Simon Blackburn - How Can Free Will Work?
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
- Assume that free will is real, not an illusion, and that the only reality is physical. How then could the will possibly be free? By what mechanism could human choice transcend the strong determinism of a closed physical world?
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I swear this channel blows my mind everytime and I love seeing Robert question everyone's beliefs. He makes them spin in circles over and over. I also love the wide range of stuff they talk about whether that's consciousness, aliens, cosmos, computer science (etc) I just love it. Anybody else agree!??
Absolutely! But sometimes a bit embarrissing to see how they spin without making sense.
+Polyfoci Well then, it is too bad you don't have your own show where you could enlighten us all with your deep understanding of everything.
+Polyfoci You have a point there. I think he just try to get the reasoning behind.
On the contrary, it is the 'free' that makes the problem. There cannot be 'free' will since our thoughts and behavior are constrained by many factors, genetic, social...So our thoughts and behavior are, mathematically speaking, functions of constraints. This means that the will is dependent on the constraints, hence it is not free. So there can be only personal will, but not free will...
compatibilism seems completely inconsistent with rationality, it's self defeating
Newtonian physics seemed to answer all the questions of motion at the time EXCEPT the movement of the Orbit of Mercury did not follow Newtonian Physics. Then Einstein presented a more precise explanation that agreed with Newtonian Physics and explained the procession of Mercury's orbit. Then Quantum Mechanics came along and offered an even more precise explanation of natural phenomenon than Einstein's Relativity. The 3 ideas are all true and quantum mechanics just seems to be the most precise at this time. Surely other advances will offer even more precise ideas. The idea that strict determinism is the way of the universe seems intuitively wrong. And with Heisenburg's Uncertainty being a part of Quantum Mechanics the I think strict determinism is a dead idea. The more precise nature of the universe is most likely probabilistic. Hence, I see no inconsistency with a largely determined universe that is not absolutely deterministic.
@@dreyestud123 whether determinism is true or false is completely irrelevant to the question of free will, even the interviewee himself accepted this. The problem goes more like this. Let's call the statement "our world is fully deterministic" statement A for simplicity, and the statement "we have free will" statement B. If A is true, then B is false, for obvious reasons. If A is false, then there must be some random component in our world, and randomness can't be free will, so B is false.
So we have this situation:
if A is true, then B is false;
if A is false, then B is false
so B is impossible for the law of noncontradiction.
Most determinists themselves accept this, so saying free will can exist anyway seems philosophically unfair or even dishonest.
@@SteveRayDarrell The argument of "free will" is a futile and pointless argument. Especially when people who like to argue we are all meat puppets and mere actors in the movie of the universe. And those who use statements like "you can do as you will, but you can't will as you will" are lunatics. Nothing can "will' as it "wills". Things like wants, and desires are discovered and evolve over time. The term itself "free will" is meaningless. I think most scientists would say we don't live in an absolutely determined universe because of quantum uncertainty. But that is a different argument. I'd say "free will" is a antiquated concept and we should let it die and talk about degrees of freedom of choice. That is a useful discussion.
@@dreyestud123man I don't know what to say, I disagree... I think free will is one of the most important questions, maybe THE most important one. But gathering from your comment I'm under the impression that you have stopped caring about this. And that's totally fine. A bit sad to hear but actually probably the most functional solution haha but yeah I don't think everyone who deems free will a problem is a lunatic, and I don't think the term free will is meaningless, it's literally defined as "the ability to have done otherwise".
@@SteveRayDarrell I don't see that as a definition. I think that definition is very vague. And it's impossible to falsify scientifically. Here are 3 words: "ability", "done", "otherwise". Those all really need context. If I ask a random 15 year old teen to shoot a free throw and he/she makes it on the first try. Here are some possibilities:
1. They could refuse.
2. They could not really try.
3. They could try hard.
4. If you tell them you'll give them $100 if
they make the shot, they will try hard.
5. They may be very athletic.
6. They may be not athletic but lucky.
7. etc.
In science you make a prediction based on evidence and come up with a probability. According to hard determinism the shot was going in 100% no matter what because of the big bang. And how do we know this is true? It went in. In science you use reason to place a bet, called a hypothesis. Then you do an experiment and see what the results are. The idea that "the ability to have done otherwise" is really vague and pointless IMO. The idea that you wait to see what happens, THEN say, of course that happened...free will...he/she was never gonna make that shot. It's so easy to place a bet AFTER the event. Hence, I don't find that definition useful or really even meaningful because there is no way to reverse time and see if he/she would have missed the shot. There is no experiment for that.
We could have an emergent future unfolding relative to the atoms of the periodic table therefore unfolding relative to our own actions. This is the idea that this theory is promoting that the wave particle duality of light and matter in the form of electrons is forming a blank canvas that we can choose how we interact with forming a future of our own choice relative to the energy and momentum of our actions.
