Some notes on free will and determinism
September 20th 2006 21:58
* Perfect predictability doesn't necessitate necessity. A block universe would be possible as well as a determinist one.
* Perfect predictability doesn't necessitate necessity. Predictability is an epistemological notion, and necessity a metaphysical one, the first a matter of what you can know, and the second a matter of what exists. So even if you had perfect predictability -- even if God had given you a book with past, present and future written into it -- this would still be compatible with free will.
* Free will might, however, be implausible or unnecessary, depending on what other beliefs you hold.
* One person says God is Jesus, another says God is Allah. The statements, at least on the face of them, are incompatible.
But when one person speaks of free will and another of determinism… It is not so much that the statements are incompatible, but that free will doesn't track in determinism. It doesn't register in the language of determinism at all.
* The strongest evidence for free will is intuition. It seems to me that I'm free. It seems to me that I can pick up this keyboard and bash myself on the head (or not).
But what status has this illusion? (What would Michael Devitt say?)
* But isn't there a sense in which it's non-nonsensical? If I say to you I have free will, don't you know what I mean?
-- "Time" might also be difficult or impossible to define, but don't you know what I mean?
* And it's true, it does seem that you can't not use it in language. In particular, you can't not use it when you're talking to yourself. You deliberate, you reason, under the assumption of free will, and how could you do otherwise?
* What makes you deny free will? One of two things.
Firstly, the omnipresence of cause and effect. It works for everything outside the head, so why shouldn't it work for everything inside?
Every increase in human predictability is a blow against free will; just like every suffering is a blow against God.
Secondly, the nonsense of the notion. It's not caused, because then it wouldn't be free. But it's not uncaused, because then it would be random. (If it's willed, it's not free; and if it's free, it's not willed.)
* But as to the second, what guarantees the sufficiency of the category system? You say, Everything is either caused, or it's uncaused, and if it's uncaused it's random. But what if there were a third category, neither caused nor uncaused?
* Should one simply accept the mystery, as a Shintoist accepts the mystery? If a phenomenon is there, when does one pretend that it isn't?
* A third category? -- Rubbish, someone might say. It's a nonsense concept, and that's why it doesn't fit into our categories. Or it's a meaningful concept that doesn't fit into our categories. Either way, one cannot speak of it. And wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
* And how does this game work? Our categories are who we are. Are you never allowed to declare anything impossible?
* What would Quine say? That there is no way to choose between competing ontological systems? That you can hold anything to exist provided you make drastic enough changes to the rest of your beliefs? That the best you can do is to opt for "simplicity", but that simplicity is hard to define?
That free will, like God, or irrational numbers, is a cultural posit for simplifying the flux of experience?
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article free will.
* Perfect predictability doesn't necessitate necessity. Predictability is an epistemological notion, and necessity a metaphysical one, the first a matter of what you can know, and the second a matter of what exists. So even if you had perfect predictability -- even if God had given you a book with past, present and future written into it -- this would still be compatible with free will.
* Free will might, however, be implausible or unnecessary, depending on what other beliefs you hold.
* One person says God is Jesus, another says God is Allah. The statements, at least on the face of them, are incompatible.
But when one person speaks of free will and another of determinism… It is not so much that the statements are incompatible, but that free will doesn't track in determinism. It doesn't register in the language of determinism at all.
* The strongest evidence for free will is intuition. It seems to me that I'm free. It seems to me that I can pick up this keyboard and bash myself on the head (or not).
But what status has this illusion? (What would Michael Devitt say?)
* But isn't there a sense in which it's non-nonsensical? If I say to you I have free will, don't you know what I mean?
-- "Time" might also be difficult or impossible to define, but don't you know what I mean?
* And it's true, it does seem that you can't not use it in language. In particular, you can't not use it when you're talking to yourself. You deliberate, you reason, under the assumption of free will, and how could you do otherwise?
* What makes you deny free will? One of two things.
Firstly, the omnipresence of cause and effect. It works for everything outside the head, so why shouldn't it work for everything inside?
Every increase in human predictability is a blow against free will; just like every suffering is a blow against God.
Secondly, the nonsense of the notion. It's not caused, because then it wouldn't be free. But it's not uncaused, because then it would be random. (If it's willed, it's not free; and if it's free, it's not willed.)
* But as to the second, what guarantees the sufficiency of the category system? You say, Everything is either caused, or it's uncaused, and if it's uncaused it's random. But what if there were a third category, neither caused nor uncaused?
