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Author Topic:   Do I have a choice? (determinism vs libertarianism vs compatibilism)
nwr
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Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
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Message 18 of 210 (358096)
10-22-2006 10:12 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by JavaMan
10-20-2006 1:03 PM


Against determinism
Although there is much I like about compatibilism, let me put indeterminism into the mix.
While many people are persuaded by the arguments for determinism, I find them quite unconvincing. As best I can tell, there is no evidence to support determinism, and there could be no such evidence. It is mere dogma.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 20 of 210 (358114)
10-22-2006 11:24 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Trump won
10-22-2006 11:00 AM


Re: Indeterminism
If free actions are uncaused then one is not responsible for them.
That's not particularly relevant.
Avoid being trapped into black-and-white thinking. Events can be largely caused, but with a random component. If an event is largely caused by an actor, then the actor is substantially responsible. If it is not completely caused then the chain of determinism is broken, such that the future is not fixed by the past.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 22 of 210 (358136)
10-22-2006 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Trump won
10-22-2006 12:43 PM


Re: Indeterminism
In summation I find there being no responsibility if a "random component" contributed to the ouutcome and it is a variable that would change the outcome if removed.
That is still rigid black and white thinking. You need to get beyond that.
A drunk driver hits and kills a child. Maybe a slight change in a random component could have resulted in him just clipping the child for minor scratches. That such a change in random components is possible, does not in any way alter the fact that the driver was drunk, was acting irresponsibly, and acting in ways that are very likely to cause injuries. The possibility of a slight change in random components, that could have affected the outcome, does not in any way relieve the driver of responsibility. But that possibility does eliminate the idea that the future is completely and unalterably determined.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 28 of 210 (358154)
10-22-2006 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by DominionSeraph
10-22-2006 3:03 PM


Re: Indeterminism
Are you arguing that if he has a delirium as a result of his drinking, that would somehow relieve him of responsibility? Surely not.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 34 of 210 (358180)
10-22-2006 7:02 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by DominionSeraph
10-22-2006 5:39 PM


Re: Indeterminism
Sorry, but your actions conflict with your assertion that you're sure that I'm not arguing that.
What actions? What assertion?
My post consisted of a question - admittedly a rhetorical question. If it could be taken as asserting anything, then it is asserting that you are arguing that, and wrongly so in my opinion.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 37 of 210 (358197)
10-22-2006 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by JustinC
10-22-2006 7:24 PM


Humes Fork: Either our actions are determined, in which case we are not responsible for them, or they are the random, in which case we are not responsible for them.
That's a false dichotomy.
If our actions are determined by us, then we are responsible. It is only if the actions are determined by factors over which we have no control, that we are not responsible. They can also be partly caused by us, and partly due to random factors. In that case we are partially responsible.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 40 of 210 (358205)
10-22-2006 9:39 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Omnivorous
10-22-2006 9:10 PM


Had you said, "If they are partly determined by us..." I could go along with that, too. But that's a big if to leave out.
You are making a distinction between "caused" and "determined" that I had not intended.
Responsible or not, we can be links in a causal chain, but "determined by us" suggests free agency.
We need to distinguish between "caused by us" and "caused by our physical bodies". Your comment may be appropriate for "caused by our physical bodies", but "caused by us" implies intentional behavior, at least as I use the expression.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 43 of 210 (358212)
10-22-2006 10:05 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by DominionSeraph
10-22-2006 9:53 PM


nwr writes:
If our actions are determined by us,
By what formula?
I'm not sure what you are asking there. There is no mathematical equation that can be used to predict human behavior. And I don't expect that there ever will be such an equation. What exactly do you mean by "formula"?

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 46 of 210 (358232)
10-23-2006 12:11 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by DominionSeraph
10-22-2006 11:53 PM


So it's random? There really is no method to your madness?
No it is not random. There is no basis for jumping from no equation to random.
nwr writes:
And I don't expect that there ever will be such an equation.
If it ain't random, there is one.
You appear to be making some seriously mistaken assumptions.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 49 of 210 (358235)
10-23-2006 1:05 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by DominionSeraph
10-23-2006 12:32 AM


So you're saying that there's a nonrandom set that cannot be described by an equation?
I'm not convinced the expression "nonrandom set" has any meaning.
So, can you reconcile 'nonrandom' with 'follows no formula'?
The orbit of the moon is usually considered to be nonrandom, but it follows no formula.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 72 of 210 (358427)
10-23-2006 11:24 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Omnivorous
10-23-2006 9:44 PM


