Free will and determinism

But all those decisions were themselves free to make another way. For example, in my programing example, if you were up against a deadline, you might decide to use the simplest method even though you had a hunch that it somehow wasn't the best.

Overnight solutions always seem a bit magical - but that might get you thinking!

David

Why are they free? Just because I can choose between multiple options, or even change my mind three times, doesn't mean that any of that was free. It may have been determined, perhaps with some arbitrariness thrown in.

You seem to be suggesting that the only way the world can be deterministic is if no decisions are made at all.

~~ Paul

You seem to be suggesting that the only way the world can be deterministic is if no decisions are made at all.

Well if I visualise the brain as a bunch of molecules interacting as they do, it seems pretty arbitrary to label some interactions as 'decisions'!

David

As I said, I have no proof that there is nothing else in indeterminism. You're not going to get proof anyway, since this is not mathematics. And I don't think we could devise a logical proof, because the terms are much too slippery.

By proof I mean some formal argument.

If an event occurs for which there are no causes, then don't we agree that it must be arbitrary? If there is something guiding that event to make it non-arbitrary, isn't that thing a cause?

Ok but why does determinism follow from this?

That is what I think needs a formal argument. And for that I think you'd need to give some account for how a cause produces an effect. Here's this paper to give an idea of what I mean.

So then it comes down to whether there are indeterministic causes of events. Since no one can describe how that might work, why would I go along with the idea?

As noted above, without some account for how a cause produces (manifests, creates, or whatever word you want to use) an effect it's unclear what the problem is that needs a "how" explanation? After all there's no explanation for pure Chance, and it's unclear why seeming determinism isn't just a particular manifestation of Chance...unless God ensures the cause-effect relations hold...but then that's mental causation by a particular Mind...

Even our current physics says the seeming determinism is made up of indeterministic events. But if, as you've said, the seeming determinism is real enough (b/c computers)...and if we reject Chance as illogical...it seems that even the material world is made up of events that are neither deterministic nor random. So free will is just another type of event that fits such a description?

Maybe if we were talking about this stuff before quantum mechanics were discovered, or before anyone thought about the Hard Problem of Consciousness (tho even the ancient Greeks were aware of the issue) I could see the problem. But to me it seems like some philosophers decided reality was all determined, then faced with quantum mechanics decided to add in Pure Chance...then tried to figure out how to squeeze free will into that picture. That seems more like a problem of their own mental manufacture than a genuine issue though...

Well if I visualise the brain as a bunch of molecules interacting as they do, it seems pretty arbitrary to label some interactions as 'decisions'!

David

So an IF statement doesn't make a decision? If you think not, then I daresay you have defined "decision" to mean "free decision."

~~ Paul

By proof I mean some formal argument.


Ok but why does determinism follow from this?

That is what I think needs a formal argument. And for that I think you'd need to give some account for how a cause produces an effect. Here's this paper to give an idea of what I mean.


As noted above, without some account for how a cause produces (manifests, creates, or whatever word you want to use) an effect it's unclear what the problem is that needs a "how" explanation? After all there's no explanation for pure Chance, and it's unclear why seeming determinism isn't just a particular manifestation of Chance...unless God ensures the cause-effect relations hold...but then that's mental causation by a particular Mind...

Even our current physics says the seeming determinism is made up of indeterministic events. But if, as you've said, the seeming determinism is real enough (b/c computers)...and if we reject Chance as illogical...it seems that even the material world is made up of events that are neither deterministic nor random. So free will is just another type of event that fits such a description?

Maybe if we were talking about this stuff before quantum mechanics were discovered, or before anyone thought about the Hard Problem of Consciousness (tho even the ancient Greeks were aware of the issue) I could see the problem. But to me it seems like some philosophers decided reality was all determined, then faced with quantum mechanics decided to add in Pure Chance...then tried to figure out how to squeeze free will into that picture. That seems more like a problem of their own mental manufacture than a genuine issue though...

Ah, a philosophical proof. I don't think we can do that with the terms being as slippery as they are.

Determinism doesn't follow from anything I said in that post. I was just wondering if you agree that an event without any causes is arbitrary.

Again, you seem to think that I'm arguing for determinism. I'm not. I'm asking how a nonrandom indeterministic decision is made. I can give you an arbitrary amount of information about how a deterministic decision is made in a computer, from a high-level programming language down to the microcircuits that now include transistors as small as 50 nm wide. And there is work on transistors composed of only about a dozen atoms.

I cannot tell you how a random event happens. But it sure seems like they do. Various processes are random to the degree we can understand now, with no hint that there is an underlying deterministic cause. I can present you with the mathematics of QM that describes these random events.

What I cannot do is find anything similar or even less detailed for our hoped-for indeterministic nonrandom events.

~~ Paul

Ah, a philosophical proof. I don't think we can do that with the terms being as slippery as they are.

You can't explain why everything that isn't determined is act of pure chance?

Determinism doesn't follow from anything I said in that post. I was just wondering if you agree that an event without any causes is arbitrary.

If such a thing could exist, sure. But going back to Hume without a real explanation for causes all cause-effect relationships are themselves just arbitrary.

