Science and Determinism vs Free Choice

[gfullmer]

Stefan, you make the argument for Free Choice aren't you making the argument against Science as it uses Determinism as one of its assumptions?

 

It is interesting to me that a number psychological scientists (yes, they do exist) are attracted to the Free Choice/Determinism debate. One example is Carl Rogers and you can learn more about that in his book Becoming A Person.  If you don't believe, logically, in freedom of choice then you can't believe in morality, can you, because your actions are determined, no matter what one tries to do to change?

 

Is not the basic premise of Science, Determinism?

 

It also interesting to me that Stefan is very interested in conscience/unconsciousness science of the mind and not the behaviorist type of psychological science.  For one that is so into proving his philosophical precepts via very basic and limited premises or assumptions and then lets his assumptions when it comes to psychological science to be so less concrete.

[Pepin]

Welcome to the boards.

 

Have you watching Stefan's series on free will? If not, here is a link. I only say this because you aren't arguing against the definition he presents in his argument. Also, it may help to also do some reading on compatibilism since I get the impression that you haven't heard of that position, otherwise I feel you would have addressed it in your post.

 

I understand that you are coming at this from the incompatibilist side in that determinism and free will are logically incompatible, but if you are going to make an argument to convince a compatiblist, stating that we live in an deterministic universe doesn't do anything because there is no point of contention in that regard,

[Kevin Beal]

Determinism is a topic that is off limits according to the forum guidelines. The reason is because the debate never goes anywhere and almost always escalates.

 

Stef debating 3 determinists:

 

Forum Guidelines:

http://board.freedomainradio.com/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules

 

Stef's comments on closing the topic of determinism:

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/16582-i-am-closing-down-the-topic-of-determinism/?hl=%2Bclose+%2Bdeterminism

 

Related podcasts:

 

1282 – The Determinist Debate

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1282_Determinist_Debate.mp3

 

1233 – Free Will, Determinism And Self Knowledge - Part 1

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1233_Free_Will_Determinism_and_Self_Knowledge.mp3

 

1234 – Free Will, Determinism And Self Knowledge - Part 2

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1234_Free_Will_Determinism_and_Self_Knowledge_2.mp3

 

1235 – Free Will, Determinism And Self Knowledge - Part 3

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1235_Free_Will_Determinism_and_Self_Knowledge_3.mp3

 

1237 – Free Will, Determinism And Self Knowledge - Part 4

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1237_Free_Will_Determinism_and_Self_Knowledge_4.mp3

 

1288 – Determinism, History and Anxiety - Convo

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1288_Determinism_Anxiety_History_Convo.mp3

 

1742 – Determinism Part 666

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1742_determinism_part_666.mp3

 

1724 – Determinism - The Family Backstory

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1724_determinism_the_family_backstory.mp3

 

1273 – A Theory of Free Will Part 1 (audio to a video series)

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1273_Free_Will_Part_1.mp3

 

1274 – A Theory of Free Will Part 2

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1274_Free_Will_Part_2.mp3

 

1275 – A Theory of Free Will Part 3

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1275_Free_Will_Part_3.mp3

 

345 – Science And Free Will Part 1

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_345_Science_And_Free_Will_Part_1.mp3

 

346 – Science And Free Will Part 2

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_346_Science_And_Free_Will_Part_2.mp3

 

314 – Fudging Free Will

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_314_Fudging_Free_Will.mp3

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Stefan, you make the argument for Free Choice aren't you making the argument against Science as it uses Determinism as one of its assumptions?

 

It is interesting to me that a number psychological scientists (yes, they do exist) are attracted to the Free Choice/Determinism debate. One example is Carl Rogers and you can learn more about that in his book Becoming A Person.  If you don't believe, logically, in freedom of choice then you can't believe in morality, can you, because your actions are determined, no matter what one tries to do to change?

 

Is not the basic premise of Science, Determinism?

 

It also interesting to me that Stefan is very interested in conscience/unconsciousness science of the mind and not the behaviorist type of psychological science.  For one that is so into proving his philosophical precepts via very basic and limited premises or assumptions and then lets his assumptions when it comes to psychological science to be so less concrete.

It does not use determinism as an assumption when dealing with human consciousness or free will necessarily. If a scientist starts with the assumption that free-will is determined (and thus an illusion) then they are begging the question because they assume a conclusion that there is no free will in study of what free-will is and whether it's actually just determined or something different.

Determinism is not the basic premise of science. If it is then why do scientists have theories that are non-deterministic? You fail to define determinism and that's a common problem that drops up when people makes these kinds of claims. I'm going to guess by "determinism" you mean some common understanding of cause and effect.

The last paragraph irritates me because you start of with "It's also interesting to me...", and then you proceed to make no concrete point. I find that kind of "nudge, nudge, - wink, wink", isn't that interesting...? thing a little bit snarky.

