Vladimir Berkov

It just seems very bizarre to me. It is easy to understand why certain environmentalists would embrace a false science of global warming. What is not easy to understand is why the majority of academic research and government scientists would. Certainly I can see a bias, but not an intentional hoax. That is why I asked whether objectivists looked to some specific cadre of scientists who were refuting the mainstream view. Because philosophers simply cannot debate science with scientists. There needs to be some hard science out there which disproves the global warming "hoax" that ARI must be using.

Certainly the state of the science has changed from when Rand wrote that (likely in the 70s or perhaps early 80s?) I am certainly no expert on climate, but from what I understand global warming is happening. The dispute is over whether it is caused by rising CO2 levels due to industrialization or general climatic shifts which have occurred long before humans arrived on the scene. I guess my question is whether there are scientists that objectivists look to for guideance on this issue, and if so, which ones? It seems rather strange for a philosophy to take a position on a factual issue, so I am assuming that it must be because there is some scientific community support for the idea that global warming is a hoax.

So from what I am hearing the problem with global warming is a factual dispute? IE, there is no proof of global warming, and it is impossible for the risks to be that severe?

What is the "official" objectivist position on global warming exactly? Is it that the science behind it is all wrong and that global warming (if it is occurring at all) is just the result of natural climate trends? Is it that humans may be contributing to global warming but there is no real risk to humans? Is it that humans may be contributing to global warming and there is a real risk, but the government is prohibited from intervening?

It doesn't contradict it at all. The human mind is not omniscient. What a hypothetically omniscient computer might to is completely irrelevant to what the human mind can do.

As I said, the hypothetical is not perfect in every respect. The point of it to show is that the appearance of choice does not equal an actual possibility of different outcomes. That is all. I hold nothing of the sort. My point is not that there is an "unbridgable gap" between reality and knowledge, but that in most cases there is a difference between th reality and any individual's knowledge of part of it. Humans are not all-knowing, and in most circumstances do not even have access to most of the knowledge which is potentially available. I am not questioning the validity between what knowledge humans do have, I am simply saying that humans do not always have all potential knowlege which might affect their judgment about a given situation. Not exactly. There is a difference between holding people accountable for their actions and structuring societal laws and norms to guide human action. Determinism doesn't mandate the absence of choice. It it simply a backwards-looking theory, not a forward-looking one. It doesn't mean you can't have laws or norms shaping and guiding human action, or punishing people who deviate from it. What it does mean is that preconditions should be taken into account in making moral judgment, that is not the end of the story however.

I don't think it is possible for humans to act as if their choices were determined. For example, assume that determinism is true. How does this knowledge help you make choices? You can't know what outcome has been determined, or what choices you will make in the end. I am using the determinist position as evidenced in all of the legal literature I have studied where determinism is equivilant to holding that all human thought and action is ultimately mechanistic and there is no break in the causal chain between the physical world and human action. My objection is still the same, however. The variety of reasons/factors we use in making choices are ultimately determined by the external world. So for it to be possible for a human to have chosen differently because his reasons/factors in decisionmaking were different, you are holding that somehow the physical world is different as well. The problem is that there is no evidence that there is any break between physical "deterministic" causation and mental "volitional" causation. Peikoff wants to carve out an exception to physical mechanistic causation, although he does it by the roundabout method of extending the definition of causation. In essence, Peikoff wants to have his cake and eat it too. He doesn't want to deny the reality of physical, mechanistic determinism yet he wants to preserve a non-mechanistic, non-deterministic form of causation for human action to be "uncaused" by the outside world. The problem is that there simply seems no validity to this, other than the desire for humans to think their decisions are "free" and uncaused by their preconditions. The difference between "hard" and "soft" determinism isn't in their view of the nature of reality, it is in their view of the implications on morality. Both viewpoints believe that human choices could not have been otherwise, only the "hard" determinists also thinks this necessitates that humans cannot be held morally responsible for any actions they do. My point in the example is simply to show that while a man may believe he has the "choice" to create different outcomes, that does not mean that there is ever a possibility of different outcomes.

