Re: A Big Question

On Jul 23, 5:14 am, Haines Brown <bro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
RationalRodge <RationalFa...@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Being the rational guy that I am, I want to know if that belief can
withstand a thoughtful challenge.

A reasonable project, but this news group (and newsgroups in general) is
probably not a promising arena for it.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Yahweh makes His people courageous and their
enemies cowardly in battle.  Presbyterians have struggled for
centuries with the meaning of predestination. Some Fundamentalists
give the Devil power to corrupt men's souls ("The Devil made me do
it," as Flip Wilson used to say).  Some Muslims honor a deity who
controls many things (including people) when they say "Allah willing."

I'm not sure your examples for denials of free will in a religous
context are valid. In the first example, god is enhancing and
diminishing powers, but surely not the free will to exercise
them. Predestination only means your being among the elect is
foreordained, but does not compromise free will in other respects. If
you are among the saints, you will be exercising your free will to
manifest your being elect, not to win salvation. I suppose Flip Wilson's
comment implies that the devil overcame his free will in some respect,
which may offer a counter example, but I wouldn't infer the any
curtailment of free will in some respects (like being in prison) either
denies one's free will in all respects or one's having a free will but
simply your being unable to exercise it (a comatose person we would say
has free will, but just can't exercise it). No Moslem I know would doubt
free will, and I suppose "Allah willing" only means what we do must fall
within the realm of possibility. Also, there's a big difference between
religious principle and the actual behavior of believers, as we know all
too well.

Much of this gets back to a point I made earlier. There are two aspects
of free will that I suppose are always present, but in our political we
tend to reduce them to one: a) lack of constraint, b) capacity to
act. In bourgeois ideology, the capacity to act (ownership of property)
was presumed, and therefore the exercise of free will reduces to a lack
of constraint (the best government is the least government). However,
that freedom is meaningless unless you are in fact able to accomplish
something, and so we must have the capacity to act and make choices even
even if there are no constraints. What all this comes down to what is
called action theory.

Let me elaborate this point. The word "rationality" originated, I
believe, with the Scottish Enlightenment, and what it meant was actions
in the world that result in an increase in one's talents. This view saw
one's environment as storehouse of opportunities (the marketplace), and
you place your talents (property, which it was assumed you had) in
relation to those market opportunties, and if you are being "rational",
if as a result you profit.

Note the following here: a) The world is alien to you; you are not
engaged in it nor did you participate in building it, but it is merely
an external object of opportunity having nothing to do with you. Your
environment is alien. b) The human situation is represented as the
action of individuals, as social atomism, but the effect of that
interaction of social atoms is the emergence of new value (wealth of
nations). That is, it is not a zero-sum game. See Adam Smith's
explanation based on a division of labor (increase in productivity made
possible by an expansion of the market). c) The human condition is
represented in terms of a newly discovered system, "economics", which
exists because there is a system effect (wealth of nations), that arises
from individual participation in it, trucking and bartering. d) The aim
in life is to enrich yourself (in lieu of the traditional struggle for
salvation), but this is not at the expense of others because trucking
and bartering creates new value.

Today we would call this "optimal choice theory". It is fundamental to
bourgeois ideology and presumes an alien relation between people and
world; an alien relation between people themselves in that it becomes
instrumental (the money nexus; you enter social relations for selfish
reasons). However, not quite yet an alien relation been individual and
society, for concept, "society" didn't quite yet refer to a distinct
whole with its own properties. For example, another new word
"civilization" referred not to a separte entity, but a condition of
society (an aggregate of individuals).

I recently heard a television interview with a mother grieving the
sudden death of a child> She told the interviewer that she could
accept the death because "every moment of her life was written in
God's book."

Of course there's a lot of superstition around. I suppose it arises from
a psychic sense of powerlessness. The sense of one's own helplessness by
default puts matters in the hands of outside forces. I mention this
because it suggests we probably have to distinguish pathological
situations of helplessness from what is normal or what is the
possibility inherent in contemporary life. Because people of the past
had relatively little or no confidence in free will, or because people
in certain situations lose confidence in it, does not mean that it is
not a real human capacity.  So doubts about free will may only represent
a pathological sitution.

The strongest attack on free will comes from materialists, who have
various arguments. Some argue that our decisions are entirely based on
previous experiences, and are therefore predictable if you know enough
about those previous experiences. Some argue that reality is wholly
material, so that everything that happens is controlled by natural
law. Sometimes this argument is presented as a rigid cause-and-effect
scenario, where everything that happens is part of a complex
space-time fabric that existed from the moment of creation (usually
described as the Big Bang). That is an argument that the future exists
before we know it, and therefore the future is inevitable, and we as
physical creatures have no independent control over it. The other
physical explanation focuses on quantum randomness, arguing that
sub-atomic reality is ruled by chance, and therefore everything
(including humans) is based on that reality.