You call premises used to prove philosophical precepts "basic" and "limited" so I'm willing to guess you are an RBE advocate? Am I right?

[gfullmer]

The debate on both sides could have been done better, but would agree that it has been pushed to its limits here and I will refrain posting more about this argument. Thanks Pepin and Kevin for pointing this out and the links.  Professional Tea bagger, sometimes when we don't have all the preconditions that elicited a particular response we have to settle for "non-deterministic" statistical facts, but wouldn't you agree that science's goal is to understand causal rules both for behavior of objects and living organisms?  And doesn't that require a premise of a sequence of causes and effects?

 

Having taken a week to watch and listen to a number of Free Will/Determinism videos/debates/pod-casts I have come away less than satisfied on two fronts. 

 

First those who believe in the Free Will/Compatabilisim, from which camp I would identify myself, however, not because of debate, seem to, in these debates, be clouded with secondary issues like morality.  A word with which a number of computer programmers use is KISS.  That is Keep It Simple Stupid.  Simple assumptions not  based on facts and statements are like middle age religious debates, and I wish Stefan would not engage in such tactics and confuse the issues. For example statements like if you believe in Determinism, you need to say that one can't change their minds. That is like saying in physics that when a body in motion can't change its direction when another body hits it.

 

Second, my first post on this thread isn't really trying to solve the Free Will/Determinism debate, but find it interesting that Stefan tries to point to the Scientific Method as a means of finding Truth, and yet the Scientific Method is based on a sequence of causal events of what came before and what will come after, whether the Science is biology or physics.  That is my definition of Determinism.  Just as you can't, as he argues, have Free Will and Determinism at the same time, you can't base all of your assumptions on the Scientific Method and still believe in Free Will.  How would one prove using the Scientific Method that one has or has not Free Will?  The Scientific Method is only a knowledge acquiring tool and not a end all method to all Truth.  Even Stefan pointed out that a non-scientific process like therapy can help one find Truth about one's self.

 

Thanks all for helping me understand more about this debate and clarifying my position(s).

[LifeIsBrief]

Just because people so rarely go hardcore, right out of the gate... How do you prove there is free will, using the scientific method?  You light yourself on fire to protest something.  There is absolutely no reason for a gene responsible for that to ever manifest itself, if you believe in causality.  Unless you're a determinist who believes that human beings are "special" animals.  Every other animal, always runs from fire.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

  And doesn't that require a premise of a sequence of causes and effects?

 

 find it interesting that Stefan tries to point to the Scientific Method as a means of finding Truth, and yet the Scientific Method is based on a sequence of causal events of what came before and what will come after, whether the Science is biology or physics.  That is my definition of Determinism.  

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2071/1/Causality_and_Determinism.pdf

[Mike Fleming]

Can we make the assumption that there was point in time in the universe when there was no life?  I think this is a fair assumption to make.   I think everyone can agree that at this point in time everything was deterministic, cause-and effect (maybe with some random quantum effects thrown in, I'm not a physicist so don't know exactly how that works).

 

So the creation of life itself was deterministic.  It was caused by previous events.   If life itself is purely physical, being a part of the universe, then it would be following the causal chain of events.  How does free will get into this equation?  Just because something is really complex, like our brains, doesn't mean there is some magic behind it.  There will likely be some point where we build robots and they will have quite complex interactions with the world and seem "alive" to us.  The things they say probably won't be able to be predicted from the outside (hell computers today aren't all that predictable), but their behaviour will be determined by their initial programming and the environment hey are in.  Humans are no different we are just constructed from different materials.  We are self-replicating machines.

 

I think people who advocate free will do so because they think the consequences of determinism are that no-one is responsible for their actions, but it's much more complex than that since we are a part of this environment.  It's not a closed system that we are observing from the outside.  You have to look at the science first and figure out the way forward from there, not look at potential consequences and then go backwards.  

 

A discussion of the consequences of determinism would be very valuable I think.  It's something that I have been thinking about for a long time but still not come to satisfactory conclusions.

Just because people so rarely go hardcore, right out of the gate... How do you prove there is free will, using the scientific method?  You light yourself on fire to protest something.  There is absolutely no reason for a gene responsible for that to ever manifest itself, if you believe in causality.  Unless you're a determinist who believes that human beings are "special" animals.  Every other animal, always runs from fire.

 

 

Why do people jump off buildings?  Why do people do any number of crazy things?   Either they were born with faulty brains or their experiences drove them this way.   Abuse changes people's brain patterns and gets them to do things not always in their best interest.  It's talked about all the time here at FDR.  

[gfullmer]

Mike, with the premise of a time when there was no life, logic does not necessarily require that everything was determined.  How about the premise when there was no time. Some say that the state "before" the Big Bang. Was there determinism then? Without time, can there be determinism? 

