RoR: Forum

I wanted to vote for determinism, but my body refused to let me.

Ted

Post 1

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 7:56pm

I voted for "Not sure," because I'm not!

Sometimes I sympathise with Bill et al. It makes sense that values, etc., have a hand, but then I think about how the mind is free to change those things that appear to determine choice.

I have absolutely no freaking clue what compatibalism is. What the eff is it?

Post 2

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 8:38pm

The hard thing with "compatibalism" is that free will is not well defined. "Compatibalism" is kinda like saying that both free will and determinism are true. "Free will" in compatibalism is clearly defined in a way that "free will" people don't agree with. I'd say "Compatibalism" holds these two positions:

1. Reality is deterministic, meaning throughout time each moment in time Reality's state is completely determined by [Reality's previous state] and [the physical equations that Reality performs to produce the next state].

2. We as rational individuals, parts of Reality, determine for ourselves which plans to execute. We have choices, we come up with our own choices, we compare them ourselves, we decide ourselves.

A person who votes Compatibalism denies this: "Given a state of Reality, it is possible that from that point in time, the person could have pulled the trigger or put the gun down." A person who votes "free will" would support the same phrase as true.

A person who votes Determinism when there is a compatibalism option probably didn't read far enough down the list, or they aren't very familiar with the term "compatibalism", or they dislike how poorly free will is defined, or they are a "fatalist" although I don't think very many people hold that view. You can probably add the votes up between compatibalism and determinism because the voter probably would mean about the same thing when they chose one or the other...

I'm rambling. I made this poll. I didn't make this poll to debate. I'm pretty hard set on my position and I think I've seen all the evidence there is to have until someone makes human level generally intelligent computers. My intention was simply to get a rough idea of how many people held each side of the debate, and how high the interest was.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 8/04, 8:39pm)

Post 3

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 8:40pm

It's only me, it's not my mind that is confusing things.

Compatabilism is the notion that we do indeed have volition even though we are also in some way fully determined - basically our will exists but does not contradict determinism. To me this seems like giving a Latinate name to make our confusion sound more impressive than a simply "I don't know."

I don't think we have the proper concepts to deal with the ideas involved yet - at least not in common circulation. Determinism conceived of as the idea that if we were to know the exact position and trajectory of every existent particle we could in principle perfectly predict the future until the end of time, is false.

First, any computer that could calculate the actions of all the particles in the universe would necessarily be much larger than the universe itself. The claim is unprovable in principle.

Second, there is no way to measure the mass and velocity of subatomic particles perfectly, since the more we know of the mass the less we know of the velocity, and vice versa - this is the often misunderstood but still valid "uncertainty principle." Likewise, the mere fact of measurement at such scales interferes with the phenomena being measured.

Finally, if anyone knows how to rewind time in order to prove determinism, please do so, I would like to see it. To say that things had to happen the way they did implies that one knows what would have happened if what did happen didn't happen. Sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense.

As for volition, no one except some lawyers and tenure-addled philosophy professors really deny that we do have some sort of choices. And again, what does it mean to say we "could have chosen otherwise?" You can't replay the tape. At best, you can argue that nothing external to a person normally constrains him (his brain) from choosing among different alternatives for internal reasons.

Since I identify those internal reasons with the self, and do not draw a distinction between myself and my body, I call the type of causation normally called "choice" volition and I call that type of self-aware volition that we have when we act free from external coercion but with self-awareness free will. I can consider whether or not to act in one of several ways or to refrain from acting or to put off a decision. In itself, the decision not to decide is still a choice.

Whatever the underlying ontological nature of the will, about which I do not pretend to have more than unproven speculations, I am certain that free will is valid as an ethical concept. (Armozel has made some interesting comments about the implications of our ability to make counterfactual statements and the implications thereof for free will.) Ethically and politically speaking, if you tell me that you had no choice but to commit a crime, fine - in just such a way, I have no choice but to punish you for it.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/04, 8:57pm)

Post 4

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 9:09pm

Some related definitions:
an option/plan - n. a set of actions which could potentially be executed in the future.
a choice - n. a decision to make between two or more options/plans "You have a choice between a sports car or a truck"
choosing/deciding - v. comparing the merit of options/plans
a decision - n. an option/plan selected for execution

Post 5

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 9:13pm

Dean, we crossed posts, and I deny that you can prove your first point. How do you defend it?

Post 6

Saturday, August 4, 2007 - 11:27pm

Ted,

I'm a classical physics kind of guy. I think that in the end, we'll come up with one equation that will explain how everything works. The kind of equation that Einstein was searching for.

