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04/06/2011 06:06:27 PM · #1501 |
Another good blast from the Naturalism.org site, looking at the reason that fatalism is not a rational response to a lack of contra-causal free will.
Originally posted by Naturalism.org - The Flaw of Fatalism:
The best way to see the flaw in fatalism is to imagine that we do indeed have some sort of contra-causal free will, and see if it could improve on the deterministic situation we actually find ourselves in. I leave aside here the various sorts of indeterminacy that might be shown, eventually, to play a role in generating behavior, since these do not give us free will, they merely introduce randomness.
Let us suppose then, that whatever my desires are at a given time, I am not bound to follow those desires. That is, my behavior isn’t completely the result of the competition of various motives and inclinations, but instead is at least partly a function of something independent of such influences. So, for instance, let us suppose I must decide between spending a thousand dollars on charity or on my own amusement. What would the role of this independent factor be in such a decision? Presumably, the story goes, one’s free will makes the decision about which desire should win out, the desire to help others or the desire to amuse oneself. But, on what grounds does this independent arbiter make its choice? Why would it choose one way and not another?
If indeed the free will is uninfluenced by one's circumstances, such as desires and motives, then it simply has no reason or capacity to act. Without an inclination pushing in one direction or another there can be no movement. Of course, one can (and usually does) consider the consequences of one’s actions, which has the effect of making one course or another seem more or less desirable. But this sort of rationality isn’t in the least separate from the influence of desire, rather it permits the more effective calculation of how a desire might be fulfilled, and of what might happen were it fulfilled. Nor is the choice to undertake such consideration "free," in the sense of being uninfluenced, for if it were, the same problem would arise: why would the self choose to be rational – to consider consequences – unless there were some determining motive or desire to be rational?
. . .
The fatalistic response to the non-existence of free will, then, can be seen as the quelling or damping of desire by the irrational supposition that it makes no difference what action, or whether any action, is taken. If action is believed to be rendered impotent by determinism, then naturally desires are less likely to be acted upon and may fade away. But this fatalistic response is only a possibility to those who imagine, mistakenly, that being an independent, freely willing agent gives us power over circumstances that would otherwise be missing. If, instead, one embraces the conception of oneself as a locus of motive and rationality, whose "world line" unfolds in space and time, then the knowledge that this unfolding is determined doesn’t undercut desire, as it might if one were disappointed by not being a "first cause." The more or less predictable sequencing of actions and their rewarding outcomes is, after all, what gives us hope that our motives can be fulfilled, and this hope – the opposite of fatalism – in turn spurs desire. We don’t independently choose ourselves, or our motives, and the strong, effective pursuit of our goals doesn’t hinge in the least upon supposing we act in any sense independently of the causal continuum that produced us or now surrounds us. We simply need to know and appreciate the deterministic connections between action and outcomes to realize that, as desire arises in us, so too its fulfillment can arise, if we act smartly and decisively. Seeing the flaw in fatalism makes it more likely that we will act smartly and decisively, even though we don’t have contra-causal free will. |
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Message edited by author 2011-04-06 18:10:10. |
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04/06/2011 07:04:51 PM · #1502 |
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Science is quickly coming to terms with the realization that the "way most people understand" "fee will" has almost assuredly been entirely wrong. |
“It’s not like you’re a machine. Your brain activity is the physiological substance in which your personality and wishes and desires operate,” he said. The unease people feel at the potential unreality of free will, said National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Mark Hallett, originates in a misconception of self as separate from the brain. |
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04/06/2011 10:02:17 PM · #1503 |
| That was a lot of words SP, and I'm working on a reply, but let me make sure of one thing. Is your position that traditional free will can exist in a naturalistic framework or that it cannot? And if so, are you attempting to defend this by nuancing the definition of free will or by explaining a naturalistic process that results in traditional free will? My position is that traditional free will cannot exist in a naturalistic framework. |
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04/07/2011 12:52:59 AM · #1504 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
That was a lot of words SP, and I'm working on a reply, but let me make sure of one thing. Is your position that traditional free will can exist in a naturalistic framework or that it cannot? And if so, are you attempting to defend this by nuancing the definition of free will or by explaining a naturalistic process that results in traditional free will? My position is that traditional free will cannot exist in a naturalistic framework. |
My take-away is that he believes that what defines traditional free will is just plain wrong, and needs to go the way of flat-earth theory. |