 

PTBagger, the last link that you posted points to a paper upon which I have to disagree.  It says that casual deterministic effects can be propagated in both directions.  That is if a causes b causes c then c can be thought to cause b, and b can be thought to cause a.  That doesn't make sense as some causal relationships that create a change of state preventing one from determining from whence they came and some different sets of preexisting causal factors can create the same state.  Given a final result in time, in most cases, one can't define a set of unique causes for that state. This is because of a property of time.  It only flows in one direction.  If time machines are possible they can only go in one direction - the future. 

 

http://updatednews.ca/2013/09/14/time-travel-is-possible-only-to-the-future/

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

 

 

Can we make the assumption that there was point in time in the universe when there was no life?  I think this is a fair assumption to make.   I think everyone can agree that at this point in time everything was deterministic, cause-and effect (maybe with some random quantum effects thrown in, I'm not a physicist so don't know exactly how that works).

 

So the creation of life itself was deterministic.  It was caused by previous events.   If life itself is purely physical, being a part of the universe, then it would be following the causal chain of events.  How does free will get into this equation?  Just because something is really complex, like our brains, doesn't mean there is some magic behind it.  There will likely be some point where we build robots and they will have quite complex interactions with the world and seem "alive" to us.  The things they say probably won't be able to be predicted from the outside (hell computers today aren't all that predictable), but their behaviour will be determined by their initial programming and the environment hey are in.  Humans are no different we are just constructed from different materials.  We are self-replicating machines.

Yes and life is also an illusion. There is no life. There are simply self-replicating machines. At no point in evolution did some magical property called "life" get beamed into self-replicating matter. We are simply a more complex version of rocks and should shed this superstition called life and accept the truth that we are non-living. You can't get life from non-life and you can't get free-will from cause and effect. 

 

It says that casual deterministic effects can be propagated in both directions.  

 

Where did it say that?

[Pepin]

Mike, it is most important to define free-will in your argument. To provide an example of what I mean, a basic deterministic claim is that there is only one outcome, only one time line, and that because of this: there is no free-will. What the claim necessarily implies though is that free-will would consist of multiple time lines.

 

As a rough analogy, if a timeline was synonymous with a movie, in a deterministic movie it would be the exact same every time. If there was free-will in the movie, the actors and any other entity that possessed some form of free-will would change, and therefore change their environment during each watching, therefore you would never watch the same movie twice. From the free-will point of view, most likely would not agree with this as a definition of free-will in any sense. A combatilist will agree that you will watch the same movie, but that this is irrelevant to the discussion of free-will.

 

This is the largest blunder in debating the topic, because the conclusions people come to are based on different definitions. Based of the definitions of one person's arguments, I'd agree that there is no free-will because it follows. If free-will doesn't exist due to a single time line, then there is no free will. If free will is as how Stefan defines it, then there is free-will. If free-will is as Ayn Rand defines it, then there is free-will.

[RestoringGuy]

Can we make the assumption that there was point in time in the universe when there was no life?  I think this is a fair assumption to make.   I think everyone can agree that at this point in time everything was deterministic, cause-and effect (maybe with some random quantum effects thrown in, I'm not a physicist so don't know exactly how that works).

 

So the creation of life itself was deterministic.  It was caused by previous events.

Causality is not determinism.   Uncertainty makes the position of an electron rather nonspecific, and intro quantum mechanics explains why very few things are deterministic (even hydrogen atoms cannot exist, since electrons will spiral into the nucleus).  The only oddity is why determinism exists in special cases.  These are all old arguments.   Life is just atoms doing the uncertain things that atoms do.  Determinists believe they are "right" because life has no special physics.  Behind the scenes, free will is right because not even atoms do things with certainty.  There is no reason that I see to deny the attribute "choice" even to a coin toss.  You may argue it is a stupid choice, unaided by any complex intellect.  But if there is sensitivity to initial conditions (chaos), and some of those conditions are sub-planck-constant (sufficient energy to make microscopic position and momentum a deciding factor), the coin toss defies prediction even in principle.  Add enough coin tosses and foundational rules to guarantee dependent probabilities, using selection to weed out rules with irrational implications, and I suppose you can make a free-willed brain out of coins just as you can with atoms.  We don't need the full religion of determinism to do science.  We only need causality.

[gfullmer]

 

Where did it say that

"First, consider that in all reasonable examples of deterministic theories we have in hand, the determinism is bidirectional: future states of the world entail past events completely, as well as vise-versa."

Causality is not determinism.  

That is my definition of determinism and the basis of science experiments.  If it wasn't then duplication and verification of science experiments, because they are not determined by causes, could not be achieved.  What is your definition of determinism?  One of the problems here is that we haven't defined our terms:

 

determinism -  the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. 

[bootoo]

Here's what i think, i think....