Lol. A trick? That is kind of funny. I am still not exactly sure what your "gravity argument" is or how it is at all relevant. I entirely agree that every manifestation of the universe in a sense is necessary in that it couldn't have been otherwise, that is the entire point of the determinist position. The difference between gravity and volition is that they do not have equal relevance as concepts in this discussion, although from what I can tell you are attempting to show how they are. It is sometimes called the "compatibilist" position, because it combines mechanistic determination with the belief that humans can be held responsible for the decisions they make guided by reason. I don't even understand this question. You are trying to figure out my position on sense-perception?

Because if man has no awareness of how his actions are determined he will act as if he has free will. This is an good point. When I am talking about the prior conditions I am including the internal (mental) conditions of the individual up to the point where the choice is made. The thing is, however, that Peikoff can't agree with me that the premises, psychology, etc. is included and that the man would choose the same. This is because it would simply yeild another form of determinism, a form of "internal determinism" instead of external. It would be saying that the material external world is mechanistic and separate from the causal chain inside the human mind, but the human mind has its own deterministic causal chain resulting in the same choice every time. I don't see how the cognitive factor could be different. The array of cognitive factors I use in the decision and their weight seems entirely determined by the preconditions. In your hypo, my anorexia is the factor that tips the scale in favor of soup. If the "experiment" was run again, unless I somehow didn't have anorexia, the outcome would be identiacal. For Peikoff to say the outcome might be diffrent either there must be some difference in the cognitive factors or else a change in their weight. And since cognitive factors are directly dependant on the person's environment, history, personality, etc, their change would require a change in those areas as well. It is not definitive at all. Yet it is far more problematic for Peikoff than any extremist "hard" determinist position he characterizes. At best, it means his reductio argument in favor of free will needs to be rewritten to account for it. This is because humans have a unique view on reality in the sense that although their actions can be seen to be determined by looking at them once they are completed, because humans can think and have self-awareness they have a view at the moment of choice in which different possibilities seem open. This is in part because humans don't have the knowledge of what deterministic factors influence their decision or what their decision will be. I am trying to think of a good example, and this is the best I have come up with so far although it is not perfect. Imagine a man trying to defuse a bomb. There are two wires he could cut, red and green. He is told that cutting one wire defuses the bomb and cutting the other will detonate the bomb. He agonizes over which to cut and eventually settles on cutting the green wire. The bomb stops ticking and he sighs with relief. What he does not know is that the bomb was actually designed such that cutting EITHER wire would have defused the bomb. The detonation/disarming choice was after a fashion, only illusory. In reality, the outcome would be the same in each instance regardless of the "choice" made. I realize there are some problems with this hypo but it might help a bit.

I think the problem is that you think the term "choice" presupposes libertarian free will, whereas I would say that "choice" simply refers to the outcome of an essentially mechanistic, yet rational process. And as I have said earlier, some of man's volabulary does seem to presuppose the idea of true libertarian free will. This doesn't mean that such a thing exists, that simply means that this is the way humans talk. This is due to the unique view that humans have of reality, rather than the nature of reality itself. If you are asking me for a proof that free will does not exist I am afraid I have not the knowledge to make such a proof. Right now I am only interested in the potential complications of various theories of free will, and I don't see a "hard" libertarian approach as being proved by Peikoff in OPAR.

