It is not news that, with ingenuity, (apparent) Alternative Possibilities can be accommodated within
determinism. It is even less news that Alternative Possibilities can be accommodated
(without the need for ingenuity) within indeterminism.
The question is why the determinism based approach is seen around here as “the” solution, when the evidence for the actual existence of (in)determinism remains unclear.
Indeterminism can accommodate “alternate possibilities”, but it cannot accommodate meaningful choice between them. As Eliezer said:
My position might perhaps be called “Requiredism.” When agency, choice, control, and moral responsibility are cashed out in a sensible way, they require determinism—at least some patches of determinism within the universe. If you choose, and plan, and act, and bring some future into being, in accordance with your desire, then all this requires a lawful sort of reality; you cannot do it amid utter chaos. There must be order over at least over those parts of reality that are being controlled by you. You are within physics, and so you/physics have determined the future. If it were not determined by physics, it could not be determined by you.
Also, starting from “extreme determinism” has been very intellectually fruitful for me. As far as I know, the mathematical part of my comment above (esp. the second to last paragraph) is new—no philosopher had generated it before. If I’m mistaken and your words about it being “not news” have any substance, please give a reference.
“Some patches of determinsim” is perfectly compatible with “some patches of indeterminism”. We need more-or-less determinism to carry out decisions, but that
does not mean it is required to make them.
The second part of EY;s comment is too vague. If I am being controlled by “physics”
outside my body, I am un-free. I am not unconditionally free just because I am physical.
We need more-or-less determinism to carry out decisions, but that does not mean it is required to make them.
That sounds inconsistent. What’s the relevant difference between the two activities? They look like the same sort of activity to me. Both require making certain things correlate with other things, which is what determinism does. (Carrying out a course of action introduces a correlation between your decision and the outside world; choosing a course of action introduces a correlation between your prior values and your decision.)
The difference is that if we tried to carry out decisions indeterministically, we wouldn’t get the results we wanted; and if we made decisions determistically, there would be no real choice.
if we made decisions determistically, there would be no real choice
I don’t understand this statement. Isn’t it drawing factual conclusions about the universe based on what sort of choice some philosophers wish to have? Or do you trust the subjective feeling that you have “real choice” without examining it? Both options seem unsatisfactory...
Determinism does not enforce rationality. There are more choices than choices about what to believe. Since naive realism is false, we need to freely and creatively generate hypotheses before testing them.
The part of your mind that generates hypotheses is no less deterministic than the part that tests them. (It’s not as if they used different types of neurons!) The only difference is that you don’t have conscious access to the process that generates hypotheses, so it looks mysterious and you complete the pattern that mysterious=indeterministic. But even though you can’t introspect that part of yourself, you can still influence what options it will offer you, e.g. by priming).
Maybe the two stages are in a time domain, not a space domain.
The “it only seems indeterministic” story is one of a number of stories. It is not a fact. My central point is that to arrive at The Answer, all alternatives have to be considered.
It’s not wrong, and it;’s not intended as a mirror-image of the LW official dogma. It’s a suggestion. I cannot possibly say it is The Answer, since, for one thing, I don’t know if indeterminsim is actually the case. So my central point remains: the solution space
remains unexplored, and what I put forward is an example of a neglected possibillity
If physics randomly decides whether an agent in state S at time t will evolve into state A or state B at time t+dt, then the cause of “A rather than B” cannot be the agent’s preferences and values, or else these would already have been different at time t. The agent could not be held morally accountable for “A rather than B” (assuming S were known to the judge). Indeterminism being present in the ‘cogs and gears’ of the agent is more like an erosion of personal autonomy than a foundation for it.
If the ‘problem of free will’ has a solution (resp. dissolution) at all, then it can be solved (resp. dissolved) under the assumption of physical determinism.
“Physics chooses” is vague. An agents physical state will evolve under the laws
of physics whether they are deterministic or not. If an agents state never contained the slightest inkling of committing murder, for instance, then they will not choose to do that—deterministically or not. A choice, random or not, can only be made from the options available, and will depend on their values or preferences.
That FW can be dissolved under determinism does not mean it should be disolved under determinism or disolved at all. A case has to be made for dissolution over solution.
“Physics chooses [between A with probability p and B with probability 1-p]” is vague.
It means nothing other than “a Laplacean superbeing, given complete knowledge of the prior state and of the laws of physics, would calculate that at time t+dt, the state of the system will either be A with probability p or B with probability 1-p”. (You can see why I tried not to write all of that out! Although this may have been unwise given that you’ve now made me do just that.)
