The Illusion of Free Will (?)

[flexy]

We had the discussion about the B-Theory of time and the "four dimensionality" theory is very, very similar.

Essentially, it says something like that the universe and all objects in it are "4D objects", with the space-time being the 4th axis. One interpretation is that "the consciousness moves along the 4th axis", thus creating what we perceive as causality/time

I come to realize that this theory is sort of...frightening, since it implies (to me) that all events, "past", "present" and "future" are already pre-set on this 4th space-time axis in an universe that is a giant "4D object". Any event, whether past or future is already set and established. Things don't actually "happen".

The frightening thought is when we use an allegory of a movie or record player. At ANY point of the movie (or the record), this is what we call "the present", and what lies ahead we call "the future", which is not known to us. YET, obviously everything is already set in stone. In this theory, free will is literally an illusion which is merely coming from the fact "that we don't know what lies ahead".

To illustrate:

Say we're able at some point to build a time-machine. On September 6th, 1991 you made some choice, example you visited an ice cream shop and chose between their 30 flavours. You choose Strawberry, Vanilla and Peach. Because you have "free will", allright.

You enter your time machine and travel back to that exact date on the space-time axis in the 4D universe, in the same way as you would rewind a movie or place the needle of a record player back a few notches.

You (or: The universe) would experience again the scenario in the ice cream shop, and you would again choose Strawberry, Vanilla and Peach....and you can do that 10000x times and you'd always do the exact same thing...and BELIEVE each time that you acted on "free will" of what in reality is already "imprinted in the universe".

It also doesn't matter where the "needle" of the record player is, whether the "future" is tomorrow, or whether you set the needle back to 1981 and then your future is 1982 etc.

This idea of the B-Theory of time and/or the 4-dimensionality would obviously also do away with any time-travel/grandfather etc. paradox. When you go "back in time", it will be EXACTLY like it was before, all the events, atoms etc. would be exactly the same. You cannot go back in time and make a new decision - you would be "literally" the same person in the same situation doing the same thing. I cannot "go back" to 9/11 to NYC to help prevent 9/11 since I was in Chicago on 9/11. I'd find myself again watching TV.

Obviously, what happens tomorrow is also already "imprinted", there is already information in the 4D universe whether we win the Powerball or whether the sun shines tomorrow or not...and everything else. So doesn't really leave any space for free will in this scenario.

Free Will - an illusion "created" by the brain...in an universe where everything is pre-determined?

 

[Joepublic2]

That is a very disturbing idea IMO; it reminds me of some difficult psychedelic trips I've had. If everything truly is predetermined, even the waveform collapses at the quantum level we think we're creating when we measure said states and the universe is simply a giant, incredibly complex mechanism that's winding down then what's the point of worrying about it? I don't mean to be trite, but I don't find it productive to worry about things I'm unable to change; obsessing over things you have no control over is a recipe for living a frustrating, disappointing life.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Speaking very freely here...

If we suppose that the universe is accurately modeled by the Everett interpretation of QM even at classical scales (which I do), then it has some interesting implications on the nature of free will.

On the one hand, and in some ways the world can be thought of as deterministic, in that the outcomes of probabilistic events would in fact be inevitable.The distinction is of course that all of the various probable outcomes -- despite their seeming mutual exclusivity -- each obtain with certainty in a unique reality. In that way, a coin toss results in heads AND tails, inevitably every time. Both outcomes are a certainty in an objective sense.

Yet we're still left to question why in our subjective experience we seem to seize upon one outcome to the exclusion of the other(s). We don't seem to experience both heads AND tails. Why was heads the "official" result in this reality, even if we accept that tails was the "official" result in some other reality that we can't detect? Why does it feel like I freely chose to have ham for breakfast, even when I suppose that I actually had jam for breakfast in another reality, and in still another I had eggs?

The best I can figure is that consciousness is like a "probability magnet." Its role is to swim through the vast field of inevitable simultaneous probable realities, and gather its experience from its ongoing interactions. Along the way, it exerts varying degrees of control over the elements of experience according to its individual qualities.

