Moral consquences of determinism

[bhamgeezer]

No. Because you don't know what's coming, you still have to make choices, so there is a place for moral actions.

Clearly their is a place for moral actions but I am quite happy with them being determinate

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Clearly their is a place for moral actions but I am quite happy with them being determinate

I believe they are determined, so the morality or non morality is an illusion, as is the 'choice'.

But since we have imperfect information, we must exist within the illusion, and within the illusion, both choice and morality are operative.

 

[bhamgeezer]

I believe they are determined, so the morality or non morality is an illusion, as is the 'choice'.

But since we have imperfect information, we must exist within the illusion, and within the illusion, both choice and morality are operative.

I understand where your coming from, as in my opinion both moral free will and physical determinism can co-exist.

 

[Jonti]

The future is unpredictatble

Frankly I would have to disagree, I believe the world is determined, quantum mechanics gives us no reason to believe this is not the case, it merely suggests that a comprehensive understanding of this determinism may be forever beyond the limits of our knowledge, this was something known long before such a scientific theory was suggested.

This is pompous nonsense.

Here's Richard Feynman talking about the two-slit interference experiment that can be performed with electrons. Even when only one electron at a time traverses the apparatus (so they "cannot" interfere with each other inside the apparatus, the last having completed its journey before the next starts out) an interference pattern builds up on the target screen, one electron at a time. One cannot predict where on the target screen the next impact will occur. One cannot where any single impact will occur.

These results have been known for over a century. The experiment has since been carried out with particles as large as buckyballs (these are pretty massive molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a sphere). It's time drop this irrational, romantic, a priori attachment to determinism. It's supported neither by common sense, nor sceintific thinking ...

A philosopher once said 'It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results'. Well, they do not. You set up the circumstances, with the same conditions every time, and you cannot predict behind which hole you will see the electron. Yet science goes on in spite of it - although the same conditions do not always produce the same results. That makes us unhappy, that we cannot predict exactly what will happen. Incidentally, you could think up a circumstance in which it is very dangerous and serious, and man man must know, and still you cannot predict. For instance we could cook up - we'd better not, but we could - a scheme by which we set up a photo cell, and one electron to go through, and if we see it behind hole No. 1 we set off the atomic bomb and start World War III, whereas if we see it behind hole No. 2 we make peace feelers and delay the war a little Ionger. Then the future of man would be dependent on something which no amount of science can predict. The future is unpredictable.

What is necessary 'for the very existence of science', and what the characteristics of nature are, are not to be determined by pompous preconditions, they are determined always by the material with which we work, by nature herself. We look, and we see what we find, and we cannot say ahead of time successfully what it is going to look like.

emphasis added

 

[Santino]

Predictablity and determinateness (is that a word?) are not the same thing.

Something can be absolutely determined and entirely unpredicatable, there's no contradiction there.

 

[Santino]

Also, morality would be even less understandable in a indeterminate universe.

 

[kabbes]

A key question for me is this:

Given a person with a particular set of experiences to date and a particular set of physical characteristics and physiology, is it possible for that person to ever choose differently when presented with a particular circumstance? If you reran the universe 1000 times, would that person ALWAYS make the same choice?

If the answer to the (latter) question is "yes" then that is certainly a type of determinism, even if it isn't the same thing as the determinism you get on a billiard table. And in those circumstances, I question what "free will" really means.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If the answer to the (latter) question is "yes" then that is certainly a type of determinism, even if it isn't the same thing as the determinism you get on a billiard table. And in those circumstances, I question what "free will" really means.

I posted this on another thread. I can't think of a better way of saying it, so I'll post it again.

We have realised that we exist as individuals. And when we, in that very odd dualistic way that self-awareness feels to be (maybe not so odd given how it arises), look at ourselves, what do we find? We find a highly purposeful being that does not appear to do anything without a reason. This is us. We are doing these things. There is a time delay between our actions and our representation of those actions to ourselves in our consciousness. After we've done it, we see what we did, and we also see why we did it. The time delay is short, however. The representation feels like it has come with the action – it has required clever experimentation to prove to us that this is not the case, and it is only very recently that we have realised that it is not the case. Given that we feel that the the action and the representation of the action occur simultaneously, we attribute the cause of the action not to the pre-conscious purposeful being that in fact is the cause, but to the conscious reflecting being that we generally consider to be 'us'.

We see both the action and the wider context of the action in the model of reality generated by our brains, which is the content of our consciousness. They are gathered together into a meaningful whole, so the action and evidence for the reason for the action are there together. The strong urge we have to make sense of what we perceive has a wealth of evidence. We are always looking for meaning. We make the final link ourselves in what we do not realise is a post-fact reconstruction – we did this because of that. No wonder those experiencing a psychotic episode, whose ability to generate their models of reality is breaking down, talk about 'losing themselves' and no longer being in control.