The only difference Compatibilism makes over Hard Determinism is that control is inner rather than outer. We are no longer string puppets but hand puppets, as someone once put it. But there is no gain. In the first place the current inner control is determined by past inner happenings and past outer goings on. Both positions are versions of determinism and both are inconsistent with making rational choices. One option is to give up on any notion of free will (calling it an illusion) as many do, but this is inconsistent with the lived phenomenon of being a decision making being, one guided by reason rather than being controlled at all - either from within or without. It's what may be called the 'nuclear option', a sure sign of ditching the obvious in the name of a philosophical ideology, namely materialism.
Not "blame".... that inherently implies "worthiness" (blameworthy).
That just goes out the window entirely. But we can still use negative-reinforcement (like, "not cool, Bob"). Because that's just a way to modify future behaviour, without involving moral responsibility.
We can also hold people "physically responsible", without holding them "morally responsible". Important distinction.
You couldn't have done otherwise, where the "otherwise" is "up to you"... BUT, I am still going to have to fire you".
I don't like Compatibilism. Needlessly muddies the water, and they often almost hide behind it.
So many Compatibilists. If the general public knew that a Compatibilist does not subscribe to Libertarian Free Will, and how many philosophers and the such hold the position that LFW does not exist... that would be pretty strong messaging.
How can you have decided to have the discussion you are having here and have that discussion with consciousness and free will?
But, if you are a determinist it is literally false that -in this universe- it could have been a better summer. You are imagining a different universe. However, you exist in this universe, and here, whatever you decide, you had to decide. Given the moment you came in to existence, your life had to be the way it is. If you are putting on you brown shoes today, then you could not have put on any other pair. Even if you are, like Professor Blackburn, determined to say and think that he is free, he really is not.
Yes the correct interpretation of could have done otherwise is hypothetical. But we need to get clear about how we could have done otherwise. It's that we would have if the past prior to the choice had been appropriately different to bring about a different choice. We can imagine the differences in the past stretching right back to the initial conditions of the universe. So we would have done otherwise if we'd been on a different determined path from since before we were born.
Now to make moral responsibility compatible with that we have to accept two things:
1) A wrongdoer is merely unfortunate he was not on a different determined path from before he was born.
And
2) Those who didn't do the wrong thing are merely fortunate that they weren't on a different determined path from since before they were born.
This changes moral responsibility a great deal.
This video ends abruptly, is the rest of it available somewhere?
www.closertotruth.com
www.closertotruth.com/series/how-can-free-will-work#video-1833
@@FilippoMoser Thanks for looking it up on the website! :)
How do we properly internalize this understanding of ourselves as part of a gigantic unfolding quantum computation? Even when we accept the material reality of our existence (that we're "bags of particles governed by the laws of physics"), we still want to hold ourselves and others to account. It doesn't seem sensible to accept the scientific account as an excuse for all our bad behavior, even if _in fact_ our decision-making and behavior are outside our control in the strictest/truest sense. Blame is still necessary and useful in helping shape future behavior, although this process of "corrective blaming" is still part of a deterministic (and possibly random) process. We still must make decisions, make plans, and expect certain things from ourselves and others, even when we accept the scientific account of reality (which leaves no room for any "ghost in the machine").
We still want to hold ourselves and others to account" is the expression of a wish, isn't it? A wish or a desire or a hope is like faith, the wanting to be real of what is not presently evident. "it doesn't seem sensible" is an appeal not to rational data but to prejudices that a human being may find preferable to fact. "Blame is still necessary and useful." I think it's important to separate what is necessary from what is useful: the utility of a concept or practice doesn't make it a necessity-off the top of my head, a written constitution is useful, but the lived experience of the British has proved that it isn't necessary-and you admit that corrective blaming "is still part of a deterministic (and possibly random) process." For example, we condemn crime and imprison criminals, even though every aspect of their lives has inevitably led them to the crime, so that on some moral level that I'm not clear about, they are innocent in the same way that a child lawbreaker or madman is found to be not guilty by reason of undeveloped or impaired mental faculties. My own feeling is that we imprison criminals, even though we know that they are in some most fundamental sense as "determined" as you or I, for the good of society rather than any "moral" blame. Finally, yes, we know that we make decisions. The question is, are those decisions made by a free will or a determined one?
This is all stuff I've been thinking of in my old age, and the conclusions I've come to (above) are the result of thinking about the life I've led. Looking back, remembering and regretting "bad decisions," I've come to think that such decisions were determined by previous life experiences, and that no alternative decision was ever possible.
I believe that either a) everything that has ever happened was totally unavoidable, or b) even if something "could have" been different, only _true_ randomness built into nature could have made the difference.
It could well be that the entire future is already written, but we still have no way to know what the future is. This seems like an important fact here -- not knowing what is next, even if what is next was written in the first instant after t=0. We can't tell ourselves that we're predestined to sit on the couch eating bonbons. We still make our plans and think of ourselves as being in control generally speaking. This is how we are made.
