Free will and determinism

[Bradskii]

So, Bradskii, as the good, diversely minded reader and researcher that I know you are, what other, competing scholars have you engaged by which to appraise critically the quality of Sapolsky's thesis?

Thus far, I'm not seeing much in the way of comparative or contrasting arguments being brought to the fore in your own discussion to show that you've been mindfully, even painfully aware of other scientific views on the Determinism/Free-Will debate. I'd hate to think that arriving at Sapolsky is simply the culmination of a deliberate inclination toward Confirmation Bias (which, as you know, we Christians are just all too happy to indulge in ... )

The Epicureans - Lucretius for example and his wobbly atoms... Aristotle, Hume was a compatibilist, Hobbes, Kant, A.J. Ayer and Dennett are on the list. Presenting the opposite case would be the Stoics to some degree, Spinoza, Sam Harris, Sapolski, Derek Pereboom...

They don't all exactly align with each other. And I don't agree with everything that the second group says and don't necessarily disagree with some of the things that those in the first group says. Obviously the more recent have access to knowledge of processes within the brain that others did not.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

The Epicureans - Lucretius for example and his wobbly atoms... Aristotle, Hume was a compatibilist, Hobbes, Kant, A.J. Ayer and Dennett are on the list. Presenting the opposite case would be the Stoics to some degree, Spinoza, Sam Harris, Sapolski, Derek Pereboom...

They don't all exactly align with each other. And I don't agree with everything that the second group says and don't necessarily disagree with some of the things that those in the first group says. Obviously the more recent have access to knowledge of processes within the brain that others did not.

Ok, that's a start. Any other neuro-scientists (other than Sam Harris)?

Personally, what I'm really trying to do is to analytically zero in on the extent to which there may be any consensus on how causation is to be defined.

 

[Bradskii]

Ok, that's a start. Any other neuro-scientists (other than Sam Harris)?

Personally, what I'm really trying to do is to analytically zero in on the extent to which there may be any consensus on how causation is to be defined.

Sapolsky is a professor of neurology. But I'm not aware that either of them have specifically defined causality other than accepting it as 'the view that causation is a structural feature of reality; a power inherent in the world to produce effects, independently of the existence of minds or observers.' A reasonable summation from here: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/10714/

Start digging a little deeper and you'll find a rabbit hole of epic proportions. Which is what I actually did for a while this morning. My Chrome had about a dozen tabs open as I was led from one impenetrable description to another to try to tie down definitions. Mr. Occam's Razor really comes in handy at times like these. And I think the definition above is sufficient and fit for purpose.

Edit: It could be that neurologists, having a very good idea of the processes involved in making decisions come to realise that there doesn't appear to be any part of said process where free will might exist. To a much lesser extent, that has happened to me. The more I learnt about what happens the less I was convinced that free will existed.

 

[o_mlly]

How many times will I have to repeat this: Making a decision does not equate with free will. Can you please take that on board.

Are you up to a thousand times yet? "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth" (Joseph Goebbels).

A decision made that is a choice between or among multiple options equates to the exercise of free will.

In this thread, you seem to invoke the truth of the principle of sufficient reason -- an effect (the chosen option) must have a cause(s) (antecedent events) which had exclusively the power to produce it. But you deny the same principle in your argument for human evolution (bacteria became human beings).

 

[o_mlly]

If someone had been brought up in a situation where violence and theft were commonplace, been brought up by alcoholic and drug addicted parents, where the person had been violently beaten as a child on a regular basis and had been sexually assaulted by his father, who received no formal education and had a low IQ, then would you think that all those facts, over which he had no control, could be used as mitigation should he be charged with some offence?

Uh, you forgot to mention that that someone also unfortunately had acne. Cheez.

Some through no fault of their own lack the complete freedom to will otherwise. Such constraining conditions may mitigate or even eliminate the person's culpability for bad choices. But those constraints do not eliminate the person's free will to choose those bad choices.

 

[stevevw]

So let's see if we can find an act that was not determined at all by antecedent conditions.

