Does determinism really negate free will?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But we hold people responsible for their actions. We don't just incarcerate people as a deterrant or as a preventative measure. We punish people as an act of retribution. If determinism is valid then that's wrong. I struggle with that.

Yes; I struggle with it too - because it's a persistent behavioural trait that is, by and large, detrimental to and ineffective in the kind of humane and judicially rational society I would like to live in. As it is, the state generally punishes wrongdoing on our behalf, but we have an ill-defined pick & mix of value judgements about how deserving of punishment offenders are, from lacking responsibility to deliberate intent, qualified by all kinds of mitigating circumstances - crimes of passion, mental illness, childhood abuse, and so on.

There are examples of the kind of approach I'd like to see in the way some societies are beginning to deal with habitual drug abusers and addicts, moving from a punitive response to harm-minimisation and rehabilitation. A few have extended this more generally - Norway, for example, has a less punitive, more humane judicial approach than most.

 

[zippy2006]

Yes; I struggle with it too - because it's a persistent behavioural trait that is, by and large, detrimental to and ineffective in the kind of humane and judicially rational society I would like to live in. As it is, the state generally punishes wrongdoing on our behalf, but we have an ill-defined pick & mix of value judgements about how deserving of punishment offenders are, from lacking responsibility to deliberate intent, qualified by all kinds of mitigating circumstances - crimes of passion, mental illness, childhood abuse, and so on.

There are examples of the kind of approach I'd like to see in the way some societies are beginning to deal with habitual drug abusers and addicts, moving from a punitive response to harm-minimisation and rehabilitation. A few have extended this more generally - Norway, for example, has a less punitive, more humane judicial approach than most.

...This topic breeds so much confusion in our already-confused culture.

C.S. Lewis' "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" is a good place to start.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Well, it's not just the more philosophical side of it that seems to suggest or point at determinism, but there is also the more scientific side of it that seems to suggest or point at it as well, etc...?

And maybe @FrumiousBandersnatch might have a thing or two to say about that maybe, etc...?

I think I already said that whether or not there is true randomness at quantum scales, at macro-scales it's deterministic enough to support consistent laws of physics, reliable enough to allow complex living ecosystems, etc.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

...This topic breeds so much confusion in our already-confused culture.

C.S. Lewis' "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment" is a good place to start.

I wasn't proposing the kind of Humanitarian punishment he describes.

 

[Petros2015]

At first the clay is wet and malleable. After a while though, it will dry and set. In such a way is free will negated.

 

[SelfSim]

...This topic breeds so much confusion in our already-confused culture.

I'm not sure, but I get 'a whiff' from that comment there, that you bemoan 'culture' as somehow being some other way(?)
At the very least, I see people doing their best to struggle with the reality of demonstrably cultural, (or collectively human), behaviours.
Better to deal with that, than attempting to deal with some imaginary pretense.

 

[zippy2006]

I wasn't proposing the kind of Humanitarian punishment he describes.

You most certainly were:

There are examples of the kind of approach I'd like to see in the way some societies are beginning to deal with habitual drug abusers and addicts, moving from a punitive response to harm-minimisation and rehabilitation. A few have extended this more generally - Norway, for example, has a less punitive, more humane judicial approach than most.

 

[Chesterton]

On top of what @durangodawood said, you also threw shade on people who you think are impersonating robots. Under those same rules you're laying down there, as far as I can see, there's no reason not to throw some shade straight back onto your answer .. by ignoring it(?)

Sure, you too can ignore it. But to be accurate I don't think I've insulted any people, just ideas.

But you are dismayed by people who you think are impersonating robots .. which don't exist, eh?
(I mean, by the rules you, yourself, set?)

I'll admit to being "dismayed" by certain theistic determinisms, e.g., Calvinism, which I find repugnant because it impugns our Lord, but atheistic determinism is just comical really.

 

[Chesterton]

In as much as quantum fields are (as far as we know) fundamental, yes. But, as I said, there are different levels of emergence, so context is important. The flocking or shoaling behaviour of flocks of birds or shoals of fish is emergent from the interactions of individual birds and fish; quantum fields are not relevant in that context.

Then everything which exists emerged, which is saying that everything which exists exists. The word "emergence" as used is not saying anything. Emergence is not some magic concept which makes the impossible possible.

I already explained that - what part of my explanation did you not follow?

I follow the explanation, I was just hoping for something "harder", something more substantial and scientific than Frumious' subjective feelings, values and goals.

But what has that to do with what I devote my time to?

You led me to believe you were going to share something of your philosophy or worldview, instead you told me one of your hobbies. Do I need to remind you what Hume would say of your hobby? Given that you have nothing more than a bigger monkey's brain, he'd advise you to stick to thinking about food, sex and shelter.

 

[Chesterton]

I doubt they give out Nobel prizes for explaining how one gets meaning from particles. It's a question of information processing; I get meaning from particles when they are arranged in such a way that they give me information when they interact with my senses. IOW, when the patterns of data that enter my brain from my senses match existing patterns stored there, triggering the activation of associated patterns (of neural activity) in a cascade.

