Free Will

[Flagg]

Hello all,

I would like to know the Objectivist understanding of free will. What does the choice of "focus" mean? Does it have anything to do with common notions of "compatibilist" and/or "libertarian" free-will?

Example A: What of a man adhering to his primary value of life by turning down cocaine at a party versus irrationally accepting the risk for a decision to use it, provided sensational enjoyment is far lower on his actual hierarchy than the choice for life (not to mention the possibilities of being arrested and/or randomly drug tested)? Should he have the ability to still choose cocaine? If so, what would drive that ability? Is it ultimately arbitrary? Is it neither?

Example B: To illustrate the above example, suppose a successful business man approaches a T-section at 8 AM, the right path being to his garage to take him right in on time for work, the left leading to a random neighborhood with nothing of interest. The man is cranking some Rush and thinking about a merger and turns right "without even thinking about it." Did he actually think about it and make this choice? Is this choice so overcome by his much higher chosen moral structure that it is literally or at least "virtually" compatibilist?

Example C: A man is at a Thai restaurant examining ethnic food choices which he can do no more than evaluate pictures. Liking chicken, he narrows down the choices to two chicken dishes with rice noodles and an assortment of vegetables and spices that both appear perfectly suitable to him. He literally cannot make up his mind, so he "randomly" takes the picture on the left and orders that, or, even better, he takes a coin out and flips it to decide. Is this a random, libertarian freewill choice, or does the choice rest to flip the coin, driven by the compatibilist desires that got one to the choice of two plates and subsequently by different desires which forced him to use a coin so he can keep the line moving and not end up embarrassed or kicked out of the restaurant? Would a choice to coinflip be different or equivalent to an actual (at least "perceivably") random choice in which the individual chooses the left hand picture on "whim?"

Example D: A man values his wife above any other person. However, in the past six months, this wife has started smoking heroin, cheating rampantly, stealing, lying, and doing all sorts of behavior completely belying all the reasons he values this person. The decision to "stand by your (wo)man" in this case would be improper under the Objectivist view: having originally placed (validly) this lady above all other people, this lady has changed the reasons for doing so, and has shown proof that it is not an arbitrary episode brought about by a solvable trouble and that it is not something she will change soon. The proper decision would be to dump her so you can be happy, stress-(relatively) free, and thus survive better through higher quality of work, better attention to ones deserving of value, and the adventure of finding a new (hopefully better) love that one may promote to the vacancy of "top value." This is an entire premise change - would doing the former case be possible but "improper" while the latter would be the "proper" way (as in Ex. A) or if one actually felt as described would the latter be compatibilist-automatic? If not, wouldn't the libertarian decision between the two options be essentially baseless at its core?

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Thoughts

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Determinism - I do not accept absolute determinism; it does not explain how desires, feelings, etc., are causally connected, more or less where those notions which prompt these feelings came from in the first place. It is a total denial of man's identity as I see it, even given my minor confusions on free-will. Whatever man's will has as its nature, lack of at least internal causation flies in the face of direct, everyday observation.

Compatibilist Free-Will - One would have to wonder where desires came from, and how they were organized into a hierarchy in the first place. Additionally, if one always does what one "truly" desires, this makes men literally infallible in their own context of mind, and incapable of making errors, for they simply were determined by "nature" (how?), "nurture," (how did ancestors learn or obtain these genetic ethical notions?), or even worse, "God" (i.e. Calvinistic theology, which denies free choice in order to prevent man from choosing God on his own so he can follow Calvin's outline of man either receiving Christ or not, solely dependent on God's pre-eternal decision). And isn't it question-begging to assume that factors that cause (or, namely, directly determine) a decision actually cause the decision itself independently of conscious control? If one is governed by libertarian free will, where does our "fake" perception of choice-ability come from?

