Free will and determinism

[o_mlly]

No-one has mentioned constraints.

? The thread is laced with comments on "constraints".

Being constrained to exclude the possibility of a free will choice is common in every discussion on the matter.

 

[o_mlly]

A direct link. One that patently obviously could not possibly have been predicted.

That's what it means for an event to be determined.

The disagreement is not based on tracing the multitude of indirect links as causal to the moral act but the denial that the direct causal link is the actor.

 

[o_mlly]

Needless to say, I'm not convinced by his arguments ...

Sapolsky was.

The Strongest Neuroscience Arguments in the Free Will Debate

Can we choose the experiences that shape us, or are those choices determined?

www.psychologytoday.com

Sapolsky actually expresses willingness to concede that it is conceivable that we have some degree of free will along the lines Mitchell theorizes.

 

[o_mlly]

From the paper:

'If one asks the reason why a certain event Ej occurred, is now possible to reply: “Because another event Ei/A happened before (i.e., i < j) and not its mutually exclusive alternative Ei/B”

The guy is making the same mistake as you seem to be making. ... Del Santo's view is that there is zero possibility of measuring the number of possibilities, therefore it's not predictable.

First, the dismissive use of referring to Del Santo as the "guy who makes the same mistake" must be called out. We ought not demean those who disagree with us. I inferred you were going to freely constrain yourself further from using high school debating tactics.

Secondly, you missed the point Del Santo makes in your quote. He is not on commenting on predictability but on alternatives. Indeterminism reflects the reality that the future has a range of probabilistic causalities.

On the contrary, indeterminism introduced the possibility of alternatives, thereby making causality meaningful. If one asks the reason why a certain event Ej occurred, is now possible to reply: “Because another event Ei/A happened before (i.e., i < j) and not its mutually exclusive alternative Ei/B”. Significant progress in weakening the bond between determinism and causality was made in the second half of the nineteenth century, thanks to the work of philosophers the likes of K.R. Popper [29], J. Earman [20], W. Salmon [38], P. Dowe [4], H. Reichenbach [39], I. J. Good [40] and P. Suppes [41]. Mostly inspired by quantum mechanics, the concept of probabilistic causality came about. This maintains that an event C directly influences another event E but is not sufficient for it.​

​

A common, and quite grim, example to explain probabilistic causality features the following chain of events (temporally ordered): A scientist, Eric, sits in a sealed room (i.e., without any exchange with the external environment). His colleague, Clara, brings a canister full of radioactive material in Eric’s room (ideally, making sure that there are no other exchanges with the environment). While time elapses, the radioactive material will be decaying –at a certain probabilistic rate depending on its chemical composition– releasing ionizing radiation. Sadly, at some point, Eric develops radiation poisoning. Now, since decay is governed by quantum mechanics and in that theory probabilities are considered irreducible, there was no deterministic process relating Clara’s actions to Eric’s condition. However, if you think that Clara can be held accountable for Eric’s sickness, then you believe in probabilistic causality.​

 

[o_mlly]

Locomotion is not an illusion. You might need to get from A to B to get some food for example. An illusion of that happening is completely useless. You'll go hungry. The illusion of free will, as previously explained, is not.

? There is no opposing argument in your post. The delusion that one does not have free will as noted in Fromm's work is an excuse to relieve one from the responsibilities of free will.

BTW, preceding the locomotion to move from A to B is the free choice decision to do so.

 

[TGGIL]

Free Will...making a choice that only affects yourself and others. If I make a free choice that affects others as well, such as deciding to throw a BBQ and I am the cook and the only food is my grilled burgers, I have made the free choice to serve my burgers to all who want to eat, but I do not force any to eat. The choice to eat my cooking is also a free choice by you. I have determined that I shall throw this BBQ for my friends and do the cooking and I choose freely to do this act. I am determined to do this event.

God created the Earth and everything on it and it is Good. Good creates Man, and we are good. God knows all things past and present and knows the Earth will become chaotic by Man because of free will given to man at his creation. The determination of Man is to live a life as himself, thus thinking he is his own God and the earth is his kingdom, forgetting that God created all of this for Man, including Man himself. God calls man his children and any Father wanting the best for his children will teach them with strict rules to obey so that no child of God will destroy themselves unwillingly. The key word of God is Unwillingly. What we do not understand we cannot make a rational decision, but we make a choice and the outcome, and we adapt to that outcome in our heart, our mind, and with others.