Some probabilities it can manipulate with a high degree of influence, and others it cannot. Certain events an individual consciousness will attract so strongly into its experience that it will be highly probable to the point of near certainty. These are "choices" in the classical sense. I felt like having noodles for dinner, so I had noodles for dinner. When you decided to have noodles, your future of noodles became a virtual certainty. The materialization of the noodle future follows directly from your conscious choice.

Other events are so weakly influenced by a consciousness's will that they would seem to be acts of randomness. Automobile accidents, a sudden illness, a winning hand of poker. Yet the fact that these seemingly "chance" outcomes enter one's experience at all is a consequence of some other event which we would readily accept as being within the scope of an individual's "control." You freely chose to get in the car and drive to the market, and in so doing you increased the probabilities that you would experience an accident on the way. Your "conscious choice" attracted the accident by increasing its probability.

According to the Everett interpretation, on your drive to the market, in some parallel probable reality you are struck by an errant driver. In some other parallel probable reality, you arrive safely at the market. In still other parallel probable realities you drive the car into a tree, or you change your mind halfway there and drive to the park instead, or your engine dies and you have to call for help, or, or, or...

All of these probabilities are real, although some are naturally more probable than others. More than that, they all exist at once, simultaneously. Your free will is to swim in that ocean. The conscious choices you make affect the relative probabilities of the infinite possible futures. Some will be highly dependent on your will. Others will seem to have no rational connection to your choices at all.

 

[flexy]

I read something great yesterday which made total sense to me, contradicting the idea that everything "is set in stone". I copy/paste it (what I rarely do) - I see also that it sorts of is in-line what Cerpin Taxt wrote

Predicting A Future Which Exists Before It Is Experienced

Relativity and quantum physics both predict the future exists before it is experienced. However, due to the fact that time is entangled in the frenzied activity of the quantum continuum, the future, or rather “a” future may continually change until the moment it is perceived by consciousness.
[...]
As a “future” flows toward Earth it can also be effected by whatever it encounters on the way to the consciousness of “now,” relative to an observer on Earth--exactly as befalls light. All futures are also entangled with space-time, the quantum continuum, and subject to the Uncertainty Principle. Therefore, future time may be continually altered until perhaps just moments before these futures are experienced by observers who are also entangled with what they experience. Hence, although one may anticipate and predict the future, just like they may predict the weather, the ability to accurately anticipate and predict the future, like predicting future weather, may increase the closer that future is to the present. Planning skills, goal formation, strategy, long term investments, concern for consequences, and even the most basic of calendars, all rest upon the ability to make predictions about the future.

The future is like the weather, with the ability to forecast the weather decreasing in accuracy as time and distance from the present increases. In other words, and because of entanglement and classic concepts governing “cause and effect”, the future is not already determined but is in flux and subject to continual alteration. The act of observing and other forces related to cause and affect alter the quantum continuum and continually change the future as it approaches. The future may not become fixed until the moment it is perceived by an observer relative to that observer, at which point it is in the present. Hence, predictions about the future will seldom be completely accurate, and become less accurate regarding increasingly distant events in the future, but more accurate but not completely accurate regarding events in the immediate future; a consequence of entanglement and the Uncertainty Principle.

Since the past is also relative and can exist in the future for some observers and in the present for others, and as the past is entangled with the quantum continuum, then the past is also subject to change after it has been experienced and before it is experienced by another observer at a downstream location in space-time. Two historians writing about history interpret and experience the past differently. A husband and wife discussing what happened at a party the night before, disagree. Eye-witness accounts differ among eye-witnesses (REF). A peasant living in a small village in western China in 1963 may have never heard of the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. The past is relative. There is no universal “past.”

Time is entangled and is affected by consciousness and relative to and effected by the act of observation and measurement--as predicted by quantum mechanics (Bohr, 1958, 1963; Dirac, 1966a,b; Planck 1931, 1932, Heisenberg 1927, 1958; Neumann 1937, 1955).