I think thats a false assumption to begin with that because there are antecedents that somehow we lose total control and cannot rise above those antecedents.

 

[stevevw]

If it's theoretically possible then I think we could.

But you do realise that this is more or less appealing to a ghost in the machine or a genie in the bottle. The wiring, materials, signals ect cannot explain the qualitative experiences. We can say that x, y and z go with the mechanical processes involved but we cannot theorectically explain the nature of those experiences through the quantitative processes.

Its a fundemental category problem as wires, material and electrical signals don't cantain qualitative stuff. So you have to appeal to some quality from a quantity. Theres an explaination gap that cannot be bridged. Its not too dissimilar to the God of the gaps in that you have to conclude that something that transcends physical reality was created out of the causual closure of the physical when thats impossible.

Let me know when we have evidence of this.

WE have this sense everyday. For example when faced with a situation where it seems against the odds we believe that we can overcome these physical odds. Otherwise we would just giveup and die. Or we get inspired some experience which pushes us to something greater.

This is a basic human state, the need for a higher existence than our earthly realm and is actually part of being human. The spiritual and transcedent needs. Maslows hierarchy of needs covers this where it moves from the basic physical needs like food and shelter to the psychological and emotional needs with the higher needs like self actualisation and transcendence at the top. This has been widely practiced for millenia from Bhuddist, Monks, Sharman, Spiritual leaders in different cultures.

This is just gaining knowledge of the past. Someone says that they love their wife. Then finds out she cheated on him. Things will change.

But its more than just the physical change of situation. The way these situations change people, change their mindset and perceptions of the world and reality even to the point of becoming different people is all due to the Mind rather than the physical changes.

That change is based on knowledge and its just as powerful as any physical event and in factr can change physical reality. People can actually have their reality completely changed in an instance. THis can happen on a societal level as well.

As I said, it would then be random.

But if the observer creates reality or collapses certain macro events and systems by the choices and measures they make then its no longer rather. The observer, subject and participator is determining the outcome.

Real choices do make real differences. And it is the 'me' that makes them. And yes, it does feel like that they are free will choices. No doubt about that.

So why can't that feeling, that sense or intuition be a real reflection at least on some occassions as being real and true and not some imagination or trickery. It sort of re-enforces self as a real entity in the world and not a passive blob of meat subject to outside forces.

It gives humans that deeper dimension and existence and makes them feel a part of reality rather than apart from reality. Most importantly it makes us autonomous and agents in our own existence.

 

[durangodawood]

I think thats a false assumption to begin with that because there are antecedents that somehow we lose total control and cannot rise above those antecedents.

Your capacity to "rise above" has antecedents. It doesnt just come from nothing.

Same with your inclination to rise above.

 

[durangodawood]

The process is to all extents mechanical. We actually know how it works.

I think we observe the mechanical component of self-formation and just say "thats all there is". But I think theres an emergent self thats materially enabled, but not fully describable materially. Im not attached to this view. It just seems right, for now.

It's what so many people believe already. They think it's what I would term supernatural. That there's something 'magical' happening somewhere. They might call it the soul. I have no reason to think it exists.

I dont think a soul flies in from some other realm to dwell in a body. I think it emerges from the operation of the physical brain/mind. So strictly speaking this soul/self is a natural phenomenon even if it can break the determinism inherent in material things.

For the purpose of this discussion, I dont see how its demonstrable that my view is wrong. Or right. So I see proper free will as an open question scientifically. You may as well hold the position you prefer or intuit, provisionally at least.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Are you up to a thousand times yet? "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth" (Joseph Goebbels).

I've been intermittently reading this tread with a few "likes", but that was pretty low.

A decision made that is a choice between or among multiple options equates to the exercise of free will.

This is an attempt to "win" the argument by definition of terms. If a choice from multiple options is definitionally an act of free will then anyone even contemplating any alternative has not terms to use since it is the ability to make a choice freely that does or does not happen.

