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Sciborg_S_Patel
For the nth time I've said I'm only interested in discussing causality. ;)
Will reply to the rest of your post later.
Half a second to consciousness
- Thread starter Brian_the_bard
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For the nth time I've said I'm only interested in discussing causality. ;)
Will reply to the rest of your post later.
No worries.
Philosophers distinguish between compatibilist notions of free will, which are compatible with determinism, and libertarian free will, which is not. See link below.
One reason for doing so is to fend off discussion of notions of free will such as not being coerced, agreeing without being bribed, etc. The legal definition of free will.
But the primary point is to focus on the sort of free decision that is made in some way that is not wholly determined by past events and/or based on flipping coins. It is free in the sense of somehow not being predetermined. And, furthermore, it is not purely random, which even though not determined is of no comfort to the libertarian. But if you are going to reject the ideas of determinism and randomness, then that leaves us adrift in a sea of confusion. You then need to explain what sort of decisions you're picturing. I cannot grasp what you're thinking about without new ideas to replace the conventional ones.
~~ Paul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_(metaphysics)
Fair enough, but then I need you to define what you mean. The only sort of causality I know of is deterministic causality, where a set of events cause a new event in exactly one way. The laws of physics describe how the causes work. If an event occurs without any causes, then it is an arbitrary event. If you reject the idea that there can be an uncaused event, then you have to postulate that there are hidden variables that we don't yet understand. That is fine, but if you want to go further and say that those hidden variables do not work deterministically, then you got some splainin' to do.
Note that a nonuniform stochastic probability distribution can be created by applying a deterministic function to a uniform random variable.
~~ Paul
Silence
Member
Could a "super" position of consciousness bridge the gap between determined and random? A simplistic example, but say I approach a fork in the road and need to decide between the left and right paths. Let's further suppose we have an extreme computational ability to predict which path I will choose based on all known physical aspects of me, my environment, my history, physical forces acting upon me, etc. It would follow the materialist would feel pretty comfortable saying that my choice could be determined; say "left". Instead, however, I choose "right". Could there be a free will element here that supercedes all possible physical explanation and its due to this ethereal thing known as "consciousness"?
(I know its a rather crude example, but hopefully I've gotten the question across!)
(I know its a rather crude example, but hopefully I've gotten the question across!)
Stephen Wright
New
I would assert that artificial agents such as a mechanical or electronic devices could have deterministic output correlated to the programmed logic. However, people and living things can change probabilities whimsically, unconsciously, firmly, tentatively and furtively. How is your version of "determined" measured? I will again say; deterministic is a term of metaphysics. It is a descriptive word. Tell me about a real chemical reaction that is determined in a real world complex environment.
Your computer hard drive is made of bit cells - they are always flawed and are made to work with precision through error correction programs. So the hardware is not deterministic. Tell me about burn-in of electronic circuits - how can failure rates resulting from this be "deterministic". I see a stochastic physical world of electronic hardware - and an informational environment where logical processes can change it to a more error-free environment. With the separation of the programming from the hardware - this is obvious. I see your metaphysical stance on determinism as conflated and abstract.
Making electronic equipment is about finding how it fails, measuring failure and understanding probabilities for tipping-points. There is nothing 100% "determined" with electronic hardware.
(I used this example because it was in my inbox)
http://www.circuitinsight.com/programs/54920.html
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Stephen Wright
New
Paul,
I think it may be a shock to consider that determined causality is a metaphysical idea derived only from the context of materialism. Hume (in my limited viewpoint) tells the world that we are unable to empirically prove deterministic concepts, we only know that the natural environment has certain correlations that happen constantly.
There is a scientific methodology, one that I am presenting, which handles this issue. Physical measurements tell us that there is jiggle-room in all things materially real. Quantum jitter, virtual particles, electron tunneling, non-locality, tipping-points in failure modes, decay rates, etc...............
At the level of science where "here and now " actualized physical events are measured - there is only near determinism.
What is deterministic in physics is the math! Math is structured information and works at a level that is asymptotic to mass and forces. Mixing the actual behavior of natural physical events with the science regarding structured information yields the conflation that is philosophical determinism. Studying information as real - but reality of a different level of abstraction than matter/energy - enables a view where we can make sense of what is observed.
I think it may be a shock to consider that determined causality is a metaphysical idea derived only from the context of materialism. Hume (in my limited viewpoint) tells the world that we are unable to empirically prove deterministic concepts, we only know that the natural environment has certain correlations that happen constantly.
There is a scientific methodology, one that I am presenting, which handles this issue. Physical measurements tell us that there is jiggle-room in all things materially real. Quantum jitter, virtual particles, electron tunneling, non-locality, tipping-points in failure modes, decay rates, etc...............
At the level of science where "here and now " actualized physical events are measured - there is only near determinism.
What is deterministic in physics is the math! Math is structured information and works at a level that is asymptotic to mass and forces. Mixing the actual behavior of natural physical events with the science regarding structured information yields the conflation that is philosophical determinism. Studying information as real - but reality of a different level of abstraction than matter/energy - enables a view where we can make sense of what is observed.
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Perhaps, but I don't see what consciousness buys us. How does it decide to break the deterministic path to the decision and take the other road?
~~ Paul
Every chemical reaction used in technological processes and devices.
I'm not sure what the issue is here. We have no reason to believe that those occasional errors are anything but random.
When was the last time your computer got a memory parity error? It really doesn't happen too often. But I agree that some random errors do occur. Why is this interesting?
~~ Paul
Yup. I'm not shocked.
I've already offered multiple time to reject the concepts of determinism and randomness. That leaves us with no concepts whatsoever, since no one in this conversation (or elsewhere) has offered a coherent concept to replace or augment those two.