So far my responses to you have been amateur speculations, but now you
bring me into waters in which I'm really more comfortable. I'll do my
best to reply without writing a series of books ;-)

First of all, "the materialists" is a problematic term. Virtually all
scientists are generally classified today as materialistic monists. That
is, in science they reject the ontological dualism that lends relevance
or reality to objective ideas or to the supernatural. Some people remain
dualists, but not most people and not science in general. And such
dualism that survives might be dismissed as pathological rather than
normative.

Predictability in the sense of Leibniz or that of positivism suggested
that a perfect knowledge of an initial condition would enable us to
unequivocally predict its outcome. That was the prevailing ideology in
the 19th and into the 20th century, but it died. Especially since World
War I, people know very well that things are to variying degrees
unpredictable. The deductive logic of positivism is now seen as only
operative for absolutely closed systems, which are considered non-real
hypotheticals. We generally speak of causation in probabilistic
terms. For example, look at the language of historians, or consider the
role of standard deviation in the physics lab.

As for randomness, it is hazardous to argue from one domain (quantum
uncertainty) to some other domain (human behavior). Each domain or level
has its own characteristics, and how we get from micro behavior to macro
is a problem (see on this issue, statistical mechanics). However, there
are reasons in the macro world to presume uncertainty without having to
appeal to QM. Besides observing it all around us every day, there is the
N-Body problem and the fact that all things are processes and therefore
have fuzzy determinations. There are inumerable ways in which randomness
plays a key role in a variety of scientific explanations. It is a fact
of life that everyone knows very well is present, and it only became
problematic for a while when bourgeois Enlightenment and postivisist
ideology was dominant and contradicted it.

Or, take Marx, a materialist surely, in his _The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Napoleon_ (1852)

  "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they
  please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves,
  but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted
  from the past."

That's a fairly standard view: circumstance only constrains the exercise
of our free will and does not deny it.

Another point. From the moment of the Big Bang? The present universe
would certainly be unpredictable from a perfect knowledge of the Big
Bang. The reason is that systems are often "emergent", and in
particular, the universe. Their properties are _not_ entirely
predictable from an initial state. They manifest novelties, improbable
outcomes. Nature is inherently creative in that respect. A perfect
knowledge of the supernova from which our planetary system evolved,
would not allow you to predict New York City. Natural sciences such as
meteorology, cosmology, evolutionary biology, geology, etc., are called
evolutionary sciences because of their concern if for emergent systems
and focus on causal explanation rather than preduction.

You also bring up time. The past no longer exists and the future does
not yet exist, and some have argued that even the present does not
exist, but is merely a mental convenience. The past exists in the
present only as constraining structures that are not the past, but only
the traces or marks of its passing. The future exists only as a
potential in the present that defines the probability distribution of
possible futures. Now, discussions of time are always contentious, but
I've tried to convey more or less what I believe is the consensus. There
is no flow of time or "space-time fabric". Time is not a property of
things or a real entity.

I don't want to get bogged down over questions of what is the "right"
definition. I see how you are defining "responsibility." As for me, I
make an important distinction between "accountability" and
"responsibility." I think of "accountability" as tending to focus on
actions, as belng somewhat legalistic, and as usually dealing with
external judgment. "Responsibility," on the other hand, to me tends to
focus on decisions, to be complex and relative, and to deal with
internal judgment.

I'm not sure I understand your distinction between actions and
decisions. The former may focus on the physical act, although we presume
it entails intentionality, while the latter may focus on what takes
place in our mind prior to the action. However, I have trouble inferring
these conclusions from your examples, which I find troubling in their
own terms.

(I'm trying to avoid referring to morality, as tempting as that is,
because I think morality raises different and complex issues that can
distract from the issue I'm trying to raise. Rather than morality, I'm
focusing on simple satisfaction or dissatisfaction that you experience
as a result of your decisions.

Here you leave me uncertain. Whose "satisfaction"? Do you mean
self-satisfaction, or the satisfaction of others? If the latter, I
understand your distinction from moral issues, for morality implies
social norms, while expectations are ad hoc, may not be social and may
not entail norms. But next it appears you really meant
self-satisfaction.

So we're back to my key question: Can you experience either
satisfaction or dissatisfaction if you know that you have no control
over your decisions?)

Now this strikes me as a really complicated issue. Self-satisfaction we
sometimes think of as individual, but arguably it is in fact social, or
at least for anything beyond simple bodily gratification, which does not
seem to require conscious decisions.

