Let’s suppose there really is a Ghost in the Machine – a “little man” (“homunculus”) who “looks out” through our eyes, and “listens in” through our ears (interestingly, those are the two senses most usually ascribed to the floating Ghost in NDE accounts). Or, if you prefer, a Soul.
And let’s further suppose that it is reasonable to posit that the Ghost/Soul is inessential to human day-to day function, merely to conscious experience and/or “free will”; that it is at least possible hypothetically to imagine a soulless simulacrum of a person who behaved exactly as a person would, but was in fact a mere automaton, without conscious experience – without qualia.
Thirdly, let’s suppose that there there are only a handful of these Souls in the world, and the rest of the things that look and behave like human beings are Ghostless automatons – soulless simulacra. But, as in an infernal game of Mafia, none of us know which are the Simulacra, and which are the true Humans – because there is no way of telling from the outside – from an apparent person’s behaviour or social interactions, or cognitive capacities – which is which.
And finally, let’s suppose that souls can migrate at will, from body to body.
Let’s say one of these Souls starts the morning in Lizzie’s body, experiencing being Lizzie, and remembering all Lizzie’s dreams, thinking Lizzie’s thoughts, feeling Lizzie’s need to go pee, imagining all Lizzie’s plans for the day, hearing Lizzie’s alarm clock, seeing Lizzie’s watch, noting that the sky is a normal blue between the clouds through the skylight.
Somewhere an empty simulacrum of Barry Arrington is still asleep (even automatons “sleep” while their brains do what brains have to do to do what brains have to do). But as the day wears on, the Soul in Lizzie’s body decides to go for a wander. It leaves Lizzie to get on with stuff, as her body is perfectly capable of doing, she just won’t be “experiencing” what she does (and, conceivably, she might make some choices that she wouldn’t otherwise make, but she’s an extremely well-designed automaton, with broadly altruistic defaults for her decision-trees).
The Soul sees that Barry is about to wake up as the sun rises over Colorado, and so decides to spend a few hours in Barry’s body. And thus experiences being Barry waking up, probably needing a pee as well, making Barry’s plans, checking Barry’s watch, remembering what Barry did yesterday (because even though Barry’s body was entirely empty of soul yesterday, of course Barry’s brain has all the requisite neural settings for the Soul to experience the full Monty of remembering being Barry yesterday, and what Barry planned to do today, even though at the time, Barry experienced none of this. The Soul also notices the sky is its usual colour, which Barry, like Lizzie calls “blue”.
Aha. But is the Soul’s experience of Barry’s “blue” the same as the Soul’s experience of Lizzie’s “blue”? Well, the Soul has no way to tell, because even though the Soul was in Lizzie’s body that very morning, experiencing Lizzie’s “blue”, the Soul cannot remember Lizzie’s “blue” now it is in Barry’s body, because if it could, Barry’s experience would not simply be of “blue” but of “oh, that’s interesting, my blue is different to Lizzie’s blue”. And we know that not only does Barry not know what Lizzie’s blue is like when Barry experiences blue (because “blue” is an ineffable quale, right?), he doesn’t even know whether “blue” sky was even visible from Lizzie’s bedroom when Lizzie woke up that morning. Indeed, being in 40 watt Nottingham, it often isn’t.
Now the Soul decides to see how Lizzie is getting on. Back east, over the Atlantic it flits, just in time for Lizzie getting on her bike home from work. Immediately the Soul accesses Lizzie’s day, and ponders the problems she has been wrestling with, and which, as so often, get partly solved on the bike ride home. The Soul enjoys this part. But of course it has no way of comparing this pleasure with the pleasure it took in Barry’s American breakfast which it had also enjoyed, because that experience – those qualia – are not part of Lizzie’s experience. Lizzie has no clue what Barry had for breakfast.
