Last year while discussing bioethics with fellow blogger Jim Smalls, I expressed my disgust and dismay about ethicist Peter Singer. How could anyone with his intellect, I wondered, hold such bizarre and ridiculous beliefs? Jim has an M.D. and a Ph.D. He’s an extremely smart guy who is used to being around smart people so I expected him to confirm my suspicion that Singer may not be as intelligent as he seems. Instead, he said that I shouldn’t be surprised at all and provided an answer that floored me: “Increased intellect provides an increased power for rationalization.”
I was reminded of that insight while reading the New York Times piece, Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t. The author of the article, Dennis Overbye, discusses the issue of free will with several scientists, psychologists, and philosophers, almost all of whom hold materialism as an unshakable presupposition. The resulting rationalizations provide support for Jim’s claim and show how smart people can believe the dumbest things.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” wrote Michael Silberstein, a science philosopher at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines…”
I doubt many people will “freak.” Mostly they’ll just think you’re an idiot. People tend to have that reaction when you tell them they’re merely an advanced species of sirloin.
“When we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair,” says Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University.
As usual, Dennett makes one of his patented baffling/absurd assertions. If free will is an illusion, both the “looking into the abyss” and the “plunge into nihilism and despair” are things—the looking and the plunging--that we have no control over. It’s just the way that the molecules flowed. (Note to Dennett: That’s what it means when you say you have no free will.)
The real question is why we don’t assume this conclusion will lead us into peering into the chasm of cotton candy. Why wouldn’t it plunge us into euphoria and warm fuzzies? Why do we assume that our molecules would be like Nietzsche rather than Tickle-Me Elmo?
“Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.” Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
In other words, free will is much like indigestion. It gives us a sense that we are having a heart attack but it’s not a power or driving force that can kill us. It’s just an effect of a cause we can’t control. Like eating bad pizza.
He goes on to add:
“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.”
So the pattern is (a) scrutinize free will leads to (b) realizing you don’t have free will. But if we don’t have the free choice to scrutinize free will then we don’t have the free choice to realize that we don’t have free will. And how do we keep our molecules from getting stuck in some endless loop of scrutinizing and realizing? Oh wait, we can’t. We don’t have the free will to make that choice. (Just thinking about it gives me that looking and plunging feeling….)
Overbye points out that most people take a different view: “Whatever choice you make is unforced and could have been otherwise, but it is not random. You are responsible for any damage to your pocketbook and your arteries.”
“That strikes many people as incoherent,” said Dr. Silberstein, who noted that every physical system that has been investigated has turned out to be either deterministic or random. “Both are bad news for free will,” he said. So if human actions can’t be caused and aren’t random, he said, “It must be — what — some weird magical power?”
By “many people”, Silberstein apparently means “people gullible enough to subscribe to materialism.” Most people, in fact, do not find the concept of free will incoherent because most people do not believe the silly idea that we are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines. Perhaps if you believe that matter is all that exists then it might appear incoherent. But then you have to explain how a word like “incoherent” has any meaning when the mere utterance of the sentence was either determined or random.
Fortunately, as Overbye notes, not all scientist are so gullible: “A vote in favor of free will comes from some physicists, who say it is a prerequisite for inventing theories and planning experiments.” Indeed, the moment one posits that we lack free will the foundation of science is completely undercut. It’s hard to justify getting funding for an experiment when everything--from the grant proposal to the experiment's outcome-- is physically and causally determined by the interaction of random molecules.
But let’s get back to Dennett, my favorite fuzzy-headed philosopher. He section is so convoluted that it’s worth quoting in detail:
The belief that the traditional intuitive notion of a free will divorced from causality is inflated, metaphysical nonsense, Dr. Dennett says reflecting an outdated dualistic view of the world.
Rather, Dr. Dennett argues, it is precisely our immersion in causality and the material world that frees us. Evolution, history and culture, he explains, have endowed us with feedback systems that give us the unique ability to reflect and think things over and to imagine the future. Free will and determinism can co-exist.
“All the varieties of free will worth having, we have,” Dr. Dennett said.
“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”
In this regard, causality is not our enemy but our friend, giving us the ability to look ahead and plan. “That’s what makes us moral agents,” Dr. Dennett said. “You don’t need a miracle to have responsibility.”
Dennett is an extremely bright philosopher who has a profound ability to make utterly moronic statements. His view of free will, for instance, is a brilliant example of sheer stupidity. Look closer at what he says:
(1) Free will cannot be divorced from physical causation. This means that our “will” cannot be separated from the laws of physics and chemistry. Ergo, our actions are determined by physical laws.
(2) Our immersion into a deterministic system actually frees us since the deterministic, physical universe has endowed us with “feedback systems” that allow us to break out(?) of this physical causality long enough to reflect, think, and imagine. Ergo, our actions are determined by physical laws yet we are free to be moral agents.
(At this point you might be saying, “But…that makes no sense...” which would reveal that you lack the power of intellect to appreciate such absurd rationalizations.)
If Dennett is right and our will is physically caused and determined by the laws of physics and chemistry then our “feedback systems” are also caused and determined by the laws of physics and chemistry. Our ability to “look ahead and plan” would be nothing more than an illusion since we would still be subject to forces that began at the creation of the universe.
Essentially Dennett is saying that our will is determined by physical causes but it is okay since the physical universe endowed us with the magical abilities to transcend physical causation and take control over our will, thereby making us moral agents. Or maybe that’s not what he’s saying at all. It’s hard to say since it makes no sense.
You don’t need a PhD to say something so stupid; but without one people are more apt to just point out that you are speaking gibberish.
My favorite line, though, comes from Harvard psychologist Dan Wegner:
“[Free will is] an illusion, but it’s a very persistent illusion; it keeps coming back,” he said, comparing it to a magician’s trick that has been seen again and again. “Even though you know it’s a trick, you get fooled every time. The feelings just don’t go away.”
And the cold, deterministic, materialist universe responds: “Of course you get fooled every time, you bonehead. What’dya expect? After all, it’s not like you have a choice…”
Great points.
They are also probably fooled by thinking that everything in their consciousness exists at the same, horizontal level (e.g. reason is at the same level as sexual drive, passions are at the same level as the nous)... for those parts are quite determined being more animalistic, subhuman yet still part of the whole that can be redeemed and freed in Christ.
Ultimately, they have to believe, like Dennet awkwardly states, in a magical emergence of both consciousness and free will. Their god (probably gods, if you really dug into their thinking) both conflicts with everyday personal experience of the average person and is self-refuting on the face of things. Yet Dennett chuckles heartily after explaining how horses evolved people to domesticate them.
Your friend's observation about being too clever by a half is spot on.
Last January (January 2006) I had a very interesting conversation about materialism, free will, mind, and spirit with SCPanther.
On his blog, SC creatd a post which linked to a piece by Joe's favorite atheist, Richard Dawkins.
Mr. Dawkins insisted that materialism meant that no one has a free will. SC agreed with that, and concluded that since we do have free will, materialism must be in error. I disagreed with both Mr. Dawkins and SC. SC and I ended up exchanging seven lengthy, interesting comments in the comment thread.
My position was, and is, that free will exists and is a purely physical phenomenon. Our sense of being conscience beings is likewise a purely physical phenomenon.
Here is the link to SCPanther's post and comment thread: "Man as machine".
Why anyone bothers to listen to a person who believes they, and everyone else, are no more than a sophisticated version of Chatty Cathy is anybody's guess.
But intelligent people can believe really stupid stuff. My personal favorite is (suitably somber intonation and demeanor required): Crime rates continue to fall in Metropolis, despite rising prison populations.
Great post, Joe. It's remarkable how even these dyed-in-the-wool atheists can't help but point (both consciously and unconsciously) to God, even as they attempt through their rationalizations, to replace Him with their own intellects. E.g., "some weird magical power". Um, yes... (if we substitute "holy and omnipotent" for those two more derogatory adjectives). "Free will keeps coming back", they say, failing to consider that what appears actually *is* and that the reason it keeps coming back is because it is woven into the fibre of our being (but not that of say, cattle or worms) as children of God. The arguments of folks like Dennett et al always seems to come back around to their wanting to subtly remove themselves from the laws of the barren world they construct while leaving everyone else in it. I.e., to make themselves into gods.
Joe,
The post is light (very light) on argument and heavy on insult. If I have the opportunity to teach a logic course again, I think that I'll refer students to this post for an example of textbook ad hominem.
