Is Free Will Possible in a Deterministic Universe?

[jgm340]

I feel a bit guilty for not reading this thread in its entirety, but it is getting a bit late, so you'll have to forgive me for inconsiderately throwing in my two cents without knowing fully whether my ideas have been considered already.

Idea 1, "Necessity of Structure to Determinism":

Suppose for a moment that the universe is entirely determined from a set of "initial conditions". Suppose also that you have no free will (in a moment we are going to try to contradict this claim). Now, imagine what it would look like to see the universe played out from start to end: a sculpture in four dimensions, with your life being a stroke of color in the middle of it all.

Because of causality, we know that the structure of this sculpture would have very specific qualities. Any slice in time could be reconstructed entirely by some slice before (or after) it. To capture the entire universe, it would suffice to take only a single, 3d slice of the sculpture, along with the rules to go from one slice to the next (or previous). Now, while each slice is determined by every other, we must accept that some slice S₀ is non-determined (since we are talking about the entire universe here!). Since we assume causality to be symmetric^[1] in time, there is no privileged point in time that you can say: "THIS, not any other slice, is the non-determined slice".

This means we may as well set S₀ to be the present time. Thus, you, as you are right now, and your choices (which depend on who you are at this moment) are non-determined. Hooray, free will!

Idea 2, "Distributed Causation":

If two pool balls strike a third at exactly the same time, at exactly the same speed, which of the first two is responsible for the subsequent motion of the third ball? Wouldn't you say they were equally responsible? What if they had been traveling at different speeds? What if one ball had hit before the other?

It's not so cut and dry that "one things leads to another". A large part of the idea of determinism is that we ought to attribute the determination of an event to the earliest set of past events (a.k.a. causes) which affected said event. This is a very strange way to do it, though! This means that immediate causes are said to be LESS of a determinant of an event than distant causes. In most peoples' experience, your "choice" to pick up a phone seems to have a lot more to do with the fact that it is ringing than it does with a sperm and an egg uniting many years ago. Indeed, if we think of "causation density", the phone ringing certainly carries most of the weight in causing you to pick it up. It has, after all, only one inevitable outcome. The more distant causes, such as you being born, deciding to go around that corner one day, etc. are all well and good, but there are seemingly an infinite number of them! Each distant cause on its own has a 0.00000000% chance of causing you to pick up the phone at some pre-prescribed time (even though combined, it works out to be a sure thing).

So, when talking about a determination of an event, perhaps it is better to imagine it to be a process which takes place over time, getting more and more focused the closer we are to the event. We can define the determination of an event by forming a tree of causation: start with the event of concern at the base of the tree, then draw branches to each primary cause, then to each secondary cause of each primary cause, etc. Note that the n-th causes could happen at different times. (For example, a man could have set up a detour on the sidewalk 10 days prior, while another man could have accidentally dropped a banana peel only yesterday. Both would be primary causes of a hilarious incident.) If we allow equal weight to each cause (distant or close), then we get a much better picture of what caused an event, without any bias for or against more immediate causes.

In most instances, we get exactly what we expect: the past has FAR more weight than present in determining the future. If we ask: "Why did the moon pass between the Earth and the Sun just now?" we can say, without a doubt, that the recent happenings in the past 100 years hold no weight against the billions of years of happenings before that. So, all I have done is ever-so-slightly weaken determinism, be allowing weight to be distributed across time, instead of limiting all the determination to some initial frame.

But that's all I need! See the thing is, most events are transitory. Most events are caused by seemingly unrelated events, and cause seemingly unrelated events. One rock might hit another in space, but chances are it'll never see that same rock again. Life, however, is different. Almost any event that happens in a life form is due to events that ALSO HAPPENED IN THE LIFE FORM. In other words, the longer a living thing is alive, the more it has determined itself.

And, this fits in nicely with most normal people's views already. As a baby, you haven't been around long enough (as a self-contained causation machine) to have any weight against all the external factors which contributed to you being there. However, by the time you are 20 years old, events happening inside your own body become the primary contributors to your behavior. Again, Hooray, free will!