I don't know if we have free will, but we at least have some sort of illusion of it. I'm not sure I care which it is and I certainly don't have a choice in the matter, so I can't get too invested in this topic.

In this thread, you seem to invoke the truth of the principle of sufficient reason -- an effect (the chosen option) must have a cause(s) (antecedent events) which had exclusively the power to produce it. But you deny the same principle in your argument for human evolution (bacteria became human beings).

Topping it off with your poor understanding of evolution, I see.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Sapolsky is a professor of neurology. But I'm not aware that either of them have specifically defined causality other than accepting it as 'the view that causation is a structural feature of reality; a power inherent in the world to produce effects, independently of the existence of minds or observers.' A reasonable summation from here: Causal realism in the philosophy of mind - PhilSci-Archive

Start digging a little deeper and you'll find a rabbit hole of epic proportions. Which is what I actually did for a while this morning. My Chrome had about a dozen tabs open as I was led from one impenetrable description to another to try to tie down definitions. Mr. Occam's Razor really comes in handy at times like these. And I think the definition above is sufficient and fit for purpose.

Edit: It could be that neurologists, having a very good idea of the processes involved in making decisions come to realise that there doesn't appear to be any part of said process where free will might exist. To a much lesser extent, that has happened to me. The more I learnt about what happens the less I was convinced that free will existed.

From this, it seems you definitely have your beliefs about determinism, but being that I make frequent trips to other rabbit holes, and being that this one impinges a little on the underground matrix that I frequently scuttle through, I'm not sure I'd say that there exists a definition that is highly justified. There's too many other epistemological problems that I think come to bear upon determinism along with problems that blunt the wanton use of Occam's Razor and well as push the qualification of what 'determinism' is semantically onto the fringe so that it's sits in an almost similar, indiscernible reference point like the term, "God," does. There's just no clear referent conceptually or empirically by which to handle determinism and to point to. To me, both determinism and free-will still still like rather ethereal and exceptio0nally generic concepts that don't have any precise referent. And that's not workable for someone like myself.

Furthermore, my apologies, but despite the fact that Sapolsky seems to be a fairly genuine and nice guy, as a Christian and as a philosopher I'm beginning to sense that there is more at stake in his focus on determinism than merely to elicit more empathy for fellow human beings living in the midst of many natural pressures. I say this because his is not an agnostic outlook upon the world but an atheistic one, carried on with an association with organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation ...

... and then there's Sapolsky's neurological support of Transgender identity and thought processes, which seems to be an important part in Sapolosky's ongoing work, such as is seen in the following, very recent video:

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Transgender Neurobiology & Free Will with Robert Sapolsky (youtube channel: The SCEA)​

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​

I could be wrong, and not that we can't learn anything from Sapolsky, but it kind of feels like you're wanting to use his thesis as a crow bar to pry apart certain theological aspects of the Christian Faith or to use it as a form of sabo to throw into the cogs of the Christian views on moral culpability.

Maybe you're not doing this as I'm inclined to intuit here, but as a philosopher, I'd have a host of other overlapping fields I'd have to bring into the ongoing research and deliberation over the Nature of Determinism, and I think that not implications from Epistemology should come to bear, but also those from Neuroepistemology and the Philosophy of Neuroscience (which I'm beginning to explore to add to what I've long dealt with in Epistemology and in the Philosophy of History).

​

Neuroepistemology - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

​

The Philosophy of Neuroscience (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Bradskii]

In this thread, you seem to invoke the truth of the principle of sufficient reason -- an effect (the chosen option) must have a cause(s) (antecedent events) which had exclusively the power to produce it. But you deny the same principle in your argument for human evolution (bacteria became human beings).

Why would I deny that? If there wasn't cause and effect evolution couldn't happen. That's an odd argument.

 

[Bradskii]

Uh, you forgot to mention that that someone also unfortunately had acne. Cheez.

Some through no fault of their own lack the complete freedom to will otherwise. Such constraining conditions may mitigate or even eliminate the person's culpability for bad choices. But those constraints do not eliminate the person's free will to choose those bad choices.