Or in other words, whether the cat in the box survived or not is not "written already" in the future (at least not in the sense as we would understand it), but as QT states it (the waveform collapse) happens in the moment of observation, respective there are two parallel "worlds"/states at some point where one of them "becomes reality". (I mean classic QT which I don't necessarily 'follow' even postulates a state where the cat is dead AND alive at the same time UNTIL the waveform collapses...however we want to interpret this)

 

[flexy]

On the one hand, and in some ways the world can be thought of as deterministic, in that the outcomes of probabilistic events would in fact be inevitable.The distinction is of course that all of the various probable outcomes -- despite their seeming mutual exclusivity -- each obtain with certainty in a unique reality. In that way, a coin toss results in heads AND tails, inevitably every time. Both outcomes are a certainty in an objective sense.

I have to ask right there...

Is both, heads and tails, *really* inevitable and equally probable?
Because if I throw the coin, the outcome at the end is a result of causality. The coin doesn't land heads or tails because of a random quantum fluctuation, there are reasons WHY the coin ends up as it does. (In this case physics).

But this also means that there is not even a requirement for a MW/Everett interpretation, or is there? When "heads" is the logical, physical result of how the coin was thrown, there is no reason for an "alternate universe" with the coin landing tails and one with it being heads.

The question here...does something like a true "absolutely random" quantum fluctuation even exist so that a potential outcome of X is present in several *absolutely equal* states.

Schrödinger (I assume) proposed this being so, because his cat in the box example is based on the random decay of an atom...it implies atoms do indeed decay "without a reason" "just like this" so I could understand the MW interpretation, somewhat.

But anything else, isn't it ultimately depending on causality...things "don't just happen without a reason"...when it rains tomorrow I can scientifically "back-track" why, when a flower pot falls on my head I can do that as well etc.

Spoken differently: Is it already a logical outcome of, say, the movement of atoms in the universe or whatever TODAY that it will rain on this very same day one year in the future? If it is, then of course we're at the "free will" question again...

But if it is NOT, then when is this "decision" made? At some point, the reason WHY it will rain (or not) in one year can be scientifically "back-tracked", it [here in my example the weather] is not something which happens "randomly".

In other words: At some point (in my example), according to QM we have two (or more) "simultaneous" possibilities.....but as soon as we can measure and assess (know) what the weather will be, the need for the alternatives vanishes.

Which means, again, we're at the relationship between consciousness and reality...because the alternate universe has only legitimization to exist when we don't know the outcome. However, us "not knowing the outcome" or "it being too complex to predict" doesn't necessarily mean that ALL possibilities are "equally real", or are they?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I have to ask right there...

Is both, heads and tails, *really* inevitable and equally probable?

Within the scope of my post, the best answer is: heads and tails are both objectively inevitable. The question of probability depends on the individual. On a particular toss of a coin, the heads outcome may be more probable for John, whereas the tails outcome may be more probable for Jim.

Because if I throw the coin, the outcome at the end is a result of causality.

Causality isn't much of a thing in physics anymore. I mean, they use the term still quite often, but when pressed on the finer details, we must admit that "causation" is just shorthand for "really strong correlation." There's always room for exception.

The coin doesn't land heads or tails because of a random quantum fluctuation, there are reasons WHY the coin ends up as it does. (In this case physics).

Quantum fluctuations are physics.

But I understand your confusion. It's hard to connect the uncertain, shades-of-grey, probabilty cloud nature of subatomic phenomena with the seemingly discrete, determined, cut-and-dried nature of macro phenomena. If we are to suppose that the universe splits into a "heads" realty and a "tails" reality, then when did that happen? If the coin flips 30 times in the air before landing, which flip got the extra half-flip and split the universe into two realities? I'll readily admit that satisfying answers to those questions are not really available.

{snip}

The question here...does something like a true "absolutely random" quantum fluctuation even exist so that a potential outcome of X is present in several *absolutely equal* states.

I think it is a trapping to get too caught up on "true randomness" or "absolute randomness." Conceptually, true randomness is unidentifiable. That is, you wouldn't know it even if you saw it. What is useful to speak about is varying degrees of predictability.

Schrödinger (I assume) proposed this being so, because his cat in the box example is based on the random decay of an atom...it implies atoms do indeed decay "without a reason" "just like this" so I could understand the MW interpretation, somewhat.

In reality the particle is picked because it can be statistically established that it's probability of decaying within a specific time interval approaches almost exactly 50%.