Libertarian Free Will - A "totally free" requirement on all decision (equivalent to the libertarian determination of Example C) would obviously make man schizophrenic, but I think we mean the ability to choose between two disparate choices both based on reasoning and preworked judgment and organization of the hierarchy of one's values. Even then, is the choice between Decision A and Decision B itself free of influences, even if both decisions have intellectual backing (even assuming that the vast majority of the time at least one is placing a lower value as higher than one's actual structure, or, as explained, redoing one's structure of values itself properly or choosing to remain stagnant in error)? And for critics of libertarian free will (under the second view, not the first schizo view) wouldn't declaring all "non-compatibilist" (i.e. non inwardly-determined) free will as equivalent to chance due to our resultant inability to guess the actions of others be essentially assigning solipsism to other people, since we would simply perceive ourselves as making a nonrandom choice between two intellectually-backed decisions yet deny this same effect in other men by calling their choice "random"?

Life as the ultimate choice (moral question) - Objectivism seems to have trouble with it - once one reaches life, there is nothing higher in regards to morality, so serious reports like Tara Smith's "Viable Values" assert that the choice for life is simply "an ultimate choice." But if one is alive, then provided one's condition isn't in a state akin to painful cancer or impending inescapable Taliban torture and death, ought one choose to be alive? Shouldn't *that* be the stopping point instead of leaving the choice for life rather naked and somewhat arbitrary? And who is one who chooses death? The 9/11 hijackers at least equivocated an afterlife of virgins with actual life - they went for that mode of existence. Would the Columbine shooters represent those who choose non-life? Would a Machiavellian King? Would the Joker from the recent Batman flick represent this choice? They are described as people who literally render the concepts of morality and ethics inapplicable - truly a diabolical gamebreaker, but, thinking about it, if one chooses death, doesn't this ultimately mean one's death is the top standard and that one's only but ultimate course of action - in fact, one's sole "ought" and moral choice - should be to end their life in as swiftly and in as much of a guaranteed fashion (in the sense of successful execution and prevention from others to stop him) as possible?

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, is *any* decision perfectly able to be reversed if the same circumstances are repeated?

Thanks for pondering these questions - open your thoughts and minds! Looking forward to clarifications in the responses ...

D.

Edited November 27, 2008 by Flagg

[Praedo]

Excellent questions. However, I am not qualified to answer because I was just examining free-will myself, so have not formulated a complete opinion. So thank you for putting my question into words.

Would be interested to examine any answers while I reason out where I stand on the issue myself.

[Dragonfly]

I can't give you the Objectivist understanding of free will, only my personal views. However, there have already been lots of discussions on this forum about free will and determinism, so I suggest that you start reading those first, to avoid endless repetitions of earlier posts. A few threads in which these issues are discussed (among other things!) can be found here, here, here and here. It's a lot to read, but it may be very instructive. Afterwards you may guess my answers to your questions, or at least I won't have to explain them in excruciating detail. Happy reading!

[Brant Gaede]

I can't give you the Objectivist understanding of free will, only my personal views. However, there have already been lots of discussions on this forum about free will and determinism, so I suggest that you start reading those first, to avoid endless repetitions of earlier posts. A few threads in which these issues are discussed (among other things!) can be found here, here, here and here. It's a lot to read, but it may be very instructive. Afterwards you may guess my answers to your questions, or at least I won't have to explain them in excruciating detail. Happy reading!

Now you have to make a choice to make a choice which you can't do without choosing to focus on this matter. You have already focused on this to some extent and you may choose to defocus and, say, get drunk, watch TV, ignore it, etc. If you choose to focus more then your choices become more particular. I'm not claiming this is Objectivism this or that. My interest is the truth of a proposition directly laid on reality, which Objectivism frequently illuminates. Notice I said "you have to." All that means is you have to run your focus up or down the scale as you choose because it's hard-wired into your brain. That hard-wiring is what is deterministic in a human being. The determinists confuse that with influences which they consider deterministic and pretend someone, anyone, could not have chosen differently. Their only evidence is hindsight which doesn't predict anything.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

Prosit!

[Brant Gaede]

Prosit!

Okay. That seems to be somewhat European, which doesn't mean I'll pass it up.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Ayn Rand (on Tom Snyder): Objectivism "is true."

Not a true statement, but can you imagine telling her that to her face?

Objectivism 101: Learn all you can about Objectivism.

Objectivism 102: Learn that there is more in the philosophy than should be in a philosophy.

