Clutch

No. For instance, one of the landmark statements of anti-reductionism is Fodor's "Special Sciences". But (for obvious Fodorian reasons) it's perfectly consistent with token-identity physicalism.
I don't know who you have in mind, but you're probably mistaken. Reductionism is a view about the relation between the idiom and laws of two different discourses. You can (and many people do) hold that such idioms and laws are loosely co-referential, without holding that they have the same content, or capture the same regularities. Again, see my comment about digestion: I think that any instance of digestion is entirely physically constituted. But I don't think that biology is reducible to physics. Which half of this do you disagree with?You seem to be confusing physicalism simpliciter for physicalism towards the mind. Physicalism about PA's means holding that PA's are physical. Quine is an instrumentalist, and indeed an eliminativist, towards beliefs and desires. Dennett, famously, is a hedger (wisely, in my view); he courts instrumentalism, but demurs from Quine's eliminativism. Neither is a physicalist in the relevant sense. Sellars is a bit opaque, while Davidson is a funny case, since he is a physicalist towards PAs, but also an instrumentalist. It's an open question whether his anomolous monism is coherent.

Self-identifying non-reductive physicalists would be people like Jerry Fodor, Ernie Lepore, Georges Rey, Fred Dretske, certain temporal slices of Hilary Putnam, and such. None is a reductionist, though each is a sort of intentional realist.

Tercel

Well I was going to leave well enough alone on the basis that we've argued this before and got nowhere very fast.

The problem relates to causality more than anything else.
We are familiar with two standard types of causality in basic systems. The first might be described as a mechanical deterministic causality or "causality" or "determinism": A cog turns and forces the cog beside it round, or we plug "2+2" into a calculator and it spits out 4.
Under this type of causality, given the same initial states and inputs, the output and resultant system state will always be the same.
The second might be described as "acausality" or "random": That is, the output is not solely determined by initial conditions and inputs, but are determined on a purely random basis by nothing. Of course there may be necessary conditions, the acausal event might be an input into a larger otherwise deterministic system, there may be a probability distribution which models the likelihood of the various outcomes, etc. The important concept however is that the actually result is based in some part on true mathematical randomness such that it is meaningless and non-sensical to seek an "explanation" for the result in terms of causal connections to existing entities.

Now in practice of course, it may well be that these two systems are mixed. A model which I think respresents sufficiently well the general case of the combination of these two systems is a deterministic computer circuit, which has an initial state, zero or more random inputs (where appropriate probability functions may be assigned to those inputs) and zero or more inputs where deterministic-style data may be input. This allows for an arbitrary combination of deterministic and random data and an arbitrary amount of deterministic processing of this data (non-deterministic processing may be represented in terms of an additional random input and a modified deterministic processing system).

Now, it is often the case that the world is viewed in terms of these two types of causality, that these are sufficient to explain anything and everything in the universe. It is my belief however that this is incorrect and that such a view is inconsistent with the observation of free-will. The example given here is the question of "could Ted have done differently?" Applying my general model the answer is "no":
The parts of Ted involving deterministic processing could have given no different result given the initial state and inputs. The random inputs (if they existed), though they could have been different and resulted in a different output, had they done so, that would have been outside the control of the being called Ted. Ted is a victim of circumstance under this model: The different possible "decisions" Ted can make are selected at random by forces or powers outside of Ted's control.
Thus, I conclude that either Ted could never have done differently, or that Ted could never have choosen to act differently but could have been forced to do so. Hence I conclude that, under this model, free-will in any morally meaningful sense is non-existence.

It is quite easy to see the required solution that must me used if free-will is to be salvaged: The concept of self-determination must be introduced. There must be "random" inputs which are not utterly random, but are dependent upon the free will of Ted. That is, there must exist an irreducible entity of "Ted's will" or perhaps "Ted's mind" which can determine a result in a way neither random nor deterministic.
This leads to serious problems for those of an athiestic worldview. The idea of an irreducible entity of Ted fits incalcuably better with the theistic idea of an immaterial "soul" than it does with most atheistic worldviews I have encountered that would see the mind as a construction of a miscellany of matter particles. Futher the existence of self-determiners such as Ted poses an interesting puzzle. This self-determination cannot be explained in terms of standard determination or randomness or any combination of the two: Where is it being derived from? But it is an irreducible thing: it does not make sense to "explain" self-determination in terms of anything other than itself. The theistic view that God -a self-determiner- is the ultimate reality and that our free-will is given to us by God who has created us like him in this regard, is consistent with these observations.

