Re: Einstein might have had a point


Dave Smith wrote:
Lance wrote:

Well whoever thought of that one somehow imagined that we could be free
of genetic causes and of the causes from the environment in which we
exist. Absolute nonsense, I think.

Then do you think that a person has no more control over events than a
piece of driftwood or an ant?

Well if the sort of determinism that Peter Brooks is pushing is true
then indeed we are effectively no different from driftwood.

I questioned Peter Brooks' self-satisfied assertion that he has set
aside all considerations of free will and is happy with the result
because of the huge arrogance he was displaying. My replies have been
strongly influenced by Karl Popper's views on the matter. Popper, of
course, distinguished several degrees of determinism.

Universal causation from quarks to nebula must mean that there is room
neither for morality nor reason. Morality requires that people could do
otherwise. If people actually can't do other than they do, then trying
to morally evaluate them is, in Ryle's terms, to make a category
mistake. Peter Brooks lays in to Tony Blair but if the sort of
causality he claims to be happy with is true then Tony Blair's actions
were imminent in the Big Bang, and so was Peter Brooks' indignation at
Tony Blair's actions. Both are bits of driftwood following a path that
was inevitable some 15 billion years ago. Morality is utterly
irrelevant.

Similarly reason has no place. Consider trying to design a piece of
machinery to implement a logical operator. However it is designed I
have to know that it is working correctly. But if the logic circuits in
my brain are just causal processes (and they are, arent they) based on
neural connections then I am really just checking the circuit against
what was programmed in me by evolution. But evolution must aslo be a
causal process, and we know that it is quite as likely to follow local
maxima as global maxima (adaption to niches are unstable and disappear,
etc) so even evolution offers no warranty that my reasoning is right.
Reasoning then has no independent standing apart from the long chain of
causes that stretch back to the big bang. Since we are enmeshed in a
chain of causes and everything we do is caused, we can't evaluate
correctness or soundness from a vantage point outside of that chain.
Whatever we say, "Correct" or "wrong", is itself the result of a
process that is not based on the correctness or soundness of the
argument or evidence before us - it is based on a chain of causes that
long before inevitably made what we say inevitable.

Such a view threatens science. Yes, I know that science itself pushes
universal determinism and believes (or some exponents believe) that it
would not be possible without the doctrine of universal determinism.
But science also relies on both morality (trust, commitment to the
truth) and reason. In science we put forward experiments and
observations not as causes for our behaviour but as reasons to believe
something. If there can be no reasons then science itself is a sham,
just a piece of driftwood following a path that was inevitable some 15
billion years ago.

Anyway, I am out of time.

Lance

.

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