 

You are free to choose that which occurs to you to choose in response to a triggering event

 

Hopefully your previous life experience includes the best action to take in response to the event...if an appropriate response does not occur to you then you suffer the consequences

 

At this point you are free to change your future behavior to ensure better choices are made available for future situations, you just have to hope it occurs to you to look outside of yourself and not have to trial and error your way to success 

 

Or not, you can choose to not change anything, dont do anything different, dont learn anything different, and the same bad choices will always be made available to you in response to the triggering event and you can be the victim of all the influences in your life

 

You can have free will - eventually - but it takes a lot of work and has many constraints that vary with the individual, and the constraints get tighter the more novel the event or the less information you have about the event

[aeonicentity]

science doesn't accept determinism as a premise. Science accepts causality. determinism is the idea that some constraining external force predetermined all chocies that could be made, and that all choices are merely logical reactions to external stimulus.

 

The problem with determinism is that no determinists have acually sucessfully predicted human behavior, which is a serious nail in the coffin of determinism. If all human choice is determined, there must be some logical reason why certain decisions are reached. Determinism has no good way of explaining irrational actors, or why an infinitely powerful force, capable of controlling the universe would allow evil unless that being was evil.

 

However, causality != determinism. The sun has nuclear reactions which emit radiation which gives me skin cancer. But determinism takes an extra step that falls prey to the slippery slope falacy. A determinist argument goes something like this: the sun is a nuclear reactor, which emits radiation, which gives me skin cancer, which causes me to become a bitter old man dieing a slow painful death hiding in the rockies, living in a tent.

 

A cause B which causes C, and while C might preceed D, C and D are not neccessarally logically linked. Additionally, D doesn't neccessarally follow C, since I might get skin cancer and become a charity magnate, beat skin cancer, and live a full and happy life.

 

Science doesn't prove that last step. Science merely can prove the first 3 are causally linked. the jump from C to D is assumptive, and therefore, fallacious.

[gfullmer]

science doesn't accept determinism as a premise. ....

However, causality != determinism.

That depends on how you define determinism.  With my definition (above and from Webster's) determinism depends on causality and the fact that everything is caused by antecedent states, then the scientific method (experimental), to prove/disprove theories, depends on causality as well. It is not only antecedent states, but the logic of how those states determine the existing states.  That is not random.  As Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe".  Science makes the assumption that there are universal laws (cause and effect).  If one did an experiment on Monday and it was different on Tuesday and all other conditions were the same, then scientific inquiry would be futile.  Again remember, I am not a determinist, but to accept scientific inquiry as the only way to find truth, is also futile.

[aeonicentity]

That depends on how you define determinism.  With my definition (above and from Webster's) determinism depends on causality and the fact that everything is caused by antecedent states, then the scientific method (experimental), to prove/disprove theories, depends on causality as well. It is not only antecedent states, but the logic of how those states determine the existing states.  That is not random.  As Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe".  Science makes the assumption that there are universal laws (cause and effect).  If one did an experiment on Monday and it was different on Tuesday and all other conditions were the same, then scientific inquiry would be futile.  Again remember, I am not a determinist, but to accept scientific inquiry as the only way to find truth, is also futile.

 Einstein made that quote about quantum theory because he didn't think it worked. He was wrong. Apparently God very much does play dice with the universe, and he seems to enjoy it.

 

However, just because the relationship between events is causal, doesn't make them determined. Just because A causes B which causes C which presents a choice between D, E and F, doesn't make the universe determined. Why? because there is still obviously a choice, even if those choices are limited by causation. And fundamentally, choices are limitless. If I pull a gun on somone, they don't HAVE to give me their money. They could run, they could pull their gun on me, they could attack me, they could jump and flap like a chicken. There is no gurantee of effect. Even though the effect is LIKELY to be something, doesn't make it always so.

 

The reality is that you could conduct the exact same test of psychology (a scientific discipline) on the exact same group of people and come up with radically different responses on Monday than on Tuesday.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

"First, consider that in all reasonable examples of deterministic theories we have in hand, the determinism is bidirectional: future states of the world entail past events completely, as well as vise-versa."

No sorry, that's not quite the same as claiming that that the paper says that causal deterministic effects can be propagated in both directions. 

[Mike Fleming]

determinism is the idea that some constraining external force predetermined all chocies that could be made, and that all choices are merely logical reactions to external stimulus. 

 

 

Everything that is you came from the external environment and "built you".  Therefore, every aspect of you has been determined by external factors.    From everything that makes up your physical body to all the information stored in your mind.  It's all from the external environment.  

 

The problem with determinism is that no determinists have acually sucessfully predicted human behavior, which is a serious nail in the coffin of determinism. If all human choice is determined, there must be some logical reason why certain decisions are reached. Determinism has no good way of explaining irrational actors, or why an infinitely powerful force, capable of controlling the universe would allow evil unless that being was evil. 

