Ian,
Well no it's not. I don't even understand what you mean by this phrase. If something had a 99.9% chance of occurring, how would it be completely unpredictable?? I mean random in the normal sense that subject to the probabilities of the respective outcomes, the actual outcome is "arbitrary". Thus if such an identical event were repeated an infinite number of times the outcomes would be in the proportions of the respective probabilities.
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Stimp
Then your just talking about the mathematical definition of random that I gave! In fact, you just defined it mathematically!
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Excellent! So I have provided a satisfactory of randomness which doesn't define it negatively in terms of determinism.
What difference does that make? It still just means "not deterministic".
I agree. I only mentioned it because I was trying to help resolve the dispute between JJ and Wrath.
I don't think that there is anything about free-will that implies that a stochastic dynamical system (like the brain) can't have it.
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Your definition of free will (i.e compatibilism), not mine (libertarianism). My definition of free will has to deny both materialism and epiphenomenalism at a minimum. My notion of free will requires a agent which, in turn, might tend to imply a substantial self.
The only reason your definition of free-will is incompatible with materialism, is because you have built into it the claim that it is (at least partially) caused by some agent which cannot be described scientifically. You have not explained why it is necessary to introduce such an agent, nor have you specified how the introduction of such an agent allows your free-will to do anything that a brain process cannot. In other words, with the exception of the fact that you have
explicitly built in a supernatural entity into your definition of free-will, I fail to see how it is actually any different.
A stochastic dynamical system is one in which the state of the system at time t is not exactly determined by its state at previous times, but that the probability distribution of possible states does depend on the previous states.
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It doesn't matter if we're talking about strict determinism or such a combination of randomness and determinism. My notion of free will is incompatible with it.
How so? The fact that you have involved an entity which cannot be scientifically described, does not have any bearing on the fact that if this entity makes its decisions according to some set of logical rules, then it is deterministic. If it does not, then its decisions are arbitrary, and thus even by your definition, random. What else is there? Are your so-called free-will decisions arbitrary or not?
Note that it does not matter whether it is possible for us to determine what those rules are. Materialism requires that, but determinism does not. Determinism only requires that there be some set of rules. I submit that regardless of what mechanism you claim is responsible for your decisions, that mechanism must either function according to some set of logical rules (determinism), or it must select its decisions arbitrarily from some set of options, whose probability distributions function according to some set of logical rules (stochastic dynamics), or it must select its decisions in a completely arbitrary way (wholly random). What other possibilities are there?
Now we are right back to where we started. If it is not determined, and not arbitrary, then what is it? What other possibilities are there?
Either the current state is completely determined by the previous state, or it is not.
If you want to claim simply that it is not completely determined by the prior states of the Universe, but that instead something else, which is not part of the universe, somehow affects its current state, then this has nothing to do with whether it is deterministic or not.
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The other possibility is a substantial self which indeed, construed literally, is not part of the Universe.
Then like I said, this is not a question of it being not deterministic. It does not have to be part of the universe for the labels "deterministic" or "random" to apply to it. Those are just terms which describe it mathematically.
Would it be true to say that ones self is literally in ones brain? I believe that such a self, utilising psychokinesis, could have free will as I have defined it.
Sure, it
could. But it would still either be deterministic or random. Like I said, those terms have nothing to do with whether it is part of our universe or not.
Materialism assumes that we can.
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I know, but in this argument I am presuming my subjective idealism is true.
What argument? What exactly are you trying to claim?
If you are claiming that it is a fact that we cannot, then you need to justify this claim.
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As I stated I am not claiming this. I am only denying that my notion of free will is unintelligible. You are maintaining it is unintelligible are you not?
No. Now that you have explained what you mean, I think it is perfectly intelligible. I just think that you are confused when you say that it is neither deterministic nor random. I think that you are making this statement based on a misconception of what deterministic really means. Deterministic does not mean naturalistic, nor does it require that it be part of our world. All it means is that there is some logical set of rules that determine its behavior. Since the only alternative to this is that the behavior is arbitrary, which you have already agreed is what is meant by random, it makes absolutely no sense to claim that it is neither deterministic nor random, nor any combination of the two. Making such a claim makes you conception of free-will appear to be self-contradictory and incoherent, when really it is just the old idea of a nonphysical soul interacting with the body.