I'm not sure how to define "(self-)satisfaction", but let's say it means
fulfilling our desires. If so, it is worth nothing that not all desires
entail conscious action. For example, I am satisfied by the cold beer,
not because of an action directed at a goal, but because the beer
tickles my taste buds. Or we can have satisfaction from witnessing a
victory by our favorite team, which is a fulfullment of our desire
without our having done anything to further that outcome.

But even if we focus just on satisfaction entailing conscious decisions,
we could intend for something to happen, and it might happen
independently of our actions. We were just lucky, but we nevertheless
are satisfied. We plan a picnic in the hope that it will not rain, we
are satisfied that it does not. We are satisfied that we won the
lottery, but our purchase of the ticket was not the cause of the gain,
but mere chance.

While sometimes satisfaction will in fact be the result of some
intentional action on our part, I don't see how you can intentionally
act if you knew very well in advance that you have no free will. What
would then be the point of acting or even thinking of acting? At best
you might receive a very secondary or existential reward, such as the
satisfaction of the struggle itself even though the odds are
insurmountable (you know your team will win, but the object is not
victory, but the contest). You are swimming in the middle of the
Atlantic, knowing full well that no one knows of it and no ships are
nearby to rescue you. You know you will drown, but you swim anyway and
exercise your free will despite the certain outcome. Why? Because the
struggle to survive a few minutes longer outweighs a resignation to
death. You act despite what your mind tells you.

You bring up complicated issues not easily resolved. But I've tried to
define free will in relation to various circumstances, and I see no
reason to doubt there is free will, and I can think of no intentional
action that does not presume it. So I'm left a bit uncertain as to your
purpose. Is it that in various religious contexts doubt seems to be cast
on free will? If so, why take those religous views at all seriously,
since they obviously run counter to common sense and reason? Why not
simply conclude those particular religious views are in some way
pathological?

--

       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

Haines,

I appreciate the time you've obviously poured into your most recent
response, but I'm afraid I just don't see how most of it is relevant.
How is it relevant that religious people might be wrong when they
dismiss free will and substitute God's Will? How is it relevant that
some materialists might be wrong when they attribute all reality to
physical rules? The fact is that people do those things, whether or
not you think they're superstitious or even pathological to do so.
Also, why do you struggle so with the idea that folks might pause to
take stock of their lives, to consider how well they're making use of
the talents and opportunities they've been given? The idea of
searching for satisfaction and fearing dissatisfaction with one's life
is an idea that has instant meaning for most folks, I'd think. So I
hope you'll forgive me for not taking up some of your specific points,
as interesting as they might be.

However, you do eventually seem to answer more directly: "You bring up
complicated issues not easily resolved. But I've tried to define free
will in relation to various circumstances, and I see no reason to
doubt there is free will, and I can think of no intentional action
that does not presume it." This does, in fact, answer the question I
posed at the outset of this exchange: "Are free will and personal
responsibility inextricably linked, or can one exist without the
other?"

You go on to add: "So I'm left a bit uncertain as to your purpose. Is
it that in various religious contexts doubt seems to be cast on free
will? If so, why take those religous views at all seriously, since
they obviously run counter to common sense andreason?Why not simply
conclude those particular religious views are in some way
pathological?"

My purpose springs from the hope that I've found an approach to non-
physical reality that may make sense to many people who reject
traditional religious thought. An essential part of this approach is
the idea that human free will exists, and enables us to find true
meaning in life through personal responsibility. I think a religious
denial of free will is easily demolished. But I'm not so sure about a
materialist's denial. I'm trying to explore this question now because
I don't want to be surprised later on by someone's rational argument
showing how a person who disbelieves in free will can logically
believe in personal responsibility.

Rodge
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A Big Question
    ... simply your being unable to exercise it (a comatose person we would say ... the capacity to act ... focusing on simple satisfaction or dissatisfaction that you experience ... reason to doubt there is free will, and I can think of no intentional ...
    (sci.philosophy.meta)
  • Re: How should we live?
    ... "One reason is surely selfishness, ... This is sometimes explored as a result of a "scarcity of appetite". ... appetite is to draw out consumption, and to choose high quality things ... trapped in a cycle of escalation - to get satisfaction from self-reward ...
    (uk.philosophy.humanism)
  • Re: Income inequality benefits the poor.
    ... The reason for a heavily progressive tax are very simple: ... By many psychological studies it looks like both the satisfaction and social ... The unhappiness generated by taxing the millionaire 1000 it is almost ... It is possible to design a progressive taxation that emulate a logarithmic ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Usenet (using Agent) over Wi-Fi
    ... I've had too many isp accounts ... I don't correspond by web based email accounts so that ... satisfaction. ... Only reason I gave it up is that we finally got DSL out ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: Nice weather for cycling
    ... the car park? ... I take great satisfaction from this ... ... I don't actually mind - it's easy to change, I've had exercise (much ... public transport. ...
    (uk.rec.cycling)