Freewill - Final Submission

[TheBigDog]

I hit a nail with a hammer; the nail goes into the wood. The cause is hitting the nail. The effect is the nail going into the wood. It seems simple enough, but it always drives me to the deeper question of cause and effect; how far does it go?

 

Before I swung the hammer, there were other causes and other effects that lead me to that point in time. To follow this thought, I am stepping back to a recent repair I did on my house, appropriately enough involving a hammer and a nail.

 

I needed to fix the doorway. Each time the door was shut, the kinetic energy of the door was absorbed by the jam, and in turn, the jam was actually tipping out of the frame. A gap around the edge of my front door that grew microscopically wider with each closing of the door, cause and effect, but that is not where the problem began.

 

This really started about three years earlier when my house was built. Some anonymous person was responsible for installing the front door, and that person missed a step. As a result, my door was not fastened into the frame but was just wedged in with friction. When I purchased the house, I was destined to fix the door. That was a fact set into motion by a lazy construction worker in the spring of 2004 that manifested in my driving three long nails in the winter of 2007.

 

Now, what events transpired that ended with my door being installed wrong? Did a bee fly into the work area, frightening the worker, and making him forget part of the process? Was the bee attracted by the smell of a jelly sandwich in his lunch? Did he have the jelly sandwich because his daughter had taken his ham sandwich? In effect, did I have to fix the door because some random young woman ate a ham sandwich instead of jelly?

 

It is tempting to see the links in the events, but also a tricky presumption to say that they are all legitimate. If physics is absolute and our brains are chemical engines tripping out answers in the most predictable fashion to the stimulus they encounter, then we have no free will, and all of the world’s history was written, set into motion, from the first moment that matter took on energy. If this is the case, then we are not actually thinking, and we are not actually making choices. Rather, we are on a ride of fantasy with the illusion of choice and the grim reality of being enslaved by physics. Given a deep enough ability to comprehend the universe would hold no surprises, just predictable results for every little thing.

 

The effect of a determinist or fatalist belief system is impotence of purpose and absence of responsibility for any and all actions that an individual takes. If humans in all of their complexity are nothing more than leaves blowing in the wind, then how can there be punishment for where and how we are blown? How can there be laws and boundaries with no capability of obedience or self-control?

 

The only logical conclusion I can reach is that we have freewill, and freewill is the great randomizer of human action. Freewill is not bound to the strict laws of physics, but only influenced by them, and each decision is uniquely unpredictable in its own space and time. Therefore, we are responsible for our actions and the chain of events that led me to fixing my door were nothing more than coincidence. At each point along the line, a person made one of millions of possible actions; each influenced but never dictated by the past. The hammer hit the nail; that is as far as it goes.

 

Bill

 

ps. This is an essay that I wrote for school. I needed to write an essay demonstrating use of "cause and effect". Being a good Hypographer I took the opportunity to analyze that on more than one level, and to take it to a logical extreme. Now I share it with all my friends here. :naughty:

[coberst]

Does causation exist?

 

In a mind independent world, is there a single logic for causation? Causation is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of all sciences, hard or soft science. Our simple minded realism of cause and effect does not exist. There is a real world out there but we cannot express it except in our mind embodied manner. We can express such concepts as causation only metaphorically.

 

What does it mean when we can only speak of a concept metaphorically? It means that we can reason about such matters only based upon everyday experience. “Patterns of body-based inference are the source of abstract inference patterns characterizing how we reason using such event-structure concepts.”

 

It appears to me that CS has two paradigms, symbol manipulation (AI), and conceptual metaphor. When I speak of CS here I am speaking of the conceptual metaphor paradigm.

 

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.

 

Cognitive science has introduced revolutionary theories that, if true, will change dramatically the views of Western philosophy. Advocates of the traditional view will, of course, “say that conceptual structure must have a neural realization in the brain, which just happens to reside in a body. But they deny that anything about the body is essential for characterizing what concepts are.”

 

The cognitive science claim is that ”the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

 

The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movements) plays a central role in conception. Indeed, in recent neural modeling research, models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conception work in language learning and in reasoning.