Now the Soul decides to race Lizzie home and take up temporary residence in the body of Patrick, Lizzie’s son, who is becoming an excellent vegetarian cook, and is currently preparing a delicious sweet-potato and peanut butter curry. The Soul immediately experiences Patrick’s thoughts, his memory of calling Lizzie a short while earlier to check that she is about to arrive home, and indeed, his imagining of what Lizzie is anticipating coming home to, as she pedals along the riverbank in the dusk. Soul zips back to Lizzie and encounters something really very similar – although it cannot directly compare the experiences – and also experiences Lizzie’s imaginings of Patrick stirring the sweet potato stew, and adjusting the curry powder to the intensity that he prefers (but she does not).
As Baloo said to Mowgli: Am I giving you a clue?
The point I am trying to make is that the uniqueness of subjective experience is as defined as much by what we don’t know as by what we do. “Consciousness” is mysterious because it is unique. The fact that we can say things like “I’m lucky I didn’t live in the days before anaesthesia” indicates a powerful intuition that there is an “I” who might have done, and thus an equally powerful sense that there is an “I” who was simply lucky enough to have landed in the body of a post-anaesthesia person. And yet it takes only a very simple thought experiment, I suggest, to realise that this mysterious uniqueness is – or at least could be – a simple artefact of our necessarily limited PoV. And a simple step, I suggest, to consider that actually a ghostless automaton – a soulless simulacrum is – an incoherent concept. If my putative Soul, who flits from body to body, is capable not only of experiencing the present of any body in which it is currently resident, but that body’s past and anticipated future, but incapable of simultaneously experiencing anything except the present, past, and anticipated future of that body, then it becomes a redundant concept. All we need to do is to postulate that consciousness consists of having accessible a body of knowledge only accessible to that organism by simple dint of that organism being limited in space and time to a single trajectory. And if that knowledge is available to the automaton – as it clearly is – then we have no need to posit an additional Souly-thing to experience it.
What we do need to posit, however, is some kind of looping neural architecture that enables the organism to model the world as consisting of objects and agents, and to model itself- the modeler – as one of those agents. Once you have done that, consciousness is not only possible to a material organism, but inescapable. And of course looping neural architecture is exactly what we observe.
I suggest that the truth is hiding in plain sight: we are conscious because when we are unconscious we can’t function. Unless the function we need to perform at the time is to let a surgeon remove some part of us, under which circumstances I’m happy to let an anaesthetist render me unconscious.
Is that like “rubber, glue”?
Can you defend your position, whatever it is, against your own criticisms, William?
It looks now like he is off Gish Galloping again; trying to get folks here to chase the waving red handkerchief.
So what was the point of your question as to whether “given an identical run-up set of physical states and sequences “X”, Y will be the decision-outcome every single time”?
Predictability seemed entirely the issue for you then!
Some things you say imply that you are not, but others imply what is normally considered dualism. I don’t find those ism labels terribly helpful myself – Nagel seems to be putting forward a dualist proposal that he labels “neutral monism”. Yours seems quite similar.
But if you think of yourself as a monist, what is it that you think my monism is missing?
The point of the “identical run-up” was that any given point X, including one’s willful choice in any matter at any particular time and place, is entirely determined by what came before. Whether or not it is predictable is utterly irrelevant.
I don’t know enough about your personal monism to hazard a guess. What materialism in general lacks is libertarian free will and an accessible (even if imperfectly applied), presumed perfect, absolute source and arbiter of true statements.
Without those things, on is left only being capable of believing and choosing what the computation commands, no matter how absurd or ridiculous that may be.
To William’s:
Petrushka points out:
That’s my impression too. William is not a Christian, apparently not a dualist (though he does not specifically say he is not a dualist, only that he has never said he is a dualist!). People engaging in communication might wish to clarify their position rather than hide it. ‘I am not three years old’ is a true statement for me but not very informative. ‘I am 63’ saves someone needing to ask ‘well, how old are you, then?’
Do you not see how this leads Mike Elzinga to draw his inference. about you, William?
And here you seem happy to make blithe assumptions about what other people think in the face of them telling you otherwise.