When that cascade of activity exceeds certain threshold, I become consciously aware of it. So the particular cascade of activity produced is the meaning that the incoming sensory information has for me, and the intensity of the activity determines whether I become consciously aware of it.

"Activity Is Meaning" Sounds like that could be a slogan out of the novel 1984.

You say this physical activity has meaning for "you", but "you" are also a "particular cascade of activity", are you not? Even a rock on the ground is activity, on the atomic level and on the cosmic level. So how does one cascade muster the ability, not to mention the presumptiveness, to make a value judgment about another cascade and think that it can be meaningful or true?

I think that's all I have to say about this. There is no scientific basis for this extreme reductionism, as I said earlier it's a belief, and as such I don't know how to argue against it any further than what I've said.

 

[SelfSim]

"Activity Is Meaning" Sounds like that could be a slogan out of the novel 1984.

You say this physical activity has meaning for "you", but "you" are also a "particular cascade of activity", are you not? Even a rock on the ground is activity, on the atomic level and on the cosmic level. So how does one cascade muster the ability, not to mention the presumptiveness, to make a value judgment about another cascade and think that it can be meaningful or true?

I've encountered this same argument before when discussing model dependent realism. The common problem is in taking the models too literally. Just like the logic that says 'if we find the model we call causation is useful in many contexts, it implies everything that happens must either be caused, or be a first cause'.
It's simply the wrong algebra of combining models, like the error of saying that if what we mean by 'the Moon' is a model, and what we mean by 'Neil Armstrong' is a model, then the model 'Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon' cannot be useful unless regarded as a model walking on another model.
Its an issue/fallacy of incredulity, committed by the listener taking 'model' too literally.

Where 'a cascade of activity' can be demonstrated as being an objectively testable, model, it is useful in science.

I think that's all I have to say about this. There is no scientific basis for this extreme reductionism, as I said earlier it's a belief, and as such I don't know how to argue against it any further than what I've said.

The only basis it needs to have scientific merit, is for it to be objectively testable.
I'm pretty sure its already been tested and all @FrumiousBandersnatch is doing there, is drawing that to your attention(?)
Over to @FrumiousBandersnatch for supporting it as being objectively testable, now ..

 

[partinobodycular]

I wasn't sure whether to place the following video in a new thread or just place it in this one. It's a video about superdeterminism by Sabine Hossenfelder. To me it has some relevance to free will because it reintroduces hidden variables, and until or unless one knows what those hidden variables are it would seem to be impossible to definitively say that reality is deterministic in the manner that we perceive it to be.

So I just thought that I would throw it in here and to see if anyone had any thoughts on the matter.

 

[SelfSim]

I wasn't sure whether to place the following video in a new thread or just place it in this one. It's a video about superdeterminism by Sabine Hossenfelder. To me it has some relevance to free will because it reintroduces hidden variables, and until or unless one knows what those hidden variables are it would seem to be impossible to definitively say that reality is deterministic in the manner that we perceive it to be.

So I just thought that I would throw it in here and to see if anyone had any thoughts on the matter.

Hmm .. the QM perspective. I'll be honest here .. I'm uneasy about the idea of dismissing unrecognised constraints imposed by the experimenter's mind .. and this applies to 'the particle' under consideration in that experiment as well. Dunno.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You most certainly were:

No; he was suggesting some kind of compulsory rehabilitation regime. The evidence suggests that rehabilitation is most successful when voluntary, and the vast majority of offenders will choose a progressive rehabilitation scheme involving positive reinforcement over non-rehabilitative options, however humane. IOW, they will typically take the opportunity to change their circumstances for the better once they understand the benefits. The point is that it is not a punishment but an opportunity.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Then everything which exists emerged, which is saying that everything which exists exists. The word "emergence" as used is not saying anything. Emergence is not some magic concept which makes the impossible possible.

Emergence, as used in the sciences, refers to higher-level structures and patterns of activity that result from the interaction of many individual elements and that are not properties or attributes of the elements themselves. For example, temperature and pressure are emergent properties of the molecules of a gas; the wetness of water is an emergent property of collections of water molecules, etc. It is descriptive and explanatory and doesn't mean the same as exist.

I follow the explanation, I was just hoping for something "harder", something more substantial and scientific than Frumious' subjective feelings, values and goals.

If you ask a question about high-level abstractions, you should expect an answer at the relevant level. If you ask a question about ocean waves you'll get an answer in terms of fluid dynamics, not fundamental particles, and if you ask a question about crowd behaviour you'll get an answer in terms of social interaction, not organic chemistry. Coarse-graining is a feature of emergence.

You led me to believe you were going to share something of your philosophy or worldview, instead you told me one of your hobbies.

Please don't confuse your expectations with what I've said or done - you claimed that I was, "devoted to what's perceived by the senses and nothing more" and I told you that was wrong, that I was, "devoted to learning more about the topics and questions that fascinate me". If you want to know my philosophy or worldview, you only need ask.

Do I need to remind you what Hume would say of your hobby? Given that you have nothing more than a bigger monkey's brain, he'd advise you to stick to thinking about food, sex and shelter.