You assume throughout that free choice must be of the incompatabilist sort - that it must be incompatibile with determination by prior causes that lie outside the agent's control. But I can find no argument for this in your post. You don't even clearly articulate the compatabilist view - that freedom proper is an attribute not of choice but of action and desire, and action or desire is free when it realized unimpeded by anything external to the agent.
It's really quite easy to understand Dennett's view. We have desires of second- and third-order. These are desires that take as their objects other desires. For instance, I might desire not to desire to smoke (second-order); and I might desire that I come to desire to take an interest in, say, debates about free will (third-order). Dennett's view (and the view of many others) is that, to the degree these second- and third-order desires are effective and bring about a change in lower-order desire, we are thereby free. To them, it simply is irrelevant that there might be causes outside the agent that necessitated that she be thus and not otherwise. To them, the question of freedom concerns how the agent is "put together" at a time, not how it came to be put together thus. Dennett most certainly does not posit a causal efficacy that lies outside the natural order of cause and effect. Indeed he would say that to do so likely robs of us our agency, for it becomes inexplicable on such a view why we choose as we do.
Do you have an answer to Silberstein's question? (It is a question that has been asked long before Silberstein.) On the incompatabilist view, free choice isn't merely random, as is, say, the precise moment and manner of atomic decay. Nor is it causally necessitated. What then is left? Let us say that I freely choose A at time t. I wasn't caused to do so. Why doesn't this mean that it was simply random that I chose A then? And if it wasn't really random, what can this mean except that it has a cause? What's the third category between random and caused?
Last, I need it explained to me why a shift to dualism renders incompatabilist freedom any more acceptable. Why do we need immaterial stuff for free choice? Why can't the meat do it? Note that the caused-or-random objection has equal force against both materialist and immaterialist accounts of the self. It is, as it were, metaphysically neutral.
Alan
Great points.
Where? All Joe does is call anyone who doesn't believe in free will an idiot. He doesn't tell us what it is. He doesn't tell us how we know it exists. He tells us nothing.
George
Why anyone bothers to listen to a person who believes they, and everyone else, are no more than a sophisticated version of Chatty Cathy is anybody's guess.
True Chatty Cathy is a machine, so is a can opener and so is the best supercomputer that now exists. They are hardly all the same. If Chatty Cathy told you to buy ToysRUs stock you'd probably suspect the marketing department of that company was playing a game with you. If the can opener told you to do it you'd probably want to make an appointment with a mental health professional. If a supercomputer, though, said it was undervalued you probably would give it a look.
Franklin,
Excellent post, very, very good.
Franklin The post is light (very light) on argument and heavy on insult.
There are posts in which I present an argument and others where I simply mock silly men. This is one of those mock silly men posts.
But I can find no argument for this in your post.
You don’t find that argument because I’m not an incompatabilist. I’m a compatabilist, just not a physicalist.
It's really quite easy to understand Dennett's view. We have desires of second- and third-order.
In other words, it’s easy to understand Dennett’s view if we agree with his handwaving appeals to magic. Is Dennett claiming that these “second and third-order” desires are subject to the laws of physics and chemistry? If not then his view is incompatible with physicalism. And if he is then his view is as incoherent as I claimed, because they would still be only an illusion of freedom.
To them, it simply is irrelevant that there might be causes outside the agent that necessitated that she be thus and not otherwise. To them, the question of freedom concerns how the agent is "put together" at a time, not how it came to be put together thus.
Again, this is an attempt to sneak in magic to allow the view to make sense. Dennett wants to claim that we are nothing but physical beings and yet we are able to transcend the standard deterministic laws of physics and chemistry in making decisions. That’s just silly.
What's the third category between random and caused?
Your proposing a false dilemma, implying that the only choices are randomness and physical causes. But causes are not necessarily always physical. Indeed, we have no proof (re: Hume) that causes are physical at all.
Why do we need immaterial stuff for free choice?
We don’t, at least not necessarily. We could posit that a third way (for the physical realm) between determinism and randomness. But therein lies the problem. Once you accept the presupposition of physicalism (and its rules about determinism and randomness) then you paint yourself into a corner. The answer is that physicalism is just wrong. It’s a dumb idea that does nothing but impede scientific and philosophical progress.
And the cold, deterministic, materialist universe responds: “Of course you get fooled every time, you bonehead. What’dya expect? After all, it’s not like you have a choice…”
Chuckles.
Indeed, we have no proof (re: Hume) that causes are physical at all.
Actually I believe Hume argued that we cannot prove that causes exist at all. We say a teapot on a fire boils because the fire causes it but if it was just a coincidence that teapots always start boiling when they happen to be ontop of a fire but the fire didn't cause anything...well the universe wouldn't look any different so we wouldn't be the wiser.
Not too long ago, though, when you were presented the Kalam argument for God's existence you appeared to accept the proposition that every effect must have a cause. No in defense of free will you're going to entertain tossing causality under the bus?
We don’t, at least not necessarily. We could posit that a third way (for the physical realm) between determinism and randomness. But therein lies the problem. Once you accept the presupposition of physicalism (and its rules about determinism and randomness) then you paint yourself into a corner. The answer is that physicalism is just wrong. It’s a dumb idea that does nothing but impede scientific and philosophical progress.
If you're not intending to ditch causation then things that happen in the physical realm either must be caused by the physical realm itself, or perhaps are inherently random (which is probably the same thing as a physical cause) or are caused by something outside the physical realm...something immaterial.
To use a blunt hypothetical, you are standing over your enemy holding a gun. He begs for mercy while your finger is on the trigger. You either pull the trigger or don't. In either case we know physical things happened. We know your nerves transmitted a signal to your finger muscles to either relax or pull. We know this signal came from your brain.
As far as anyone has been able to observe nothing happens inside the brain or the rest of the body that is not explainable by the rules of chemistry/physics etc. This would seem to support determinism unless you are talking about mental states (what you were thinking as your body either pulled the trigger or not).
Now from there I suspect much of this so-called debate is just playing with definitions. What Dennant calls 'free will' isn't what Joe calls it and so name calling ensues. However it seems to me that Joe is the one here resorting to magic. He will tell us that the decision to be merciful or not is made by some magical entity called free will. This entity must interact with the physical world in some manner but it is completely undetectable. Nonetheless his arguments for us to believe in it are:
1 ad hominem attacks, those that don't are idiots.
2 appeals to personal pride...why if you don't believe in it then you are saying you're just a fancy can opener!
Now one idea that I always found interesting tackles the concept from a slightly different dimension. It holds that we do have free will in our mental states. The physical world, however, happens to be synchronized to our decisions (possibly by a God that knows what our decisions would be or by some other mechanism). We are trapped inside our bodies that are moving on 'auto-pilot'....however we have a sensation that we are in control of them when we really aren't just as someone who is lip-syncing a song may start to feel that they are really singing and could alter the words if they wanted. I suppose if you wanted you could link this with Eastern notions of enlightenment being possible but very difficult....or you could use it to make a lot of hack stuff like The Matrix.
Joe,
That one sets out to "mock silly men" does not mean that one is not guilty of ad hominem. Not all ad hominem is inadvertant. Some is quite deliberate, as is the case here. You take on an important philosophical issue, but treat it not philosophically but rather revert to character attack. That's ad hominem.
When I spoke of the caused-or-random dilemma, I did not mean that the cause need by physical. I simply meant a cause outside the agent's control that was sufficient to make her choose as she did. This cause might be physical. It might not. It really makes no difference. Consider: even if we were immaterial beings, we would still lack incompatibilist freedom even if our actions were completely determined only by immaterial causes that lay outside our control. The "rules about determinism and randomness" are, as I said, metaphysically neutral. There can be both material and immatrial determinism, both material and immaterial randomness; and my point was that, no matter what kind of being you think you are, you still must answer this dilemma if you are an incompatabilist.
You're a compatabilist, Joe? You think that you can be genuinely free and yet it be the case that there is some cause (material or immaterial, it makes no difference) outside your control that makes you act as you do? That's what compatabilism is, ya know. Why on the Earth, then, do you register the complaints you do? You poke fun at Dennett et al because you say that, on their view, we can't really be free. But why can't we really be free on their view? They're all compatabilists - they all think freedom is consistent with external necessitation. But then they're just like you then! I gather you're not a materialist. But that makes no difference here. Rather compatiblism says that freedom is consistent with external necessitation no matter what form, whether material or immaterial, that necessitation might take. You should include yourself on the list of "silly men".
About Dennett: he posits no "magical" causes outside the natural. He simply describes certain sorts of physical systems - those present in our brains - that, like all physical systems, obey the laws of nature, but that are able to operate upon themselves in certain special, but perfecty natural ways. There's no magic in the view. Free beings are, for him, self-regulating beings (to a first approximation), and self-regulation does not require the operation of immaterial causes. This is basic Dennett.