Anyway, I don't see how your free-will is any more "free" than mine, or why you think that my conception of free-will would have any implications for things like ethics that yours would not.
How would I mathematically model your responses to me? The same way I model anything else. I would study the system which produced the responses in as much detail as possible, using the scientific method. Do you have any justification for the claim that such a study is doomed to failure?
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Again, I would state that although psychology can perhaps be very useful in predicting someones behaviour, I find it remarkably implausible that an individual's behaviour can wholly be explained by a mathematical equation. In short I do not believe that psychology can be reduced to mathematics.
Would you agree that a probabilistic model for human behavior should be possible? Keep in mind that I am probably every bit as convinced as you are that human behavior is not deterministic.
You criticized me for "nit-picking" when I pointed out that this is not how we treat the physical realm, and yet this appears to be a central point in your argument. The psychological realm, as you put it, does not need to be deterministic in order for it to be subject to scientific inquiry, or to be explainable in terms of brain processes.
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The randomness issue is peripheral to the point of interest. I'm simply stating that my psychological states need not be captured by some sort of incorrigible laws.
Incorrigible laws?
in·cor·ri·gi·ble
adj.
1: Incapable of being corrected or reformed: an incorrigible criminal.
2: Firmly rooted; ineradicable: incorrigible faults.
3: Difficult or impossible to control or manage: an incorrigible, spoiled child.
n.
One that cannot be corrected or reformed.
I am afraid I don't follow you here. Either your psychological states can be described by some set of mathematical rules, or the probabilities associated with them can, or they are completely arbitrary (I think we can rule this one out by inspection). This is true regardless of whether it is actually possible to empirically determine those rules or not, in other words, regardless of whether materialism is true or not.
If we presume that your metaphysic is true, then of course materialism is false. But all that proves is that your metaphysic is incompatible with materialism. Where is your explanation for why we should accept that this immaterial self of yours actually exists?
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Well obviously, for the sake of this discussion, we're simply presupposing that there is an immaterial self. I'm trying to show that if there is such a self, then the notion of free will (in the libertarian sense) is not unintelligible.
Sure, as long as you don't claim that it is neither deterministic nor random.
That is unintelligible no matter what you claim it about.
But this does not mean to say that a given psychological state is random. It does not mean to say this because we constantly define ourselves, what we are, what we desire and so on. In other words we constantly mould ourselves. Not that anything outside ourselves moulds us, but rather it is of the essence of the substantial self that even though it has causal powers, it is not itself caused by anything, but is rather an unanalysable existent (indeed, it is the only ontologically self-subsistent existent). Because of this, in choosing whether to either have eggs and bacon for breakfast, or porridge for breakfast, this choice can genuinely been made in the now, so to speak.
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By this reasoning, this self of yours is a deterministic system.
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No! My behaviour follows no laws, no rules in an absolute sense. I can choose in the now without that decision having arisen from some externally applied rules.
Who said anything about externally applied rules? Does your "self" function according to logical rules, or not? If it does, then it is deterministic, by definition. If it does not, and all of its decisions are arbitrary, then it is random, by definition. If it arbitrarily selects its decisions from some probability distribution, which functions according to logical rules, then it is a stochastic dynamical system, or a combination of determinism and randomness, if you prefer.
What other options are there? Throwing the decision making process to some other entity won't get you out of this, because we are already talking about that other entity, the "self". Is it deterministic, or not?
You seem to be describing the Universe as one system, and the self as another, and saying that they interact in some way. Not only does this not constitute a system which is "neither deterministic nor random", but it only contradicts materialism if you make the assumption that this "self" cannot be scientifically modeled based on our observations. Your metaphysical position may claim that this is impossible, but you have not presented any justification for this claim.
