Free will and determinism

[Akita Suggagaki]

Should Calle have been 'value'?

Yeah, we'll still make decisions. But if you accept that if someone has a mentally illness it reduces their culpability for any criminal actions, then accepting that all decisions are deterministic adjusts one's thoughts about retributive punishment.

I agree with you there. Good job deciphering "Calle".

I must confess that even my main go to for knowledge, Sri Aurobindo, says it is all pretty much determined. That is to say, this lower level of our being, this limited ego and superficial sense of self. But our deep nature is one of infinite consciousness. To the degree that we find that we also find freedom. I is a non-dualism where in we are ultimately the process as well as the determinant.

But the justice system is a good place to take into account the many influences. But then, are not perpetrators of "crimes of passion" deemed less culpable? But then also The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

What Is The School-to-Prison Pipeline? | American Civil Liberties Union

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

Policies and practices that favor incarceration over education do us all a grave injustice.

www.learningforjustice.org

 

[Bradskii]

I find the older I get the more I appreciate the effects of circumstances and conditioning on a persons choices. I dont have to go full determinism to arrive at a sort of compassion pretty close to what you describe. Problem is, full determinism leave zero room to attribute any portion of a persons choices to their self - as there was no real opportunity to make a choice.

And if one takes this path it's not long before you realise that it works both ways. If I can't blame someone for an act due to circumstances determining their actions then I can't accept praise for something I've done. My sense of pride is unwarranted. And then, weirdly, I start linking this to Christian attitudes. Don't aportion blame. Love your enemy. Let he who is without sin cast that first stone. Don't be prideful.

It denies the very thing that Christians are absolutely certain that God gave them, but rejecting it aligns you with Christian morality.

 

[Bradskii]

Not sure I understand this.

Where is the opportunity for choice making in a deterministic view? You say we all still make decisions in a deterministic view. But Im seeing no room there for a decision to originate in any "I".

If someone says 'give me your wallet or I will kill you and your family and all your friends and all their families' then you are still making a choice. In no way can it be described as a free will choice. You're going to lose your money. But you still chose Option A over the awful option B.

Other conditions that determine your choice are just much less obvious. But they still lead you to the same position.

Bear In mind that we're not talking about a world where every action is like the strike of a snooker ball on another. Where the struck ball has no choice in how it reacts. There is almost always a choice between what we prefer and what we do not. And what we prefer is determined. So you'd prefer not to be shot and not to have your family and friends killed. But there was still a choice to be made. The guy didn't knock you down and take your wallet. You still had to voluntarily give it to him. Or...suffer the consequences.

All prior conditions determine that you would always take Option A. There would need to be a drastic rearrangement of prior conditions for you to take Option B. But if there were, then it would determine the alternative. Every time.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Here's a relatively recent discussion/debate he had with Dennett on YouTube. It's an hour, but at least you get to hear both sides of the compatabilist argument.

.

Or somewhat shorter, a transcript of a podcast where he summarises his position. Do we really have free will? with Robert Sapolsky (Ep. 126). That also has a half dozen or so links on the first page to relevant articles discussing the matter.

I watched about half. I'd agree, if I understand you, that Sapolsky had the better of the argument.

I gave up, in part, because I was disappointed that it appeared that they were talking across purposes. Dan, like Sam Harris in the Moral Landscape, has redefined the terms. In my experience, people debated/discussing free will define it Sapolsky's way. That is, one can not logically escape a chain of causal events that made you decide/choose what you chose. Harris says if we agree that human flourishing is the goal, then we can objectively determine that certain actions achieve that goal. Therefore morality is objective. I agree with the first part but not the second. The choice of "human flourishing" is arbitrary and subjective. (Now, given that we are evolved to be social species and that we cannot help but find paths of cooperation, it's a moot point. We are evolved to find a "moral" path.)

As such, I find Dennett uncompelling. I don't talk about free will that way. I don't know of anyone that does. Certainly, our evolution compels us to behave in ways that feel are free. But, that's not the same thing as actually being free to escape our conditioning or genetics or whatever.

