[Wittrs] On Discussions about Free WIll
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:06:47 -0700 (PDT)
... forwarding this manually.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: steve bayne <baynesrb@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: On Discussions about Free WIll
This is an excellent comment, Sean! As philosophy becomes more technical and
concomitantly more papers become what you might call "routine" some kind of
test
must be applied by the individual researcher in deciding which direction to
"travel."
Somewhere in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein performs the thought experiment of
denying self identity. Nothing "happens." When in the course of facing yet
another thirty pages of technical analytical philosophy one has to make the
decision whether, or not, to wade through it, this sort of test, at least,
should be made. In my own work, I ask: "Suppose this author is right; suppose
he
is wrong; so what?" Once I've assessed the magnitude and relevance of his
claims, I make the decision.
Although free-will and the mind-body problem are significant philosophical
issues, a survey of the history of western philosophy will reveal, I believe,
that these issues are not of the same order of magnitude as other problems,
e.g., substance, causation (generally), universals, mathematical truth, etc.
Where is the mind-body problem in Hume? Leibniz? Where is determinism an issue
is Aristotle or Locke? The are marginal in relation to the larger picture. As
philosophy became "analytical" in the nonlinguistic sense encouraged by the
work
of Einstein and Plank those philosophical issues pertinent to science took
hold.
The philosophy of mind has been, more or less, reduced to that of the mind body
problem, just to take one prominent example.
The point you make, as I understand it, is particularly relevant to those who
care to engage "first philosophy" and not the "philosophies of" (of science, of
mind, of mathematics, of history, of business, of language etc.); that is,
areas
not requiring a great deal of literacy in the language of the tradition. This
is
not, merely, a matter of our having moved on to "better" things and better
ideas. It is a matter of education in the field of philosophy, as such.
If a thinker is willing to commit to the belief that philosophy is a legitimate
area of research, then whenever issues are raised related to these
"philosophies
of" they should be "tested" for relevance. In my own case if I say to myself:
"the mind is the body"; and then, "the mind is not the body", in neither case
does much "happen." Often philosophers of a scientific disposition attack
problems more related to abandoned theologies than deeply rooted philosophical
concerns, as such.
Regards
Steve R. Bayne
www.hist-analytic.org
--- On Mon, 4/11/11, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: On Discussions about Free WIll
> To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Monday, April 11, 2011, 1:05 AM
> May I ask what are the stakes of this
> discussion? Not so much the discussion
> of what the etymology of "free will" might be, but of the
> need to take a
> position on "free will" generally. What are the stakes of
> such a thing? It seems
> to me that this is the same issue for philosophy as it is
> science. Imagine a
> study that proclaimed: "there is no 'free will.'" Or
> one that said: "we've
> proved that 'free will' exists." What on earth would one
> even do with such a
> thing?
>
> It seems that if I grant or deny any of these claims,
> nothing actually changes
> in the world except the arrangement of my lexicon. I have
> no choice but to
> behave as I do no matter how the language game about it
> changes. It's like
> those discussions about whether consciousness is "physical"
> or whether the world
> exists independent of my mind. All of these things
> essentially amount to a kind
> of ideology or theology about something for which how I go
> about it has only
> become decorated by the faiths I prefer.
>
> Or if, in fact, the things I believe about it are "real
> things," all it seems to
> change is the way I have to language about it. It doesn't
> seem to change
> anything "on the ground," so to speak. No matter what, I
> still must participate
> the way I must in the form of life.
>
>
> And so I am just not clear on what the stakes of any
> discussion about "free
> will" could ever be.
>
>
> Regards and thanks.
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
> Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs
>
> ________________________________
> From: Bob Doyle <bobdoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Sun, April 10, 2011 2:49:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Etymology of Free WIll
>
> Hi Jeremy,
>
> This helps me understand your position. Your freedom is
> what I call freedom of
> action.
> http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/freedom_of_action.html
>
> For the record, what Feynman meant was that no one
> understands the mystery at
> the heart of quantum mechanics, namely the probabilistic
> nature of the wave
> function, including the "collapse" with its nonlocal
> quality, and the
> superposition of states.
>
> I have worked hard over the years to explain these
> non-intuitive aspects of
> quantum mechanics for non-scientists, with the following
> animated web pages. If
> you have the time for them, I'd appreciate your
> criticisms.