Those are some of my thoughts on the matter anyway...

Clutch

tercel,How does the former follow from the latter?

"The observation of free will" is, essentially, that Ted is right when he says, "I could have done otherwise". Of course, it would be crazy to suppose that what Ted means is, "I could have done otherwise whether I wanted to or not." Rather, had he all-things-considered wanted to do otherwise, he would have.

His wanting to do otherwise, on psycho-physicalism, would have consisted in certain physical differences in the situation -- mostly a few differences in the state of Ted's brain. Had certain facts about the contingent physical constitution of Ted been different, he would have done otherwise; certain facts about the physical constitution of Ted could have been different; hence, Ted could have done otherwise. This accommodates "the observation of free will" unproblematically.

erehwon

Ted is going to the barbers, his only mission to to get there at a pre determined time.

The the act of a stranger was outside of the control of the being called Ted. Ted is a victim of circumstance.

If randomness is introduced as an external factor in an experience, then by definition, the responses become random. I have concluded this because if the response was in any way determined by other factors the randomness is lost in that internal workings have come into play, and the response becomes determined.

If a random stimulus is introduced, a random response is the only possible outcome, any reponse is defined under the general heading of response. Am I lost?

This is were i get lost... do you mean if Ted was mugged for the money and he is forced to act differently?

I see here that free-will has gone out the window.

The non-existance bit? Do you mean Non-existing?

Or do you mean that at that moment Ted, since he has no free-will,has his subscription to life in relation to himself temporarily suspended?

If so the quote

puzzles me, as if Ted has any existance in these "decisions" randomness in invalidated and Ted is validated.

Am i confused?

Clutch

I think so. I'm not entirely clear what you're focussing on, but it seems to be something other than the point of the thread.

erehwon

Im trying ascertain what exactly the conditions of your example are. Or whether you have set up an experiment in which the parameters are deigned to lead to a forgone conclusion. What i am trying to clarify for myself is what the meaning of the pre-established hypothises is.

For example you introduce Ted as having a pang of conscience. Then you state that the parameters are such that this pang of conscious is physicallyand causally determined for the purposes of your arguement. If this is the case then to my thinking, Ted from his stored information has at the time acted exactly as he did. There is no other way he could have acted as the parameters do not allow for it. This would also be true if Teds pang had consisted of a thousand different responses. He would have had a lot more mental defining and redefining to do in regard to the outcome.

Thats why I am attempting to walk through the scenario. In doing so I find myself wondering about the nature and origin of this pang of conscience. I know you tell me not to do this, but, if Teds descisions are determined physically and causally he acted as he would, there is no need for a "pang of conscience". Descision made and acted upon. Here I am in agreeance with Tercel. His arguement makes sense to me.

I see now that my confusion was in trying to stay within a set of parameters that don't allow for more than one answer. Hence the comment I made in an earlier post about the question being flawed (to my thinking), when people continued to work on the solution i felt i was missing something so tried to do the seemingly immpossible.

Tercel

Sorry, I meant to say "non-existent".

Clutch

Of course he could have acted differently: he could have wanted to act differently, and then acted differently as a result of wanting to! This is true even if his wanting to act differently would have consisted in the situation's being slightly physically different. Because it's certainly true that the situation could have been slightly physically different.

Someone takes a last-second shot in basketball; it wobbles on the rim and falls out. "Don't worry," his teammates tell him, "it could have gone in."

Now are they saying that, holding every single physical fact fixed, the ball could have gone in anyhow? No. They are using "could have been otherwise" in a normal, philosophically innocent, way -- to mean, "Holding most things fixed, but changing some small but important things, the ball would have gone in".

What Ted believes is that, holding most things fixed but changing the ranking of his desires, he would have done differently. Maybe he doesn't believe that changing the ranking of his desires amounts to changing microfeatures of his brain, but he needn't know that for his belief to be correct.