Objectivism 201: Learn that "mastering" Objectivism means 40 years of study and you'll still get Rand wrong on important matters.

Objectivism 202: Learn that that is a fool's game.

Objectivism 301: Keep learning. I'm not talking about Objectivism anymore.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

LOLOLOLOL...

You have me in stitches!

The following is worthy of being a great quote:

Their only evidence is hindsight which doesn't predict anything.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The following is worthy of being a great quote:

Their only evidence is hindsight which doesn't predict anything.

Michael

Brantus Maximus Quotatous Perfectus Gaedeus: The determinists only evidence is hindsight which doesn't predict anything.

I'll go back over my 2900 posts and see if I can find any more.

--Brant

[sbeaulieu]

Ayn Rand (on Tom Snyder): Objectivism "is true."

Could this have been more accurate? Objectivism "is truth."

~ Shane

[Brant Gaede]

Ayn Rand (on Tom Snyder): Objectivism "is true."

Could this have been more accurate? Objectivism "is truth."

~ Shane

No, that's just dogmatism. "Objectivism is true" or "truth" is only true inside the world of Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism is four basic principles, two of them axiomatic, logically linked sequentially, the last two, ethics and politics containing many derivative statements many controversial or undemonstrated. I am not saying Objectivist epistemology is not controversial; I just don't go there personally. Anything Rand wrote about esthetics is just her opinions with no logical relationship to her philosophy as such, albeit very interesting. Rand formulated her philosophy by asking herself what her ideal man would need, not what humankind needed. Thus we have both a great overlapping and a great disconnect in realistic and desirable ethics and politics. If you are going to prescribe ethics you had better know people a lot better than she did, to put it mildly, and properly appreciate the genius of monotheistic religion, especially Christian, and come up with a real substitute and avoid the hubris of calling your own philosophy "true."

--Brant

[Flagg]

Ayn Rand (on Tom Snyder): Objectivism "is true."

Could this have been more accurate? Objectivism "is truth."

~ Shane

No, that's just dogmatism. "Objectivism is true" or "truth" is only true inside the world of Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism is four basic principles, two of them axiomatic, logically linked sequentially, the last two, ethics and politics containing many derivative statements many controversial or undemonstrated. I am not saying Objectivist epistemology is not controversial; I just don't go there personally. Anything Rand wrote about esthetics is just her opinions with no logical relationship to her philosophy as such, albeit very interesting. Rand formulated her philosophy by asking herself what her ideal man would need, not what humankind needed. Thus we have both a great overlapping and a great disconnect in realistic and desirable ethics and politics. If you are going to prescribe ethics you had better know people a lot better than she did, to put it mildly, and properly appreciate the genius of monotheistic religion, especially Christian, and come up with a real substitute and avoid the hubris of calling your own philosophy "true."

--Brant

Brant, thank you for your comments. I do already recognize one important thing about Objectivism: Rand's views on toleration (or at least the Orthodoxy take on them) are not true. I adopt, as a principle, to tolerate those who do not verifiably engage in (or support the use of) unreasonable physical or psychological force, government or not, and to those who return a like respect for my worldview and discussion of facts. For example, I will discuss rationally with a Christian so long as they don't advocate theonomy or, as some Calvinists do, express a hatred for my worldview right off the bat and act hostile/snobby. In fact, I have more discussion with Aristotle-minded "evidentialist" Christian scholars than I do with the so-called "brights," who often dismiss my words because I dare believe that some problems are solvable, that reality is knowable, and that men are not, in Rand's words, birdbrained deterministic creatures because such existed earlier in the evolutionary chain.

Rand was wrong on many statements - one of my favorite examples is her usage of insurance profits as an example of disaster being rare. Of course, insurance profits come from actuarial underwritings based on the statistics, not the other way around, but Rand said this as a rhetorical offhand comment, not as an absolute. She was a philosopher, not a mathematician as I am.

Some other points of divergence:

*I believe roads and road maintenance are ultimately the property of the government. Rand would disagree.