My criticisms of materialism are rooted in materialist assumptions. I don’t share those assumptions. For example, I don’t believe my will is a computed or caused phenomena, so criticism based on the view that it is computed or caused cannot apply.
They haven’t “told me otherwise”, they have agreed entirely that the material computation determines every thought, belief and will. If you wish to disagree that this is what materialism means, or if you just personally disagree, feel free to explain yourself.
Under materialism, Mike only infers, and I only “see”, what butterfly wind and pizza commands in a non-linear, unpredictable way.
Right?
You might read back in this and other threads, AF. I have asked EL at length and she has agreed – and some others, as well – with the “material computation” view, and that the computation is chaotic, non-linear and unpredictable, and that it entirely generates what we call our will.
Also, EL has agreed that given the same comprehensive, universal run-up to point X, a person will make the same choice, or will the same thing.
I haven’t made assumptions here; I’m going off of what has been said and agreed-to. They are, of course, always free to correct me.
William J. Murray,
“Materialist” is your word, William. You tell me what a materialist is and I’ll tell you whether I am one by your definition. I am certainly not a determinist.
The assumptions appear to be yours, William. You could refute his by clearly stating a “materialist assumption” that is commonly held by materialists. I’ll give you the obvious one that there is only material. But in that case I am unsure if anyone is a materialist.
Alan Fox,
If you are not a determinist in the sense as it has been agreed to in this thread – that what comes before determines what comes after as a form of material computation, regardless of whether or not it is predictable, then context of this discussion doesn’t apply to you.
EL and I agreed have come to some agreed terminologies and meanings in the course of this debate. We may still be working others out. You coming in late in the game and saying that you don’t agree to those terms or meanings is irrelevant to this particular debate. I’m discussing what we have agreed to and am exploring the consequences under that agreement.
One of the consequence of what has been agreed upon is that pizza and butterfly wind (as metaphors for non-linear, chaotic, unpredictable internal and external chaotic influences) can be necessary (but not sufficient) causes of any particular belief or willful act. While one might, for months, attempt to convince EL of another view via logic and evidence, such a tactic may simply not have a causal pathway to change EL’s mind about something, where pizza and butterfly wind might just be what is needed.
Under my schema, this is the opposite of free will and how one rationally comes to a conclusion; apparently, in the schema of others, this is exactly what free will and rational discourse means.
Look back up in the thread, AF. I didn’t assume anything.
Sorry, William, but this is simply making no sense to me at all.
How are you defining “determined” here? I would say that something is “entirely determined” if, given state A, you can predict its subsequent state B with 100% certainty.
What do you mean by the phrase?
I don’t understand why you’re connecting the two things. It appears to me that you are conflating a statement about the nature of a thing as-it-is (result determined from prior cause is the nature of the thing) with a statement about our abilities in regard to computing that sequence beforehand (whether or not we can predict the outcome).
Whether or not we can predict the outcome, the outcome is determined by what precedes it. Our ability to compute the outcome is irrelevant to the (materialist) fact that the outcome is determined by what precedes it.
And I in turn cannot see why you cannot see that they are fundamentally the same thing!
Forget human capabilities in prediction, and limitations of human knowledge – imagine a Laplacian demon if you like.
A fully determined event, as you have implied, is one in which exactly the same thing would happen if you ran it again with the same starting conditions, right?
It is because I agreed that that is what a determinist universe implies that you took the view that my position excludes free will, right?
In other words, GIVEN the starting condition set X, the universe at Y will always be the same, including me about to make a typo, right?
That means that a Demon who has run the thing before, will be able to say: I want a universe in which someone called Lizzie on Planet Earth orbiting SOL will make this typo on June 7th 2013.
And can dial up Starting Condition X, and be 100% certain that Lizzie will make that typo.
In other words, Y is 100% predictable from X.
You could also say that all the information in Y is contained in X, which, interestingly, might be one sense in which Dembski’s conservation of information law is valid.
Were it not for the fact that it seems that the world is not deterministic, I’d be quite happy to say we live in a world where my actions today were “determined” from the onset of Big Bang, in that narrow sense – that a Demon who had previously run the experiment, would only need to know X to predic my actions Y.
