Yet another Free Will Thread

[Ichneumonwasp]

The problem with what you have said aboe it that you use the word "you" repeatedly as though "we" are automatons. That is not the end result of this form of thought, only a partial result that gives a very misleading picture. In the full version there is no "you" properly speaking. It's all just the universe playing out. Everything is simply the universe playing out. The idea that "we" are in some priveleged position as entities is simply wrong if "you" accept and think from a deterministic perspective.

The bottom line with all forms of a posteriori thought is that "we" can know nothing for certain, so this is just one example amongst the plethora.

 

[Humphreys]

Okay, so the Universe is playing out an already scripted play, with some actors playing the part of free-will believers, and others playing the part of unbelievers, all caused and under complete control of the Universe itself.

Peering in at the Universe from the outside, isn't it obvious that neither set of actors should be confident that their position (the position the Universe selected for them) is the correct one?

The fact that this Universe has created a part of itself (you) that lacks belief in its own free-will, means nothing.

What you see as "you" is nothing more than one cog among trillions, being controlled by the Universe in some giant machine, who thinks he has answers to anything without realizing his deterministic beliefs take all meaning out of those answers.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Peering in at the Universe from the outside, isn't it obvious that neither set of actors should be confident that their position (the position the Universe selected for them) is the correct one?

Of course. That is why I have been arguing that there is no way to prove that libertarian free will is absolutely, unquestionably, demonstrably false. There is no logical contradiction. If we examine the thinking, it all boils down to the original assumptions one makes. Or the universe makes.

What I really want to know is why can't that small bit of universe that we all seem to agree is "me" find ultimate happiness with that small bit of the universe we all seem to agree is "Claudia Schiffer"? Oh, why, universe, why?

 

[Darth Rotor]

"Illusion" does not mean something is not there; it means that something is not what it appears. The sunrise is an illusion; that does not mean I deny what you perceive and label a sunrise.
That is because you have failed to narrow down which aspects of "mind" you wish to discuss. As you can see in the thread I linked, yours is not a simple request. (And, to be fair, I did take the first steps in that direction a few posts ago.)

While I understand the demands of the experimental method, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One of the limitations of analysis is that in adopting controls to allow for identifiable variables, one can break interactions. This is more than a problem of words, it is a problem inherent in the experimental method.

So, I appreciate your demand that the elements of "the mind" (which I think is confined to conscious mental activity, and not the subconscious neural activity that keeps the body functioning) be separated for detailed examination, the functioning of the whole, the synthesis, is what requires investigation to answer a lot of the questions that are raised with a greater degree of fidelity.

I have limited experience in successfully applying behavioral principles to live subjects. It is at the practical, rather than at the expermental and theoretical, level. It is at the implementation stage that the synthesis is time and again betrayed by the "slicing" methods of analysis. (Well, that and limitations in budgets and resources. )

DR

 

[chriswl]

Let me expand on that.

If determinism is true, and there is no free will, your every thought, feeling, taste, smell, observation, reasoning process and belief is controlled by a force outside of your control. It couldn't have been otherwise, and you did not get the final say in any of it, cause and effect did.

"You" is the psychlogical you, the you that acts according to how it feels and thinks. You are free to make choices based on those thoughts and feelings, therefore you are free. It is irrelevant whether we can also explain your actions deterministically. You could see this as being controlled by your desires and lament that you don't have the "freedom" to choose those things that are contrary to them. But this would be a logically impossible freedom. Your choosing an option indicates your preferrence for it after all.

This whole discussion is the equivalent to a play written by someone else, in which you're just an unknowing actor running through the script to its known conclusion.

But there is no writer. The universe was not deliberately set up to produce a certain type of dialogue. It just started out in a way compatible with the later development of reasoning beings. The forms of reasoning they develped are not arbitrary.

You could be completely and utterly, devastatingly wrong about everything ever yet believe you're right, because that's what the Universe is forcing you to believe.

No you couldn't. Truth seeking is biologically adaptive. The external environment and your evolved reasoning "circuits" force you to be largely correct about the world. Your thoughts about the world are true only because they are caused by the world.

It seems paradoxical to me, because the existence of free will is what makes rational reasoning so valid and useful, yet rational reasoning itself seems to suggest no such thing exists.

On the contrary, it strikes me that a rational being has no choice but to make a particular choice (the rational choice) if he is to remain rational. Wrongness is arbitrary, rationality is predictable.

 

[burnvictim77]

Okay, so the Universe is playing out an already scripted play, with some actors playing the part of free-will believers, and others playing the part of unbelievers, all caused and under complete control of the Universe itself.

Peering in at the Universe from the outside, isn't it obvious that neither set of actors should be confident that their position (the position the Universe selected for them) is the correct one?