Franklin,
Another good point. It should be noted that coming down in the negative in the free will debate is not a position taken only by materialists or atheists.
One could be a philosophical determinist who believes in God or other supernatural beigns who do the determining.
If free will exists, then we have the freedom to choose our desires. We act in accordance with our strongest desire at the moment, and we're free to choose that, too.
So how does one choose? Social conditioning, brain chemistry, character, personality, none of these things has the power to tip the scales one way or the other. We're not going to sneak determinism in to explain free will. The scales are perfectly balanced.
To be free, you would not feel more strongly about anything over anything else. How would you choose which desire would be stronger? Were you guided by reason? Nothing forces you to be reasonable. You're not a logic robot. Are you guided by ethical norms? How? To be free to choose anything, good or evil, you'd have to be sociopathically indifferent.
So, good and evil, and reason and folly, are equally credible, equally appealing, and there's an equal readiness to go either way, at all times. One wonders how anything ever gets desired or chosen or done. Do you know anyone who lives this way? Does free will even seem appealing? But first, someone will have to explain how free will is even possible without invoking irresistible urges.
Franklin You're a compatabilist, Joe? You think that you can be genuinely free and yet it be the case that there is some cause (material or immaterial, it makes no difference) outside your control that makes you act as you do? That's what compatabilism is, ya know.
Here’s the gist of what I think on the matter. As John Locke wrote, “The will signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose.” The will, in my opinion, is the part of the mind that chooses what our motives select. We don’t necessarily have perfect libertarian freedom in choosing our motives. They can, in some sense be determined. But having “free will” merely means, I believe, that a person has the ability to make such choices on our own volition and in accordance with our nature.
Is that compatible with compatabilism? I think so, though I may be in error on that point.
You poke fun at Dennett et al because you say that, on their view, we can't really be free. But why can't we really be free on their view?
Here’s what Dennet, et al, are claiming:
(1) The physical realm is bound by the laws of physics and chemistry, it is not free to break out of that deterministic trajectory.
(2) Humans are complexly and only physical.
(3) Humans are free to break out of the deterministic trajectory of natural laws.
That is illogical and incoherent.
He simply describes certain sorts of physical systems - those present in our brains -
that, like all physical systems, obey the laws of nature, but that are able to operate upon themselves in certain special, but perfecty natural ways.
What you’re saying is that he either begs the question or, as I claim, resorts to magic. He is either saying (a) our brains are completely physical, therefore (b) since we have minds, they too must be explainable by physical systems or he is saying (a) our brains are completely physical, therefore (b) some magic occurs (i.e., emergent properties, downward causation) that produces minds.
There's no magic in the view. Free beings are, for him, self-regulating beings (to a first approximation), and self-regulation does not require the operation of immaterial causes. This is basic Dennett.
There is no self-regulation without downward causation. Downward causation is a hand-waving “magical” explanation for explaining a physical process in a way that we have no evidence for in nature. That is basic Dennett, which is basically silly.
Matthew Here is the link to SCPanther's post and comment thread: "Man as machine".
Good discussion. In the end I have to agree with SCPanther's conclusion that your position is untenable. You simply can't claim that something magical occurs to matter just because it takes a certain shape. That is why Dawkins, while wrong, at least understands that he has to give up on free will if he won't let go of physicalism.
(Of course you could choose a third option and believe in pansychism.)
Joe,
You say:
"Here’s what Dennet, et al, are claiming:
(1) The physical realm is bound by the laws of physics and chemistry, it is not free to break out of that deterministic trajectory.
(2) Humans are complexly and only physical.
(3) Humans are free to break out of the deterministic trajectory of natural laws."
I don't know what to say expect "No, that's not their claim". Dennett explicitly and repeatedly denies 3. To say otherwise is to willfully misread him with absolutely no foundation in what he's written or said. It seems pointless to me to discuss these views if they can't even be reported correctly.
I find your attitude to ideas opposed to your own worrying. Just how is it ridiculous to say we are just sophisticated meat machines? We are sophisticated. We are made from meat. We have biomechanical innards which makes us technically machines. So why dismiss the idea? Or is it because you cannot bear to accept an unpleasant truth; just how insignificant we all are. Tiny little organisms clinging like mould to the surface of this random rock. The idea is so unpleasant to you and yet so obvious you cannot even consider the thought and you immediately write it off as ridiculous. Some people have the courage to accept the awful truth. Some people can think outside the box.
Franklin I don't know what to say expect "No, that's not their claim". Dennett explicitly and repeatedly denies 3. To say otherwise is to willfully misread him with absolutely no foundation in what he's written or said.
In the article I quote he says, “We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes." What does he mean, then, if he isn't saying we can break off the deterministic path? Is he claiming that somehow matter takes on special properties and acts differently once its locked inside a human skull?
Franklin:
About Dennett: he posits no "magical" causes outside the natural. He simply describes certain sorts of physical systems - those present in our brains - that, like all physical systems, obey the laws of nature, but that are able to operate upon themselves in certain special, but perfectly natural ways. There's no magic in the view.
The problem with this view is that several different physical systems interacting by themselves and on each other does not mean free will. If no part of the process is free, then there is not free will. Since each part of the process is governed by natural laws, the result is that all parts are governed by natural laws and the result as such is determined. It seems Dennett is confusing choice with free will. Being able to make a choice is not free will. Computers make choices all of the time, but they are limited to their programming in what they can do. If it is all physical, then theoretically, we should be able to follow the electro-chemical and physical paths for any human action and also determine the stimulus that set of the reaction.
The materialist take was unsurprising, and I find your critique of it wanting. It falls into the "it sounds ridiculous so it can't be right" category of criticism.
Physical science is almost necessarily materialist. That doesn't bother me because the conclusions aren't relevant to metaphysics (or faith) except as the physical reality may confirm (or debunk) the bible's observations about total reality.
Here, how is the free will/determinism by molecules discussion is so different from the free will/God's sovereignty discussion? Christians believe that God is utterly sovereign and nothing happens beyond His will or knowledge (whether He wills actively or whether He merely "permits" is another discussion), and yet we also have free will. There is not a believing Christian who will not say that she both chose God and that that choice was somehow inevitable.
In 1955, CS Lewis wrote in Surprised By Joy, an exploration of his ealry pre-Christian life,
The materialist perceives free will, but those perceptions may be entirely controlled by determinist physical properties. The Christian says the same, only the determining factor is God. Neither of us knows for sure. As exhorted by Christ, I refrain from doubt in my faith, but I also have not the illusion that it is within my power to prove it. If I could, faith would be unnecessary. For the atheist, it is just as ridiculous for Christians to claim free will and God's sovereignty at the same time as it appears to you that man might merely be a collection of physical components and yet exercise free will in his observation of those components.
As a believing Christian, I'd say the "new" science on free will merely confirms the Christian reality, just like most science will, over time. Some things will be beyond our comprehension, and the best we'll be able to do is record accurate observations of our perceptions. The discussion is important, of course, but what I mean to say is, our perceptions lead us to many things, and they will never lead us to confirm our free will. The most they will do is lead us to a suspicion that free will and something beyond our control (for the materialist atheist, molecules; for the believer, God) co-exist, and that's because this question is where science and things that science cannot adequately address (metaphysics) meet.
"...I suspect Joe's next post or at least one soon in the making will return to the extreme Christianist theme of this blog."
This comment, made yesterday by Andy S., is looking quite prescient in light of this post. Franklin Mason has eloquently ststed his objections to the post's content; I share his objections and admire the way he has expressed them. Noting the follow-up comments from Joe and Chris, I can't help but feel that the crux of the problem is the way one defines the term "free will".
I have never felt that free will and determinism were mutually exclusive. Our free will may be, in fact, determined. But since the determinants are not fully known to us and are not exclusively or even primarily external, we perceive our will as being free. For all intents and purposes, it is. Determinism does not absolve the individual of responsibility, which I think is the one of the major objections to determism from those who feel it is incompatible with their notion of free will.
Joe,
Good discussion. In the end I have to agree with SCPanther's conclusion that your position is untenable. You simply can't claim that something magical occurs to matter just because it takes a certain shape.
Thank you.
I don't claim that something magical occurs, though.
I do admit that consciousness is a paradoxical thing, inasmuch as it is counterintuitive that brains should be able to consciously think. But being counterintuitive is far from being magical. At most, it just means something appears to be magical.
