Alan watts once remarked that the universe is intelligent as if we are defined in such a manner and came from the universe, then it too must have those same properties. Chrisc, who is now in south africa was very keen on his audio and written books. If determinism exist then does it lie in the realms of scientific exploration and achievement, could there be any validity to such an argument. In what other sphere does man rise above his biological tendencies.
Three Arguments Against Determinism
- Thread starter Jonti
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Jonti
what the dormouse said
Thing is, determinism just don't get any more determined than the Laplacian variety. He invites us to perform a thought experiment (featuring what has come to be known as Laplace's Demon)...
The fact that determinism is not without its problems is OK. The idea of freedom of action or freewill is also pretty problematic, to put it mildly
Philosophy progresses agonisingly slowly, but progress it does, as ideas and understanding become more sophisticated, with far-out concepts and understandings from science and maths.
It's noticable that Laplace's Demon invites us to imagine it is something apart from Creation. If this "standing outside" turns out (for some Godelian reason) to be incoherent, then the kinds of arguments Dennett makes would, I think, gain immensely.
Dennett seems to be making that sort of suggestion when he argues that a process cannot be adjudged determined or otherwise except within a metasystem. There does seem to be some kind of metaphor here. We accept some systems cannot prove their own consistency (that their deductive consequences are coherent). Perhaps it could also be the case that some systems (systems like us!) cannot prove all their own consequences?
To put it in religious or poetic language, god knows us better than we know ourselves. We are free to act, but god nevertheless knows how we will choose.
All credit to Laplace, he would hardly have been able to write his "Celestial Mechanics" without somesuch guiding principleMarquis Pierre Simon de Laplace said:
The fact that determinism is not without its problems is OK. The idea of freedom of action or freewill is also pretty problematic, to put it mildly
Philosophy progresses agonisingly slowly, but progress it does, as ideas and understanding become more sophisticated, with far-out concepts and understandings from science and maths.It's noticable that Laplace's Demon invites us to imagine it is something apart from Creation. If this "standing outside" turns out (for some Godelian reason) to be incoherent, then the kinds of arguments Dennett makes would, I think, gain immensely.
Dennett seems to be making that sort of suggestion when he argues that a process cannot be adjudged determined or otherwise except within a metasystem. There does seem to be some kind of metaphor here. We accept some systems cannot prove their own consistency (that their deductive consequences are coherent). Perhaps it could also be the case that some systems (systems like us!) cannot prove all their own consequences?
To put it in religious or poetic language, god knows us better than we know ourselves. We are free to act, but god nevertheless knows how we will choose.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:
But left to its own devices, the universe would seek the maximum randomness of entropy, not some sort of clumping.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Jonti said:Thing is, determinism just don't get any more determined than the Laplacian variety. He invites us to perform a thought experiment (featuring what has come to be known as Laplace's Demon)... All credit to Laplace, he would hardly have been able to write his "Celestial Mechanics" without somesuch guiding principle
The fact that determinism is not without its problems is OK. The idea of freedom of action or freewill is also pretty problematic, to put it mildly
It's noticable that Laplace's Demon invites us to imagine it is something apart from Creation. If this "standing outside" turns out (for some Godelian reason) to be incoherent, then the kinds of arguments Dennett makes would, I think, gain immensely.
Dennett seems to be making that sort of suggestion when he argues that a process cannot be adjudged determined or otherwise except within a metasystem. There does seem to be some kind of metaphor here. We accept some systems cannot prove their own consistency (that their deductive consequences are coherent). Perhaps it could also be the case that some systems (systems like us!) cannot prove all their own consequences?
To put it in religious or poetic language, god knows us better than we know ourselves. We are free to act, but god nevertheless knows how we will choose.
Good old hard determinism with a new name:
Originally Posted by Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace
"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."
Johnny Cannuck2: I e-mailed my last year's lectrurer on scientific realism, and here is his reply. He argues that laws can operate even though they do not exist, it really doesn't seem to add up to me (but I'm sure he won't mind me doing so 
)
Often those who say that laws are created rather than discovered would
be described as being anti-realist about laws. One might think that they
were saying that what we call laws are our projections onto the world
rather than being features of how the world is independent of ourselves.
On the other hand you might say that if to be a law is just to be...
