RoR: Forum

Ed,

I thought you said you we're going to bow out of the discussion. Now here you are adding another post. I know -- you changed your mind. ;-) You quote Den Uyl and Rasmussen,

... we must DIRECT our consciousness toward reality in an effort to gain any clarity at all about how to deal with that reality. Rationality and choice are thus not two separate faculties, but rather distinct aspects of the same cognitive contact with the world.

Right. Rationality involves choice in directing one's consciousness towards understanding some aspect of reality.

They go on by quoting Tibor Machan:
======================
Man's rationality must involve the capacity to choose. Conceptual awareness could not occur without the freedom to engage in such action, without man's POWER to initiate the act of forming concepts. ...
I don't agree that it could not occur without the (metaphysical) FREEDOM to engage in such an action. The FREEDOM to choose an alternative (which is required for free will) is not synonymous with the POWER to choose it. Besides, don't we already have to be conceptually aware in order to choose to form concepts? And if we do, then that would imply that concept formation must occur non-volitionally before we can choose to engage in it -- unless you want to say that we can choose to form concepts without being conceptually aware of what we are doing.
While sensory and perceptual awareness may be produced in animals by those features of the world that possess sensible qualities, there is nothing in nature that produces concepts; there is nothing in nature that forces generalizations, classifications, theories, and ideas upon us.

I agree that there is nothing in nature that "forces" generalizations, classifications, theories, and ideas upon us, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing in nature that "produces" concepts. Concepts result from one's awareness of similarities against a background of difference. That awareness is part of nature -- part of man's cognitive interaction with the external world. Before a child can engage in rational choice, he must already have formed concepts enabling him to identify alternatives and to recognize the value of choosing one over the other.

These quotes highlight a point I've been trying to hammer home: that there is an intellectual aspect to free will (or "choice"), that free will is not merely an appetitive or desire-based choosing but, always involves the intellect -- i.e., rationality and choice are like 2 sides of a single coin.

Well, "appetite" or "desire," in the broadest sense of the term, involves the intellect, inasmuch as it is the intellect that identifies what is of value. But again, rational identification must precede choice, because in order to make a choice, one must identify what alternatives are worth choosing.

- Bill

Post 41

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 11:12pm

Ed Thompson writes:

Bill (and Roger B.),

I think you suffer from a thinking error. I think you think that rationality and "choice" are to be conceived as separate things -- allowing you to do away with one (choice), while somehow retaining the other (rationality). [snip]
These quotes highlight a point I've been trying to hammer home: that there is an intellectual aspect to free will (or "choice"), that free will is not merely an appetitive or desire-based choosing but, always involves the intellect -- i.e., rationality and choice are like 2 sides of a single coin.

What say you both on THAT?

Bill's response to the substance of your question is fine with me. But the form of your question really bugs me, both for its rudeness ("I think you suffer from a thinking error.") and its obliviousness to Bill's comments just two posts earlier (post #37 in this thread). If I were to stoop to your tactics, I'd say I think you suffer from a reading disability! But I'm not that rude, so I won't. ;-)

Ed, you should consider yourself lucky that someone as intelligent and nice as Bill is willing to overlook your careless and discourteous way of discussing ideas and actually engage you in discussion. And while you're at it, you might ponder why it is that someone else on this list is carrying a 40-year grudge against various people (on and off this list) with good ideas and won't engage them in discussion.

REB

Post 42

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 8:08pm

Bill,

===================
I thought you said you we're going to bow out of the discussion. Now here you are adding another post. I know -- you changed your mind. ;-)
===================

Or I was determined to lie!

;-)

Ed

Post 43

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 8:13pm

I find it amazing that Tibor Machan has been (professionally) debating the free-will/determinism debate for over 30 years!

Now THAT'S determination!

;-)

Ed

Post 44

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 8:34pm

Bill,

==================
The FREEDOM to choose an alternative (which is required for free will) is not synonymous with the POWER to choose it.
==================

That statement is not a necessary truth, but instead, its truth depends on your answer to the multiple-choice question:

(1) "Free will" would have to involve ______________.

(a) the impersonal contingency of alternative courses of action
(b) the personal spontaneity of "doing what you want" -- because of your desires at that moment
(c) the personal control of whether you follow through on your own intentions
(d) the personal autonomy of self-determination by your character, your higher values, and/or your informed reason
(e) OTHER [insert here]

Am I getting on your nerves again, Bill? If so, just consider me determined; that way you won't stay mad at me (unless you were pre-determined to think and value in a way that entails you staying mad at me).