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Well, I don't think you are very clearly understanding my position if I may say so. The self can be scientifically understood using psychology. But I deny that peoples behaviour can be wholly encapsulated by mathematical formulae. This is what physical determinists maintain.
Well, I agree that physical determinism is wrong.
I am only maintaining my notion of free will is intelligible, not that it necessarily exists. I do think that our apparent immediate experience of ourselves as causally efficacious agents, capable of choosing between alternative options, gives a very good reason to believe in free will as I have defined. But I cannot prove it.
I agree. I also believe that we have free-will, and I define it almost the same way as you do. The only difference is that I do not assume that there is something external to the brain that interacts with the brain to produce it. I think that the brain is quite capable of choosing between alternative options, all on its own. I am also not a physical determinist, but no appeal to non-physical entities need be made to allow for a non-deterministic solution.
Where have I claimed this? It's not the same type of free will because our choices are inevitable. Obviously we have free will in the sense we can choose to do what we will (subject to the obvious caveats).
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In what sense are they inevitable? If the brain is not deterministic, then they are not inevitable.
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Well ok then. But the only reason why it's not inevitable is because some intrinsic randomness is thrown in! This says nothing about the substance of my point.
That is a null-statement. Saying that some intrinsic randomness is thrown in, means nothing more, and nothing less than that the choice is not determined by the prior state of the system.
You seem to be wanting to simultaneously claim that the decisions the self makes are not arbitrary, but not determined by logical rules either. That makes no sense. If they are not determined by logical rules, then in what sense are they not arbitrary?
But it is a bit strange that my freely made choices should just forevermore simply coincide with physical laws.
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Why is that strange? Why shouldn't they coincide with physical laws? Everything else seems to.
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But with non-sentient objects there is nothing to coincide! I mean a boulder doesn't want to roll down the hill. Jupiter doesn't want to orbit around the Sun.
So what? Those things don't have brains, either.
Anyway, it is strange because it seems to me that I have an immediate choice at any given time between a number of options. I can either have some Pepsi or blackcurrant juice, and it seems to all the world that I genuinely can choose either of these 2 options. But you say my choice is some sort of combination of being determined and random (can't we just say determined for simplicity?). So although according to you I act freely, it is always going to be in accordance with some given algorithm. This seems incredibly strange.
This is nothing unusual. It is not at all uncommon for our intuition to simultaneously tell us two conflicting things. Your intuition says that your decisions are not algorithmic in nature, because it
seems to you that you had a choice. Your intuition also tells you that your decisions are not just arbitrary, because that would
seem to indicate that you somehow don't have control over the choice you made. The fact that these two intuitions cannot both be true, is just one in a long list of examples of why intuition is unreliable.
The reality is somewhere in between. Our decisions making process does not seem algorithmic to us, because we are not aware of all the steps in the process, and therefore cannot see how our decision logically followed from prior brain states, and other decisions which it
seems like we could have made, did not. Likewise, there are experiments showing that when a particular part of the brain is stimulated, an evoked muscle movement (one not intentionally caused by the subject), will seem to that person to have been intentional, even though it was not, demonstrating that just because it seems like we are in control of our decisions, does not mean that we always are.
To say the least this is rather unlikely!
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Unlikely how? Do you have some sort of evidence that indicates that it is unlikely?
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If I can genuinely choose some action now, so that I could have done otherwise, it would be a remarkable coincidence if everything I chose was in accordance with some given physical law or algorithm.
Only if that algorithm was deterministic. But since the brain is not deterministic, this is not an issue. And even in those cases where the random influences are not significant enough to make a difference, just because, at the time, it
seems as though you could have made a different choice, does not mean that you actually could have.
I agree that if your brand of free-will exists, then materialism is false. As you have said, this is trivial since your conception of free-will includes the presumption that materialism is false. Now I just want to know why you think that your conception of free-will is something that exists in reality?
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But that is not important. My task is simply to get you to agree that my concept of free will is intelligible. Do you agree that it is?
With the exception of the incoherent claim that it is neither deterministic nor random, sure. It is intelligible, but completely unjustified.
Dr. Stupid