Ever try to create a perfect random number generator? Have you thought about why its so hard to make one that is practically random?

I've worked with mathematical equations, physics, deterministic state machines all my life. I look around at Reality, and that is what I see. I see a giant continual deterministic state machine.

I don't see how perfectly random events could exist. It just doesn't seem to fit in. But you say "random events" do happen. I say "The position of that raindrop was determined by a huge number of factors, including the position of protons light years away from here. We surely couldn't have predicted that, but Reality's physics took it into effect-- not random, just incredibly complex and unpredictable due to an impossible requirement of computational power." Like you said in your last post, it would be impossible to compute, because you would have to use some computer bigger than Reality to predict Reality, but Reality is all there is, a contradiction. I agree with that, I agree we can't predict the future, at least not perfectly, and the further in the future, the worse our predictions get. But this fact doesn't prove that Reality is not deterministic. Reality can be the giant state machine that is determining itself through its own physics (not predicting the future or computing what happened in the past, simply continually being the present and changing).

But then maybe I'm wrong, maybe perfectly random events do happen. Then what I'm looking at isn't a giant continual deterministic state machine, instead its a giant continual causal (Engineering definition: "a system with output and internal states that depends only on the current and previous input values") state machine. I'd be fine with that, but it just *seems* more simple and consistent to leave out perfectly random events.

I mean, lets say I'm choosing between sleeping or reading a book. Lets say I deterministically think "My eyes are glossy, my muscles are achy and slow, I've got to wake up early tomorrow for work. Atlas Shrugged is a great book, and I'm almost done, I'd enjoy reading more. Should I continue reading or go to sleep? I've stayed up too late before. My performance at work goes way down and I feel terrible. I'd also enjoy the feeling of sleeping now, and I'd prefer to feel good tomorrow over the small enjoyment of the book tonight. I choose to sleep."

Can you imagine all of the things one would do with one's brain to do all of that? You have to get past memories out of long term memory into short term working memory. You have to collect all of your current sensory information into working memory. You have to use the past and your understanding of how Reality works to predict the future (short through long) for the various options you have. You have to compare the predictions, and figure one as best. And all of this is consistent with determinism, and has no need for random events, or "free will". Self determination.

But even if perfectly random events did happen, how would that make "free will" better? I mean from an emotional standpoint. Sure, one can get very depressed thinking that everything is inevitable. But how does the situation of "things mostly act in a certain pattern, but there are random events too" make it any better? If there are perfectly random events, then given the read/sleep choice, maybe I'll decide to sleep, maybe I'll decide to read the book. Random. The perfect random coin is flipped, lands, and I... read the book. Replay, I read the book or I sleep. Again, isn't this just as depressing? Or maybe even more depressing, because now it seems like you have less control over your own actions?

Your turn, if you like. Any questions? Or have you got some holes to shoot in my position? I'm not really looking to argue, I'm more just trying to get mutual understanding.

Determinism conceived of as the idea that if we were to know the exact position and trajectory of every existent particle we could in principle perfectly predict the future until the end of time, is false.

I agree with your first point (computational problem of perfectly predicting the future). You sound like this somehow proves determinism wrong, or your sentence by itself is misleading to me. I would also pair along with that sentence, "Determinism conceived of as the idea that Reality's physics includes everything that exists into its equation, including the exact position and trajectory of every existent particle, which continually determines and makes Reality become its next state forever, is true."

I agree with everything you said in your post (please re-read your post) except for:

"[compatibalism is] a Latinate name to make our confusion sound more impressive than a simply "I don't know.""

Post 7

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 12:21am

The Mind is Complex and Emergent

Thanks, Dean. I do fully understand the issues you are raising. Certainly, randomness in itself at the subatomic level wouldn't lead to free will any more than it would lead to random will. I do think that quantum mechanics is incomplete. But even if we could show that events on the Planck level were somehow determined, wouldn't they have to be determined by something on an even lower level? And until we found a way of probing that level at even higher energies, wouldn't that level necessarily fall under the Heisenberg Principle due to the bluntness of our probes?

