Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.
1. If the universe is indeterministic, this does not prove their is a free will. 2. Even if the universe is deterministic, then it still meaningful to convince others. After all, by presenting an argument we can change someone's mind.
Meh - So many people think "why are you trying to convince me ? isn't it all predetermined including my response" is a big gotcha when it actually is self refuting
I actually agree with "Red's" comment in the first panel. It's largely metaphysical. That's because it's linked to the idea of an immortal soul, originally. Of course, determinism, in Western philosophy, also has metaphysical roots, going back to Calvinism.
See, Massimo, that's part of why I say "mu" to the whole issue!
The moral implications are the same irrespective of whether determinism holds true or indeterminism holds true. If determinism holds true, then every choice we make was ultimately predetermined and could not have been otherwise. If indeterminism holds true, then the only reason we could have chosen otherwise must have been due to some element of chance.
> Even if the universe is deterministic, then it still meaningful to convince others. After all, by presenting an argument we can change someone's mind. <
Not at all. If the universe is deterministic then my mind was fixed at the moment of the Big Bang. It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.
Deepak,
> So many people think "why are you trying to convince me ? isn't it all predetermined including my response" is a big gotcha when it actually is self refuting <
How, exactly? Care to elaborate?
Gadfly,
> See, Massimo, that's part of why I say "mu" to the whole issue! <
I’m inclined to say the same, but there is an issue there: IF the universe is deterministic, THEN how do we explain our apparent ability to make decisions and change our mind? No need to bring in the concept of free will — which as you say is fraught with indefensible metaphysics — but I’m still awaiting for your best shot at an extended treatment. I’m serious, I am really curious about it.
Jake,
> Isn't this confusing fatalism with determinism? <
I don’t think so. Fatalism is the idea that you can try to change things (i.e., you do have freedom of action), and yet the universe somehow adjusts to thwarts it (usually because the gods have other plans, or the Logos in the case of the Stoics). But a determinist has to maintain that it isn’t even possible for you to meaningfully try to change anything, because you have precisely the same autonomy as a rock.
No, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
No, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
OK, Massimo, this is going to be a two-parter, because your blog's 4,096 character count doesn't agree with my version of Microsoft Word, and I've whacked and whacked. Here's Part 1:
My best shot? Probably not perfect, but …
1. Traditional free will does have metaphysical overtones, so I reject it in part on those grounds. 2. Ditto for determinism.
The reason I say "mu" gets back to subselves, multiple drafts of consciousness, and even Hume's "fleeting impressions." In short, I take Dennett one step further, in the same direction as Daniel Wegner.
In other words, to use Dennett's language, if there is no "Cartesian meaner" in a "Cartesian theater," there's no "Cartesian free willer" either. There's no unitary conscious self with a free will at the center of the controls.
Now, whether subselves, or whatever "multiple draft" is in the driver's seat at one moment, be engaged in something that might be quasi-free will, is another question. I think something like that does happen. But, it's as ephemeral as that particular subself, "draft," or whatever.
So, in that sense, I'm not totally against all of the ideas that are lumped under the rubric "free will."
Reason No. 2 I oppose the idea of "free will" linked to a single unitary conscious self is related. I believe there's a fair amount of value to the Libet experiments and related.
We may still have a "veto" over such actions, but even then, that veto may vary from subself to subself as to what a particular subself would veto or not, etc. Beyond that, that veto itself may be at such a deep layer we wouldn't associate it with a quasi-formed subself, let alone a fully formed self.
In short, so far, part of what I am saying is that what's actually happening in the human mind is far too complex to reduce to "free will," too. It's another instance where the human brain's predilection for facile labeling of things draws us astray.
3. Without saying this is part of my answer for how the subselves that produce the appearance of a self act, there's also the question of how all this evolved. Is what appears to be free will, or at least our belief in it, an adaptation, or is it, shades of Dennett vs. Gould ... a spandrel?
Here's the biggie. I say "Mu" to the dualism that's part and parcel of the "free will **VERSUS** determinism" issue. Just because conscious, unitary free will doesn't exist, there's no need to believe any sort of determinism, whether physical determinism, or psychological determinism, exists.
A good way to further explicate this is Susan Blackmore. I'm sure that, were she to write in detail on this issue, she would have at least a few broadly similar ideas, above all, rejecting the whole *dualism/duality* present in traditional framing of this as a "free will vs. determinism" issue.
I feel the same. That's at the core of my "mu." With your word "volition," or whatever, I think we have to see this whole issue of apparent intentionality in human actions in a non-dualistic way.
That said, per all of the above, I do see some degree of psychological determinism, on an action-by-action basis. That is, can something like, say, childhood sexual or physical abuse psychologically determine some of our actions?
I'd say yes, to a degree. Here, I'm rejecting not dualism, narrowly speaking, but something analogous, polarities.
In other words, Action X may be 23 percent psychologically determined and 77 percent volitional. Action B may be 42 percent psychologically determined and 58 percent volitional. Etc.
If you don't like the word "determined," let's borrow a word from genetics and talk about "tendencies." Just like we have a 90 degree heritable tendency to be tall, 50 percent to intelligence, etc., ditto on having Z degree of psychological tendency in Action X.
Hope this provides food for further thought.
I want to stress once again that the "mu" is about rejecting the duality of free will vs. determinism, and that, rejecting ideas of free will associated with a unitary conscious self doesn't mean that determinism is therefore the only answer left to choose.
> No, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach." <
It seems to have (more or less) the same objective.
Well, kind of; I'd say less, rather than more, for the following reason. "Unasking" the question or idea issues a challenge to the person who stated the original question or idea to rethink, and even think outside the box. "Whatever," at least in modern American English, comes off as more a "blow-off" type answer.
And, specific to Zen, it "unasks" in the sense of trying to get a person thinking beyond dualism or polarity that may be part of his or her current mindset.
Gadfly, I didn't mean to start that sort of discussion here, I was under the impression that you had written out your thoughts / position somewhere. Nonetheless, thanks, I'll read and cogitate. I'm sure there will be many chances in the future to pick up that conversation.
>It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.<
I think this is certainly wrong.
Minds can change on determinism, and they can even be changed by argument. Those arguments and their outcomes are predestined, that's all.
Since they don't know in advance if their efforts will succeed or fail, determinists strive like anyone else, and success when it happens is often attributable to the striving (which was just as inevitable as the outcome, so this is consistent with determinism).
>Not at all. If the universe is deterministic then my mind was fixed at the moment of the Big Bang. It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.
This is true from the perspective of the universe. However, individual people don't have to capacity to work out the entire causal chain since the big bang. Only if they could do this, they could determine whether their opponent would be persuaded by their arguments in advance. In reality, however, people have to work with the idea that their arguments are just another link in causal chain. Hence from a personal perspective exchanging arguments makes sense, even in a deterministic universe.
Massimo, I've actually worked that and more into a long blog post on the subject, readable at your leisure, here: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/12/mu-to-free-will-vs-determinism-part-2.html
Actually I think the "determinist" in the cartoon is unwittingly supporting a fatalist position. For a determinist, the answer should be simply to say "I'm also determined to argue with you to try to change your mind" and the end result of if the state of that person's mind is also determined, even though we don't have knowledge of what the will be a priori. Or at least that's how I've always interpreted the deterministic story.
How, exactly? Care to elaborate? Both parties can only do as they will, right? - So the response to "my mind has been set by the big bang" would be "so has mine and whether your views change or not , as a response to my argument, is also set , as also is my response to that" (None of which implies I am a determinist - merely that the cartoon isn't good imo)
> Actually I think the "determinist" in the cartoon is unwittingly supporting a fatalist position. <
Not really, the determinist has no choice but to do what he is doing (and the same goes for the skeptic). Fatalism implies that you do have a choice on your course of action, even do in the end *the result* is predetermined.
Alastair,
> I will take your "no response" to my comment to mean that you could not muster any counterargument to it. <
Don’t flatter yourself, my friend, it’s just that I have an unfortunately limited patience for your recurring insistence on the same exact points, which I have addressed over and over. Sometimes you feel like Groundhog Day…
Deepak,
> Both parties can only do as they will, right? - So the response to "my mind has been set by the big bang" would be "so has mine and whether your views change or not , as a response to my argument, is also set , as also is my response to that” <
Of course, which makes the insistence of determinists that they can *change* other people’s minds a joke. Hence the cartoon.
> Don’t flatter yourself, my friend, it’s just that I have an unfortunately limited patience for your recurring insistence on the same exact points, which I have addressed over and over. <
You have repeatedly evaded this issue, And we both know why. You have no counterargument whatsoever to the argument that I have posted in this thread.
Also, your "biological naturalism" clearly implies dualism. Or, would you care to explain to everyone here how exactly you extricated your "will" from the web of physical causation?
which makes the insistence of determinists that they can *change* other people’s minds a joke You seem to be using the word "change" in a different way then - The weather changes, comets change their path etc etc is a perfectly valid use of the word change but probably you disagree.