I also wouldn't say that the shape (meaning the physical organization and structure) of our brains is what causes our mind to function and be conscious. The shape (structure) of our brains allows our minds to function in the same way that the shape of a bridge or a building allows a bridge or a building to stand up without collapsing. The shape is just one aspect of the end result of the construction process (for bridges or buildings) or the growth process (for our brains).
Our brains work the way they do because the neurons in our brains are triggered by various stimuli and also grow a web of neural pathways in response to repeated stimuli. These pathways are analogous to the ruts that form in a muddy road when carts or cars go back and forth over the road. The neural pathways in our brains link up the ruts that develop over billions of different "muddy roads" in each of our brains.
So the shape of our brains is crucial, of course, but not because the shape magically appears in just the right way, but because it reflects our bodies' interactions with the world over time.
(Of course you could choose a third option and believe in panpsychism.)
I don't believe in panpsychism, but it is very interesting, even appealing perhaps, in a science fiction or fantasy sort of way.
Here’s what Dennett, et al, are claiming: [ ... ] Humans are free to break out of the deterministic trajectory of natural laws.
I think you may be misreading Mr. Dennett, Joe.
Here is how the New York Times summarizes Mr. Dennett's position:
... it is precisely our immersion in causality and the material world that frees us. Evolution, history and culture, [Dennett] explains, have endowed us with feedback systems that give us the unique ability to reflect and think things over and to imagine the future. Free will and determinism can co-exist.
“All the varieties of free will worth having, we have,” Dr. Dennett said.
“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”
In this regard, causality is not our enemy but our friend, giving us the ability to look ahead and plan. “That’s what makes us moral agents,” Dr. Dennett said. “You don’t need a miracle to have responsibility.”
So Mr. Dennett is not saying that free will allows us to break out of the trajectory of natural laws.
Mr. Dennett is saying free will means that we can predict the future, and look at various alternatives versions of the future. He is saying that free will means we can look at what we are doing and change our minds, and then change our minds back again.
But the capacity to look at the future is a physical thing that our brains do. The capacity to change our minds is likewise a physical thing that our brains do. No breaking of natural laws or physical causation is involved or required.
Franklin, Boonton, Eryk, Joe, and everyone else,
Part of the problem with this post and this discussion is that Joe hasn't specified what the definition of "free will" should be.
Free will is a slippery concept to begin with. It's possible to argue about it for hours only to find out that each side was talking about something entirely different.
The New York Times article that Joe links to does take a stab at defining "free will":
The traditional definition is called “libertarian” or “deep” free will. It holds that humans are free moral agents whose actions are not predetermined. This school of thought says in effect that the whole chain of cause and effect in the history of the universe stops dead in its tracks as you ponder the dessert menu.
The problem with the Times' definition is that it leaves undefined the concepts of "free moral agent", "determined" versus "not determined" actions, and "chain of cause and effect".
Perhaps a good way to get a handle on the problem of definitions is to consider an application of the concept of free will: Are people responsible for their actions?
If people are responsible for their actions, when are they responsible? Are people responsible all the time, or just when they are not under some kind of impairment, such as from fatigue, from medication or other drug use, or from some kind of external pressure or duress (like a person holding a gun to someone's head)?
Does it make sense to get angry at people when they make poor moral decisions -- such as eating poorly or hurting an innocent person -- if they don't have free will? Does it make sense to get angry at people if they do have free will?
Another very interesting point about free will is Dennett's observation (which Joe heaps scorn upon) that free will does not exist in a vacuum, it is the result specifically of being immersed in the world and responding to it.
For example, if someone were to be placed in an isolated room and not let out, he would very, very quickly tend to lose contact with reality and start going crazy. The process would be even more dramatic and speedier if the isolation room was also a sensory-deprivation tank, with no light and no sound and so forth. One must be engaged with the world in order to even have a simulacrum of liberty or free will.
Questions to all: so what does "free will" really mean anyway? What's a good definition? What consequences does free will (or no free will) have in our daily lives?
Eryk acknowledges the definitional problem in his comment, comment 12, when he discusses what it might be like to really be free in our decision-making. He seems to be saying that we can be free only if our thought process meets certain specific criteria of neutrality or lack of bias.
In comment 13, Joe writes,
We don’t necessarily have perfect libertarian freedom in choosing our motives. They can, in some sense be determined. But having “free will” merely means, I believe, that a person has the ability to make such choices on our own volition and in accordance with our nature.
I agree with this -- this is a very sensible summary. But what does "make a choice on one's own volition" mean? "Volition" is just a synonym for "will" after all.
To paraphrase Joe, he is saying that we have the ability to be in control of our choices. So now, what does "control" mean or entail?
What Angela said: Physical science is almost necessarily materialist. That doesn't bother me because the conclusions aren't relevant to metaphysics (or faith) except as the physical reality may confirm (or debunk) the bible's observations about total reality.
I just finished the Language of God by Francis Collins and will review it on my blog soon. Collins is a theistic evolutionist and, as such, confines science to its proper realm (observations of physical reality) and concludes that the theory of evolution merely explains the way in which man came to be man, but has nothing to say about whether God created man using this process. That is a theological statement that science can neither prove nor disprove.
YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS!!!!
Whoops! Sorry, that was those whacky, unpredictable and uncontrolable molecules that just took me over for a minute there. Really didn't mean to do that. No offense.
MATERIAL, TIME, CHANCE (bow)
This is the holy trinity. Everything must be explained within that context, otherwise, it is folly, even if it is like trying to stuff a cow into a Starkist Tuna can.
And the tragedy, as much as angela makes sense, is that you'll never even get to first base, because that holy trinity is all that exists, and thus, science can address EVERYTHING.
Joe, your philosopher you write about might as well go flip burgers..we've no need for him or his kind..
Joe,
You say: "[Dennett] says, “We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes." What does he mean, then, if he isn't saying we can break off the deterministic path? Is he claiming that somehow matter takes on special properties and acts differently once its locked inside a human skull?"
You misunderstand the view. There are no powers at work here except those of the material constituents of our brains; yet if those constituents are arranged in a certain, special way, the physical system of which they are part can begin to act in certain, special ways. Consider the processor/mobo combo inside my computer case. The processor has a temp. sensor, and it passes that information along to the motherboard. The motherboard will instruct the processor to ramp down its speed if the processor grows too hot. Thus we have here a case of self-regulation, but obviously there are no special, occult powers at work. It's just silicon, certain metals, electrons etc. arranged in a certain, special way.
Computers self-monitor and, on that basis of the information they discern, self-regulate. But this does not imply by itself that there's anything magical goin' on. Just so, Dennett would say that we self-monitor and self-regulate (albeit in much more complex ways), and the mere fact that we do does not entail that we're non-physical in any part or aspect. It's just a fact about matter that, when arranged in certain ways, the expression of its causal efficacy will turn upon itself in such a way that its internal state is thereby regulated.
For what it's worth, I find this a quite simple and unobjectionable idea. It's a really quite common occurrence in human-created technology.
RB,
MATERIAL, TIME, CHANCE (bow)
This is the holy trinity. Everything must be explained within that context, otherwise, it is folly, even if it is like trying to stuff a cow into a Starkist Tuna can.
RB, I'm a materialist not because I chose, in my free will, to be a materialist. I am a materialist because that it what the world is, a material thing.
When I say I am a materialist, I mean that I believe there are no supernatural forces in the world. I was forced to the conclusion that there are no supernatural forces in the world (that is to say, we live in a material world), because there are no supernatural forces in the world. At least none that I have seen or otherwise observed. None that I have any credible evidence to believe in.
Why do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow? Because the sun has risen every day for a long time now, and there is no reason to believe it won't continue to do so for the next couple of billion years or so. And the sun will rise tomorrow whether you believe it will or not.
However it seems to me that Joe is the one here resorting to magic. He will tell us that the decision to be merciful or not is made by some magical entity called free will.
Since Joe is not a physicalist it is completely allowable for him to resort to "magic" and still maintain logical coherency. Since Dennett is a physicalist it is not allowable for him to make the same statement (or one that amounts to it) and maintain the same logical coherency.
Dennett seems to be arguing that the complex and layered feedback structures within the brain allow for human reponse to have "freedom." But if each layer and feedback structure is deterministic, then these things can't really grant freedom. If each of these things is deterministic, then they can only form complex responses that create the illusion of freedom.
Now there are those who would say that a sufficiently robust "illusion of freedom" is as good as the real thing, but I'm not one of those people. I doubt Joe is either.
