Here we are clearly stuck. If the things I think, feel and do are all intertwined necessarily in a brain intertwined necessarily in the laws of matters, what is the point of making such a distinction? Other than because “I” was never able not to make it?
Human emotional and psychological reactions occur in dreams as well. But how are they not entirely determined by brain matter? And how can we determine that, with the brain awake, it’s different?
We make choices based on the assumption that, unlike the choices that hedgehogs and rats and spiders make, ours are “thought out” and not just the biologically imperative. Most are convinced we have the capacity to choose something else entirely. But what if that is in turn just an illusion built into human psychology built into the laws of matter.
Some people might think of it that way, but the ability to think things through before acting isn’t the defining marker of psychological freedom to me. Here, we and the hedgehogs are in the same boats. It’s the absence of feeling forced. The hedgehog freely chooses (psychologically) to eat food just as I freely choose (psychologically) to eat food. But if a larger animal steels that food away, the hedgehog was forced to abandon his food, just as I would be forced to abandon my food if a thief stole it from me.
But if feeling forced is the only option the brain is equipped to create, you are bascially forced to feel forced. The larger animal and the thief would be no less compelled to think and feel and act as they do in a wholly determined universe.
I just don’t grasp this “psychological freedom” the way you do.
I mean, sure, there it is, this feeling that I am freely choosing to type these words here and not others. But how can it be demonstrated to me that this sense of autonomy is the real deal?
On the other hand, how are “intellectual (political) freedom”, “psychological freedom” and “metaphsical freedom” in the brain not analogous to a battery, an alternator and a starter in an automobile engine.
Well, political freedom has to do with laws and government, so it has absolutely nothing to do with batteries or car parts. Psychological freedom might have to do with, I don’t know, a state the car engine might be in?
Why is is not reasonable to argue that the brain parts interact only as matter must there in creating the car parts that interact only as matter must in the engine?
The car parts as mindless matter are not conscious of making choices of course but that’s the mystery of mind: matter able to convince itself that the choosing is autonomous.
Thus…
There’s a part here I can clearly recognize as different. But there is also a part that thinks, “it’s a distinction without a difference”. Why? Because whatever the parts of anything, they were never, ever going to not interact as nature intended.
Yeah, I know, that’s all you’re concerned about. But for someone who feels so strongly that these discussions should be brought into the world of real men and woman struggling for political power and (what was it?) conflicting goods, you sure seem to be barking up the wrong tree.
My point here however is that I am conflicted. I am of “two minds”. A part of me is convinced that any autonomy we do possess in the is/ought world is circumscribed by the manner in which I construe the components of my own moral philosophy. But another part of me is not even convinced that we possess autonomy in the either/or world.
There is no wrong tree here for me. There is only this: not being able to pin down the extent which “I” am in fact in possession of any capacity to determine my own life.
If you want to deal with the majority of people in their day-to-day struggles in the world of politics, economics, religioun, etc., I’d highly recommend adopting the “psychological” definition of freedom. That’s what most people understand and will be most receptive to.
Again, the presumption here [from my frame of mind] is that if I do adopt this definition, it is only becasue I could not have chosen not to.
But I have no way [here and now] in which to know this beyond all doubt. And neither do you.
Unless of course your take on all of this is in fact the most rational way in which to assess it. But if that were the case you would still have to devise an argument such that it can be demonstrated in turn that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace it in turn.
Even if you could get them to understand and believe in metaphysical freedom, or the lack thereof, they wouldn’t care about it.
But: were they ever able to care about it?
But I do not have a deterministic take on these relationships. I’m just not sure. Meaning I’m just not sure if I could ever have not been unsure.
Then why do you speak as though determinism is a given?
If I thought like that, I would never pursue my other aim here: groping with the existential parameters of this: How ought one to live?
Instead, with respect to “free will”, I am drawn and quartered by arguments that make at least some sense from both sides.
And the part about the irony you note is unclear.
The irony is that the quote you sited supports the indeterminism of quantum mechanics and throws out the hard determinism of classical mechanics.
Well, I thought its main point revolved around the extent to which even scientists gropping to comprehend the either/or world can ever really be certain that what they think they understand now will be sustained for long into the future.
The assumption here seems to be that while this is a reasonable reaction of yours in regard to my point of view, the same can’t be said regarding my own reaction to yours.
If that is my assumption, it is only because I could not not have that assumption.
(^ I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use that. )
Yes, that’s what we are attempting to come to grips with here: the extent to which any reactions from any of us were/are within our capacity to have been other than what they were/are instead.
Yes, but this one is a particulary Big Question. It revolves around the extent to which anything that we think, feel or do was ever within our capacity to not think, feel and do.
Hey Biggy, you know what I just realized? Check it out: you only think that because you were never going to not think that. <— Now that’s deep, eh bro?
How deep though? Is it in fact true…going all the way back to whatever it is that explains the existence of existence itself?
I am only suggesting that not only do I not know how deep it is, but that neither do you. There are only those who actually do think that their own TOE here and now either encompasses it or comes closer than anyone else.
The objectivists in other words. And whether with respect to the either/or world or the is/ought, their main aim is, in my view, to attain and then to sustain a psychological frame of mind that, to whatever degree, comforts and consoles them.
Then it comes down to whether or not they were ever able to not do this.
We need not infer freedom of choice. I am just saying that you’re not special. Other people do it all the time, and whether they do it because the laws of matter forced them to or they really did make a free choice to do it, you’re human like the rest of us, and there is no reason you, at some future time, can’t make a similar switch.
But then we’re still stuck with trying to figure out what it means to be human in a world in which none of us can really know for sure if what we do figure out is only that which we were ever only able to figure out. And even then we don’t know how wide the gap is between “in our head” and “all there is to know about existence itself.”