* Should one simply accept the mystery, as a Shintoist accepts the mystery? If a phenomenon is there, when does one pretend that it isn't?
* A third category? -- Rubbish, someone might say. It's a nonsense concept, and that's why it doesn't fit into our categories. Or it's a meaningful concept that doesn't fit into our categories. Either way, one cannot speak of it. And wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
* And how does this game work? Our categories are who we are. Are you never allowed to declare anything impossible?
* What would Quine say? That there is no way to choose between competing ontological systems? That you can hold anything to exist provided you make drastic enough changes to the rest of your beliefs? That the best you can do is to opt for "simplicity", but that simplicity is hard to define?
That free will, like God, or irrational numbers, is a cultural posit for simplifying the flux of experience?
***
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article free will.
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Comment by Joy
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
It's only when I re-read it now that I realize how heavy going it is (unless you've spent innumerable uni tutes beating your head against the wall of free will).
Your point is well made -- that people sometimes -- often, even -- use "it was out of my control" as an excuse.
I've got a few things to say on this point, but will save them up -- am going to blog about this issue a little later on this week...
Comment by Ahmed
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I think everything works on an action/reaction basis we react to the world around us and hence act, if you notice everything we do is based on so,ething acting and us reacting.o However I still think there is some freewill in what we choose to do despite it being guided by such a precise system. Perhaps we are free to choose how we react to the action.
Its all very complicated, I'm trying to say that while our fates are predetermined by all action/reactions from now until the end of time we still have a kind of free will.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks for the comment. You didn't say what I expected a Techy person to say, which was "Of course there's no free will."
Compatibilists like you are reasonably rare, though I know of at least two of your brethren in the teaching staff at Sydney Uni.
Comment by Ahmed
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Comment by Damo
That being said I have to agree with Joy about not wanting the resposibility of free will. However if you ask people what it is you get different answers.
Some people have told me that free will should include the ability to control everything. Absolute Freewill.
Others have said free will means never handing over your self respect.
Others say that free will is right to say that your soul belong to no one but yourself.
Do you think that refering to any freedom implies choice?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
The German quote is: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Comes from Wittgenstein's Tractatus.
An ontology is a collection of things that you believe exist. For instance, the following things might or might not "exist":
-- free will
-- God
-- numbers
-- irrational numbers
-- universals (like whiteness, northness)
-- nothingness
-- laws of physics or logic
-- external objects (you might want to be minimalist, and just say that all you can know is that sense impressions exist; or you might want to be Descartes and worry about deceitful demons)
-- tables (you might want to be minimalist and say that only the strings of string theory exist, and that it's strictly incorrect to speak of sets of strings, or sets of sets)
-- other possible worlds
-- the past and the future
-- consciousness
-- linguistic meanings
-- a priori knowledge
-- minds
-- time.
Regarding the definition of free will... That's a tough one. Determinists might say that it's nonsense and can't be defined. "Libertarians" (people who believe in free will, basically) might say that you can point to it, but can't define it.
Basically, it's something like the ability, when given a set of options, to select any of those options unimpeded by such things as emotions and desires.
So, used in this sort of sense, it's quite a different thing from self-respect and personal integrity, and it's a fairly different thing from absolute power.
Does freedom imply choice?
It's an interesting and difficult question... Here's some ideas:
When you're talking about "liberty" as opposed to "free will", the answer is "Not always". The concept of "positive freedom" is sometimes more about realization of potentiality than choice. And the classic Hobbesian notion of liberty is about freedom from interference, which is seemingly commensurable with not having any choices.
Does "free will" as opposed to "liberty" imply choice? Well, it implies power to select among some choices. If you had no choices, there would be no room to exercise free will, but that wouldn't mean you didn't have it.
And, to twist your question round, it's not always the case that more choice equals more freedom -- for all sorts of reasons.
More choice means there's an "opportunity cost" -- you have to spend resources selecting between different options, and worrying about if you've made the correct choice. More choice can sometimes be "not real choice": giving you seventeen flavours of cola to choose from rather than one. And more choice in one area sometimes impinges on other aspects of freedom: eg giving people the choice to drive around the road as they please.
Comment by Ahmed
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How about corrupting ones choice with desire? What if a 20 y/o lusted a 16y/o? Despite perhaps knowing better what if he couldn't help himself and go to bed with said 16y/o? A classic case of desire over powering your conscience hence your free will.