(fill in the blank, e.g. a Humean regularity that we pick out for
special treatment) and that condition is satisfied, then one could say:
yes, laws are real, even if they are in some sense our projection.
Do laws predate their theorisation? Well law _statements_ certainly
don't, but what we are interested in are the laws themselves. Apples
fall because of the law of gravity. Apples were falling (I imagine) long
before anyone was around to notice it, comment on it and recognise a law
at work. Suppose one adopted the Humean line and said laws were nothing
but regularities that we pick out as particularly interesting,
significant or robust. In a sense we would be creating the law in
picking out the significant regularity and this will happen at some
particular time. But even if we don't latch onto the regularity and
decide it is a law until time t, the regularity will include all
fallings of apples (etc.) that have gone on in the past before time t.
So the law was (in a sense) created at time t, but it was operative
before time t.
> If I were to contend that laws (whatever this relation is) are real,
would
> this
> amount to saying that laws do exist just because we create them - do
they
> predate their theorization?
>
> Is it a law that causes an apple to fall to the ground if dropped?
Maybe you are right, but, I can contribute to your interesting discussions
)Often those who say that laws are created rather than discovered would
be described as being anti-realist about laws. One might think that they
were saying that what we call laws are our projections onto the world
rather than being features of how the world is independent of ourselves.
On the other hand you might say that if to be a law is just to be...
(fill in the blank, e.g. a Humean regularity that we pick out for
special treatment) and that condition is satisfied, then one could say:
yes, laws are real, even if they are in some sense our projection.
Do laws predate their theorisation? Well law _statements_ certainly
don't, but what we are interested in are the laws themselves. Apples
fall because of the law of gravity. Apples were falling (I imagine) long
before anyone was around to notice it, comment on it and recognise a law
at work. Suppose one adopted the Humean line and said laws were nothing
but regularities that we pick out as particularly interesting,
significant or robust. In a sense we would be creating the law in
picking out the significant regularity and this will happen at some
particular time. But even if we don't latch onto the regularity and
decide it is a law until time t, the regularity will include all
fallings of apples (etc.) that have gone on in the past before time t.
So the law was (in a sense) created at time t, but it was operative
before time t.
> If I were to contend that laws (whatever this relation is) are real,
would
> this
> amount to saying that laws do exist just because we create them - do
they
> predate their theorization?
>
> Is it a law that causes an apple to fall to the ground if dropped?
Maybe you are right, but, I can contribute to your interesting discussions
Jonti said:
Within a deterministic worldview, we see that we're the kind of beings that have evolved minds that find out true beliefs about the world, and the kind of minds that actually do find out true beliefs,- minds that are determined to get everything wrong don't generally do very well. Science, from which our deterministic worldview comes from, is our culturally evolved technique for working out true answers to questions that we've observed we seem to be predisposed to find untrue answers to. With questions of determinism, we seem to have a choice whether to believe what most scientists tell us must be true, or whether to go with our instincts which have turned out to be wrong again and again on many scientific questions.
Jonti said:
There's no logical way of getting from
1, all events are determined,- to
2, all events are predictable. - or even
3, all events are in principle predictable.
You might be able to simulate all events with infinite knowledge, but, then it's unlikely your simulation would run as fast as reality, and if it didn't run as fast as reality, then it still wouldn't help with prediction.
The one statement just doesn't imply the other.
Jonti said:
So what, though? Why should consciousness have a role? And it would be a mistake to think that a deterministic worldview says that our choices don't affect outcomes, - the point is just that our choices themselves are constrained. If our experience of choosing and our consciousness are much the same thing then it might be a mistake to say that consciousness has no role to play under determinism, - it might be the very means by which our mental programs create possible options, and make decisions. - it's perfectly problem to have a program that makes choices, in which nonetheless it's behaviour is perfectly determined.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Well, yes. Or, at least true enough beliefs about the world. Most scientists would agree with that -- it makes sense. But notice it is rooting this ability in present conditions and not in any configuration of the world from anywhere in its history. Laplace's demon would have us believe that the information in the DNA of, say, a chimpanzee (any organism!) was already implicit in the configuration of the world, even before the planet Earth had coalesced from the solar disc.
