“An Argument For Compatibilism”
Jason Streitfeld
from the Specter of Reason website
Okay. For those here who subscribe to compatibilism, please explain, beyond intellectual contraptions like the one above, the point being made as it is applicable to, say, me typing these words and you reading them. How do you understand determinism and free will in a way different from how I do. The way that I do revolving around the assumption that even in defending compatibilism there was never any possibility of your not defending it.
What on earth do I keep missing here?
And that is exactly what I focus on as well. Moral responsibility in a world in which it is assumed that, unlike components of nature that lack the capacity to choose, we do in fact opt for these things instead of those.
Thus, given human biological imperatives, if the sex act is performed, one of the possibilities is a pregnancy. And once a new life is created in a particular womb, it goes through what it must go through in order to slide down out of the vagina and out into the world of new born babies. And none of us to my knowledge while in the womb chose to do the things that were needed to be done to bring all of this to fruition in a birth.
And, once we are born, there are any number of things that we do that are basically beyond our control. Others do things to and for us instead.
But eventually we reach the point where we begin to make a distinction between “I” and others. We choose things because we become aware that choosing different things results in different consequences. But how much of this is demonstrably autonomous? And then further we reach the point where we choose things that are judged by others as either the right thing or the wrong thing to do. Or is this too all just a manifestation of a wholly determined universe.
“An Argument For Compatibilism”
Jason Streitfeld
from the Specter of Reason website
What does it mean to speak of a coherent frame of mind here when God is introduced into the assessment? And if this God can create the human species, know whether they are naughty or nice and then reward or punish them accordingly, how on Earth is the “supernatural” part dispensed with. I must not be understanding his point.
My point though revolves around the extent to which this God is seen to be omniscient. Once He becomes all-knowing, we get into the age old debate in which human autonomy itself is somehow reconciled with that.
Things get all twisted into any number of imagined assumptions regarding His knowing here. Some claim He knows everything that we do but the act of choosing itself is still our own. Then I drag that frame of mind into the individual choosing in the is/ought world as “I” embodied in dasein. And then hundreds and hundreds of both genetic and memetic variables get thrown into the mix. Each mix then embedded in a particular context construed in a particular way. Parts of which are readily communicated and parts of which are not.
This is not intelligible to me. How does one really discuss God, given any degree of “supernatural” power, until one grasps reality going back to the existence of existence itself. Either an ever existing God created the Universe, then us with or without autonomy, or…or what? What’s crucial for me of course is that a God, the God is able to create rules that we are free to obey or not obey and and then depending on what we choose of our own volition, He will either reward or punish us. On both sides of the grave.
“An Argument For Compatibilism”
Jason Streitfeld
from the Specter of Reason website
Again, what on earth is this supposed to mean?
Joe is a rabid carnivore. He meets Jane who is a rabid vegan. Jane is convinced that eating animal flesh is immoral. That those who do so deserve to be punished and never rewarded. She’s even willing to go so far as to endorse laws that punished the eating of animal flesh as a crime. Now how is moral responsibility to be understood here by the compatibilists? If both Joe and Jane think, feel, say and do things because their brains are wholly in sync with the laws of matter, the ultimate cause of the behaviors they choose would necessarily be in sync with the ultimate cause of others reacting to those behaviors as either deserving to be rewarded or punished: with nature itself.
Unless of course in a manner that no one yet understands, “nature itself” [b]re the world of quantum interactions[/b] is able somehow to “choose” different outcomes.
And psycho-social matters in a wholly determined universe…how exactly is that not just another manifestation of the only possible reality? Same with human roles and relationships.
What are the compatibilists arguing here that I keep missing? And how would you determine that your own explanation in and of itself is or is not “beyond your control” in the manner in which we react to that expression in a world where human autonomy does in fact exist.
Of course what is this but another “general description intellectual contraption”…a world of words that, in no way shape or form, is connected to any substantive empirical evidence derived from actual human experiences, or from any data collected as a result of conducting experiments.
Anyone here able to link us to this sort of thing? Something that settles this age old debate conclusively.
Your version of philosophy seems to be 1) making unsupported assertions 2) making appeals to incredulity and 3) being an ass. You can’t have much internet experience. There are millions and millions of people who are your kind of philosopher.
First of all, given my own own understanding of a wholly determined universe…a universe in which the human brain/mind/“I” is but one more inherent/necessary component of the only possible material truth/reality…you typing the words above then and me reading them now could never have not been the case.
So, in a way that is difficult to explain, say, scientifically, I have to assume that instead we have at least some measure of autonomy in order to argue the point in a way that those who believe in free will insist these things are discussed and debated. Of our own volition.
All the while acknowledging that this in and of itself is only explicable going back to that which wholly explains the existence of existence itself.
