Does causality give man an excuse?

[Marc K.]

Would you say that you have proven existence exists simply by looking at reality?

Yes. The evidence of your senses is also valid.

but you can't "prove" it without implicitly assuming it's true, ergo the assumption of its truth is prior to any attempted proof.

Yes, but any attempt to disprove it also assumes it -- this is the definition of an axiom. It is proper to correctly identify the base of all knowledge. The fact that a piece of knowledge must be assumed in any attempt to deny it is all the proof I need to know that it is true.

[RationalBiker]

The fact that it could not have happened differently does not mean the option that was not decided on never existed.

This is a red herring. I did not say the options did not exist just because one would deterministically only choose one. However, I would say that they might as well not exist (or that they don't matter) if the organism would only choose one and had no choice in the matter. A thousand options may lay before someone but 999 don't matter is if the person's decision is controlled by brain chemistry and wiring. Your view appears to be essentially that man is a biological robot.

At any rate, my point was not so much to argue for or against free will. Rather, it's to get you to see the contradiction of your position. I'm thinking our understanding of the word "choice" (as it relates to the philosophical concept of "free will") is fundamentally different. Having a billion options before you and picking one does not necessarily mean one has made a choice. A "choice" only exists if man by his own violition could choose any of those billion options without it being determined by the chemistry and "wiring" of his brain over which he has NO control. You do realize that right?

I mention the following as implications, not as arguments to support free will. I understand that implications do not necessarily translate into evidence for or against a proposition.

The logical implication of your position is that from the time you are born, you have no control over anything. Your biological build is already there, and that determines how much "better" or "worse" that biological build will be throughout your life (or rather puppethood) until you die. The "wiring" and chemistry in your brain will determine what the "wiring" and chemistry in your brain will be the next second, and the one after that, and so forth until you die. There is no point in which "you" can alter what was set into motion when you were born.

PS: And for the record, I don't entertain such hypotheticals as "if man travelled back in time, blah blah blah.." Man can't travel back in time so that's of no use to me.

Edited July 14, 2007 by RationalBiker

[DarkWaters]

Your concept of choice is extremely tied up with non-determinism. Mine is not.

Having a choice, meaning that there are multiple feasible solutions, is certainly different from having the ability to choose. Consider a system of mathematical inequalities that has multiple distinct solutions.

You are claiming that human decision processes are essentially a deterministic algorithm. That is, given a complete set of initial conditions, and a set of choices, the decision maker will invariably arrive at a single conclusion. This is not free will. I am claiming that humans have the ability to arbitrarily choose any feasible solution. This is free will. Under these terms, we both seem to agree that the decision maker possesses a set of possible choices. However, without free will, is it really fair to call this process choosing?

How on earth did you get [the suspicion that I was making a Kantian epistemological claim]?

Because you said that the only evidence was introspection. That is, in our own minds and not from observing reality.

Just like I don't know, and can't disproof that god almighty, the great pink elephant is in control of my mind. But just because I cant disprove it, does not mean it exists.

I agree with you here. You cannot claim that anything inevitably determines how we make our choices, be it a religious deity, a pink elephant or some deterministic biological process until you prove that it exists. Analogously, the burden is not on me to disprove the existence of this deterministic biological process.

I believe I finally understand your position now. You do not believe in free will. You just believe that individuals face choices, possess the ability to think and to evaluate and that we undergo complex, but deterministic processes to arrive at a conclusion. However, you believe that ultimately we have no ability to change the inevitable course our minds are on.

Edited July 14, 2007 by DarkWaters

[RationalBiker]

I believe I finally understand your position now. You do not believe in free will. You just believe that individuals face choices, possess the ability to think and to evaluate and that we undergo complex, but deterministic processes to arrive at a conclusion. However, you believe that ultimately we have no ability to change the inevitable course our minds are on.

Yes, I agree. This is pretty much the same as my term "biological robots". As I alluded to, this has massive implications on moral evaluations.

[Praxus]

Yes. The evidence of your senses is also valid.

Yes, but any attempt to disprove it also assumes it -- this is the definition of an axiom. It is proper to correctly identify the base of all knowledge. The fact that a piece of knowledge must be assumed in any attempt to deny it is all the proof I need to know that it is true.

