[Wittrs] Re: "free will" versus "willing to be free"
- From: "SWM" <swmirsky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:44:51 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> The latter ["freedom"] *has* meaning, but the former ["free-will"] *needs*
> meaning. I'm trying
> to salvage some bits from the wreckage, as the old metaphysics (or
> whatever we call it) collapses under its own weight, turning to dry
> powder.
>
> Free Will: Remember Having One?
> (c) Americans for the Advancement of Philosophy
>
One what? A free will or writing a will that didn't cost me anything (attorney
service gratis)?
>
> In my blog post below I take on the lore around AI (artificial
> intelligence), once respected and admired (back when people
> still bragged about working for the RAND corporation), now
> more of a backwater, a cult, bordering on fringe when you
> get to that "singularity" stuff.
>
> But I see some bright future possibilities, in the area of designing
> dwellings / accommodations around notions of "learning buildings"
> (AI applied to energy optimization, at both the micro and macro
> levels). A growth industry. Complexity Studies feeds into it.
>
> Here's that blog post:
> http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/04/philosophy-posting.html
>
As you know, I have some interest in AI questions, albeit not from a technical
perspective (how do we build them?) but from a conceptual perspective (what
would count as an AI, if we could build one, and how would that fit with our
ordinary concepts of intelligence, mind, and so forth)?
> > We've wandered far afield now from the original questions of "free-will",
> > both
> > whether we have it and whether the term is even meaningful.
> >
>
> Yes, as often happens in our threads, I tend to fork off into
> various directions along axes of interest, bringing along the
> rest of my readership, used to these themes.
>
> I think I'm still in the ballpark, even though I'm back to my
> usual Cult of Athena stuff. I usually don't go on for more
> than 20 paragraphs without getting in *some* kind of
> commercial message for my school.
>
Yes. It often leaves me scratching my head.
<snip>
>
> >> you've always have
> >> these bossy people in military uniform insisting on their rights to
> >> recruit from the same student body.
> >>
> >
> > Why shouldn't they? No one forces any student to sign up. Why shouldn't
> > recruiters have the ability to offer the option?
> >
>
> Now that's what I call a great invitation to a philosophical debate. We
> should see a lot more questions along these lines, and points of
> view related thereto. Bravo.
>
Seems political, not philosophical, to me. That is, it just looks like
something we might argue about based on 1) where we stand in the current
constellation of political perspectives and 2) how we interpret whatever ur
texts (the Constitution?) we believe underlie our particular political
perspectives.
> >
> >> That's kind of what I was talking about a few posts back, where this
> >> PhD anthropologist was getting $100K a year to be lipstick on a pig,
> >> and he quit for philosophical (ethical) reasons.
> >>
> >
> > Must have missed that then!
> >
>
> """
>
> The USA today actually has a vanishingly small citizenship by some
> accounts, given the number who've sold out to the Unfree State that
> has grown up in its midst. Anthropologists are moving this way with
> their analysis thanks in part to the "freak out factor" associated with
> such gulag programs as HTS (Human Terrain Systems), which has
> recently sought to commandeer the university system as a source
> of lipstick for its pig. British Aerospace and Engineering has a guiding
> role in the background, as one might expect given the recent history
> of Anglophone empires.
>
> More in this blog for context:
> http://zeroanthropology.net/all-posts/the-leavenworth-diary-double-agent-anthrop\
> ologist-inside-the-human-terrain-system/
>
> """
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WittrsAMR/message/4181
>
I am completely confused by this now.
<snip>
> > I used to agree that Wittgenstein had a transcendentalist element but I
> > don't
> > think so anymore, at least nothing TRANSCENDENTAL, you might say. Maybe in
> > lower
> > case though.
>
> I was thinking more how Norman O. Brown quotes Wittgenstein and
> Nietzsche both, appreciatively, in 'Love's Body', and then points to
> Bucky Fuller. Coxeter, to whom Fuller dedicated his magnum opus,
> was Wittgenstein's student (donated his chambers even), while
> Fuller's great aunt, Margaret, was a first editor of 'Dial' (later taken
> up by one of the Seldes brothers). You get such communities as
> Black Mountain College. Not mystics per se, but at the forefront of
> the arts (Kenneth Snelson, Merce Cunningham, John Cage...).
> A new philosophy of mathematics starts to emerge from this
> matrix, characterized by "tensegrity" (among other hallmarks), a
> term later taken up by Carlos Casteneda (not just coincidentally
> -- there's a psychedelic fringe to the movement, especially once
> you factor in Robert Anton Wilson and some of the popular
> science fiction writers in this vein).
>
I was thinking more along the lines of how, in some sense, Wittgenstein's work
can be invoked as a way of justifying a viewpoint that is Idealist at its core.
While not explicity holding such a view, I used to see in Wittgenstein warrant
to do so. No longer, though.
<snip>
> >
> > The thread had to do with whether we have or don't have free-will, whether
> > determinism is true or false. Claiming it's a nonsensical question is
> > another
> > sort of answer. But then supporting that by collapsing it into another
> > concept
> > doesn't do the necessary work. It just adds confusion to the issue by
> > changing
> > the subject without being explicit about it.