Comment by Damo
Most religions that believe in freewill seem to say that the way you exercise it determines your fate in the next life. So that if you choose actions or inactions that are bad you could come back as a slug. Alternatively you could burn in Hell. The bottom line being that your choices are based upon the knowledge of its consequences. "Killing someone is Bad Karma" so don't do it please. However if you are willing to burn in Hell your choice is respected.
Extreem example I agree but short of complaining that my freewill is limited by not being able to walk on water what else is there?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
A lot of people would in fact say that free will is
"religious baggage", is leftovers from when the Catholic church dominated Western civilization.
There is a question over whether notions of sin, guilt, moral responsibility, make sense in a non-free-will world (if one doesn't have choice, and if every action one takes is compelled).
I'm having trouble addressing your comment face-on, but, on reading it, I'm not sure if I've clarified what I've meant by free will.
I guess, the question of whether you have free will is not so much the question of whether your choice meets physical limitations, but whether the choice itself was free.
Maybe I could put it this way. Make a decision. Or think of any decision you've made. Now, couldn't you tell a story about what caused you to make that decision, and to act in that particular way? You could talk, for instance, about all the psychological effects that gave you a certain sort of mind, or all the effects of habit, or of the particularities of your brain that react in a certain way to the environment.
To give any such story, is to deny free will (incompatibilists would say).
Neuroscientists, in practice, don't use free will in their thinking. All they see is reaction to external impulse, that in turns causes an electrical impulse in the brain, that in turn causes other impulses, that in turn results in behaviour. The process is repeatable and predictable, without any explanatory recourse to "free will".
Comment by Ahmed
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Well, chaos theory, as I understand it, is simply a thesis about unpredictability. Butterfly to cyclone. In a complex system, you just don't know the difference that one small effect will make.
This seems parallel, to me, to the suggestion that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics somehow leaves room for free will.
I don't see how it does. I mean, I don't see how the genuine randomness (let's say) of quantum mechanics, or the unpredictability of chaos theory permits free will. If it's random, it's not willed, you're not in control.
Comment by Anonymous
It appears that modern philosophers and/or theologians lose sight of simpicity, and have no belief in any objective truths (as in everything is open to question ... If everything is open to question, then why look for answers? You'll only end up questioning the answer you arrived at ... ) Yet, modern philosophers / theologians seem to get off on this process of mind-journeying to places where they find answers such as: the answer you are seeking is at the place you recently departed from. Back and forth, back and forth ...
The subject of free will is quite simple. Why complicate it?
Why not just answer the following two questions with yes or no answers and leave it at that?
(1) Does man have a will?
(2) Is that will free?
You were close to simplifying things when you wrote:
It seems to me that I can pick up this keyboard and bash myself on the head (or not).
Yet, you write: 'It seems to me ...' It either is or it isn't. Stop dilly-dallying and being so wishy-washy ...
Pick the damn keyboard up. HIt yourself over the head with it as hard as you can, then ask yourself, 'Does the keyboard exist?'
Ask yourself, 'Why am I putting a bandaid on the cut on my head if the keyboard and my head don't exist?'
While you are recovering from what appears to be a really bad headache, make a conscious and deliberate choice with your will to read something lighthearted that won't futher strain your head ...
And please take this comment in good humour ...
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I'm going to give the perfectly predictable and determined response and say, "Telling philosophers that they've lost sight of simplicity is like telling physicists that they've lost sight of simplicity. It might be the case, but what can you do about it? Who ever said the truth was simple, or simple to reach?"
Also, your comment kinda reminds me of a High Court judgment. Don't know if you've ever read one of these. But a judge (Kirby J) might go on for 100 pages, and conclude at the end of it "The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is no."
Reason takes you where reason takes you. But it's not just us moderns that are to blame; in the middle ages, theologians were already fighting tooth and nail over obscure points of obscure problems that no one cares about anymore.
I never actually gave my opinion in that piece over whether free will exists. This is because my opinion isn't defensible; so all I could do was raise questions. But personally I believe free will exists, but that one should act as much as possible as if it didn't.
Comment by Ahmed
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However right now I think our lives are governed by action/reaction scenarios, the queestion is do we choose our reaction or is it predetermined? I think the only way it can be truly free yet predetermined is if it has some chaotic yet somehow pre-ordained variable thrown in.