*I believe some writers of different worldviews, e.g. Hunter S. Thompson, grasp and portray elements of truth that Orthodox Objectivism may not even consider; even if this portrayal is from a person with a dark, mystical worldview, they may author something from a proper viewpoint that they don't even realize. Take the normally malevolent writer Stephen King, for example: "Shawshank Redemption" is my favorite movie, and I think that Andy Dufresne, the uncompromising, self-confident character who not only never lets go of his values in a situation belying them but actually makes an impossible escape to realize them, could be the best example of "Objectivism" outside of Rand herself (and, *gulp*, perhaps as stark an example as John Galt himself, and his own escape from a crumbling world).

*I believe that governments should play a minimal role in the market - very minimal - beyond the enforcing of legal contracts as Rand held, but yet governed by the overriding principle of government's proper function protecting its citizens from the use of force (implied or psychological, in this case).

*My reading of Rand's epistemology recently, "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology," leads me to the conclusion that this work was incomplete. I have a 99% hunch Rand would agree; it's an introduction, after all, and Rand had no chance to flesh it out. The Q&A section, as Binswanger admits, is mostly extemporaneous. Nonetheless it hits on much truth, more even than I recall from my Philosophy Class study of Wittgenstein.

*Psychiatric conditions and their solutions with medication and therapy are necessary to recognize and treat for a self-esteemed individual (so long as such treatments are valid). For instance, it is proven objectively that a Texan moving in Alaska could be predisposed genetically to depression from pervasive darkness, an unchosen condition which could cloud one's otherwise active and happy worldview and ability. Proper medication and therapy in this case allow the restoration of one's faculty to act and choose as a normal human being. Such conditions are disabilities, which employers of jobs that are not impossible under these disabilities ought to (but should not legally be forced to!) recognize and adjust for especially if the individual excels at the job outside the context of the disability.

And perhaps most controversially,

*I believe that a Prime Mover and Prime Tuner *could* exist, and that such existence of a Being (or Beings) would not belie the primacy of existence. However, given that all proofs of such have logically failed, I am a so-called "negative" atheist in regards to such a God, and I am positive-atheist for sure in regards to the Christian and Muslim description according to their religious texts.

*I believe that a baby begins to exist when its body (most importantly a human-status brain) is fully "human-active"; perhaps a good question would be whether the baby can medically survive outside of the womb and still grow to a normal human being without unusual technological age. This means: no late-trimester abortions. Therefore I fully am "pro-choice" before that time, but "pro-life" afterward. A good standard must be medically set to define this line, however, much the same as 18 as a standard for determining statutory rape (even though many men or women are psychologically sound for sex beforehand, this is an age which encompasses all possible development of normal human beings so that courts are not bogged down with extraordinarily complex issues while judging a case).

*"Altruism" is all fine and dandy, but grossly misused. For instance, I teach *for the benefit of others*; else, there would be no teachers. I do this despite being in the position that I could take a job paying literally hundreds of thousands more in potential (teacher vs. actuary or cryptographer). BUT I DO NOT TEACH *ONLY* FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS. Teaching mathematics is my greatest ability, since I understand mathematics thoroughly and also since I understand how to relay these concepts well. And teaching for the benefit of others does two things: (1) makes the world a better place for me and the type of people I admire, since it will be filled with thousands of students with a better ability to think and reason on account of my ability; (2) most importantly, results in people who become a value to me due to their hard work, increased ability in rational thought, and thankfulness for their recognition that I have helped them to this position. Some of my best friends are former students. To me, this is worth more than the loss of salary I take from potential jobs that are too isolated and too boring. Plus, I also gain the benefit of interacting with people and improving my methods of communication. Rand might ultimately take a shaky agreement to this explanation of why I think "altruism" is misused (specifically, today's equivocation with my explanation to an actual loss or denial of one's values) but she would probably launch me down the stairs. ;)

I certainly don't fall into dogmatism then. But I will say that what I have read of Rand so far is remarkably similar to my worldview, and her sharpness is incredible. She is the philosopher who reaches the truth closer than any other, despite her missteps. There are some points I share (or not) and I will NEVER give these up:

*A universe outside my consciousness exists (I will not state this as "existence exists," since today's notion of such a statement is "all that exists exists," which is question-begging in the context of common knowledge, but I believe Rand's spirit is as I stated here). Objects exist outside my consciousness; they possess identity; their interaction with other identities define causation, even if it's weird, like in relativity or quantum mechanics. Period. Furthermore, this notion takes primacy over all else. Even more than that, I consider this statement wholly and literally impossible to change at this conceptual level - only in detail irrelevant to philosophy qua philosophy (i.e. physics).