A proof is a logical demonstration based on knowledge which is antecedent to that which you are proving. There is no knowledge prior (hierarchically) to axioms, so they can not be proved, they can only be shown.

[hunterrose]

Logic plus knowledge leads to somehting -- one right answer, and any number of wrong answers (not just one wrong answer). But if you hold an opposing view, I want to see your disfunctional argument... I seem to be saying that if a man uses logic then a single set of facts leads to a single conclusion

A counterexample? Take chess. In very simple terms, no one has enough information to conclude that any given opening is *the* single logical answer.

You (seem to) say that our chess-playing Groundhog Day guy will, if without memory of his last episodes, will:

1. play the same opening move again and again... if he is rational
   
2. May play different opening moves only if he acts irrationally
   

The first smells of determinism - it's saying that the rational man, in a given situation, is going to perform the one(??) rational move, and if he confronted the situation again in the exact same state, he'd deterministically perform that same one move.

The second relegates choosing different paths under identical environments to irrational behavior - which sounds like only irrational people can volitionally choose which move to play.

And you seem to discount the third option:

C. may play different

rational

opening moves

even though it avoids what seems (to me) a false dichotomy between being determined and being irrational.

Now, if a man were thinking rationally and logically, then every time we went back in time, he would always make the same decision. This isn't determinism, this is causality. The facts presented to him, combined with his choice to approach them logically, will always lead him to the same conclusion.

Why, when there isn't one logical answer for some questions??

[Marc K.]

A proof is a logical demonstration based on knowledge which is antecedent to that which you are proving. There is no knowledge prior (hierarchically) to axioms, so they can not be proved, they can only be shown.

Well, I just drove six hours from Geneva, NY to Long Island and guess what ... I chose to take a different route than I usually do ... and it was better ... hurray for volition.

Anyway, I don't have my copy of OPAR in front of me, and I don't think we disagree on the issue of determinism and freewill, just what constitutes proof.

And I would say if proof means: shown to be true, then axioms can be proven. And if you asked me to prove that the beer bottle in front of me is real -- I should think that seeing or touching it is proof that it exists.

[Marc K.]

There is no point in which "you" can alter what was set into motion when you were born.

Yes. And not only that, nothing can be altered in all of time, everything was determined before time began ... I guess by the god of determinism ... actually he would have had to be determined also by some power higher than him.

And as we all know, infinite regressions do not exist.

Edited July 15, 2007 by Marc K.

[Praxus]

Well, I just drove six hours from Geneva, NY to Long Island and guess what ... I chose to take a different route than I usually do ... and it was better ... hurray for volition.

Ouch, at least you didn't take the long route.

Anyway, I don't have my copy of OPAR in front of me, and I don't think we disagree on the issue of determinism and freewill, just what constitutes proof.

I agree.

And I would say if proof means: shown to be true, then axioms can be proven. And if you asked me to prove that the beer bottle in front of me is real -- I should think that seeing or touching it is proof that it exists.

Sense perception is not sufficient to prove something as you have not yet validated it. You do that via axioms, thus concluding sense perception is valid because it is valid, which is logically fallacious.

Any "proof" of axioms would necessarily be begging the question; you would be assuming to be true that which you are trying to prove.

Edited July 15, 2007 by Praxus

[DavidOdden]

A counterexample? Take chess. In very simple terms, no one has enough information to conclude that any given opening is *the* single logical answer.

This discussion suffers from the fact that you haven't shown how application of logic to knowledge yields any answers. I'm not a chess player so you'll have to flesh this out. What I'd like you to do is state a relevant knowledge hierarchy (you can omit the part that indicates the referent "legal move" which I know), where you can conclude "moves X, Y, Z would be logical moves, A, B, C would be illogical". I want to see concretes of how a man can be faced with alternatives and be incapable of applying reason to chosing between them. I also want to emphasize the word hierarchy, and point out that a higher order principle may be higher order not only because of a logical entailment relationship, but also because one statement in your knowledge context may be more securely true (be closer to axiomatic).

[RationalBiker]

I'm not a chess player so you'll have to flesh this out. What I'd like you to do is state a relevant knowledge hierarchy (you can omit the part that indicates the referent "legal move" which I know), where you can conclude "moves X, Y, Z would be logical moves, A, B, C would be illogical".