 

 

This sounds like the "prove that God doesn't exist argument" to me.  Especially when you talk about an infinitely powerful force controlling the universe.  We don't have enough information to predict human behaviour down to a fine-grained level.  The same with the environment in general.  We have approximations, physics equations that are very accurate on objects as whole, but there is never a case where we have a complete set of information.  The weather is a good example of this.  It can be predicted only to a degree and once you get more than a few days out it becomes impossible.

 

When Stef talks about abuse creating violent and abusive people, that is determinism.  We can do that because it's at a higher level.  Trying to predict what someone will decide to have for lunch 2 days from now, in comparison, is obviously virtually impossible.  Not enough information.

 

Or a better way of saying this is that we know that abuse leads to these kinds of things, but we don't know on exactly which day/s in particular that the person is going to be abusive.  Just that they will unless they are treated.

 

However, causality != determinism. The sun has nuclear reactions which emit radiation which gives me skin cancer. But determinism takes an extra step that falls prey to the slippery slope falacy. A determinist argument goes something like this: the sun is a nuclear reactor, which emits radiation, which gives me skin cancer, which causes me to become a bitter old man dieing a slow painful death hiding in the rockies, living in a tent.

 

That's just silly. 

Mike, it is most important to define free-will in your argument. To provide an example of what I mean, a basic deterministic claim is that there is only one outcome, only one time line, and that because of this: there is no free-will. What the claim necessarily implies though is that free-will would consist of multiple time lines.

 

As a rough analogy, if a timeline was synonymous with a movie, in a deterministic movie it would be the exact same every time. If there was free-will in the movie, the actors and any other entity that possessed some form of free-will would change, and therefore change their environment during each watching, therefore you would never watch the same movie twice. From the free-will point of view, most likely would not agree with this as a definition of free-will in any sense. A combatilist will agree that you will watch the same movie, but that this is irrelevant to the discussion of free-will.

 

This is the largest blunder in debating the topic, because the conclusions people come to are based on different definitions. Based of the definitions of one person's arguments, I'd agree that there is no free-will because it follows. If free-will doesn't exist due to a single time line, then there is no free will. If free will is as how Stefan defines it, then there is free-will. If free-will is as Ayn Rand defines it, then there is free-will.

 

I define it the way it is generally defined.  I don't like going with different interpretations because that's where I think Stef trips up on this subject.  You can't have your own definitions because then everyone goes round in circles.    We think we have choices but in reality they are illusions.  The choices we make we're those we were always going to make.

 

 I've seen the videos and the debates and I think that he has a problem with determinism because he sees it as taking away people's responsibility and moral agency.  What happens is what was always going to happen.  While I think it's true that our choices are pre-determined, I don't believe that takes away responsibility and moral agency.  I think it's more complex than that.

 

We obviously can't just say what happens happens, because then anybody would be able to get away with any crime by just saying "it wasn't my fault".   I think that's one of the reasons why it is still being debated because no-one quite knows what to do with it at this point.  Including me.  But I'm not going to deny determinism just because it's inconvenient to me.    It just needs to be thought out.  Being a determinist, if nothing else, gives you a much better and clearer understanding of the world.

[aeonicentity]

That's just silly.

 

You sir, have just summed up determinism in a nutshell.

 

Just because your physical self is created by an environment doesn't mean the environment controls your actions. These two ideas DO NOT FOLLOW.

 

As for your second rebuttal, We can't even predict human behavior on a large scale level either. Just go ask an economist. Fundamentally determinism is a belief in a 'great big spirit in the sky' that apparently controls our strings for some reason. You can call it the Force if your an atheist, but the reality is that all determinists fundamentally have to believe there is some system, greater than themselves which controls their very existance.

 

When stef talks about abuse creating abusers what he points to is a broad statistical analysis. Steph is NOT a determinist. Abuse does NOT make you into an abuser. Abusing people makes you an abuser. This is an active consious choice that all abusers make, regardless of background. What he points out is that the strong statistical correlation between the two indicates that abusing people causes them to often choose to be abusers as well, for well documented reasons. This is NOT even REMOTELY cose to determinism. The argument he makes is that if A is a cause of B in some people, and B is immoral because it is not universally preferable, A must be immoral because A is not universally preferable behavior.

 

Determinism is an immoral philosophy where people try and justify their evil/innaction/ignorance (or that of others) by saying 'Devil made me do it' or 'Jesus made me do it' or 'nature made me do it' or 'atheismo made me do it', therefore its not my fault! Or, to paraphrase the movie Rodger Rabbit "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way!". Its a way of removing the responsibility you have to own your actions by giving them to the most convenient lie. You should really consider why you want to believe that everything you do is predetermined. What are you trying to seek absolution for? Failure? Abuse? Victimhood?