I think Massimo pretty much admitted this in a reply to me downthread.
"I think this might have been a matter of my sloppy writing. Of course change is compatible with determinism."
Massimo's position seems to be that only "willful" change is impossible in a deterministic world, which of course is true by definition if we take "willful" to imply libertarian free will.
But, to be honest, I find it hard to understand Massimo's point with this.
I'll try to explain what he's saying as I understand it, both to help clarify my own understanding and perhaps to elicit any correction that Massimo may care to make.
The determinist position (and determinism in general) seems to make the universe absurd to Massimo. He regards people in a deterministic universe as marionettes, so any task they might undertake is pointless and futile because the universe is going to do what it's going to do.
He regards the attempt to advocate determinism as a particularly ironic and amusing example of such a futile undertaking, but I imagine all effort is in much the same category.
Naturally, I don't agree with this view, and indeed I find it hard to make sense of it.
In my eyes, a lot of the controversy around free will stems from people failing to reconcile their armchair philosophical beliefs with their more deeply held, acted-upon beliefs. There are three positions: magical-dualist-soul free will, incompatibilism (determinism is true, therefore no free will) and compatibilism (determinism is true but human decision-making is still substantially different from a rock rolling down a slope). Although many people claim to believe in the first two positions intellectually, nobody does so in practice.
Dualist free will would mean that the behavior of people is unconstrained by any rules of cause-and-effect, so it would mean that you would not be able to predict other peoples behavior. Like, at all. The shopkeeper who was nice the last 20 years could just as easily unprovokedly punch your face as sell you groceries. (If not, then it would merely be his soul that is following determinist rules, so we are back to square one.) Obviously nobody believes that because everybody is able to anticipate others' behavior. This demonstrates that everybody is really a determinist no matter what they claim.
Incompatibilism would mean that there is no difference between kleptomania and somebody stealing for profit, or between a car accident and a murder. The fact that even those proclaiming loudest that there is no free will still treat the mentally ill and the sane or those who make a mistake and those who act maliciously differently demonstrates that they are really compatibilists.
In practice, all sane humans are compatibilist determinists, only some of us use the word free will to describe the differences that count and some of us have taken a dislike to that term. May have mentioned that before, but in my mother language the word 'freiwillig', which would literally translate into free-willy, means nothing more than voluntary. In other words, German appears to be determinist-compatibilist by design.
I think we are pretty much in agreement about this. Which is one reason I like the word volition, rather than free will. The only difference is that I am not a determinist, I am a naturalist. Whatever the laws of physics are that's what goes, but I have no stake into whether those laws are ultimately deterministic or not (and I don't think it makes any difference to the debate at hand anyway).
That is a good point: naturalist includes determinism and randomness.
As for your reasons for avoiding the term free will, so far so good, but what if the incompatibilists suddenly decide that 'volition' also has to be considered religiously loaded because some theologians used that word for their purposes? Would you then search for a new one?
I just don't quite see the point of discarding the term free will - which I personally do not understand to have any supernatural connotations at all - just because some people have foolishly convinced themselves that doing so would be a blow to religion.
>a lot of the controversy around free will stems from people failing to reconcile their armchair philosophical beliefs with their more deeply held, acted-upon beliefs.<
How should a true incompatibilist act on her beliefs?
>Incompatibilism would mean that there is no difference between kleptomania and somebody stealing for profit, or between a car accident and a murder.<
I don't think this is so. There is a difference between acting by intent and acting by accident. Acting by intent is more amenable to deterrence by punishment, for example.
I do think incompatibilism has consequences for how we think about crime and punishment. In particular, I think the desire for retribution is unjustifiable.
The problem is the word "free" - If you are a compatibilist then in what sense is your will "free" ? Are you "free" to undo any of your choices that are limited solely to your brains/beliefs? Are you free for e.g. to choose to believe in a God (Assuming you are an atheist or agnostic?) - I can't no matter how hard I try.
Like you I am an incompatibilist, but I think compatibilism is reasonably tenable. I think it's metaphysically the same as incompatibilism and simply uses different semantics. I prefer incompatibilism because I think compatibilism is just a way to sidestep the debate and cling to some of our old intuitions though they're not really justified.
That said, I think there is a good compatibilist answer to your questions.
> If you are a compatibilist then in what sense is your will "free" ?<
You are free in that you are not constrained by anything outside yourself. There is nothing outside of your mind which compels your mind to take one course of action or another. In other words, if your mind were otherwise constituted you could make a different decision.
This is in contrast to being compelled to do something under duress. Even had you almost any other mind, in the same circumstances you would have no choice but to take the same actions.
But you are free to believe or disbelieve in God. If you cannot believe in God it is only because your mind is such that this belief is impossible for you. This limitation comes from within yourself.
There is nothing that is forcing you to be an atheist other than you yourself. If your mind were magically replaced with that of a theist version of yourself, but everything else about your circumstances remained the same, you would be free to believe in God.
You are free in that you are not constrained by anything outside yourself That's a weird definition of free :) - I have not chosen how my brain developed or why my brain reacts in a particular way to some data - it is funny to use the word free to represent that. And it also contrasts with Im free to choose to lift my left and right hand and I could lift either at any given point of time and I can switch that choice anytime I want. it doesnt make sense to use free to represent both these cases. I'm not free however to like bitter tasting stuff (or become religious)
It's for the reasons you mention that I do not consider myself a compatibilist.
You are certainly not free to choose how your brain has developed - in any way.
But given the brain that you have, that brain is "free" insofar as its choices are unconstrained by contemporaneous external factors.
But yeah, in general I agree with your points, and those points are why I would not consider myself a compatibilist.
I do think there is a sense in which you are more free than either a prisoner or a rock, so I'm not sure I would call the compatibilist definition of freedom "weird". This is what Dan Dennett would describe as "free will worth wanting". I think the compatibilist position is pretty reasonable but also that it confuses the issue.
If you want to get a good insight into compatibilism I'd say Dan Dennett should be your first stop, in particular his books "Elbow Room" and "Freedom Evolves".
Ok thanks I do need to read Dennetts work. I dont think the compatibilists necessarily have it wrong - just that the words they choose to cling onto seems as a not good choice (I too feel that volition is a better choice but it has the same problem that it doesn't really address what determinist are saying)
It’s dismaying to see Massimo conflating determinism with fatalism — in no way does determinism preclude the “ability to make decisions and change another’s mind” and what contortions of reasoning would it require to justify the assertion that our minds were “fixed at the moment of the Big Bang”? That is to conflate necessary with sufficient conditions (my brain made me do it must mean the Big Bang made me do it). Say rather: “The nature of universal complexity shatters this chimerical dream.”
"Determinism" seems to be fading every day. If full randomness underlies or at least is present to some degree in all levels of nature, then there is no full determinism. Who calls themself a determinist of any sort anymore?
> It’s dismaying to see Massimo conflating determinism with fatalism <
I believe it is you who confuse the two, my friend.
> what contortions of reasoning would it require to justify the assertion that our minds were “fixed at the moment of the Big Bang”? <
If determinism is true then all states of the universe — at any time — were predictable from the initial condition, hence the “contortion of reasoning” you refer to.
Fatalism is best illustrated by the several ancient Greek tragedies, where our hero — say Oedipus — is told that he will do X (e.g., kill is father), and as a result he takes action to avoid putting themselves in any situation that will result in X (e.g., he decides to leave his country and wander in exile). But he will eventually end up doing X any way (e.g., he kills his father mistaking him for a beggar). Throughout the play, Oedipus retains his free will; it’s just that the universe (for the Stoics) or the gods (in Sophocles’ play) have decided that he will do X no matter how hard he tries not to, usually as a (completely out of proportion) punishment for something he did before (typically having somehow disrespected the gods by displaying hubris).
DM,
> Philosopher: ... <
Philosopher: But don’t you see that the whole exercise is entirely futile? You are not really “changing” my mind, according to your view we are simply marionettes with no will, for which the very concept of “mind” or “willful change” is oxymoronic.
> Minds can change on determinism, and they can even be changed by argument. Those arguments and their outcomes are predestined, that's all. <
Yes, it you use the term “changing one’s mind” in a very peculiar fashion you are entirely correct. But you still have to deal with my “marionette” objection above. At any rate, change is by definition relative to a given temporal frame, so why is it that your (very narrow) temporal frame is the one that counts? Expand the temporal frame to the entire history of the universe and there was no change of mind at all, because everything was pre-ordained. If not literally oxymoronic, shouldn’t that make the determinist at least a bit silly? Oh, wait, he can’t, because he’s been determined from the Big Bang to take his arguments seriously…
I don't see any conflict between determinism and mind or change. Wilful change is of course oxymoronic unless we adopt a compatibilist interpretation of free will.