There is no clear dichotomy here: You can't reject determinism/randomness and then poof! replace it with that other decision-making process, because there is no other process on the table. I'd be excited to hear one offered.
~~ Paul
Silence
Member
If consciousness is in a "super" position to the material world around us we continually seek to explore via science, logic, and reason it seems reasonable to me that our rather crude concept of determinism might not be applicable to it. Perhaps "free will" is only part of the consciousness "realm" if you will. Perhaps cause and effect, determinism, etc influence but do not fully explain/control the path consciousness takes?
Again, I do not have any well formed ideas here but more of a sense (faith?) that we are not living in a fully deterministic existence.
Typoz
Member
"influence but do not fully explain/control the path consciousness takes"
Something about the wording here seems to place the cart before the horse. I'd be more inclined to say something like
"consciousness influences but does not fully explain/control the path the material world takes".
Or at least something like that might be what I'd put if I was in full agreement, however I don't necessarily support that version either. My suspicion is that the role of consciousness (including the collective as well as the individual) is much greater than that.
Laird
Member
I'd like to finally share with you the "third possibility" which you have also asked for many times, and I'll do it without rejecting your own definitions (of the supposed "dichotomy" of determinism vs randomness).
You have explicated or implied these definitions in multiple places, so this quote of yours is simply a representative one, with all emphases mine:
OK, so, let's look at the causal models which we can make, given your definitions, to explain any given event, E2:
Firstly, there is your deterministic causal model: E2 is in some sense a necessary consequence of a prior event, E1. i.e. it is in some sense impossible for E1 to effect anything other than E2 (this follows from the first emboldened part of your above quote).
We might symbolise this as (where "nec" stands for "necessarily"):
E1 ->(nec) E2.
Secondly, there is the "arbitrary" causal model, where "arbitrary" is for you synonymous with "random". In this case, E2 has no prior cause, E1 (per the second emboldened part of your above quote). It simply occurs. We might symbolise this as:
-> E2.
Now, you ask for a third causal model which leaves room for free will. Fine - here it is, symbolically:
E1 ->(n.n.) E2.
Here, "n.n." stands for "not necessarily". In other words, E2 is caused by E1, but not necessarily, i.e. not deterministically - it is a "freely caused" event, which leaves room for it to be a "freely willed" one.
If you can see a way around this, especially without changing your definitions, then please share it, but, given your definitions, you seem to have boxed yourself in.
I'm happy to be unboxed, but I don't see how this does it.
If E1 might cause E2, or if E2 might be caused by E1, there is clearly something more to the story. With nothing else in the causal chain, I don't see how "the missing part of the causality of E2" can be anything other than random.
You've done what most people do: Suggest that E2 might have "causes" other than deterministic ones, but said nothing about what those "causes" might be. I'm happy to accept, for purposes of discussion, that there are "nondeterministic nonarbitrary causes," but I haven't the foggiest notion how they can work.
~~ Paul
Laird
Member
I'd suggest that this statement comes from a reductionist perspective, but that free will is not amenable to such reductionism: that there is "nothing more to the story"; free choices are simply non-necessary causal chains in/of consciousness.
Laird
Member
I think it's important to add that from a reductionist perspective, "necessary" causation is no less mysterious than "non-necessary" causation, as I think Sci has been trying to point out. You can see this by asking "In virtue of what is this effect necessary?" Well, and so one might (as you, Paul, do) answer "In virtue of the laws of physics", but then you have to ask, "In virtue of what do the laws of physics apply to deterministic causality?", and there, I think, a reductionist answer is lacking - but if you think you can supply one, then please go right ahead.
Laird
Member
Just to be clear (sorry about 3 posts in a row): I have said only that E2 has a non-deterministic ("non-necessary") cause - not (as you claim in the above quote) that it has (or requires) any cause(s) further than that. It is only you who is not satisfied with a non-deterministic (non-necessary) cause, and who maintains that any non-deterministic (non-necessary) cause requires some other cause(s) too. I assume you stipulate these other causes so as to turn the non-necessary cause, which you cannot abide as an holistic explanation, into a necessary one - given the "extras" - which does satisfy you as holistically explanatory, but as per my post above, they are (should be, to you, the reductionist) truly no more satisfactory, because reductionism fails to explain necessary causes as much as it fails to explain non-necessary causes.
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Stephen Wright
New
I have just stated that I don't know of a single chemical reaction that is determined as to empirical measurement. You seem to think anything physical is determined - even if our observation shows that there are "errors" and deviation on a regular basis. Are all the chemical reactions in the brain "perfect" and proceed to completion and not observed as in some state of equilibrium?
I am saying if you stay "real" with actual measurements - determined things - are not physical but are logical. If you measure the determininism of chemistry and physics - it is determined by the math information! Not by natural reactions in a real environment. I know what the behavior of an ideal gas will be -- but measuring real gases, or liquids or solids is not ideal.
Your premise of "Every thing that is is not determined - is random" (not true mathwise) is not a fact of nature - it is a logical tautology. Natural events are jittery!
You're willing to claim that there is a non-necessary cause of E2 without so much as a hint of any details of how that new sort of causality works? Fascinating.
~~ Paul
I can't supply a final answer and I'm not asking you to do so, either. But the laws of physics are pretty well understood and we can apply them in a deterministic fashion to all manner of technology. We can use the random nature of radioactive decay, too, as in a true random number generator. We can predict new phenomena and then find them. And yet we have no evidence whatsoever of another sort of "non-necessary causation." It doesn't appear necessary to explain the world we see.
What interests me is that you would believe in this thing without being able to give even a vague description of how it operates.
~~ Paul