Jeff the Baptist,
You rule out allowing an illusion of freedom to serve as a substitute for actual freedom.
What is actual freedom, though? How do you define "free" and "not free"?
Here’s the gist of what I think on the matter. As John Locke wrote, “The will signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose.” The will, in my opinion, is the part of the mind that chooses what our motives select. We don’t necessarily have perfect libertarian freedom in choosing our motives. They can, in some sense be determined. But having “free will” merely means, I believe, that a person has the ability to make such choices on our own volition and in accordance with our nature.
This all sounds like circular reasoning. What does it mean to say that aperson has the ability to make choices in accordance with their own nature? Again return to the example of holding a gun to your enemies head. Tracing back the caues of your action (firing or not) do you ever arrive at a point where physics does not apply? If not then I don't see how you can so casually reject determinism in the material world.
In the article I quote he says, “We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes." What does he mean, then, if he isn't saying we can break off the deterministic path? Is he claiming that somehow matter takes on special properties and acts differently once its locked inside a human skull?
This clearly is a case of dueling definitions. He is not claiming that the brain magically violates the laws of physics. He is saying that behavior is not determined by 'urges' and this is what he defines as having free will. In Joe's stricter sense, though, he is a determinist because the brain decides which 'urges' to veto or accept based on physics.
As Franklyn pointed out, even if you could prove something immaterial (like a soul) was directing the brain it still leaves the free will question open. Is the soul free or is it too bound by causes it has no control over?
Angela
The materialist take was unsurprising, and I find your critique of it wanting. It falls into the "it sounds ridiculous so it can't be right" category of criticism.
When I was younger I was firmly a free-will person. As I get older I have my doubts. One only has to observe the effects of certain drugs (both legititmate as well as illegit) to see how many things we seem to have control over, like our emotions, can be manipulated by chemistry. As I age I also become more and more aware of how much circumstance has influenced me to be the person I am today. When you are young you tend to be rather arrogant, believing yourself to be the center of the world you overestimate your influence on it and underestimate its influence on you.
I think it is undeniable that we tend to greatly overestimate how free we really are. This doesn't mean there isn't really free will but if it exists it accounts for a lot less than it feels like it does. Joe's argument, therefore, becomes even more pathetic. It's like someone explaining to you that languages other than English sound like rapid nonsense. It does indeed seem like that but the educated person knows this is just a shortcoming of the mind rather than a truth.
Math.
The New York Times article that Joe links to does take a stab at defining "free will":
But then Joe is stopped dead too. Back on the Kalam post about proving the existence of God Joe and others argued that it would be nonsense to even entertain that there can be a single effect without a cause. Now when it serves their purpose the universe is free to host billions of uncaused effects just from the McDonald's value menu alone!
Does it make sense to get angry at people when they make poor moral decisions -- such as eating poorly or hurting an innocent person -- if they don't have free will? Does it make sense to get angry at people if they do have free will?
Does it make sense not too? If people don't have free will, if their behavior is determined partially by trying to avoid your anger then it does indeed make sense to get angry at them.
Matthew Goggins,
"RB, I'm a materialist not because I chose, in my free will, to be a materialist."
Actually Matthew, I've got to disagree with you here. What you have chosen to do is accept certain kinds of knowledge and evidence, and reject other kinds of knowledge and evidence; and probably at that a very narrow idea of what is acceptable as real evidence, and things that can really be 'knowable'.
In that matter, you hold all the cards. Of course, accepting and rejecting must all be part of the grand illusion..
Rob I have never felt that free will and determinism were mutually exclusive.
Here is the problem as I see it. Materialists (and atheists since they are almost always materialists) have a tendency to resort to the following way of thinking:
(1) I want to believe A
(2) I want to believe B
(3) Therfore, A is compatible with B.
For example,
I want to believe (everything is physical and subject to the physical laws)
I want to believe (I am not determined and that I have enough free will to be morally accountable.)
Therefore, that fact that everything is physical and subject to the physical laws is compatible with the fact that I am not determined and that I have enough free will to be morally accountable.
This is essentially the argument that is being made. (In fact, it is the argument materialist make on all kinds of positions.) But the problem is that no matter how much you want to believe it, it doesn’t make it logical. Let’s use your statement as an example…
Our free will may be, in fact, determined. But since the determinants are not fully known to us and are not exclusively or even primarily external, we perceive our will as being free.
You bring up an irrelevant point (“…the determinants are not fully known…”) that has no bearing on the outcome of our freedom. The sole questions are (A) are we solely physical beings?, and (B) is all physical matter subject to the laws of physics and chemistry? If the answers to those questions are Yes and Yes then humans have absolutely no free will at all. None. Nada. Zip. There isn’t a way around it. It’s basic inference and logic.
Determinism does not absolve the individual of responsibility, which I think is the one of the major objections to determinism from those who feel it is incompatible with their notion of free will.
Here we go again….
(1) I want to believe in (determinism)
(2) I want to believe in (individual responsibility)
(3) Therefore, determinism is compatible with individual responsibility.
Matthew So the shape of our brains is crucial, of course, but not because the shape magically appears in just the right way, but because it reflects our bodies' interactions with the world over time.
Let’s simply this to its basic elements. Let’s use the law of substitution to replace everything in the sentence that is made of matter with the term “matter.”
So the shape of (matter) is crucial, of course, but not because the shape
magically appears in just the right way, but because it reflects (matters) interactions with (matter).
Notice the problem? You are talking about the same “stuff”—matter—and implying that it takes on different properties based on its interactions. It doesn’t. Matter is matter is matter.
What new laws of physics are created by these interactions? None. The properties are either inherent in matter or they don't exist.
I don't believe in panpsychism, but it is very interesting, even appealing perhaps, in a science fiction or fantasy sort of way.
Why do you reject panpsychism?
Mr. Dennett is saying free will means that we can predict the future, and look at various alternatives versions of the future. He is saying that free will means we can look at what we are doing and change our minds, and then change our minds back again.
Yes, I realize that. In fact that is what I’m trying to point out. Dennett is resorting to equivocation. Do molecules have properties that allow them to “predict the future?” Dennett claims they do if they are arranged in the right form. But that is not scientific. It is voodoo nonsense.
Part of the problem with this post and this discussion is that Joe hasn't specified what the definition of "free will" should be.
I’ll give the most simple definition that is incompatible with physicalism/materialism: Free will is the ability to not be completely determined by the laws of physics and/or chemistry.
Franklin There are no powers at work here except those of the material constituents of our brains; yet if those constituents are arranged in a certain, special way, the physical system of which they are part can begin to act in certain, special ways.
Take a look at what you just wrote:
The material in our brains does not inherently possess special powers or properties.
When the material in our brains is “arranged in a certain, special way” the matter that previously did not possess certain properties derives new (magical?) abilities.
Consider the processor/mobo combo inside my computer case…. For what it's worth, I find this a quite simple and unobjectionable idea. It's a really quite common occurrence in human-created technology.
I always find it amusing that when people want to explain non-designed deterministic processes that they use examples that are designed and non-deterministic. The computer runs the way it does because it was designed to act that way by a person who ostensibly had the free will to make the choice to design it that way. Your analogy doesn’t hold.
Jeff But if each layer and feedback structure is deterministic, then these things can't really grant freedom. If each of these things is deterministic, then they can only form complex responses that create the illusion of freedom.
Yeah, what he said (and what I should have thought to say). ;)
Matthew When I say I am a materialist, I mean that I believe there are no
supernatural forces in the world.
But it appears you are saying that when the matter in our brains is arranged properly a “supernatural force” (one that isn’t solely causally determined by physics) arises.
Yes, I realize that. In fact that is what I’m trying to point out. Dennett is resorting to equivocation. Do molecules have properties that allow them to “predict the future?” Dennett claims they do if they are arranged in the right form. But that is not scientific. It is voodoo nonsense.
Hmmmm, so how does a Google Maps predict how long a car trip will take? Why isn't it the arrangement of molecules inside the Google servers? Is this voodoo or magic? Could you pluck any one or two molecules out of Google's servers and detect a 'trip length prediction' property inside them?
I fail to see what it is about Dennett's remarks that cause such consternation. They are clear, coherent statements that accord with observed reality and they have explanatory value.
Most likely, there is simply a disagreement over the definition of "free" in "free will," or there's some kind of religious angle to the notion in general that chafes at a mechanistic view of the matter. Yes, we have the illusion of a free will, but it's a very good illusion and it is robust enough to serve the function of the real thing.
