Peter Soderqvist

PRIMAL

Soderqvist1: You miss my point!
As I have pointed out earlier that a mutation is a quantum jump in the gene, it is analogous to my earlier description about how electrons jumps down to an lower energy level without have been between these levels, so the unpredictability of a mutation stems from the gene's indeterminate state between energy levels, because the gene, or part of the gene, which mutates, doesn't exists in the moment of mutation, and for the same reason; nothing determines its outcome! Your cards are only an average out phenomenon of a huge collection of quantum objects, therefore; a deal's possible outcome, is only determined approximately by its earlier condition!

Primal

Well then that is the argument for indeterminism arising from QM, and it is very questionable. First off this is a philosophical issue that involves a great deal of parsimony, not a completely empirical or scientific in which we can just suppose implications.


As I have stated determined does not mean unpredictable. So even if we can't predict the leaps of electrons or quantum objects, it does not mean they are not determined.


I mean you seem to be saying "they cease to exist for a while" and then re-appear undetermined. The problem is I don't see how something can just "cease existing" and all of a sudden just "start existing" again. That seems to violate the most basic principle of human reasoning, and as the greek proverb goes "Nothing came from Nothing yet."

If the opposite were true we'd be finding lions, planes and Gods popping out of nowhere, but that doesn't happen.


Also I am very weary about appeals to highly technical sciences on philosophical matters. Perhaps some QM scientists do agree with your position, perhaps not. And they also likewise argue with eachother as well as to the implications.

Everyone likes to abuse new sciences to promote their philosophy, Social Darwinists, Giain theorists, creationists, AP principle believers, postmodernists.

A good example is how many theists believe that the Oscillatiing Universe Theory proves that there is a God. Because the end point of this would be "God."

But whether it actually does or not is a different matter. From what I know, QM is a highly technical field that requires years of training to understand properly, and there is much disagreement in that field. From what I have heard, such scientists know that Quantum Mechanical formula work, but are very divided on as to why they work.

This is why I for example consider leaps from Quantum Mechanics into philosophy to be rather unconvincing. We now at days have theists that believe Quantum Mechanics prove God, people that believe in "Quantum healing", idealists that think it proves our mind literally creates the universe, etc.

This means that when we infer philosophical ideas from Quantum Mechanics, as we do all sciences, we must be cautious and not merely play on ignorance and lack of understanding on the subject.

Peter Soderqvist

The various quantum mechanical interpretations are in agreement when it comes to Bell's inequality theorem! That the theorem has been violated forces us to either reject reality, or locality, since both is not compatible with experimental findings! Take your pick?

acronos

I think many of us are talking about different things using the same words. Let me attempt to clearly define my use of the words before I begin.

Determinism – Everything in the universe is cause and effect; the outcome of the universe and every state in between could have been completely determined by analyzing it’s starting state, (assuming no forces exist outside the universe)
Free Will –

• a) Free will is simply the ability to choose or hold opinions.
• b) Free will is something esoteric that allows choice and opinions that is outside of the cause and effect chain spoken of in the above definition of determinism.

If free will definition a) is what we are discussing then I find the question meaningless. Using this definition, if free will doesn’t exist, the scientist could not hold an opinion and as such would never in your scenario be able to discover anything concerning Determinism or free will.

Now, say free will definition b) is what we are discussing and we are still able to hold opinions and choose after free will is proven false. What will have been proven false in this example is the “something esoteric that is outside of the cause and effect chain” but not the ability to choose and hold opinions. As such I can pull from my own experience to determine what might change in world opinion if such a scenario came to pass. I recently changed to believe in determinism and that free will definition b) is false. The basic change is that now I believe my consciousness is made completely of atoms when before I believed I had a soul. This little change had tremendous impact on my belief in God; I became an atheist. Pretty much everything else stayed the same though. My morals were the basically same; my belief about punishment was pretty much the same; my will to live was much better because I felt more in control of my life, not less.

Since the punishment issue has come up several times here, I will address why my views didn’t change much. I view punishment as a societal deterrence. It is similar in my mind to why society would build a dam to redirect the flow of water. Punishment and reward encourage people to behave in ways that are more beneficial to society. As such, they still have value.

Now, I am assuming that you didn’t intend in the scientist proof of determinism that they also discovered the exact state of the universe and used that to somehow predict all the rest of the future (ignoring the contradiction that whatever did such a calculation would also need to calculate itself.) So now the world completely 100% knows the future. Wow?? I can hardly even begin to imagine how that would impact society - especially the knowledge that it couldn’t be changed. I imagine that it would be the death of human beings because we need variety. Probably whatever we were after this, it wouldn’t be human.