So you think that you can freely choose to do an immoral act yet you could not be culpable for that act?

Surely we determine culpability by the freedom someone had in choosing to act. If someone was forced to steal because his family were threatened then we'd absolve him of responsibility. It was not a free decision. So if you say that a person's upbringing might eliminate their culpability for an act then you are granting that his actions were not entirely free.

If you insist that he was free in making the choice, then you'd have to accept that the guy robbing the bank was free in the same sense.

You can't have it both ways...

 

[Bradskii]

I think thats a false assumption to begin with that because there are antecedents that somehow we lose total control and cannot rise above those antecedents.

Then that would be an example of a choice that wasn't a free will one. We don't want those examples.

 

[Bradskii]

But you do realise that this is more or less appealing to a ghost in the machine or a genie in the bottle. The wiring, materials, signals ect cannot explain the qualitative experiences. We can say that x, y and z go with the mechanical processes involved but we cannot theorectically explain the nature of those experiences through the quantitative processes.

Its a fundemental category problem as wires, material and electrical signals don't cantain qualitative stuff. So you have to appeal to some quality from a quantity. Theres an explaination gap that cannot be bridged. Its not too dissimilar to the God of the gaps in that you have to conclude that something that transcends physical reality was created out of the causual closure of the physical when thats impossible.

What it's like to feel that we are the person we believe we are, what it's like to be stevevw, isn't the question. It's separate from the process of making decisions. The hard problem of consciousness and free will are two separate matters. Let's not conflate them.

WE have this sense everyday. For example when faced with a situation where it seems against the odds we believe that we can overcome these physical odds. Otherwise we would just giveup and die. Or we get inspired some experience which pushes us to something greater.

'We have this sense everyday' is not something that anyone is going to accept as evidence. You'll have to do better than that.

But its more than just the physical change of situation. The way these situations change people, change their mindset and perceptions of the world and reality even to the point of becoming different people is all due to the Mind rather than the physical changes.
That change is based on knowledge and its just as powerful as any physical event and in factr can change physical reality. People can actually have their reality completely changed in an instance. THis can happen on a societal level as well.

Then give me an example where a decision was made without an antecedent cause.

But if the observer creates reality or collapses certain macro events and systems by the choices and measures they make then its no longer rather. The observer, subject and participator is determining the outcome.

The observer is part of reality and doesn't collapse anything. Random events many levels of magnitude below what we are discussing are not going to change your decision about going to the pub or the gym.

So why can't that feeling, that sense or intuition be a real reflection at least on some occassions as being real and true and not some imagination or trickery. It sort of re-enforces self as a real entity in the world and not a passive blob of meat subject to outside forces.

It gives humans that deeper dimension and existence and makes them feel a part of reality rather than apart from reality. Most importantly it makes us autonomous and agents in our own existence.

The illusion of free will does give us a sense that we are autonomous. It is exceptionally difficult to live any other way. It's quite possibly an evolutionary disadvantage to think that we don't have free will.

 

[Bradskii]

I dont think a soul flies in from some other realm to dwell in a body. I think it emerges from the operation of the physical brain/mind. So strictly speaking this soul/self is a natural phenomenon even if it can break the determinism inherent in material things.

Even if you grant some sort of dualism I still don't see how decisions could be made that are not based on antecedent conditions. If there's a little man tucked away behind the curtains of the Cartesian theatre pulling levers and flicking switches, or an emergent 'soul' or however you want to describe it, then on what basis are those various levers being pulled? There has to be a reason why it happens.

For the purpose of this discussion, I dont see how its demonstrable that my view is wrong. Or right. So I see proper free will as an open question scientifically. You may as well hold the position you prefer or intuit, provisionally at least.

You're right. We pick a lane and run with it until we are convinced to change. Or not, as the case may be. My problem is arguing for a position I don't actually feel is right.

