, and to do that the contingencies must be applied. (and this does not get into the can of worms that is the current system of punishment, which is a whole different thread)

If a behaviourist testifies to the proposition that freedom to act is an illusion and that conscious intent is just a mentalist conspiracy, a jury might determine the actors lacked personal responsibility for their actions.

nice, to take just one aspect of my view and cobble it onto the current view. If you do that, of course it will not work properly.

Yes, if a behaviorist testified to that, the jury might act that way. Why the behaviorist would only testify to that, rather than to the effects of consequences on current behavior as well, we don't know. Straw behaviorists act differently than flesh-and-blood behaviorists.

None of those terms would be defined, either. Just used.

So, if we take one piece of a view, and use it badly, it has bad consequences. Good thing that never happens with mens rea.

So it matters. Is it really untestable?

You have moved your goalposts. Your untestable bit was about "interconnected neurons exhibiting queer behavior". That is not the same thing you are speaking of here.

 

[cooper1958nc]

You could, if you misunderstood it.
Huge consequences that are not testable. ok...
Under our current assumptions, yes. Because we are more concerned with mens rea, personal responsibility, and blame than about managing people's actions. .

Easy to forget that it is not just about handling criminals. In contracts and torts, the intent of the parties is paramount. How would we replace this?

.
You have moved your goalposts. Your untestable bit was about "interconnected neurons exhibiting queer behavior". That is not the same thing you are speaking of here.

You can move them back, or any way you want, the problem won't go away. Behaviourist explanations of human conduct do not embrace important aspects of culture, ethics, and law. Rather than ingnore the question of apparent freedom, perhaps there are ways to really evaluate it.

 

[Mercutio]

Easy to forget that it is not just about handling criminals. In contracts and torts, the intent of the parties is paramount. How would we replace this?

Actually, the behavior of the parties is paramount. If you intend to break a contract, but don't actually do so, nobody minds.

You can move them back, or any way you want, the problem won't go away. Behaviourist explanations of human conduct do not embrace important aspects of culture, ethics, and law. Rather than ingnore the question of apparent freedom, perhaps there are ways to really evaluate it.

You can start by reading "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", which addressed issues of culture, ethics, and law. Of course, that one is a classic, and I suggest it not because it is current, but to show that Behaviorism has addressed such questions for decades. I have beside me here another book, a collection of articles entitled "Cultural Contingencies: Behavior Analytic Perspectives on Cultural Practices." Or there is the current journal, Behavior and Social Issues. Or Behavior and Philosophy might address some of it.

Please do not tell me what behaviorists ignore.

 

[cooper1958nc]

When the words are ambiguous in a contract (as they most often are) the test is the intent of the parties.

Touchy, touchy on the behaviourist stuff, eh? Actually the phrase was "Behaviourist explanations of human conduct do not embrace important aspects of culture, ethics, and law," a rather middle-of-the-road remark. It seems as if behaviourist theory is on the wane:

"Behaviorism has lost strength and influence. It is dismissed by cognitive scientists developing intricate internal information processing models of cognition. Its laboratory routines are neglected by cognitive ethologists and ecological psychologists convinced that its methods are irrelevant to studying how animals and persons behave in their natural and social environment. Its traditional relative indifference towards neuroscience and deference to environmental contingencies is rejected by neuroscientists sure that direct study of the brain is the only way to understand the causes of behavior....Why has the influence of behaviorism declined? The deepest and most complex reason for behaviorism's decline in influence is its commitment to the thesis that behavior can be explained without reference to non-behavioral mental (cognitive, representational, or interpretative) activity." [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/] [emphasis supplied]

Exacto-mundo my thoughts. Can no one express an opinion about behaviourists 'cept thee?

 

[Mercutio]

If those are indeed exacto-mundo your thoughts, then you do indeed misunderstand Radical Behaviorism. So does the author of your link. I have seen worse, but any definition that claims that Skinner was a proponent of methodological behaviorism is quite simply wrong.

Try this source instead. From the journal "Behavior and Philosophy":

In 1945, Skinner published an influential piece on the operational analysis of terms in which he attacked the prevailing philosophy of science that he called methodological behaviorism. This is the view that there is a distinction between public and private events and that psychology (to remain scientific) can deal only with public events. According to this view, private events are "mental" and, therefore, beyond our reach. This is the "arid philosophy of truth by agreement"(Skinner, 1945): something is meaningful or scientific (objective) only if at least two observers agree on its existence. Thus, private experience is excluded because it is subjective (by definition) and we can deal only with that which is objective. Methodological behaviorism and almost all cognitive theories leave the mind to philosophers.

It is almost invariably assumed that Skinner held the views of the methodological behaviorists and would not let us study the mind because it is unscientific (Anderson, 1990). That is absolutely false. Indeed, Skinner presented his own position, radical behaviorism, in contrast to methodological behaviorism! Radical behaviorism is Watsonian in that it does not distinguish between private and public events. In so doing, it omits nothing commonly thought of as mental, but it treats "seeing" as an activity similar in kind to walking (cf., Malone, 1990).