The choice is and always will be free to make, and God, our eternal guide, constantly teaches his children to Love one another. This command to love God with all your heart and soul is a gentle reminder of the power of our free will to choose love, to choose a path that leads to eternal salvation.
We can choose to eat the wrong foods, or not eat at all. When I am hungry and my stomach requests food, I can eat now, later, or not at all, but my stomach will constantly seek satisfaction from some substance.
God wants that substance to be love, and that is determination. Seek love as your free choice.
God wants our free choice to choose love, which is our eternal salvation.

Your choices are predetermined by your heart, and then you make a free choice or no choice. God is the Map of your life, the Landlord of your House, body, mind, food, and drink.
You choose to accept God or become your own God. You're making all choices that benefit you and determine your path. You have free choice, plain and simple. This choice is for God, with God, and the choice to die for God. You walk your steps, but let God be the Leader.

Why debate about free choice whether real or all vanity? God is the free choice, and this is not to be debated. Trust only in God, not yourself.
Eat pleasantly, Drink friendly, be kind, and enjoy the fruit of your labor.
TGGIL

 

[o_mlly]

The evolution of free will? And he's using it in the scientific sense. You want me to listen to a guy who spends a lot of time explaining how the process has come to be - a process which you deny even happened? Anyway, I made a few notes with a time mark:

4:00 - asks whether it is the mechanism of brain activity making the decisions - or is it us. Nothing but dualism. A ghost somewhere in the machine.

25:30 (and again at 28:00) - He says it's not possible to determine the state of a system with infinite precision. As the universe is infinite, it's not possible to obtain infinite information about it and no way to predict outcomes. That is completely irrelevant to free will.

32:10 - The configuration of living systems have been selected to make decisions. Well, there's no real choice about how we are then configured. But that evolution has given us the ability to make decisions. Nobody is denying that. Of course we can make decisions.

40:00 - Starts talking about second level decisions. Perceive-Think-Act-Learn. Again, no problem. This is simply the process we go through in making choices. What you perceive are antecedent conditions. Obviously. And what we learn is then an antecedent condition in memory ('That hurt last time, don't do it again').

48:00 - seems to imply that making a decision based on multiple options is then actually free will.

58:00 - You might as well skip to this section. He talks about meta cognition. Thinking about thinking. Making higher level choices. 'We model the activities of our own mind' (third level). 'We think about goals and desires'. No problem. But where do the goals and desires come from?

Nothing in there that wasn't in his book. Nothing there that in any way convinces you of his position. Unless his position is that we make choices, using processes that are evolved and over which we had no control, based on our characters which were likewise evolved (through nature and nurture), considering our desires and goals, which are antecedent conditions - and that we make the decisions ourselves.

A suggestion. Listen to his program again with an open mind.

 

[Bradskii]

Failing that, determinism has no beneficial meaning or applications.

Except that it impacts on our understanding of free will.

 

[Bradskii]

Can you expand?

I was born with a set of characteristics guided by my dna. And my culture, when I was born, my education, my diet, my experiences as a child etc etc all went to form the person typing this.

 

[DamianWarS]

Except that it impacts on our understanding of free will.

in practice what changes?

 

[Bradskii]

I do not hold a position of a Deistic God who watches as the world goes by and does nothing. He is the creator and we are created beings. But we also have free-wills. People often confused or blatantly misrepresent the theological view; Reformed View. Are you familiar with John Calvin, John Gresham Machen, Augustine, Luther, Sproul, and Michael Horton?​

Calvin, Augustine and Luthor, yes. But I'd rather skip the theological theories of free will. I can't honestly discuss an aspect of free will based on a set of beliefs that I don't hold.

 

[Bradskii]

A suggestion. Listen to his program again with an open mind.

I have. And I've read his book. I'm not likely to pay nearly $40 and read 350+ pages with a closed mind. I was very interested in what he had to say. He's one of the better free will proponents. And a neuroscientist. And his thoughts on the evolution of the neural system and the different parts of the brain are worth the price of admission on their own. Which took up about 60% of the book. But when he starts to tie that in with what he suggests is free will...then it starts to fall apart somewhat.

I've got so many highlighted chunks of the book where he contradicts his own position. I might quote a couple later.

 

[Bradskii]

in practice what changes?

In truth, not a lot. Because the illusion holds for everyone in any case. What I'd like to see change are aspects of the justice system.

 

[Bradskii]

The thread is laced with comments on "constraints".

I was talking of the specific example. Guitar strings and croissants. Obviously if someone held a gun to my wife's head and told me to go buy a couple of them, then that would be a constraint on my decision making process.

 

[Bradskii]

The disagreement is not based on tracing the multitude of indirect links as causal to the moral act but the denial that the direct causal link is the actor.

All events that are determinate are direct. There will be a direct link between what you do and that particular antecedent event. But it won't be the only one. It will be one of many.