[Kevin Beal]

Just a reminder. This topic is considered off limits according to the forum guidelines for a reason.

 

I'm sorry to be that guy, but I can virtually guarantee this will escalate. I'm not immune to it either, so I'm not speaking from any high place nor do I have any authority as I am not a mod of any kind.

 

But if you look at past threads on determinism, perhaps you will see what I mean.

[aeonicentity]

I agree with Kevin. I won't respond further to this thread.

[gfullmer]

 

"First, consider that in all reasonable examples of deterministic theories we have in hand, the determinism is bidirectional: future states of the world entail past events completely, as well as vise-versa."

No sorry, that's not quite the same as claiming that that the paper says that causal deterministic effects can be propagated in both directions. 

 

And the difference is?  As I read it the paper is basically saying that all deterministic theories that he knows about are bidirectional.  

Just a reminder. This topic is considered off limits according to the forum guidelines for a reason.

I agree.  However, the thread that might mitigate the controversy is to limit debate to my original statement that the scientific method requires causal determinism as a presupposition.  A proposition for which I have not received a satisfactory response.

[Kevin Beal]

I agree.  However, the thread that might mitigate the controversy is to limit debate to my original statement that the scientific method requires causal determinism as a presupposition.  A proposition for which I have not received a satisfactory response.

I can't imagine how we could have physics without some degree of determinism. Engineering wouldn't work if this were not true.

 

As you have defined determinism, yes, there is absolutely determinism in the natural world.

 

Stef says this repeatedly throughout his series on free will.

 

Is that a satisfactory response?

[PatrickC]

Yes, lets not have yet another long thread about this topic, without some new insight. There are so many great ideas and thoughts this community is capable of, that I would prefer to read about.

[RestoringGuy]

I can't imagine how we could have physics without some degree of determinism. Engineering wouldn't work if this were not true.

 

As you have defined determinism, yes, there is absolutely determinism in the natural world.

 

Determinism, as a philosophy, seems to presuppose all things are bound by it.  Determinism, as a quantum mechanical principle, presupposes only that certain specific states, which are rare in the universe, can be predicted absolutely.  Most things, atoms, brains, and so forth, are subject to scientific analysis by way of necessary statistics.  By necessary, I do not mean we are too dumb or our instruments too insensitive.  I mean the very nature of reality is an approximate endeavor.  If we say there is only "some" determinism, as stated by scientific definitions, there is philosophically no determinism at all.  There is only causality of a stochastic nature, the kind of causality philosophers do not want to discuss.  To have causality, you only need objective influence on experiments, as judged by repetition.  If some determinists want to redefine the word determinism, making it non-absolute (covering the Stern-Gerlach apparatus for example), then they are not speaking of the kind of determinism that is off-limits.  They are just coining a new word with an old spelling.  I am OK with that, but everybody should try to be explicit about their word substitutions.

[gfullmer]

I can't imagine how we could have physics without some degree of determinism. Engineering wouldn't work if this were not true.

 

As you have defined determinism, yes, there is absolutely determinism in the natural world.

 

Stef says this repeatedly throughout his series on free will.

 

Is that a satisfactory response?

So there are degrees of determinism?  So that it applies in one case and not in another?  So with my definition determinism works in the natural world?  Which worlds doesn't it apply?  I thought Stef's take is that there is only one natural world and none others?  ;-)  

 

Would one use use degrees of determinism in a scientific inquiry?  We live in a binary (black and white) world if one is to look at a scientific inquiry at a specific level, and that level is not necessarily the quantum level.

 

Not satisfactory, yet!  

 

...Most things, atoms, brains, and so forth, are subject to scientific analysis by way of necessary statistics.  By necessary, I do not mean we are too dumb or our instruments too insensitive. 

This is like proving a negative.  How do you know that there is not another unknown causal factor in for instance in the Stern-Gerlach experiment?  I would suggest another non-provable hypothesis that statistics is only necessary where we don't have all the participating causal factors in an observation.  Maybe one of those factors is observation itself as evidenced in the Quantum-Zeno Effect.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect

[Kevin Beal]

So there are degrees of determinism?  So that it applies in one case and not in another?  So with my definition determinism works in the natural world?  Which worlds doesn't it apply?  I thought Stef's take is that there is only one natural world and none others?  ;-)  

 

Would one use use degrees of determinism in a scientific inquiry?  We live in a binary (black and white) world if one is to look at a scientific inquiry at a specific level, and that level is not necessarily the quantum level.

 

Not satisfactory, yet!

This is exactly the kind of debate I'm trying to avoid. Listen to the podcasts for a detailed account of the free will position.

[RestoringGuy]

This is like proving a negative.  How do you know that there is not another unknown causal factor in for instance in the Stern-Gerlach experiment?  I would suggest another non-provable hypothesis that statistics is only necessary where we don't have all the participating causal factors in an observation.  Maybe one of those factors is observation itself as evidenced in the Quantum-Zeno Effect.