About criminal behavior (including the very worst kind), in light of the scientific account I think we have to abandon the idea of "evil" (in the biblical sense). So instead of thinking about punishing "evil-doers" as some kind of righteous act, we have to think about constructive action (how to minimize suffering). Someone who is dangerous still has to be locked up, and some people may be so damaged that they can _never_ be reintegrated into society. If healing and rehabilitation can happen, we'd like it to happen. Robert Sapolsky made a good analogy here: If the brakes on your car don't work, instead of smashing up the car or bringing in a Priest to perform an exorcism on the car, you'll take it to a mechanic. The car still needs to be off the road until the brakes work, though. It's in our nature to get angry at people who cause harm. If someone killed a family member of mine, I'd probably want them dead (and I'd want to _personally_ kill them and make them suffer first). Even though this anger is part of our human nature, we can still rise above it when deciding how to deal with dangerous offenders in our societies.
Much of our lives are a quest for wish fulfillment. We have certain ideas about how life should be (or "can be"), and we want reality to match up with these ideas. We expect ourselves and others to act a certain way. When behavior doesn't match up with expectations (or "wishes"), we're disappointed and we express that. Applying social pressure can be constructive.
In a way I think it's unnatural for us to have this understanding of ourselves as "bags of particles". It's a lot easier for a cow to do a great job of being a cow, than for a human being to fully realize him/herself. It's definitely no trivial thing to figure out how to reconcile all of this. I'm still trying.
If feels like compatibilists really don't want to let go of the possibility that we can't reasonably blame each other for bad actions. Many times I feel like compatibilists base their theory on a psychological "want" (of being able to blame) rather that rigorous philosophical argument. They are in other words begging the question. But they didn't choose to believe this of course! But this seems really dangerous because it has implications for how we should treat wrongdoers. Should we punish them or should we help them?
He says that responsiveness to reasons give us freedom. But if we don't choose to be responsive to reasons, but rather just are responsive to reason, how can there be freedom in the relevant sense?
When brain activity is measured with various instruments, is it consciousness or sub-consciousness that is being measured? For instance in Libet (spelling?) experiment of raising arm / hand, is it the sub-conscious or conscious being measured?
James, you aren't going to get a straight answer from determinists. They are like theists. If you say you believe in god, then you are good with theists, even if your idea of god completely contradicts theirs. As long as you tell a determinist that you don't believe in free will, you are good to go. It doesn't matter if you say there is no self, no choice, only unconscious choice, circumstances or quantum physics making the choice. They don't care, so don't expect them to help you out. If you leave yourself open, they will just try to shove their own beliefs down your throat, just like a theist. Determinism is a metaphysical belief system, but they just replaced god with physics.
If free will determine physical reality and free will with God, then God is determining physical reality and can influence God through free will.
Simon Blackburn is a great thinker, but he gets himself in a bit of a mess here... I’m a libertarian, but as a compatibilist, he is forgetting to make the emergence of ‘top down causation’ in complex systems argument. So, certain ‘altruistic behaviours’ (top down) in organisms emerge which maximise ‘selfish genes’ (bottom up). Attractors in complex systems (eg. complex oscillators) emerge causing unexpected repeating patterns where you would otherwise predict randomness. So, a compatibilist might argue that our awareness is an example of emergent, top down causation - that means awareness, as a ‘whole system’ phenomenon, has causal power ie. agency. Incompatibilists tend to think in terms of bottom up causation alone.
Just to add, the reason I’m a libertarian, is that the twin assumptions of determinism (whether compatibilist or not) are unsafe.
1. Reality is not determined (quantum indeterminacy), which combined with the butterfly effect, could have far reaching consequences for free will.
2. I am a product of my brain, there are not two separate things here. So, while I may have very little awareness or control of the low level processes of integrating information, it is still “me” doing it, and at higher levels of information integration, and conscious execution, my awareness may be fully involved. Free Will determinism assumes we are clockwork dualities - libertarianism assumes an integrated mind/body dual aspect monism.
There is no if
If only that could be proven, and not just stated. :)
Don't bother fixing the end. Compatibilists are such a waste of time, I'm glad it ended like that.
You could say, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
=)
Would you care to elaborate?
+MyDefendor Q Blackburn doesn't really justify his position, but gets caught up in semantics and word games.
Lol
robert is some much better than his guests
That squirming at the end though... Yikes!
How squirming? Eeking out the nuances isn't squirming, it's almost the definition of philosophy.
Wtf are they talking about... 😂
No one has the free will to be who they want to be. They are who they are according to God's plan, also known as his will.
*****
The technology that our Creator used to create a simulation program is the source where I got all my information from.
What about people who commit suicide?
ModestConfidence
Our Creator planned all the deaths of his people.
Deuteronomy 32
39: "`See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
Brad Holkesvig
What about people in coma? Or infants who die from completely preventable deaths? I can go on.
ModestConfidence
Our Creator planned everything that the characters in his simulation program experience which we call life.