================
... unless you want to say that we can choose to form concepts without being conceptually aware of what we are doing.
================

That's a Jedi mind-trick. You're luring me to say that we might be able to "choose" something without "rationality" -- aren't you? I consider the issue to be more like this:

I'm 13, in the video-game arcade. The flashy details of a particular video-game catch my eye and I put a quarter in. I don't know "how" to play the game -- until after I've played the game a little while (i.e., I don't know what I'm doing; but I am exercising 'determination' in trying to learn as I go). This is similar to swimming. You have to first get into the water before you TRULY know how (i.e., you have to begin by engaging in the activity before you learn how to do it).

Ed

Post 45

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 9:24pm

Roger B.,

Thank you for not stooping to my level, though -- from your impressions of my activity here -- it might've been more just for you to do so. While 2 wrongs don't make a right, 2 wrongs are more right than 1 (unanswered-in-kind) wrong is. If someone's swinging at you, it's more right to swing back than to start lecturing him about your 'philosophical position' on violence. But I digress.

Now, let's get to specifics. You wrote:

================
But the form of your question really bugs me, both for its rudeness ("I think you suffer from a thinking error.") and its obliviousness to Bill's comments just two posts earlier (post #37 in this thread).
================

First of all, spotting a thinking error (an error of knowledge) isn't equivalent to a moral condemnation -- the "suffer from" could have been worded better, I admit. Something like: I think you "are working with" a thinking error -- might have been more proper to say at the time. At any rate, I didn't state that it is true, I merely stated that I THINK that it is true. So, you are basically castigating me for being open about my thoughts -- something which I didn't think was proper for you to do.

Secondly, you claim that my post 39 had "obliviousness to Bill's comments just two posts earlier." Well Roger, did you happen to READ that 'post in-between' (my post 38)? I responded to/countered post 37 in my post 38:

==================
Bill,

That was a pretty good retort regarding [B], in effect, you are implicitly choosing ALL OF THE ABOVE ...

That's helpful in the defining the context. Thanks. ...

Even still, I'd disagree on the semantics involved in your following analogy ...

My response to this hypothetical is that then I would CREATE an extra choice. ...

And I would retort that that's precisely, by nature, the purpose of debate -- to elucidate (even if it takes "work") the fundamentals involved. ...

A contingency that's impersonal is a metaphysical contingency -- a real-ness of alternative paths existing. A personal spontaneity occurs when ...

Owing to what I said above (about elucidating fundamentals), I disagree.
==================

Now, I don't think of my response (to Bill's post 37) as oblivious, but rather one of taking Bill's points into consideration -- and providing answers to them which would lead to progress in the discussion. In short, I think that it is you, Roger, who is exercising obliviousness here.

==================
Ed, you should consider yourself lucky that someone as intelligent and nice as Bill is willing to overlook your careless and discourteous way of discussing ideas and actually engage you in discussion.
==================

Oh I do, Roger, I do. Now, I'm not one for dry debates. As a college instructor, I could make the most boring and dry topic come alive in the minds of the students (an impression validated by their mid-quarter evaluations of me). And I'm someone who could make philosophy come alive in the minds of casual observers, too (so I've been told). And I AM lucky to have "someone as intelligent and nice as Bill" willing to put up with and continually engage me -- in spite of my oft-witty, tongue-in-check, rib-jabbing antics!

===================
And while you're at it, you might ponder why it is that someone else ...
===================

I already have (I "know," Roger). And I don't think that that issue was appropriate to mention in a public forum like this. Personal stuff like that ought to be handled by private email or not at all. This reminds me of that discourteous and impolite article which Kilbourne wrote and submitted about Linz's personal life. Civility means protecting privacy as a value. If I'm on the outs with someone, then you can bet that I won't advertise it to the "public-at-large." It's an issue meant for friends, Roger, not mere acquaintances and strangers.

Besides, what value would THAT KIND of act be aimed at, anyway?