Theoretically, if you could capture and record all the data involved when a person makes a decision - a choice - about something, then you could predict with tremendous accuracy how he would ultimately act. Yet, collecting all of that information would be impossible. The only computer powerful enough to do it is the one each of us carries atop his shoulders.
How can anyone doubt that smart people can easily believe stupid things? The leaders of the Nazis were often quite well-educated; communism and socialism attracted many of the brightest minds of the past century. And many of the most ferocious and hateful Muslim terrorists hold degrees in science, engineering, law.
That learned men are capable of believing the most stupid rubbish should surprise nobody.
Boonton,
Does it make sense not to [get angry at poor moral decisions]? If people don't have free will, if their behavior is determined partially by trying to avoid your anger then it does indeed make sense to get angry at them.
I agree with you. Although sometimes (often?) getting angry has the opposite effect to what we desire. It can cause people to defy our anger and reinforce their original behavior.
My question, though, was really meant as a question about ourselves.
Does it make sense for me or you to get angry over, meaning is it logical for us to be personally offended by, another person's poor moral decisions? Does it make sense for us to feel that a poor decision-maker is acting irresponsibly, even if the person will never know what we think or feel?
Does acting irresponsibly entail some kind of personal guilt, or is it a purely natural phenomenon, like the rain dripping down onto our heads?
RB,
I've got to disagree with you here. What you have chosen to do is accept certain kinds of knowledge and evidence, and reject other kinds of knowledge and evidence; and probably at that a very narrow idea of what is acceptable as real evidence, and things that can really be 'knowable'.
In that matter, you hold all the cards.
Your point is a very good point.
We could have a very long discussion about why I accept some evidence as credible, and reject some evidence as not credible.
I try to be as smart about it as I can be. Maybe I'm just kidding myself (that is to say, spinning a cocoon of rationalization), but I don't believe that I am.
Joe,
The sole questions are (A) are we solely physical beings?, and (B) is all physical matter subject to the laws of physics and chemistry? If the answers to those questions are Yes and Yes then humans have absolutely no free will at all. None. Nada. Zip. There isn’t a way around it. It’s basic inference and logic.
By this definition of free will, I would say we have no free will. But... you seem to be saying we do have free will. Can you give me an example of someone using their free will, preferably a very specific, concrete example?
So the shape of (matter) is crucial, of course, but not because the shape
magically appears in just the right way, but because it reflects (matters) interactions with (matter).
Notice the problem? You are talking about the same “stuff”—matter—and implying that it takes on different properties based on its interactions. It doesn’t. Matter is matter is matter.
If I drive a car on a muddy road and create a rut in the road, the road now has a different property, it is now rutted.
If someone else attempts to use the road, the road will now be channeling this new person down the track that my car has created. Everything about the world is "matter" or material, but it has a new property nonetheless.
If a brain receives repeated stimuli, "ruts" are created in the neural pathways. These rutted neural pathways are experienced as memories, habits, emotions, and so on. Nobody knows how it works exactly, but nothing immaterial has been created.
How do I know that nothing immaterial has been created?
Because if you look closely at what happens, it is all tightly bound up with the physical properties. An electrode here, high-blood sugar there, low oxygen somewhere else, it all impacts directly and inexorably upon our conscious experience. And then when we die, poof!, the conscienceness evaporates, never to return.
I admit, as I have from the beginning, that the mind is a fascinating and mysterious thing. But I have no reason to think it is supernatural.
Why do you reject panpsychism?
Good question.
I reject it because consciousness seems tightly, tightly bound to living processes, to growth and metabolism. And not just any living processes either -- I don't see simple microbes having a mind, or a blade of grass, or even some more complicated creatures.
Panpsychism is an interesting hyothesis, but it just doesn't seem to be supported by the actual details of where we find mind and consciousness.
Free will is the ability to not be completely determined by the laws of physics and/or chemistry.
Due to quantum uncertainty, it is not clear that any kind of material thing is completely determined by the laws of physics.
For the sake of argument though, I stipulate that all non-living matter is completely determined by the laws of physics. I don't know that it is, but it seems very reasonable to think that it could be.
So are people completely determined by the laws of physics?
I believe they are, but I am open to the possibility that they are not.
The reason I am open to the possibility that people are not determined by the laws of physics is because people are chaotic systems, meaning that a tiny change in their condition or state can lead to a wildly unpredictable change in their future condition. So even if people are completely determined by the laws of physics, there is no way to prove that just by conducting external physical experiments on a person.
If it turns out that I am wrong, and people are undetermined by physics (for some other reason than quantum uncertainty), then that would mean I am wrong about materialism too, for the reasons you have laid out. So if you could make a coherent case for your defintion of free will, I would be very interested to hear it.
However, I don't see how you could even hope to do that, since the chaotic nature of people and their minds would seem to preclude any definitive analysis of free will under the definition that you have chosen.
I always find it amusing that when people want to explain non-designed deterministic processes [free will] that they use examples that are designed and non-deterministic [Franklin's example of the computer that uses feedback].
Two points.
A person's mind and consciousness are not "non-designed". The mind has been intricately designed in ways small and large by the battle for survival and reproduction that a person's ancestors have endured going back hundreds of millions of years. A brain is one of the most designed objects in the universe.
Second point: How is the computer non-deterministic? It is run by the step-by-step explicit procedures that have been set out in the computer's software. A computer is one of the most deterministic objects in the universe.
... it appears you are saying that when the matter in our brains is arranged properly a “supernatural force” (one that isn’t solely causally determined by physics) arises.
When the matter in our brains is arranged properly, it is like a machine that is powered-up and well-tuned and properly maintained: it is ready to register what is going on and produce a response.
The way it does so is mysterious, because it normally involves some kind of conscious or sub-conscious thinking and data-processing. But that mystery is not supernatural in my view.
The Raven,
I fail to see what it is about Dennett's remarks that cause such consternation.
He may have misread Dennett's remarks, but Joe does have a good point. He wants to know how we can be free when everything is predetermined.
I would say we have free will, but I use a different definition from Joe's definition.
We are free because we don't know what is going to happen until it happens or until we make it happen. We are free also because we have the choice to do things or not do them as we wish.
What we wish is not free according to Joe's definition of free, but it is so unpredictable that it appears to us to be free anyway.
We can even control what we wish to a large extent by choosing to condition ourselves in various ways.
I think the consternation comes in because it easy to talk on different wavelengths when discussing this subject. It is frustrating to have someone miss your point when you are convinced it is obviously true.
Joe,
You say: "The material in our brains does not inherently possess special powers or properties.
When the material in our brains is “arranged in a certain, special way” the matter that previously did not possess certain properties derives new (magical?) abilities."
Dead wrong. The only abilities that it has when arranged brain-wise are the abilities that it had when not arranged brain-wise; but when arranged brain-wise, certain things can be accomplished by it that could not be accomplished before. Compare. The parts in my computer, and their parts, . . . and so on down to the constituent micro-particles, have no abilities when part of my computer that they do not have when not part; but when they are arranged computer-wise, certain things can be accomplished that could not be accomplished before. When arranged computer-wise, the physical system that results self-monitors and self-regulates. Moreover, the fact that the designer of a computer was (let us assume) free, does not entail that the computer is itself in any way free. It of course is not. Rather it seems a deterministic system - its behavior can be precisely predicted.
What do you wish to deny here? That computers are deterministic? Surely not. Computer designers are free. Computers are not. That for a computer to work as it does, it need not be put together in a certain way? That would be insanity. That the parts of a computer, when arranged computer-wise, gain some new ability? That would be the worst sort of ontological extravagence. That computers don't in fact self-monitor and self-regulate? That's just plain false - my mobo bio is set to monitor my processor speed, and in the past it has ramped it down.
None of this can be denied, and so here's what we have: there can be a physical system the parts of which aquired no new ability when they came to form that system which can yet self-monitor and self-regulate. This is all Dennett needs to get his project off the ground. (But in all honesty I expect yet another intellectually perverse reply.)
Franklin The only abilities that it has when arranged brain-wise are the
abilities that it had when not arranged brain-wise; but when arranged
brain-wise, certain things can be accomplished by it that could not be
accomplished before.
Agreed.
When arranged computer-wise, the physical system that results self-monitors and self-regulates.
No, actually it doesn’t. I can put all the parts together, form a complete physical system, and the computer will not be able to self-monitor or self-regulate unless I have….
Care to take a guess?
Bingo, that’s exactly right. The computer cannot self-monitor or self-regulate unless it has received software (designed instructions) telling it how to go about the process. The software is the “downward causation” that is needed for the hardware to function.
