Every once and a while my mind will produce something of the serious philosophical nature and so… here it is.
When Robert Kane talks about responsibility indeterminism he does so with a particular concern more on the motives, grounds or conditions for a particular agent’s action rather than the alternate possibilities for such. In this assertion he uncovered the nature of free will but unfortunately he does not elaborate enough. The purpose of this essay is to build on the Libertarian philosophy to provide a more technical precursor to the modern philosophy. Kane claims that it is through the alternate possibilities of an instance he calls a ‘Self Forming Act’ (or an SFA) that we gain the responsibility we seem to be ever searching for. In other words if we have an instance in which there is an agent who did not have sufficient cause or motive for an action then the act is undetermined. So for example if a particular woman is unable to decide whether she wants to stop to help a person in need or save her job by continuing on not stopping, then in that instance her will is not already set and the act is undetermined. Likewise if an agent finds themselves rummaging through the fridge the agents will is already set and that act is determined but free nonetheless. It is a free act because it follows from the motives and sufficient cause already established through a previous undetermined act, the Self Forming Act. This is the nature of the SFA, it is present to stop the infinite regression back to birth when the search for responsibility and free will comes knocking. It should be noted however, that not all undetermined acts are self forming acts. For instance if I intend to type a certain sentence but my fingers slip, the act is undetermined because the mistake is another possibility from what was intended, but it was not the result of my motives and reasons. Kane’s theory seems to make a lot of sense in regular language but it lacks a real world application as it seems to simply disregard science for its duration. How can we really tell when our motives or conditions are not sufficient for a determined act? In this following an expansion of Kane’s argument will connect the quantum trend he seems to be following with his views on free will by analyzing the Heisenberg phenomenon with a Panpsychistic proposal.
Under the contemporary scientific physics scenario the atomic model seemed to indicate a causal system which boiled down to some defined fundamental laws or principals. Kane steps in during the advent of quantum mechanics; the predecessor, the atomic model is replaced by a new probabilistic framework which is loose and seems to be more of a chaotic swerving rather than any real causal system. At this point matter simply pops in and out of existence, seemingly randomly, but following a slight swerving pattern. Quantum is interesting to hear at first, but now we run into another problem: How does chaotic swerving give us any more of a real free will compared to the mechanistic atomist conception? To answer this question we can look to what is known as ‘The Heisenberg Principal’; it states that when dealing with quantum level particles they behave in such a way that quantum matter seems to act like a wave when not in observation, but upon inspection what appeared like a wave is now behaving like a particle. This type of behavior has an add characteristic about it, and that is that our consciousness seems to outside of what we perceive to be matter. If we are affecting matter with our observations, then it seems to indicate that consciousness is in effect an observer.
Panpsychism is theory which posits a unified theory of consciousness somehow inherent to all matter. So, for instance, instead of the view that consciousness exists outside of matter somehow as a byproduct of the brain (epiphenomenalism) Panpsychism would claim that all matter somehow has an element of consciousness as part of it, a ‘uniform’ expression throughout the world so to speak. With this in mind let us recall the Heisenberg principal. Perhaps the reason we have such a hard time observing matter at its smallest scale is because it is the threshold for consciousness. The popping in and out of ‘existence’ refers to thought becoming matter, and then matter back into thought. This is what gives rise to the possibility of the Self Forming Act for Kane. To explain this statement we must look at the way in which this Panpsychism operates. We appear as individual entities because our collective consciousness manifests reality at a certain dimensional position so as for matter to be an ‘interpretation’ of thought in a certain way. This is why we appear to be a reader and a writer in different positions, instead of a bunch of molecules in a specific temporal space. This is why our perspective or individual consciousness only senses about one millionth of the information that is actually around us at all times. Perspective, and hence what appears like our individual consciousness can be seen as a sliding scale as part of this universal consciousness. For instance a giant alien who is say, the size of the galaxy is going to have a different conception of time which would be much different from our own, as similarly if we imagine the various cells in our bodies as little ‘creatures’ in this regard it paints a better, two way picture of this intelligence spectrum. We’ve evolved intellectually and shaped our reality to create artificial intelligence just as the cells in our body evolved to give rise to the brain as we know it. Consciousness is the force that drives time forward, in other words all creatures and things have a certain perspective, but not all perspectives would be viewed as ‘intelligent’ by us. This is not to say that they are not, simply that we have a narrow viewpoint on intelligence thus far. Things like chemistry, electricity; they are simply the land markers to tell us what sort of dimension we are all viewing from the same universal source.
The aforementioned theory on consciousness deals with the mind/body problem that Kane appears to shy away from, but it also fits in with his indeterminism quite well. If we look at decisions we see that under this new framework they are a much more flexible concept. For instance if we see the physical laws as solid in the sense that they are the ‘language’ for our relative spatial location (our universe), then the world is determined in the sense that if you walk off a cliff, you will fall to your death, stopping the human perspective from operating according to the natural laws (no brain electricity, no perspective). Keep in mind that the singular consciousness framework is shattered so the will for a particular event to manifest is shared by every perspective. Areas of a discrepancy in universal perspectives can seem like indecision or great contemplation, or what Kane would call a SFA. Settling on a particular decision could be described as a particularly complex interpretation of a thought, or potential. For the most part though, we ‘agree’, hence the probabilistic quantum swerve that is mostly random, but also follows a certain trend. Collectively we work out all our problems in a sort of general agreement of how we want the universe to progress. This agreement involves the interpretation of some of Kane’s ‘set wills’ and simultaneously the interpretation of the resolve between undecided wills to produce the world we see.
The Panpsychism works under Kane’s system because it allows for the general play out of the world while still allowing for choices in the contemporary sense. In other words if we accept the world and reality as the collective language we use as a consciousness then we see that for the most part we are on a temporal ‘cruise control’ where most things like muscle twitches and normal human reactions are not free actions in the sense that they need to happen for things to carry on according to some degree of similarity and agreement. When it comes to what appears like an important personal decision however, or as Kane would call it, a SFA, the act is free in the sense that is not so much do with the language we are using, but with that kind of story were are trying to tell. It is in this way we find the responsibility we are looking for, even if it is collectively. It is in this way that we are reading what we have written so far, and then continuing on with the story, all of us co-authors of a universal story written in the quantum language.