So, yeah, Sapolsky wins.

[aside]
I was disappointed with Dennett's snark. Last refuge of a scoundrel and all that. (Yeah, I know that's not the original meaning of that phrase.)
[/aside]

 

[Bradskii]

I agree with you there. Good job deciphering "Calle".

I must confess that even my main go to for knowledge, Sri Aurobindo, says it is all pretty much determined.

I'll check him out later. It prompted me to check to see what your religion was. A Catholic guy's go-to man is Hindu? That's interesting.

But the justice system is a good place to take into account the many influences. But then, are not perpetrators of "crimes of passion" deemed less culpable? But then also The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

That's exactly right. Rather than blame the individual, lock them up and think that's a problem solved, go immediately to the reasons why they ended up as they did. It's really not hard to determine why so many people end up in jail. Your ACE score (Adverse Childhood Experiences) are a significant indicator of future problems.

'Although the ACE score did not predict likelihood of having ever been arrested... among those who had been arrested, the ACE score was a significant predictor of arrest rate.' Adverse Childhood Experiences and Arrest Rates among Individuals with Serious Mental Illnesses.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I watched about half. I'd agree, if I understand you, that Sapolsky had the better of the argument.

I gave up, in part, because I was disappointed that it appeared that they were talking across purposes. Dan, like Sam Harris in the Moral Landscape, has redefined the terms. In my experience, people debated/discussing free will define it Sapolsky's way. That is, one can not logically escape a chain of causal events that made you decide/choose what you chose. Harris says if we agree that human flourishing is the goal, then we can objectively determine that certain actions achieve that goal. Therefore morality is objective. I agree with the first part but not the second. The choice of "human flourishing" is arbitrary and subjective. (Now, given that we are evolved to be social species and that we cannot help but find paths of cooperation, it's a moot point. We are evolved to find a "moral" path.)

As such, I find Dennett uncompelling. I don't talk about free will that way. I don't know of anyone that does. Certainly, our evolution compels us to behave in ways that feel are free. But, that's not the same thing as actually being free to escape our conditioning or genetics or whatever.

So, yeah, Sapolsky wins.

[aside]
I was disappointed with Dennett's snark. Last refuge of a scoundrel and all that. (Yeah, I know that's not the original meaning of that phrase.)
[/aside]

... I had a similar feeling when watching the video, and it was strange to me because both Dennett and Sapolsky were named as Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers in 2010. Even though it is for me to say so all too generally, I would have thought both of these guys would more or less coalesce as ideological allies. I guess not.

 

[Bradskii]

I watched about half. I'd agree, if I understand you, that Sapolsky had the better of the argument.

Significantly so in my opinion.

I gave up, in part, because I was disappointed that it appeared that they were talking across purposes. Dan, like Sam Harris in the Moral Landscape, has redefined the terms.

My view as well.

In my experience, people debated/discussing free will define it Sapolsky's way. That is, one can not logically escape a chain of causal events that made you decide/choose what you chose. Harris says if we agree that human flourishing is the goal, then we can objectively determine that certain actions achieve that goal. Therefore morality is objective. I agree with the first part but not the second. The choice of "human flourishing" is arbitrary and subjective.

I struggle with much of his arguments in this respect. His argument re 'the worst possible world' as a starting point for determining morality rings a bell with me. Immoral acts are ones that cause harm. And I'm tempted to say on ocassions 'Well, that is plainly and obviously harmfull' so it would always be immoral under those exact circumstances. Objectively so. But I don't think that's what people mean by objective morality. And then we're down to different definitions and interpretations.

I was disappointed with Dennett's snark. Last refuge of a scoundrel and all that.

I'll give him some leeway on that. It was recorded just a few weeks before he died. Maybe he knew he was ill. And Sapolski had made a few comments regarding his dissapointment with some knee-jerk responses to his book and mentioned Dennett specifically as someone who seemed not to have understood the points he was making. Quite politely I must say. But I think Dan took offence.