If the whole history of the universe is mapped out from the Big Bang, that history exists as a changeless structure, then yeah, from a perspective outside of time there is no change. In this view, time is seen as another spatial dimension.
But this does not mean the concept of change is entirely inapplicable, because change as a concept can be applied to space as well as time.
We can for example say that the texture of an object changes (e.g. a road becomes smoother to the south) as we move along its length, even though the object as a whole is not changing in time. Similarly, when I eat my breakfast I change from being hungry to being full, even if this event was predetermined.
So, your argument amounts to the position that it is futile for a determinist to eat breakfast. Is that really what you are saying? Because that seems absurd to me.
Determinists will wisely ignore your advice and continue to thrive.
of course change happens, and of course the determinist can eat his breakfast (not that he has a choice). The cartoon isn't an argument against determinism, as much as a way to point out how absurd it is to *argue* for determinism (or against it, from a determinist perspective). it's all going through motions, without no mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments. I do wonder why determinists don't get depressed. Oh wait, they can't, and if they do, they couldn't be otherwise anyway.
Since the discovery of quantum mechanics, how anybody with adequate knowledge of science can be a determinist, in the classical sense, not in my "psychological tendencies" sense, I simply don't understand.
I feel the same way about Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the idea itself, and the Enlightenment Deism that floated behind it.
A lot of people use "determinism" as a sloppy way to mean "not controlled by us". Most of them would agree that quantum effects would preclude actual determinism.
>how absurd it is to *argue* for determinism (or against it, from a determinist perspective). it's all going through motions, without no mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments<
This is missing the point of determinism and setting up a straw man.
Of course there is mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments. Where do you get the idea that it doesn't?
Determinism is all about cause and effect. The universe is not simply scripted like some great novel. If you have changed your mind it is only because I have made an argument and you have understood and appreciated the points made.
If changing your mind is something I want to achieve, then making the argument is no more absurd than eating breakfast or undertaking any other task to achieve a goal.
>I do wonder why determinists don't get depressed<
What's to be depressed about? Even if the future is set, we have no idea what it will turn out to be. Anything is (epistemically) possible.
I think randomness from QM is an unfortunate and unnecessary complication to the debate.
Unless you want to make an argument that free will is the same as quantum randomness, then I think it's more constructive in debates about free will for the naturalist to treat the universe as clockwork in order to more clearly separate the different viewpoints.
The point is not whether the fundamental laws of physics are deterministic or not, but whether our decisions are in principle explicable in terms of mindless physical interactions. If this is the case, then we need to decide how we can rationalise personal responsibility, and distinguish between people who are evil and people who have a mental disorted. QM has no bearing on this.
Anyway, there are deterministic interpretations of QM, for example the Many Worlds Interpretation.
>epistemic possibility is no possibility at all, just ignorance.<
That sounds more like empty rhetoric than an argument. It may be that this ignorance is all we need to stave off depression. The absence of all ignorance (omniscience) quite likely would be depressing after all.
DM, it isn't empty rhetoric, it's just proper use of the English language. Unless you have a radically different meaning of the word "possibility" in mind.
I suppose I was being a bit snotty. Sorry about that. I mean it doesn't address the substance of the argument. Even if epistemic possibility is only ignorance, it's enough to counter your point about depression in my view.
I was also disappointed that you didn't acknowledge or counter my point that arguments change minds even in a deterministic world.
> I was also disappointed that you didn't acknowledge or counter my point that arguments change minds even in a deterministic world. <
I think this might have been a matter of my sloppy writing. Of course change is compatible with determinism. After all, the universe at one point didn't have stars and galaxies, and it now does. Surely that's change. But *willful* change, the only one that matters in discussions about free will, is impossible according to the determinist. To me that makes the determinist position a sorry one: he's a marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise. Even when he succeeds in having other people change their mind, that change isn't willful, it's of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill.
It seems you may be moderating your opinion a little? Originally, it seemed you viewed the determinist position as somewhat self-defeating. Now it seems you only find it depressing.
I don't find it depressing.
I don't really think marionettes is the best analogy. We're more like autonomous robots. There is no external force controlling us. Everything we do is the result of decisions emanating from within.
We are making real choices, it's just that it is predetermined which choices those are. That seems like a contradiction but I don't think it is.
> Originally, it seemed you viewed the determinist position as somewhat self-defeating. Now it seems you only find it depressing. <
Actually, neither. I find it absurd, in the existentialist sense of the term.
> We're more like autonomous robots. There is no external force controlling us. Everything we do is the result of decisions emanating from within. <
You may misunderstand the deterministic position. Even if by "within" you mean, say, our genes, a lot of what we do is also the result of external circumstances. We are not "autonomous" in any meaningful sense of the term.
> We are making real choices, it's just that it is predetermined which choices those are. <
That seems pretty oxymoronic to me. If those choices are predetermined, then in what sense are they "mine"? I just go through the motions, like a marionette controlled by external and internal forces. Besides, aren't you one of those that also deny the self? Then there really isn't any "me" either, yes?
Uh oh, that exclamation point is worrying. Hope it's not exasperation!
>I find it absurd, in the existentialist sense of the term<
I had to Google that. So life has no meaning beyond the meaning we give it. I agree with that. So life is absurd. Sure, no problem.
>Even if by "within" you mean, say, our genes, <
I mean there are processes within our minds that lead to decisions, the way that software controls robots. I hold that we *are* our minds, in a strong sense, so I think in a real sense I am in control of myself.
>a lot of what we do is also the result of external circumstances. <
As is the case with autonomous robots. Autonomy does not mean free from external influence, it means having the ability to react appropriately to external influences without external direction.
>aren't you one of those that also deny the self? Then there really isn't any "me" either, yes?<
I'm not sure I deny the self. It probably depends what you mean by the word. I identify with my mind, whatever that is. That is my "self" as far as I'm concerned.
> If those choices are predetermined, then in what sense are they "mine"?<
For instance, on the CTM, the choices are arrived at by the (deterministic) algorithm that comprises my mind. In my view, I am that algorithm, so the choices are mine in that sense.
Sorry! The "!" Was an artifact of my iPad typing (in a hurry, before getting to a session of the Hume Society at the American Philosophical Association meetings...).
DM: The Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics is by no means an airtight, or even nearly airtight support for determinism within a quantum-mechanical framework.
For example, to riff on the old Star Trek transporter model philosophical game, which "me" is actually "me" and which is the copy within each "forking event"? Then, add to that, the implied continual forkings to infinity.
Beyond that, of course, QM applies to the universe, not just to humans. And, I reject an Eastern-mysticism, Schrödinger's Cat version of interpreting QM anyway. The cat's all dead. Or else all alive. We just don't know THAT it's all dead, or all alive, until looking. We don't CAUSE anything.
I blogged long ago about this, extending his original idea to three tripwires, controlled by radioactive substances with convenient half-lives of X, 2X, and 4X, here: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-schroedinger-was-wrong-about-his.html
If you mean by this that it's not certainly the correct interpretation, then I of course agree.
If you mean there are strong reasons to suspect it is incorrect, then I disagree.
>which "me" is actually "me" and which is the copy within each "forking event"? <
Mu!
Why do you think there is an "actual me" and a "copy"? Wouldn't both have equal claim to your identity? Maybe it's your concept of personal identity that is incorrect, and not the Many Worlds Interpretation?
On Schrodinger, I think you miss the point of the thought experiment a little. Quantum Mechanics is profoundly weird. At the microscopic scale, it really is not good enough to say that we are merely uncertain which event has taken place until an observation is made. The double slit experiment shows that small particles can really be in two contradictory states at the same time.
Schrodinger's cat is an effort to explain the problems with this interpretation by reductio ad absurdum. It's not a mystical interpretation, it's an argument that there's something missing from our understanding of QM.
You may be right. Maybe the cat really is alive or dead. But if that's the case you need to account for the difference between microscopic and macroscopic systems. If an atom or small cluster of atoms can be in two states simultaneously, then why not a cat? Does it have something to do with mass (gravity), thermal interactions, or perhaps just the practical difficulty in isolating it completely from the world outside the box?
Or maybe a cat really can be alive and dead at the same time. The point is the question is not as trivial as you make it out to be, as you should suspect since the interpretation you propose is actually pretty obvious. The fact that we're still talking about Schrodinger's cat should indicate to you that there's more to it.
I don't see how your extension to the thought experiment proves anything. If the cat can be alive and dead at the same time, then the cat can also be alive, dead or mutilated at the same time. The Schrodinger's cat can have any number of distinct states, mixed in different proportions. I fail to see what this shows beyond the original thought experiment.
Well, no, I don't think I miss the point of Schrödinger's Cat. I do truly think that, for him at least, its focus was located in Eastern mysticism.
Unfortunately, other physicists, let alone non-physicists, who touted it, wanted the cat to be half dead, half alive. For Bohr and his followers, it gave a boost to their view of QM.
