[Wittrs] On Discussions about Free WIll
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: CHORA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 22:05:05 -0700
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
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