 

Yes it is possible, so is Cartesian denial of reality.  Such attempts have failed so far.  The point here is that determinism (by the standard assortment of definitions) is a stronger claim, which requires stronger proof.  Causality, or Determinism-as-you-may-call-it, offers plenty of room for error.  If you allow for even one particle to have uncertain position, the gravitational field is now also uncertain.  So everything, including what I want to have for lunch, is slightly impacted by it.  You have to swallow it all or nothing.  I subscribe to the theory of objective reduction (something like Orch-OR), which allows that things such as Quantum-Zeno Effect to sort of happen naturally, depending on the gravitational field.  This is, of course, almost as controversial as determinism.  But it solves the problem of brains being qualitatively special actors in the land of wavefunctions.

[cynicist]

Can we make the assumption that there was point in time in the universe when there was no life?  I think this is a fair assumption to make.   I think everyone can agree that at this point in time everything was deterministic, cause-and effect (maybe with some random quantum effects thrown in, I'm not a physicist so don't know exactly how that works).

 

So the creation of life itself was deterministic.  It was caused by previous events.   If life itself is purely physical, being a part of the universe, then it would be following the causal chain of events.  How does free will get into this equation?  Just because something is really complex, like our brains, doesn't mean there is some magic behind it.  There will likely be some point where we build robots and they will have quite complex interactions with the world and seem "alive" to us.  The things they say probably won't be able to be predicted from the outside (hell computers today aren't all that predictable), but their behaviour will be determined by their initial programming and the environment hey are in.  Humans are no different we are just constructed from different materials.  We are self-replicating machines.

 

Well the obvious thing to mention is that you are claiming at some point there was no life, and then out of lesser matter a more complex property called 'life' arose that was completely different from what came before. This is the essence of the free will argument. First, that it is possible for new properties to come from complex interactions of simpler component parts. Second, that there are significant differences between the mental capacities of humans and other organisms which result in humans being fundamentally different from them. (in areas like responsibility, ethics, and so on)

 

If everything is simply causal, why do we make a distinction between organisms and inanimate matter? What is the significance of being alive? I mean, why not just look at a human being with its organs/cells the same as a group of rocks bouncing around, simply a collection of matter that was the effect of prior events. To my mind this is what a determinist does. The problem with this is that if it were true then there would be no reason to treat a human differently from any other arrangement of matter, and yet we do. We don't attempt communication with the weather despite its complexity, so clearly that isn't sufficient. Free will is just the x factor; It is something that separates us from other living organisms, even animals, that we do not fully understand. We implicitly accept this as true when we choose not to put animals on trial for murder.

 

 

 I've seen the videos and the debates and I think that he has a problem with determinism because he sees it as taking away people's responsibility and moral agency.  What happens is what was always going to happen.  While I think it's true that our choices are pre-determined, I don't believe that takes away responsibility and moral agency.  I think it's more complex than that.

 

It's not more complex than that. Logically, something that is pre-determined is not a choice because choice involves a decision between two or more possibilities. So if our actions are pre-determined that means there was only one possibility and therefore we had no choice in the matter. What logically follows from no choice is no responsibility and therefore no morality. This is also why debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, if everything is causal then there is no point in debating at all. (since changing someone's mind is not possible, as it is pre-determined lol)

[RestoringGuy]

It's not more complex than that. Logically, something that is pre-determined is not a choice because choice involves a decision between two or more possibilities. So if our actions are pre-determined that means there was only one possibility and therefore we had no choice in the matter. What logically follows from no choice is no responsibility and therefore no morality. This is also why debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, if everything is causal then there is no point in debating at all. (since changing someone's mind is not possible, as it is pre-determined lol)

That is an excellent summary of choice, that it's just having two or more possibilities.  Those possibilities however, need not be intelligently selected.  No rationality, or perhaps no life at all, may enable more than one possible outcome.  I tend to see choice and free will as different for this reason, because free will seems to imply that you know a way to raise one possibility, rather than two possibilities merely being accessible.

 

The debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, I think, mostly because they secretly wish determinism is true whenever rationality is absent.  Otherwise there would be never be a mention of "rocks".  We would just accept indeterminacy of all things, and accept that some things are smarter than others about influencing one possible outcome over another.

[Kevin Beal]

The debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, I think, mostly because they secretly wish determinism is true whenever rationality is absent.  Otherwise there would be never be a mention of "rocks".  We would just accept indeterminacy of all things, and accept that some things are smarter than others about influencing one possible outcome over another.

I don't believe this is the case, at least for me.

 

Frustration can reasonably be defined, I think, as the emotional response to having your expectations (esp. repeatedly) not match the reality of the situation. I get frustrated when I'm fighting a boss in a game and about to beat him when suddenly I jump slightly in the wrong direction and die as a result.