As for me, I'm a quasi-realist. I use quasi because I'm not quite where Einstein is. But, on much of the statistical stuff of QM, it's all probabilities, whether at the macro or quantum level.
My thought experiment, per Massimo's use of the word "absurd," was primarily to show A: How absurd the original is, as well as B: How, per what I just said, it's nothing but statistics in the end.
My impression was always that Schrodinger's cat was proposed to illustrate a problem with quantum physics interpretations. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I'd be interested to know where you got the idea that Schrodinger himself interpreted it along Eastern mystic lines.
>on much of the statistical stuff of QM, it's all probabilities, whether at the macro or quantum level.<
It's really not that simple. If it were all probabilities, then the electron goes through either one slit or the other. But it goes through both, as we can see from the interference pattern. At the micro level, two mutually contradictory states really can exist simultaneously. It's not just statistics. You might be right about the cat, but if so you need to account for the difference between the macro and micro scales.
Your thought experiment is absurd, but so is the original. That's the point of it!
On the background, I can't *prove* that Schrödinger's adult life-long interest in Hinduism, and specifically in Vedanta, formed part of the background to this thought experiment, but I am confident it's a very reasonable assumption; I think it's reasonable enough that I can't see why anybody would question it has at least some influence.
As for that actual thought experiment? Per the Wiki piece, I would certainly fall into some sort of "objective collapse" stance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
DM, per our discussion on my blog, and per this discussion, including, on the free will side, my saying that we're still in the Early Bronze Age on neuroscience, therefore, exactly what both "free will" — and "consciousness" — mean, without accepting determinism, is an issue, here I talk about free will as a "god of the gaps" issue. (The analogy is incomplete; as you know, I don't think **something like** free will is totally illusory.) http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-will-god-of-gaps-parallel.html
DM ... had to Google to look up philosophical absurdism? Arguably, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century would have turned 100 last year. From my second blog, here's my tribute to Albert Camus: http://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/11/happy-100th-to-albert-camus.html
Objective collapse is certainly plausible. I still think Schrodinger was right to propose the cat thought experiment, as without this kind of thinking there would be no reason to suspect there was any kind of threshold of different behaviour between the quantum and macro worlds. We just don't feel it is sensible to think that cats behave the same way as atoms and electrons. That's what the thought experiment illustrates, so it's a good thought experiment, and I think Schrodinger deserves respect for proposing it, whether or not he was influenced by mysticism.
I agree it's early days on neurology, but if we are naturalists then we must assume there is some naturalistic, physical explanation for free will and all other empirical phenomena. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my intuition tells me that no matter what form it takes, any such explanation will be unsatisfying to the libertarian free-willers. Do you really think otherwise? If so, then our intuitions are just radically different.
I had to google philosophical absurdism because I'm pretty new to philosophy. I really only got interested when I thought I had a novel idea about why the universe existed (it turned out to be equivalent to the MUH) and wanted to learn more about how to argue for the idea and what holes it might have.
I'm not knocking it, but continental philosophy is just not for me. I can't make sense of it. For me, it's like abstract poetry. Words that sound impressive but have no meaning. I'm not saying the meaning isn't there but it just doesn't fit the way my brain works. It's just impenetrable to me. I'm much more interested in analytic philosophy.
You're probably right on libertarian free will. That's why I continue to say "something like" when I talk about what the future would hold.
That also why I posted that "of the gaps" link.
===
On absurdism in general, and Camus in particular, I strongly recommend reading him. He's certainly more readable than Sartre, except in Sartre's more literary moments, and a million times more readable than a Heidegger, Husserl, etc.
Besides, Camus is a great humanist, not just a great philosopher.
On other continental philosophy ... even with its shortcomings, logical positivism was quite influential, and even its detritus still is.
You suspect there is free will, but it's not libertarian and it's not compatibilist.
What's left? Assuming you don't know, why even suspect there's an alternative? Libertarianism and compatibilism seem to me to be genuine opposites, like physical determinism (clockwork universe) and indeterminism (QM).
We seem to agree that libertarian free will is a non-starter. What exactly is wrong with compatibilist free will?
On Camus, I'll take your recommendation on board and give him a shot some day. Cheers!
"It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind."
Different levels of abstraction, sir, just like physics and economics are different levels of abstraction. Computer software makes decisions at one level of abstraction, but at another level, the decision was made when the programmer wrote the code.
Pretty much all the disagreement that I see on the skeptical blogs is due to the failure to make this distinction, since no one believes in the ghost in the machine.
Determinism does not mean that human thoughts cannot affect the future but rather than they are part of the physical world and they affect the future just like everything else does - through deterministic causation.
What does it mean for someone to choose to do something? It means that person evaluates their options, and pursues one because of the kind of person that they are. This is entirely compatible with determinism.
> Determinism does not mean that human thoughts cannot affect the future but rather tha[t] they are part of the physical world and they affect the future just like everything else does - through deterministic causation. <
Determinism is not limited to only materialism. Dualism and idealism can also be deterministic. (While they cannot be physically deterministic, they can be deterministic.)
“If determinism is true then all states of the universe — at any time — were predictable from the initial condition, hence the “contortion of reasoning” you refer to.”
In fairness to Massimo, it does mean predictable in principle. For what it's worth, I think he's right when he says our minds were fixed from the moment of the big bang. I just don't see a problem with that.
Although I do think it's perhaps not the best way to express the point. The way he says it, it seems like our minds cannot change. What he means is that all the thoughts we will ever think, including changes of mind, are fixed since the big bang.
Having said that, of course I don't actually agree with the point of the cartoon.
The key point here is Causality, Do you have any example of a phenomena that violates causality?
- As far as I know, There is no known phenomena that violates Cause - Effect.
- Determinism doesn't imply predictability.
- Free Will implies Control at some point, where? Where is the evidence? (Quantum randomness is not a valid example, as far as I know)
- What's the problem with a Marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise?. It may sound ridiculous that the mind changing process is of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill, BUT that's what the evidence strongly suggests!... Maybe you're underestimating what this process/change could produce when the system becomes extremely complex! Like in the brain!
Free Will is like the monster behind the wall, like the flying spaghetti monster or like a god in the sky; you cannot disprove it BUT there's no evidence supporting it (again, as far as I know).
What's the problem with a marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise? It may sound inconceivable that the mind changing process is of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill, BUT that's what the evidence strongly suggests! Maybe you are underestimating what this process/change could generate when the system becomes extremely complex, like in the brain!
- Free Will implies control at some point. Where? Where is the evidence? (quantum randomness is not a valid example, as far as I know) - Determinism does not imply predictability - Determinism doesn't make our lives less interesting, it doesn't matter! at the end we have the SENSATION of control/decision making, we are condemned to make decisions, determinism does not make our decision making less important.
Where is the Control? If you were born in Nazi Germany you would be a Nazi (if you were not exposed to something else), If you were born in the Quechua Tribe you would behave as a Quechua. Your decisions are determined by the environment. The environment is what defines a person (also DNA). There's no such thing as a member of a tribe thinking that their traditions are ridiculous (unless he was exposed to something else). We are victims of our Culture, we don't have any control over the environment, we just react to it! just like the rock falling downhill. If not, where is the evidence?
As someone (maybe Sam Harris) said "A puppet is "free" as long as he love his strings"..
I see several issues with this cartoon:
ReplyDelete1. If the universe is indeterministic, this does not prove their is a free will.
2. Even if the universe is deterministic, then it still meaningful to convince others. After all, by presenting an argument we can change someone's mind.
An even more legit thing to say would be I have pre-determined to try to convince you. You cannot convince me to not try to convince you.
DeleteMeh - So many people think "why are you trying to convince me ? isn't it all predetermined including my response" is a big gotcha when it actually is self refuting
ReplyDeleteI actually agree with "Red's" comment in the first panel. It's largely metaphysical. That's because it's linked to the idea of an immortal soul, originally. Of course, determinism, in Western philosophy, also has metaphysical roots, going back to Calvinism.
ReplyDeleteSee, Massimo, that's part of why I say "mu" to the whole issue!
@ Gadfly
Delete> See, Massimo, that's part of why I say "mu" to the whole issue! <
Isn't "mu" the Buddhist expression for "whatever"?
Isn't this confusing fatalism with determinism?
ReplyDeleteThe moral implications are the same irrespective of whether determinism holds true or indeterminism holds true. If determinism holds true, then every choice we make was ultimately predetermined and could not have been otherwise. If indeterminism holds true, then the only reason we could have chosen otherwise must have been due to some element of chance.
ReplyDeleteMordanicus,
ReplyDelete> Even if the universe is deterministic, then it still meaningful to convince others. After all, by presenting an argument we can change someone's mind. <
Not at all. If the universe is deterministic then my mind was fixed at the moment of the Big Bang. It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.
Deepak,
> So many people think "why are you trying to convince me ? isn't it all predetermined including my response" is a big gotcha when it actually is self refuting <
How, exactly? Care to elaborate?