But anything else, isn't it ultimately depending on causality...things "don't just happen without a reason"...when it rains tomorrow I can scientifically "back-track" why, when a flower pot falls on my head I can do that as well etc.

Again, the premise of the things I wrote in my post was that it was meaningful to describe the macro world in the way that the Everett interpretation describes the quantum world. The evidence that this is a reliable model of the macro world is still very light, even though I do personally believe that it is accurate.

To be sure, and as I tried to make clear in my post, certain things will be so highly probable and so strongly correlated with particular outcomes that we "for all intents and purposes" treat them as certainties. This is what you are calling "causality." What we are starting to learn is that causality isn't really the certainty that we supposed it was when we look really closely at things.

Spoken differently: Is it already a logical outcome of, say, the movement of atoms in the universe or whatever TODAY that it will rain on this very same day one year in the future? If it is, then of course we're at the "free will" question again...

You need to understand that the very building blocks of our reality are not highly discrete objects in the first place. A mechanistic worldview depends on an outdated atomic model that likens particles to tiny little billiard balls flying around and bumping into eachother. In reality they are sort of "smeared" across existence. A particle is instead an accumulation of probable existence. It exists "a little bit over here" and "a little bit over there" all at once. The whole particle is the sum of its total probable existences.

But if it is NOT, then when is this "decision" made? At some point, the reason WHY it will rain (or not) in one year can be scientifically "back-tracked", it [here in my example the weather] is not something which happens "randomly".

It isn't really true that phenomena can be rigorously "back-tracked" like you suggest. Rather, antecedent correlated phenomena can be continuously identified into the past until some arbitrary criteria is satisfied. Haven't you ever played the "why?" game with a toddler? There's no end to it.

In other words: At some point (in my example), according to QM we have two (or more) "simultaneous" possibilities.....but as soon as we can measure and assess (know) what the weather will be, the need for the alternatives vanishes.

No, it doesn't vanish because there is no such thing as total certainty.

Which means, again, we're at the relationship between consciousness and reality...because the alternate universe has only legitimization to exist when we don't know the outcome. However, us "not knowing the outcome" or "it being too complex to predict" doesn't necessarily mean that ALL possibilities are "equally real", or are they?

I'm trying to come up with a relate-able explanation of Feynman's "Sum-over-histories" approach to quantum mechanics that explains the ontology of probabilities in my view, but it'll take me some more time. In the meantime searching on those terms might give you some additional insight.

 

[rumpleforeskin]

Free Will - an illusion "created" by the brain...in an universe where everything is pre-determined?

Depressing thought and could be true, I believe our illusion of free will stems from the fact that we cannot accurately predict the future as we cannot fathom the vast amount of variables that influence our decision making. So just as if you flip a coin with fixed variables (starting side up, wind speed, force applied etc.) you would always get the same result so should you always get the same future with same same starting conditions in the universe as every event is subject to antecedent events.

I was watching back to the future last week and thought that if there was such a thing a free will (in the non causal sense) then if Marty went back in time and did not interfere with anything (just an invisible/ethereal observer) the future should unfold differently from the one he knew as people would all be making different decisions. This is assuming Marty coming back had no additional affect on the people in the past.

Persi Diaconis had a small coin flipper built that would always land a coin toss the same side as it started, now if we could have a machine that knew that starting state of the universe and the rules by which everything interacts then it should be possible to predict the future, even accounting for a machine that predicts the future.

 

[agent00f]

Some guy name Hume wrote about this a while back in a way that's convincing to people who think about this kind of stuff for a living.

You don't need extra special physics to understand how the human mind builds up causality & such from observed events in the world, and if anything that only confuses the issue because the human mind evolved on the basis of everyday practice and not abstract fundamental theory.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Some guy name Hume wrote about this a while back in a way that's convincing to people who think about this kind of stuff for a living.

You don't need extra special physics to understand how the human mind builds up causality & such from observed events in the world, and if anything that only confuses the issue because the human mind evolved on the basis of everyday practice and not abstract fundamental theory.

We are not convinced.

 

[agent00f]

Try to reflect on the insight this offers: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists

As mentioned in a peer to this thread, it's more common for people to believe they understand things than actually understand things.