But then again, he was always something of a contrary individual.

 

[Bradskii]

... I had a similar feeling when watching the video, and it was strange to me because both Dennett and Sapolsky were named as Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers in 2010. Even though it is for me to say so all too generally, I would have thought both of these guys would more or less coalesce as ideological allies. I guess not.

Regarding the Four Horsemen (only 2 left now and Dawkins is 83), I've read quite a lot of each of them and apart from some general views on religion, they differ quite significantly on any number of matters. I'd vote for Sapolski to take up honorary membership of the group. Haven't decided who'd be the fourth yet. Suggestions greatfully accepted.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Regarding the Four Horsemen (only 2 left now and Dawkins is 83), I've read quite a lot of each of them and apart from some general views on religion, they differ quite significantly on any number of matters. I'd vote for Sapolski to take up honorary membership of the group. Haven't decided who'd be the fourth yet. Suggestions greatfully accepted.

Somehow, I think it's been determined that I won't be offering a suggestion for that. ... besides, there's so many scholarly atheists to choose from now that I have a difficult time feeling able to freely decide which one should be nominated.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

A Catholic guy's go-to man is Hindu?

Not so different from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. There is now a "Non-dualist" trend even making its way into Catholicism.
Of course many think it dangerous and heresy. I like to consider things from different perspectives.

 

[durangodawood]

If someone says 'give me your wallet or I will kill you and your family and all your friends and all their families' then you are still making a choice. In no way can it be described as a free will choice. You're going to lose your money. But you still chose Option A over the awful option B.

Earlier you said:

There's no room for it within the deterministic process whereby we make decisions. There's nothing to point to where you can say 'This is where free will lives, this is how it operates. Here is where we find it.' There's nothing there. That's the argument. That there is no evidence for i.

You can see how Im confused about your position. There's no room for decisions, but yes we make choices...?

Perhaps you are improvising your way through this discussion. No problem there. Im doing the same. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

 

[partinobodycular]

But if free will is defined as the ability to make decisions that are not determined by prior events and we could rerun the last hour exactly as it happened and make a different decision, then something actually needs to be different. But rerunning it exactly as it happened means that nothing is different.

You and I have been having discussions such as this one for many years now, and I've always found your arguments to be very well reasoned and articulated, but in this case, after further contemplation, I do believe that you've overreached, mainly due to a poor, yet understandable definition of free will.

To me your thought experiment is fundamentally flawed, because given the exact same initial conditions, whether one makes the same choice or a not, tells you nothing about whether that choice was freely and deliberatively made.

To me free will means that one has the capacity to consciously deliberate the pros and cons in a given situation, and then make a choice based upon that deliberation. But we have to keep in mind, that not all choices undergo the same degree of deliberation, some are simply reflexive, or instinctive, or only superficially contemplated. But so long as one has the capacity to contemplate the pros and cons of a given situation, then they have free will, although they may not always use it.

But here's where the idea of free will really coalesces for me, the idea that our choices are simply the sum total of all of the causes that preceded it is irrelevant to me, because it's precisely those preceding causes and experiences that 'make me... me'. I am in fact "those causes" given the capacity to contemplate. It's like looking at the universe and understanding that I am 'mindless matter' made conscious. Only in the case of free will I'm not only mindless matter made conscious, I'm mindless matter with the capacity to contemplate the outcome of my actions, and then to have that contemplation be a determining factor in those actions.

So by viewing myself as the universe made conscious, I understand that I am also the universe given the capacity to contemplate the nature of my actions, and then to have that contemplation play a deciding role in those actions.

To me, that's the universe... in the form of me... given free will. I'm the universe with the ability to contemplate, and thereby to choose.

 

[Aviel]

Now think of all the reasons why you came to make that decision.