The fact that this Universe has created a part of itself (you) that lacks belief in its own free-will, means nothing.

What you see as "you" is nothing more than one cog among trillions, being controlled by the Universe in some giant machine, who thinks he has answers to anything without realizing his deterministic beliefs take all meaning out of those answers.

But this is all contingent on what you want to call 'you.'

Certainly there is that which you perceive to be yourself. Determinism doesn't take that away, nor does it deny any of your experiences. It simply explains the fundamental nature of all the phenomena that are required for you to be able to label anything 'you' in the first place.

 

[Kopji]

I'm gonna hafta quit reading these threads, they are starting to make sense...

 

[Humphreys]

"No you couldn't. Truth seeking is biologically adaptive. The external environment and your evolved reasoning "circuits" force you to be largely correct about the world. Your thoughts about the world are true only because they are caused by the world.

But, you had no choice but to write that, no choice but to believe that that is a fact, and if determinism is true, the fact you made that statement is just a result of a long chain of deterministic processes started by an essentially random big bang billions of years ago, all causes and effects completely out of the control of anyone or anything, right?

Even if the above is true, not everyone believes in a lack of free-will, and I've seen many people get on just fine being wrong all the time.

How can you ever be confident in the truth of anything, if determinism is true?

I don't get it.

Just to clear something up, I mostly agree with you. I don't believe in free-will either, but I also struggle to see how and why we should be able to lack belief in it with any confidence at all, because if true it seems to make our chances of being correct go down somewhat.

 

[burnvictim77]

How can you ever be confident in the truth of anything, if determinism is true?

I'm not sure what you mean by this question. What do you believe truth is?

 

[Humphreys]

I'm not sure what you mean by this question. What do you believe truth is?

I have no special meaning for truth. Something that is truth is a fact in the Universe. I don't know how to define it better than that, sorry. I've never been asked to define truth before, I thought the definition was something everyone agreed on.

I'm referring to objective truth, if that helps. Not opinion, actual truth.

Either the Universe is deterministic or it isn't. If it is, then determinism is a fact. It is the truth.

 

[burnvictim77]

I have no special meaning for truth. Something that is truth is a fact in the Universe. I don't know how to define it better than that, sorry. I've never been asked to define truth before, I thought the definition was something everyone agreed on.

I'm referring to objective truth, if that helps. Not opinion, actual truth.

Either the Universe is deterministic or it isn't. If it is, then determinism is a fact. It is the truth.

If determinism is the case, how do you feel it treathens truth?

 

[Humphreys]

Every thought, feeling and belief would be the result of causes and effects outside of your control.

Rational argument itself could be completely and utterly useless yet our thoughts and feelings, under the control of the Universe, may still tell us we're doing something meaningful.

It's potentially the equivalent to having me hypnotize you and tell you you're a monkey whose able to do complex mathematics in seconds. Even though in actuality you might be bouncing up and down and flinging your own feces, you'd still believe you were doing something productive and using certain skills to come to accurate conclusions.

You'd not think you were a monkey because you were, but simply because that's what I made you think. When something completely outside of your control is calling the shots and you're a mere puppet to the Universe, truth becomes a nonsense.

 

[Jekyll]

Every thought, feeling and belief would be the result of causes and effects outside of your control.

Rational argument itself could be completely and utterly useless yet our thoughts and feelings, under the control of the Universe, may still tell us we're doing something meaningful.

It's potentially the equivalent to having me hypnotize you and tell you you're a monkey whose able to do complex mathematics in seconds. Even though in actuality you might be bouncing up and down and flinging your own feces, you'd still believe you were doing something productive and using certain skills to come to accurate conclusions.

You'd not think you were a monkey because you were, but simply because that's what I made you think. When something completely outside of your control is calling the shots and you're a mere puppet to the Universe, truth becomes a nonsense.

Well maybe, but if you have a set of computer programs that play chess and you select the best and refine them further in the end you are left with a machine that can beat the best human players.

Similarly, we are faeces flinging monkeys who have been repeatedly selected for an ability to know what's going on, initially as hunters and trackers and later on for an ability to understand farming or society.
If at any point our reason had comprehensively failed we wouldn't be here. So it seems likely that we are moving in the right direction and that we can come to know of the universe.

 

[Humphreys]

Similarly, we are faeces flinging monkeys who have been repeatedly selected for an ability to know what's going on, initially as hunters and trackers and later on for an ability to understand farming or society.
If at any point our reason had comprehensively failed we wouldn't be here. So it seems likely that we are moving in the right direction and that we can come to know of the universe.

We are discussing the potential uselessness of reason due to determinism, and you are trying to refute this claim using the potentially flawed reasoning processes we are discussing.

