Feather

What trick? If each of the individual components of a system obeys a set of laws, then the system as a whole must be said to obey the same set of laws, no? This isn't "rhetorical" at all. It's simply (logical) fact.

Take, for example, the set of numbers. By your "logic" it is impossible to posit the addition of any two numbers without considering the result "emergent" or a product of "intelligent design." Each number individual has a certain property, but somehow the sum of them does not? That doesn't make any logical sort of sense.

Nice ad-hominem. You are dumb.

Let's see. "...[C]an be described..." is not the same as "...defining...?" Hmmm.

What's good for me is not good for you, then?

I asked you how you define "self-conciousness." This indicates I'm willing to accept or at least build upon a definition you find suitable. Let's dispense with the ad-homs, shall we?

No. That's why I asked how you'd define it.

They're your strawmen, pal; not mine. But do continue. I am entertained.

Kent Stevens

In one sense we have choice, but in a deterministic causal sense we have no choice. In one sense we could have done something different from what we did but in a deterministic causal sense we must have done what we actually did do.

My position on free will and choice is essentially the same as I stated in my first post here. I did not rule out the use of the word choice in my first post. However, I have slightly modified my opinion as outlined in this post. I hope I do not confuse anyone too much with this post but for me to believe strongly in determinism and responsibility, I need to separate out the different senses of words and phrases such as “choice”, “must”, and “could have”.

In one sense we have choice such as in a person decides to buy an item. There were alternative products that a person could have bought but the particular product was obtained. This choice involved considering the alternatives, weighing the consequences and then with conscious will buying the chosen product.

But in a deterministic causal sense we have no choice. We are like the weather in what happened must have happened. If we had a perfect causal explanation for why a particular item was bought this rules out all other possible actions from occuring.

In a compulsive sense the buyer could have bought something else. There was no one holding a gun to their head saying that they must buy that item. They were still free to buy what we wanted. It was not predictable like the fact that the day follows night, that the buyer must have bought that particular item.

But in a deterministic sense the buyer must have bought the item just as the weather must have been either wet or fine yesterday. Various causes made a person buy that item as opposed to buying other items. We are causally determined just as the weather is causally determined.

There are also different senses of how we use the word choice. We can talk about the separate sense of human choice which has some of the following characteristics. It involves mentally considering alternatives, weighing these consequences of these alternatives and then consciously selecting an alternative. It is volitional choice in the sense that it is selected by the will. Involuntary actions such as breathing during sleep do not constitute human choice as this is done subconsciously and this is something that we can not choose to modify through an act of will. Choice has connotations that it is free in the sense that choice is not forced or restrained by external agents

But the word choice in another sense than human choice can be used can be used to describe a variety of different situations. Choice also applies to other animals than ourselves. You can also have a weaker version of choice that might be called mechanical choice. So in a weaker mechanical sense you could say that set of traffic lights chooses to switch on certain lights, depending on the amount of traffic given. In a mechanical sense a computer program could be said to choose to do different things dependent on what input it gets from a person. Bacteria could also said to mechanically choose in what direction that they go for food or light.

There would be limits to what extent you are going to use the word choice. It becomes a form of word abuse to use the word choice in some contexts. It would be incorrect to say that the weather chooses what it does. It was also be wrong to say that a random event such as a quantum event is chosen. It is better to say that quantum events are realised rather than chosen.

In taking a strong position for free will and responsibility I find myself using different senses for words and phrases such as “choice”, “must”, and “could have”. Things must have been caused as they have, but we are not physically coerced by others to do all the things that we do.

Kent Stevens

I am using the analogy that people in some aspects are similar to the weather. This is because I believe that there are similarities across complex systems. It is up to the reader to work out for themselves whether a genuine similarity holds true in an analogy.

Generally, arguments from analogy can be things that people buy into or they do not. There is an analogy that people are like robots in that they do not have souls and that they are determined. Obviously people are not metalic so they can not in all details be like robots. I personally buy into the robot analogy but a great number of people do not.

I personally buy into the analogy that people are like the weather in that they are complex, unpredictable, subject to physical laws, and they are determined.

People do not like buying into the above analogies because of emotional reasons, rather than factual reasons. All that someone arguing for free will has to do, is to state that without free will, people would be like robots, and people recoil from the notion of determinism. They do not seem to prefer the truth over their initial emotional response to something. People like this idea of a soul and an afterlife, which is not compatible with the ideas that we are like a robot or that we are like a complex physical system.

I think that problems such as self-consciousness and free will are more easily solved if we admit the similarities that we have with other things. If you do not admit these similarities free will and self-consciousness become harder problems.

Everyone uses metaphors or analogies. Scientists use a variety of metaphorical models that closely describe the physical world. Religious people claim that in some aspects god is analogous to a person.

There are more straight forward arguments against free will that do not require people to admit certain similarities between systems.

Determinism is often defined as the idea that everything can be causally explained. A determined system would be one that can be causally explained. As the opposite of determinism, a free will system may have actions that are said to be uncaused. Free will would be stated as being "uncaused causation". But this goes against the commonly observed feature that everything has a cause. What people do must be due to causes. These causes could go back to things such as genetics, parenting, and the type of society a child is born into.