--

Also, more on the topic per se. "Free will" is simply linguistic rhetoric which aligns with a popular/intuitive meme that we make decisions of our own choice. This obviously has nothing to do with the underlying physics, which relatively few humans ever attempt to understand seriously.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Try to reflect on the insight this offers: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists

As mentioned in a peer to this thread, it's more common for people to believe they understand things than actually understand things.

--

Also, more on the topic per se. "Free will" is simply linguistic rhetoric which aligns with a popular/intuitive meme that we make decisions of our own choice. This obviously has nothing to do with the underlying physics, which relatively few humans ever attempt to understand seriously.

You are making an assumption upward-only causality in systems: but this is quite false. Higher level systems can have influences on lower level systems that cannot be coherently explained by only looking at the lower level.

For example, nothing in physics can explain what was meaningful about the bombing of Hiroshima. And yet a great deal of that meaning came from that physics-unexplainable level causing changs at the physics level.

In systems theory we assume everything builds on the lower level such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: but often the parts include aspects that would not exist without that whole.

 

[agent00f]

You are making an assumption upward-only causality in systems: but this is quite false. Higher level systems can have influences on lower level systems that cannot be coherently explained by only looking at the lower level.

No, I'm only assuming that linguistic rhetoric is altogether different to fundamental physics. This is true unless you have some entirely novel & revolutionary theory to share with the world.

For example, nothing in physics can explain what was meaningful about the bombing of Hiroshima. And yet a great deal of that meaning came from that physics-unexplainable level causing changs at the physics level.

You're just confusing "explaining" with "changing". While the rhetorical meaning & such of war might effect practical reality to some degree, it's altogether useless in terms of actual physical explanations like that required for the people working on the manhattan project . This is another good example of why rhetoric is different to physical reality, and how easy it is for people who don't do science to conflate the two.

In systems theory we assume everything builds on the lower level such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: but often the parts include aspects that would not exist without that whole.

This might be right or wrong depending on how these somewhat ambiguous words are interpreted for a situation, but given that "free will" as seen by the mind's eye has nothing to do with actual quantum mechanics it's not even wrong.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

No, I'm only assuming that linguistic rhetoric is altogether different to fundamental physics. This is true unless you have some entirely novel & revolutionary theory to share with the world.

linguistic rhetoric influences things at the atomic level: see the linguistic rhetoric that leads to atom's being smashed and new elements being created. There's nothing at the physics level that can meaningfully explain why an atom was smashed.

If the only choice based influence we is over linguistic rhetoric, then we have influence over who gets killed, who gets fed, and which atoms we transmute.

You need to be aware that when you say "seriously" you are appealing to the idea of takings something as a basic paradigm through which to see everything else. It's a nasty brutish idea that precludes every other level of analysis, and builds an untenable wall of invisible assumptions through which no other idea can break.

Do you really want to appeal to simple physics to dismiss free will?

 

[agent00f]

linguistic rhetoric influences things at the atomic level: see the linguistic rhetoric that leads to atom's being smashed and new elements being created. There's nothing at the physics level that can meaningfully explain why an atom was smashed.

If the only choice based influence we is over linguistic rhetoric, then we have influence over who gets killed, who gets fed, and which atoms we transmute.

You need to be aware that when you say "seriously" you are appealing to the idea of takings something as a basic paradigm through which to see everything else. It's a nasty brutish idea that precludes every other level of analysis, and builds an untenable wall of invisible assumptions through which no other idea can break.

Try reading the next part of that post for the reason as to why rhetoric somehow effecting reality isn't the same thing as rhetoric explaining reality.

Do you really want to appeal to simple physics to dismiss free will?

I'm simply saying the rhetorical notion of free will has nothing to do with fundamental physics. What's happening in this thread is just people throwing in random physics to build a rhetorical argument, which has nothing to do with science or even the linguistics of free will. I offered some reading to explain at least the linguistic side of it, but evidently nobody was interested in actually understanding anything beyond its rhetorical value for post-hoc rationalization.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Try reading the next part of that post for the reason as to why rhetoric somehow effecting reality isn't the same thing as rhetoric explaining reality.