Lol! I suspect Hume would have an unflattering opinion of your view..

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You say this physical activity has meaning for "you", but "you" are also a "particular cascade of activity", are you not? Even a rock on the ground is activity, on the atomic level and on the cosmic level. So how does one cascade muster the ability, not to mention the presumptiveness, to make a value judgment about another cascade and think that it can be meaningful or true?

As I said, it's a question of information processing. Meaning is the label we give to a form of associative information processing - and yes, the consciously aware 'you' itself consists of a particular kind of information processing, as are the value judgements you make, and whether you consider something to be true or not.

If you're asking how it can be that there is 'something it is like' to be all this information processing going on in brain and body, that's the 'hard problem' of consciousness, for which there is no current solution.

But some well-informed opinion compares it to the problem of life itself in the time of Vitalism (19th century). The study of the property of 'being alive' was expected to find some substance or spark, an explanatory elan vital. But, on investigating the physical and chemical properties and mechanisms of living things, it slowly became clear that there was no elan vital - the structures and functions of living things were emergent properties of complex organic chemistry.

IOW, it may be that, for systems with a certain structure and organisation, when processing information in particular ways, there will be 'something it is like' to be that system.

I think that's all I have to say about this. There is no scientific basis for this extreme reductionism, as I said earlier it's a belief, and as such I don't know how to argue against it any further than what I've said.

Perhaps some people have it as a belief - personally, I think it's a reasonable scientific hypothesis, given that all the empirical scientific evidence gathered in recent years increasingly points that way, and we have a good physical understanding of the stuff we're made of and what can influence it. If we find evidence that there must necessarily be some special or mysterious 'spark of consciousness' that cannot be accounted for by the physical forces, atoms, & molecules we're made of, then we'll have something even more interesting to investigate.

The argument from incredulity is a form of fallacy...

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Over to @FrumiousBandersnatch for supporting it as being objectively testable, now ..

If you mean what @Chesterton calls 'extreme reductionism', it's objectively testable in the sense that the physical basis of our human-scale world is fully understood, i.e. the particles and forces that we're made of, but we don't yet understand how they account for all the phenomena we observe - including consciousness. If we can demonstrate that all the recognised properties, features, and attributes of conscious experience are the products of identifiable physical activity of the body & brain, the idea of a specific extra 'spark of consciousness' will be redundant.

It's not an easy task, because, AFAICS, subjective experience and objective empiricism can only be reconciled in terms of correlations.

 

[zippy2006]

No; he was suggesting some kind of compulsory rehabilitation regime.

No, that is a very superficial reading of Lewis' argument. His article is about the way that abandoning retributive justice in favor of rehabilitation or deterrence leads to grave injustice.

The evidence suggests that rehabilitation is most successful when voluntary, and the vast majority of offenders will choose a progressive rehabilitation scheme involving positive reinforcement over non-rehabilitative options, however humane. IOW, they will typically take the opportunity to change their circumstances for the better once they understand the benefits. The point is that it is not a punishment but an opportunity.

The reason criminals "volunteer" for rehabilitation schemes has to do with the strong extrinsic incentives they are enticed by, which is itself a mild form of compulsion. Ironically, these incentives almost always involve a reduction of the retributive punishment.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No, that is a very superficial reading of Lewis' argument. His article is about the way that abandoning retributive justice in favor of rehabilitation or deterrence leads to grave injustice.

His concept of injustice is not applicable in the regime I favour. IOW, what is considered just is the offender having the opportunity to voluntarily change their circumstances for the better.

The reason criminals "volunteer" for rehabilitation schemes has to do with the strong extrinsic incentives they are enticed by, which is itself a mild form of compulsion. Ironically, these incentives almost always involve a reduction of the retributive punishment.

Where there is no retributive punishment, this cannot be the case. Getting someone to understand that they have the opportunity to integrate back into society and have a better life if they wish to do so, isn't compulsion.

 

[zippy2006]

His concept of injustice is not applicable in the regime I favour. IOW, what is considered just is the offender having the opportunity to voluntarily change their circumstances for the better.

The bettering of oneself is not justice. The bettering of another is also not justice, unless of course your unjust acts were the result of their worsened state, in which case it would be an instance of restorative justice.

Where there is no retributive punishment, this cannot be the case.

If there is no retributive punishment then you fall into the same basic category that Lewis warns us about. Instead of making them rehabilitate, you would apparently let the criminal off scot-free while offering them possibilities for rehabilitation.

Getting someone to understand that they have the opportunity to integrate back into society and have a better life if they wish to do so, isn't compulsion.

It also isn't justice, and it isn't a replacement for retributive justice, as you claimed it was here:

There are examples of the kind of approach I'd like to see in the way some societies are beginning to deal with habitual drug abusers and addicts, moving from a punitive response to harm-minimisation and rehabilitation. A few have extended this more generally - Norway, for example, has a less punitive, more humane judicial approach than most.

I'm sorry, but this is another word game. Therapy or rehabilitation is not a judicial category, and the restorative justice noted above is distinct from retributive justice.