Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Ecurb]

To my mind you are conflating the appearance of the universe (to us humans) from how it operates. To me the universe would operate just fine in the absence of humans to observe it. Thus the deck of cards behaves like a deck of cards whether the faces are known, unknown or unknowable (an ace will show up 1/13 of the time, for example). Or to use your metaphor, flowers were flowers (and gods were gods) before there were people to observe them.

Ultimately it comes down to the question: is the process of human decision making physical? Can the psychologic be reduced to the neurologic?

Perhaps. But there's no way of knowing that (as science fiction writers have demonstrated ad nauseum).

I assume human decision making IS physical. But perhaps we create our own universes through those physical and chemical reactions in our brains. If the universe is nothing more than physical, how can we assume that our perceptions correlate to some reality outside of outselves? It's all in our head (from this perspective).

p.s. I'll admit this is a trite rabbit hole, and leads into darkness, so perhaps it's not worth going down.

[value]

A computer is not the one that chooses to run a computation. The computer is merely a tool in the hands of a human (an extension). The choice to run a computation is done in the face of an unknown future and therefore involves a moral valuation of which it cannot be said that it was predetermined.

Therefore a human pause - the 'moral consideration' that takes place before a choice - isn't similar to computer processing.

Why do you think this is an objection?
The fact that this shows is that in the real world events are determined by antecedent conditions. And there is no reason why the human body should be an exception to the laws of nature.

At question would be whether consciousness is reduce-able to a product of the human body.

The argument is that the nature of observing does not allow that which is observed to fundamentally have been pre-known on cosmic level because it would render observation (consciousness) meaningless.

[Sculptor1]

A computer is not the one that chooses to run a computation. The computer is merely a tool in the hands of a human (an extension). The choice to run a computation is done in the face of an unknown future and therefore involves a moral valuation of which it cannot be said that it was predetermined.

Therefore a human pause - the 'moral consideration' that takes place before a choice - isn't similar to computer processing.

Why do you think this is an objection?
The fact that this shows is that in the real world events are determined by antecedent conditions. And there is no reason why the human body should be an exception to the laws of nature.

At question would be whether consciousness is reduce-able to a product of the human body.

But it is.
How do you think this relevant?

The argument is that the nature of observing does not allow that which is observed to fundamentally have been pre-known on cosmic level because it would render observation (consciousness) meaningless.

This sentence does not seem to parse well.
Can you break it up please?
What is "cosmic level"? You do not provide it with a grammatical article. Is there a reason for that?

[Bahman]

Kant and Wittgenstein, the biggest philosophers of western philosophy, argued against the very possibility of determinism:
In order for the world to be deterministic there must be an independent world of enduring objects that can support and present it.
How are such objects, whether physical or not, even possible?
It is not possible.
Do objects announce their own physical boundaries, do they establish their own limits, boundaries and existence?
Of course, we would have to say no.
How then, can we argue even for the possibility of a deterministic world?

Here we consider determinism to be true for sake of discussion. But if the universe is not deterministic then what it is?

Moreover, you are free to open a new thread and discuss your idea there. I am sure it absorbs the attention of the people in this forum including me.

[Bahman]

To understand the implication of the question we need to understand what determinism is. Determinism is a doctrine that states that the future state of a system is uniquely determined in terms of the current state of the system. This means that there exists only one option, the future state, at any given time. We however without any doubt say that we experience options in our daily life. We pause and think about options and eventually choose one of them. The very existence of the pause means that the brain is also interrupted as well with the situation so one cannot say, as determinists say, that only one of the options is real. So options are real since otherwise, the state of the brain evolves deterministically without any pause one option is chosen and others are disregarded. Now that we established options are real we face the question of "How could there be options in a deterministic world?".

Easy.
How on earth can you make a choice freely?? Based on what exactly?

That is off-topic but I answer it. I choose freely by my mind. I believe in a new version of substance dualism.

No it is exactly on topic, and your answer reveals that you have not thought through why it might be the case.
You cannot "chose freely" since all your answers have to be determined by your current state of being.

As I said I am not discussing free will here. I am discussing the existence of options in a deterministic world.

[Sculptor1]

Easy.
How on earth can you make a choice freely?? Based on what exactly?

That is off-topic but I answer it. I choose freely by my mind. I believe in a new version of substance dualism.

No it is exactly on topic, and your answer reveals that you have not thought through why it might be the case.
You cannot "chose freely" since all your answers have to be determined by your current state of being.