Without receiving some input that is programmed into the system, it won’t work. So tell me something that is necessary for your analogy to be sensible: where does the information come from that causes the mind to work on the brain?
Until this post, I thought you were a Calvinist. I guess not.
Dennett's work on free will is the one good thing he's done. What's wrong about it is that it's naturalistic, not that it's compatibilist. As far as I can tell, there's no easy way to be a theological determinist (e.g. a Calvinist) without saying things very similar to what Dennett's compatibilism involves, just not in a naturalistic way.
I'm firmly convinced that Dennett is right that if our actions are uncaused then we're not responsible for them. They have to be caused by events within us in the right sort of way, even though those events are caused by prior events. The difference is that Dennett doesn't believe the whole thing is ultimately initiated and organized by an intelligent being. But I don't see how that makes a difference as to whether I'm free. If we have compatibilist freedom but not libertarian freedom, as Calvinists insist, then Dennett's view of freedom is basically correct.
Jeremy Until this post, I thought you were a Calvinist. I guess not….What's wrong
about it is that it's naturalistic, not that it's compatibilist.
Um, yeah, that’s almost word for word what I said back in comment #7 (“…I’m not an incompatabilist. I’m a compatabilist, just not a physicalist.”)
The difference is that Dennett doesn't believe the whole thing is ultimately initiated and organized by an intelligent being. But I
don't see how that makes a difference as to whether I'm free.
Because if naturalism is true, then all events--all not just some--are caused by prior physical events that can be traced back to beginning of the uncreated universe. There is no room for any non-physical causation, therefore "freedom" is just an illusion.
Joe,
I can put all the parts together, form a complete physical system, and the computer will not be able to self-monitor or self-regulate unless I have….
Care to take a guess?
Bingo, that’s exactly right. The computer cannot self-monitor or self-regulate unless it has received software (designed instructions) telling it how to go about the process. The software is the “downward causation” that is needed for the hardware to function.
A computer cannot self-regulate and self-monitor without instructions, and the instructions are designed into the software.
But the software is not immaterial or supernatural. It is a series of binary bits (a seqence of "0"'s and "1"'s) stored electronically in the computer's memory, or possibly on some other piece of media, like a CD. It is all very physical and material.
As for "downward causation", in the computer's case it comes from the programmer and from the user of the computer. In the case of our brains, you ask,
... where does the information come from that causes the mind to work on the brain?
It comes from the battle for survival and reproduction of our ancestors over the past several hundred millions of years.
What do I mean?
Take a very simple example.
Why are polar bears, and artic foxes and bunnies, uniformly white in their fur (actually their fur just reflects light in a way that makes the fur appear white, but you get my gist)? Who designed the bears, foxes, and bunnies in such a clever way that they would blend in with their icy, snowy eco-system? What was the downward causation here?
Well, how long would a brown or black polar bear survive? Not too long -- the other bears would clobber him in the competition for hunting prey.
Similarly, the brown or gray or red foxes and bunnies would have a fatal disadvantage out in the snow, and they would not pass on their colors very frequently to the next generation, if at all.
There's no supernatural or immaterial intervention going on here, just the give and take of the struggle for survival and reproduction.
Similar things go on and have gone on with regards to people's brains for as long as people have had brains. The competitive design process goes back to the beginnings of brains and nervous systems, and beyond.
Joe,
... if naturalism is true, then all events--all not just some--are caused by prior physical events that can be traced back to beginning of the uncreated universe. There is no room for any non-physical causation, therefore "freedom" is just an illusion.
Well, can you give me an example of an event, any event, that has not been physically caused and determined?
Since I believe that free will is not a product of physical forces, the fact that I have just typed this is one example.
Boon, your comment insures I'll never take a stock tip from you. I understand, compadre, that Chatty Cathy is a machine. Trust me, I do. But thanks for pointing it out.
My point still holds.
But I particularly liked F. Mason's comment early on. Second- and third-order desires, indeed. The entire comment was a tutorial on making a stupid idea look impressive by making it seem more complicated. If ya put lipstick on pig P at time t, Franklin, ya still got a pig. (Feel free to use that in your Logic 101 syllabus.)
By the way, bogus "mathematizing" works better if you use Greek symbols.
JC:"The sole questions are (A) are we solely physical beings?, and (B) is all physical matter subject to the laws of physics and chemistry? If the answers to those questions are Yes and Yes then humans have absolutely no free will at all. None. Nada. Zip. There isn’t a way around it. It’s basic inference and logic."
Basic inference and logic based upon your semantic parameters, of course. Again we differ in terms of what we consider to be free will. Causation is not the same thing as coercion. Most people look upon free will as freedom from coercion, as in "she married him of her own free will". I am aware there is a narrower definition of free will that is useful only for metaphysical speculation. I do not think that that free will exists except in the imagination.
JC: "Here we go again….
(1) I want to believe in (determinism)
(2) I want to believe in (individual responsibility)
(3) Therefore, determinism is compatible with individual responsibility."
You can characterize, or caricature, my logic in any way you like, but can you refute it? Prove to me that individual responsibility and determinism are incompatible. Dismissing things out of hand won't do!
Hint: responsibility, like morality or duty, is subjective. It doesn't exist unless it is assigned and /or accepted. I don't see how you can argue that individual responsibility must be, or even should be, abrogated by determinism.
Christ,
Since I believe that free will is not a product of physical forces, the fact that I have just typed this is one example.
And Joe would, I think, agree with you.
And I agree that it is possible (in theory) that I am wrong, and that your decision to type and comment is not the product of physical forces. Indeed, our internal experience of thinking about writing a comment, and deciding to do so, does not feel or seem particularly physical.
Let's take a closer look at what is going on, though, when you read my comment, react to it, and decide you want to share your reaction on the comment thread.
Although our experience of thinking and deciding and just being conscious in general does not strike us as being notably physical, I think you would agree that it's possible, in theory, that it could be physical. In other words, you believe it is not physical, or at least not purely physical, but it is possible that you could have the wrong impression and that whatever is going on is partly or purely physical.
Our minds are notoriously easy to mislead and trick. Most of us are familiar with such things as optical illlusions, hallucinations, and hypnosis. And when we are dreaming, our brains/minds can be tricked into believing just about anything. We often don't realize at all that we were dreaming unless we suddenly wake up, even if we were dreaming about something totally bizarre and surrealistic.
So we cannot rely on our internal representation of what seems to be going on when we are thinking and deciding. Our minds are just too unreliable in that regard.
If we are to conclude with any certainty that writing comments is not purely physical, we must base it on something else besides the impression we have of our own mind at the time.
It's not like there is no evidence that thinking and deciding are physical activities.
For example, it seems very well established that thinking/deciding/writing/etc. all take place at a specific physical location, the brain. When we think, it seems to be happening, just in terms of our internal experience of it, somewhere behind our eyes in the general cranium area.
In addition, this is an abundant literature of neurological research that appears to demonstrate that our brains generate brain waves that are formed directly when we use our minds.
There are many, many examples of patients in brain surgery who are conscious, due to use of a local anesthetic, who have had their minds manipulated by the physical actions of the surgeon, such as stimulating the brain with an electric current.
And we are all definitely affected by physical reality when we are involved in using our minds. If someone were to hit us or pinch us or splash us with water, our train of thought would very likely be interrupted immediately. If we become sick or injured, that affects our thought processes. And if we die, we don't think or write about anything (unless of course, there is an afterlife).
These are all readily accessible facts that would seem to indicate that our minds are at least partially physical entities. And if our minds are partially physical or material, could you acknowledge that it is at least possible that they are purely physical as well? If you can't acknowledge such a possibility, then on what grounds would you deny it?
If you deny that it is possible that our minds could be purely physical, is your denial based on a reluctance to believe we are purely physical animals, or is based on what seems to actually happen when we use our minds?
I wasn't praying to Christ just now.
I meant to type in Chris but it came out Christ. But if Christ has anything to say about this, feel free to chime in :)
I just saw that Scott Adams, the cartoonist who does "Dilbert", wrote a blog post today on the same New York Times article that Joe has written about.
His post is called "I Can't Stop Myself. Seriously." because Mr. Adams doesn't believe in free will and he likes to write about how it doesn't exist.
Matthew If you deny that it is possible that our minds could be purely physical, is your denial based on a reluctance to believe we are purely physical animals, or is based on what seems to actually happen when we use our minds?
Personally I am flummoxed that anyone can truly think that our "minds" are purely physical. The people who make such claims appear to misunderstand what it is that they are claiming. If our minds are physical then everything we think is the result solely of physical laws acting on matter. There is no "I" to act. There is only a string of causation that leads directly back to the beginning of the universe.