Ed

Post 46

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 4:28am

When determinists, compatibilists or whatever, engage in moral criticism, I just find it incongruous, especially when they are also champions of human reason. To hold someone guilty of, say, advancing an ad hominem "argument" makes sense only if the person could have done otherwise, all things being equal. But if we are all acting as we must, with no choice about any of it, when someone indulges in ad hominems, that is just as things had to be, so why blame the person, why chide someone like that? Go figure!

Post 47

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 1:54pm

When determinists, compatibilists or whatever, engage in moral criticism, I just find it incongruous, especially when they are also champions of human reason. To hold someone guilty of, say, advancing an ad hominem "argument" makes sense only if the person could have done otherwise, all things being equal.

No it doesn't. A person could not have done otherwise, if he didn't believe in doing otherwise. But that doesn't mean that we can't blame him for his action. For example, a legislator who votes for a law denying women the right to abortion, because he believes that abortion is murder, could not have voted against such a law, given his convictions. But we can still blame him for his action. We can still hold him accountable for denying women the right to choose.

But if we are all acting as we must, with no choice about any of it . . .
The legislator had a choice to vote against the law; no one was forcing him to vote the way he did; it's just that he didn't value voting otherwise, and therefore could not have done so under the circumstances. Believing as he did, he had to vote the way he did.
. . . when someone indulges in ad hominems, that is just as things had to be, so why blame the person, why chide someone like that? Go figure!

You can chide him as a way of expressing your disapproval. If your disapproval matters to him, it may cause him to re-evaluate his behavior. In many cases, of course, expressing your disapproval may not matter to him, if he doesn't care about it, whereas giving him a rational argument may cause him to reconsider his reasons for the actions he chose, and perhaps cause him to make different choices in the future. For example, pointing out that ad hominem arguments are fallacious may induce a person to avoid them in the future, assuming that he finds your argument persuasive.

- Bill

Post 48

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 2:00pm

So, do you OTHER determinists out there think I'm rude and oblivious (perhaps even childish)? Well, do you want to SEE rude and oblivious?? I've got your rude and oblivious right here! ...

"Debating determinists is like trying to reason with a lion about the benefits of vegetarianism."--Ed Thompson (8 Aug 2007)

:-)

Ed
[NOT a vegetarian, either]

Post 49

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 9:30pm

Sadly, the reply by Bill isn't addressing the issue of whether the legislator could have chosen to think differently about abortion. If that was impossible for him because he or she was determined to think the way he or she does think, the response by Bill simply moves the issue one step back. Could the person who uses ad hominems or endorses bans on abortions chose not to do so, at any point? If so, he or she has free will. If not, he or she cannot be blamed! ("Chide" is a bit too loose but even that is moot when one cannot have a choice about how one will think and act.) All a determinist can reasonably do is lament how people act, just as we can lament that our picnic was rained out.
(Edited by Machan on 8/08, 9:32pm)

Post 50

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 11:07pm

Sadly, the reply by Bill isn't addressing the issue of whether the legislator could have chosen to think differently about abortion.

If the legislator were introduced to a pro-choice argument that he thought merited his consideration, then he could and would choose to address it. But his choice in that case would simply be to examine the argument, not to "think differently" about abortion. If he came to a different conclusion, it would be the result not of his "choice" to draw that conclusion, but of the thinking that he chose to do, which would have been prompted only by the realization that there was potential merit in the pro-choice argument, which he hadn't previously recognized.

If that was impossible for him because he or she was determined to think the way he or she does think, the response by Bill simply moves the issue one step back. Could the person who uses ad hominems or endorses bans on abortions chose not to do so, at any point?

Only, if at any point along the way, he were to recognize that the ad hominem argument or ban on abortion is illegitimate. But barring that recognition, he could not simply choose to believe differently.

If so, he or she has free will. If not, he or she cannot be blamed!

This is a non sequitur. Again, I can blame the anti-abortionist for supporting a ban on abortion, even though he is convinced of his views and could not have voted differently. All it means to "blame" him is to fault him for his action -- to identify it as wrong or unjustified.

("Chide" is a bit too loose but even that is moot when one cannot have a choice about how one will think and act.) All a determinist can reasonably do is lament how people act, just as we can lament that our picnic was rained out.

Not true. He can express his disapproval and try to convince others including the anti-abortionist that laws against abortion violate a woman's rights, which is all that one can do anyway. After all, the purpose of condemning someone's behavior is to change it -- to persuade him and others like him to avoid it. This is why we punish criminals. We seek to change their behavior by giving them a reason or a motive to act differently. Expressing blame or condemnation is done in order to affect people's behavior -- to cause them to act differently. It assumes that their behavior is determined by their values, and that if one can change their values, one can change their behavior.