 

A standard technique for checking out new ideas is to create computer models of the idea and subject that model to simulated conditions to determine if the model behaves as does the reality. Such modeling techniques are used constantly in projecting behavior of meteorological parameters.

 

Neural computer models have shown that the types of operations required to perceive and move in space require the very same type of capability associated with reasoning. That is, neural models capable of doing all of the things that a body must be able to do when perceiving and moving can also perform the same kinds of actions associated with reasoning, i.e. inferring, categorizing, and conceiving.

 

Our understanding of biology indicates that the body has a marvelous ability to do as any handyman does, i.e. make do with what is at hand. The body would, it seems logical to assume, take these abilities that exist in all creatures that move and survive in space and with such fundamental capabilities reshape it through evolution to become what we now know as our ability to reason. The first budding of the reasoning ability exists in all creatures that function as perceiving, moving, surviving, creatures.

 

Cognitive science has, it seems to me, connected our ability to reason with our bodies in such away as to make sense out of connecting reason with our biological evolution in ways that Western philosophy has not done, as far as I know.

 

It seems to me that Western philosophical tradition as always tried to separate mind from body and in so doing has never been able to show how mind, as was conceived by this tradition, could be part of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Cognitive science now provides us with a comprehensible model for grounding all that we are both bodily and mentally into a unified whole that makes sense without all of the attempts to make mind as some kind of transcendent, mystical, reality unassociated with biology.

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”

[IDMclean]

Classical, Newtonian, physics would dictate the clockwork universe. In which all actions were and are predestined to happen. It would also dictate action at distance, and locallity.

 

Quantum Physics came about with a number of discoveries influenced by Electromagnetics and Relativity. In quantum physics, the outcome that is observed appears to be non-causal at the quantum level, as I understand it. What determines the outcome? Well in some experiments conducted it would seem that the observer, to some degree, determines the outcome. How? non-localized interferance would be a safe bet, I think.

 

What does this have to do with freewill? I suppose it has yet to cross the mind of the many that we are physical creatures, complexly composed of wave and particle aspect material, and that the mind appears to be schismatic of this material. The implications? The personality is the pattern. The pattern determines the variable. Thus the observer, whatever it may be, is the algorithm which determines the outcome of any given experiment.

 

In the case of the mind/body match up, we are the pattern which can observe itself, and thus change the outcome of our own algorithm. A self-determining pattern. Interesting, eh?

[firecracker]

Big Dog,

As I sit around and wonder why all the time and effort was wasted on bringing someone like me into the world, I find some relief in suspecting that I actually have free will and can make certain 'once-in-a-lifetime' choices. Some of the most notable ones were: The choice of my mate, my vocational choices, my geographic locational choices, and many of my enjoyable hobbies, participation in this forum being a large one.

When I used my will to make all those choices, there were others I could, and probably should, have made. David Duesch inferred that whenever an individual was faced with certain choices he took them all, inferring that a multiplicity of worlds exist in which we are able to use all our choices. I prefer to think that when I finally exit this exciting world, I will immediately reappear in another with the ability 'to do it the other way, possibly with more desire to do it right!'

As an added note, I think we cannot know the value of life or anything else until we have experienced the long and short; the good and the bad. It is the struggle in life that makes it worth while!

firecracker

[Boerseun]

Very well written, Bill.

 

But in support of free will, I suppose the action of hitting the nail is not the prime matter here. You had the free will not to fix the door, and the argument can then either be "The reason I'm hitting a nail with a hammer is because someone ate a jelly sandwich three years ago" or "The reason I'm not hitting a nail with a hammer right now is because I've decided 'what the heck' - although my current procrastinating attitude is about a matter that was caused by someone eating a jelly sandwich three years ago".

 

You had the choice to fix the door or to live with a broken door. The cause of both are the same, but your ultimate decision in fixing/not fixing it has not been determined in the least, until you make up your mind about it or can't handle Shannon's nagging about it anymore.