*My consciousness exists, i.e. it ultimately exists in reality with an identity, and its identity gives rise to its epistemological purposes. All epistemology is up for discussion in my view, but consciousness, like reality, is not, as are sense perceptions and volition precluding medical proof of a brain tumor or psychiatric condition.

*Men MUST be self-reliant in a social context; even if one has a condition which would prevent this on a desert island (i.e. having no legs) one is still now in a reality which contains a social context in which he or she can **initiate action** to optimize self-reliance.

*Morality is objective, i.e. grounded in the identity of man, meaning it is ultimately grounded in reality. I hate using the word "selfish," since it will never be removed from the same type of equivocation that "altruism" is rooted in today; "self-reliant" is better. Socially, the way man *is* means that one *ought* to recognize this in others; when questioned, ethicists tend to point out to me that they believe such an *ought* is not very persuasive, but it's even more persuasive than recognizing that one *ought* to get out of the path of a tornado - for, one is himself a man, and it is impossible to deny rights in others (barring the occasional misstep; we're all human here) while recognizing those rights in the self. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is about as right of a description as it gets, and is not self-sacrificial; not a soul on Earth I've met (who isn't criminal) would advocate accepting a gift from someone who doesn't see them as a value or potential value, and properly so.

*Politics should be "libertarian," on the basis of the identity of man. Like morality and epistemology, the details are to be ironed out, but this is the principle that guides me in any political context.

*Art as being primarily proper in expressing elements of this worldview (i.e. Shawshank Redemption) or, secondarily, evidence of the artist's ability so long as the work of art does not advocate a statement with a basis in political usage of force (i.e. Salvador Dali).

*Outside of these notions, contextual knowledge of reality must force one to change one's positions at times on matters from the mundane to the crucially important. Even Rand advocated "contextual" certainty. Why, then, must her views be absolute? Her own "orthodox" followers deny this important thought from Rand; they can't be "orthodox" at all!

I know this drifted off-subject, but I needed to put my current views out somewhere. ;)

[Brant Gaede]

Well, keep the grinder going.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I second that.

That's some fine independent thinking, Flagg.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Flagg. let me take up, probably too briefly, the issue of free will. If I can free the time, I'll comment on other issues in your interesting posts.

Free will is an axiom of consciousness and, like all axioms, it must be accepted in the very act of denying it. To deny free will is thus to be guilty of a contradiction.

If you claim that we are determined beings -- determined by our environments, our genes, our bioechemistry -- you are claiming that you have knowledge that this is so. But by your own theory, your claim is not the result of your freedom to focus, to think, to strive for objectivity, to gather evidence, to search for facts, and so to reach reasonable conclusions which you can say constitute knowledgs; rather, your conclusions are merely the result of the forces that have compelled you, and so cannot be claimed to constitute knowledge. Perhaps you are compelled to arrive at false conclusions and to believe they are true; perhaps you are compelled to arrive at true conclusions and to believe they are true; perhaps you have no choice but to arrive at at some mix of the two. If you deny free will, it is because you have no choice but to deny it, just as you have no choice about any of the conclusions you reach. You are a robot, muttering the words you must mutter, and thinking, reason, observation, independent judgment, have nothing to do with your words. Any claim to knowledge is a pitiful illusion. You believe as you do because you must.

And, of course, without free will, no morality is possihle. If we behave courageously, no virtue attaches to our acts; if we steal and murder, no vice attaches to our acts. We had to act as we did. To judge a man for what he could not help doing would be a dreadful injustice.

Anyone who denies free will should, in reason, immediately stop claiming as knowledge that or any other conviction he might hold, and should immediately stop making any moral judgments. But of course, if he is determined, reason is not the source of his decisions and actions, and he will do whatever it is that he must do.