I see the answer in treating the will as an emergent property. It doesn't matter whether a ball is made of lead or rubber, it will still roll. The atomic substance doesn't "determine" that a ball will roll, its form does. the levels of emergent form in the brain, from the subatomic to the organismic level are so many, and our brains are so much more complex than any other natural entity in the known universe, that I suspect our freedom lies in what linguists call the arbitrariness of the sign. There is no way to reduce thoughts to atoms or to build atoms into thoughts in a deterministically one-to-one necessary-and-sufficient to necessary-and-sufficient manner. One can say that two hydrogens and an oxygen at a certain energy will form a water molecule. One cannot say that a pound of rubber has to have a form which will or will not allow it to roll down a plank. The mind is a bit more complex, by dozens of orders of magnitude than a rubber ball on a slope. Volition is a formal result like the match of a lock and key, not an additive result like the weight of potatoes in a sack.

With no way to draw a one-to-one causal link at an atomic or any other level to show that such and such an event determined that someone would pursue some course of actions, simply saying that since people are made of atoms they are determined rings a bit hollow. Consider the internal complexity of the brain with its iterative self-inputs in the form of the rhythmic firing and feedback of neural circuits and the comparative paucity of external influences on the brain. One's actions are much more the result internal causes and of the sum of one's entire developmental history and unspeakably complex current structure than of any immediate present stimuli.

I think that the determinist claim is unproven, and that volition is emergent and irreducibly complex. We tend to intuit our own thoughts as simple primaries. But brain science shows that our actions are the results of chemical reactions within billions of cells with trillions of possible states organised in dozens of organs and hundreds of brain circuits all of which are acting upon themselves at the same time that external inputs are impinging upon us.

Finally, if a Uranium 235 atom could talk, and we asked it why it chose just that moment to decay, what would it tell us?

When it comes down to it, I think reductivist materialist determinists, when they are making coherent claims, are making either irrelevant or false or unproven or overly strong claims. I don't deny that I am my body. Neither do I hold that my body is not morally responsible for its actions. We are not used to thinking this way - using this language - since we see the mind externally as unitary and simple. This doesn't trouble me. However we end up finally understanding consciousness, that understanding should not affect the axiomatic fact of our moral agency.

Ted Keer

Post 8

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 8:53am

Good point, Ted. The issue that I found about the mind is that its given properties are not solely dependent on the composing parts that allow it to exist (the brain and the nervous system).

To explain, consider the concept of self. Self seems a simple enough concept right? Well, it far more complex than one could assume. Consider how self is a 'pointer', a pointer to our memories, to our experiences, and to our choices. But also consider that self is a 'pointer' to identity beyond the total sum of the things I mentioned as it also references our body (My foot, my hand, my eyes, and etc). It also references individual decisions (My choice to do X. My decision to have Y...), in that without self choice is meaningless. In essence, self is the locus by which free will does its work. Free will in this context is not an aetheric thing, it's a real concrete property of the mind as just like memory or the capacity to learn. Only when so-called AI theorists and psychologists (and philosophers) deny the existence of self or claim because it is a 'pointer' that it's an illusion (because to them anything that does not have a metaphysical status equal to that of matter must not be real, go figure...) are asserting a contradiction. That contradiction also denies their claims in that it still takes self to formulate concepts (I think X...). And like all pointers, whether in computer languages or other human languages and formats, it is a real thing (by that I mean it is a real thing in that its results are apparent and unambiguous). Even if it doesn't have a first-order material existence.

-- Brede
(Edited by Bridget Armozel on 8/05, 8:56am)

Post 9

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 10:27am

Brede:

The issue that I found about the mind is that its given properties are not solely dependent on the composing parts that allow it to exist (the brain and the nervous system).

Ted:

There is no way to reduce thoughts to atoms or to build atoms into thoughts in a deterministically one-to-one necessary-and-sufficient to necessary-and-sufficient manner.

Dean:

Can you imagine all of the things one would do with one's brain to do all of that? You have to get past memories out of long term memory into short term working memory. You have to collect all of your current sensory information into working memory. You have to use the past and your understanding of how Reality works to predict the future (short through long) for the various options you have. You have to compare the predictions, and figure one as best. And all of this is consistent with determinism, and has no need for random events, or "free will". Self determination.

But even if perfectly random events did happen, how would that make "free will" better? I mean from an emotional standpoint. Sure, one can get very depressed thinking that everything is inevitable. But how does the situation of "things mostly act in a certain pattern, but there are random events too" make it any better? If there are perfectly random events, then given the read/sleep choice, maybe I'll decide to sleep, maybe I'll decide to read the book. Random. The perfect random coin is flipped, lands, and I... read the book. Replay, I read the book or I sleep. Again, isn't this just as depressing? Or maybe even more depressing, because now it seems like you have less control over your own actions?

This is turning out to be way more interesting than I thought it would be.
Plenty of gratitude on this end.