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04/07/2011 09:02:49 AM · #1505 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
That was a lot of words... |
You're telling me...3 pages in 2 days. This stuff is hard to follow. |
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04/07/2011 09:16:19 AM · #1506 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
That was a lot of words SP, and I'm working on a reply, but let me make sure of one thing. Is your position that traditional free will can exist in a naturalistic framework or that it cannot? And if so, are you attempting to defend this by nuancing the definition of free will or by explaining a naturalistic process that results in traditional free will? My position is that traditional free will cannot exist in a naturalistic framework. |
My take-away is that he believes that what defines traditional free will is just plain wrong, and needs to go the way of flat-earth theory. |
Your take-away is correct. Traditional free will is contra-causal free will, and I would agree that it makes no sense in a naturalistic/materialistic framework. |
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04/07/2011 10:33:12 AM · #1507 |
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
That was a lot of words SP, and I'm working on a reply, but let me make sure of one thing. Is your position that traditional free will can exist in a naturalistic framework or that it cannot? And if so, are you attempting to defend this by nuancing the definition of free will or by explaining a naturalistic process that results in traditional free will? My position is that traditional free will cannot exist in a naturalistic framework. |
My take-away is that he believes that what defines traditional free will is just plain wrong, and needs to go the way of flat-earth theory. |
Your take-away is correct. Traditional free will is contra-causal free will, and I would agree that it makes no sense in a naturalistic/materialistic framework. |
Well then we agree. I also feel it makes no sense in a naturalistic framework, hence the challenge up above. |
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04/07/2011 10:46:23 AM · #1508 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
That was a lot of words SP, and I'm working on a reply, but let me make sure of one thing. Is your position that traditional free will can exist in a naturalistic framework or that it cannot? And if so, are you attempting to defend this by nuancing the definition of free will or by explaining a naturalistic process that results in traditional free will? My position is that traditional free will cannot exist in a naturalistic framework. |
My take-away is that he believes that what defines traditional free will is just plain wrong, and needs to go the way of flat-earth theory. |
Your take-away is correct. Traditional free will is contra-causal free will, and I would agree that it makes no sense in a naturalistic/materialistic framework. |
Well then we agree. I also feel it makes no sense in a naturalistic framework, hence the challenge up above. |
Yes, and my post was an objection to the challenge itself. The assumption of contra-causal free will adherents, like yourself, seems to be that unless contra-causal free will exists, decisions are meaningless or not even truly possible (i.e., fatalism). Humans are used to thinking of "free will" in the traditional way, because that is how it is generally perceived to operate from our internal perspective. However, that conception appears to have been entirely wrong and to actually be counterproductive since it ignores the naturalistic influences that lead to any particular decision/action. |
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04/07/2011 11:02:51 AM · #1509 |
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Yes, and my post was an objection to the challenge itself. The assumption of contra-causal free will adherents, like yourself, seems to be that unless contra-causal free will exists, decisions are meaningless or not even truly possible (i.e., fatalism). Humans are used to thinking of "free will" in the traditional way, because that is how it is generally perceived to operate from our internal perspective. However, that conception appears to have been entirely wrong and to actually be counterproductive since it ignores the naturalistic influences that lead to any particular decision/action. |
Another exploration of the same idea. |
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04/07/2011 12:10:55 PM · #1510 |
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Yes, and my post was an objection to the challenge itself. The assumption of contra-causal free will adherents, like yourself, seems to be that unless contra-causal free will exists, decisions are meaningless or not even truly possible (i.e., fatalism). Humans are used to thinking of "free will" in the traditional way, because that is how it is generally perceived to operate from our internal perspective. However, that conception appears to have been entirely wrong and to actually be counterproductive since it ignores the naturalistic influences that lead to any particular decision/action. |
If I grasp what you are saying it still leaves me very unsatisfied. I understand that our brains are "decision-making" machines. There is input, there is output. But under naturalism it is fundamentally the same as a giant pachinko machine dropping marbles into various slots. Nobody is impressed with a pachinko machine. Nobody says a pachinko machine needs to "gain control" of the situation or make "wholesale change" in its behavior. That is where I balk at the arguments because they are abandoned by those who hold them even before they can get the words out to describe them. Either the illusion is so overwhelming that even those who purport to see behind the curtain can't really help themselves (and then solipsism rears its head) or the theory fails.