As I said I am not discussing free will here. I am discussing the existence of options in a deterministic world.

This is a bit like saying I'm not discussing water, I am discussing seas, river, oceans, and stuff you drink.

So what do you think "free will" implies?

[Gertie]

You are correct that from the POV of the subject (prospectively) there is no difference currently between Free Will and Determinism, that is both appear as Free Will to our ability to perceive it.

Thus Determinism as you supposed only exists in the mind of philosophers.

As to playing cards, there is a 1/13 chance of an ace being on the top (jokers excluded), but there is either a 100% or 0% CERTAINTY that it is an ace. Those two declarations address separate things.

I don't personally subscribe to your (apparent) definition of Free Will, which sounds to my ears like "random", that is: uninflenced. My definition is: antecedant state A does NOT always lead to resultant state B, sometimes it is C.

The problem is that if antecedant state A unknown, or unknowable (as in the case of the deck of cards), the convenient fiction of free will is reasonable and meaningful. I suppose it is likely that if we knew (or even could know) everything, the world (like the deck of cards) would be deterministic. Since we can't know everything the world is not deterministic, from our point of view. And what other point of view is there? God's?

As Tennyson observed:

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower–but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Since we can't understand the flower root and all, we don't know what God and man is (also, it doesn't rhyme). If we could understand, the world would propably be deterministic. But we can't.

It's a rhyme sandwich  ACEFBD, Tennyson determined man is rhymes with crannies lol. 

[Bahman]

To understand the implication of the question we need to understand what determinism is. Determinism is a doctrine that states that the future state of a system is uniquely determined in terms of the current state of the system. This means that there exists only one option, the future state, at any given time. We however without any doubt say that we experience options in our daily life. We pause and think about options and eventually choose one of them. The very existence of the pause means that the brain is also interrupted as well with the situation so one cannot say, as determinists say, that only one of the options is real. So options are real since otherwise, the state of the brain evolves deterministically without any pause one option is chosen and others are disregarded. Now that we established options are real we face the question of "How could there be options in a deterministic world?".

To understand the issue, first you have to consider what it is that people think makes the universe deterministic.   Whether that is correct or not, and whether there can be exceptions.

Many assume the universe is deterministic because we see predictable patterns, which Physicalism has modelled as laws, or forces, acting on matter. QM introduces an underlying probabilistic element, but that isn't really what we mean by options, choices, or mentally willing our behaviour in contrast to  physicalist determinism.

In your post you point to pausing for thought, mentally weighing options and making choices based on mind somehow intervening in these physical processes when it comes to brains.

As far as we know, there are no physical brain processes which are in principle not following physicalist deterministic laws in response to physical stimuli.  The pause then could reflect the complex physical brain processes taking time, or perhaps never, hitting the threshold to instigate motor neuron behaviour.

But - we don't understand the relationship between mind and body.  And we can just as easily point to the evolutionary utlitity of being able to mentally reason through decisions, weigh options, imagine the consequences of different decisions, etc. Not to mention the obvious evolutionary  utility of  feeling hunger, satiety, lust, care, comfort, pain, memory, etc. There's an obvious functional (evolutionary) account of the role of our mental states which makes sense of our behaviour too.  And creates room for options which at least escape physicalist determinism, but perhaps raises an issue of psychological determinism - my psychology is such that it is inevitable I will make specific choices, that I will prioritise this over that option, just like I will remove my hand from a burning fire. (Some see a 'compatabilistic' approach to options making sense here). Never-the-less, this raises the possibility we can in effect mentally intervene in the physical brain processes, mind over matter.  And if mental experience is simply causally redundant epiphenomenal baggage, why does it look so well attuned to utility...

These two explanatory accounts, the mental and physical, run in parallel.  And as far as we can tell are closely related through our observations of neural correlation.  Raising  the additional problem of over-determinism.  

Without understanding the mind-body relationship, which we don't, the question and apparent paradoxes remain unanswerable.

The mind becomes important when it comes to making a decision when there is a conflict of interest in options. That is an interesting but different problem. My point however is how options could possibly be real in a deterministic world. I have an argument for the realness of options though. The heart of my argument is the coincidence of subjective experience of options and the pause in our physical and mental activity. I am arguing that this coincidence can not be due to chance so we can trust the subjective experience and be sure about the existence of options.

In the context I gave I don't think noting one type of correlation is enough to draw conclusions from. And Libet and subsequent similar experiments offer a different perspective on a 'readiness potential' pause you might want to check out.