I can take a stab at this. However, the following assumes that we are talking about a chess at the level of the highest level players, say Masters or Grand Masters.

Simply referring to the initial opening move, as opposed to the whole "opening", only certain pawn moves represent sound logical choices. You will never see an opening with a Rook's pawn. This is because the beginning of the game sets the struggle for control of the center of the board into the middle game. So either A2-A3 (or A4) or H2-H3 (or H4) would be illogical moves. Likewise, openings starting with (queen's pawn) D2-D3 (or D4) or (king's pawn) E2-E3 (or E4) are logical openings, each of which can be equally strong for gaining the center ground. Lacking some specific knowledge about how a particular opponent plays, each of these openings is "equally" logical.

Now, looking at the broader term of "opening", the same holds true as well. An "opening" is essentially a sequence of moves by both sides that is recognized as one of a number of sound ways to start a game of chess. There are many recognized "openings", each of which represents logical ways to start a game, but there are far many more illogical "openings", sequences which make absolutely no sense in terms of progressing towards the middle game or the final goal of winning the game. Some logical openings may or may not be stronger against particular opponents, but many times, within the context of knowledge one player may have of another (and of course himself), one logical opening could be equally as logical (or strong) as the next logical opening.

I hope that helps illustrate hunter's chess example anyway.

[DavidOdden]

Lacking some specific knowledge about how a particular opponent plays, each of these openings is "equally" logical.

Okay, and let's suppose that you don't know your specific opponent. Then you can rule out certain moves as immoral, and you have to decide among the others. How in fact do you decide what your opening move should be (maybe we can call the "whole opening" the opening sequence, for the sake of clarity)? By "you", I mean you, hunter, or any given individual -- I'm not looking for a general rule, just an understanding of what leads to a person making a specific opening move.

[RationalBiker]

I'm not looking for a general rule, just an understanding of what leads to a person making a specific opening move.

Well, not being a master level player myself, I can only speculate on some things that I think may be considered. The player may have a particular opening sequence with which he is more familiar or more comfortable. Or, he may have opened with that particular sequence frequently of late and may choose to play a different opening so as not to become predictable or so he can become more familiar with a different opening sequence. Perhaps the game he's about to undertake would be a good time to practice a new opening sequence he had not played before but that he had recently studied. It is something of a necessity for a high level player to have a variety of opening sequences in his repertoire.

Sidenote: I do need to clarify that it's highly unlikely on the Grand Master level of play that one Grand Master is going to go up against another truly "blind" about the strengths and weaknesses of his game. Grand Masters would simply not ignore such valuable information. Among other things, complete chess games are easily available in notation form (by way of a variety of media) and can be studied by anyone who coughs up enough dough to buy the latest ChessBase (an immense database of chess games) program. It would be far more likely to happen at the Master level (and maybe Senior Master level) where you have a significantly larger field of players at that ranking.

[DavidOdden]

The player may have a particular opening sequence with which he is more familiar or more comfortable.

I'm not sure about the comfort question, but certainly familiarity would be very sensible. An opening move implies selecting / precluding certain opening sequences, and if you don't really understand ~ remember one of those sequences, it would be unwise to select an opening move that entailed a greater risk of losing downstream. So that would be a good application of logic to knowledge -- you know what you do and don't know, and use that to decide on the action that will lead to your winning.

Or, he may have opened with that particular sequence frequently of late and may choose to play a different opening so as not to become predictable or so he can become more familiar with a different opening sequence.

Another very logical conclusion where you take what you know and come to a conclusion. Especially if your opening sequence is known by your opponent and you know that it is known, then it could be logical to not follow an older pattern. I would think that whether you go for your "classical" opening or an alternative would depend on having some knowledge of your opponent (does he actually know that this is how you start all your games). For instance, if nobody has ever observed you play before, you don't have to consider the factor of the opponent deducing your strategy from the start, but if there is a public record of your last 200 games, then that would be knowledge to take into consideration. In that case, I would think that you'd want to calculate the risk of being "figured out" versus the risk of pursuing a strategy that you don't understand. Since I don't play chess I don't know how people approach this, but I would think that this would mean asking yourself "What exactly are the first 15 steps in this strategy" and if you only know (or can figure out) about three of them, that means that you're relying more on the "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it" strategy, that is, you're abandoning the enterprise of long-range planning.