I'm simply saying the rhetorical notion of free will has nothing to do with fundamental physics. What's happening in this thread is just people throwing in random physics to build a rhetorical argument, which has nothing to do with science or even the linguistics of free will. I offered some reading to explain at least the linguistic side of it, but evidently nobody was interested in actually understanding anything beyond its rhetorical value for post-hoc rationalization.

I read what you linked to: and I am interested in understanding "the linguistic side of it": what I don't exactly understand is the link between the two.

Let's not chalk up to willful ignorance what I see as a simple misapprehension of your argument. (Which I think, right now, rests on creditalist-dismissal of the conversation... which is odd given the credentials on this forum)

 

[agent00f]

I read what you linked to: and I am interested in understanding "the linguistic side of it": what I don't exactly understand is the link between the two.

Let's not chalk up to willful ignorance what I see as a simple misapprehension of your argument. (Which I think, right now, rests on creditalist-dismissal of the conversation... which is odd given the credentials on this forum)

I meant the reference to Hume, which you preemptively found unconvincing. Hume was a philosopher. Philosophy is a linguistic understanding of the world, per Philosophical Investigations. To clarify, I'm not necessarily claiming Hume is right, only that it's a popular starting point to delve into conversations that experts/professionals in the matter have pursued for a while.

That link is meant to illustrate why those conversations are important in this context.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I meant the reference to Hume, which you preemptively found unconvincing. Hume was a philosopher. Philosophy is a linguistic understanding of the world, per Philosophical Investigations. To clarify, I'm not necessarily claiming Hume is right, only that it's a popular starting point to delve into conversations that experts/professionals in the matter have pursued for a while.

That link is meant to illustrate why those conversations are important in this context.

Fantastic!

Free will is an argument about causation: that there is a cause for action encapsulated within a mind which could not be other wise predicted. That is, that you actually make choices, however bound they may be.

Let's start with some problems with Hume's concept of causation: If not A then Not B.

This linear math for causation leaves out many other causalities:
1) Cyclical: if not a then not b; later if not b then not a
2) Spiral: if not a then not b; later if not a not c
3) Assemblage: if not a then not b and/or c; if not b then not a and/or c; if not c then not a and/or b

The question of free will is essential a question of causality, in particular what causes identity? Do we have a choice over our identity?

The linear causality of Hume's counterfactuals leads us to the obvious conclusion "no". But thinking of systems as complex cyclical, spiral, assemblages, reveals that it is in the multiple ways we can draw on potential linear causes that our free will emerges.

From a first-person perspective we experience choice: the ability to act non-rationally, the ability to act frivolously, even counter-productively for no discernible gain. Why?

Because we are free to choose what future we think about and thus what past we draw upon. The concept is called antenarrative, and it joins the concepts of storytelling, sense making, and organizing. After that things get more complex, the phenomenological self interacts complexly with the various time-spaces used in telling stories.

I can go into detail, but I think that may be speaking past the point.

 

[MongGrel]

I was never a huge fan of Hume to begin with, myself. He seemed to always be out there along the lines of Bishop Berkley myself.

I have always like Empirical Evidence in my Philosophy, if even thinking considering it to begin with.

I doubt there are many Philosophers in a long time have contributed much to the modern world at all, some of the older ones have established a mind set in the past that has prompted a few areas of thinking.

Psychology had not really done much in ages either, to be honest from what I have seen.

I used to be married to one, it mostly seemed to be a Pseudo Science to me, with a bunch of people that babbled a lot about things they did not understand with some that could randomly dispense drugs to me.

I guess that is why the second wife and I parted ways long ago, most of them seemed to be control freaks that could dispense drugs to people in their care that had pretty screwed up backgrounds themselves.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I was never a huge fan of Hume to begin with, myself. He seemed to always be out there along the lines of Bishop Berkley myself.

I have always like Empirical Evidence in my Philosophy, if even thinking considering it to begin with.

I doubt there are many Philosophers in a long time have contributed much to the modern world at all, some of the older ones have established a mind set in the past that has prompted a few areas of thinking.

Psychology had not really done much in ages either, to be honest from what I have seen.

I used to be married to one, it mostly seemed to be a Pseudo Science to me, with a bunch of people that babbled a lot about things they did not understand with some that could randomly dispense drugs to me.