>
> I don't know what you mean by "the thread". I was reading
> Gmail and saw Sean's query to another list about what it would
> mean if Free Will were announced to be proved (or disproved)
> in some headline. I jumped in with an interpretation, which
> I've recounted, having to do with measuring the Free Will of a
> polity.
>
> You've objected that there's an older dead horse meaning
> of "free will" I should pay my respects to but I don't see our
> views as all that inconsistent or irreconcilable.
>
> We both seem to agree that philosophy is dead (moribund)
> in some respects -- you think especially with regard to ethics.
>
No, I think philosophy is very much alive. I just think Wittgenstein's mode of
doing it is a better and more insightful way than the traditional practice(s)
of formulating and debating arguments about how things REALLY are.
> Where we diverge is more in how we manage this death.
> I'm into salvaging "free will" and sparking more serious
> debates with it (lets talk about who gets the most freedom
> to express her or his will, versus who has the least, as a
> precursor to making some much needed changes).
>
Again freedom and free will are two different concepts. Let's consider "free"
in itself. As a word it has many applications as you've already alluded to.
There's this question of free stuff (free beer) as in not having to pay for
something we get or take. And there's the question of being free to do what we
like (to act without coercion or the fear of it) in various contexts (in public
life, in our private lives). And then there's the further question of being
free by virtue of not being encumbered by something, as in being free of the
burden of aging parents (or raising a child) that may have or could have
interfered with our thought processes (peace of mind?) or our decision making
faculty.
Of course there is also this question of "free-will" as in having the capacity
to choose, unfettered by causal constraints outside the stream of influences
affecting our conscious deliberations, both unconscious factors of a mental
sort and physical factors of the sort that operate according to universal laws
of physics. It's this last, that is generally thought problematic, of course,
by the determinist. And here we run into the further problem that
unpredictability (needed to avoid determinism in its strictest sense) can be
either the result of incredibly deep complexity OR the absence of relevance of
physical laws to mental phenomena.
And THIS last is where philosophy runs aground, I think, because nothing, as
Sean notes, really follows from such a claim in the real world -- though
theoretically, at least, something might because the world could, at least in
principle, be discovered to be very different than we now understand it to be.
But the key here is the word "discovered" because, absent any new information
about how things work (is there evidence of disembodied minds, spirits, ghosts,
of continued consciousness after death?), nothing is changed by such
speculations, whatever arguments may be deployed in favor of the
non-physicality of minds thesis.
Which is why, of course, I think Wittgenstein's insight about the puzzle nature
of philosophical concerns so important. If nothing is changed, absent the
empirical information which demands a change to our understanding, then
speculation about how things really are, insofar as it accords with all the
outcomes of what is already known to really be, is rather pointless, isn't it?
Best to get on with clearing up the puzzles and attend to the stuff of real
life, to making a living, building houses, constructing artificial
intelligences and so forth. But philosophy doesn't, because of this, cease to
be interesting. The ongoing work of clearing up how we understand things is not
done in a day.
> You're into protecting what you think of as technical
> conversations that shouldn't be muddied.
>
> I'm sure those conversations will go on, but obviously
> if I assess they're rotten to the core, I'm not going to
> want to waste much time in them.
>
I think we may have very different perspectives about the point and relative
value of philosophy.
> "This thread" would have to be about something more
> meaningful, for me to want to keep giving it energy.
> That's probably why I seem to surge away from what
> you consider the topic at hand (e.g. whether the dead
> horse is really still alive).
>
> We have no signed contract about what "this thread"
> is about. It has something to do with freedom (or the
> lack thereof). That's about all I can say about it.
> It's not owned by either of us. We're just more voices
> in the memepool.
>
True enough. But still one has to adhere to the issues at hand to some degree
or else the conversation tilts toward monologue -- or worse.
<snip>
> >
> > We already have the terms "freedom" and "liberty". Why take another term
> > that
> > means something different in ordinary discourse and assign it the same
> > meaning?
> >
>
> I don't want to lose my connection with "will" either. Fromm's 'Escape from
> Freedom' is important. The concept of "authenticity" in Existentialism.
> The movies 'Jarhead'... 'Hurt Locker'. These pose questions of choice and
> freedom.
>
> I feel there's a lot to investigate when it comes to "will" and, as a
> philosopher-anthropologist (with an interest in marketing and communications),
> it would be foolish of me to divorce "freedom to do as I please" from "freedom
> to exercise my will freely".
>
The two look like they are saying the same thing to me except that, in the
second case, you have used "free" twice, implying a possible different meaning
for one of the uses (or else why bother to use the term twice?).
> The opposite of freely expressing one's will might be "frustration". I'm into
> a philosophy which examines the freedoms we have, as willing beings,
> versus the frustrations that vex us. What imprisons us? What reflex-
> conditioning keeps us straitjacketed? Why is the idiocracy so powerful?
>
> Lots of interesting queries.