This is the phenomenon that we commonly call free will.

 

[Santino]

And in those circumstances, I question what "free will" really means.

It seems to me that just about the only use the concept of free will serves is the justification for moral judgements and questions of desert.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It seems to me that just about the only use the concept of free will serves is the justification for moral judgements and questions of desert.

I think this is true. It is quite possible to live without making such judgements. I'm not a Buddhist, but that seems to me to be pretty much the essence of Buddhism.

 

[Jonti]

When a person claims to be free, from what are they free? Conversely when they claim their every action is determined, what is pulling the strings?

It sounds as if many people take freewill to mean, being free of the body. And to be determined in one's acts, to be determined by the body. But that's absurd, for mind and body are indissolubly joined. It simply makes no sense to think one is either free of oneself, or controlled by oneself, as if by an outside influence.

 

[Santino]

I think this is true. It is quite possible to live without making such judgements. I'm not a Buddhist, but that seems to me to be pretty much the essence of Buddhism.

Try invading Tibet and see how non-jugemental they get then.

 

[Santino]

When a person claims to be free, from what are they free? Conversely when they claim their every action is determined, what is pulling the strings?

Generally speaking, they mean 'I could have done otherwise'.

I'm not defending it, btw, I think it's a meaningless concept.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

When a person claims to be free, from what are they free? Conversely when they claim their every action is determined, what is pulling the strings?

It sounds as if many people take freewill to mean, being free of the body. And to be determined in one's acts, to be determined by the body. But that's absurd, for mind and body are indissolubly joined. It simply makes no sense to think one is either free of oneself, or controlled by oneself, as if by an outside influence.

I agree. 'we are in control of our bodies' is an odd statement when we are our bodies. And ultimately it makes no practical difference whatsoever to how we live.

In the end the concept of free will, it seems to me, necessarily involves a form of Cartesian duality, and as such, you need to show the mechanism by which the material world is affected by the non-material world. No such mechanism has ever been found, and I think we need to face up to the fact that none will ever be found.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Try invading Tibet and see how non-jugemental they get then.

You're confusing the actions of Buddhists with the teaching of Buddhism.

 

[bhamgeezer]

This is pompous nonsense.

Here's Richard Feynman talking about the two-slit interference experiment that can be performed with electrons. Even when only one electron at a time traverses the apparatus (so they "cannot" interfere with each other inside the apparatus, the last having completed its journey before the next starts out) an interference pattern builds up on the target screen, one electron at a time. One cannot predict where on the target screen the next impact will occur. One cannot where any single impact will occur.

These results have been known for over a century. The experiment has since been carried out with particles as large as buckyballs (these are pretty massive molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a sphere). It's time drop this irrational, romantic, a priori attachment to determinism. It's supported neither by common sense, nor sceintific thinking ...emphasis added

Quite clearly no, anyone who prized quantum mechanics over empirical experience would be pompous not the other way around.

It is science's failure to know all the information that leads scientists describe things in term of probability.

 

[bhamgeezer]

Also, morality would be even less understandable in a indeterminate universe.

Really I see no problem understanding morality within a determinate world, I see it as necessary for the world to be determinate for a sensible universe to even exist.

Within an indeterminate world would not human moral behaviour have to be completely random rather than baised on reasoning that is derived from sensory experience?

 

[8ball]

For me a moral decision is a determinate one . . .

Internal contradiction right at the start. There can be no moral decision. A moral event, if anything, but substantial redefinition of the term moral would be required.

fwiw I agree with the validity of drawing a distinction between fundamental unpredictability and indeterminacy.

 

[bhamgeezer]

A key question for me is this:

Given a person with a particular set of experiences to date and a particular set of physical characteristics and physiology, is it possible for that person to ever choose differently when presented with a particular circumstance? If you reran the universe 1000 times, would that person ALWAYS make the same choice?

If the answer to the (latter) question is "yes" then that is certainly a type of determinism, even if it isn't the same thing as the determinism you get on a billiard table. And in those circumstances, I question what "free will" really means.

Which is exactly why I have been following the route of compatibilism, to try and show that when we talk of moral free will this has absolutely nothing to do with freedom from determinism.

 

[bhamgeezer]

Internal contradiction right at the start. There can be no moral decision. A moral event, if anything, but substantial redefinition of the term moral would be required.

fwiw I agree with the validity of drawing a distinction between fundamental unpredictability and indeterminacy.