 

I keep expecting that if I make compelling arguments that determinists are going to accept them, but instead what almost always happens is that they say something like "we just need to find more of the antecedent causal events (variables)" or some other non-falsifiable internally consistent thing along the vein of what nihilists do when they argue.

 

I keep expecting them to be swayed by my reasoning, I think, because they appeal to rational arguments when they debate the issue (so it would be simply taking them at face value to do so), and also because I don't want to just say to myself that to be a determinist means you don't think rationally in this one area. I'm not satisfied with the fatalism in accepting that determinists simply won't be swayed.

 

So it's actually the exact opposite of what you said, I think. At least that makes sense to me.

 

Do you secretly wish determinism were true?

[RestoringGuy]

I don't believe this is the case, at least for me.

 

Frustration can reasonably be defined, I think, as the emotional response to having your expectations (esp. repeatedly) not match the reality of the situation. I get frustrated when I'm fighting a boss in a game and about to beat him when suddenly I jump slightly in the wrong direction and die as a result.

 

I keep expecting that if I make compelling arguments that determinists are going to accept them, but instead what almost always happens is that they say something like "we just need to find more of the antecedent causal events (variables)" or some other non-falsifiable internally consistent thing along the vein of what nihilists do when they argue.

 

I keep expecting them to be swayed by my reasoning, I think, because they appeal to rational arguments when they debate the issue (so it would be simply taking them at face value to do so), and also because I don't want to just say to myself that to be a determinist means you don't think rationally in this one area. I'm not satisfied with the fatalism in accepting that determinists simply won't be swayed.

 

So it's actually the exact opposite of what you said, I think. At least that makes sense to me.

 

Do you secretly wish determinism were true?

The appeal of hidden variables is strong, because science is revealed to us powerfully, and our psychology pushes us to conclude every little thing must be predictable.   I take a different pathway than psychology, because I know the determinists will keep postulating hidden variables and I feel it's not their fault.  To them, the unknowns are like cards, which when flipped over seem to reveal a state of nature that was previously unknown but determinate.  They of course cannot be swayed by flipping over these cards, revealing to them the cards themselves are faulty.  The free will argument is just made of atoms, which have no chance of convincing them if all of our atoms are anything like cards being flipped over.

 

But there are energies and states which matter seems to misbehave, stuff like Bose-Einstein condensates, laws of physics appear to change.  On the whole, only simple non-deterministic rules yield accurate predictions.  They can invent wild hidden variable theories, and some of them seem to work.  But then you have to ask what is more likely to be real?  A simple set of laws with indeterminacy built into the system, or a gigantic complex set of deterministic rules which like a mirage seem to change only as you inspect them closer.

[Mike Fleming]

 

The debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, I think, mostly because they secretly wish determinism is true whenever rationality is absent.  Otherwise there would be never be a mention of "rocks".  We would just accept indeterminacy of all things, and accept that some things are smarter than others about influencing one possible outcome over another.

 

 

The debates on atheism are frustrating for those who believe in God.

 

The arguments for free will very much remind me of the way that people try to prove God exists.  Just like the latter can't be done, of course, the former cannot be done either, but you see all this equivocating from them, all these different creative ways to try to prove free will, when the simplest most obvious answer is determinism.

 

 

 

But there are energies and states which matter seems to misbehave, stuff like Bose-Einstein condensates, laws of physics appear to change.  On the whole, only simple non-deterministic rules yield accurate predictions.  They can invent wild hidden variable theories, and some of them seem to work.  But then you have to ask what is more likely to be real?  A simple set of laws with indeterminacy built into the system, or a gigantic complex set of deterministic rules which like a mirage seem to change only as you inspect them closer.

 

 

I assume you are talking about quantum mechanics when you talk about indeterminacy here?  I don't see how that gets you to free will.   Saying either things are determined or things are random doesn't in any way prove that people actually get to choose.

 

As for the asking about whether determinists want determinism to be true.  Speaking for myself, no I didn't.  I wanted to prove it wrong.  I didn't like the idea at all and wanted free will to be right.  But I also promised myself I would go with whatever the facts showed.  And so, after a long time exploring the subject, reading about it, watching videos, listening to podcasts, etc and thinking about it I came to the inevitable conclusion that there was no free will.   It took me some time after that to realise that the idea wasn't as bad as I initially thought it was.  There's an analogy to the believing in god/atheism transition there also.

[Kevin Beal]

The arguments for free will very much remind me of the way that people try to prove God exists.  Just like the latter can't be done, of course, the former cannot be done either, but you see all this equivocating from them, all these different creative ways to try to prove free will, when the simplest most obvious answer is determinism.

Can you tell me what you are hoping to accomplish with this?