 

I strongly believe that Free Will is indeed the case. Determinism makes for a very dreary and bleak outlook on life. But then again, like the man said, if determinism is indeed the case, we wouldn't know about it. If we decide that Free Will is the case, that was already decided, and makes for no argument against determinism. Haha - the irony kills me. I think our obsession with the Determinism vs. Free Will argument is simply because there's no logical conclusion to be made. It's a failure of logic, an impossible proposition. Much like that hoary old chestnut "What would happen when an irresistable force meets an immovable object". People are still talking about it thousands of years after the question first was posed, without thinking that in any conceivable imaginary universe, the existence of either an immovable object or an irresistable force are mutually exclusive. They simply cannot, by definition, exist in the same universe. Is anyone actually reading this, or am I typing for no good reason? Rep to the first guy who reaches this point. Send me a PM and I'll rep ya silly ***. Or has it been determined that my typing will simply fade away in the World Wide Void, to serve no purpose at all? There is no way in telling. We'll see shortly, I guess.

[ughaibu]

Determinists have been known to claim that proponents of free will need to show how free will is possible, to me this demand is itself a fallacy, as any answer to a how question will be deterministic, thus the determinists are demanding a deterministic explanation for a non-deterministic effect. It's an interesting problem as human explanations appear to be limited to probabilities ranging from the fully determined to the fully random, there isn't a mechanism of human explanation, as far as I'm aware, that can describe a free will event.

[TZK]

The effect of a determinist or fatalist belief system is impotence of purpose and absence of responsibility for any and all actions that an individual takes. If humans in all of their complexity are nothing more than leaves blowing in the wind, then how can there be punishment for where and how we are blown? How can there be laws and boundaries with no capability of obedience or self-control?

 

Because punishment itself becomes the wind that blows the leaves away from intolerable acts.

 

It's an interesting problem as human explanations appear to be limited to probabilities ranging from the fully determined to the fully random, there isn't a mechanism of human explanation, as far as I'm aware, that can describe a free will event.

 

Nor is there any mechanism of human explanation that can explain anything else that no human has ever experienced.

[ughaibu]

TZK: Humans have mechanisms for explaining things that they have no experience of, mathematics being an example.

Your use of the word "else" is puzzling, are you suggesting that no human has ever experienced a free will event?

[TZK]

Mathematics is a perfect example of something humans have learned through experience. If you put one apple together, and then another, then you have two apples. Repeat with other objects enough times and you become reasonably certain that one anything plus one anything is two of that same thing. This type of reasoning can and has been used to create all mathematics. Any word or idea can eventually be traced back to ideas which have been experienced that have been used to create it.

 

I am implying that free will is another malformed idea, one of many frankenstein monsters of human thought. I can say a tall short person, I can say a fat thin person I can say alot of things just as you say free will. The more complicated the things said the more difficult it is to tell when they are absurd. Just as these concepts would leave you wondering what was meant since no such thing was ever experienced, so does free will and this is the abscence of meaning you speak of.

 

It is implied by putting ideas together that do not really go together, like the idea that noone can tell you what to do applied to not some domineering person or parent figure but fate itself.

[ughaibu]

It is because mathematics is derived from experience that it has often proved reliable in explanations going beyond experience, for example radio waves.

Free will simply means the ability to exercise choice, I experience it everyday.

[TZK]

If you simply define free will as choosing somethign over something else in the exact manner that you so do everyday, then there is no conflict with determinism. Determinism talks about how those choices are made. However, that is not how the world at large defines "free will".

 

Math cannot simultaneously be based on experience and not be based on experience. When you create a model of something like a radio wave, what you are really doing is putting together a bunch of things you have previously experienced though perhaps in a different order. Hopefully you jumble the experiences together based on information you have gathered on the real life wave. That is, you take ideas you learned from the apples and oranges, and from looking at geometric shapes formed by everyday objects, and combine them in such a way to create what you believe a radio wave to be. And if the information you gathered about the wave was correct, then the model will give you information about the real wave. Nowhere in this situation did a human being know something it had never experienced.

[ughaibu]

1) Hard determinism generally denies the exercise of choice, ie free will. If the world at large employs a different definition of free will, please state that definition.

2) Human beings had no experience of radio waves, they were predicted by mathematics. This is an example of mathematics functioning beyond the bounds of experience, any form of symbolic logic can go beyond experience, there's an entire field of hyper-dimensional geometry dealing with things that can never be directly experienced.

