A Question Regarding Free Will
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Hello everyone,
I haven't posted in a long while. I hope everyone is doing well. I have a question that I hope someone can answer for me. I am sure you have heard of the Atheist Sam Harris, and his thoughts on free will. In short he doesn't believe we have free will. In his book entitled "Free Will" he says:
"Harris argues that the concept of free will makes no sense and so those who believe they act freely and are responsible for those actions are being duped by their biology. When a person make a decision (and then acts on that decision), the thought “I choose a over b” appears in his mind in the same way a pain experience or a desire for chocolate might. The person doesn’t seem to have any control over where the thought comes from—it just appears “out of the darkness.” Further, the person, try as they might, can’t trace where the thought comes from. It’s genesis is a product of a complex nexus of biology and environment about which the person knows very little and does not control. If this accurately describes the situation, how can we say that such a person is free in any sense that would please those who claim the person is responsible for the decisions they make? No coherent answer can be given to this answer so free will must be a false idea."
If it is the case, that we do not have free will, then it seems to stand to reason that we could not truly perform our True Will. At the very least this may mean (if we hold onto the idea of a True Will) that we can not help but do whatever is within our nature. Another idea, I feel, would be that we would have to change the subconscious root where choices really take place. What are your thoughts? Thanks.
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@Jason R said
"If it is the case, that we do not have free will, then it seems to stand to reason that we could not truly perform our True Will."
How so?
It doesn't matter a tiny bit whether "free" will really exists. The appearance of choice exists, and we act based on that.
From The Book of Tokens:
""Have I not free will?" saith the fool;
But the wise know that in all the chains of worlds
There is no creature
That hath any will apart from my One Will.
My Will is free indeed,
And he who knoweth it as the wellspring of his willing
Remaineth free from error."
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@Patriel Machad said
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@Jason R said
"If it is the case, that we do not have free will, then it seems to stand to reason that we could not truly perform our True Will."How so?
It doesn't matter a tiny bit whether "free" will really exists. The appearance of choice exists, and we act based on that. "
So, "Do What Thou Wilt" has nothing to do with truly "free" will, just the "appearance" of what we "think" it is? I'm still not entirely sure I get you. If we do not have free will, in other words, we aren't in control of the ideas, choices that arise within our minds, then we have no true control over doing it. For example, there are many ideas and choices we make that hinders us from doing the work. If these are not under our control (because we are not in control of the root thoughts that create that choice) then we have no power to "do" our True Will. That would mean that in appearance only are some lucky enough to achieve their True Wills, while others may not be capable.
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@Jason R said
"So, "Do What Thou Wilt" has nothing to do with truly "free" will, just the "appearance" of what we "think" it is?"
Why, no. It has to do with Will.
I don't know what you mean by truly free will. I refer to my previous quotation. "My Will is free indeed..." One could argue that the only truly free Will is the True Will, but... that's not what you, or Harris, mean."If we do not have free will, in other words, we aren't in control of the ideas, choices that arise within our minds, then we have no true control over doing it."
Doing what, the True Will? It doesn't come from our minds.
"For example, there are many ideas and choices we make that hinders us from doing the work. If these are not under our control (because we are not in control of the root thoughts that create that choice) then we have no power to "do" our True Will."
That doesn't follow. We may have no power from ourselves, but we are channels for the expression of the Will. And my point still stands that there's at least the appearance of choosing. So choose wisely!
Furthermore, True Will isn't about control. It's about surrender.
"That would mean that in appearance only are some lucky enough to achieve their True Wills, while others may not be capable."
Well, that's what happens in actuality, no?
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I'm not wording this properly maybe, let me try again.
If I am correct, we have in Thelema our True Will. This is something we discover by way of doing the prescribed work (we all know what this is according to Thelema, or at least the general idea). The Book of the Law tells us to "Do" this Will. However, and this is my point, if we are not in control over our choices, how can we?
In order to do anything like accomplishing our True Wills, we would need full control over the mechanism behind our choices. If factors "infinite and unknown" (i.e. environment and biology) are in command of this, we do not have the ability to do this.