Gadfly,
> See, Massimo, that's part of why I say "mu" to the whole issue! <
I’m inclined to say the same, but there is an issue there: IF the universe is deterministic, THEN how do we explain our apparent ability to make decisions and change our mind? No need to bring in the concept of free will — which as you say is fraught with indefensible metaphysics — but I’m still awaiting for your best shot at an extended treatment. I’m serious, I am really curious about it.
Jake,
> Isn't this confusing fatalism with determinism? <
I don’t think so. Fatalism is the idea that you can try to change things (i.e., you do have freedom of action), and yet the universe somehow adjusts to thwarts it (usually because the gods have other plans, or the Logos in the case of the Stoics). But a determinist has to maintain that it isn’t even possible for you to meaningfully try to change anything, because you have precisely the same autonomy as a rock.
@ Massimo
DeleteI will take your "no response" to my comment to mean that you could not muster any counterargument to it.
No, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
DeleteNo, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
Delete(Posted this in the wrong spot, first time.)
OK, Massimo, this is going to be a two-parter, because your blog's 4,096 character count doesn't agree with my version of Microsoft Word, and I've whacked and whacked. Here's Part 1:
DeleteMy best shot? Probably not perfect, but …
1. Traditional free will does have metaphysical overtones, so I reject it in part on those grounds.
2. Ditto for determinism.
The reason I say "mu" gets back to subselves, multiple drafts of consciousness, and even Hume's "fleeting impressions." In short, I take Dennett one step further, in the same direction as Daniel Wegner.
In other words, to use Dennett's language, if there is no "Cartesian meaner" in a "Cartesian theater," there's no "Cartesian free willer" either. There's no unitary conscious self with a free will at the center of the controls.
Now, whether subselves, or whatever "multiple draft" is in the driver's seat at one moment, be engaged in something that might be quasi-free will, is another question. I think something like that does happen. But, it's as ephemeral as that particular subself, "draft," or whatever.
So, in that sense, I'm not totally against all of the ideas that are lumped under the rubric "free will."
Reason No. 2 I oppose the idea of "free will" linked to a single unitary conscious self is related. I believe there's a fair amount of value to the Libet experiments and related.
We may still have a "veto" over such actions, but even then, that veto may vary from subself to subself as to what a particular subself would veto or not, etc. Beyond that, that veto itself may be at such a deep layer we wouldn't associate it with a quasi-formed subself, let alone a fully formed self.
In short, so far, part of what I am saying is that what's actually happening in the human mind is far too complex to reduce to "free will," too. It's another instance where the human brain's predilection for facile labeling of things draws us astray.
3. Without saying this is part of my answer for how the subselves that produce the appearance of a self act, there's also the question of how all this evolved. Is what appears to be free will, or at least our belief in it, an adaptation, or is it, shades of Dennett vs. Gould ... a spandrel?
And here's Part 2:
DeleteHere's the biggie. I say "Mu" to the dualism that's part and parcel of the "free will **VERSUS** determinism" issue. Just because conscious, unitary free will doesn't exist, there's no need to believe any sort of determinism, whether physical determinism, or psychological determinism, exists.
A good way to further explicate this is Susan Blackmore. I'm sure that, were she to write in detail on this issue, she would have at least a few broadly similar ideas, above all, rejecting the whole *dualism/duality* present in traditional framing of this as a "free will vs. determinism" issue.
I feel the same. That's at the core of my "mu." With your word "volition," or whatever, I think we have to see this whole issue of apparent intentionality in human actions in a non-dualistic way.
That said, per all of the above, I do see some degree of psychological determinism, on an action-by-action basis. That is, can something like, say, childhood sexual or physical abuse psychologically determine some of our actions?
I'd say yes, to a degree. Here, I'm rejecting not dualism, narrowly speaking, but something analogous, polarities.
In other words, Action X may be 23 percent psychologically determined and 77 percent volitional. Action B may be 42 percent psychologically determined and 58 percent volitional. Etc.
If you don't like the word "determined," let's borrow a word from genetics and talk about "tendencies." Just like we have a 90 degree heritable tendency to be tall, 50 percent to intelligence, etc., ditto on having Z degree of psychological tendency in Action X.
Hope this provides food for further thought.
I want to stress once again that the "mu" is about rejecting the duality of free will vs. determinism, and that, rejecting ideas of free will associated with a unitary conscious self doesn't mean that determinism is therefore the only answer left to choose.
@ Gadfly
Delete> No, "mu" is the Zen word for "unasking a question," to give it a good, explanatory translation. That's far more than "whatever." I first came across it in "Gödel, Escher, Bach." <
It seems to have (more or less) the same objective.
Well, kind of; I'd say less, rather than more, for the following reason. "Unasking" the question or idea issues a challenge to the person who stated the original question or idea to rethink, and even think outside the box. "Whatever," at least in modern American English, comes off as more a "blow-off" type answer.
DeleteAnd, specific to Zen, it "unasks" in the sense of trying to get a person thinking beyond dualism or polarity that may be part of his or her current mindset.
Gadfly, I didn't mean to start that sort of discussion here, I was under the impression that you had written out your thoughts / position somewhere. Nonetheless, thanks, I'll read and cogitate. I'm sure there will be many chances in the future to pick up that conversation.
Delete@ Gadfly
Delete> Well, kind of; I'd say less, rather than more. <
Okay.
Hi Massimo
Delete>It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.<
I think this is certainly wrong.
Minds can change on determinism, and they can even be changed by argument. Those arguments and their outcomes are predestined, that's all.
Since they don't know in advance if their efforts will succeed or fail, determinists strive like anyone else, and success when it happens is often attributable to the striving (which was just as inevitable as the outcome, so this is consistent with determinism).
@Massimisimo
Delete>Not at all. If the universe is deterministic then my mind was fixed at the moment of the Big Bang. It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind.
This is true from the perspective of the universe. However, individual people don't have to capacity to work out the entire causal chain since the big bang. Only if they could do this, they could determine whether their opponent would be persuaded by their arguments in advance. In reality, however, people have to work with the idea that their arguments are just another link in causal chain. Hence from a personal perspective exchanging arguments makes sense, even in a deterministic universe.
Massimo, I've actually worked that and more into a long blog post on the subject, readable at your leisure, here: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/12/mu-to-free-will-vs-determinism-part-2.html
DeleteThanks, saved it for later reading!
DeleteActually I think the "determinist" in the cartoon is unwittingly supporting a fatalist position. For a determinist, the answer should be simply to say "I'm also determined to argue with you to try to change your mind" and the end result of if the state of that person's mind is also determined, even though we don't have knowledge of what the will be a priori. Or at least that's how I've always interpreted the deterministic story.
ReplyDeleteHow, exactly? Care to elaborate?
ReplyDeleteBoth parties can only do as they will, right? - So the response to "my mind has been set by the big bang" would be "so has mine and whether your views change or not , as a response to my argument, is also set , as also is my response to that" (None of which implies I am a determinist - merely that the cartoon isn't good imo)
Imad,
ReplyDelete> Actually I think the "determinist" in the cartoon is unwittingly supporting a fatalist position. <
Not really, the determinist has no choice but to do what he is doing (and the same goes for the skeptic). Fatalism implies that you do have a choice on your course of action, even do in the end *the result* is predetermined.
Alastair,
> I will take your "no response" to my comment to mean that you could not muster any counterargument to it. <
Don’t flatter yourself, my friend, it’s just that I have an unfortunately limited patience for your recurring insistence on the same exact points, which I have addressed over and over. Sometimes you feel like Groundhog Day…
Deepak,
> Both parties can only do as they will, right? - So the response to "my mind has been set by the big bang" would be "so has mine and whether your views change or not , as a response to my argument, is also set , as also is my response to that” <
Of course, which makes the insistence of determinists that they can *change* other people’s minds a joke. Hence the cartoon.
@ Massimo
Delete> Don’t flatter yourself, my friend, it’s just that I have an unfortunately limited patience for your recurring insistence on the same exact points, which I have addressed over and over. <
You have repeatedly evaded this issue, And we both know why. You have no counterargument whatsoever to the argument that I have posted in this thread.
Also, your "biological naturalism" clearly implies dualism. Or, would you care to explain to everyone here how exactly you extricated your "will" from the web of physical causation?
which makes the insistence of determinists that they can *change* other people’s minds a joke
DeleteYou seem to be using the word "change" in a different way then - The weather changes, comets change their path etc etc is a perfectly valid use of the word change but probably you disagree.
Hi Deepak,
DeleteI think Massimo pretty much admitted this in a reply to me downthread.
"I think this might have been a matter of my sloppy writing. Of course change is compatible with determinism."
Massimo's position seems to be that only "willful" change is impossible in a deterministic world, which of course is true by definition if we take "willful" to imply libertarian free will.
But, to be honest, I find it hard to understand Massimo's point with this.