Barbara

[Dragonfly]

Free will is an axiom of consciousness and, like all axioms, it must be accepted in the very act of denying it. To deny free will is thus to be guilty of a contradiction.

Not so fast. First you'll have to define what you mean by free will and that is not so trivial as it may seem.

If you claim that we are determined beings -- determined by our environments, our genes, our bioechemistry -- you are claiming that you have knowledge that this is so. But by your own theory, your claim is not the result of your freedom to focus, to think, to strive for objectivity, to gather evidence, to search for facts, and so to reach reasonable conclusions which you can say constitute knowledgs; rather, your conclusions are merely the result of the forces that have compelled you, and so cannot be claimed to constitute knowledge.

The term "compelled" is misleading, it's what Dennett calls an "intuition pump". It suggests that you're not able to make your "own" decisions. But that is not what determinism implies. The brain can be a fully deterministic system and still make choices, weigh the evidence, draw conclusions, recognize errors, test the validity of its conclusions, in other words, generate knowledge. There is no contradiction in a deterministic system being able make choices and to obtain knowledge. Compatibilism is not a notion you can just brush away by simply claiming that it contains a contradiction. I've argued this point in many posts on this forum in the past, and I'm not going to repeat that all here. I have indicated in a previous post some threads in which these points are discussed. If I can find the time, I'll look for links to specific posts.

[BaalChatzaf]

Free will is an axiom of consciousness and, like all axioms, it must be accepted in the very act of denying it. To deny free will is thus to be guilty of a contradiction.

Why can't a totally determined entity print out "I do not have free will" ?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Compatibilism is not a notion you can just brush away by simply claiming that it contains a contradiction.

Dragonfly,

Say what?

A contradiction is something that is wrong no matter how you dress it up.

Barbara, from what I read, showed the contradiction, not just claimed it.

If you can choose and you are the chooser, you have free will.

You can choose to deny that if you wish.

(btw - I agree that there is much more prewired in our minds than traditional Objectivism holds, but that does not deny free will. It merely puts it in a biological context.)

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Compatibilism is not a notion you can just brush away by simply claiming that it contains a contradiction.

A contradiction is something that is wrong no matter how you dress it up.

That's not the point, the point is that there is no contradiction.

Barbara, from what I read, showed the contradiction, not just claimed it.

No, she didn't show it, she just claimed it.

If you can choose and you are the chooser, you have free will.

In that case deterministic machines also have free will.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In that case deterministic machines also have free will.

Dragonfly,

You are incorrect about Barbara's statement. She stated, "Free will is an axiom of consciousness and, like all axioms, it must be accepted in the very act of denying it."

There's the contradiction. You use something to deny it. It doesn't get much clearer than that and that is not a simple claim like "X is a contradiction" is a simple claim. Do you want to see the impossibility of the syllogism?

Premise: Free will is the ability to initiate a conscious choice.

Premise: I have the free will to consciously choose to deny that free will exists.

Therefore: WTF?

Maybe you have a different definition of free will, but all that is doing is using the same word to represent a different concept. For instance, you said, "In that case deterministic machines also have free will."

Nope. Not in the meaning being discussed. Deterministic machines might be able to bounce back and forth between predetermined outcomes delimited internally (by definition), but this is not the same meaning of free will in the sense Barbara (and Rand) was using.

It's a top-down prime-mover kind of thing, the source of cause not the result of a different cause, identified as an axiom. I don't understand why this meaning isn't clear. I don't mind a person saying he doesn't agree with that meaning (although I disagree). What I do not understand is a total blank when it is explained over and over (and by people much smarter than me), then the same words are used with a different meaning as if this were a refutation.

I just don't get it.

Volition as a primary exists.

Agree or disagree with that premise, call it a ghost or superstition or make fun of it or whatever, but it is cheating to ignore it while pretending it is being discussed and allegedly refuted (especially using weird smokescreen jargon like calling consciousness a "user illusion," etc.). You can't refute a nothing. And something is on the table, whether you choose to see it or not.