Consequently, how would any advocates of compatibilism here react to that?
godoftroof, you’re right on. As sam harris once put it, ‘freewill’ is an impossibility for any conceivable material universe. This argument was over a century ago, and yet these philostophers still bang on about it.
Yes, deterministic causalism is another word for logic.
The facts, that things are determined more interestingly than humans can generally know, and that causes are more profound than humans dare to know, and that general human grasp on logic is wanting, are not due to any flaws deterministic causalism as such.
To argue against deterministic causalism using logic, which is deterministic causalism, is clearly not going to yield much fruit.
Still and all in order to make a proper logical argument one needs sound knowledge and understanding of all things considered to begin with. And such knowledge and understanding has emerged only quite recently in philosophy.
The fact wisdom exists, defeats what determinism is as a whole really. The system itself cannot be understood by itself, which leads to free will. The choice when the ability is had, to understand such system. The world used to be determinism ruled, until consciousness. Determinism effects the subconscious state much more.
In other words, the fact that your brain worked this out proves that your brain worked it out of your mind’s “I” own free will.
A world of words in which the words are true because they are defined and defended by more words still.
And if you took this intellectual contraption to the neuroscientists who are actually engaging the “scientific method” in probing the brain here experimentally, they would confirm beyond all possible doubt that this is true. Some even being able to go all the way back to explaining how the existence of the human species itself fits into a definitive understanding of why something exists rather than nothing, and why this something and not something else.
As a linear thing yes, but in a Relativistic universe causality is rounded on all sides, it is just a matter of where you begin attributing cause.
Some philosophers relinquish the will to know a first cause and simply posit their own wisdom as the central cause.
The mind contains future and past and brews them into something which exists in the present but is different from the present; a kind of antagonistic, very limited representation of the factors that go into and come out of the present which attacks it from both the past and the future. Inspiration is in allowing this attack to happen and orchestrate a part in it for oneself indifferently to anything other than the fact of attack.
“An Argument For Compatibilism”
Jason Streitfeld
from the Specter of Reason website
This observation alone encompasses just how problematic discussions like this can become. He says that he agrees but he may well be saying that only because he was compelled by his brain compelled by the laws of nature to say it. Just as we say we are choosing to read his words only in assuming that it was within our own autonomous capacity to choose not to. And then when, compelled or not, we bring God into the discussion that just adds another convoluted layer. After all, if an omniscient God is just another inherent manifestation of a wholly created universe…what then? Or, if, instead, an omniscient God created the universe and then created us to be autonomous how is what we choose to do not already known by God Himself. How here is free will squared with His omniscient nature?
And, again, in reflecting on all of this how is the mind of the compatibilist qualitatively different from the mind of the determinist? What, given the compatibilist perspective, would be any different? In particular, in regard to human interactions down here on Earth.
These points are embedded in an argument for compatibilism. When all I want to know is how on earth in a determined universe points that could only have been made are somehow in sync with the idea that peacegirl and others raise in distinguishing between choosing to raise them and “choosing” to raise them. I see this as embedded necessarily in the the psychological illusion of free will embedded necessarily in how the human brain must function.
The way forward [for me] is to explain how the past, present and future move as they do when a distinction is made between hard determinism and compatibilism. What changes in regard to what actually does happen?
And why focus on morality and moral responsibility if one is only ever able to make that the focus in the only argument that one is ever able to make. Isn’t that why? If you argue for a coherent picture going all the way back to what brought into existence the laws of matter themselves isn’t your argument going to be just another inherent component of that?
From chaos to free will
A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so
George Ellis at the aeon website
Of course it doesn’t matter what he might have said, only whether he could have said something entirely different. And then the extent to which, if he could have, we can determine definitively how to demonstrate this.
What is or is not superfluous in regard to matter unfolding into the future?
Come on, we all know the toppled domino here that brings all of this into question: the evolution of matter into biological life into a central nervous system into a brain into a mind into an “I” actually able to convince itself that any number of things it chooses to think and feel and say and do excludes all of the things it freely chose not to.
This is where scientists and philosophers have been spinning their wheels now going back to the very first mind that tried to grapple with it all the way to the final explanation.
In philosophy it’s called an antimony: “a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable”. Like the one where existence is infinite or it is not. Or the one where existence had a beginning or it did not.
In science, on the other hand, beliefs are tested “in the lab”. Actual experiments are conducted with the human brain in order to pin down the empirical relationships between the chemical and neurological interactions. And here the assumption on their part may or may not be that they are going about this of their own free will.
From chaos to free will
A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so
George Ellis at the aeon website
And then the considerably more problematic part: brains evolving into minds evolving into self-conscious minds evolving into you and I grappling to come up with a definitive understanding of whether or not the understanding itself is only as it could ever have been.
