Arcatia has stated that before any thought can occur, first there must be a chemical change in the brain. So if before any decision is made, we first need a chemical change, then it is not really a decision, now is it? It is merely a response to that chemical change, for which we have no control over.
On several occasions keiths has ducked and dodged away from this problem. Arcatia now seems to want to run away from it, as has every other materialist here on this forum. About the best you can hope for is some kind of obfuscated rant about what is meaning, what is will, how do we know we know, what’s the epistemological nature of the epistemology…and on, and on the deflections to anything that could be considered an answer go. Generally people here pretend that if you stick the suffix “sian” at the end of any name, you have said something profound.
So it deserves it own thread. Let the bullshit answers speak for themselves. In the end we will see if anyone actually tries to address it. Its the toughest question for materialists to wiggle out of in my opinion.
phoodoo,
Decision making is a physical process. What’s the problem?
So you actually decided to be fixated on Barry’s purse.
So you actually decided to be fixated on my testicles.
I wonder if it was what he smelled or what he saw or what he tasted.
What drives his fixation?
Decisions are made in the soul. Any chemicals involved are only the use of the memory coupled to the body. There is no evidence chemicals are part of decision making. Impossible.
I’m willing to at least entertain the idea that keiths is smoking something that can explain his behavior.
Quality thread so far gents.
Every post by keiths inspires quality in us all!
If conscious thought, including decision making, is ultimately based on physiochemical changes in the brain… why would this be a problem for materialism?
Materialism doesn’t explain squat. It’s a problem for materialists.
😉
This claim was put soundly to bed in this discussion of split-brain patients.
Seems to me we could start by discussing simpler examples. “Tumble and run” chemotaxis in motile bacteria, for example. Is whether to tumble or run a decision? If not, why not?
You ever been drunk?
What is this ‘soul’ you speak of? Do cats have souls? How do you know?
TristanM,
Split-brain patients do not exhibit separate distinct personalities. Each half experiences a part of the whole.
There is no contradiction if say, the left brain is atheist but the right brain is theist.
If the person was a theist before the operation, then it is clear that the theist half of the argument won. And the contrary would be true as well.
So split-brain does not in any way debunk a duelist position.
If fact, the split-brain phenomenon allows us to get valuable insights as to how the left and right halfs of a complete brain work to process internal and external experience.
Alan,
Clearly a decision.
And a simple one at that.
We already know bacteria have wireless communication to coordinate with their colony when preparing for an invasion.
So tumble and run would be akin to deciding to sit or stand as opposed to talking on your iphone through a bluetooth headset.
Don’t diss bacteria. They’re smart little critters.
What whole?
It’s hard for everybody. Those who believe in some sort of libertarian free will end up blathering about quantum indeterminacy and Von Neumann collapses.
You may like your side’s blather better, but that’s not really any sort of argument.
I suppose they think that libertarian free will is the only way of making sense of stuff like responsibility, choice, guilt, shame, forgiveness, punishment, etc.
They’re wrong, but they don’t care.
If its physical, it can’t be called a decision. If the physical tells the mind what it has to think, there is no choice, that is what it must think. That seems pretty obvious.
So you believe choice is an illusion.
I think Jerry Coyne also falls into this trap.
For me, there are really two distinct questions:
Is free will the best way of understanding responsibility, choice, guilt, shame, forgiveness, punishment, etc.?
Is libertarian freedom — actions originating outside the causal order, violating the causal closure of the physical, the whole nine yards — the best way of understanding what free will is?
Answering “yes” to (2) gives us incompatibilism, and answering “no” to (2) gives us some space of possible compatibilisms to explore.
But I’m more interested in (1). I think — along with Spinoza and Nietzsche (also, by a different route, Strawson in “Freedom and Resentment”) that the answer to (1) is “no”.
Which means that even if the best answer to (2) is “yes”, and then one were to then deny libertarian freedom because the causal closure of the physical seems too big of a thing to give up on, it wouldn’t matter.
phoodoo,
You’re assuming that the mind is a separate entity receiving mandates from “the physical”. It isn’t.
The mind is physical.
Do you mean when he says something like this?
From here
Must say, I don’t find Coyne’s line convincing. I think we can make good and poor choices and learn from bad experiences to make better choices.
I find it odd that someone who defends evolution hasn’t noticed that behavior — both individual and societal — evolves in response to consequences.
I think punishment is an ineffective way of managing behavior and is often counterproductive, but that is a technical issue, not a philosophical one. When I argue this at Jerry’s site, I hear crickets. If I am wrong about this, I think the argument at least merits a response.
Alan,
Do you really think that Coyne would disagree with your second sentence?
I would rather let Jerry Coyne make his position clear but if you have some link to comments by him that clarify that, by all means post it. I don’t generally read WEIT for Jerry’s philosophy so if he has already discussed this point I could easily have missed it.
Steve,
You mean you no longer appeal to demonic possession to explain the behavior of split-brain patients?
I still laugh about that one.
His seemingly strict determinism strikes me as a little, well, old-fashioned.