EDIT to add: Really it becomes a free will version of Moral Fictionalism. We don't believe it exists, but it is so useful to think this way and we can't help it anyway. We are going to immerse ourselves in the fiction of it but wink at each other because we know it doesn't really mean anything.
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 12:22:19. |
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04/07/2011 01:01:17 PM · #1511 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If I grasp what you are saying it still leaves me very unsatisfied. I understand that our brains are "decision-making" machines. There is input, there is output. But under naturalism it is fundamentally the same as a giant pachinko machine dropping marbles into various slots. Nobody is impressed with a pachinko machine. Nobody says a pachinko machine needs to "gain control" of the situation or make "wholesale change" in its behavior. |
That's because the pachinko machine, unlike humans, is non-sentient. That you would even make the comparison (and the similar hydrogen atom comparison) says to me that you really don't grasp what is being said. Our brain allows us to be conscious of the influences on our actions and take action to affect those future influences based upon our desires.
Yes, desire itself arises out of causal influences. Yes, the range of action that someone will be able to take to achieve their desires is constrained by all of the causal influences that exist at any particular moment and that previously exerted influence over that person. Does that mean that decisions and actions are meaningless and that we are simply automatons? No.
Need I even add that the fact that the reality of the way our brains work might leave you (or me, or anyone) "unsatisfied" is wholly irrelevant to whether or not our brains actually work that way?
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 13:01:46. |
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04/07/2011 01:15:07 PM · #1512 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But under naturalism it is fundamentally the same as a giant pachinko machine dropping marbles into various slots. Nobody is impressed with a pachinko machine. |
The same argument is often expressed against evolution as if the mechanisms and outcome are random. They aren't. |
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04/07/2011 01:24:04 PM · #1513 |
Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If I grasp what you are saying it still leaves me very unsatisfied. I understand that our brains are "decision-making" machines. There is input, there is output. But under naturalism it is fundamentally the same as a giant pachinko machine dropping marbles into various slots. Nobody is impressed with a pachinko machine. Nobody says a pachinko machine needs to "gain control" of the situation or make "wholesale change" in its behavior. |
That's because the pachinko machine, unlike humans, is non-sentient. That you would even make the comparison (and the similar hydrogen atom comparison) says to me that you really don't grasp what is being said. Our brain allows us to be conscious of the influences on our actions and take action to affect those future influences based upon our desires.
Yes, desire itself arises out of causal influences. Yes, the range of action that someone will be able to take to achieve their desires is constrained by all of the causal influences that exist at any particular moment and that previously exerted influence over that person. Does that mean that decisions and actions are meaningless and that we are simply automatons? No.
Need I even add that the fact that the reality of the way our brains work might leave you (or me, or anyone) "unsatisfied" is wholly irrelevant to whether or not our brains actually work that way? |
Yes, of course being unsatisfied does not mean it isn't so, but it is still a reason we reject hypotheses all the time. It's not that I just feel depressed by it, but I just don't see it jive with my experience. That doesn't prove it either (my experience could be illusion), but it doesn't need to simply be ignored.
Let's try to dissect your argument though.
Our brain allows us to be conscious of the influences on our actions and take action to affect those future influences based upon our desires.
I fully agree we are sentient while the pachinko machine is not. We are aware. But does this change anything? The pachinko machine can be equipped with various sensors and a silicon chip "brain". This will make it rudimentarily "aware" of what is happening. We can even get fancy and provide the machine with some flippers that can move and be controlled to direct the marbles. The machine can now "take action" to affect outcomes. But we are still unimpressed with the machine. It cannot "gain control" or make "wholesale change" in any way other than whatever is programmed in its silicon chip.
Our awareness, if still a part of a naturalistic framework, cannot be anything more than a complex input-output program. Even our awareness becomes fundamentally similar to the pachinko machine. How could it be any other way? You are only adding complexity, but complexity does not provide anything "new".
Yes, desire itself arises out of causal influences. Yes, the range of action that someone will be able to take to achieve their desires is constrained by all of the causal influences that exist at any particular moment and that previously exerted influence over that person. Does that mean that decisions and actions are meaningless and that we are simply automatons? No.