So we may be prisoners of this illusion and unable to do anything unless these hidden aspects behind choices are in alignment with whatever it is that we call True Will. If it is simply who we are as part of some larger picture, then maybe I can see this. However, seeing it this way sort of makes all the "training" etc found in trying to discover and accomplish this Will (not to mention the "magic") pointless.
If we are not the decision makers at the root of choices, then who is doing the magick of any ritual? If you are saying the "Gods", then we sort of become pawns and have no real power at all. Maybe I am missing the point. I'm not sure.
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@Jason R said
"However, and this is my point, if we are not in control over our choices, how can we?"
But you're missing the point.
We are more, far more than these limited beings "with no free will." That's how."In order to do anything like accomplishing out True Wills, we would need full control over the mechanism behind our choices."
Reverse it. We would need full surrender to that principle which gives existence to the mechanism behind our choices. Or something like that.
"If factors "infinite and unknown" (i.e. environment and biology) are in command of this, we do not have the ability to do this."
Again, we are more than what's limited by these factors. And these factors constitute parts of one's particular expression of the Will.
"So we may be prisoners of this illusion and unable to do anything unless these hidden aspects behind choices are in alignment with whatever it is that we call True Will."
But are we in alignment with It?
"If it is simply who we are as part of some larger picture, then maybe I can see this. However, seeing it this way sort of makes all the "training" etc found in trying to discover and accomplish this Will (not to mention the "magic") pointless."
Only if you see it that way and act like it (or rather, don't act). It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"If we are not the decision makers at the root of choices, then who is doing the magick of any ritual?"
We are. Just not the limited "we." And... again, you can choose. It doesn't matter if we label it "free will" or "illusion of free will." The possibility of choice, moment by moment, is always with us.
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Jason, consider it from the qabalistic point of view:
the Will (pure Motion, Chokmah) tends to express itself as Form (Love, Binah); this is what creates Nature in its entirety! (Path of Daleth).So, "my" Will (or rather: the Will that I as particular human, belong to), in its motion which is Love, constitutes every little tiny bit of these biological etc factors, in frame of which I as a human being operate.
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First of all, the premise of your entire quandary, Jason, is that you are taking the Harris argument as valid. For one, I'd have to read this work of Harris' myself to be able to give you a hand with that. For two, you didn't quote Harris to me, you quoted someone who was paraphrasing (interpreting for us) Harris' argument. Based on those two points I'm not going to approach anything about what Harris has or had to say on the subject.
We don't have free will and not until we become a tech level 9 or above (ala GURPS), will we ever have free will. If we had free will that would mean whatever we willed would freely be manifest. POOF! I'm on Mars now. Thank you very much. No. We have limited will. We have a determined amount of choice. But to most, the common definition of free will is that we are free to choose. You have somehow become convinced by the arguments you've read about that it is proven we do not get to choose.
I chose to write this. I almost chose not too because I was frustrated that you wrote "In his book entitled "Free Will" he says: "Harris argues...." (et al). If these are Harris' words, Harris is an odd fellow to take up the talking of himself in the third person habit. I didn't let my frustration alter my desire to write this though. So what if you couldn't catch the little error in your critical thinking? That doesn't mean you can't be persuaded with critical arguments. So I chose.
Thoughts do not come out of thin air. That's one of the above mentioned arguments; that thoughts come out of thin air. That one's feeling a pain is equivalent to one's desire for a chocolate bar. To me, that is the equivalent of saying that the sentence that follows this one just got shot out of a gun and landed here with no explanation. That's either just plain silly talk or lazy thinking. The previous sentence was planned at some point but freely evolved as I went along, and I had several options to choose from before determining which I enjoyed the most. (And for all you know, I changed my mind a few times and it is not the same one that was first typed.)
Thoughts proceed thoughts. Thoughts develop into habits of thoughts and so can become less conscious over time, but they none-the-less do not just magically appear in our heads. They come on the foundation of our belief systems and serve either to validate or challenge (not so likely in most people) our belief systems. Our belief systems create a heavy weight in choosing our thoughts in one direction or another, but that is not enough weight to invalidate the notion that we are free to choose.
*by belief system I don't mean our ideologies or political opinions, I mean our core belief structures that life experience in our wee youth instructed us toward forming.