Not at all a contradiction, a moral decision is nothing more the sum of the determinate action of ones mind and body resulting in an action. A smarter person will make a better moral decision than another due to nothing more better determinate function, I do not need to invoke some type of mystical causa sui to explain it either

I am quite happy with fundemental unpredictability, this I would never question and I am quite happy with the suggestion that science demonstrates this however I would never take this as a reason to suggest that the world is probabilistic.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not at all a contradiction, a moral decision is nothing more the sum of the determinate action of ones mind and body resulting in an action. A smarter person will choose better than another, I do not need to invoke some type of mystical causa sui to explain it either

I would make the same point but just leaving out the word 'determinate'. Why is it needed? I don't see that it adds anything to our understanding of the process to talk of its being determinate.

 

[8ball]

Not at all a contradiction, a moral decision is nothing more the sum of the determinate action of ones mind and body resulting in an action. A smarter person will choose better than another, I do not need to invoke some type of mystical causa sui to explain it either

I don't recall invoking any kind of mystical sushi.

And you seem to be giving words their own special meanings again. A decision involves taking a path when it is not the only path which could have been taken. In a determinate universe, only one path can be taken.

 

[Jonti]

... It is science's failure to know all the information that leads scientists describe things in term of probability.

This reads like a statement of Faith ~ it's certainly not a scientific fact.

It's as if a particular branch of science has taken the role of the omniscient deity of old. Its priests even talk about knowing the mind of God.

 

[Jonti]

... If you reran the universe 1000 times, would that person ALWAYS make the same choice?
...

Would evolutionary biology follow the same course on the planet earth? Would 'the same person' even be born?

The answer appears to be "no".

 

[kabbes]

Would evolutionary biology follow the same course on the planet earth? Would 'the same person' even be born?

The answer appears to be "no".

Where there is a probabilistic process involved, such as a genetic mutation, then the answer would be "no".

Saying that an identical individual in an identical situation would make a different choice, however, has to be a matter of faith. There is no way of us knowing one way or other. Unless you think that there is a quantum uncertainty driving that choice, I suppose.

My belief, however -- and that's all it can be -- is increasingly turning towards thinking that such a person would *not* make a different choice each time. I think that we are fundamentally trapped in our own "context" (for want of a better word) and since this context is what drives our decisions, our decisions become something which are an inevitable consequence of our intrinsic selves.

 

[bhamgeezer]

I don't recall invoking any kind of mysticl sushi.

Well I am only being facetious but ultimately that is where I see the suggestion that humans do not exist within the framework of physical determinism ending.

And you seem to be giving words their own special meanings again. A decision involves taking a path when it is not the only path which could have been taken. In a determinate universe, only one path can be taken.

I understand your point about a decision requiring at least two possible outcomes however don't feel like I am making a contradiction as I am only looking at an event in actuality rather than its potentiality. When we break the world down into a logical simplification it is still the case that only one outcome will occur.

Even in an indeterminate world if John is faced with a fork in the road it is still only possible for him to take one path. As we generally understand that it is impossible for one thing to do two things at once I am quite happy with the understanding that in any decision in actuality only one outcome is possible and that the only reason anyone ever made an error about this was due to many events fundemental unpredictability,

 

[Jonti]

Where there is a probabilistic process involved, such as a genetic mutation, then the answer would be "no".

Saying that an identical individual in an identical situation would make a different choice, however, has to be a matter of faith. There is no way of us knowing one way or other. Unless you think that there is a quantum uncertainty driving that choice, I suppose.

My belief, however -- and that's all it can be -- is increasingly turning towards thinking that such a person would *not* make a different choice each time. I think that we are fundamentally trapped in our own "context" (for want of a better word) and since this context is what drives our decisions, our decisions become something which are an inevitable consequence of our intrinsic selves.

Thought experiments are all very well and have their place. It can certainly be instructive to imagine the results of a procedure or experiment we currently cannot carry out.

But, what use can a thought experiment be, if it cannot in principle happen in the real world?

 

[8ball]

Even in an indeterminate world if John is faced with a fork in the road it is still only possible for him to take one path.

But before he decides, it is possible that he could take either path.

 

[8ball]

Well I am only being facetious but ultimately that is where I see the suggestion that humans do not exist within the framework of physical determinism ending.

I think I know the line of argument, but fittingly enough, I don't happen to agree that it's the only path.

 

[bhamgeezer]

This reads like a statement of Faith ~ it's certainly not a scientific fact.

It's as if a particular branch of science has taken the role of the omniscient deity of old. Its priests even talk about knowing the mind of God.

I agree it is not a scientifc fact, determinism is an unfalsifiable thesis. However I am certainly not a scientific realist and therefore derive my ideas about determinism from experience more than partical physics. Surely its not a faith if you are open to a change in belief through rational argument