Here I will have to ask you two questions. What does "meaning" signify in your statement? And why are we not simply very, very complex automatons if you just said our desires arise out of causal influences and that our actions are constrained by such influences. I am not trying to be dense, but I do not understand the difference.
EDIT to add: Perhaps our difference is what we mean by "automaton"? Let's indulge our inner-geek and consider Data from Star Trek:TNG. Am I fundamentally different than Data?
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 13:58:15. |
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04/07/2011 02:05:53 PM · #1514 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
why are we not simply very, very complex automatons if you just said our desires arise out of causal influences and that our actions are constrained by such influences. |
Predictability. The reasons for our actions are so complex and abstract that it can be all but impossible to predict the outcome or determine why we really made that choice. However, that doesn't mean they aren't causal. For any significant action, you must have a motivation or no action would be taken. You would say, "I made this choice BECAUSE..."
Where we (so far) differ from extremely complex computers is in our capacity for irrationality: emotional responses, gut reactions, fallacious reasoning and belief in the unbelievable merely because we want it to be true or it feels right... all of which is still constrained by the influence of our knowledge, culture, personal interactions and life experience. |
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04/07/2011 02:18:53 PM · #1515 |
But unless you are saying we are unpredictable for any reason other than our complexity and that irrationality could not be programed into a machine, we remain that very, very complex automatons. I don't know how you could claim either and stay true to your naturalism.
Weather patterns are unpredictable. They are causal in the same way we are. I am unimpressed with a weather pattern as an example of naturalistic-safe free will.
I am not trying to prove we have free will. I'm saying that believing in naturalism and coining anything as being "free will" is doublethink. It is no freer than anything else in nature, just more complex.
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 14:20:51. |
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04/07/2011 03:10:33 PM · #1516 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Here I will have to ask you two questions. What does "meaning" signify in your statement? And why are we not simply very, very complex automatons if you just said our desires arise out of causal influences and that our actions are constrained by such influences. I am not trying to be dense, but I do not understand the difference. |
At the risk of appearing as if I have a promotional contract with Naturalism.org, here is nice summary of my own view:
Originally posted by Naturalism.org - Call Off The Hobbits: Naturalism Poses No Threat To The Shire:
Since ultimate self-authorship is impossible, should we then conclude we don’t really make choices, or create anything? Are we indeed puppets without wills of our own? Some might insist on this conclusion, refusing to recalibrate their notion of worthwhile agency to fit the facts. But such intransigence seems difficult to justify. Why, after all, continue to use a criterion for genuine choice and creativity that’s literally and logically impossible to fulfill? And why suppose that fully caused selves will nothing and create nothing, when they manifestly do?
This question leads us to the motives of theists like Witt, who very much want there to be a causa sui freedom of the will. There are a number of concerns potentially at play here, among them that without such freedom, god, not man, must take the blame for evil. Another is that, absent free will, our love for god wouldn’t be genuine, voluntary love, but merely determined love (although why genuine love shouldn’t be determined by the lovability of the object escapes me). And yet another is that we can’t take the sort of credit we’d perhaps like to take, or place the sort of blame (a concern not limited to theists, of course).
Whatever the case, the causa sui remains an impossibility, so we can either say, sticking with the contra-causal criterion for choice, that no one ever really chooses or wills anything, or we can say, naturalistically, that yes, real choices do get made, by real agents. Under naturalism, our choices and creations may not spring full blown from self-caused selves like Athena from the head of Zeus, but they are nevertheless original and ours, and we value them no less for also being part of the natural causal network. And, crucially, our causal powers wouldn’t be increased one iota were we causa sui. They would merely be inexplicable, magical. |
URL
More Free Will links.
(I get $0.10 for every click. ;)
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 15:12:26. |
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04/07/2011 03:31:38 PM · #1517 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But unless you are saying we are unpredictable for any reason other than our complexity and that irrationality could not be programed into a machine, we remain that very, very complex automatons. I don't know how you could claim either and stay true to your naturalism. |
The word "automaton" comes from the Greek term for “acting of one’s own will,” so in that sense, absolutely! You're using word as in a "machine or control mechanism designed to follow automatically a predetermined sequence of operations or respond to encoded instructions," but decisions may be impulsive or counterintuitive (not automatic), influenced by irrational reasoning or personal beliefs that only you hold (impossible to preprogram, yet certainly plausible to arise naturally), and/or conflict with the expected response to instructions.