I guess that is why the second wife and I parted ways long ago, most of them seemed to be control freaks that could dispense drugs to people in their care that had pretty screwed up backgrounds themselves.

MonGrel: Science is about being consistent, rigorous, internally coherent, and thereby being able to share your empiricism with others.

To a physicist biology is often pseudo scientific; to an ecologist string theory may sound like a pseudo science.

As Agent's link aptly points out: much of science is 'sounding' like other members of a 'scientific' tribe. If your ex sounded pseudoscientific to you, it's likely because it didn't comport with the expectations for science-speak you'd come to expect.

 

[agent00f]

Fantastic!

Free will is an argument about causation: that there is a cause for action encapsulated within a mind which could not be other wise predicted. That is, that you actually make choices, however bound they may be.

Let's start with some problems with Hume's concept of causation: If not A then Not B.

This linear math for causation leaves out many other causalities:
1) Cyclical: if not a then not b; later if not b then not a
2) Spiral: if not a then not b; later if not a not c
3) Assemblage: if not a then not b and/or c; if not b then not a and/or c; if not c then not a and/or b

The question of free will is essential a question of causality, in particular what causes identity? Do we have a choice over our identity?

The linear causality of Hume's counterfactuals leads us to the obvious conclusion "no". But thinking of systems as complex cyclical, spiral, assemblages, reveals that it is in the multiple ways we can draw on potential linear causes that our free will emerges.

This is a puzzling reply to the claim that Hume is just an example of the previous thinking on the subject. The key aspect perspective here is human understanding of physical reality is just that, our personal take on observations. That can include free will, or not.

It's additionally puzzling given you admit that the matter of physical cause & consequence has little to do with human thinking per se, the physical world works without us after all, but then go on to further conflate human beliefs with physical causality.

The world isn't the mental framework we create to understand it, even if that framework has important consequences for human activity.

From a first-person perspective we experience choice: the ability to act non-rationally, the ability to act frivolously, even counter-productively for no discernible gain. Why?

Because we are free to choose what future we think about and thus what past we draw upon. The concept is called antenarrative, and it joins the concepts of storytelling, sense making, and organizing. After that things get more complex, the phenomenological self interacts complexly with the various time-spaces used in telling stories.

I can go into detail, but I think that may be speaking past the point.

We can believe we're free to choose. People believe a lot of things that aren't true. Similarly, a computer can be programmed or somehow come to believe any arbitrary statement. The only practically limitation here is that untrue beliefs don't result in death before reproduction, and it's not in dispute that plenty of ignorance-tending people are able to breed.

 

[agent00f]

I was never a huge fan of Hume to begin with, myself. He seemed to always be out there along the lines of Bishop Berkley myself.

I have always like Empirical Evidence in my Philosophy, if even thinking considering it to begin with.

I doubt there are many Philosophers in a long time have contributed much to the modern world at all, some of the older ones have established a mind set in the past that has prompted a few areas of thinking.

Psychology had not really done much in ages either, to be honest from what I have seen.

I used to be married to one, it mostly seemed to be a Pseudo Science to me, with a bunch of people that babbled a lot about things they did not understand with some that could randomly dispense drugs to me.

I guess that is why the second wife and I parted ways long ago, most of them seemed to be control freaks that could dispense drugs to people in their care that had pretty screwed up backgrounds themselves.

Philosophy as an activity is distinct from empiricism. That's why metaphysics has failed rather spectacularly.

Instead, philosophical thinking provides illuminating insight into how humans perceive & interpret the world. As you may have noticed, many disagreements on these forums or wherever aren't disputes over physical facts, or even direct analysis of those fact, but rather misunderstanding words and ego and such.

The scope of these latter errors is broad and specific to each situation.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

First you take an epistemological stance of subjectivism,

The world isn't the mental framework we create to understand it, even if that framework has important consequences for human activity.

Then you dismiss the means by which one obtains a subjectivist epistemology:

Philosophy as an activity is distinct from empiricism. That's why metaphysics has failed rather spectacularly.