^[1] By "causality symmetric in time", I mean that a future state can be used to completely reconstruct a past state (in addition to the other way around). My argument does not depend on this. If a past state cannot be completely reconstructed, then we simply restrict the universe to anyone of the possible past states.

 

[brainstorm]

I agree that this is a "better" position to have, is correct for all practical purposes, and has more potential for a dialogue with an actual outcome rather than providing a set of premises that begs the question.

This is spineless pseudodeference, as far as I can tell. If you actually believed it was a better position to have, you would take it. Still, you don't but you avoid confronting the ideological conflict. You're trying to establish a theoretical means of having cake and eating it too because you're desperately afraid that having to choose will mean losing in some way. That's my impression, anyway. It's hard to tell because you're also somewhat vague in terms of your logic and purpose.

But it does make sense from an inductive and abductive point of view.. even verging on the deductive. You may not see any practical consequences as a result of that specific definition, but there is no blunder being made in reasoning towards it.

The blunder lies in blindly transposing the logic of deterministic physicalities to the operation of subjectivity. You have no basis for doing so except default, with the assumption that the physical is a norm to which anything else must conform.

Just view it as any other complex system. The first axiom you assume is what? Physical law guides the evolution of this system. That is the base. The brain is no exception until those stating such an axiom is not possible lay out their mechanism for a third type of causality, dislocated from randomness and determinism, yet at the same time layered on top of randomness and determinism.

Why is it difficult for you to imagine that free-will could emerge from determinism or vice versa? You're trying to proceed from abstract logical assumptions while ignoring the empiricism of observation. Why would you assume subjectivity would behave "as any other complex system" just because it's complex? Climate and microchips are both complex systems but do they behave the same? Sure, there might be commonalities to be found and generalities to be extrapolated, but you can't take something inherent in one and apply it to the other in contrast to empirical observation. E.g. you wouldn't say that because climate is a complex system the same as a microchip and they both transmit electricity, that rebooting the system is a way to cure climate freezing up. You also wouldn't assume that some form of logic circuitry within clouds causes them to initiate rain. Instead, you would look at the specific phenomena empirically and extrapolate hypotheses about how it functions that explain how it works without completely undermining the observed facts. So, like I said before, if you have some reason or proof why empirically apparent free-will would have no effect on events, explain, and otherwise you have to provide some basis for explaining away the empirical observation that when you are confronted with options, you are free to choose anyone of them. This can even be contrasted with situations in which your choice is relatively more weighted by contingent factors. There's simply no reasonable empirical basis for thinking that free-choice and all the strategies for influencing it are a cover-up for an inherently determined human reality.

It doesn't contradict the feeling of choice, though. One can easily envisage how this feeling comes about despite completely lawful (random or determined) relations governing the brain.

Next you'll be saying that the absence of light doesn't preclude the feeling that you can see things when the sun is out.

I probably couldn't imagine such a test*. This is no reason not to suppose anything other than laws, random or determined, strictly guiding the evolution of the brain. It is this lack of reason that precludes the need for such a test. The claim of self-evidence of the ability to choose is no argument whatsoever. One can easily see how such an illusion would arise from the way the brain is constructed.

I can't imagine a test that could prove that lightning isn't caused by an command-control algorithm programmed into clouds through patterns in their ionization, but is that any reason to assume that they don't have self-programming emergent operating systems that determine how big they grow before beginning condensation?

*Well, there is an fMRI experiment I remember seeing on TV. Two remotes in either hand, instructed: "press one randomly". Neuroscientist interviewed purported that you could predict the decision up to 6 seconds prior to the button press (and hence prior to conscious awareness). This has interesting implications for viewpoints that entertain a cartesian theatre setup (global workspace theory, Ramachandran's views, also some interesting implications for theories centered around particular functional organization types and strong emergence), and it may fit the criteria of this test you're after (although it wouldn't prove anything conclusively, of course!).

This is an interesting experiment. Could the six seconds have been the time between decision was made and when it was finally executed?