Re: Free will creationism
The first thing to keep in mind, is that if there are two people discussing free will, there will be at leasttwo different ideas as to what free will is. Much disagreement results from this.
I see you are keying your discussion to moral responsibility. That's good, because there is more agreement about moral responsibility than free will.
Who would assert that he [the insane brother] possessed free will when he emerged, not yet ill, from the womb? We commonly grant that small children lack moral comprehension and responsibility. But, at some point before his disease erupted, common wisdom (and law) holds that he became morally responsible for his actions. Then later, ill, he became not responsible for his actions: yet the causes of both the responsible and the not-responsible periods of his lfe were not materially different--genetics, epigenetics, environment, etc.--from yours or mine.
I agree with most of that. My disagreement is over the last part, on material difference. He is schizophrenic, but we are not. To me, that's a material difference (i.e. a difference that matters).
How did he--or any of us--change from a pure product of genes and circumstance to a freely intentional actor?
Are you asking for my complete theory of cognition
Let's start with something simpler.
Suppose that I were to design a mechanical robot, using the kinds of designs that we expect today. If that robot did something to cause injury or death of a person, you would not hold the robot morally responsible. You would hold me responsible, as the designer. You would also deny that the robot had free will, for you would take it that the robot was simply following the rules that I had programmed into it as part of the design.
So what's different about a person?
Here is one way to look at it. There is a sense in which a person is self-designed. The self-designing goes on throughout life, but is most pronounced during the period a child is learning about its world. As every parent knows, children don't turn out the way the parents would have intended. As every teacher knows, you cannot actually teach a child anything. The teacher can make the ideas available, and provide a congenial environment. But it all depends on the learning by the child.
In my view, learning is very different from what the machine learning researchers are trying to do. A learning child isn't merely accumulating facts. Rather, the child is reconstructing himself, redesigning his own cognitive system to allow him to better deal with the world.
If the moral responsibility goes to the designer of the robot, rather than to the robot itself, then as the child redesigns himself he takes on more and more moral responsibility as the designer.
In the case of an insane person, something has gone wrong with the neural system that prevents the self-designed behavior from being expressed. So in this case, we cannot hold the designer responsible unless we can show that it was the design that caused the neurological failures.
Let's return to that question:
How did he--or any of us--change from a pure product of genes and circumstance to a freely intentional actor?
My own view is that intentions are already present in the newborn child. That we can have intentions, is part of our biological makeup. That a robot cannot have intentions is due to how we design robots. However, at birth, the child's intentions are directed inward rather than to the world. Until the child learns to understand the world, it lacks the ability to direct intentions outwardly. A young child has a lot of psychology, which shows up in moods, fits of anger, colic, etc. This is the child's inwardly directed intentions in operation.
This initial inward intentionality is quite important. For it is what drives and empowers the learning process. The child learns by redesigning herself so that she can use external behavior to solve internal problems (such as hunger, pain, and a host of others).
At least that's my current opinion.
It seems to me that philosphical defenses of free will have abandoned the field by adopting truncated definitions: free will is an unconstrained will; free will is an unpredictable will.
I agree with you there. But I wouldn't blame all philosophers for that. There are many who will agree that free will is meaningless if it does not give you the freedom to act rationally.
Footnote: A question occurred to me, while making those comments about design, self-design, and the moral responsibility of the designer. What are the implications for the proponents of Intelligent Design?

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 78 of 210 (358448)
10-24-2006 12:57 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by DominionSeraph
10-24-2006 12:25 AM


nwr writes:
I'm not convinced the expression "nonrandom set" has any meaning.
It's the expression of nonrandomness.
How does "nonrandom" apply to sets? Is the set of primes non-random? What about the set of ordinals less than the first uncountable ordinal? What about the set of real numbers, which have a 7 as the 29th digit in their decimal expansion? What about a set chosen using the axiom of choice?
I can't see how "random" or "nonrandom" applies to most sets, unless I am dealing with sets in a probability space.
nwr writes:
The orbit of the moon is usually considered to be nonrandom, but it follows no formula.
To model the moon's orbit at 100% complexity, you'd have to take into account every piece of matter's effect on every other piece of matter within a sphere 27.4 billion ly across. The fact that we can't do this doesn't mean the universe can't.
Neverthelss there is no formula, unless you have some very strange meaning for "formula". Being able to model something is not the same as saying that it follows a formula.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 90 of 210 (358482)
10-24-2006 8:07 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by DominionSeraph
10-24-2006 2:07 AM


nwr writes:
I can't see how "random" or "nonrandom" applies to most sets
Probably because all the ones you're thinking of are nonrandom.
Let's suppose I use "/dev/random" on my computer to generate a set of 10 numbers. You would probably consider that a random set. Suppose I next solve an equation that has 10 solutions, and take the set of those solutions. You would probably consider that a nonrandom set.
But what if the two sets happen to be identical. Then we have the same set is now both random and nonrandom. How can that be? It seems nonsensical to me.
We can apply "random" or "nonrandom" to the method we use to generate a set. But it doesn't make sense to apply it to the set.
There is a notion of Kolmogorov complexity, and that is sometimes called "Kolmogorov randomness". Some people consider this a definition of a random sequence of numbers. But a set is not a sequence, and I still can't see how to make sense of "random" or "nonrandom" as a property of sets.

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 99 of 210 (358532)
10-24-2006 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by Tusko
10-24-2006 12:40 PM


Re: Free Willy
I don't think meaningful choices as I was describing them happen. I don't think they could happen. They don't make sense. A meaningful choice wouldn't be predetermined, and wouldn't be arbitrary. I don't think this is possible.
I go to the ice cream store. I have a choice of chocolate or vanilla. What is predetermined, is that I can't choose strawberry, for the store does not offer that. However, I am not understanding why you think my choice of chocolate or vanilla is predetermined. Maybe if I hate vanilla, then my choice of chocolate is forced. But what if I like them both - isn't it then a free choice?

Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 107 of 210 (358574)
10-24-2006 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Max Power
10-24-2006 3:11 PM


Re: Free Willy
Is this human level of understanding any different than an extremely complex code?
In my opinion, yes it is different. I don't expect AI to produce anything similar to our understanding or to our free will - at least not anytime soon.

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