You, of course, meaning a conscious being who can initiate a choice without any internally predetermined result if he so desires, for no reason other than he desires to do so (or not).

Michael

[Matus1976]

Example C: A man is at a Thai restaurant examining ethnic food choices which he can do no more than evaluate pictures. Liking chicken, he narrows down the choices to two chicken dishes with rice noodles and an assortment of vegetables and spices that both appear perfectly suitable to him. He literally cannot make up his mind

There is actually a neurological disorder like this that manifests in the utter inability to make simple decisions. Sufferers may find themselves sitting on their bed staring at their shoes trying to decide which one to put on first for hours. I however attribute moments like your example to an internalized platonic idealism (I MUST find that 'perfect' meal!) and not adopting a good enough and best case scenario attitude which is a must for non-omniscient entities with a finite existence.

If you claim that we are determined beings -- determined by our environments, our genes, our bioechemistry -- you are claiming that you have knowledge that this is so. But by your own theory, your claim is not the result of your freedom to focus, to think, to strive for objectivity, to gather evidence, to search for facts, and so to reach reasonable conclusions which you can say constitute knowledgs; rather, your conclusions are merely the result of the forces that have compelled you, and so cannot be claimed to constitute knowledge. Perhaps you are compelled to arrive at false conclusions and to believe they are true; perhaps you are compelled to arrive at true conclusions and to believe they are true; perhaps you have no choice but to arrive at at some mix of the two. If you deny free will, it is because you have no choice but to deny it, just as you have no choice about any of the conclusions you reach. You are a robot, muttering the words you must mutter, and thinking, reason, observation, independent judgment, have nothing to do with your words. Any claim to knowledge is a pitiful illusion. You believe as you do because you must.

Thanks Barbara! This is a great and critical point I was not aware of.

The brain can be a fully deterministic system and still make choices, weigh the evidence, draw conclusions, recognize errors, test the validity of its conclusions, in other words, generate knowledge. There is no contradiction in a deterministic system being able make choices and to obtain knowledge.

In that case deterministic machines also have free will.

Dragonfly, I think you are mixing two separate issues. 1) is the physical universe deterministic and predictable and 2) is human behavior deterministic and predictable if based on that universe. Modern physics shows that the universe is definitely not indefinitely predictable. But Artificial intelligence and computer science shows that a non-deterministic framework of the universe is not necessary for free will and decision making. Systems do not require fundamental randomness to be capable of choice. So even if there are no quantum mechanical random probabilistic functions of the brain, choices and decisions (as you suggest) can still be made and we can still have free will. The functional nature of choice is not clear yet, but you are right that a random universe is not necessary to achieve that, but it's unreasonable to then call a system capable of free will but based on a fixed mechanical predictable system to be 'deterministic' If an entity is capable of free will, however, in a mechanistic predictable universe, this implies that the results of the decisions of non-deterministic entities can have effects in the that mechanistic universe that are not ultimately predictable.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Matus1976

[Dragonfly]

In that case deterministic machines also have free will.

You are incorrect about Barbara's statement. She stated, "Free will is an axiom of consciousness and, like all axioms, it must be accepted in the very act of denying it."

There's the contradiction. You use something to deny it. It doesn't get much clearer than that and that is not a simple claim like "X is a contradiction" is a simple claim. Do you want to see the impossibility of the syllogism?

Premise: Free will is the ability to initiate a conscious choice.

Premise: I have the free will to consciously choose to deny that free will exists.

You don't get it. I'm not saying that free will (the ability to initiate choices) doesn't exist, only that it is not incompatible with a deterministic brain. No one has shown that this incompatibility exists.

Maybe you have a different definition of free will, but all that is doing is using the same word to represent a different concept. For instance, you said, "In that case deterministic machines also have free will."

Nope. Not in the meaning being discussed. Deterministic machines might be able to bounce back and forth between predetermined outcomes delimited internally (by definition), but this is not the same meaning of free will in the sense Barbara (and Rand) was using.