I'll try to explain what he's saying as I understand it, both to help clarify my own understanding and perhaps to elicit any correction that Massimo may care to make.
The determinist position (and determinism in general) seems to make the universe absurd to Massimo. He regards people in a deterministic universe as marionettes, so any task they might undertake is pointless and futile because the universe is going to do what it's going to do.
He regards the attempt to advocate determinism as a particularly ironic and amusing example of such a futile undertaking, but I imagine all effort is in much the same category.
Naturally, I don't agree with this view, and indeed I find it hard to make sense of it.
In my eyes, a lot of the controversy around free will stems from people failing to reconcile their armchair philosophical beliefs with their more deeply held, acted-upon beliefs. There are three positions: magical-dualist-soul free will, incompatibilism (determinism is true, therefore no free will) and compatibilism (determinism is true but human decision-making is still substantially different from a rock rolling down a slope). Although many people claim to believe in the first two positions intellectually, nobody does so in practice.
ReplyDeleteDualist free will would mean that the behavior of people is unconstrained by any rules of cause-and-effect, so it would mean that you would not be able to predict other peoples behavior. Like, at all. The shopkeeper who was nice the last 20 years could just as easily unprovokedly punch your face as sell you groceries. (If not, then it would merely be his soul that is following determinist rules, so we are back to square one.) Obviously nobody believes that because everybody is able to anticipate others' behavior. This demonstrates that everybody is really a determinist no matter what they claim.
Incompatibilism would mean that there is no difference between kleptomania and somebody stealing for profit, or between a car accident and a murder. The fact that even those proclaiming loudest that there is no free will still treat the mentally ill and the sane or those who make a mistake and those who act maliciously differently demonstrates that they are really compatibilists.
In practice, all sane humans are compatibilist determinists, only some of us use the word free will to describe the differences that count and some of us have taken a dislike to that term. May have mentioned that before, but in my mother language the word 'freiwillig', which would literally translate into free-willy, means nothing more than voluntary. In other words, German appears to be determinist-compatibilist by design.
Alex,
DeleteI think we are pretty much in agreement about this. Which is one reason I like the word volition, rather than free will. The only difference is that I am not a determinist, I am a naturalist. Whatever the laws of physics are that's what goes, but I have no stake into whether those laws are ultimately deterministic or not (and I don't think it makes any difference to the debate at hand anyway).
That is a good point: naturalist includes determinism and randomness.
DeleteAs for your reasons for avoiding the term free will, so far so good, but what if the incompatibilists suddenly decide that 'volition' also has to be considered religiously loaded because some theologians used that word for their purposes? Would you then search for a new one?
I just don't quite see the point of discarding the term free will - which I personally do not understand to have any supernatural connotations at all - just because some people have foolishly convinced themselves that doing so would be a blow to religion.
Hi Alex,
Delete>a lot of the controversy around free will stems from people failing to reconcile their armchair philosophical beliefs with their more deeply held, acted-upon beliefs.<
How should a true incompatibilist act on her beliefs?
>Incompatibilism would mean that there is no difference between kleptomania and somebody stealing for profit, or between a car accident and a murder.<
I don't think this is so. There is a difference between acting by intent and acting by accident. Acting by intent is more amenable to deterrence by punishment, for example.
I do think incompatibilism has consequences for how we think about crime and punishment. In particular, I think the desire for retribution is unjustifiable.
http://disagreeableme.blogspot.ie/2013/08/free-will-and-punishment.html
The problem is the word "free" - If you are a compatibilist then in what sense is your will "free" ? Are you "free" to undo any of your choices that are limited solely to your brains/beliefs? Are you free for e.g. to choose to believe in a God (Assuming you are an atheist or agnostic?) - I can't no matter how hard I try.
DeleteHi Deepak,
DeleteLike you I am an incompatibilist, but I think compatibilism is reasonably tenable. I think it's metaphysically the same as incompatibilism and simply uses different semantics. I prefer incompatibilism because I think compatibilism is just a way to sidestep the debate and cling to some of our old intuitions though they're not really justified.
That said, I think there is a good compatibilist answer to your questions.
> If you are a compatibilist then in what sense is your will "free" ?<
You are free in that you are not constrained by anything outside yourself. There is nothing outside of your mind which compels your mind to take one course of action or another. In other words, if your mind were otherwise constituted you could make a different decision.
This is in contrast to being compelled to do something under duress. Even had you almost any other mind, in the same circumstances you would have no choice but to take the same actions.
But you are free to believe or disbelieve in God. If you cannot believe in God it is only because your mind is such that this belief is impossible for you. This limitation comes from within yourself.
There is nothing that is forcing you to be an atheist other than you yourself. If your mind were magically replaced with that of a theist version of yourself, but everything else about your circumstances remained the same, you would be free to believe in God.
You are free in that you are not constrained by anything outside yourself
DeleteThat's a weird definition of free :) - I have not chosen how my brain developed or why my brain reacts in a particular way to some data - it is funny to use the word free to represent that. And it also contrasts with Im free to choose to lift my left and right hand and I could lift either at any given point of time and I can switch that choice anytime I want. it doesnt make sense to use free to represent both these cases. I'm not free however to like bitter tasting stuff (or become religious)
Hi Deepak,
DeleteIt's for the reasons you mention that I do not consider myself a compatibilist.
You are certainly not free to choose how your brain has developed - in any way.
But given the brain that you have, that brain is "free" insofar as its choices are unconstrained by contemporaneous external factors.
But yeah, in general I agree with your points, and those points are why I would not consider myself a compatibilist.
I do think there is a sense in which you are more free than either a prisoner or a rock, so I'm not sure I would call the compatibilist definition of freedom "weird". This is what Dan Dennett would describe as "free will worth wanting". I think the compatibilist position is pretty reasonable but also that it confuses the issue.
If you want to get a good insight into compatibilism I'd say Dan Dennett should be your first stop, in particular his books "Elbow Room" and "Freedom Evolves".
Ok thanks I do need to read Dennetts work. I dont think the compatibilists necessarily have it wrong - just that the words they choose to cling onto seems as a not good choice (I too feel that volition is a better choice but it has the same problem that it doesn't really address what determinist are saying)
DeleteIt’s dismaying to see Massimo conflating determinism with fatalism — in no way does determinism preclude the “ability to make decisions and change another’s mind” and what contortions of reasoning would it require to justify the assertion that our minds were “fixed at the moment of the Big Bang”? That is to conflate necessary with sufficient conditions (my brain made me do it must mean the Big Bang made me do it). Say rather: “The nature of universal complexity shatters this chimerical dream.”
ReplyDeleteComic continued
ReplyDeleteScientist: After all, even if the future is set, neither of us know what it is, right?
Philosopher: Right...
Scientist: So it may be that I do change you mind, right?
Philosopher: Unlikely! But even if my mind changes, that too is predestined, so why bother trying?
Scientist: Because I also have no choice. So this conversation might be the reason for your change of mind even though the outcome is inevitable.
Philosopher: ...
"Determinism" seems to be fading every day. If full randomness underlies or at least is present to some degree in all levels of nature, then there is no full determinism. Who calls themself a determinist of any sort anymore?
ReplyDeleteFull randomness from arbitrarily deterministic events
Nature Communications
icfo.eu/newsroom/news2.php?id_news=2133
nature.com/ncomms/2013/131030/ncomms3654/full/ncomms3654.html
Attlee,
ReplyDelete> It’s dismaying to see Massimo conflating determinism with fatalism <
I believe it is you who confuse the two, my friend.
> what contortions of reasoning would it require to justify the assertion that our minds were “fixed at the moment of the Big Bang”? <
If determinism is true then all states of the universe — at any time — were predictable from the initial condition, hence the “contortion of reasoning” you refer to.
Fatalism is best illustrated by the several ancient Greek tragedies, where our hero — say Oedipus — is told that he will do X (e.g., kill is father), and as a result he takes action to avoid putting themselves in any situation that will result in X (e.g., he decides to leave his country and wander in exile). But he will eventually end up doing X any way (e.g., he kills his father mistaking him for a beggar). Throughout the play, Oedipus retains his free will; it’s just that the universe (for the Stoics) or the gods (in Sophocles’ play) have decided that he will do X no matter how hard he tries not to, usually as a (completely out of proportion) punishment for something he did before (typically having somehow disrespected the gods by displaying hubris).
DM,
> Philosopher: ... <
Philosopher: But don’t you see that the whole exercise is entirely futile? You are not really “changing” my mind, according to your view we are simply marionettes with no will, for which the very concept of “mind” or “willful change” is oxymoronic.