Now, if you think that “predictable” has nothing to do with being “determined” – how are you defining “determined”? It seems intrinsic to your own usage (and indeed mine).
OK. Well, tell me what you mean by “determined” – can you give me a clear definition of what you mean by that word?
So you are a monist who thinks there is both material and immaterial causation?
Or not a monist?
What’s monist about two kinds of causation?
I do not understand why you are bringing in predictability. Will or free will has nothing to do with predictability.
If our decisions are stochastics we can only make a probabilistic prediction.
If our decision are determined by the initial conditions we can make a prediction only we know all the factors that determine the decision in the moment of the decision, and that information is not know even for us.
If our decision are trully decision taken by a free will also are impredictable because that decision are function not of the initial conditions but our will in the moment of the decision.
So predictability is not related with the existance or not of free will.
Liz,
Have you not made these two statements (to paraphrase):
1) Each event that occurs under materialism is determined by that which precedes it.
and
(2) Those events (especially personal will events) are unpredictable?
If determinism = predictable, as you are now apparently claiming, how do you reconcile those two positions?
This is why I said it was useful use E-Prime – to specify, when we uses the word “predictable” who is doing the predicting!
It was you who asked me to confirm that I thought that something like “Each event that occurs under materialism is determined by that which precedes it.” Actually I don’t – the evidence seems much stronger for an indeterminate universe, but what I did say is that even if it were the case, I think that we still have real choices – that our choices are not fully predictable (nor fully unpredictable – a “random” choice is almost anti-choice, as in “oh, I can’t decide, I’ll toss a coin”), by other people or by our selves. However, I agreed that if the universe was deterministic, my choice would be the same each time the model was run.
However, if by “determined” you meant “predictable by a hypothetical Demon who has run the model once before and knows the outcome” then, sure, if the universe was deterministic, run under identical conditions I would do the same thing again.
If you meant something else, then I didn’t understand your question.
But I don’t consider that whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic has any important bearing on whether we are capable of real, informed choice, which is the only sensible meaning I can assign to the phrase “free will”.
I cannot see how Libertarian free will could be informed by value – to the extent it is informed, it is constrained. It is only “free” to the extent it is uninformed by value. And if it is uninformed by value, it is no longer “will”.
In other words, I think “Libertarian fee will” is actually an oxymoron, although it looks superficially sensible.
I think that all causation traces back to demiurge, which is the uncaused cause. I think that everything that exists is, ultimately, one thing, just as ice, water and vapor appear to be three different things, but are actually just three different states of the same thing.
In this sense, I’m a trialist, but not of the John Cottingham persuasion; there is soul, which I refer to as demiurge or free will; mind (a universal computational system with complete access to everything that exists), and body (a set of limiting parameters that confer individuality).
These do not exist as ironclad, distinct categories, but there are graduations as they are all the same essential thing, like the water analogy. For instance, i hold that after death we assume another “body” much like this one, but which doesn’t have the same degree of limitations; also, some of what we view ourselves as, personality-wise, is held in the body, and doesn’t survive death other than as part the “record” held in universal mind. Some of our personality here is a character we have assumed with this body.
The will of soul is computed by mind into localized, integrated, limited manifestations of body, personality, beliefs, etc. Generally, when I use these terms here (mind, body, physical, god, will) they do not reflect my personal views about them, but are rather arranged for the benefit of those I am debating in order to prevent massive communication breakdown and misapprehensions – much more massive and fundamental than what already occurs.
One of my favorite (if not my favorite) treaties on science and understanding. Thanks Patrick!
William J. Murray:
Don’t you mean the exact opposite?
And I hold that it is a crucial difference in terms of choice, and that your position offers no sensible meaning for “free will”.
So, Plato’s allegory of the cave is incomprehensible to you? Do you not hold that there is a physical reality where things are whatever they are, independent of our capacity to perceive or model them?