I can give you an arbitrary amount of information about how a deterministic decision is made in a computer, from a high-level programming language down to the microcircuits that now include transistors as small as 50 nm wide. And there is work on transistors composed of only about a dozen atoms.

It seems you are speaking about a description based in physics. But as per Bertrand Russell:

"All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent."

So not really an explanation that would be satisfying or equivalent to a description of free will.

What I cannot do is find anything similar or even less detailed for our hoped-for indeterministic nonrandom events.

Well your physics explanation would be the totally wrong kind of explanation. But if you are speaking of level of detail I posted this list of papers in the 65 page thread, just follow it top to bottom:

The Theory of Causal Significance

Real Dispositions in the Physical World

A Powerful Theory of Causation

Causation is Not Your Enemy

Free Will and Mental Powers

You can't explain why everything that isn't determined is act of pure chance?


If such a thing could exist, sure. But going back to Hume without a real explanation for causes all cause-effect relationships are themselves just arbitrary.


It seems you are speaking about a description based in physics. But as per Bertrand Russell:

"All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent."

So not really an explanation that would be satisfying or equivalent to a description of free will.


Well your physics explanation would be the totally wrong kind of explanation. But if you are speaking of level of detail I posted this list of papers in the 65 page thread, just follow it top to bottom:

Seems to me that an event that isn't determined is arbitrary by definition. You're the one making the claim that you can produce a non-arbitrary event without any determination. That suggests you think that there is a way to guide an event in an indeterministic manner. What I'm looking for, as you know, is even a back-of-the-envelope description of how that guiding happens.

The rest of your post attempts to convince me that the explanations we have of determinism and the math we have for randomness are not the sort of explanations we need for free will. Great, wonderful. So what sort of explanations do we need and do you have one?

~~ Paul

Seems to me that an event that isn't determined is arbitrary by definition.

If by arbitrary you mean Pure Chance, if this were true there wouldn't be any philosophers who believed in free will.

I guess this means the randomness/determined dichotomy is faith-based, and there is no actual argument you know for it?

The rest of your post attempts to convince me that the explanations we have of determinism and the math we have for randomness are not the sort of explanations we need for free will. Great, wonderful. So what sort of explanations do we need and do you have one?

That's what those papers are for. But if you don't want to go through them you can wait for Helen Steward's reply, maybe she has something more succinct.

I'm happy to allow spirits to make their own decisions. But how? Again, you can propose any source of free decisions and I'll go along with it. But my question is about how those spirits make free decisions.

Preferences, habits, emotions attractions or repulsions ~ all of these influence the decision that the perceiver / point-of-view / experiencer ultimately leans towards.

You want a "how" for something where we make decisions all the time without needing to ever be aware of the "how" or "why". It comes so naturally to us that it doesn't require any puzzlement over why this but not that. Else we'd be stuck in a loop of analysis paralysis.

Why do I want Vietnamese over, say, Thai? My mind veers towards Thai because... the ghost of Thai food plays on my tastebuds. Why? Welcome to the brick wall that stops progress on the "how" or "why". I don't know "why" or "how"! I just... do. And I don't feel the need to question it, because there's a silent intuitive understanding that I... know "why" and "how", but defies being able to be put into any form of words that may satisfy your... hunger for "hows" and "whys".

Sorry, but I don't experience myself making a free decision. If I did, then I'd know something about how that is accomplished. What I experience is a short or long series of thoughts, perhaps spread over many days, followed by a decision. I do not experience the way in which I eliminate one of the two semi-final choices and end up with the final choice. That lack of experience may feel free to you, but to me it's just a gap, a leap, a poof!

Just because you don't experience all of the steps, doesn't mean you don't make decisions.

Your subconscious does a lot of work for you, because your conscious mind cannot. You want to accomplish something, so your subconscious picks up on that and begins working on a solution in the background, unawares to you, seemingly.

Just because something is subconscious does not mean that you didn't ultimately make the decision or come up with the answer ~ it was your subconscious, which is you, that did it. Unless you don't perceive your subconscious as you.

Now, for simple decisions I may have two semi-final choices. Then I think "oh, but I don't have any shrimp." So then the dinner choice is clear. But that doesn't feel free, either. Instead, if anything, it feels deterministic.

You could go and buy some shrimp...? Or maybe that idea didn't immediately occur to you at the time? Why not? Who knows. For you, it just... didn't. Maybe you were subconsciously distracted by something else at the time. Something you can only ever look back at in retrospect.

So an IF statement doesn't make a decision? If you think not, then I daresay you have defined "decision" to mean "free decision."

~~ Paul

I am starting to wonder if this question is undecidable. Once you decide (without hard evidence) that the mind operates solely inside the brain and that the brain runs on purely materialistic lines, then you can't define what a decision is!

An IF statement is a high level statement chosen (decided by) by a programmer. It is translated into a set of bit encodings to suit the machine on which it runs, and it then operates in a completely automatic way - like clockwork.

From your point of view the programmer himself is not making any decisions, he is just letting his wetware run.

David