Skinner did not deny the existence or the importance of personal experience any more than did Watson, but he did deny the mind/body dualism of the mentalists and the methodological behaviorists. Thinking is something that we do, just as is walking, and we do not think mental thoughts any more than we walk mental steps.

Any source that mentions Chomsky's review of Verbal Behavior without MacCorquodale's thorough rebuttal is woefully inadequate.

Inadequate article aside, it is true that Behaviorism is not as popular as it once was. In part, it is because its methods have spread to other areas, making them more productive. In part, it is because behaviorists have done a lousy job of public relations, and others have been able to define them.

Anyway... if you would like a better understanding, there are plenty of sources. If you are just interested in reinforcing your current view, good day.

 

[cooper1958nc]

I do appreciate those references. Actually, I started this thread on the note of an "unsolved problem," and I still believe it is unsolved.

Your comments, and those of others, have been instructive and entertaining. In fact, spurred by your enthusiasm for this branch of thought, I have re-read some of my old college texts discussinig behaviourism. Perhaps one day I will be more comfortable with it.

I do believe the questions are worth asking, because a lot rides on the answers.

 

[Mozybyte]

because behaviorists have done a lousy job of public relations.

And here I was thinking that with their mates had done a fantastic job... Just look at the 300 000 000 Programed Bots (sock puppets) in North America, and the rest of their friends. True they had "God" (The colourful "Box") to help them along, but the result is most of their doing, with a little thanks to Freud of course.
In fact, I think that no other "Industry" has ever been so successful, awards for everyone, marvelous company they have created for themselves. If only we could seal them all in, but no, now they exporting themselves to all corners of the Universe.
As a kid, I used to make soccer balls out of old socks, I'm revisiting the practice.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I do believe the questions are worth asking, because a lot rides on the answers.

Might not this be the real issue/problem?

Stating that "a lot rides on the answers" skirts the naturalistic fallacy. Issues of value do not necessarily follow issues of fact. In other words, assume that we live in a billiard-ball universe and we are simply constituents of that deterministic system. Therefore, the idea of libertarian freedom is non-sensical. Does that mean that we cannot live with questions of value? The universe doesn't care, but that doesn't mean that we are constructed so as not to care. Or that if we have no free will that morality becomes meaningless. We either do or do not live in such a universe and morality maintains the same meaning for us regardless of the underlying physics.

In other words, I don't think anything rides on the answers. Only the answer does, the explanation, like sunrise being an illusion and heliocentrism the answer. We construct our ethical systems based on who and what we are, and we needn't alter them a smidgen if we decide that determinism is the answer. We use ethical and legal systems to provide a framework for communal living. They will need to continue serving those functions whatever the nature of reality.

 

[cyborg]

People who want 'free will' to be a 'fundamental force', if you will, rather than an 'algotihm' are doomed to fail to find the source much as if they were trying to search for the location of 'love', or 'courage' or 'misery' et al. These things do not - cannot - exist contextless. They're higher order concepts that are built upon simpler constituents.

 

[Mercutio]

I do appreciate those references. Actually, I started this thread on the note of an "unsolved problem," and I still believe it is unsolved.

The first step, of course, is to make sure we are asking the right questions...

Your comments, and those of others, have been instructive and entertaining. In fact, spurred by your enthusiasm for this branch of thought, I have re-read some of my old college texts discussinig behaviourism. Perhaps one day I will be more comfortable with it.

Thanks!!

Oh... depending on how old your "old college texts" are, they may be essentially worthless on the matter, unless they were specifically Radical Behaviorism texts. As the "case histories" article makes clear, mainstream psychology books accepted and reprinted a good many untruths about Behaviorism. I highly recommend Baum's new "Understanding Behaviorism" or Moore's "Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism", if you have access to interlibrary loan. I also recommend this online tutorial, which does a very nice job on a more limited scope.

 

[cooper1958nc]

Yale 1970.

 

[Mercutio]

I think you might be surprised at how much has happened since then! For a science which has been declared dead, there is an awful lot going on...

 

[Tricky]

I do appreciate those references. Actually, I started this thread on the note of an "unsolved problem," and I still believe it is unsolved.

Your comments, and those of others, have been instructive and entertaining. In fact, spurred by your enthusiasm for this branch of thought, I have re-read some of my old college texts discussinig behaviourism. Perhaps one day I will be more comfortable with it.

I do believe the questions are worth asking, because a lot rides on the answers.

I am curious. What is riding on the answers?

 

[Mercutio]

Yale 1970.

this also, btw, explains why you were unaware that behaviorism addressed social and cultural issues. I think it was 1973 that Beyond Freedom and Dignity came out.

 

[cooper1958nc]

Hard to understand why anyone doubts the importance of finding out the nature of human freedom. The example given above, that one can enjoy the sunrise without understanding Copernicus, is true, but limited. Had the attitude expressed above prevailed historically, perhaps we would have no astronomy only appreciations of sunrises.

I am not willing to abandon the analysis of human freedom just because it might be difficult to understand.

 

[Mercutio]

I may be wrong, but I suspect from my history with Tricky and Wasp, that you have their "intent" exactly backward.

Or I misunderstand what you just wrote.