I already told you Lizzie, you are one step nearest the Coyne position.
Let me translate this definition.
When Lizzie is confronted with the option of eat a breakfast or go to give blood, she make consciuss all the information about the alternatives.
Informed about that alternatives he wills to go to give blood.
That is for you “free will”? To me here we need another definition:
When Lizzie wanted go to give blood, with that information could she decide to go to eat a breakfast?
If you say no then your will is only a consequences of the settings in your brain, and you are not responsible for the action you have taken, is only the behaviour determined by your information.
If you say yes, then you have to explain how your brain with the exact the same information can take two different actions.
Is this your version of “free will is an illusion”.
William J. Murray:
Here is a point I have never had explained to me in a way that doesn’t beg the big question.
What limits the number of uncaused causes?
It can’t be cause A because “time does not exist yet” so there is no point where a competing cause B does not exist and could therefore be prevented by cause A
It can’t be cause B limiting cause A for the same reason.
If cause A is proof of the possibility of an uncaused cause, that should be proof that “nothing” is required to explain the existence of “any” uncaused cause.
Where is the entity that constrains those things that like itself, predate time and require no cause?
OK, but can you please define “determined”. Because if you do not mean what I understood you to mean, then my answer cannot have given you an proper understanding of my position.
It’s not incomprehensible to me, and I think it is a reasonable inference from the observation that our models converge.
I’ve always wondered how, assuming that there is one uncaused cause, you could assert there is only one.
It seems to me that having admitted the class, one must acknowledge the possibility of multiiple instances.
William, please can you define what you mean by “determined” as in “entirely determined” if you DON’T mean “can be predicted with 100% certainty by a hypothetical agent who has run the model from the same starting conditions previously”.
Thanks.
What is the Coyne position?
That only makes sense if you define “Lizzie” as not including the settings of her brain. If “Lizzie” describes the whole of me, including my brain, then I make the decisions. Only if you think that “Lizzie” describes some part of me that is not Lizzie-the-organism is “Lizzie” not responsible for what the decisions she makes. And I define “Lizzie” as the organism sitting here writing this post 🙂
Well, there could be some random noise in the system, and there is, but that’s not willed (unless I will myself not to choose!)
I don’t think “free will” is an illusion. I think “libertarian free will” is an oxymoron. However, if we regard, as I do, “free will” as meaning “the capacity to make an informed decision between multiple options” then I think it is self-evident that I have it. And by “I” I mean “Lizzie-the-organism”.
Computed. Generated. Caused. Fixed.
What precedes X entirely fixes, causes, generates, determines the state, position, nature of, characteristics of X, whether or not anyone or anything can predict it.
In other words, ontologically, pre-X determines X, whether or not anyone can, epistemologically speaking, calculate pre-X and thus predict X.
OK. But surely you can see the conceptual connection between “determined” and “predictable”? If Y is entirely determined by X, that is the same as saying that Given X, the probability of Y is 100% Yes?
That means that anyone or thing in possession of X can predict Y with 100% certainty.
Yes?
Right. So if X is entirely determined by pre-X, if pre-X occurs, there is a 100% probability X occurring, right?
If there is only a 99.9% probability of X occurring, then X is not entirely predetermined by pre-X, right?
Yes?
OK. So how do you discover whether or not pre-X entirely fixes X or not?
No, it is entirely irrelevant.
In the discussion we had, you were stating that it is your position when one is within the run-up to X, as one is running up to X, X itself may be unpredictable because of chaotic, non-linear influences; that it is only as the universe unfolds via the computation that any sentient entity can find out what the computation will result in.
I argued that your point was irrelevant; that it doesn’t matter if the outcome was unknowable by any sentient entity inside the pre-X – X was still determined by the computation itself, and that if we ran the exact same computation again, in the exact same fashion up to X, X would occur again, and never Y.
You then brought in the concept of some hypothesized entity that watches the original run-up, sees the outcome, then watches an identical run-up and can predict the outcome.
