How to Dissolve the Problem of Free Will and Determinism

A public lecture I gave at my university on some research I've been doing.

The debate over free will and determinism and their role in understanding human behavior and moral responsibility goes back as far as the Ancient Greeks. The modern argument has migrated to the field of neuroscience. Yet neither the modern debate, nor its historical predecessors have managed to provide much illumination of either human behavior or moral responsibility. In this talk, I will argue that we should abandon the concepts of free will and determinism entirely and instead shift towards thinking in alternate terms that will allow us to explain human behavior in terms of modern neuroscience and still make sense of moral responsibility.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Free will
• determinism
• neuroscience
• explanation
• philosophy of science
• philosophy of religion
• compatiblism
• incompatiblism
• Patricia Churchland
• control
• responsibility
• Jean Paul Sartre
• Benjamin Libet

[zarkoff45]

Two neuroscientists walking along a road find a severely beaten man lying broken and bleeding in the gutter. The first neuroscientist turns to the other and says, "The man who did this needs our help."

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@HedgehogRebellion "But that's it! Determinism!"

But there is no evidence that the world we live in is deterministic, and ample evidence that it isn't. There's quantum indeterminacy, for one, but there are also many stochastic processes on the macro level as well, including the development of the human brain. This Newtonian/Laplacean vision of determinism simply has no scientific foundation. That doesn't mean we have free will, but it does mean Newtonian determinism is false.

[HKfuntime]

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

Fyodor Dostoevsky. That's the quote I think you were going for. (:

[gamecraziness2]

@SisyphusRedeemed "stochastic processes on the macro level" are deterministic, only difficult to model and sensitive to initial conditions. Chaotic systems appear to be random, but are actually fully deterministic (see the Wikipedia article on chaos theory for more information). To my knowledge, quantum physics is the only scientific domain which is not deterministic.

[sniped101]

we have free will.. I mean... God said it... :)

[HedgehogRebellion]

@SisyphusRedeemed Well, this has been one of the more satisfying exchanges Ive had, but I think weve hit pavement here. My position remains that luck is the fundamental force in our lives. It covers both bases:

1) If the universe is deterministic, then the unyielding progression of events defines us

2) If the universe is deterministic, then all is luck.

Thanks man, you are a veryt intelligent guy, and Ive really enjoyed this.

[SisyphusRedeemed]

@HedgehogRebellion ".but does not make it random in that NOTHING CAUSED it."

Well, a free-will proponent would say 'of course something caused it--your free will caused it!' But that's not my angle. I'd say you're right, it doesn't necessarily mean nothing caused it, but it doesn't have to. What it DOES mean is that we have no scientific basis for determinism. The argument boils down to "How can this be?", an argument from incredulity.

[HedgehogRebellion]

@HedgehogRebellion In a way I find indeterministic arguments self-refuting, becasue if the universe is truly indeterministic then how could I ever determine that it was indeterminate.Which leaves 2 possibilities:

1) The universe is at least for our concerns deterministic

2) Its indeterminate so what do we really know anyway.

I would argue that an indeterminate universe is the best proof of all that everything boils down to luck

[HedgehogRebellion]

@SisyphusRedeemed My problem with stochastics is that just because we got a result that was not predictable by knowledge of the initial condition, that may make it random in the sense that our model simply didnt have enough input...but does not make it random in that NOTHING CAUSED it. How can this be?

As far as quantuim physics goes my understanding has always been that "Logic breaks down at the sub-atomic level". Electron-spin and other phenomenau do not seem to apply to the macro.

[HedgehogRebellion]

@SisyphusRedeemed Imagine the movement of a billard ball on a table. IF you plot it's straight line then you know where it will be in another minute. NOW if something hits it you have to consider how the force knocked it off its trajectory to calculate a future position.

My position is that the brain we have at the moment of out birth is like the ball, and all the events of our lives that shape the filters thru which we view the world are like the balls that hit it.But that's it! Determinism!