One doesn't need to go so far as to simulate all events to upset the apple-cart of determinism. One can take an arbitrarily small subset of events. As the OP says Then, in principle, everything that you do or say in the next hour is predictable. Until some evil genius spills the beans to you about your future fate. Then you can change it ....
In what sense does something that has no choice (because its behaviour is perfectly determined) have choice?
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Jonti said:
Because it is impossible to collect enough information to predict ahead of time what that choice will be. Once it's happened, it's happened and it makes no difference. Yes that means free will is an illusion, but a very convincing one that you'll only every notice after the fact.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Jonti said:
Agreed that if there is in fact no choice then freewill is an illusionCrispy said:
But the fact that some actions are unpredictable (except by their doing) does not mean that they are not determined. I think of the functions in maths, like those found in population dynamics which give rise to choatically fluctuating populations. In this model, although the value at any given time is determined exactly, it is impossible to predict ahead of time what that value will be. One simply has to iterate through the equation to get the answer. No short cuts possible! source
But, yes, it's suggestive alright. I think it might be the Godelian thing again -- the idea one is groping for is that the consequences of the system are not discoverable within the system, but can only be determined (!
) by standing outside the system.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
118118 said:Does anyone know what Spinoza argument for, iirc the illusion of free will. Must have been good.
Not that good, I'm afraid. Well, it was hardly the last word on the subject anyway
In a nutshell, Spinoza argued that to be free is to be conscious of the necessities that compel one. Hmmm. I think I'll go refresh my memory about his arguments and (perhaps) pad out this post a tad, later.
ETA: Here you go
But it is just not true that we are free when we are ignorant of the causes of our desires. On the contrary it may easily happen that one may be conscious that one's desires to, say, strike a blow are caused by an impetus to low revenge. Or it may happen that one's desire to generously buy a drink for some pretty bod is caused by the impetus of simple lust. Or that one's desire to spend the money on booze for oneself is impelled by unedifying greed. And then, being aware of the causes by which our desired action is determined, we may choose not to act on them ...Spinoza said:
We become more free -- not less -- by virtue of our awareness of the causes of our desires.
source
Jonti said:Thing is, determinism just don't get any more determined than the Laplacian variety. He invites us to perform a thought experiment (featuring what has come to be known as Laplace's Demon)... All credit to Laplace, he would hardly have been able to write his "Celestial Mechanics" without somesuch guiding principle
I would characterise Lapace's determinism as pure determinism in that it doesn't contain any extras about monads or specific notions of causality. I pointed out to Merlin Wood in another thread that Bohm's pilot waves are deterministic but don't seem to encompass MW's notions of causality. Scientists rarely if ever talk in terms of cause and effect.
I keep meaning to read Dennett, but I suspect I would agree with him too much and get bored.
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Entropy describes the degrees of freedom (the number of possible configurations) of a system. If matter/energy is clumped together - in the extreme a black hole - then there are very few different possible configurations of the quanta involved.
If you abstract from this argument the proposition that we can change our actions if we know about them, it sounds very optimistic. I don't know if thats good or not. As to said proposition, I would be surprised if Spinoza had not at least considered this argument.Jonti said:
agree with him too much and get bored
I found that with Marx - having to read him for a university module, at least.I'll be uber embaressed if I've misued 'proposition'
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Knotted said:I keep meaning to read Dennett, but I suspect I would agree with him too much and get bored.
I thought I'd find him boring for the opposite reason, but I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I've read a lot of him, but I enjoyed his Kinds of Minds a very great deal. He is the very model of a modern journeyman philosopher -- I mean that in an entirely positive way, he is one of the 20th Century's greatest. Unlike the 17th Century "greats" (Spinozo, Descartes, Leibniz et al) he's not given to the construction of vast metaphysical edifices that seek to explain Life, the Universe and Everything (and are consequentially shot through with howling absurdities, along with the limpid and penetrating insights
). Instead he looks carefully at philosophical questions and applies his talents to clarifying the issues. If I have a criticism, it would be that (it seems to me) he sometimes demolishes false arguments, but puts nothing in their place. And that's fair enough, I suppose. Mind you, I'm not sure that (right now) you would agree with him as much as you think. But after reading him, you may find you're a little more sympathetic to the kinds of arguments that accept the limitations of our knowledge (or means of expressing that knowledge) and content themselves with working within that "positivist" kind of framework.