> Minds can change on determinism, and they can even be changed by argument. Those arguments and their outcomes are predestined, that's all. <
Yes, it you use the term “changing one’s mind” in a very peculiar fashion you are entirely correct. But you still have to deal with my “marionette” objection above. At any rate, change is by definition relative to a given temporal frame, so why is it that your (very narrow) temporal frame is the one that counts? Expand the temporal frame to the entire history of the universe and there was no change of mind at all, because everything was pre-ordained. If not literally oxymoronic, shouldn’t that make the determinist at least a bit silly? Oh, wait, he can’t, because he’s been determined from the Big Bang to take his arguments seriously…
Hi Massimo,
DeleteI don't see any conflict between determinism and mind or change. Wilful change is of course oxymoronic unless we adopt a compatibilist interpretation of free will.
If the whole history of the universe is mapped out from the Big Bang, that history exists as a changeless structure, then yeah, from a perspective outside of time there is no change. In this view, time is seen as another spatial dimension.
But this does not mean the concept of change is entirely inapplicable, because change as a concept can be applied to space as well as time.
We can for example say that the texture of an object changes (e.g. a road becomes smoother to the south) as we move along its length, even though the object as a whole is not changing in time. Similarly, when I eat my breakfast I change from being hungry to being full, even if this event was predetermined.
So, your argument amounts to the position that it is futile for a determinist to eat breakfast. Is that really what you are saying? Because that seems absurd to me.
Determinists will wisely ignore your advice and continue to thrive.
Which, of course, was all predetermined.
DM,
Deleteof course change happens, and of course the determinist can eat his breakfast (not that he has a choice). The cartoon isn't an argument against determinism, as much as a way to point out how absurd it is to *argue* for determinism (or against it, from a determinist perspective). it's all going through motions, without no mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments. I do wonder why determinists don't get depressed. Oh wait, they can't, and if they do, they couldn't be otherwise anyway.
Since the discovery of quantum mechanics, how anybody with adequate knowledge of science can be a determinist, in the classical sense, not in my "psychological tendencies" sense, I simply don't understand.
DeleteI feel the same way about Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the idea itself, and the Enlightenment Deism that floated behind it.
A lot of people use "determinism" as a sloppy way to mean "not controlled by us". Most of them would agree that quantum effects would preclude actual determinism.
DeleteHi Massimo,
Delete>how absurd it is to *argue* for determinism (or against it, from a determinist perspective). it's all going through motions, without no mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments<
This is missing the point of determinism and setting up a straw man.
Of course there is mind change due to persuasion and evaluation of arguments. Where do you get the idea that it doesn't?
Determinism is all about cause and effect. The universe is not simply scripted like some great novel. If you have changed your mind it is only because I have made an argument and you have understood and appreciated the points made.
If changing your mind is something I want to achieve, then making the argument is no more absurd than eating breakfast or undertaking any other task to achieve a goal.
>I do wonder why determinists don't get depressed<
What's to be depressed about? Even if the future is set, we have no idea what it will turn out to be. Anything is (epistemically) possible.
DeleteHi Gadfly, Greg,
I think randomness from QM is an unfortunate and unnecessary complication to the debate.
Unless you want to make an argument that free will is the same as quantum randomness, then I think it's more constructive in debates about free will for the naturalist to treat the universe as clockwork in order to more clearly separate the different viewpoints.
The point is not whether the fundamental laws of physics are deterministic or not, but whether our decisions are in principle explicable in terms of mindless physical interactions. If this is the case, then we need to decide how we can rationalise personal responsibility, and distinguish between people who are evil and people who have a mental disorted. QM has no bearing on this.
Anyway, there are deterministic interpretations of QM, for example the Many Worlds Interpretation.
DM,
Deleteepistemic possibility is no possibility at all, just ignorance.
Massimo.
Delete>epistemic possibility is no possibility at all, just ignorance.<
That sounds more like empty rhetoric than an argument. It may be that this ignorance is all we need to stave off depression. The absence of all ignorance (omniscience) quite likely would be depressing after all.
DM, it isn't empty rhetoric, it's just proper use of the English language. Unless you have a radically different meaning of the word "possibility" in mind.
DeleteMassimo,
DeleteI suppose I was being a bit snotty. Sorry about that. I mean it doesn't address the substance of the argument. Even if epistemic possibility is only ignorance, it's enough to counter your point about depression in my view.
I was also disappointed that you didn't acknowledge or counter my point that arguments change minds even in a deterministic world.
DM,
Delete> I was also disappointed that you didn't acknowledge or counter my point that arguments change minds even in a deterministic world. <
I think this might have been a matter of my sloppy writing. Of course change is compatible with determinism. After all, the universe at one point didn't have stars and galaxies, and it now does. Surely that's change. But *willful* change, the only one that matters in discussions about free will, is impossible according to the determinist. To me that makes the determinist position a sorry one: he's a marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise. Even when he succeeds in having other people change their mind, that change isn't willful, it's of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill.
Hi Massimo,
DeleteIt seems you may be moderating your opinion a little? Originally, it seemed you viewed the determinist position as somewhat self-defeating. Now it seems you only find it depressing.
I don't find it depressing.
I don't really think marionettes is the best analogy. We're more like autonomous robots. There is no external force controlling us. Everything we do is the result of decisions emanating from within.
We are making real choices, it's just that it is predetermined which choices those are. That seems like a contradiction but I don't think it is.
DM!
Delete> Originally, it seemed you viewed the determinist position as somewhat self-defeating. Now it seems you only find it depressing. <
Actually, neither. I find it absurd, in the existentialist sense of the term.
> We're more like autonomous robots. There is no external force controlling us. Everything we do is the result of decisions emanating from within. <
You may misunderstand the deterministic position. Even if by "within" you mean, say, our genes, a lot of what we do is also the result of external circumstances. We are not "autonomous" in any meaningful sense of the term.
> We are making real choices, it's just that it is predetermined which choices those are. <
That seems pretty oxymoronic to me. If those choices are predetermined, then in what sense are they "mine"? I just go through the motions, like a marionette controlled by external and internal forces. Besides, aren't you one of those that also deny the self? Then there really isn't any "me" either, yes?
Hi Massimo,
Delete>DM!<
Uh oh, that exclamation point is worrying. Hope it's not exasperation!
>I find it absurd, in the existentialist sense of the term<
I had to Google that. So life has no meaning beyond the meaning we give it. I agree with that. So life is absurd. Sure, no problem.
>Even if by "within" you mean, say, our genes, <
I mean there are processes within our minds that lead to decisions, the way that software controls robots. I hold that we *are* our minds, in a strong sense, so I think in a real sense I am in control of myself.
>a lot of what we do is also the result of external circumstances. <
As is the case with autonomous robots. Autonomy does not mean free from external influence, it means having the ability to react appropriately to external influences without external direction.
>aren't you one of those that also deny the self? Then there really isn't any "me" either, yes?<
I'm not sure I deny the self. It probably depends what you mean by the word. I identify with my mind, whatever that is. That is my "self" as far as I'm concerned.
> If those choices are predetermined, then in what sense are they "mine"?<
For instance, on the CTM, the choices are arrived at by the (deterministic) algorithm that comprises my mind. In my view, I am that algorithm, so the choices are mine in that sense.
Sorry! The "!" Was an artifact of my iPad typing (in a hurry, before getting to a session of the Hume Society at the American Philosophical Association meetings...).
DeleteDM: The Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics is by no means an airtight, or even nearly airtight support for determinism within a quantum-mechanical framework.
DeleteFor example, to riff on the old Star Trek transporter model philosophical game, which "me" is actually "me" and which is the copy within each "forking event"? Then, add to that, the implied continual forkings to infinity.
Beyond that, of course, QM applies to the universe, not just to humans. And, I reject an Eastern-mysticism, Schrödinger's Cat version of interpreting QM anyway. The cat's all dead. Or else all alive. We just don't know THAT it's all dead, or all alive, until looking. We don't CAUSE anything.
I blogged long ago about this, extending his original idea to three tripwires, controlled by radioactive substances with convenient half-lives of X, 2X, and 4X, here: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-schroedinger-was-wrong-about-his.html
Hi Gadfly,
DeleteIf you mean by this that it's not certainly the correct interpretation, then I of course agree.
If you mean there are strong reasons to suspect it is incorrect, then I disagree.
>which "me" is actually "me" and which is the copy within each "forking event"? <
Mu!
Why do you think there is an "actual me" and a "copy"? Wouldn't both have equal claim to your identity? Maybe it's your concept of personal identity that is incorrect, and not the Many Worlds Interpretation?
On Schrodinger, I think you miss the point of the thought experiment a little. Quantum Mechanics is profoundly weird. At the microscopic scale, it really is not good enough to say that we are merely uncertain which event has taken place until an observation is made. The double slit experiment shows that small particles can really be in two contradictory states at the same time.
Schrodinger's cat is an effort to explain the problems with this interpretation by reductio ad absurdum. It's not a mystical interpretation, it's an argument that there's something missing from our understanding of QM.
You may be right. Maybe the cat really is alive or dead. But if that's the case you need to account for the difference between microscopic and macroscopic systems. If an atom or small cluster of atoms can be in two states simultaneously, then why not a cat? Does it have something to do with mass (gravity), thermal interactions, or perhaps just the practical difficulty in isolating it completely from the world outside the box?