3) Determinism itself is a product of thought and contradicts experience.

[TZK]

Determinism doesn't exclude choice. It allows you to choose whatever you want. It simply states that your wants are predetermined. Therefore as a result your choices (though they are still choices) are predetermined.

 

The idea with the radio waves is that there are two kinds. One of them was inferred by deductive reasoning and rearranging other experiences to model what we think radio waves will be. The other is our experience of actual radio waves.

 

For instance you might talk about how radio waves are like waves in water in some respect. However they are not waves in water. This is just an easy way to think about them. An idea of radio waves previous to experience of them is just many such inferences (from other experiences) put together.

[TheBigDog]

Determinism doesn't exclude choice. It allows you to choose whatever you want. It simply states that your wants are predetermined. Therefore as a result your choices (though they are still choices) are predetermined.

Uh... that word 'predetermined' means that no choice is being made. It suggests a linear universe where (with enough knowledge) everything could be predicted. The problem with this is the nature of inductive reasoning, and values. I have ten things to do, but I only have time to do five of them. Which five do I choose? If I train 100 people in the same fashion of decision making, and give them the exact same facts to base their decisions upon, how many of those people will select the same five things to do? Now, if I repeat the identical situation, how many people will choose a different collection of five the second time than the first? Despite the greatest effort to make people choose a certain way, they are going to surprise you each time with their ability to be completely unpredictable. For me, lack of repeatability with absolute precision in any human action is proof of free will. Some variation will be from mistakes. Other variation will be because people simply choose to do things wrong or differently.

 

Nothing is predetermined that filters through the human mind.

 

Bill

[ughaibu]

TZK:

Does any human being have experience of infinity?

Answer: No.

Can mathematics deal with infinity?

Answer: Yes.

[TZK]

Uh... that word 'predetermined' means that no choice is being made. It suggests a linear universe where (with enough knowledge) everything could be predicted. The problem with this is the nature of inductive reasoning, and values. I have ten things to do, but I only have time to do five of them. Which five do I choose? If I train 100 people in the same fashion of decision making, and give them the exact same facts to base their decisions upon, how many of those people will select the same five things to do? Now, if I repeat the identical situation, how many people will choose a different collection of five the second time than the first? Despite the greatest effort to make people choose a certain way, they are going to surprise you each time with their ability to be completely unpredictable. For me, lack of repeatability with absolute precision in any human action is proof of free will. Some variation will be from mistakes. Other variation will be because people simply choose to do things wrong or differently.

 

Nothing is predetermined that filters through the human mind.

 

Bill

 

Why would the word predetermined does not mean that no choice is being made? Why wouldnt it mean that the choice you make is already predetermined? Perhaps it is a choice because you did it. No person can say with certainty "well I could have just done X instead". How do you know that? You didn't do X, and you didn't do it for a reason. I think it is speculation to say that you could have done X instead. Rather to me choice just means what you ended up doing.

 

You have very limited ability to control factors in other people's decision making. Simply trying to teach them to think the same way is woefully inadequate, and therefore any such experiment of this fashion says absolutely nothing about free will.

 

The only way I can see something like this being done for real is to create a virtual reality enviornment and give 2 people the EXACT SAME experiences throughout their entire lives and then seeing if they behave similarly. That means for example they both have to be the first one to get that math question right in the kindergarden math class rather than one doing it and the other getting an english question right first and subsequently going down different paths of thinking as a result... This would be impossible without virtual reality since there can be only one first.

 

TZK:

Does any human being have experience of infinity?

Answer: No.

Can mathematics deal with infinity?

Answer: Yes.

 

Our concept of infinity is created from our experiences. As I was saying before regarding radio waves, our model of infinity is not actual infinity. It is just a frankenstein creation cobbled together from our experiences. IE you simply put together ideas together like counting and never stopping. Therefore what we mean when we talk about infinity is just counting or growing in magnitude without stopping. It has no meaning past the ideas put together to create it.

 

So the correct answer to your question is no, if you mean to say that there is some kind of ininity that is truly in existence. The infinity that we deal with is based on our experiences.

[ughaibu]

You're still missing the point, that the mechanism is derived from experience does not change the fact that it explains things of which we have no experience.