As with almost every 20th Century thinker, he has little to say about what consciousness actually is, what it does. But, fwiw, I feel he paves the way for an understanding of consciousness as part of Nature, which the present century will, one hopes, bring to fruition.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:
en‧tro‧py /ˈɛntrəpi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[en-truh-pee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. Thermodynamics. a. (on a macroscopic scale) a function of thermodynamic variables, as temperature, pressure, or composition, that is a measure of the energy that is not available for work during a thermodynamic process. A closed system evolves toward a state of maximum entropy.
b. (in statistical mechanics) a measure of the randomness of the microscopic constituents of a thermodynamic system. Symbol:. S
2. (in data transmission and information theory) a measure of the loss of information in a transmitted signal or message.
3. (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death).
4. a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:
I think that
"b. (in statistical mechanics) a measure of the randomness of the microscopic constituents of a thermodynamic system. Symbol:. S"
gives a more accurate idea, or at the very least, a more approachable idea of what entropy is.
Johnny Canuck2 said:
I suppose its a matter of taste, but this definition is very hand-wavy, which is perhaps why you were confused. Technically entropy is proportional to the log of the number of degrees of freedom (or number of microscopically distinct energy states if you want to sacrifice approachability for accuracy even further
).
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Not something that's exited my interests really, I'm not surprised positional notation prevailed over other number systems, if you see what I mean. It seems to me that, if one wishes to talk about the evolution or development of culture, memes could be a helpful notion.
Perhaps it's just that meme-ologists tend to be irritating?
Perhaps it's just that meme-ologists tend to be irritating?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:I suppose its a matter of taste, but this definition is very hand-wavy, which is perhaps why you were confused. Technically entropy is proportional to the log of the number of degrees of freedom (or number of microscopically distinct energy states if you want to sacrifice approachability for accuracy even further
But isn't that just a jargony way of saying 'randomness'?
Johnny Canuck2 said:
If 'randomness' includes 'clumped together' then yes. Remember that with Boltzman's origin experiments, gravity was not an issue. Whereas with something like the Crab nebula, increased entropy coincides with the gas collapsing under its own weight and forming stars.
Knotted said:I suppose its a matter of taste, but this definition is very hand-wavy, which is perhaps why you were confused. Technically entropy is proportional to the log of the number of degrees of freedom (or number of microscopically distinct energy states if you want to sacrifice approachability for accuracy even further
This is how I understood it too. This is a bit off topic. Since we know the universe is expanding and there are calculations for the size of the universe, could we speculate on what is 'outside' the universe. How credible is the multiverse theory and are there other theories that might explain the dimensions of the realm that checks the expansion of our universe.
muser said:
I think what you are talking about here is string theory (or brane theory or M theory as it is call when refering to multiple universe or 'branes'). I really couldn't tell you how credible string theory is. Some theoretical physicists love it and some hate it and as I'm just a layman I can't say any more than that.
By the way I don't think that an expanding universe implies that the universe is finite. However I suspect that most cosmologists think that the universe is finite and I think that the dwindling few who are still skeptical about the big bang theory posit an infinite universe.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
something finite does not have to have an 'outside' - an ant on the surface of a sphere has a finite amount of flat space to crawl around on, but no way of accessing any more, nor are there any edges for him to bump up against.
Give him a spade however....
Give him a spade however....
By the way I would recommend reading some of Gregory Chaitin's work with respect to Goedel incompleteness theorems and (pseudo-)randomness and possible conclusions that can be drawn in biology and physics. He also has thing about Leibniz. Food for thought anyway:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/#UnderstandablePapers
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/#UnderstandablePapers
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:
But randomness doesn't include clumped together, does it, and ultimately, neither would entropy.
Johnny Canuck2 said:
Well does it? If it does then I suggest that your definition of 'randomness' does not describe entropy and the definition of entropy I gave you might help your intuition - it helps mine.
Honestly, there is no conflict between the theory of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics. Admittedly its quite a complex matter mathematically. I might even go through it with you if you ask nicely enough. It would be good for me to concretise my understanding anyway.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Knotted said:
If it will make you feel better, or will help concretise for you your sense of intellectual self-worth, then by all means, do it.
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