I am aware of Libet experiment. By pause I don't mean the readiness potential but the time between facing options and making a decision.

I also disagree that there's a pause in physical brain activity or mental activity when we consider options - did you really mean to say that?

But anyway I gave an alternative possibility to that point within my post -

As far as we know, there are no physical brain processes which are in principle not following physicalist deterministic laws in response to physical stimuli. The pause then could reflect the complex physical brain processes taking time, or perhaps never, hitting the threshold to instigate motor neuron behaviour.

My question is why the brain processes should take the time or perhaps never end if options are not real. Why do these two phenomena, the pause and the subjective experience of option coincide? It could not be a matter of chance.

[Bahman]

The issue of free choice is central to the issue of free will vs determinism but the nature of options are variable according to past causal processes, with some having more available options than others. These include social aspects of freedom including financial resources and past actions. For example, a person who has wealth may have more practical possible options than someone who doesn't and someone who has the education and certain experiences may have more options than someone who is in a lower position. Also, people may have more options than someone at a later stage because they are bound by circumstances from the past.

So, in that sense, your query about options is not about choice per se, but about the scope of freedom itself. The circumstances rather than simply intentional choice come into play. It may at times be like someone handing over all their money, but with a gun held to their head. The choice would have been made but it was about the constraints of circumstances, but with restricted options. In other words, options are not simply about intentionality but about options as the actual potential pathways of choice perceived to be potential pathways at any given point and given knowledge of these.

It seems to me that you agree with the existence of options. My question is how options could be real in a deterministic world in which only one outcome is permissible at any given time.

[Bahman]

That is off-topic but I answer it. I choose freely by my mind. I believe in a new version of substance dualism.

No it is exactly on topic, and your answer reveals that you have not thought through why it might be the case.
You cannot "chose freely" since all your answers have to be determined by your current state of being.

As I said I am not discussing free will here. I am discussing the existence of options in a deterministic world.

This is a bit like saying I'm not discussing water, I am discussing seas, river, oceans, and stuff you drink.

So what do you think "free will" implies?

Free will is the ability of a free agent to unbiasedly (by unbiased I mean without any inclination) choose between two options. My question is not how a person can choose one of the options but how options could be real in a deterministic world.

[JackDaydream]

The issue of free choice is central to the issue of free will vs determinism but the nature of options are variable according to past causal processes, with some having more available options than others. These include social aspects of freedom including financial resources and past actions. For example, a person who has wealth may have more practical possible options than someone who doesn't and someone who has the education and certain experiences may have more options than someone who is in a lower position. Also, people may have more options than someone at a later stage because they are bound by circumstances from the past.

So, in that sense, your query about options is not about choice per se, but about the scope of freedom itself. The circumstances rather than simply intentional choice come into play. It may at times be like someone handing over all their money, but with a gun held to their head. The choice would have been made but it was about the constraints of circumstances, but with restricted options. In other words, options are not simply about intentionality but about options as the actual potential pathways of choice perceived to be potential pathways at any given point and given knowledge of these.

It seems to me that you agree with the existence of options. My question is how options could be real in a deterministic world in which only one outcome is permissible at any given time.

My answer to the question of how options are real is because human beings are able to make decisions on the basis of reason, which is possible on the basis of language. Other sentient beings, as far as we know do not have linguistic understanding to make such choices, so would make these choices more on an unconscious basis, on the basis of instincts.

Of course, human beings also have physical drives and instincts too, even though they may rationalise them. That is why determinism still has a strong basis on the physical level. However, human beings conscious experience can be thought of by within a bio-psychosocial framework. This entails human beings having the potential ability to think about the range of possibilities, as options.

Some would argue that the specific thoughts people have are beyond choice, but this can become a tangenital knot. As it is, a human being has an active role in the process, through the awareness of the various options of action. So, it does not rule out the underlying basis of determinism itself, but shows that it is not a passive process, with human beings having an active role in the pathways of causation.

[Ecurb]

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower–but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

It's a rhyme sandwich  ACEFBD, Tennyson determined man is rhymes with crannies lol. 

I like half rhymes and asonances. Rhyming "man is" with "crannies" sounds nice, and draws the reader's attention. The master, of course, was Emily Dickinson, perhaps America's greatest poet.

By the way, to Bahman, I addressed your concerns about "options" several posts ago. Since I wasn't responding directly to you, perhaps you overlooked my response.