I don’t know much about what he writes about it, but from the linked article it would seem that he would disagree with it:
Sure you could have had that V8, there just would have needed to be some difference in the situation, however slight. The choices are real, and you know it could have been different (that is, the inputs would have to have tilted it toward the V8), it’s just in retrospect that it all is seen as inevitable (if you didn’t take the V8 it was because you wouldn’t choose to do so in that situation). You can choose to try to change the way you think, although it’s just possible that you’ll never see it that way without an intervention or some such thing.
Glen Davidson
Alan,
Where did you get the idea that Coyne would disagree with this sentence?
I don’t know whether Jerry Coyne would disagree. I suspect he might from reading the article I linked to.
Poetry interpretation fail.
GlenDavidson,
If I make the trip to town from where I live, there’s a junction that bifurcates between a lane that is shorter and a wider road that is longer. The grape harvest is in full swing and I’m internally debating if the short-cut will be a bad choice if I have to negotiate a grape harvester or two. I’m sure I’m deciding which is the better gamble depending on time of day and time of year.
Why not?
Tossed word salad.
Alan:
You expressed disagreement here:
What in that article led you to think he would disagree with that second sentence?
Alan,
Did you miss this, from the article you quoted?
I got the idea from presenting that idea a dozen times at his site and getting no response.
I tend to agree that moralism is silly, but He takes his position into politics and policy. I would tend to agree that current prison systems are largely counterproductive, but he doesn’t seem to be willing to discuss alternatives or how we might invent alternatives. He seems only interesting in absolving people who behave badly, without speculating on how a society should manage people who behave badly.
It’s like noticing that an illness is caused by bacteria rather than evil spirits, and not wanting to discuss routes to cure.
He does touch on prevention, but I have to say there is plenty of white collar crime and corruption. Prevention through education is not completely ineffectual, but it isn’t the whole answer.
petrushka,
That’s a bit of a leap. Is there anything he’s written that would indicate disagreement with Alan’s sentence?
I’ve read — and I think understood — his argument. I just think it is irrelevant to the question of what to do about people who misbehave.
He uses determinism to argue against retribution, but retribution is just another form of misbehavior.
keiths,
Thé bit I quoted.
keiths,
No.
Alan,
How is any of that incompatible with Coyne’s views?
He either put that badly, or he just plain thinks badly about this matter. Of course the molecules, fields, etc., must obey the laws of physics, but that’s not even close to being the same as saying that the outputs of our brain are dictated by those laws. The outputs of our brains are dictated by the configurations and states of nerve cells and how they are all connected, and these merely have to obey the laws of physics, while what you really get depends on quora, stochastic processes, strengths of signals, and the chemicals in your blood.
You can make a digital computer using vacuum tubes or transistors. They operate very differently in a physics sense, but the important thing is simply that you can reversibly switch a current on or off using either one. You can produce exactly the same output using computers based on either one when they’re doing what they’re supposed to. They both follow the laws of physics, but their outputs depend on the circuitry as set up via logical programming. It’s the logic that matters, not the physics, mainly because the transistors and vacuum tubes were chosen in order to allow logic to control what they do.
It’s far more complicated with brains cells and their systems-wide responses, however their development is set to produce variable outputs according to inputs according to logic, as well as according to the welfare of the organism with its various emotional and mental states. Nothing about the laws of physics either makes this happen or prevents it from happening, but it was more or less impossible in the early universe, simply because the atoms that permit a brain to evolve did not exist then.
Glen Davidson
Well, I might disagree with that.
Where I part company with Jerry is that I think the behavior of that configuration of molecules is determined more by feedback than by forward cause. Of, if you wish to quibble, the configuration of the universe has more to do with brain activity than the history of the brain cells absent feedback. Even the untutored structure of the brain is shaped by feedback, as in evolution.
I have never been able to get a discussion going on this, but I believe it is more important than pontificating on free will and determinism.
petrushka,
We’re talking about Alan’s sentence:
Can you think of anything Coyne has written that would indicate disagreement with that sentence?
I was relating my own perception of making decisions that seem to me having the possibility of making another choice. Maybe Coyne makes ad hoc choices in a similar way.
My mention of Coyne was prompted by Petrushka’s remarks and the article I linked to. Notice I asked “Do you mean when he says something like this?” and Petrushka was kind enough to respond with more information.
By the way, do you agree with the statement:
I think we can make good and poor choices and learn from bad experiences to make better choices.
Have you reason to think Coyne agrees with the statement?
Should we not be better off asking Jerry Coyne to clarify his own views?
(Though Petrushka says he has not responded to queries)
The configuration of the universe shaping the brain is not the same as “These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our “choices”—are dictated by those laws.” Not sure why–or how–you could disagree with the fact that I find the latter statement to be lacking in discernment of the issue, especially since you seem to be saying roughly what I wrote.
Anyway, brain cells absent feedback are simply dead. One reason why stimulation is essential to development. Configuration of universe is not important (other than allowing the rest to exist), configuration of the child’s environment and human relationships is crucial.
There is a kind of survival of the fittest occurring in brain cell populations, as well as in connections. I think mostly use vs. disuse, but I suspect a host of other factors also play into the continuance of a particular brain cell, or of any individual connection. In retrospect, a “decision” may be thought to be inevitable, however, that certainly doesn’t mean that the next decision in almost exactly the same kind of situation (can never be identical, of course) will be the same as it was, since the brain never is the same as it was.
Glen Davidson