Post 10

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 11:52am

The fact that one even thinks of such things shows a flaw in the deterministic view - for if all was deterministic, then the thinking [such as it would be presumed] has no survival attributes and we'd be no better than the rest of the animals...........

Post 11

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 1:02pm

Robert,

I don't think that's the determinist's case at all. They'd say human abilities have determining factors that enabled them. I remember reading something Bill wrote about it a while ago, and was impressed.

Post 12

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 2:19pm

One issue here is that "determinism" comes with a bunch of baggage from early philosophical determinists. When I say I am a "determinist", all I mean is that I think "Reality is a giant continual deterministic state machine". I mean deterministic in the physics sense. I do not necessarily agree or imply that I agree with any other ideas that other philosophical determinists hold. I am a determinist in the physics sense.

There is no way to reduce thoughts to atoms or to build atoms into thoughts in a deterministically one-to-one necessary-and-sufficient to necessary-and-sufficient manner.

What physical phenomena can thoughts be reduced to? Let me take a stab. We'll start with sensory. Visual sensory seems like the best sense to start with.

OK, so we have eyes. Eyes have pupils that let light through a circular area. A lens that focuses the light onto the back of the eye, the retina. The retina has light sensitive cells. Some of the cells are sensitive to a large range of the visual spectrum, used for detecting brightness/darkness. Other cells are tuned to only detect light from smaller sections of the visual spectrum, they detect the intensity of that particular section, such as red, green, or blue. Whether we are talking about a grayscale cell or a color cell, the higher the intensity of light that hits the cell, the more rapidly it generates an electrical spike.

The rate of electrical spike firing contains information. In fact, the rate is information. Lets consider another kind of cell, a neuron, that is connected to two adjacent grayscale cells. This neuron could perform an operation, such as: sense the number of times the left cell fires, sense the number of times the right cell fires. If the left cell fires more than the right, then itself fires more rapidly. If the right fires less then the left, then fire more slowly. The output of this neuron is information, it indicates how big of a difference in brightness there is between the two adjacent grayscale cells. The operation is edge detection.

Neuron firing rates contain information. Neurons also perform operations on this firing rate information. Each neuron then kind of stores short term information (the information they currently contain, their firing rate). The collection of all of the neuron firing rates that are currently in your brain is the collection of short term memory that your brain currently contains.

Thoughts are pieces of information. Thinking is neurons performing operations on this information. A la information theory, firing rates (values of information) in neurons, in groups of neurons can store pretty much any kind of information, but of course each neuron has an information capacity, each group has an information capacity. But groups of neurons can contain all sorts of useful information, such as whatever you are looking at, whatever you are listening to, a collection of attributes which you use to identify a friend or a person like George Washington.

Long term information is stored by the "weights" at neural inputs. A weight works like this: a negative weight would inhibit the sensing neuron from firing if the cell at the input at the weight was a firing rapidly. A positive weight would make the sensing neuron fire more rapidly if the input at the weight was firing rapidly. Each weight can be set through a large range of negative and positive values.

Also, some weights can change. Well, actually pretty much any weight can change on any cell, but each weight has a different "elasticity". Weights that change very slowly (like days, months, years) store very long term information (long term memory). Weights that change very rapidly (over less than a few seconds) store more of a short term memory, and also act as neurons that change the operations they perform.

Any neural scientists here have anything to correct?

Post 13

Sunday, August 5, 2007 - 3:03pm

Dean, I don't deny that we are fully physical creatures, or believe that there are other non-physical phenomena involved in consciousness. But I have two comments:

"The rate of electrical spike firing contains information. In fact, the rate is information."

This is only true in the entire context of the brain including all of the other systems that enable us to be aware of what we see, which is all very complex and has a complex developmental history. Without a brain that has developed through time and in the full context of that complicated and historically developed organ, the firing of neurons is not information, it's just electrical activity in a cell. Just as without a mind to interpret it, E=mc^2 is just ink on a piece of paper, the firing of neurons is never information except within the holistic context of a working brain.

Second, both you and I can see a statue of George washington, and agree that it is he. Yet we could imagine that perhaps I have never seen the same pictures of Washington that you have. Suppose I am French and have never held a quarter, I don't speak English and have never heard his name spoken in an English accent. None of the stimuli that I have ever experienced that I associate with "le premier president des etats unis" have ever been identical with any of the stimuli you have experienced. How is it then that out ideas can in any way be the same? It is because there is a higher level formal correspondence between our ideas, not any identity in the firing rates of our visual or auditory neurons. There is no material identity whatsoever - just a formal identity.