- Bill

Post 51

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 2:01am

Why "we" punish criminals varies. A mother who wants her son's murderer to be punished has a different purpose in mind from a prosecutor who has helped convict the killer; the neighbors of the perpetrator may have yet different purposes in mind. There need not be just one purpose for punishing someone for rights violations or even for plain misconduct. Yes, sometimes deterrence is the reason but at others it can be to register a strong protest against what was done, to show the culprit the significance of the wrongdoing, never mind the exact (often unpredictable) consequences. The idea that the sole purpose of "punishment" is to deter already begs the question as to the nature of crime--as if what punishment is about is only to discourage. That is the training model of "blaming" or "holding responsible." That is what usually happens when pets or other non-human animals behave in untoward ways. That is the Skinnerian conception of dealing with human misconduct. But when it comes to dealing with the complicated, multifaceted human animal, it can involve approaches that have no practical purpose at all, merely the recognition that free men and women need to be informed that some of what they do is unacceptably wrong. (A nice paper on this is Herbert Morris's "Persons and Punishment," Philosophical Review, October 1968 [?].)

Post 52

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 9:28pm

Well said, Tibor. 'Bill the Behaviorist' does have a certain ring to it.

Ed
[Okay, NOW I'm being just plain rude and I promise to stop; unless I personally choose to change my own mind about it (which I probably won't do, and especially not for determinist/behaviorist reasons!).]

Post 53

Friday, August 10, 2007 - 9:57am

Ed,

You need to behave yourself!

- Bill

Post 54

Sunday, October 17, 2010 - 7:55pm

I just went downstairs before bed and had to make a decision, chocolate cake or banana. Of course there are many other options but for simplicity these are my choices. When I find myself eating the chocolate cake I know that a choice has been made but how. I recall being admonished about my eating habits but remember how good chocolate cake tastes. I know my weight is no problem at the moment. I recall many things that point in one direction or another. I consider how nice it would be to have the cake with coffee in the morning, or that i should let my wife have it since she has not had any yet. My question is this Do i choose what memories to recall and how do I choose them? There must be hundreds if not thousands of chocolate cake and banana memories tucked away. How are the decisions made as to which memories to remember at this moment. Obviously they all can't be brought forward. Can any of us choose what thought will appear next. So thoughts appear. There are competing thoughts, some have more weight than others. A logical person might develope some fairly complex reasoning in this choice process i can't recall going through anything close to a decision tree. My stomach rumbles and more memories of chocolate cake flash before me. Choices have to be made concerning all of this. It may be morning before it is done and no decision will have to be made. At last the decision is made but just before the cake hits my mouth i remember, it is my sons birthday. If only I had chosen to recall that memory a few seconds later!!!

So here I am eating my banana and choosing when to take the next bite, how large or small it will be, how long to chew each piece and when to swallow. From that point forward to the inevitable departure of the banana no choices are going to be made. We dont choose to digest our food. I don't remember making all these choices, the chewing and salivating, the position of my jaw and tongue. Some of those decisions also were not made by me. Things get a little blurry. Did I choose to use my right hand or did it just move? I hear a faint noise upstairs and stop chewing to hear better. Did I choose to stop chewing or did it just happen. Who can say?
I go upstairs. My wife reminds me not to eat the chocolate cake. She knows I have a bad memory.

Here is a simple test for you. If you believe that you are in charge of your thinking try to stop thinking for 10 seconds. On the other hand try not to make choices.

Perhaps free choice is like light. Sometimes light acts like a particle, sometimes like a wave. Neither is true absolutely yet both are true.

Post 55

Monday, October 18, 2010 - 3:52pm

Hi Stephen,

By "the choice to think," Objectivists don't mean going from a state of literal non-awareness to one of awareness. Nor by the "choice not to think" do they mean choosing to go from a state of awareness directly to a state of non-awareness. They simply mean the choice to pay attention -- to focus one's mind -- when and to the extent that one is aware of the alternative. If you introspect, I think you can see that there are times when you become aware of the necessity to bring your mind into sharper focus and/or of the need to maintain that focus.

Bill

Post 56

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 6:43am