Complete knowledge of the prior state includes complete knowledge of the agent. Hence, there is no property of the agent which explains why A rather than B happens. The Laplacean superbeing has already taken all of the agent’s reasons for preferring A (or B) into account in computing its probabilities, so given that those were the probabilities, whatever ultimately happens has nothing to do with the agent’s reasons.
You should read chapter VII of Nagel’s book The View From Nowhere. He explains very clearly how the problem of free will arises from the tension between the ‘internal, subjective’ and ‘external, objective’ views of a decision. From the ‘external, objective’ view, freedom in the sense you want inevitably disappears regardless of whether physics is deterministic.
The explanation about the Laplacian Daemon does not take into account the fact that the very varied pre-existing states of people’s minds/brains has a major influence on their choices. Physics cannot make them choose something they never had in mind. Their choices evolve out of their dispositions under both determinism and indeterminism.
If the choice between A and B is indeterministic, it is indeterministic, but the particular values of A and B come from the particular agent. Whatever happens has a huge amount to do with those reasons since your personified “physics” cannot implant brand new reasons ex nihilo.
I am quite capable of arguing my case against Nagel or anybody else.
Imagine a ‘coarse-grained’ view of the agent, where we don’t ask what’s inside the agent’s head. Then the agent has a huge spectrum of possible actions—our uncertainty about the action taken is massive.
Finding out what’s inside the agent’s head resolves either ‘most’ or ‘all’ of the uncertainty, according as physics is indeterministic or deterministic respectively. If physics is indeterministic then some uncertainty remains, and the resolution of this uncertainty cannot be explained by reference to the agent’s preferences, and cannot serve as a meaningful basis for freedom.
The point is: that extra bit of uncertainty on the end, which you only get with indeterministic physics, doesn’t give any extra scope whatsoever for ‘free will’ or ‘moral responsibility’.
I heartily agree with you that
the very varied pre-existing states of people’s minds/brains has a major influence on their choices. Physics cannot make them choose something they never had in mind. Their choices evolve out of their dispositions under both determinism and indeterminism.”
I can’t figure out why you’re making disagreement noises while putting forward the same exact view as mine!
Some irresoluble uncertainty about what an agent will do is the only meaningful basis for freedom. (Other solutions are in fact disolutions) The point is how an agent can have that freedom without complete disconnection of their actions from their character, values, etc. The answer is to pay attention to quantifiers. Some indeterminism does not mean complete indeterminism, and so does not mean complete disconnection.
Sorry but I think that’s confused, for reasons I’ve already explained.
Honestly, you’d enjoy reading Nagel. If it helps, he’s an anti-reductionist just like you, who doesn’t think in terms of ‘dissolving’ philosophical problems.
It is not news that, with ingenuity, (apparent) Alternative Possibilities can be accommodated within determinism. It is even less news that Alternative Possibilities can be accommodated (without the need for ingenuity) within indeterminism. The question is why the determinism based approach is seen around here as “the” solution, when the evidence for the actual existence of (in)determinism remains unclear.
Indeterminism can accommodate “alternate possibilities”, but it cannot accommodate meaningful choice between them. As Eliezer said:
Also, starting from “extreme determinism” has been very intellectually fruitful for me. As far as I know, the mathematical part of my comment above (esp. the second to last paragraph) is new—no philosopher had generated it before. If I’m mistaken and your words about it being “not news” have any substance, please give a reference.
“Some patches of determinsim” is perfectly compatible with “some patches of indeterminism”. We need more-or-less determinism to carry out decisions, but that does not mean it is required to make them.
The second part of EY;s comment is too vague. If I am being controlled by “physics” outside my body, I am un-free. I am not unconditionally free just because I am physical.
That sounds inconsistent. What’s the relevant difference between the two activities? They look like the same sort of activity to me. Both require making certain things correlate with other things, which is what determinism does. (Carrying out a course of action introduces a correlation between your decision and the outside world; choosing a course of action introduces a correlation between your prior values and your decision.)
The difference is that if we tried to carry out decisions indeterministically, we wouldn’t get the results we wanted; and if we made decisions determistically, there would be no real choice.
It’s a two stage model
I don’t understand this statement. Isn’t it drawing factual conclusions about the universe based on what sort of choice some philosophers wish to have? Or do you trust the subjective feeling that you have “real choice” without examining it? Both options seem unsatisfactory...
Determinism does not enforce rationality. There are more choices than choices about what to believe. Since naive realism is false, we need to freely and creatively generate hypotheses before testing them.
The part of your mind that generates hypotheses is no less deterministic than the part that tests them. (It’s not as if they used different types of neurons!) The only difference is that you don’t have conscious access to the process that generates hypotheses, so it looks mysterious and you complete the pattern that mysterious=indeterministic. But even though you can’t introspect that part of yourself, you can still influence what options it will offer you, e.g. by priming).