LIke for instance computers are not random machines and are abosloutely incapable of creating random numbers, to make it create a random number it goes through an exceedingly complex algorithm then after all that still doesn't generate a random result! To make it generate that random result you have to feed it a number on its own memory that will create a random number, usually its the system clcok since its always ticking. But just saying that computers are probably the first and foremost example of what having no free will is like.
Comment by Anonymous
You have posted an amusing response.
Let me see if I've got this right: A person who believes in free will should act as much as possible as if it didn't.
Let me give that theory a go in practice ...
Just excuse me while I eradicate all of the thoughts coming into my head that I am free to think ...
(waiting for the human defragging process to finish ... waiting ... waiting ...
DEFRAG IS COMPLETE ... YOU NOW HAVE NO THOUGHTS OF YOUR OWN ..
TELL ADRIAN YOU CAN NO LONGER RESPOND TO HIM ...
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I suppose you can most avoid believing in free will when you look back on your past. There's less to praise and less to blame, you see, if you think to yourself that it was all out of your hands. And, in fact, you start to see the patterns of your life, all the forces that brought you to one particular moment.
But I suppose that no-free-will thinking is more applicable when thinking about other people.
For instance, legislators will base their decisions on statistics, and not give as much weighting to possible variability due to free will. If a nude billboard of Elle MacPherson is causing people to crash, then you take away the billboard. You don't say, "Oh, everyone's got free will; maybe the statistics will improve."
Similarly, when you look at any sociological factors -- things that are correlated with crime, things that are correlated with happiness, etc. Free will is sort of left out of the analysis.
And when you look at the people immediately around you, you can think to yourself how they're not really to praise or to blame for their actions. You can try to understand what makes them behave as they do. Whereas to insert this inexplicable randomness, this ghost in the machine free will, is to some extent to give up on explanation...
Comment by Damo
Maybe we should be looking for how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. I think it would be clearer.
I say 10.
Comment by Harmony Rocks
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks for the visit!
I'd be curious what you do think, when you've had a chance to think.
I suspect, incidentally, that Buddhist and Hindu traditions deny free will, think it a nonsensical notion.
Comment by Harmony Rocks
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The debate between free will and determinism certainly makes for some lively thoughts and discussions. You'd have a packed house if this was a seminar!
Actually, I've always been on the fence between the two and I suspect I vascillate because I have the free will to believe that some things are pre-determined.
Maybe it was determined that I came back to this post this morning, but maybe it was free will that I read and replied. See what I mean?
HR
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Ironically, the lecture that prompted these thoughts was a packed house. It was some philosophy group in Sydney that normally gets half a dozen people. But when the free will talk was advertised, we got around 30.
People just tend to be interested in these basic questions -- god, free will, beauty, immortality. Certainly, philosophy 101 students tend to be, even if they get bored or impatient of them by the time 201 comes around.
This sparked a discussion in itself, as to why people are interested in these particular things, and whether the fact is culturally relative.
So you're saying that some things are pre-determined, but some things are not, and that there's therefore room for free will?
Well, that's a possible view. Most philosophers don't try it on. But it's common in religion.
For instance, in the Bible, there's a passage where Peter is told that he'll deny Jesus three times before the cock crows. And he does so. So, even though Catholicism, say, is committed to believing in free will, it has to allow that some things are pre-determined (and, hey, any Christian prophecy, and the whole Book of Revelations, are presumably examples of pre-determination as well).
As to why philosophers don't try this view on, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just a matter of attacking the most dangerous enemy.
I think most of the debate is either: (1) people trying to make room for free will in a completely determined world; or (2) people trying to knock free will out of a completely determined world.
Comment by Harmony Rocks
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RE: So you're saying . . . predetermined, but . . . room for free will?
Yeah, I guess I'm saying there could be room for diametrically opposed harmony.
HR
Comment by Gareth
My belief on this is that both karma and free will exist. My umderstanding of karma is purely a matter of cause and effect. Similar to Newtons laws of motion. For example, if I were to push a ball in a given direction according to the laws of karma, and Newtons laws, the ball would travel in that direction until another force is applied. But, I can still run around to the other side of the ball and push it in the opposite direction (a new force being applied due to my choice).
Therefore I believe karma exists until you make the conscious decision to change it. Free will exists alongside karma, or fate, but takes more effort to put into practice than just sitting back and accepting the effects of previous actions.
Comment by Dawson
ps im interested in taking philosophy in college and would like to pursue a PHD anyone got good colleges they would suggest