If our reasoning is completely innacurate, so potentially are your statements above, if it isn't, then there is no point in arguing for its usefullness using reason in the first place.

We haven't got anywhere.

I do agree with you though, and believe this is exactly what has happened, I'm just at a loss on how to justify that belief.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I do agree with you though, and believe this is exactly what has happened, I'm just at a loss on how to justify that belief.

Pragmatically? There is a reason that Mercutio is a pragmatist, even though it's just the universe in Mercutio clothes being a pragmatist.

 

[burnvictim77]

Every thought, feeling and belief would be the result of causes and effects outside of your control.

Rational argument itself could be completely and utterly useless yet our thoughts and feelings, under the control of the Universe, may still tell us we're doing something meaningful.

It's potentially the equivalent to having me hypnotize you and tell you you're a monkey whose able to do complex mathematics in seconds. Even though in actuality you might be bouncing up and down and flinging your own feces, you'd still believe you were doing something productive and using certain skills to come to accurate conclusions.

You'd not think you were a monkey because you were, but simply because that's what I made you think. When something completely outside of your control is calling the shots and you're a mere puppet to the Universe, truth becomes a nonsense.

I don't see why you would only see this as a potential problem in a deterministic universe. You could be hyponotized if you had Free Will as well.

If anything I see a problem determining what truth is in a non-deterministic universe, because inductive reasoning would be out the window entirely. We wouldn't be able to conceive of what the universe was in the slightest.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

It's very disconcerting to realize that truth is "what works", but that is all that I can see as the natural fall-out of determinism. We must be careful in looking at this, since there are plenty of folks who would misconstrue this idea and characterize the concept in the most unflattering of ways that actually does not follow the dictates of determinism. But there it is.

The beauty of our thinking, however, is that we can conceive the world by other means. While our thinking may be restricted to deterministic functions, we can conceive entirely different ways of viewing the world than from a deterministic mind-set, as the entire history of philosophy makes abundantly clear. Perhaps determinism is wrong. Perhaps material monism is wrong. Who knows?

Regardless, if you are a monist and accept some version of determinism (especially as it relates to the function of what we call "mind"), then truth is what works. If you're a substance dualist or pluralist, then the world is wide-open to interpretation, but the framework crumbles and shifts. These folks need something ultimate to hang their hat on -- call it God -- for truth to have any meaning.


ETA

Dang, Burnvictim beat me to some of that.

 

[Humphreys]

I don't see why you would only see this as a potential problem in a deterministic universe. You could be hyponotized if you had Free Will as well.

If anything I see a problem determining what truth is in a non-deterministic universe, because inductive reasoning would be out the window entirely. We wouldn't be able to conceive of what the universe was in the slightest.

You could be hypnotized yeah, but that's not really the point as I see it. The problem is control over thoughts and reasoning processes, and the lack of it in a deteministic Universe.

If Free-Will truly existed, although seemingly impossible, I envisage being able to step away from the Universe completely and think completely independently of it, in a rational manner unspoiled by chance. Thought completely under my control, and independant of any other forces, especially the chaotic and often random forces of nature.

It's akin to a computer character programmed to believe in God, being able to step out of the program and look at the evidence freely and coming to his own conclusions, rather than whatever the programmer decided to pump into his mind.

Whether such a scenario is even feasible is up for much debate, of course.

 

[burnvictim77]

You could be hypnotized yeah, but that's not really the point as I see it. The problem is control over thoughts and reasoning processes, and the lack of it in a deteministic Universe.

If Free-Will truly existed, although seemingly impossible, I envisage being able to step away from the Universe completely and think completely independently of it, in a rational manner unspoiled by chance. Thought completely under my control, and independant of any other forces, especially the chaotic and often random forces of nature.

It's akin to a computer character programmed to believe in God, being able to step out of the program and look at the evidence freely and coming to his own conclusions, rather than whatever the programmer decided to pump into his mind.

Whether such a scenario is even feasible is up for much debate, of course.

I'm not sure how truth figures into your concerns about control.

 

[Jekyll]

We are discussing the potential uselessness of reason due to determinism, and you are trying to refute this claim using the potentially flawed reasoning processes we are discussing.

If our reasoning is completely innacurate, so potentially are your statements above, if it isn't, then there is no point in arguing for its usefullness using reason in the first place.

We haven't got anywhere.

I do agree with you though, and believe this is exactly what has happened, I'm just at a loss on how to justify that belief.

I was arguing that it is entirely consistent to believe in determinism and the effectiveness of our reasoning process.

At the end of the day there is no way to refute Descartes' demon that is invisibly sitting on our shoulder and screwing with our minds. Even if Descartes' believed he could.

This is just another variation on it with physics as the demon.