Metaphysics is as good as it's implementable function, for example the ability of a Heideggerian metaphysics to advance artificial intelligence:

http://leidlmair.at/doc/whyheideggerianaifailed.pdf

 

[agent00f]

First you take an epistemological stance of subjectivism,
Then you dismiss the means by which one obtains a subjectivist epistemology:

This makes for a good case to illustrate "philosophical thinking provides illuminating insight into how humans perceive & interpret the world.".

I said that humans use a mental/subjective model to make sense of the world. This is a trivial truism simply by the existence of the previous sentence.

For example, "free will" can help makes intuitive sense of decision making, at least in the function of communicating the idea, just as the term has been used for this purpose above. However, this kind of making sense as a helpful thought doesn't actually have anything to do with the fundamental physics of determinism. It's certainly very enticing to think it does, and people believed the physical manifestation of metaphysics for a very long time, but the last century of modern physics has demonstrated the world doesn't operating anything like human intuition dictates. Eg. a lot of basic physics is forcing math onto experimental results.

Ergo, subjective thinking does have some use, just not for the purpose it's often supposed to have.

Metaphysics is as good as it's implementable function, for example the ability of a Heideggerian metaphysics to advance artificial intelligence:

http://leidlmair.at/doc/whyheideggerianaifailed.pdf

Understanding the subjective basis of metaphysical or any other kind of thinking can be useful, just not for actual physics. Philosophy is after all a linguistic understanding. Recall that's the fallacy I pointed out from the start, people conflating how they think of the world with how the world actually works.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

This makes for a good case to illustrate "philosophical thinking provides illuminating insight into how humans perceive & interpret the world.".

I said that humans use a mental/subjective model to make sense of the world. This is a trivial truism simply by the existence of the previous sentence.

For example, "free will" can help makes intuitive sense of decision making, at least in the function of communicating the idea, just as the term has been used for this purpose above. However, this kind of making sense as a helpful thought doesn't actually have anything to do with the fundamental physics of determinism. It's certainly very enticing to think it does, and people believed the physical manifestation of metaphysics for a very long time, but the last century of modern physics has demonstrated the world doesn't operating anything like human intuition dictates. Eg. a lot of basic physics is forcing math onto experimental results.

Ergo, subjective thinking does have some use, just not for the purpose it's often supposed to have.



Understanding the subjective basis of metaphysical or any other kind of thinking can be useful, just not for actual physics. Philosophy is after all a linguistic understanding. Recall that's the fallacy I pointed out from the start, people conflating how they think of the world with how the world actually works.

However you are also conflating "physics" a method of studying and extending our perceptions of the world, a linguistic understanding, with "how he world actually works."

To be internally consistent you need to either step away from physics as "actuality" or admit that as a one of many ways of understanding what is meaningful, physics only works at a particular level of analysis and this only serves to answer a narrow set of questions.

Further, if you study Aristotle through Dewey (and my ow superior work) you'll find that the metaphors that form our basis for what we call physics also consistently inform our philosophy: it's not nearly far-afield to think of the mind as a device that can see into numerous quantum-uncertainties and there in contain something outside of Newtonian physical determinism.

 

[agent00f]

However you are also conflating "physics" a method of studying and extending our perceptions of the world, a linguistic understanding, with "how he world actually works."

I'm using actual physics to denote how physical reality works far as empirical tests can muster, linguistic understanding to denote how humans make sense of their thoughts, and I'm pretty sure I don't mix the two as that was the point from the very start.

To be internally consistent you need to either step away from physics as "actuality" or admit that as a one of many ways of understanding what is meaningful, physics only works at a particular level of analysis and this only serves to answer a narrow set of questions.

I never claimed physics & really science in generally was everything, just how the natural world works. Clearly humans can get by fine without understanding much of it.

Further, if you study Aristotle through Dewey (and my ow superior work) you'll find that the metaphors that form our basis for what we call physics also consistently inform our philosophy: it's not nearly far-afield to think of the mind as a device that can see into numerous quantum-uncertainties and there in contain something outside of Newtonian physical determinism.

Most certainly the people in this thread weren't the first to try rolling actual physics back into their metaphysics, but likewise they also won't be the first to fail miserably at it. There's this smart guy Wittgenstein who wrote two magnus opus, the second tacitly admitting this exact failure in the first.