We have limited will. Limited by our perceptions, our knowledge, and our aptitude. We can overcome limitation, that's what makes us such wonderful beings, but we must choose to overcome. I define that as free.
ps. the argument over free will vs determinism is a debate as ancient as debate itself and I find it hardly worth much bandwidth.
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(I like a lot - most? all? of the answers so far. Adding...)
Yes, True Will has little or nothing to do with free will as usually expressed, and has almost nothing to do with a personality's choices.
Qabbalistically, Will is motion. True Will is the sum of all the vectors operative in a person's life. These vectors include biological restrictions, other resistances and restrictions in life, the social connections we hold onto and the considerations we place and attach to them, as well as all the empowerments, etc.
To understand it, look at it in nature: Look at erosion patterns down a hill, how gullies are carved. Given the conditions of gravity, water's molecular cohesion, etc., water at the top of a hill will make it to the bottom (unless it finds a natural stopping place such as a basin where it can pool; and then, given enough water, it still will overflow and move down, taking other water with it). When you look at how gullies are carved in soil you see the inevitability of water motion - what it in fact will do - interacting with harder and softer parts of the soil.
This is us moving through life; and by True Will we consider all of this - the water, the laws of gravity and molecular cohesion, the hard and soft parts of the soil, etc.
One can take this ride happily or unhappily. Thelema counsels taking it happily (joyously, ecstatically). This is rarely done by the personality taking the reins to force a direction. It is nearly always done by the personality discovering and acknowledging the true motion of a star through existence and then consciously conforming its choices to that actuality.
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@Jason R said
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If it is the case, that we do not have free will, then it seems to stand to reason that we could not truly perform our True Will. At the very least this may mean (if we hold onto the idea of a True Will) that we can not help but do whatever is within our nature. Another idea, I feel, would be that we would have to change the subconscious root where choices really take place. What are your thoughts? Thanks."Sam Harris is a great, great modern rationalist thinker and I love him to bits. His recent book Waking Up is quite amazing. Apart from being a top drawer rationalist, scientist and philosopher, he's done a lot of "seeking" with gurus in India and Tibet, culminating in his meeting one of the main Dzogchen guys and finishing it. His stance of persuading rationalists and atheists not to throw out the baby of meditation practices with the bathwater of religion (even though he's one of the main bathwater-thrower-outers of recent times) is very brave in the context of his rationalist fellows.
HOWEVER, on this matter of free-will, he's a bit off the mark. There's an extremely cogent response to his position by another great philosopher, Daniel C. Dennett (it shows you how honest a thinker Harris is that he's reprinted that critique on his own website here).
The upshot is that there's a philosophical concept of Free Will (with capitals, as it were) that's the idea of a chooser that's totally free to choose anything, and there's a practical concept of free will (no capitals, as it were) that's constrained by, but compatible with, determinism (in fact couldn't exist without determinism). The former doesn't exist (or at least, it's not something we could have), the latter does, and as Dennett says, there's no particular objection to carrying on calling it "free will."
To get the gist of it, think of a robot, which is a deterministic machine, which has to be so sophisticated that it's able to survive through all sorts of environmental changes and possibilities. That robot will (as a purely deterministic machine, remember) have a range of options for action from which it has to choose to attain an optimal outcome. That robot has free will, of a perfectly ordinary kind, the same kind that we have (since we are essentially "moist robots" ourselves). The key is to understand that a deterministic machine doesn't have omniscience, so it has to make choices for action, on the basis of limited information. The world machinery is deterministic, and the choice machinery the robot has is deterministic, but because of the knowledge gap, because of the unknown, the two levels of determinism mean that the robot's choice is not itself determined directly by the world machinery (it's determined by its own internal workings).
The question of determinism has to be kept separate from the question of fatalism: what will be will be, certainly. The robot will make whatever choices it makes, the world will go as it goes. And if you shift your perspective to an omniscient perspective, certainly both the world and the robot are determined to do what they do: and that's the reason why there's no such thing as Free Will. But that fact doesn't nullify the fact that the robot has free will - i.e. makes choices (via its own internal deterministic processes) based on limited information. It's really just a question of perspective - zoom out and all the system's parts are indeed determined in one way or another, in the broad sense (hence no Free Will), zoom in and you have "pockets" of determinism that don't necessarily interact deterministically in the same sense. (hence free will).