Maybe the two stages are in a time domain, not a space domain.
The “it only seems indeterministic” story is one of a number of stories. It is not a fact. My central point is that to arrive at The Answer, all alternatives have to be considered.
I was mostly trying to argue against the point that human minds need indeterminism to work as they do. Do you now agree that’s wrong?
It’s not wrong, and it;’s not intended as a mirror-image of the LW official dogma. It’s a suggestion. I cannot possibly say it is The Answer, since, for one thing, I don’t know if indeterminsim is actually the case. So my central point remains: the solution space remains unexplored, and what I put forward is an example of a neglected possibillity
This is equally far from being news:
If physics randomly decides whether an agent in state S at time t will evolve into state A or state B at time t+dt, then the cause of “A rather than B” cannot be the agent’s preferences and values, or else these would already have been different at time t. The agent could not be held morally accountable for “A rather than B” (assuming S were known to the judge). Indeterminism being present in the ‘cogs and gears’ of the agent is more like an erosion of personal autonomy than a foundation for it.
If the ‘problem of free will’ has a solution (resp. dissolution) at all, then it can be solved (resp. dissolved) under the assumption of physical determinism.
“Physics chooses” is vague. An agents physical state will evolve under the laws of physics whether they are deterministic or not. If an agents state never contained the slightest inkling of committing murder, for instance, then they will not choose to do that—deterministically or not. A choice, random or not, can only be made from the options available, and will depend on their values or preferences.
That FW can be dissolved under determinism does not mean it should be disolved under determinism or disolved at all. A case has to be made for dissolution over solution.
It means nothing other than “a Laplacean superbeing, given complete knowledge of the prior state and of the laws of physics, would calculate that at time t+dt, the state of the system will either be A with probability p or B with probability 1-p”. (You can see why I tried not to write all of that out! Although this may have been unwise given that you’ve now made me do just that.)
Complete knowledge of the prior state includes complete knowledge of the agent. Hence, there is no property of the agent which explains why A rather than B happens. The Laplacean superbeing has already taken all of the agent’s reasons for preferring A (or B) into account in computing its probabilities, so given that those were the probabilities, whatever ultimately happens has nothing to do with the agent’s reasons.
You should read chapter VII of Nagel’s book The View From Nowhere. He explains very clearly how the problem of free will arises from the tension between the ‘internal, subjective’ and ‘external, objective’ views of a decision. From the ‘external, objective’ view, freedom in the sense you want inevitably disappears regardless of whether physics is deterministic.
The explanation about the Laplacian Daemon does not take into account the fact that the very varied pre-existing states of people’s minds/brains has a major influence on their choices. Physics cannot make them choose something they never had in mind. Their choices evolve out of their dispositions under both determinism and indeterminism.
If the choice between A and B is indeterministic, it is indeterministic, but the particular values of A and B come from the particular agent. Whatever happens has a huge amount to do with those reasons since your personified “physics” cannot implant brand new reasons ex nihilo.
I am quite capable of arguing my case against Nagel or anybody else.
Imagine a ‘coarse-grained’ view of the agent, where we don’t ask what’s inside the agent’s head. Then the agent has a huge spectrum of possible actions—our uncertainty about the action taken is massive.
Finding out what’s inside the agent’s head resolves either ‘most’ or ‘all’ of the uncertainty, according as physics is indeterministic or deterministic respectively. If physics is indeterministic then some uncertainty remains, and the resolution of this uncertainty cannot be explained by reference to the agent’s preferences, and cannot serve as a meaningful basis for freedom.
The point is: that extra bit of uncertainty on the end, which you only get with indeterministic physics, doesn’t give any extra scope whatsoever for ‘free will’ or ‘moral responsibility’.
I heartily agree with you that
I can’t figure out why you’re making disagreement noises while putting forward the same exact view as mine!
Some irresoluble uncertainty about what an agent will do is the only meaningful basis for freedom. (Other solutions are in fact disolutions) The point is how an agent can have that freedom without complete disconnection of their actions from their character, values, etc. The answer is to pay attention to quantifiers. Some indeterminism does not mean complete indeterminism, and so does not mean complete disconnection.
Sorry but I think that’s confused, for reasons I’ve already explained.
Honestly, you’d enjoy reading Nagel. If it helps, he’s an anti-reductionist just like you, who doesn’t think in terms of ‘dissolving’ philosophical problems.
I didn’t say I was anti reductionist. I find this us-and-them stuff rather annoying.
OK. Replace the word “who” with “in that he” in my previous comment.
I don’t mind dissolving prolbems if all else fails. But you cannot reduce everything to nothing.