 

[Bradskii]

I could be wrong, and not that we can't learn anything from Sapolsky, but it kind of feels like you're wanting to use his thesis as a crow bar to pry apart certain theological aspects of the Christian Faith or to use it as a form of sabo to throw into the cogs of the Christian views on moral culpability.

If I wanted to poke holes in the Christian faith then struggling to convince people that there is no free will seems like a dumb way to do it. It's not like Christianity isn't riddled with other contradictions which I could spend umpteen threads discussing. Not that I'd want to.

So it's not that you could be wrong. You are wrong.

 

[stevevw]

Then that would be an example of a choice that wasn't a free will one. We don't want those examples.

You missed the point. If there are situations where we can rise up above the antecendents then these are examples of free choice as they are not entirely dictated by the antecedents.

Your assuming because there are antecedents that we therefore have no free will and that we cannot rise above those antecedents through our agency and ability to freely choose in some situations.

 

[Bradskii]

You missed the point. If there are situations where we can rise up above the antecendents then these are examples of free choice as they are not entirely dictated by the antecedents.

Your assuming because there are antecedents that we therefore have no free will and that we cannot rise above those antecedents through our agency and ability to freely choose in some situations.

Well...yes. If a decision is not caused by antecedent conditions then decisions are being made with no consideration of any conditions that pertain to that decision. Does that make sense to you? It doesn't to me.

And it's a simple position to dismantle. If someone makes a choice then just ask them why they made it. The reason(s) given will pertain to those antecedent conditions. They determined the choice. Hence no free will. Else it was arbitrary. And again, hence no free will.

 

[stevevw]

What it's like to feel that we are the person we believe we are, what it's like to be stevevw, isn't the question. It's separate from the process of making decisions. The hard problem of consciousness and free will are two separate matters. Let's not conflate them. 'We have this sense everyday' is not something that anyone is going to accept as evidence. You'll have to do better than that.

It makes sense that consciousness is the ability to be conscious of what is happening event with the antecedents of physical factors. We can know we are subject to forces and also know that we can overcome them. Consciousness is vital to free will because free will requires conscious knowledge as opposed to unconsciousness which would be subject to antecedents and deterministic process but the fact they are subconscious or unconscious processes we cannot know about to intervene into and change.

Folk views of free will and moral responsibility accord a central place to consciousness. conscious action production is considered much more important for free will than is concordance with motivations, values, and character traits. Focusing in particular on two leading views of free will and moral responsibility, namely, Deep Self and Reasons-Responsive Views, I argue that these results present philosophers of mind and action with the following explanatory burden: develop a substantive theory of the connection between consciousness on the one hand and free will and moral responsibility on the other that takes folk views on this connection seriously.

Consciousness, free will, and moral responsibility: Taking the folk seriously

In this paper, I offer evidence that folk views of free will and moral responsibility accord a central place to consciousness. In sections 2 and 3, I contrast action production via conscious states and processes with action in concordance with an agent's ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

We suggest that the dominant, ordinary usages of ‘consciousness’ concern notions of being awake, aware, and exercising control, all of which bear a clear connection to free will. Based on this, we argue that findings purporting to show that people take the capacity for phenomenal consciousness to be necessary for free will are better interpreted in terms of a non-phenomenal understanding of consciousness. We explore this suggestion by calling on extant work on the dimensions of mind perception, and we expand on it, presenting the results of a new study employing a global sample.

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19556/

Scientists are not even close to discovering how the brain creates conscious experience. Somehow, brain processes acquire a subjective aspect, which at present seem impenetrable to classical science.

Consciousness, Free Will, and the Mind

Old-school neuroscientists have ascribed to the brain a singular and dominant importance that has long discouraged research into differences between brain and mind.

www.psychologytoday.com

Then give me an example where a decision was made without an antecedent cause.

Your once again assuming that the antecedents cause people to be totally devoid of the ability to overcome them in being a conscious agent. As consciousness agents we can even be aware of the fact that we are subject to outside forces and yet still are able to make conscious decisions that are meaninful and can overcome those forces.