So in the hierarchy of things, certain choices are clearly illogical, and others are entertainable; and within that context, the choice between a move whose consequences you understand well, versus one whose consequences you don't understand at all would logically lead you to a particular choice -- if your goal is winning. (Whereas, if your goal is learning more about the game, you might pursue the seemingly illogical path. But a choice is logical or illogical only in terms of achieving a goal, so I won't be talking about chess as education, only about winning). Anyhow, we've honed the case to the point that we're trying to compare conclusions, to sort out whether you are in fact too predictable vs. whether an alternative move is too unpredictable. The best hope for the random choice theory that I can see is getting to the conclusion that the risks are equal as far as you can determine. In that case, two other factors which are lower on the hierarchy do become relevant. One is the education factor goal, that even if your primary goal is to win, that does not mean that "also learning more about the game" can't be a reasonable secondary goal, and that would logically move to to the new strategy. Secondly, if you've established a pattern in public, following a new opening reduces your predictability, so that for future games, a different-opening strategy today may enhance your chances of winning in the future (assuming, again, that you have a long-term goal of winning as much as possible, not just winning today).

When hunter wakes up, maybe he will fill in the scenario where it is simply impossible to integrate the sum of his knowledge and reach a logical conclusion about what move to make. [There is a subtle fact that I could reveal, namely that in my business, we have a game-theoretic account of decisions where you are guaranteed to get a unique result from a particular knowledge hierarchy, which is why I know that in Highlander fashion, there can be only one. The two escape hatchs are denying the hierarchical structure of knowledge, and forgetting seemingly unimportant knowledge. So I want to see to what extent the chess problem can still lead to non-unique results if you ban context-dropping and don't allow unordered "knowledge in a bag".]

[Ifat Glassman]

Don't have much time to write, but post #52 by RationalBiker seems to have enough meat on it to reply. I'll come back to it later to finish my reply, but for now I'll say what I have.

Your view appears to be essentially that man is a biological robot.

Yes, exactly. Man is a biological robot: one that is capable of rational thinking, decision making, information processing, shifting attention and focus, having emotions, self-awareness, etc'.

Maybe it would make it easier to understand my concept of choice by following this chain of thought:

Imagine a very sophisticated robot, that is capable of learning, integrating, remembering, creating abstractions, process visual information into a meaningful picture etc': it does all of the analysis in electronic circuits, and the output is a bunch of electrical signals.

Every action of this robot is dictated by it's wiring, software, and input that it receives (and any other external conditions that might affect it).

Now imagine you add to this robot the phenomena of awareness: meaning that each of the automatic functions - the robot not only performs, but a perception of it is also added. It is capable not only of processing wavelengths, but also to experience a certain representation of them. It also has a perception of "self", and every thought it has, the robot has a perception of "I think X". When the robot makes a choice, it feels for the robot (and the feeling is in fact real) that it was the robot itself that had made the choice.

The robot is capable of thinking, making decisions, shifting his/her mental focus, making friends, etc'. The robot is like a human.

I realize this view may be very upsetting and annoying. When I started thinking of this topic myself it was a struggle as well. But eventually, after considering everything I know without letting my emotions come in the way, I realized that all evidence suggests that this is true. There is no evidence that support any other theory, and a lot that supports this one. But it takes mountains of integrity, and dedication to the truth to be able to recognize it. Mainly, it requires to consider facts only, and not how you feel about facts or what you would like facts to be, and also having the right knowledge, to be able to make the right connections.

EDIT: I want to add that having this view does not damage my happiness, pride or life in any way. So my actions are deterministic - big deal, so what? I am alive, I can think, I can feel. I have a nature, and I am happy to have it, and I accept it. You won't find any traces of cynicism or helplessness in my attitude towards life. I am not trying to justify some inaction. I am simply looking for the truth.

Edited July 15, 2007 by ifatart

[RationalBiker]

But it takes mountains of integrity, and dedication to the truth to be able to recognize it.