If you want to be cute, you could say that the robot is determined to make choices, but the choices it makes aren't necessarily determined by the rest of the world, they're determined by its own inner deterministic machinery, which is to some extent sealed off, and independent of the world machinery it's making choices against.
Now, how this intersects with questions Thelemic (IMHO) is this:- as moist robots, we tend to not have access and free flow to all the inner workings that make us up. In particular, we suffer from a cognitive illusion in which we think we have a "self" inside us. This is really the result of the way the brain interprets its own workings, models its own inner workings, in a crude sense: what it does is posit for itself a "virtual captain" of its own crew of gadgets and sub-gadgets. There is no such "captain", but the "captain" represents shifting coalitions of gadgets and sub-gadgets (in Thelemic terms, spirits, gods, demons) in the brain's "folk model" of its own inner workings. It's analogous to a cursor on a screen: there is no actual thing floating above the surface of the screen, it's just a handy convenience to have that illusion.
But what happens is that we (as moist robots) get stuck in thinking that we essentially are that "virtual captain", and we start to arrange our lives to protect and perpetuate that "virtual captain" (as opposed simply to having our cognitive machinery steer the moist robot that we are, through life).
The discovery of the True Will is first of all, the accessing, by the moist robot that we are, of the total process that we are, and realizing that the total process is what we are - and the shift from thinking of ourselves as the "virtual captain", to understanding that the "virtual captain" is virtual, doesn't actually exist, and is just a convenience (or "servant"). This discovery process is the career of the Adept "below the Abyss". Roughly speaking, the discovery of the "Unconscious", or "genius", is the restructuring of activities of the moist robot, away from perpetuating its "virtual captain", to perpetuating itself, in a "healthy", integrated way. Practically speaking, it means taking into account the "still, small voice" of intuition, which represents all the machinery that was hitherto "repressed", jammed, truncated, etc., by living in service of, and perpetuating, shoring up, an illusion (the illusion that the "virtual captain" is real, to be perpetuated, etc.). All the machinery that was previously tied up with perpetuating the illusion, gets freed up to a) perpetuate the moist robot in a healthy, integrated way, and b) fulfil its (the whole organic machine's) "destiny", in the sense of doing what it's really, really good at (as opposed to what would be good to perpetuate the "virtual captain").
But there's more, it doesn't stop there: beyond that ("above the Abyss") the machine begins to see itself as an integral component of the Whole, and its conscious perception as the conscious perception of the Whole (I mean, the Whole's conscious perception of Itself) - and therefore, also, its "will" becomes the Will of the Whole, its own free movement is no longer understood as something separate from the Whole, but understood as a partner in a dance that completes the Whole.
And at that level, Free Will does exist: it is the will of the Whole, just the way things go, the Dao.
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@Takamba said
"First of all, the premise of your entire quandary, Jason, is that you are taking the Harris argument as valid. For one, I'd have to read this work of Harris' myself to be able to give you a hand with that. For two, you didn't quote Harris to me, you quoted someone who was paraphrasing (interpreting for us) Harris' argument. Based on those two points I'm not going to approach anything about what Harris has or had to say on the subject."
Hi Takamba,
As always, thanks for the well said response. My apologies for not making it clear that the quote wasn't a direct quote of Harris. I have listened to Harris, and his arguments, and found this quote to be pretty close to what he said. For ease, I simply used that shortened quote that seemed to get across the point in less words.
Regardless, I feel you (and the others) have answered a lot of my confusion. It would seem that the idea is that no matter what may influence or originate the origin of an idea behind a thought, we are still choosing and so in alignment with the greater picture (i.e. Will). If I am correct in understanding everyone.