I stated the opposite - that it wasn't useful. I enjoy thinking about it, but that's just me.

Don't be so apologist. If you have good reason to ground your belief, you should be able to pursue it to reasonability. Yes, you will encounter stubborn people who refuse to entertain any claims or argumentation that risk contradicting their pet beliefs. And, certainly, there are good ethical reasons to avert deterministic ideology, considering that it can lead to compulsive fascist behavior in compliant humans. Nevertheless, science trumps peace-politics, imo, because politics always has the means to make choices to promote peace even when the science demonstrates the opposite to be the default. Better to have truth and the choice of peace than to have the will to peace manipulating the truth into benevolent lies. That's my opinion anyway, but maybe I just made it up to promote peace:)

 

[imiyakawa]

You are incorrect. We can conclude that a materialistic consciousness does not create/introduce/take advantage of a third type of undiscovered causality until you demonstrate how such a causality can arise on top of determined &/or random processes.

This is spineless pseudodeference

Wow you're incredible.
So if I agree on a point with the person I am in discussion with, I am committing "spineless pseudo deference"?

Please provide me with the logical pathway from mutual agreement --> spineless pseudo deference!

If you actually believed it was a better position to have, you would take it.

Better doesn't necessarily mean more correct. I was talking strictly from a utility perspective. If you define better as more correct, then I don't think that is better, and I take the opposite position to you.

Still, you don't but you avoid confronting the ideological conflict.

Please introduce me to the physicist that thinks there's a third type of causality without the existence of a soul.

You're trying to establish a theoretical means of having cake and eating it too because you're desperately afraid that having to choose will mean losing in some way.

Baseless speculation.
Are you me? Then you cannot state my intentions.

The blunder lies in blindly transposing the logic of deterministic physicalities to the operation of subjectivity. You have no basis for doing so except default, with the assumption that the physical is a norm to which anything else must conform.

I'm pretty sure I stated the assumption of causal closure (i.e. no soul, etc).

OF COURSE under this framework the subjective is strapped to determinism, IF the universe is deterministic. And if the universe is random, then the subjective is strapped to both randomness and determinism!

Please demonstrate your new type of causality and calling me desperate! (Oh, and after you've done this, claim all your prizes for revolutionizing physics.)

Why is it difficult for you to imagine that free-will could emerge from determinism or vice versa? You're trying to proceed from abstract logical assumptions while ignoring the empiricism of observation.

Oh my... Please demonstrate your third type of causality.

The illusion is easy to imagine, and is no problem under materialism unless you demonstrate exactly why it is a problem.

Why would you assume subjectivity would behave "as any other complex system" just because it's complex?

Please demonstrate your third type of causality that is caused by random/determined processes but is not random or determined.

Instead, you would look at the specific phenomena empirically and extrapolate hypotheses about how it functions that explain how it works without completely undermining the observed facts.

You believe your ability for self-causation is "observed fact". I'm sorry, unless you can provide a coherent framework for a new type of causality, this is a ridiculous position to have. As I've said, depending on perspective, free will either exists or it doesn't. From the physicist's perspective, I'm still waiting for you to provide me with one reason as to why it does.

So, like I said before, if you have some reason or proof why empirically apparent free-will would have no effect on events,

Do you know the definition of free will that I was talking about?

I can't imagine a test that could prove that lightning isn't caused by an command-control algorithm programmed into clouds through patterns in their ionization, but is that any reason to assume that they don't have self-programming emergent operating systems that determine how big they grow before beginning condensation?

Self-programmed algorithms/systems (let's just say self organization and perpetuation) is not a port for self-causation. Do you know what precedes that self-programming? Complete determinism or randomness. That creates that self-program. Not only that, but you have to identify the new type of causality that exists for this self program. You still have to demonstrate how that self-program defeats either randomness or determinism.

Could the six seconds have been the time between decision was made and when it was finally executed?

It could have been it was only a 5 minute segment on the TV.
---
apeiron, you were incorrect in your last post, people DO argue for pure agent self-causation that supersedes randomness and determinism!

 

[Evo]

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