I should point out that personally, I am not convinced that the world is completely deterministic. I think that probably what we see in the stars is not all there is to our universe. Forces outside what we typically consider the universe enter into the equation. I think quantum variations and randomness might fall into this category. Who knows what laws of physics are followed by the bigger universe that our universe is a part of. Cause and effect may have nothing to do with it. However, from a local perspective, I am a stout determinist as I defined it above.

Primal

I think you don't quite understand the role concepts play in observation. One cannot immediately leap from observation->conclusion. One must first bypass the need for conceptual interpretation, hence randomness could never be established from mere observation or expiriment like QM. It can only be supposed from the onset.

Mexicola

Just going back to the original post... Does the above statement follow from the truth of determinism? I believe it doesn't. A more accurate way of putting the above point would be that you do have control over your experience, but that this control is determined. You do have control because you can always change your mind. Of course, whichever decision you end up making is determined, but how do you know, before making the decision, which this is? The idea that there's some 'you' experiencing the world who lacks control is a hangover from Descartes and the 'soul-inhabiting-a-body' idea.
How then does the truth of determinism affect your life? If, ex hypothesi, determinism is true, it should not make any difference. You can go on choosing freely, just as you were doing before you ever heard of determinism. It's only when you assume the, well, problematic view of a 'you' (soul, etc) which passively sits in your head experiencing your body's sensory input that determinism looks like it should make a difference. If you take this view, then you're stuck with the idea that there are some decisions that 'you' (the soul, etc) can't help making a particular way; you start assuming that you will make a particular decision before you've made it. The point is that determinism only presents a problem for 'freedom' and choice if one knows which decision one will make before it's been made.
There's a rather nice paradox here: Say some advanced neuroscientist predicts that you will, say, raise your arm in 10 seconds. Can you then use this information to decide not to raise your arm at the predicted time? If not, then what would this feel like? Not being in control of one's own body? It seems odd that a pretty normal action would suddenly gain this strange phenomenology just by virtue of being predicted impossible. Also, it seems logically possible for the scientist to tell you that you will raise your arm and for you to then change your mind on the basis of this (stubborn humans that we are...) The point here is that the scientist's very act of prediction seems to alter the result he's predicting. Would he therefore have to predict his own prediction in order to then predict how this impacted on your choice of action? How would he go about predicting his prediction without actually doing the original predicting?? Would this be somewhat like the quantum physicist who's very act of prediction affects its object?

spacer1

Mexicola,
I pointed out a couple of times after the OP that, by determinism in this case, I intended to mean fatalism. In this case what effect could being conscious have on our actions? I posit none, and derived from this that consciousness allows for some control over the will.

Mexicola

spacer1,

Yeah, I sort of gathered that from your original post, so consider the first half of my post an argument as to why fatalism doesn't 'work' without 'souls' or somesuch entities. One nagging question is how we could come to know that fatalism were true. For this to be possible we'd surely have to know what our future actions would be before we'd acted them. I'm wondering how this would be possible, given that we aren't postulating divine revelation, etc. From this I think fatalism is actually incompatible with physicalism; a rather counter-intuitive conclusion!
I guess I should attempt to answer your revised question: what if fatalism were true? Well, it depends. Are we allowing that my judgment concerning fatalism can affect my future 'in the world'? I would assume not from your definition. Would it affect what I (the Cartesian 'Observer') can 'think' about my experience? If not, then I struggle to understand the question - it's a 'what if' with no possible consequences. Presumably then, it can affect my private 'thoughts'; I can make use of it in thought. I guess then the truth of fatalism would be fairly depressing and fairly amusing. I could presumably in effect 'sit back' and not have to bother thinking about anything, going through life as though I were watching a film. (It's interesting that some people claim to experience their lives like this; does assuming fatalism lead to its truth? Ie, if we assume that our actions are determined by 'external forces' then we also assume that we may as well give in to it, and hence do so (though of course in Bad Faith)). I guess this fatalistic conclusion is the one you 'posit', and I would agree that it is an unsatisfactory one, for the reasons I mentioned concerning physicalism/dualism, etc.
With regard to your conclusion that "consciousness allows for some control of the will", I'm not quite sure what you mean. By 'the will' I presume you mean one's actions, decisions, etc. Consciousness then allows us to change our minds about decisions, to reflect and 'override' certain impulses. If this is what you mean by 'control' then OK. But I think it's a bit misleading. There's no question of a conscious 'me' gaining control over my actions; I am my actions. The only thing that consciousness adds is that my actions can have slightly more complex motivations than they would if it were structured merely by 'biological imperatives'. These motivations are just as determined as the 'biological' (in the primitive sense) ones. I don't think calling this 'control' is particularly helpful, as it encourages the idea that we are 'behind' our actions - at some distance - as opposed to merely acting.
Is this how you mean 'control over the will'? Please explain if I have misunderstood you.

spacer1

Mexicola,
Yes, this is the same way I see it.
Perhaps. Perhaps all metaphysical beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.
I only begin from fatalism (and then intend to show why it is false, in its difference from actual experience) to show how consciousness allows for control of the will.