Let say that you are pre-destined.. to, get a lot of money in about a week..
So, that has to be, a force that is greater than you, that you can't see... causing that to happen.
Or sometimes a person has to make a trip to the ER...

So for the sake of your argument, in this first part of my response.... i'll call that veiled force = God.
I'll change that later for you.

So... as i told you...

I re-decided to watch 4 Jean Authur movies on my off days, because i love old Black and While Movies from this Era when she made them, '1933-'1944"...
Also, i try to watch what does not sting my conscience, or what does not pollute my mind, as that is just a part of my Discipleship. (Christianity).

Now, did (your force).... or God.... pre-destined me, before i was born, to watch 4 Jean Authur Movies for the reasons i explained, so that i could prove to you that my Choice is mine, and Free Will is proven by Making Choices?

Well, let me ask you this..

In most Neighborhoods, you have child molesters.. So, Did your Force predestine that situation?

How about this..

There are Leaders in Iran, who would have Hamas, and Hezbollah, and similar, go into Israel, and cut off the heads of every Jew, until every Jew's head, was cut off., and they'd all sleep well that night, happy and content that all Jews in Israel were butchered .

See, they just tried that, last Oct 7, 2023, but they mostly cut off the heads of Jewish babies, or put them in ovens and turned up the heat, when they went into the Jew's homes and slaughtered the family.

So, God long ago told the world . "do not commit murder"......"tho shalt not murder".
So, if God is the FORCE that you are trained by, pre-destined by, then why would God cause murder, when He told us not to do that?

So, food for thought, as if your Force is causing that, then that is not The God who sent His Son to Die on the Cross for you. @Bradskii

I think you can see how that would be...

 

[Bradskii]

Not so different from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. There is now a "Non-dualist" trend even making its way into Catholicism.
Of course many think it dangerous and heresy. I like to consider things from different perspectives.

You've prompted me to buy Sam Harris' Waking Up.

Earlier you said:

You can see how Im confused about your position. There's no room for decisions, but yes we make choices...?

I was differentiating between free will and making decisions. They are not the same thing. We of course make decisions. You did in giving your wallet to the mugger. But you can't say that it was an example of free will.

Imagine if he threatened your family and said he'd kill them unless you stole a car for him. So you do. You decide to do it to protect your family. But you can't be culpable for the act. It cannot be described as a free will act. Yet you decided to comply.

In a situation like that it's plainly obvious. In most cases it's not. We are unaware of the the events which cause us to make decisions. Which doesn't mean they don't exist. In a deterministic world, they must.

 

[durangodawood]

If someone says 'give me your wallet or I will kill you and your family and all your friends and all their families' then you are still making a choice. In no way can it be described as a free will choice. You're going to lose your money. But you still chose Option A over the awful option B.

Other conditions that determine your choice are just much less obvious. But they still lead you to the same position.

Bear In mind that we're not talking about a world where every action is like the strike of a snooker ball on another. Where the struck ball has no choice in how it reacts. There is almost always a choice between what we prefer and what we do not. And what we prefer is determined. So you'd prefer not to be shot and not to have your family and friends killed. But there was still a choice to be made. The guy didn't knock you down and take your wallet. You still had to voluntarily give it to him. Or...suffer the consequences.

All prior conditions determine that you would always take Option A. There would need to be a drastic rearrangement of prior conditions for you to take Option B. But if there were, then it would determine the alternative. Every time.

I can see situations where certain overwhelming conditions are imposed on you that make the right decision seem totally and quickly clear - and so you make it.

But what about other situations where a 'correct' decision is more conflicted and elusive and you are required to deeply consider "what kind of project do I want to make of my life?" I think those situations are where proper free will, if youve cultivated it, comes to the fore. You can make for yourself new, uninherited, reasons upon which to make a decision.

 

[Bradskii]

To me free will means that one has the capacity to consciously deliberate the pros and cons in a given situation, and then make a choice based upon that deliberation. But we have to keep in mind, that not all choices undergo the same degree of deliberation, some are simply reflexive, or instinctive, or only superficially contemplated. But so long as one has the capacity to contemplate the pros and cons of a given situation, then they have free will, although they may not always use it.