Your 4x great grandparents were just two of 64 people that had to meet up and have kids so that you'd be sitting there. Each of them meeting is a direct link to you reading this. If they didn't, then you wouldn't be. And each of them had 64 ancestors and the same thing had to happen. Keep going back and you'll have...well, let's say a very large number indeed.

 

[Bradskii]

Sapolsky was.

Sapolsky actually expresses willingness to concede that it is conceivable that we have some degree of free will along the lines Mitchell theorizes.

...along the lines Mitchell theorises. I'll quote what he thinks shortly.

Edit: And here are some...

The criteria for how each neuron or each population responds to incoming information are set over multiple timeframes: over millennia by evolution; over a lifetime by individual experience; over years, months, days, or hours by the adoption of different goals; and over minutes, seconds, or even tens of milliseconds by processes of attention, arousal, and moment-to-moment decision making.

Exactly what I've said on a few occasions.

We cannot build an explanation of what an organism does from an ahistoric description of its neural mechanisms. It is the way it is because of all the interactions that its ancestors had and that it has had with things in its environment. Through feedback from natural selection and through individual learning, organisms come to embody in their own physical structures knowledge about regular causal relations in the world.

Likewise.

We are not absolutely free, nor would we want to be—this is not a coherent notion at all, in fact.

No need to comment on that.

The meaning of the various (often arbitrary) neural patterns arises through the grounded interaction of the organism with its environment over time.

See above.

In this way, abstract entities like thoughts and beliefs and desires can have causal influence in a physical system.

And those antecedent conditions come from..?

I have to say, I could have said I took those quotes from Sapolski's book and you'd be none the wiser. You'd argue against them.

 

[Bradskii]

First, the dismissive use of referring to Del Santo as the "guy who makes the same mistake"

Gee, sorry Mr. Del Santo. But we're kind of easy going down here about formality.

Secondly, you missed the point Del Santo makes in your quote. He is not on commenting on predictability but on alternatives. Indeterminism reflects the reality that the future has a range of probabilistic causalities.

​

Well, it would. Being indeterminate and all. Which is the assumption he makes first up. I'd agree with him if I thought the world was indeterminate as well. But as it's not, I can't.

In the example he gave, the half life of the radioactive material is determinate. If we know what the material is, then we won't know enough to predict when an individual particle will be given off, but we'll know its half life. So Clara might well be considered at fault.

 

[Bradskii]

There is no opposing argument in your post.

You suggested that locomotion could be some sort of illusion. That's nonsensical, so I opposed it as noted. And compared it to free will, which is an illusion.

The delusion that one does not have free will as noted in Fromm's work is an excuse to relieve one from the responsibilities of free will.

As I've said, responsibility still remains. Blame is still a concept we can use. Punishment is still a viable option. We still know right from wrong. I mean, I literally explained all this...

BTW, preceding the locomotion to move from A to B is the free choice decision to do so.

The bad news is that you keep making the same mistake that making a decision equates to free will. The good news is...I can't be bothered correcting you any more.

 

[Bradskii]

I have determined that I shall throw this BBQ for my friends and do the cooking and I choose freely to do this act. I am determined to do this event.

Some contradictions there. But I guess you were using the term in the normal everyday sense. It just looks odd in this context. Why did you decide to have the BBQ? What determined your decision?

God created the Earth and everything on it...

I'll be skipping the theological aspects of the matter. Maybe someone else will respond.

 

[ladodgers6]

Calvin, Augustine and Luthor, yes. But I'd rather skip the theological theories of free will. I can't honestly discuss an aspect of free will based on a set of beliefs that I don't hold.

But just because you don't believe it, doesn't mean it's not true, right? For example, how do you explain morality or reason? Or for that matter where did DNA come from?

There's an excellent book called, "The Hidden Face Of God" by Gerald L. Shroeder. He presents scientific data that is refutable. For me nobody can explain where our morality comes from and why it's there. Or why we have feelings of Love, Hate, Ambition, Depression, Joy, Sorrow, and so forth. We know when we do bad things and good things. Even sociopaths know when they committed a crime. Serial Killers hide they tracks and try to avoid capture.

I am not a smart guy by all means. But when I look around at the world, especially at the stars above, I am not imagine that all this is random or chaos that spinning out of control and somehow made me? That somehow made me love, think, pursue a family, get a job to support them. And that my Carbon is somehow alive that come from inanimate Carbon? Makes no sense to me. How could live carbon come from dead carbon? Then we die and go where? Back to being dead carbon? If so then why are people scared to die? Why have funerals if we are just carbon foot prints; meaning if we are just rocks, why should we care at all?​