Its more or less the forces of consciousness which can operate on a level beyond or outside the antecedents against the forces of antecedents. There is nothing stopping consciousness as a force overpowering some antecedents or deterministic processes.

The observer is part of reality and doesn't collapse anything. Random events many levels of magnitude below what we are discussing are not going to change your decision about going to the pub or the gym.

If quantum behaviour is fundemental that means its also fundemental to reality, to the macro world. All things are based on quatum physics at the fundemental level just like all solid objects are basically nothing 99% non physical at the fundemental level.

As mentioned there are some experiments that are applying quatum behaviour to the macro world. So already we are seeing its not just limited to the quantum world. Its just a matter of understanding at this time. But certainly if the macro and micro worlds are part of the same reality and that the micro world is actually fundemental to reality then they are connected.

The observers mind, consciousness is not part of the same kind of reality we apply to the macro world and is more in tune with the quantum world. I like what Stapp has to say on the observer.

He says that consciousness should be treated differently to the objective world of physical reality like the measuring instruments which are also part of the physiucal world we are measuring. The conscious observer can act on the physical world, comes in seperately, and is a different kind of phenomena.

In his seminal paper “Quantum theory and the role of mind in nature”, Henry Stapp argues: “From the point of view of the mathematics of quantum theory it makes no sense to treat a measuring device as intrinsically different from the collection of atomic constituents that make it up. A device is just another part of the physical universe… Moreover, the conscious thoughts of a human observer ought to be causally connected most directly and immediately to what is happening in his brain, not to what is happening out at some measuring device… Our bodies and brains thus become…parts of the quantum mechanically described physical universe. Treating the entire physical universe in this unified way provides a conceptually simple and logically coherent theoretical foundation…”(H. P. Stapp, 2001).

According to Stapp, two factors seem to be involved in any measurement: the observer (the one who is asking the question) and the observed (i.e., matter/nature). However, according to Stapp (who was a collaborator of Werner Heisenberg), quantum theory transcends this dualistic dichotomy between epistemology and ontology because it was realized that the only “thing” that really existed is knowledge. That is, ontology is always defined by epistemology which is primary. In simple terms, knowledge (a faculty of the human mind) is primary and matter secondary (i.e., Stapp argues for “the primacy of consciousness”
The Kochen-Specker theorem and the role of the observer in quantum physics | ॐ Homepage of Dr. Christopher B. Germann (Ph.D., M.Sc., B.Sc. / Marie Curie Alumnus)

The most radical change wrought by this switch to quantum mechanics is the injection directly into the dynamics of certain choices made by human beings about how they will act. Human actions enter, of course, also in classical physics. But the two cases are fundamentally different. In the classical case the way a person acts is fully determined in principle by the physically described aspects of reality alone. But in the quantum case there is an essential gap in physical causation.

This gap is generated by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which opens up, at the level of human actions, a range of alternative possible behaviors between which the physically described aspects of theory are in principle unable to choose or decide. But this loss-in-principle of causal definiteness, associated with a loss of knowable-in-principle physically describable information, opens the way, logically, to an input into the dynamics of another kind of possible causes, which are eminently knowable, both in principle and in practice, namely our conscious choices about how we will act.

By virtue of this filling of the causal gap, the most important demand of intuition—namely that one’s conscious efforts have the capacity to affect one’s own bodily actions—is beautifully met by the quantum ontology.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-03633-1_14

The illusion of free will does give us a sense that we are autonomous. It is exceptionally difficult to live any other way. It's quite possibly an evolutionary disadvantage to think that we don't have free will.

Perhaps the illusion of free will isn't an illusion afterall. If we are free agents to some degree then our conscious experience that we are more than just passive and programmed entities and are actually participants in creating outcomes and reality then it makes sense that we also know this to be true and thats why we have this in our minds.

Otherwise we are actually denying our own agency, our own ability to make a difference which seems counter productive and unreal in that we actually can make a difference in real life.