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Weather patterns are unpredictable. They are causal in the same way we are. I am unimpressed with a weather pattern as an example of naturalistic-safe free will. |
Weather patterns aren't sentient and don't make decisions.
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 15:38:57. |
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04/07/2011 04:01:22 PM · #1518 |
Here's one that directly addresses Achoo's protests. |
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04/07/2011 04:26:14 PM · #1519 |
I know you are getting kickbacks there SP.
Here's a question, and an important one regarding this statement:
Why, after all, continue to use a criterion for genuine choice and creativity that’s literally and logically impossible to fulfill?
What makes such a thing literally and logically impossible other than an axiomatic, a priori committment to naturalism? |
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04/07/2011 04:28:12 PM · #1520 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
(impossible to preprogram, yet certainly plausible to arise naturally) |
This is paradoxical unless you just mean we do not currently have the technology to preprogram such a thing. Otherwise you just stated that nature has preprogramed just such activity in our brains. |
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04/07/2011 04:51:19 PM · #1521 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by scalvert:
(impossible to preprogram, yet certainly plausible to arise naturally) |
This is paradoxical unless you just mean we do not currently have the technology to preprogram such a thing. Otherwise you just stated that nature has preprogramed just such activity in our brains. |
The paradox only exists in your personal incredulity. Decisions influenced by irrational reasoning or personal beliefs are impossible to program (even by nature) because irrationality doesn't follow logical parameters and beliefs are the result of unpredictable life experiences that cannot be accounted for. The fact that humans can be irrational and have life experiences is pretty obvious.
As a basic example, what are the chances that you could program water vapor to produce one particular snowflake pattern out of infinite possible variations? By your own assertion, zero. What are the chances that a particular snowflake you found could have arisen naturally? 100%.
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 16:54:31. |
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04/07/2011 05:01:34 PM · #1522 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Why, after all, continue to use a criterion for genuine choice and creativity that’s literally and logically impossible to fulfill?
What makes such a thing literally and logically impossible...? |
A decision without cause eliminates any motivation to make the decision. Therefore it is literally and logically impossible. |
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04/07/2011 05:06:16 PM · #1523 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by scalvert:
(impossible to preprogram, yet certainly plausible to arise naturally) |
This is paradoxical unless you just mean we do not currently have the technology to preprogram such a thing. Otherwise you just stated that nature has preprogramed just such activity in our brains. |
The paradox only exists in your personal incredulity. Decisions influenced by irrational reasoning or personal beliefs are impossible to program (even by nature) because irrationality doesn't follow logical parameters and beliefs are the result of unpredictable life experiences that cannot be accounted for. The fact that humans can be irrational and have life experiences is pretty obvious.
As a basic example, what are the chances that you could program water vapor to produce one particular snowflake pattern out of infinite possible variations? By your own assertion, zero. What are the chances that a particular snowflake you found could have arisen naturally? 100%. |
No, you are confusing yourself. TRUE irrationality should not exist in a natural system. It's just rationality that you, as an outside observer, do not perceive. If irrationality is defined as not following a logical parameter, and natural systems are all logical because they follow pre-ordained laws, then the human brain is either a) not natural or b) does not display true irrationality.
I think the issue there is purely a definitional one of "irrationality". In a naturalistic framework, an irrational fear of spiders means the fear is out of proportion with the true risk, but there are still natural circuits firing telling the person to be fearful. Such a thing could theoretically be programmed into a computer and we could make it be irrationally fearful of spiders as well.
EDIT: Maybe ask yourself this. If we could watch the neurons firing and the brain working for both a rational thought and an irrational one, how would they look different?
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 17:11:14. |
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04/07/2011 05:12:45 PM · #1524 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
TRUE irrationality should not exist in a natural system. |
As opposed to a created one? Think before you post. ;-) |
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04/07/2011 05:13:15 PM · #1525 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Why, after all, continue to use a criterion for genuine choice and creativity that’s literally and logically impossible to fulfill?
What makes such a thing literally and logically impossible...? |
A decision without cause eliminates any motivation to make the decision. Therefore it is literally and logically impossible. |
But the motivation is part of the the dualist mind, which becomes the cause of the decision, BUT originates within itself and is not externally influenced. That is a logical possibility.
Message edited by author 2011-04-07 17:13:31. |
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