[ August 24, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Stevens ]</p>

Amos

Free will is an illusion that humans treasure because our souls have sight of this ultimate freedom or we could have no knowledge thereof.

The Freeman would say that Determinism is an illusion because of the improper human perspective on the nature of things as they are.

owleye

Kent...

Your restatement of what you had in mind is a significant improvement I think in that it attends to the ambiguities associated with choices.

"But in a deterministic causal sense we have no choice."

Alternatively, this might mean that from a given condition only one outcome is possible -- (i.e. one choice equals no choice). However, there is a difference between understanding a determinism that yields only one possible course the universe could have taken vs. a determinism that permits alternative possible courses for the universe, both of which are causally connected. A determinist will seek causal explanations for every event. A mutation event is one that has to have been determined by some prior condition. It did not occur spontaneously. Something caused the mutation.

The question to ask is whether the mutation necessarily occurred as a result of the prior condition, with no possibility of its not occurring. It is one thing to say that the mutation was caused by (say) background radiation, but quite another to say that given this background radiation, the particular mutation that actually occurred at time t at site p must of necessity occurred as a result of that condition. Indeed, it seems that given background radiation we can only probabilistically determine the course of mutations.

Of course it is quite legitimate to think this probabalistic picture masks our ignorance of what is actually going on, but insofar as mutations are meaningful to us, it is not because we care in the least about the specifics of a particular mutation. There is a good reason why we don't track every possible event producing object in the universe. We don't care that it was this or that individual object. Such objects are, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable to us. We can lump them into a basket and deal with them probabalistically. Once we do this, it then becomes possible for objects to have properties independent of their deterministic origin. If everything were completely determined, there would be no real information in the universe -- nothing new could be produced. In order for information to exist we need at least two values possible (e.g., true or false).

"We are like the weather in what happened must have happened. If we had a perfect causal explanation for why a particular item was bought this rules out all other possible actions from occuring."

In the case of weather, the question is what sort of thing you would be looking for as a causal explanation. If the cause of the weather is external to the weather, it is not self-determining and we would be focus our interest in that. If you think we are not different in kind from a weather pattern, then I would imagine that you believe we are being buffetted about by the environment we live in and that we cannot control ourselves. We go with the flow -- with the way the wind blows. This might be an improvement on thinking that the God Neptune was the cause of the weather (or our actions). But it seems to me to relieve us of responsibility rather than support the view of moral responsibility.

"But in a deterministic sense the buyer must have bought the item just as the weather must have been either wet or fine yesterday. Various causes made a person buy that item as opposed to buying other items. We are causally determined just as the weather is causally determined."

The question to ask is whether we are self-determined, rather than other determined.

owleye

Kent Stevens

Just to accept that in some ways to the weather does not mean that we are totally passive. We are not necessarily like a leaf blown around by the wind. We can be like the wind in that we are not passive but influence the world around us.

The leaf that is blown around by the wind is analogous to what happens when we are forced to do something by use of physical threats. Then just as the leaf is forced to go in a direction different from where it would otherwise go, we are forced to go in a direction other than we would otherwise go. The alternative of the leaf falling straight down to the ground by an external influence is negated by an external force. But normally the leaf is free to fall straight down to the ground just as we are free to do what we would normally do. In this sense we are not other determined.

Gurdur

You've done absolutely zilch work in any field involving emergent effects of complexity, no ?

I'm afraid you'll eventually find out that such fields are not amenable to bar-fly opinionating.

I can't be bothered reading back to discover if I've already cited grammatical language to you as an example, but let's take your newest fallacy and look at it:

You mistake a determinist world for necessarily producing psychological determinism, simply because you find it logical, and because you find the two types of determinism equivalent and congruous. An error.

I would at this point refer you to an interesting range on scientific and philosophical literature contradicting your claim, but after reading the rest of your post I simply can't be bothered in your individual case.

Weird, but entertaining.
Never mind.
Fortunately, I am in possession of enough external evidence to know your claim is completely incorrect.

D'oh, "can be described" is the same under certain circumstances as "defining".
See my point re scientific and philosophical literature above.

Nonsense. You simply said you bet I couldn't define it, you didn't ask me to define it.
Goodbye.

Your request wouldn't ring so hollow had you not started with them.
Forget it.

You didn't ask me, you simply said you bet I couldn't.
Forget it !
Massive loss of interest in trying to talk to you has occurred !

Quite wrong yet again, and I've detailed each one of your strawmen; but hey, under the circumstances I'm none too worried.
Unfortunately, I do believe you have reached your entertainment value for me, since I prefer talking with people who have some idea of the subject matter, and if I want this kind of conversation, there's a pub a block down from me.
Bye bye.

Infinity Lover

BRAIN!! the decisive criterium is having a brain!

WHY do we overcomplicate our thinking like this? We have brains, and are capable of choosing to keep it simple. (guess we are also capable of letting our brains stampede)

Gurdur

Yup, and the other decisive point is in not thinking one can predict all properties of a system from its component parts.

Who would have predicted the emergence of the Sydney Opera House if only given the table of chemical elements and physics, for example ?

Mad Kally

bye bye