Really, is it any wonder than that, given some explanation for the existence of free will, one of the first things that the minds of mere mortals will do is to invent Gods. Let Him be the explanation. Then we are left only with reconciling human autonomy with the fact that most insist that their own God is omniscient.
It might seem or it must seem? Isn’t that the question? And yet try as most of us might [including myself] to wrap our heads around the reality that typing these very words or reading them is really just another manifestation of nature on automatic pilot, it just seems ridiculous. We invent words like “visceral” to connote a sense of certainty that goes beyond simple explanation. We just know we have free will.
From chaos to free will
A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so
George Ellis at the aeon website
So, will there ever be a time when it doesn’t have to be “set aside”? A time when the world of the very, very large and the world of the very, very small fit together seamlessly in an actual extant “theory of everything”. And then the part where the theory can be translated into an explanation for how the human mind fits into it given our day to day interactions? To be or not to be free?
In fact, it’s that very fuzziness sustaining all the uncertainties that allows us to voice all manner of conflicting assumptions generating all manner of conflicting conclusions. You might not be correct but no one is able to establish that you are wrong. Compelled or not.
On the other hand, as MA noted on another thread, “if humans are made out of molecules, and if molecules can’t speak, neither can humans” is nonsense. And yet it clearly seems to be the case that somehow we go from the fact of being constructed out of non-conscious atomic and sub-atomic particles to a very much conscious “I”.
Doesn’t the whole matter of determinism then revolve around how on earth to explain mind itself? Matter becomes mindful. How? Why? The very fact that matter can now ponder matter itself “ontologically” and “teleologically” seems, well, almost surreal to some.
Or, to others, attributable only to God. In particular, their God.
From chaos to free will
A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so
George Ellis at the aeon website
Okay, but what of the “structure of molecules” when the brain configures into mind configures into “I”? What of these molecules when, as most intrigues me, one “I” comes into contact with another “I” and fierce conflicts erupt over which set of behaviors will be either rewarded or punished?
What of DNA and proteins and messenger molecules then? Where does nature’s code end and our own autonomous free will begin when, say, the conflict becomes entangled in politics such that attempts are made to encode human behaviors through the law? Behaviors actually able to be enforced.
Here’s how remarkably mechanical it gets on the biological level:
And it all unfolds such that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the biological “players” here have the slightest inkling as to why they do this instead of that? How then are the dots connected here between biological imperatives and any one particular “I” using these laws of nature to “instruct” the body – their own – to choose one thing over another?
Yep, here we go again. Making an attempt at an explanation by noting the manner in which material interactions on the quantum level are often indeterminant. Surreal even. At least in terms of pinning down definitively why and how relationships unfold as they do – as they must – “down there”. What of cause and effect when the “viewers” themselves somehow determine the outcome? We can only imagine that consciousness itself is explainable in regard to all of the pieces still missing when biologists and physicists either agree or disagree with respect to what is actually happening in a brain derived from DNA derived from matter containing who knows what combinations of these guys: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle
And that’s before we get to how all of this fits into a definitive understanding of dark matter and dark energy.
From chaos to free will
A crude understanding of physics sees determinism at work in the Universe. Luckily, molecular uncertainty ensures this isn’t so
George Ellis at the aeon website
Again, if you are a free will skeptic isn’t this “confounding thing” no less only what it could ever have been? Either from inside your head, inside the heads of others or wholly in sync with nature going back to the explanation for nature’s existence itself.
Thus, once we admit that we are all stuck here until “I” itself is understood definitively, these “intellectual assessments” can only be but one more component of what seems to be an inherently problematic examination itself. Unless, of course, I keep missing something here that makes my own ambiguity/ambivalence go away.
And what might that be?
Constraints would become but one more domino toppling over in a causal chain that includes all of the dominos in all of the material interaction that there ever were, are now or ever will be. Sure, one can speak of them in assessments such as this as though one might have “chosen” not to have spoken of them at all [or spoke of them differently], but nothing in the assessment itself is an actual outlier given what would seem to be a seamless intertwining of all matter in sync with the laws that compel them over time and across space.
Okay, suppose he had done that. So what? Given the assumptions of those who suppose that all interactions – from what Newton did then to what we are doing now – are at one with the only possible reality. What constrains everything that everyone of us think and feel and say and do are the laws of matter. If…if those laws are no less applicable to the human brain configured into mind configured into consciousness configured into “I”.
Yes, given the laws of physics, the apple on the string would behave differently from the apple not on a string and just falling to the ground. But how is this applicable or not in turn to Newton either tying the apple to a string or not tying it?
And it’s not like the atoms involved in either context get together to decide this.