>
> * Two-Slit Experiment
> * Einstein Podolsky Rosen
> * Bell's Theorem
> * Collapse of the Wave Function
> * Schrödinger's Cat
> * Dirac Three Polarizers
> Quantum mechanics is the most accurate theory of physics
> that we have, and in
> the limit of large numbers of particles it asymptotically
> approaches classical
> physics.
>
> Although many of the pioneers including Einstein, Planck,
> Schrödinger, de
> Broglie, were determinists, some for deep philosophical,
> even religious,
> reasons), experiments have shown that Bell's Theorem
> verifies quantum mechanics
> and Einstein was simply wrong, although most philosophers
> of science don't want
> to give up on classical physics.
>
> Epicurus needed his swerve of the atoms to break the causal
> chain of his fellow
> materialist and atomist, Democritus.
>
> The Stoics accused him of making chance the cause of our
> actions, the "facial
> tic," as you called it. This insult to Epicurus continues
> to this day in the
> standard argument, that our actions would be random if
> chance existed in the
> world.
>
> Do you agree that chance, or luck, does not exist?
>
> On a personal note, When I presented my two-stage model of
> free will recently in
>
>
> Barcelona, I met the custodian of John Bell's legacy in
> Switzerland. He shared
> with me a video of John Bell explaining that Einstein was
> wrong (this was not
> Bell had wanted to show!). The audio was out of sync and I
> edited ten minutes of
>
>
> the lecture restoring the sync. It covers Bell's main
> conclusion. I posted it to
>
>
> my YouTube channel (infophilosopher) and added a transcript
> because Bell's thick
>
>
> Scottish brogue is hard to understand. I hope that you find
> this interesting.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8CCfOD1iu8
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bob
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 1:37 PM, Jeremy Bowman <jwbowman@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Bob,
> >
> >
> >> could we discuss whether every event is completely
> pre-determined
> >> by prior events?
> >
> >I don't think anyone can tell with any confidence one
> way or the
> >other, as current physics is obviously far from
> complete, and there
> >are rival interpretations of formalisms -- we have to
> treat it as "not
> >yet understood". As Feynman said, "nobody understands
> quantum
> >mechanics". (There are some pretty obvious
> misunderstandings though,
> >especially those that give a mystical role to
> "consciousness" in
> >physics!)
> >
> >I'm a bit doubtful about using the concept of causation
> to pin down
> >determinism, but let's accept it for the sake of the
> argument. If we
> >accept a Humean account of causation, to be caused is
> simply to be
> >part of a regular pattern that connects past to future.
> Whether or not
> >that is true, I don't think it has any bearing on the
> question of
> >human freedom. Mere patterns do not compel, still less
> do the natural
> >laws that purport to describe these patterns. Freedom
> is threatened by
> >compulsion (the overriding of an agent's wishes and
> intentions etc.)
> >not patterns, nor descriptions of patterns. The thought
> that mere
> >patterns can compel strikes me as part of a mistaken
> idea of the mind
> >(as not belonging to the rest of the physical fabric of
> the universe).
> >
> >
> >> This is the Epicurus notion of a "swerve" of the
> atoms. It is the idea of
> >> indeterminism.
> >
> >Well, I'm personally very fond of the Epicureans, which
> is one of the
> >reasons why I'm a utilitarian (non- hedonistic,
> however). I quite like
> >the idea of the swerve of atoms as an explanation of
> how the world got
> >complicated, but I don't think it does anything for the
> idea of human
> >freedom. Indeterminacy adds nothing more than a facial
> tic to human
> >agency -- it does not make room for freedom in any
> way.
> >
> >
> >Cheers -- Jeremy
> >
> >Messages to the list will be archived at
> >http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
> >
>
>
> --
> Bob Doyle
> Information Philosopher - "beyond logic and language."
> http://www.informationphilosopher.com
> http://blog.i-phi.org
> http://www.bobdoyleblog.com
> rodoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Associate, Astronomy Department
> Harvard University
> 77 Huron Avenue
> Cambridge, MA 02138
> Tel: +1 617-876-5678 Skype:bobdoyle
> Messages to the list will be archived at
> http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
>
>
>
>
> Messages to the list will be archived at
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/chora.html
>
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