Also, if it is true then the point is moot because we can never know if anything is true. For example if we claim one of the following statements...
Our minds are purely physical, or
Our minds are not purely physical
...then all that we are saying is that the universe decided that the matter in our brains would arrange in a way in order to make us believe one way or the other. We have no control over it since we have no control over anything. Therefore, we cannot know which is true.
We can't even decide to disagree since that decision is also made by the universe...
(Can you see now why I think the idea is beyond silly?)
Joe,
Can you see now why I think the idea [of purely physical minds] is beyond silly?
Yes, I do.
I have to say, this has been a very interesting conversation all around, and your latest comment has helped me understand what you have been saying.
I'm going to try to explain now why the silliness/perverseness/obtuseness you perceive (and what I've been calling a paradox) is not an obstacle for my belief in the purely material mind.
Also, if it is true then the point is moot because we can never know if anything is true. For example if we claim one of the following statements...
Our minds are purely physical, or
Our minds are not purely physical
...then all that we are saying is that the universe decided that the matter in our brains would arrange in a way in order to make us believe one way or the other. We have no control over it since we have no control over anything. Therefore, we cannot know which is true.
I cannot prove to an arbitrary degree of certainty (say, greater than 99.9999% for example) that any knowledge is in fact possible. The world could be an elaborate illusion created by God, or by alien performance artists from Mars. Or the world could just be the accidentally deceptive adumbration of an impersonal and indifferent universe.
However, I, and you (if you in fact exist), operate on the assumption that knowledge is possible, and that the universe is reasonably stable and amenable to being understood. In fact, you go much farther, and believe that all the cosmology you need to know is alluded to in some way or another in the Holy Bible.
I go much farther as well, in a different direction.
In the past 35 years or so, I've discovered and learned that the scientific method provides us with a very reliable (imperfect, but very reliable) handle on the universe.
Not only is science reliable, it is also amazingly powerful. It has the power to unlock innumerable mysteries that have puzzled man since the dawn of pre-history. Not every mystery has been unlocked (we're not even close to doing that), and I doubt that all the mysteries will ever be unlocked, but the track record of science is pretty formidable.
[For example, a couple of hundred years ago Ben Franklin demonstrated that lightning is nothing more than static electricity on a grand scale. In the 1930's, astrophysicists figured out that helium fusion is what makes the stars shine.]
You point out that if we have purely physical minds, then that would pose a problem for our ability to figure out anything. Any belief that we hold could only be an illusion of truth, since the belief would have been planted in our brains by physical forces beyond anyone's control, the way a television station beams out its programming to a totally passive and clueless television set in someone's home.
Even if the belief happened to be true, we would have no hope of being able to determine its truth.
Here's my response: how about a weathervane?
A weathervane indicates which way the wind is blowing. It is totally passive and unaware, but it provides information about the wind direction nonetheless.
Our own minds can be approached like a weathervane. We can do experiments to see when our brains/minds seem to be reliable, and when they seem to be unreliable. We can test the limits of their reliability in all kinds of circumstances, and come up with methods or algorithms for extracting useful information from what our brains seem to be telling us.
No method will be 100% reliable, and we have to assume that the world is knowable in some sense in the first place. But I don't believe we need to despair about the prospects of physical minds leading us to truth and understanding. We just have to be very, very careful and patient.
We can't even decide to disagree since that decision is also made by the universe...
and
If our minds are physical then everything we think is the result solely of physical laws acting on matter. There is no "I" to act. There is only a string of causation that leads directly back to the beginning of the universe.
Well, yes and no.
I claim that the universe (the physical universe) is everything (there is no realm of spirit-stuff). You point out that this universe, as I understand it, must determine everything in my view, including our minds and our will.
But it seems to me that you might be overlooking a very important fact about my version of the universe. That fact is that the physical universe includes you and me as pieces of itself.
So when the universe determines the agenda and activity of your mind, it does so largely through you. When the universe determines my mind, it does so largely through me, through my brain and the rest of my body.
Our brains are not distinct objects acted upon by a distinct alien universe. Our brains are part of the universe, and participate in their own functioning in an intricate and ongoing way for as long as we are alive.
Our thoughts are generated by our brains, which interact with the outside universe. But those interactions with the outside do not determine the paths our minds follow. Outside interactions only conditon our minds and provoke reactions. The thoughts and decisions and consciousness are generated by the internal activity of the brain itself.
To the extent that we can gain an understanding of how our brains operate, and can practice how to use our reasoning and volition, to such an extent we exercise control over our own brains.
So who is the "we" that is exercising this control?
Our identities, in my opinion, seem to be located someplace, or some places, in our brain. If you were to take a scalpel and slice out enough tissue, you would be slicing "me" out of my own head.
A computer has a CPU which manages all the guts and parts of a computer. If you take out the CPU, it's as if you are removing the heart or the soul of the computer. Of course, a computer is not conscious, so it's a pretty lame analogy, but I think the analogy holds up anyway.
Personally I am flummoxed that anyone can truly think that our "minds" are purely physical.
I see more precisely now why you are flummoxed. I don't hope to change your mind about all this [at least not right away ;) ], but I do hope you can wrap your mind around what I am trying to say enough to at least understand it. I hope you can understand my position enough to see clearly why I am not flummoxed.
Maybe you could even conclude that I am not rationalizing a position of purblind and perfidious pabulum. I'm just groping around in the world with my mind as best I can and have ended up in a different spot from your own.
Thanks very much for the thoughtful and challenging remarks, Herr Blogmeister.
Good night,
Matthew
Mathew:
These are all readily accessible facts that would seem to indicate that our minds are at least partially physical entities. And if our minds are partially physical or material, could you acknowledge that it is at least possible that they are purely physical as well? If you can't acknowledge such a possibility, then on what grounds would you deny it?
I don't deny that there are physical elements to the mind. However, I deny that the mind is completely physical.
If you deny that it is possible that our minds could be purely physical, is your denial based on a reluctance to believe we are purely physical animals, or is based on what seems to actually happen when we use our minds?
My denial is based on simple logic. If the mind is completely physical, then it must operate under completely under physical laws. Thus, there can be no free will. I know that I exercised free will to post my comment. It is up to you to prove that every action a person takes is based on physical laws. If every action is based on physical actions though, then there is no free will and you point that there is free will fails. If you can't prove that physical laws dictate every person's actions, then something non-physical must be a part of the mind and your point that the mind is completely physical fails. So really, it's up to the physical mind only crowd to prove that the mind is only physical matter and we have free will. Logically, it doesn't make sense to believe both.
BTW, thanks for promoting me to a deity. :-)
George,
You say: "But I particularly liked F. Mason's comment early on. Second- and third-order desires, indeed. The entire comment was a tutorial on making a stupid idea look impressive by making it seem more complicated. If ya put lipstick on pig P at time t, Franklin, ya still got a pig. (Feel free to use that in your Logic 101 syllabus.)
By the way, bogus "mathematizing" works better if you use Greek symbols."
First, let me say that what I did there was simply Dennett exegesis. But that point to the side, we have yet another example of someone who does not address the issues properly - by argument, counterexample, definition, etc. - but by simple, clever assertion. Don't expect to convince anyone of anything if you simply assert the contrary of the conclusions of their arguments - no matter how cleverly you do so.
Logicians call this fallacy "question-begging".
Joe,
You're right, of course, that there must be a bit of code before the mobo/processor will self-monitor and self-regulate. But the code, when in the hard drive, is simply an arrangement of electrons that, through a wonderfully complex but purely natural causal process, can initiate changes in other parts of the computer. There's no need here to posit downward causation, or the emergence of novel causal powers. There's just the electrons, the silicon, the metal, etc., and it all operates in accordance with the purely natural laws that govern its behavior when not arranged computer-wise.
Perhaps we should take stock of where we are. I've simply attempted to articulate, and give an example of the application of, Dennett's views. I do feel some temptation to hold that we humans are not purely physical beings, but it still seems to me that nothing Dennett has said implies that he must hold that, within the human brain, there emerge novel causal powers. If human cognition is as he says, the basic, non-emergent causal powers of matter will do the trick - as the computer analogy shows. But one of course might well say (and many have said) that his account of human cognition leaves much of importance (consciousness is the usual example) out.
Joe, I'm not seeing your argument. What is it about the whole chain of events being initiated by God that makes me free if I'm not free if it's caused by unintelligent causes?
I don't see how libertarianism needs dualism. Peter van Inwagen thinks free will is a mystery, but he doesn't think that has