Seeing how you have mentioned Harris using a silly argument with unsound logic (regarding the desire for chocolate etc), I thought I may try to add a little more to that just in case. Listening to him give a talk about free will, he gives an exercise to try. He asks for anyone to think of anyone from their past. After doing so, he then asks the person to explain the reason or mechanics behind why they chose that particular person. According to him, they can't. His argument is that we are not aware of causes behind our choices, and so these choices we make are not of free will. Here is a video on YouTube that goes a bit more deep. Of course he explains it a lot better than I can.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRIcbsRXQ0o
I hate that I am not as articulate, and it is hard for me to put into words what I am trying to say. I apologize. I guess what I am trying to say is that if the causes of the choices we feel we are making (the illusion of free will) are not within our awareness, how can we hope to have control over doing our true will? That make any sense? What I am taking from everyone, is that this doesn't truly matter. That what choices we make, even if not freely chosen, is - for lack of a better term, guided. Since we are part of a larger mechanism, what chain of events occurs to bring us to some choice, is itself, part of our True Will?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"(I like a lot - most? all? of the answers so far. Adding...)
Yes, True Will has little or nothing to do with free will as usually expressed, and has almost nothing to do with a personality's choices.
Qabbalistically, Will is motion. True Will is the sum of all the vectors operative in a person's life. These vectors include biological restrictions, other resistances and restrictions in life, the social connections we hold onto and the considerations we place and attach to them, as well as all the empowerments, etc.
To understand it, look at it in nature: Look at erosion patterns down a hill, how gullies are carved. Given the conditions of gravity, water's molecular cohesion, etc., water at the top of a hill will make it to the bottom (unless it finds a natural stopping place such as a basin where it can pool; and then, given enough water, it still will overflow and move down, taking other water with it). When you look at how gullies are carved in soil you see the inevitability of water motion - what it in fact will do - interacting with harder and softer parts of the soil.
This is us moving through life; and by True Will we consider all of this - the water, the laws of gravity and molecular cohesion, the hard and soft parts of the soil, etc.
One can take this ride happily or unhappily. Thelema counsels taking it happily (joyously, ecstatically). This is rarely done by the personality taking the reins to force a direction. It is nearly always done by the personality discovering and acknowledging the true motion of a star through existence and then consciously conforming its choices to that actuality."
Thank you Jim. This does clear a bit up for me, and makes a lot more sense.
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@gurugeorge said
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Sam Harris is a great, great modern rationalist thinker and I love him to bits. His recent book Waking Up is quite amazing. Apart from being a top drawer rationalist, scientist and philosopher, he's done a lot of "seeking" with gurus in India and Tibet, culminating in his meeting one of the main Dzogchen guys and finishing it. His stance of persuading rationalists and atheists not to throw out the baby of meditation practices with the bathwater of religion (even though he's one of the main bathwater-thrower-outers of recent times) is very brave in the context of his rationalist fellows.
HOWEVER, on this matter of free-will, he's a bit off the mark. There's an extremely cogent response to his position by another great philosopher, Daniel C. Dennett (it shows you how honest a thinker Harris is that he's reprinted that critique on his own website here)."
Thank you for this informative reply. Yes, I agree, I really like what he has to say in a lot of areas. Especially his ideas regarding organized religions. I feel we need more people speaking out like this.
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Hey Jason,
Thanks for bringing up one of my own current demons. I've been wrestling with this one for awhile and, despite all the arguments made above, keep coming back to the point of your quandary. Since I'm still "over there", let me throw into the pool the reasoning that gets me there to see if it adds anything.
It seems like every response above retains the concept of choice which, I think, is the crux of your own misgivings in the original post. It's this "choice" that I can't get behind either. Here's why. Despite Takamba's seemingly sensible description of the process of choosing whether to write or not to write, that process of "choice" is not something that we can isolate in the physical world. Take it down to the simplest levels of which we're aware and this becomes obvious. Introduce an oxygen molecule to 2 hydrogen molecules in the presence of a spark and those three molecules will split in half and re-bond to result in two water molecules. There is no "choice" involved here. The makeup of our universe -- otherwise known as the laws of physics -- determine that this will be the outcome. Pushing that further, there isn't even choice as to which hydrogen atoms the now free oxygen atoms will bond with: they will necessarily attract those closest in proximity.