I have absolutely no idea why you brought in a hypothetical observer. I have no idea what it adds to the substance of the debate. If there are no sentient observers anywhere and no hypothetical observers anywhere, pre-X will always result in X. Observers and predictions are entirely irrelevant to the point I’m making.
I’m not using the word “determined” in the sense of “figuring something out” as in “making a determination”, but in the sense that A fixes (in place) B. “My pool shot determines where the cue-ball will go”, not “I’m determining what caused my pool ball to go where it went”.
Jesus, Liz, it’s your metaphysical position, not mine. You tell me.
William, it is NOT necessarily my metaphysical position! You asked me to agree, or not, to the proposition that my decisions were “entirely determined” by prior events.
I gave you an answer, assuming that I understood what you meant by “entirely determined”. Now it seems that I do NOT understand what you meant, because you seem to think that “determined” has nothing to do with predictability, and I think it has.
So I am now trying to find out what YOU meant by the term when you asked me the question.
But I’m not making much progresse!
petrushka,
Yes.
Any instance of X is proof that X’s can exist.
I think the point is that metaphysical determinism is not an entailment of materialism.
Liz,
You agreed that everything that occurs is a result of the computation of material commodities (including energy) according to physics. You said that this computation is chaotic and unpredictable. You agreed that if you ran pre-X exactly the same as before, X would invariably occur.
There. I didn’t even use the words “determined” or “predictable”. Is there something in the above that is incorrect?
Free will is an illusion.
I understand you as a whole. But could you explain me why
are you responsible for your decisions if it is the result of the information you have at the moment of the decision and given that information that answer is one and only one? Are you responsible for the education? are you responsible for the society where you live? Are you responsible for how your chemistry process the information, understand and model the data?
Then you go to eat breakfast or give blood depending of how the noise affect the information?
Yes Lizzie, we know that we make informed decision. An amoeba following the light are making informed decisions? Petrushka´s programe giving “beutiful” words are giving informed decisions? Are all the same? Are the amoeba responsible to follow the path light? Did the amoeba “will” follow the path light?
You are responsible because you are capable of learning from experience.
I can’t believe you are so stupid not to notice that responsibility is predicated on knowledge and experience. Children are typically not held to the same standards as adults and do not face the same level of consequence for infractions of the law. Interestingly (as in the case of child actors) they also do not receive the same level of benefits for “good” behavior. This is not a difficult or complex concept.
Systems that can learn are held responsible.
Right. At which point, you said, but if the identical scenario were to be “replayed” the identical scenario, would I choose differently? On a second run-through (assuming exactly the same quantum events) my actions would, if entirely “determined” would then be entirely “predictable” by any sentient entity that had observed the first run, right?
Right, except that the “we” there has to be a “we” outside the pre-X as you put it? Yes? Nobody inside the pre-X is going to have a clue, regardless of how many times the thing is re-run, right?
But this external hypothetical agent, having run the system once, now can predict (if X is entirely determined by pre-X) that if pre-X is identical, so will X, right?
Yes.
I have absolutely no idea why you brought in a hypothetical observer. I have no idea what it adds to the substance of the debate. If there are no sentient observers anywhere and no hypothetical observers anywhere, pre-X will always result in X. Observers and predictions are entirely irrelevant to the point I’m making.
Well, no, they are not. Because why should I take a metaphysical position about my actions being “entirely determined” if there is absolutely no way from within the system that I can find out whether that is the case or not?
You are the one who brought in the hypothetical “if we ran the exact same computation again”, not me. Why did you think a hypothetical re-run was relevant if a hypothetical re-runner is not? My point is that both are entirely irrelevant.
Yes, I know you are. My point is that you are not thinking this through thoroughly. The concept of “determined” from the concept of “probability” is logically inseparable from the concept of “probability”.
And the concept of “probability” is inseparable from the concept of “information” which is why ID proponents like to express probabilities in Bits.
And “information” is inseparable from the concept of “knowledge”.
So talking about “determinism” but ignoring the issue of a “knower” is ultimately incoherent.