>
Imprisonment may be understood in different ways. What imprisons us in a penal
institution may be the law or the government or the walls and bars or the staff
that guards. What imprisons us may also be what hampers the fullest expression
of our beliefs and desires (psychological constraints). What imprisons us in
another sense may well be the reality of our existence (being the necessity of
existing in THIS body, the laws of physics that govern this body and world and
so forth), though this begins to sound metaphoric now. Can we ever really say
we are imprisoned by what we are (except insofar as we imagine that we are
somehow more, or at least different, than what we seem to be)?
So again, meanings are fungible and making sure we each know what the other has
in mind by a usage critical.
<snip>
> >> Can a philosophy have a business as a part of its self expression?
> >> I'd think opportunities to walk one's talk, to show what one means,
> >> would be integral, so yes, of course.
> >>
> >
> > Of course what?
>
> Yes, of course one may have businesses expressing a philosophy.
> You can have "philosophical business" just as religions get to have
> their temples and churches. Should these be "tax exempt"?
> Many corporations (a kind of superman) seem to think so.
>
"Philosophy", like "imprisonment" and "free" allows for multiple meanings.
There's the philosophy of life we have, akin to a business' philosophy (meaning
how it approaches the world in its operations). And there's philosophy as world
view, see Hamlet's exhortation to Horatio ("there are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies"). And there is
philosophy as the work of certain academics who concern themselves with
thinking and disputing about various questions (this being subject to many
different definitions/descriptions, as well -- from being seen as the parent of
all other knowledge-seeking enterprises, read science, to being the
underlaborer or handmaiden of the sciences, assigned the task of picking up the
pieces, sweeping the floors of our minds).
> > Fighting wars isn't what's usually meant by murder. Moreover, if "young
> > idealists" volunteer for something oughtn't they to be allowed to take
> > responsibility for what they've done?
> >
>
> Back to your questions above about recruiters and recruiting.
> Was there any misrepresentation?
>
> There's a fine line between war, mayhem, murder and havoc.
> The murderous Nazis, the murderous Huns... it's typical in
> wartime to say the enemy is engaged in murder. This is
> all part of the grammar (less about facts than about roles in
> the theater).
>
Wars seem likely to continue for a while. Certainly they have long been an
established part of our history as human beings. Is there any reason to think
they are soon to dissappear? If not, is there a reason to absent ourselves from
all aspects of their practice in general or only to oppose this or that war or
this or that maker of wars?
> That anthropology blog (above) is interesting for how it all
> ties back to the Indian Wars. I see that as a big part of what
> drives the belligerence.
Is it belligerent in every case? Think of the current Libyan affair. If the
president had remained aloof from it, wouldn't he have been condemned for not
supporting people seeking freedom like we have (note, not "free-will" which you
can't seek and secure for yourself)? More, since Qadhafi has been a very bad
actor, particularly with regard to acts of terrorism against Americans, could
the president have withstood the argument that his aloofness allowed an enemy
of this country of longstanding to survive at the expense of the lives of many
innocents among his own people? On the other hand, by acting, isn't the
president subject to criticism for interfering where there is no immediate
threat to America's interests or survival (any long term threat being too long
term and speculative at this stage to be counted)? And isn't that criticism
exacerbated by the realization that our acting hardly seems to have been
sufficient to bring about the desired outcome and may only have introduced a
prolonged stalemate?
Is the president's choice, in light of these issues, "belligerence"? If not, is
all war thus driven by "belligerent" as you seem to imply? And shouldn't we be
"belligerent" in some cases as when we fought against the Nazis in World War
II?
> A lot of it's unconscious, as people
> are not schooled in either philosophy OR anthropology
> by and large, and are left to fall back on their reflex
> conditioning (which may be quite inappropriate).
>
So you would think that sometimes it wouldn't be "inappropriate"? How do we
tell the difference if and when there is one?
<snip>
>>
> >
> > Your proposal would make it a hell of a lot worse.
> >
>
> I don't know that I'm proposing anything here. I'm just talking about
> what I see going on.
>
You asked for open source code on voting programs used across the country and
for access to those programs.
> >
> > Many human interactions of all types have a coercive element.
> >
>
> Exactly. Anthropology and philosophy should both focus on that, if
> they want these concepts of "freedom" and "will" to mean anything
> concrete. There's work to be done!
>
Only to clarify. If the outcome is the opposite, then it's work better not done.
> Lets counter-recruit against those who'd waste so brain power
> spinning their wheels about nonsense in a non-productive manner.
>
> >
> > So now we know one another better than we did I guess, eh?
> >
> > SWM
> >
>
> Yeah probably. Aside from that aspect, I'm also getting work done.
> I can link to these posts from anywhere. Anthropologists, meet
> the philosophers. Where shall we go from here? Doesn't have to
> be on this list.
>
> Kirby
>
This list is as good as any for now, no? Since Sean made his changes, I have
lost registry through Yahoo but am not highly motivated to learn and register
on some other platform and, since I can still respond on Yahoo, that's been
enough. Who says I have to initiate posts, ehd? (I actually tried early on to
register on some of the other sites Sean routed us to but found it a pain to
bother with so I decided to stick with Yahoo, which was working fine for me
until Sean's changes!)
SWM
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