This example is very close to Jim's gravitation example. There are immutable forces that define reality at every level. Right now, we have classified them as four distinct forces -- gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear, & weak nuclear -- but as we've already found overlap between the nuclear forces and electro-magnetism at the extremes of the scales, it's not too much of a stretch to classify them all as different expressions of the same force. Attraction. This is what our universe is built on. The force of Attraction, sometimes referred to as Love. (insert obvious Liber L quote here)
gurugeorge's robot example is a really nice analogy except that it gives the robot "choice" which robots don't have. They have specific programming, based on questions of proximity and attraction, that guides them to "choose" whether to grab the yellow ball or the red ball. But this isn't a "choice" as we commonly use the term. This is the result of a mathematical equation based on data intake from the physical environment around them. It is more complex than the oxygen/hydrogen attraction, but it isn't any less determined.
This increase in complexity grows exponentially as we climb the evolutionary tree of life but, as far as I can tell, "choice", as we understand the term, is not something that actually exists. I can say that I chose to begin this sentence with an "I" rather than a "We" but, in actuality, an untold number of cause and effect transactions led to the chemical interactions in my brain which caused my fingers to hit those keys on the keyboard. The thing I think of as "I" is not somehow separate from that necessary chain.
HOWEVER...
It seems to me that the problem here is not that we are suddenly devoid of choice and free will -- capitalized or not -- but that we ever thought we had it in the first place. We have built up this conception of reality that somehow posits us as independent actors who could, somehow, have a "choice"-like effect on that stuff out there. It's this that gurugeorge points to when he suggests that the robot's inner deterministic machinery "is to some extent sealed off, and independent of the world machinery it's making choices against." But this is a construct of language not supported by physical reality: nothing is, in any way, sealed off. All is One. "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." The chemical reactions of the water molecules inside my brain follow exactly the same rules as the water molecules in the ocean.
It is this conception that there is any sort of separation which is at the heart of the illusion of Maya.
There's a great instruction from somewhere or other (I don't have it in front of me at the moment so you'll just have to trust me that it's not originally mine) that we don't have this thing commonly referred to as "free will" or "choice" as generally understood but that we have to act as if we do in order to do the Work effectively enough to alter our being enough to reach the point where we no longer need to believe that we have these things but can, instead, live in the free flowing Will of the universe. We need to make certain choices and choose certain paths in order to get us to the place where we can truly, honestly, viscerally know that "we" are not, in fact, choosing anything.
Up until a few months ago, all of this was an intellectual exercise for me which, based on the wording of your original post, it reads like it is for you as well (feel free to correct me if that's wrong). Recent meditations on the ubiquity of sunlight and starlight in everything we know and everything we are have helped to start pushing that out of the mental plane and into the visceral. Our minds are extremely complex "moist computers"; and just like computers, they rely on the deterministic laws of reality to continue bonding carbon atoms to oxygen atoms in order to effect the change of one neuro-transmitter into another as determined by some prior cause.
I'd have to agree with Harris on that point. We don't know where that choice came from because its ultimate cause predates us by billions of years... if there is an "ultimate cause" at all.
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Gnosomai Emauton,
Hello! Wow, wonderful! I truly appreciate your post, because it put into words what I miserably couldn't! This is exactly what I was trying to say. I have been struggling with the same ideas, and I am glad to see it spelled out so perfectly. Thank you! Now I will go over it a few times and try to absorb it lol. Then re read everyone's posts and see what I am left with. My brain takes time to get to it all!
I truly appreciate everyone's input. I feel it really does help give food for thought and understanding the True Will in relation to Thelema.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Yes, True Will has little or nothing to do with free will as usually expressed, and has almost nothing to do with a personality's choices.
.....
One can take this ride happily or unhappily. Thelema counsels taking it happily (joyously, ecstatically). This is rarely done by the personality taking the reins to force a direction. It is nearly always done by the personality discovering and acknowledging the true motion of a star through existence and then consciously conforming its choices to that actuality."Agreed.
Well said, Jim.
Inri
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
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gurugeorge's robot example is a really nice analogy except that it gives the robot "choice" which robots don't have. They have specific programming, based on questions of proximity and attraction, that guides them to "choose" whether to grab the yellow ball or the red ball. But this isn't a "choice" as we commonly use the term. This is the result of a mathematical equation based on data intake from the physical environment around them. It is more complex than the oxygen/hydrogen attraction, but it isn't any less determined."Wrt "programming" - both the robot and us are programmed to make some choice (selection among alternative possible actions), but the choice we make isn't itself programmed, even when it's the result of a deterministic process in the cognitive machinery. The difference is only in degree of sophistication (and of course in the not too distant future, we probably will be able to make robots that have equally sophisticated mechanisms as we do, and are conscious, deliberative, self-aware, etc.).
