Neuroscience and free will

Excellent.

So, since "had to" indicates necessity, and since you hold to be true the antecedent (that the laws of our world are descriptive), then you must, by simple modus ponens, hold the consequent to be true. With a little logical transformation / simplification of phrasing / retensing, the proposition that you must hold to be true then is:

The events described by laws do not happen necessarily.

Agreed?

I'll postpone a response to the rest until you've answered that question.

This is tricky. How do you mean "necessarily"?

I agree that the mere existence of a descriptive law does not somehow oblige the universe to have event X always happen according to the description. The law is not causal with respect to the event.

However, I'm not sure why we would insist that the event cannot always happen as described. So, I should not have answered your question so casually:

"Laird: If laws are descriptive (and not prescriptive) then it is not possible that the events described by those laws "had to" happen the way that they did."

I answered "Agreed" because I interpreted your statement this way:

Laird: If laws are descriptive (and not prescriptive) then it is not possible that the events described by those laws "had to" happen the way that they did, just because the law is possible to develop.

If a descriptive law cannot oblige the universe to act in a certain way, it also cannot proscribe the universe. It is possible that there is are operative physical processes that can only have event X occur the way it happens to be described by the law.

So, it boils down to this:

(1) The fact that laws are not prescriptive means that a particular law is not necessarily embedded in the way the universe works. It could sometimes work in ways not described by the law.

(2) The fact that laws are descriptive does not mean that they cannot turn out to describe a set of events that only occur as described by the the law.

Now, if you want to reject (2) and insist that there are, in fact, no events that must happen only in certain ways, then I'm not sure where to go. That seems to me to be begging the question of whether there is an immaterial (nonphysical) aspect to the universe, or at least implying randomness. But let's continue anyway, because I'd like to hear how this helps. If you are actually rejecting (2), I'm happy to go with that for the rest of the conversation. 

Edited to add: It's possible we are saying the same thing. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting "had to" in "those laws 'had to' happen the way that they did."

~~ Paul

Interesting - that argument seems to be similar to (or a variant of?) anti-physicalist arguments from intentionality. I mean, "meaning" is a sort of "aboutness" or in other words a sort of (or related to) "intentionality" - but these terms and arguments are new to me, so maybe what I've said isn't quite correct.

Yeah, Tallis once said he thought Intentionality was the key to human freedom, and wrote a good deal about this in On Time & Lamentation, going further than he did in "How can I Possibly be Free?".

Trying to crystallize a relevant summarization but I think Tallis is quite right about this, though I [also] think this can be folded into our current discussion of causation by considering how the Aristotilean Four Causes are connected to our minds pointing out and hooking onto aspects of the world so we might have "aboutness". 

For now, I made an Intentionality & Putnam Thread...digging more into Putnam now, he also seems to be of the mind that dissecting causation suggests aspects of mentality are somehow spread through reality...

Agreed.

I suspect you agreed too readily. A false dichotomy was introduced. Events which happen necessaily, do not do so because of “prescriptive laws”. That is, there aren’t prescriptive (necessary) laws and descriptive laws. There are laws which describe events which are necessary, events which are conditional, and events which are neither.

While it may be reasonable to call the description of necessary events a “prescriptive” law, under some circumstances, it doesn’t mean that the label “descriptive” doesn’t also apply. That is laws can be descriptive and prescriptive at the same time, as “prescriptive” would be a sub-category of “descriptive”, not its complement, in this case. 

Linda

I suspect you agreed too readily. A false dichotomy was introduced. Events which happen necessaily, do not do so because of “prescriptive laws”. That is, there aren’t prescriptive (necessary) laws and descriptive laws. There are laws which describe events which are necessary, events which are conditional, and events which are neither.

While it may be reasonable to call the description of necessary events a “prescriptive” law, under some circumstances, it doesn’t mean that the label “descriptive” doesn’t also apply. That is laws can be descriptive and prescriptive at the same time, as “prescriptive” would be a sub-category of “descriptive”, not its complement, in this case. 

Linda

I agree that there are probably the three sorts of events you list. I think the point of eschewing "prescriptive laws" is to be sure that we don't think the laws are somehow physical, at the basis of physics, and commanding events to occur in certain ways. They are simply descriptive of the events that we see happen.

What I'm trying to understand is whether Laird believes there are no necessary events.

~~ Paul

Why is the writer assuming that the causal sequences of matter do not create the semantic content of my thoughts?
~~ Paul

Where you a tap dancer when you were younger?  You never address my questions or the points of others.

Please, please if you have warranted belief that there is a physical causal sequence that creates semantic content and specifically that engages agents with affordances (see my prior citation to D. Dennett claiming that affordances are important) just state your reasoning or point to a paper or citation that lays it out?

You can pretend it's there - but.........................

Where you a tap dancer when you were younger?  You never address my questions or the points of others.

Please, please if you have warranted belief that there is a physical causal sequence that creates semantic content and specifically that engages agents with affordances (see my prior citation to D. Dennett claiming that affordances are important) just state your reasoning or point to a paper or citation that lays it out?

You can pretend it's there - but.........................

I think he states a beginning of such reasoning in this post?

Where you a tap dancer when you were younger?  You never address my questions or the points of others.

Please, please if you have warranted belief that there is a physical causal sequence that creates semantic content and specifically that engages agents with affordances (see my prior citation to D. Dennett claiming that affordances are important) just state your reasoning or point to a paper or citation that lays it out?

You can pretend it's there - but.........................

It makes no difference if I cannot lay out an impossibly complex causal sequence that creates semantic content. The question is: Why would you assume that there is no such sequence?

What to you mean by an affordance? Are you talking about an environmental affordance? Are you asking how semantic content could be useful?

~~ Paul

Why would you assume that there is no such sequence?

Because you can't get Something (in this case thoughts about the world) from Nothing (the starting point of matter having no mental character)?

Unless you're saying consciousness, even in proto form, is in the matter?

Because you can't get Something (in this case thoughts about the world) from Nothing (the starting point of matter having no mental character)?

Unless you're saying consciousness, even in proto form, is in the matter?

Again, I await a proof of this apparently just-so claim about consciousness.

But, sure, it's possible that there are some as-yet-undiscovered attributes of matter that are necessary for consciousness.

~~ Paul