Or maybe a cat really can be alive and dead at the same time. The point is the question is not as trivial as you make it out to be, as you should suspect since the interpretation you propose is actually pretty obvious. The fact that we're still talking about Schrodinger's cat should indicate to you that there's more to it.
I don't see how your extension to the thought experiment proves anything. If the cat can be alive and dead at the same time, then the cat can also be alive, dead or mutilated at the same time. The Schrodinger's cat can have any number of distinct states, mixed in different proportions. I fail to see what this shows beyond the original thought experiment.
Well, no, I don't think I miss the point of Schrödinger's Cat. I do truly think that, for him at least, its focus was located in Eastern mysticism.
DeleteUnfortunately, other physicists, let alone non-physicists, who touted it, wanted the cat to be half dead, half alive. For Bohr and his followers, it gave a boost to their view of QM.
As for me, I'm a quasi-realist. I use quasi because I'm not quite where Einstein is. But, on much of the statistical stuff of QM, it's all probabilities, whether at the macro or quantum level.
My thought experiment, per Massimo's use of the word "absurd," was primarily to show A: How absurd the original is, as well as B: How, per what I just said, it's nothing but statistics in the end.
Hi Gadfly,
DeleteMy impression was always that Schrodinger's cat was proposed to illustrate a problem with quantum physics interpretations. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I'd be interested to know where you got the idea that Schrodinger himself interpreted it along Eastern mystic lines.
>on much of the statistical stuff of QM, it's all probabilities, whether at the macro or quantum level.<
It's really not that simple. If it were all probabilities, then the electron goes through either one slit or the other. But it goes through both, as we can see from the interference pattern. At the micro level, two mutually contradictory states really can exist simultaneously. It's not just statistics. You might be right about the cat, but if so you need to account for the difference between the macro and micro scales.
Your thought experiment is absurd, but so is the original. That's the point of it!
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWell, I did overstate a bit on the "much of."
DeleteOn the background, I can't *prove* that Schrödinger's adult life-long interest in Hinduism, and specifically in Vedanta, formed part of the background to this thought experiment, but I am confident it's a very reasonable assumption; I think it's reasonable enough that I can't see why anybody would question it has at least some influence.
As for that actual thought experiment? Per the Wiki piece, I would certainly fall into some sort of "objective collapse" stance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
DM, per our discussion on my blog, and per this discussion, including, on the free will side, my saying that we're still in the Early Bronze Age on neuroscience, therefore, exactly what both "free will" — and "consciousness" — mean, without accepting determinism, is an issue, here I talk about free will as a "god of the gaps" issue. (The analogy is incomplete; as you know, I don't think **something like** free will is totally illusory.) http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-will-god-of-gaps-parallel.html
DeleteDM ... had to Google to look up philosophical absurdism? Arguably, the greatest philosopher of the 20th century would have turned 100 last year. From my second blog, here's my tribute to Albert Camus: http://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/11/happy-100th-to-albert-camus.html
DeleteHi Gadfly,
DeleteObjective collapse is certainly plausible. I still think Schrodinger was right to propose the cat thought experiment, as without this kind of thinking there would be no reason to suspect there was any kind of threshold of different behaviour between the quantum and macro worlds. We just don't feel it is sensible to think that cats behave the same way as atoms and electrons. That's what the thought experiment illustrates, so it's a good thought experiment, and I think Schrodinger deserves respect for proposing it, whether or not he was influenced by mysticism.
I agree it's early days on neurology, but if we are naturalists then we must assume there is some naturalistic, physical explanation for free will and all other empirical phenomena. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my intuition tells me that no matter what form it takes, any such explanation will be unsatisfying to the libertarian free-willers. Do you really think otherwise? If so, then our intuitions are just radically different.
I had to google philosophical absurdism because I'm pretty new to philosophy. I really only got interested when I thought I had a novel idea about why the universe existed (it turned out to be equivalent to the MUH) and wanted to learn more about how to argue for the idea and what holes it might have.
I'm not knocking it, but continental philosophy is just not for me. I can't make sense of it. For me, it's like abstract poetry. Words that sound impressive but have no meaning. I'm not saying the meaning isn't there but it just doesn't fit the way my brain works. It's just impenetrable to me. I'm much more interested in analytic philosophy.
You're probably right on libertarian free will. That's why I continue to say "something like" when I talk about what the future would hold.
DeleteThat also why I posted that "of the gaps" link.
===
On absurdism in general, and Camus in particular, I strongly recommend reading him. He's certainly more readable than Sartre, except in Sartre's more literary moments, and a million times more readable than a Heidegger, Husserl, etc.
Besides, Camus is a great humanist, not just a great philosopher.
On other continental philosophy ... even with its shortcomings, logical positivism was quite influential, and even its detritus still is.
Hi Gadfly,
DeleteYou suspect there is free will, but it's not libertarian and it's not compatibilist.
What's left? Assuming you don't know, why even suspect there's an alternative? Libertarianism and compatibilism seem to me to be genuine opposites, like physical determinism (clockwork universe) and indeterminism (QM).
We seem to agree that libertarian free will is a non-starter. What exactly is wrong with compatibilist free will?
On Camus, I'll take your recommendation on board and give him a shot some day. Cheers!
Massimo Pigliucci wrote:
ReplyDelete"It is incoherent to argue for determinism and to still say that one can change another’s mind."
Different levels of abstraction, sir, just like physics and economics are different levels of abstraction. Computer software makes decisions at one level of abstraction, but at another level, the decision was made when the programmer wrote the code.
Pretty much all the disagreement that I see on the skeptical blogs is due to the failure to make this distinction, since no one believes in the ghost in the machine.
Determinism does not mean that human thoughts cannot affect the future but rather than they are part of the physical world and they affect the future just like everything else does - through deterministic causation.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean for someone to choose to do something? It means that person evaluates their options, and pursues one because of the kind of person that they are. This is entirely compatible with determinism.
@ alexander stanislaw
Delete> Determinism does not mean that human thoughts cannot affect the future but rather tha[t] they are part of the physical world and they affect the future just like everything else does - through deterministic causation. <
Determinism is not limited to only materialism. Dualism and idealism can also be deterministic. (While they cannot be physically deterministic, they can be deterministic.)
“If determinism is true then all states of the universe — at any time — were predictable from the initial condition, hence the “contortion of reasoning” you refer to.”
ReplyDeleteDeterminism doesn’t imply predictability.
In fairness to Massimo, it does mean predictable in principle. For what it's worth, I think he's right when he says our minds were fixed from the moment of the big bang. I just don't see a problem with that.
DeleteAlthough I do think it's perhaps not the best way to express the point. The way he says it, it seems like our minds cannot change. What he means is that all the thoughts we will ever think, including changes of mind, are fixed since the big bang.
Having said that, of course I don't actually agree with the point of the cartoon.
Mr Massimo:
ReplyDeleteThe key point here is Causality, Do you have any example of a phenomena that violates causality?
- As far as I know, There is no known phenomena that violates Cause - Effect.
- Determinism doesn't imply predictability.
- Free Will implies Control at some point, where? Where is the evidence? (Quantum randomness is not a valid example, as far as I know)
- What's the problem with a Marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise?. It may sound ridiculous that the mind changing process is of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill, BUT that's what the evidence strongly suggests!... Maybe you're underestimating what this process/change could produce when the system becomes extremely complex! Like in the brain!
Free Will is like the monster behind the wall, like the flying spaghetti monster or like a god in the sky; you cannot disprove it BUT there's no evidence supporting it (again, as far as I know).
Mr Massimo:
ReplyDeleteWhat's the problem with a marionette who argues because he can't do otherwise? It may sound inconceivable that the mind changing process is of the same kind of the change instantiated by a rock falling downhill, BUT that's what the evidence strongly suggests! Maybe you are underestimating what this process/change could generate when the system becomes extremely complex, like in the brain!
- Free Will implies control at some point. Where? Where is the evidence? (quantum randomness is not a valid example, as far as I know)
- Determinism does not imply predictability
- Determinism doesn't make our lives less interesting, it doesn't matter! at the end we have the SENSATION of control/decision making, we are condemned to make decisions, determinism does not make our decision making less important.
Where is the Control? If you were born in Nazi Germany you would be a Nazi (if you were not exposed to something else), If you were born in the Quechua Tribe you would behave as a Quechua. Your decisions are determined by the environment. The environment is what defines a person (also DNA). There's no such thing as a member of a tribe thinking that their traditions are ridiculous (unless he was exposed to something else). We are victims of our Culture, we don't have any control over the environment, we just react to it! just like the rock falling downhill. If not, where is the evidence?
As someone (maybe Sam Harris) said "A puppet is "free" as long as he love his strings"..
I do not see how this would show free will
ReplyDelete