We simply have two types of deterministic mechanisms by which both the silicon robot and us meaty robots select between a range of possible things to do next. You can either call that process of selection "not real choice", or accept that "choice" is as good a word for both processes as any (and reserve the scare quotes for the less sophisticated form of selection). It's actually just semantics: in both cases, the process of selection from alternatives is a real process, which is deterministic within itself, in which the selection isn't determined by the world (the world outside the "skin boundary" of the entity), but by the cognitive machinery of the entity.
This is compatibilism: yes, both the goings-on in the world outside the selecting entity, and the goings-on inside the cognitive machinery of the entity, are determined, but they are different kinds and levels of determinism that are involved, and the one bundle of exquisitely fine deterministic goings-on (the cognitive machinery) can help the selecting entity avoid certain larger, cruder forms of determinism, such as bricks aimed at their cognitive machinery. Whether the selection is made to duck or not to duck, it will be a deterministic process that makes the selection; whether the brick hits the cognitive machinery or not, it will be a deterministic process either way. Either the entity will duck or not, either the brick will hit or not (fatalism) and given omniscient knowledge of conditions, of both the world state and the cognitive machinery state, we would know which will happen (determinism). But neither we, nor the entity, have such knowledge - we (and the entity) can only make an estimate, using our respective cognitive machineries (which are deterministic processes), based on scant knowledge.
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I would agree with you that it is semantics but I'd say that it's exactly those semantics that are at the heart of this issue. I didn't intend my quotes to be of the scary variety but simply to highlight a word for which we have a general definition in English that I don't see as realistically defensible.
To expand on your example:
@gurugeorge said
"Wrt "programming" - both the robot and us are programmed to make some choice (selection among alternative possible actions), but the choice we make isn't itself programmed, even when it's the result of a deterministic process in the cognitive machinery."
I don't see this statement as fully supported by reality, except as a semantic spook. Let's say we have a robot that is programmed to select a red ball from a bin of red and yellow balls. Semantically, there is some truth in the statement: "The robot chooses a red ball." However, though we've simplified the English description to, "the robot is programmed to select a red ball," there is actually more going on in the programming. Most robots are programmed to perform at peak efficiency so most robots will be programmed to select the first red ball their sensors hit. But perhaps, for fun, our robot has been programmed to select the third one it senses. Or to separate all of the balls into two piles based on color and then to filter through all the red ones until it finds the heaviest. Whatever the criteria in its finer levels of programming, the specific red ball that it is going to "choose" out of the bin is not a "choice" as is commonly meant in English but is, rather, the result of a mathematical equation of unassailable exactitude.
"But wait," I hear a voice in the back of the room yell out, "the robot has no control or influence on how the balls were originally arranged in the bin. Surely that level of external randomness influences this transaction in some way. This might lead the robot to choose the red granite ball rather than the red plastic ball because random chance placed the granite ball at the top of the heap."
Alas, as is demonstrated by Jim's example of water running down a hillside and mine of the unification of oxygen and hydrogen, these processes are equally determined by the laws of nature and follow equally programmed rules.
On my own thread exploring these issues, you said the following and I found it to be right on the mark:
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@gurugeorge said
"UNLESS the internal magical theory is correct and there are ways, as-yet-uncanvassed-by-science, but known as a rough and ready art by magicians, to influence or alter determinism as we know it. As I'm in a rationalist phase, I doubt the possibility of that, but even if it were the case, I don't see how that wouldn't be just a deeper understanding of determinism really, still some kind of law-governed flowing of stuff, those "laws" being as above said, a description of the stuff's free wandering (looked at from a higher point of view)."
This thing we call choice is a semantic construct. It's something our minds, as programmed by language, convince us we have the ability to do but, really, it's just describing the results of deterministic processes. And, when I use that term, I understand it to mean processes that are programmed by the laws of physics. Unless, as you say above, there is a way to step outside of the laws of physics in order to perturb them, I don't see any way to support the belief that we can make choices that aren't necessary effects of prior causes. In contrast to your "the process of selection from alternatives is a real process, which is deterministic within itself, in which the selection isn't determined by the world (the world outside the "skin boundary" of the entity), but by the cognitive machinery of the entity," I would say that the selection is determined by the world both inside and outside the skin boundary because that boundary is just as much a construct as anything else that language has created.