Let’s try this: Note what you construe to be the most important question here that I have not answered.
I would very much like an answer to my question: do you think that in order to have a subjective experience, one must be able to choose that subjective experience (this was the example about choosing to see a banana as blue).
But how does this not immediately take us on to the next question: do you think that what you do think here is something that you chose to think “of your own free will”?
The banana is blue because someone painted it blue, or because you have taken LSD, or because your brain is diseased, or because you are dreaming it is blue.
It still comes down to whether with respect to any of these contexts there is an element of autonomy present.
How does any of this make the gap between what you and I think we know about these relationships and all that can be known about them go away? Until that is grasped how on earth would anyone be able to determine if and when the discussion is moving forward.
I mean that I ask you questions in order to get clarity on your points. This, to me, would be a great help in moving the discussion forward. So when you avoid answering them, this to me stifles the discussion.
Automobile mechanics asking questions to gain clarity regarding an engine that isn’t working…how is that the same or different from philosophers and scientists asking questions to gain clarity regarding the choices that they make in fixing it? What particular questions would pin down once and for all if these choices could have been otherwise?
In other words, with some questions, there is only so much clarity to be had. We reach points in the discussions where one person’s clear thinking is anything but that to others.
And the “free will” antinomy is certainly one of those.
[Nietzsche] also taught how to see through the logic of people’s arguments to their motives. He taught to question not what people were saying but why they were saying it. People, he said, argue philosophies and other intellectual points, not to uncover and disseminate the truth, but to gain power. The existence of God is irrelevant to the preacher, only that his flock be made believers, for in that case he gains power over them. Now, in your case, Biggy, I don’t think you’re trying to gain power, but to avoid weakness. In avoiding my questions with the tactic: it’s futile to answer your questions, gib, because whatever answer I give you, it will be the only answer I was ever able to give you—you avoid exposing weaknesses in your arguments.
Given the sheer complexity embedded in the psychological parameters of any particular one of us, this may or may not be an accurate asessment of my own motivations and intentions here.
On the other hand, from my frame of mind here and now, I – “I” – am convinced that on this side of the grave we live in an essentially meaningless world and that on the other side of it I – “I” – is obliterated for all time to come.
So, to the extent that anyone is able to point out the weaknesses of this assessment, I can only be grateful.
On the other other hand, to the extent that we do in fact live in a wholly determined universe, I can only assume that this asessment was the only one I was ever going to make. At least up until now. I may well be “destined” to change my mind down the road.
So, how “weak” or “strong” is that assumption?
What can be exchanged here clearly?
And I suspect that the peace of mind that you and “most others” are able to sustain here is embedded in a psychological defense mechinism that revolves around one or another rendition of this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
But how on earth can any of us know for sure?
I imagine the problem for you, Biggy, is more than just that there is a gap, but a paradox. The way you argue your points comes across as though you think that in a world of pure materialism and unyielding physical laws, of cold lifeless matter and accidental events, there cannot be free will, consciousness, mind, and meaning. While I acknowledge that there is a gap between what I think I know and all that I would need to know (in order to finally know “the truth”), I am able to entertain certain possibilities—ways in which there might be free will, consciousness, mind, and meaning—so the gap isn’t paradoxical to me. <— This is enough to allow me to live with the unknown with some measure of peace.
Maybe.
But what still works best for me is the rather simple understanding that whether or not I have free will, it doesn’t make food taste any less delicious or music sound any less exhilarating or films enchant me any less intensely…
…or in regard to all of the other things that I do which bring me enormous satisfaction and fulfillment. That’s the part I fall back on. All of the distractions available to us to take us out of our more debilitating frames of mind.
As with the scientist and his new theory. The thoughts and the feelings that he or she experiences “in the moment” are such that “free will” is the last thing that is likely to come to mind.
Still, with oblivion [free will or not] they’re all gone too.
For me compatibilism seems to revolve around the assumption that a choice has been made and a meaning has been concocted for that choice — but there was never any possibility of it ever being any other way.
“A meaning has been concocted”… meaning what? A meaning for “choice”? <— That’s exactly what compatibilism is: a concocting of a new meaning for words like “choice”, “freedom”, “will”… such that they become compatible with determinism.
Still, the part that “spoils” it for folks like me, is in imagining that all of this chooing, all of these new meanings given, were not as a result of me actually freely accomplishing this but only as the result of all the dominoes in my head toppling over onto each other as they only ever could have.
The experience is still there, but only because it could never have not been there.
In other words, this seems to work for you…
That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. “Freedom” doesn’t mean “freedom from physical laws” anymore (never did, really). It means freedom from external forces (or sometimes internal) trying to make your life difficult—people trying to force you against your will… or natural forces like gravity forcing you to stay on the ground despite your best efforts to fly. But to make yourself a cheese and ham sandwich? There’s no external forces stopping you there, so you are free to make yourself a cheese and ham sandwich.
…in a way that really doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m simply not free to make a ham and cheese sandwich if I was always ever going to make it. If thinking that I am free is in turn the only way I was ever able to think about it, then this feeling of “compatibilism” is in turn illusory.
So, this part…
Essentially, compatibilism is getting back to grass roots, the layman’s understanding of freedom. It asks the question: what does the layman think he is free to do? What does he want freedom from? And the answer is very rarely: the laws of nature. So long as he is free from this or that (thugs, gravity, corrupt government), the compatibilist will take that definition of freedom and focus his philosophy around it.
…is just another intellectual contraption that your brain was determined to concoct in order to sustain the illusion that a part of you – the psychological “I” – might have chosen something different.