I am not sure I agree with your elimination of the Cartesian ego, although I do not mean to suggest that one actually exists. That is, we can still refer to ourselves as "I"s, since we have self-consciousness of ourselves as objects persisting through time. We are our bodies, I agree with you, and to refer to my body, I use the pronoun "I", but this does not mean to suggest that the concept of "I" has any substance other than as a self-conscious reference to my body (including internal thoughts and experience).
Exactly. It "allows us to change our minds." Isn't this ability exactly what we mean by free-will?
But doesn't self-consciousness create a 'sense' of "you" (or your sense of "I")?
What do you mean by "slightly more complex motivations"? I am looking to understand this from a first-person perspective, that is, an explanation which resolves our perception that we actually do choose freely, given your assumption that we don't.
But I view self-consciousness, and our ability to foresee the possible consequences of our actions, as being equivalent to "the idea that we are 'behind' our actions....as opposed to merely acting." If we were "merely acting", wouldn't we then be acting only on primitive drives?

This brings into sharp relief the question of consciousness in other animals. For example, we might say that a mouse has primitive drives, but does this mean the mouse is not conscious? Mice do seem to have some level of self-motivation if we try to catch one by chasing it. If we were to set a trap for the mouse, however, we notice that it cannot foresee the consequences of its actions as well as we can.

This seems to suggest some correlation, perhaps, between our knowledge of reality and the ability to forecast into the future. To have greater knowledge is to have better defined, coherent and corresponding concepts and explanations for one's experience of reality, which naturally leads to knowing what to expect with greater probability. Such improvements in knowledge seem to allow for more control of ourselves and our destinies.
I think you understood me quite well.

excreationist

spacer1:
You haven't replied to my latest reply yet... I hope you at least read it.

(From your latest post: )
As you seem to agree, our ability to predict the possible consequences of our actions is mostly caused by learning how the world works. - we find patterns in our experiences. BTW, if a child who hadn't learnt about springs or mousetraps, etc, at all, and you stuck some of their favourite food on some rat-traps, they'd probably try and grab the food. (Assuming they thought they were "allowed" to take the food)

"Changing our mind" just involves a problem solving strategy where we check to see if our decision is still the best one, based on new external or internal information. By "new internal information" I mean newly recalled memories. We can't instantly recall everything we know related to a particular topic. We can only recall bits of information at a time. (we have a limited short term memory aka "working memory"). When we are making a decision for the first time, most of the memory patterns we recall might suggest that a particular decision be made. So we'd think that that is the way to go. If we are a pretty insecure worrying type (etc) we might question our decision (or do it unconsciously) and recall some more memories related to the decision. Then those newly recalled memories might suggest that our former decision be changed. So we "change our minds". According to many people who believe in deterministic physics (i.e. one possible outcome) like Einstein, that change of mind was destined all along - it was inevitable based on the states of the particles before the events.
According to MWI though, many outcomes are possible... but in most parallel histories, the decision would be about the same if the timespan was short. (due to quantum randomness being "averaged out") If more time was allowed, the alternate histories would diverge a lot more. Though MWI involves a near-infinite number of alternate histories, it has many highly qualified believers including Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman.

I think our consciousness is the decision-making parts of our brain. As I've said earlier, I think our decisions are our responses to our drives (which I partially listed in my last post). The decision to "sit back and go through life as though you were watching a film" would also be motivated by a drive... perhaps it would be motivated by the novelty of it... the "newness" of the concept. It might also be party motivated by my hypothesized "connectedness/coherence" drive - in an attempt for the person to get a more complete understanding of the nature of the brain (to see whether it is entirely subject to "fatalism" or not).
Since I think our consciousness involves the decision-making parts of the brain, I don't think it makes sense for our consciousness to "stop thinking" and expect some unconscious part of our brain to automatically control our behaviour so that we act the same. We can think without using a language-filled "train of thought" though... and use intuition to make decisions. That is how apes would make decisions. But even then our consciousness would be guiding our decisions. (Formulating subgoals to seek fundamental drives)