Your final line above sums it up very nicely and succinctly. We can only make estimates based on scant knowledge. It is our storytelling about those estimates which we call "choice". It is the realization that we don't actually have the volition that we've always thought we have but that we are, in fact, stars progressing along our necessary course, following our True Will, in alignment with The True Will because there is no other way for us to be, that dissolves the veils of Maya and unites us, consciously, with the Universal Will.
I think.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Let's say we have a robot that is programmed to select a red ball from a bin of red and yellow balls. Semantically, there is some truth in the statement: "The robot chooses a red ball." However, though we've simplified the English description to, "the robot is programmed to select a red ball," [...] "
No we haven't - well, it depends on the relative sophistication of the programming.
Suppose a chess computer beats a player with a specific move x. The computer was programmed to "play chess", it was programmed to "win at chess"; but was it, in being so programmed, programmed to make that specific move x at that specific time? (Was it necessary, for it to be true to say the program was programmed to "play chess", that every move it makes be programmed by an external entity, i.e. the programmer?)
Clearly, the programmer had no such specific goal in mind as "on Tuesday, 11th August, you will make move x in the game of chess vs. Ms so-and-so, thereby fulfilling the goal of your programming and beating her".
Now, obviously there's a range of sophistication possible here: at one end, simple programming, look-up tables, etc., at the other end, the extreme sophistication of entities like us (and the robots we'll be able to create) which can think for themselves, "on the hoof", as it were. The difference is in the modelling - the better and more sophisticated the world/self model, the more it can be said that any given move is a choice arising out of the merits and demerits of that model, and not out of any "canned" response. (Think of videogames - previously, the death throes of an monster would be programmed as a small, fixed sprite animation, nowadays, there is physics programming, which models the impact of your bullet on the monster, and makes it behave more a real monster might under the same circumstances; different each time.)
So it's the same with the determinism (programming) that drives us. We are programmed, determined, to "make the best selection out of possible options that we can", based on scant knowledge. But that's an abstract, high level description (like "programmed to play chess"). That doesn't mean specific action x at specific time y is programmed into us (determined) - **even though the machinery that makes the selection is deterministic machinery. **
The machine still has to make *its own *calculation, and make its own move - its own choice, and the action it makes based on its calculation is the action that drives its motion, its motion is not driven by any external source, nor by any particular example of determinism, other than the internal deterministic process of the cognitive machinery. And beyond some relevant threshold of sophistication, it really is choice, and not "choice". i.e. it's not something cute that merely looks like it's an on-the-hoof calculation by the robot, but is actually more specifically programmed - it genuinely is an on-the-hoof calculation by the robot, and the choice it makes might be something totally un-envisaged by the programmer. Progress in robotics is partly a balancing act between keeping the machine under control and keeping it independent enough of the programmer's control that it can still make good decisions under its own steam.
Yes, these processes depend on mathematics and on the relatively stable rule-following of nature (e.g. the substance of which the thing is composed), but that doesn't mean that those processes are reaching past your own decision making process and making your every move for you, any more than the programmer who programs the computer to "play chess" is thereby reaching through the computer's decisions and making it make x specific move on y specific day.
Perhaps another way of looking at it would be this: real choice, real freedom, are things that make sense in a context of other entities potentially being able to control your actions. It is my choice as opposed to the guy with the gun pointed at my head, that I do x.
It seemed like this merely "economic" or "social" sense of freedom wasn't enough - and it certainly wouldn't be enough to ground any of those sorts of highfalutin' senses of "Free Will" and "Freedom" and "Choice" that are not measured against potential opposition, potential other-control. But actually, on the contrary, there is no such kind of Free Will, Choice, etc., but there is free will, choice, etc., which stand as terms relative to other entities, whether the chooser is being buffeted around by other entities, or controlled by other entities: this is the only sense in which the term does have meaning and isn't just free-wheeling semantics.