We obviously do have that capacity. To make decisions. Based on all the conditions of which we are aware. The decision will be the one which we prefer to make. By definition. It makes no sense to suggest that we'll decide to do something that we don't want to do. Even if the decision will lead to something we that immediately would not prefer, there is an outcome which we can envisage that is our preference. So we could even decide to sacrifice our lives if we thought it was for the greater good.

But that's not free will. You were constrained by the conditions. You could only make a decision based on those conditions. Free will is the ability to make a decision outside of those conditions. Free of those conditions. Separate from them. Free will is the ability to make a decision that wasn't caused by anything. And if the world is determinate then every event is caused by a previous event. It cannot be any other way.

You might make a quick decision to do X. There'll be a reason for it. But if you pondered for months about it and investigated all aspects of every possible input and all likely outcomes then there's still a reason for it. It might be different than the spontaneous decision but input varies output. One thing leads to another and you can't change that. You couldn't have done anything else because it's a determinate world.

If someone says they can break this chain of cause and effect then I need to know where this happens. Every argument against it I've seen is not much more than 'Well, I just decided to do it'. Which means the 'I' there is outside of everything, ignoring cause and effect or somehow preventing it from happening. And that makes no sense.

To me, that's the universe... in the form of me... given free will. I'm the universe with the ability to contemplate, and thereby to choose.

It's something I've mentioned myself at times. We are simply parts of the universe that have become self aware. Maybe it was something that Sagan once said. If he didn't then I'm sure it was his view anyway. But by being a small part of the whole doesn't exclude us from being constrained by the same rules that govern everything. We haven't been sprinkled with some magic dust that allows us to escape from that. It's generally only a religious viewpoint that allows for that.

 

[Bradskii]

So, if God is the FORCE that you are trained by, pre-destined by, then why would God cause murder, when He told us not to do that?

He wouldn't. If I believed in God then I would have to believe that He granted us free will. It's part of the package deal. I stopped believing in God decades ago. But still believed in free will. If it had happened the other way around - if I found that I didn't believe in free will then I would then have had to reject the concept of God as a consequence. At least, the concept as it is generally defined.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

You've prompted me to buy Sam Harris' Waking Up.

Spirituality without metaphysics, let me know how he does that. Maybe start a thread?

 

[Bradskii]

But what about other situations where a 'correct' decision is more conflicted and elusive and you are required to deeply consider "what kind of project do I want to make of my life?" I think those situations are where proper free will, if youve cultivated it, comes to the fore. You can make for yourself new, uninherited, reasons upon which to make a decision.

The 'correct' decision is just the one that you prefer. I think that what you are describing is simply digging a bit deeper into what the conditions are prompted by what you really might prefer. It's like an immediate decision to go to the pub versus going to the gym. Why not the pub? Have a couple of drinks, watch the footy, the pizza is on special. Or...hang on. I'm overweight. I need to exercise more. I should go to the gym. The long term benefits outweigh the short term ones.

You're still making a decision. And it's still based on input. But if the input changes (you've now considered long term as well as short term benefits) then your preference changes. And there was a reason it changed. Because you'd decided that you were overweight and that was something you'd not prefer. There was a reason why you didn't like being overweight. Conditions were such that it led to that decision. Obviously.

There's nowhere to extricate yourself from this. There's no gap where you can make decisions that aren't already based on something. That aren't determined. If you did then there's be no reason for doing so and it would be random, by definition. And there's definitely no free will there.

 

[Aviel]

He wouldn't. If I believed in God then I would have to believe that He granted us free will.

Of course God created Humans with free will.
Otherwise they, we, us, would just be meat puppets.

And we can see that all around us, people are choosing how they will behave, and what they will pursue, and what they choose to believe.

The "decider" is always : US.