What do you mean by predetermined outcomes delimited internally? The only limitation is by the amount of time and the available memory - and the same limitation holds for the human brain. An outcome doesn't have to be part of the program, it can be generated by the program, so the term "predetermined" is misleading. It seems you're thinking of "canned responses", but that is an unwarranted limitation. In a deterministic system every state of the system is determined by the state at a previous time, but if the system interacts with the external world, it is determined by its own state and that of the external world. We might feed it with random input, but for any given input the next state is still determined by its previous state.

[Dragonfly]

Dragonfly, I think you are mixing two separate issues. 1) is the physical universe deterministic and predictable and 2) is human behavior deterministic and predictable if based on that universe.

No, I realize very well the difference. But note that deterministic isn't the same as predictable (see also here).

Modern physics shows that the universe is definitely not indefinitely predictable.

Not only that, but QM has shown that the universe isn't even strictly deterministic. But that doesn't mean that it isn't largely deterministic (Newton's deterministic laws wouldn't be very useful if that were not the case) and that deterministic machines cannot exist (like your computer).

But Artificial intelligence and computer science shows that a non-deterministic framework of the universe is not necessary for free will and decision making.

Right, that's exactly the point I've always been making!

Systems do not require fundamental randomness to be capable of choice. So even if there are no quantum mechanical random probabilistic functions of the brain, choices and decisions (as you suggest) can still be made and we can still have free will. The functional nature of choice is not clear yet, but you are right that a random universe is not necessary to achieve that, but it's unreasonable to then call a system capable of free will but based on a fixed mechanical predictable system to be 'deterministic' If an entity is capable of free will, however, in a mechanistic predictable universe, this implies that the results of the decisions of non-deterministic entities can have effects in the that mechanistic universe that are not ultimately predictable.

The only quibble I have with this statement that you seem to use the terms "deterministic" and "predictable" interchangeably. As I already said, there is a difference. Chaotic systems for example can be deterministic but not indefinitely predictable. My point is that a system capable of "free will" may be deterministic but not predictable and that it is exactly its unpredictability that is the basis of our feeling that it has "free" will.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In a deterministic system every state of the system is determined by the state at a previous time, but if the system interacts with the external world, it is determined by its own state and that of the external world.

Dragonfly,

I have no idea what this means unless you are using this jargon to mean law of identity.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

In a deterministic system every state of the system is determined by the state at a previous time, but if the system interacts with the external world, it is determined by its own state and that of the external world.

I have no idea what this means unless you are using this jargon to mean law of identity.

I have no idea what the second part of your remark means, but I'll try address the first part. I prefer to give definitions of terms like "determinism" instead of relying on some vague intuitive notion and I wanted to refer to an earlier post of mine. Curiously enough that part of my post is now for some reason missing on this site, but I still have the backup with the complete text, so I'll now copy the text from that backup:

Ellen quotes Van Inwagen: "Determinism is the thesis that 'there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.'" It is indeed the definition that I use in principle, although I'd like to refine it a bit. A deterministic system is in my definition a system S which is defined at any time t in terms of its functional building blocks, for which holds that for a given t1 < t2 and S(t1) there is exactly one state S(t2). This definition is no doubt rather clumsy and can be improved upon, but I'll try to explain what I mean. Take for example a computer. This is in principle a deterministic system (in principle, as hardware glitches may occur, but we'll ignore them here). The state of the computer at any time can be described by the content of its memories (working memory, hard disk memory etc.) When there is no input from the peripherals the state of the computer at any time t2 is completely determined by its state at time t1, with t1 < t2 (the time can be thought as a discrete variable with the clock rate as quantifier). Observe that the definition of the "state" of the computer is limited here, it's not the physical state in terms of atoms and electrons, but its state in terms of its functional building blocks, the logic gates and bit patterns of the memories, or at a higher level of abstraction: in terms of the contents of its memories. That is important, as the computer in terms of atoms and electrons is not a deterministic system, due to the QM indeterminism. But while a single electron may not be reliable for a deterministic system, the behavior of zillions of electrons that move through the gates is very reliable (otherwise the computer wouldn't work at all). We see that it is of crucial importance to define accurately how the state of a system is measured and that's why I use the term "functional building blocks", as the fact whether a system is deterministic or not may depend on the definition of those building blocks.