I have a degree in biology and philosophy, so I am not missing what you are saying. I would suggest that one cannot speak of information in isolation. One must have a hylomorphic metaphysics and accept the ideas of emergence and chaotic iterative feedback to get anywhere in this conversation.

I will end my comments for the moment now, since I don't see any profit in jumping into discussing the will unless one first starts with a long introductory discussion of such comments as emergence, supervenience, substance versus form, etc. If you have any questions, however, I'll try to answer them.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/05, 3:04pm)

Post 14

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 6:46pm

As I understand compatibilism, it is the view that we have "free will," not in the sense that we could have chosen otherwise under the same conditions, but in the sense that we could have chosen otherwise if our motivation and/or understanding were different. Take the example of the voter who loves one candidate but hates the others. Can we say that his choice of whom to vote for was "free," in the sense that he could have voted otherwise?

Well, in one sense, the answer is clearly "no." Since he had no reason to vote for any of the other candidates, he could not have done so under the circumstances. But in another respect, it makes perfect sense to say that he "could have" voted otherwise. He could have voted otherwise if he had wanted to -- if he had favored a different candidate -- since no one was forcing him to vote the way he did or preventing him from voting differently.

This is the compatibilist's conception of "free will." The voter is exercising his free will by voting for the candidate of his choice, because he "could have" voted differently if his political values were different. So, in one sense, his vote was "determined" by his political values, while in another sense, it was "free," because he could have voted differently, if his political values were different.

This is how I understand the "compatibilism" of determinism and free will. I hope this makes the concept a little clearer for those who have trouble understanding it.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 8/06, 7:00pm)

Post 15

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 7:01pm

Bill wrote:

> So, in one sense, his vote was "determined" by his political values, while in another sense, it was "free,"
> since he could have voted differently, if his political values were different.

So what determines the "if" of his political values? Without getting involved in a protracted discussion of one step after another, the question that remains is, as you trace back the chain of determinants, is there a point where the individual is in free control of the process or does the entire hierarchy collapse into the standard form of determinism that Dean is postulating where all human thought is the byproduct of "a giant continual deterministic state machine"? If you don't subscribe to this view of determinism, can you elaborate on how and where your view differs?

Regards,
--
Jeff
(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 8/06, 7:02pm)

Post 16

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 7:30pm

So what determines the "if" of his political values?
His past experience education, thinking, knowledge, understanding, etc.
Without getting involved in a protracted discussion of one step after another, the question that remains is, as you trace back the chain of determinants, is there a point where the individual is in free control of the process or does the entire hierarchy collapse into the standard form of determinism that Dean is postulating where all human thought is the byproduct of "a giant continual deterministic state machine"? If you don't subscribe to this view of determinism, can you elaborate on how and where your view differs?

He is in "control" of the process, but not in "free" control in the sense that you mean it. In other words, he is not free to choose a set of political values that he doesn't agree with. For example, I don't have the freedom to choose to become a Marxist, given my understanding of Objectivism and my agreement with its political principles. Nor do I have the freedom to choose to believe in God, given my recognition that God doesn't exist.

I agree with Dean that everything we think and do is necessitated by antecedent causes, although I wouldn't put in the terms that he does, viz., that all human thought is the byproduct of 'a giant continual deterministic state machine,' which may suggest to some that we are not the agents of our own thought processes. Even though I don't have the freedom to choose to think and to believe as a Marxist or as a theist, my thought processes are still my own. I am still the agent of my own thinking and reasoning, even though these are necessitated by my understanding and my values.

- Bill

Post 17

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 7:43pm

which may suggest to some that we are not the agents of our own thought processes

I do not imply this, but I agree that it is a difficult issue and can easily be seen that way. Similarly as "people dance" and "person dances", "Reality deterministic" and "individual deterministic/self determining".
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 8/06, 7:44pm)

Post 18

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 8:05pm

==================
A person who votes Determinism when there is a compatibalism option probably didn't read far enough down the list, or they aren't very familiar with the term "compatibalism" ...
==================

... or they were simply pre-determined to vote Determinism ... or pre-determined to vote by the time that they reached the second option on the list ... or pre-determined to randomly flip a coin for each choice (and the 'Determinism' choice was the first "heads" that they got) ... or pre-determined to close their eyes and, upon first opening them, to choose whatever first comes in focus ... or pre-determined to vote AGAINST free will (and Determinism is the strongest vote against that) ... or they were pre-determined to remain unfamiliar with the term "compatibilism"

;-)

Ed

Post 19

Monday, August 6, 2007 - 9:01pm