[Bahman]

The issue of free choice is central to the issue of free will vs determinism but the nature of options are variable according to past causal processes, with some having more available options than others. These include social aspects of freedom including financial resources and past actions. For example, a person who has wealth may have more practical possible options than someone who doesn't and someone who has the education and certain experiences may have more options than someone who is in a lower position. Also, people may have more options than someone at a later stage because they are bound by circumstances from the past.

So, in that sense, your query about options is not about choice per se, but about the scope of freedom itself. The circumstances rather than simply intentional choice come into play. It may at times be like someone handing over all their money, but with a gun held to their head. The choice would have been made but it was about the constraints of circumstances, but with restricted options. In other words, options are not simply about intentionality but about options as the actual potential pathways of choice perceived to be potential pathways at any given point and given knowledge of these.

It seems to me that you agree with the existence of options. My question is how options could be real in a deterministic world in which only one outcome is permissible at any given time.

My answer to the question of how options are real is because human beings are able to make decisions on the basis of reason, which is possible on the basis of language. Other sentient beings, as far as we know do not have linguistic understanding to make such choices, so would make these choices more on an unconscious basis, on the basis of instincts.

Of course, human beings also have physical drives and instincts too, even though they may rationalise them. That is why determinism still has a strong basis on the physical level. However, human beings conscious experience can be thought of by within a bio-psychosocial framework. This entails human beings having the potential ability to think about the range of possibilities, as options.

Some would argue that the specific thoughts people have are beyond choice, but this can become a tangenital knot. As it is, a human being has an active role in the process, through the awareness of the various options of action. So, it does not rule out the underlying basis of determinism itself, but shows that it is not a passive process, with human beings having an active role in the pathways of causation.

Ok, let me ask you this question: Is a human brain a deterministic object?

[Bahman]

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower–but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

It's a rhyme sandwich  ACEFBD, Tennyson determined man is rhymes with crannies lol. 

I like half rhymes and asonances. Rhyming "man is" with "crannies" sounds nice, and draws the reader's attention. The master, of course, was Emily Dickinson, perhaps America's greatest poet.

By the way, to Bahman, I addressed your concerns about "options" several posts ago. Since I wasn't responding directly to you, perhaps you overlooked my response.

Could you please provide a link to the post? You wrote several posts.

[JackDaydream]

The issue of free choice is central to the issue of free will vs determinism but the nature of options are variable according to past causal processes, with some having more available options than others. These include social aspects of freedom including financial resources and past actions. For example, a person who has wealth may have more practical possible options than someone who doesn't and someone who has the education and certain experiences may have more options than someone who is in a lower position. Also, people may have more options than someone at a later stage because they are bound by circumstances from the past.

So, in that sense, your query about options is not about choice per se, but about the scope of freedom itself. The circumstances rather than simply intentional choice come into play. It may at times be like someone handing over all their money, but with a gun held to their head. The choice would have been made but it was about the constraints of circumstances, but with restricted options. In other words, options are not simply about intentionality but about options as the actual potential pathways of choice perceived to be potential pathways at any given point and given knowledge of these.

It seems to me that you agree with the existence of options. My question is how options could be real in a deterministic world in which only one outcome is permissible at any given time.

My answer to the question of how options are real is because human beings are able to make decisions on the basis of reason, which is possible on the basis of language. Other sentient beings, as far as we know do not have linguistic understanding to make such choices, so would make these choices more on an unconscious basis, on the basis of instincts.

Of course, human beings also have physical drives and instincts too, even though they may rationalise them. That is why determinism still has a strong basis on the physical level. However, human beings conscious experience can be thought of by within a bio-psychosocial framework. This entails human beings having the potential ability to think about the range of possibilities, as options.

Some would argue that the specific thoughts people have are beyond choice, but this can become a tangenital knot. As it is, a human being has an active role in the process, through the awareness of the various options of action. So, it does not rule out the underlying basis of determinism itself, but shows that it is not a passive process, with human beings having an active role in the pathways of causation.

Ok, let me ask you this question: Is a human brain a deterministic object?

I am not sure that your question makes sense, especially as you don't seem to see the connection between determinism and free will. The brain Is the wiring mechanism, and, on this basis, could be seen as an 'object' but it is all about processes and systems. There is the whole issue of physicalism and the question of free will, and determinism may be important in both areas of philosophy. But to view the brain as an object may to see it as detached from the imminent aspects of consciousness and the human experiences.