On the contrary, it takes absolutely no integrity or dedication to "truth" at all, at least not according to your theory. It takes no effort at all. Your brain chemistry and wiring were already determined to do that, you had no choice in the matter and no amount of "you" was involved in that effort at all. Everything that "you" are was determined at birth, and nothing you can possibly do is worthy of praise or condemnation. You have absolutely nothing to be proud of in terms of cutting off your emotions and being objective enough to see this light; you were bound to do it anyway.

You can't sneak in some lofty credit for yourself as though "you" actually had anything to do with realizing this "truth". For "you" to have had anything to do with your own development, you would have to recognize that you were actually free to have chosen NOT to make the choices and decisions you made versus having them determined by wiring and chemistry.

Nevertheless, while YOU may be some biological robot, I'm not. That works for me.

Edited July 15, 2007 by RationalBiker

[RationalBiker]

Especially if your opening sequence is known by your opponent and you know that it is known, then it could be logical to not follow an older pattern.

Just a point of clarification; an "opening" (opening sequence) consists of a series of moves by BOTH players, not simply one or the other. There is a certain predictability involved because both players will know the sequence of moves of a given opening whether it be a 5 moves or 25 moves. The point at which one player "strays" from an opening, it could either turn into a different opening, a variation of the starting opening, or something that is not recognized as an opening altogether. In the later case, you have just entered the middle game.

[Marc K.]

Ifat, you conceded this point in the previous discussion we had on freewill here.

You didn't like the way I had answered somebody and I asked you if I could have done it differently and you answered yes.

So Ifat, if you really think that our actions are predetermined, which, as I pointed out, is in conflict with your statement in the previous thread, then I think you owe me an apology for getting so upset at me in that thread, after all I had no choice in the matter. I will wait here and not move a muscle until you do, so please don't make me wait too long, I might starve.

Edited July 15, 2007 by Marc K.

[Marc K.]

RationalBiker and DavidOdden,

I guess you guys are going to have to type in smaller paragraphs for me because I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make.

Are you saying that given a certain set of circumstances a rational man will always choose the same way? If so, I don't think this is true. Doesn't this ignore fallibility and optional values?

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I think the problem of those who think of man as a biological robot or that he is ultimately deterministic because he is made of matter is that you are starting in mid-stream; and that you don't realize that volition is self evident while the knowledge that material things such as rocks and sand are not operated by consciousness is a scientific advancement.

The concept of determinism is dependent upon the concept of volition; that is, the realization that you are capable of making choices via your consciousness comes before the realization that material things (such as rocks) do not have the power of choice. By "before" I mean epistemologically.

While volition is not an axiom, consciousness is; meaning that you are aware that you are aware at a very early age. And no amount of scientific knowledge about man's brain and his body can wipe out that axiomatic knowledge that you are aware of existence.

Likewise with volition, which is realized at a very early age when you decide that you don't have to do what your parents are telling you what to do. For man, volition is almost a corollary of consciousness. That is, once you realize you have a mind you can then realize that you can control your mind -- i.e. make decisions.

It is not an accident that primitive man considered all of nature to be operated by spirits, because it is self-evident that man has a spirit (his consciousness) and that his spirit guides him to do the things he does (volition). Given that it was self-evident that man is operated by such a spirit it was natural to assume that all of nature is operated by spirits -- i.e. that rocks do what they do because they choose to do it. The realization that rocks and other non-man aspects of nature are not operated by spirits was a scientific advancement. That is, the fact that a rock rolls down hill and cannot choose to go uphill was a realization to be able to differentiate man from other aspects of nature.

To take that differentiation and then apply it to man, to claim that since man is composed of matter therefore he does not really have a consciousness or free will is to violate this scientific advancement -- i.e. to obliterate the difference between man and non-volitional aspects of nature.

How we get consciousness and volition is not known at this point in the details, but it is obvious that we do have these and that we have these because we are what we are; that somehow in our biological make-up we gained the power of consciousness and volition. We are basically born with these abilities, and no amount of knowledge about synapses can erase those powers. They exist and they are real.

Any integration of what we know about non-conscious and non-volitional matter cannot deny that man has both consciousness and volition. If such a supposed integration denies these self-evident truths, then it is not an actual integration.

Proper epistemological integration starts with the self-evident and works out from there in a non-contradictory manner.

To say that man does not have consciousness or volition because, as far as we know we are composed of matter, is to deny a rational epistemological hierarchy of knowledge.

Edited July 15, 2007 by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

[DavidOdden]

Are you saying that given a certain set of circumstances a rational man will always choose the same way? If so, I don't think this is true. Doesn't this ignore fallibility and optional values?

Looks like I musta hit the wrong button, so the earlier reply went straight to oblivion. Anyhow, fallibility means that a person's decision may not reach the goal intended. A rational person knows that results aren't guaranteed and uses that fact in arriving at a choice of actions. If you act and fail, that failure becomes part of your knowledge which you will use at possibly reaching a different set of conclusions. An optional valus is something that is a value, but not for all men, thus "having children". A decision is made by one man, and if he is rational, it is based on his values. So I don't see how optional values can make a difference. However I emphatically I am not saying that giver a certain set of circumstances, all men will act the same unique way. I am saying that given the totality of a man's knowledge, if he is acting rationally, there is one conclusion he should reach. That is, you apply logic to your premises, your knowledge, and conclude "A" or "not-A", and you do not conclude "A and not-A". But if someone know of a way to arrive at contradictory conclusions from one set of premises, I'm all ears. Or eyes.

[hunterrose]

Many times, within the context of knowledge one player may have, one logical opening could be equally as logical (or strong) as the next logical opening.

I hope that helps illustrate hunter's chess example anyway.

It does, thank you.

When hunter wakes up, maybe he will fill in the scenario where it is simply impossible to integrate the sum of his knowledge and reach a logical conclusion about what move to make.

It is outright impossible to know whether playing e4 or playing d4 for the opening move will lead to a better position 15 moves down the road, let alone know which will lead to winning. Both choices are good and logical conclusions, and all the known knowledge in the world isn't enough to determine which choice is the logical conclusion.

When one choice is objectively better than the other, or one choice is significantly better within the context of one's knowledge, then (and only then) I agree that there is a single logical answer.

Eventually, I realized that all evidence suggests that [the theory that man is a biological robot] is true. There is no evidence that support any other theory, and a lot that supports this one. But it takes mountains of integrity, and dedication to the truth to be able to recognize it.

Let's examine where integrity and truth lead us. You've said (several times) that all evidence suggests we are biobots. What evidence?

And hypothetically, what evidence would count as supporting the theory that humans aren't deterministic biobots?

An optional value is something that is a value, but not for all men, thus "having children".

For a specific man (with his specific knowledge and existing values), is choosing whether or not to value having children a choice with a single logical conclusion?

[DavidOdden]

It is outright impossible to know whether playing e4 or playing d4 for the opening move will lead to a better position 15 moves down the road, let alone know which will lead to winning.

Okay, so you are only considering move-combinatorics and the goal of winning, and from that perspective you appear to be saying that you can't select between e4 and d4. But as I pointed out, logic demands the integration of the totality of your knowledge and precludes the denial of the true. Under the assumptions you are working under, I assume that you must choose between e4 and d4 (other choices were precluded as illogical). On what basis do you make that decision? Like, do you just toss a mental coin? It's not one of those Holy Spirit things, is it?

When one choice is objectively better than the other, or one choice is significantly better within the context of one's knowledge, then (and only then) I agree that there is a single logical answer.

Why only "significantly" better? If one fact gives a small advantage to A versus B, are you saying that you should ignore that factor?

For a specific man (with his specific knowledge and existing values), is choosing whether or not to value having children a choice with a single logical conclusion?

Of course.

[Seeker]

A "choice" only exists if man by his own violition could choose any of those billion options without it being determined by the chemistry and "wiring" of his brain over which he has NO control. You do realize that right?

RationalBiker, are you saying here that "the chemistry and 'wiring' of [one's] brain" are separate and distinct from oneself, or is that simply your characterization of Ifat's position?

Edited July 15, 2007 by Seeker

[RationalBiker]

RationalBiker, are you saying here that "the chemistry and 'wiring' of [one's] brain" are separate and distinct from oneself, or is that simply your characterization of Ifat's position?

I was characterizing what I understand her position to be.

Let me clarify further. One's chemistry and "wiring" are part of one's self, but I do not see them as determining one's choices and actions. Ifat does. I do not think man is a robot, Ifat does.

Edited July 15, 2007 by RationalBiker