I agree with you to a point. Philosophers should define their terms and Ayn Rand was good, in general, about defining terms. The problem I have with a lot of objectivist definitions is that they are unnecessary. For reference see the recent thread in which the definition of "possible" was discussed at length. I think that when a philosopher has a new concept and wants to use a word to describe it the best plan is to use a new word. Redefining a word with an already-accepted meaning is a poor substitute, because it causes confusion among those familiar only with the accepted usage and casts doubt on the necessity of the new concept. Not exactly. This skirts dangerously close to the problem I had earlier with objectivists and defining the "possible." But in general, a world where gravity did not act as it does in our world might be "possible" in some sense. For instance, if gravity was a repellant instead of attractive force, one can imagine a universe in which such a force can exist. It would be radically different from our universe of course. My point on necessity was simply that the force of gravity is necessary to the makeup of our universe, whereas volition is not. This is easy to see in that there was no being with "volition" at the time the universe began, yet the universe still existed. Nor would we think the universe would come to an end if all volitional beings ceased to exist. Axioms are an inherently dangerous mode of knowledge. For instance, I could just as easily say "God exists. One needs only to introspect to see it." In fact, this is the EXACT argument many religious people have used to try to convince me I should believe in God. To be a true axiom something needs to be beyond the scope of reasonable doubt or possible alternative explanation. This doesn't seem to be the case with free will. There is ample physical evidence that free will does not exist, and ample well-thought-out philosophic arguments for why it doesn't. This isn't the type of thing you see if something is axiomatic. "Existance exists" is more along the lines of a true axiom. People who doubt that existance exists (in some form) essentially write themselves out of serious consideration, and cannot live their lives in any meaningful way. However people can deny that true "libertarian" free will exists, and go on to lead productive useful lives, and their denial in no meaningful way affects their other arguments, the faculty of reason, their identity as men, etc. There is a difference between explaining human action and influencing future action. Accepting a deterministic or partly-deterministic worldview doesn't mean the future is "mandated" in the sense that all human action is pointless. What it means is that human society should be structured around the elements of human conciousness which are the least directly determined by environment and are the most guided by the process of human reason. Determinism/mechanism doesn't mean reason doesn't exist, it just means the prerequisite "inputs" to human reason will determine the outcome. Human society can be structured so that these inputs are in accordance with that society's values. Again, this is the essential problem with all deterministic worldviews and why a straight "hard" determinism is largely irrelevant. Regardless of proof, humans act as if they had free will. Thus law and society needs to take account of that fact. How this should best be done is a matter of some debate, there is a myriad of viewpoints on the best system.

I am not sure what your point is. The difference between gravity and volition is that the concept "gravity" refers to a force which has existed since the beginning of time where as the concept "volition" refers explicitly to an element of humanity, which has not. Gravity is necessary in the sense that without it all physical interactions and processes as we know them would not exist. Volition is not necessary in the sense that whether it exists or does not in no way affects the mechanistic operation of the natural world. Actually it is the basis of Peikoff's argument. Peikoff has no ability to explain any scientific or factual basis for why "volition" or free will exists, hence he argues from the negative. By stating a straw-man determinist alternative to volition and showing why it is impossible, he thus "proves" that his concept of volition must be true and is axiomatic. I am fairly familiar with now objectivism treats axioms in the sense it holds some things axiomatic which other philosophers do not. If you mean that objectivism has some special definition of axiom which is contrary to the accepted dictionary and academic definition I am not particularly interested in hearing about it. Objectivism already has tried to change the meanings of too many words for my liking. It is easier to discuss philosophic matters if we stick to accepted usage rather than propriatary definitions.

In the two examples you gave, what would be different in each to cause the outcomes to be different? In each case the starting conditions would be the same, yet you seem to think the outcomes would differ? If so, what explains the difference? Certainly not science. Perhaps random chance? Luck? Would you think it equally likely to say that instead of a man murdering his wife it was a bear mauling the wife? Would you say the bear could have ended up making a different choice?

I am not an expert on B.F. Skinner, so I can't really comment on his position. I can only really comment on the current determinist position which I have studied quite a bit. The "modern" position is that mechanistic causation can explain (and theoretically predict) human behavior, but that man's rational thoughts and actions are still of importance for various reasons.

Peikoff's characterization requires awareness as it characterizes deterministic forces as a "force" automating a person's actions, thought, etc. If a person had no awareness of this force it would essentially not be a force on his actions at all. The deterministic position I am describing is sometimes also terms a mechanistic explaination, or a compatibilist position. It is not a "hard" determinist position which in addition to saying mechanistic forces explain human action also holds that humans are not responsible for their actions. This is essentially correct. I hold that determinism (mechanism) explains human action, but that this doesn't mean human's aren't guided by reason or can't be held accountable for their actions. By starting conditions I mean the complete state of the universe prior to the human choice/action. Man is indeed a part of the makeup of the universe, but man is not his own cause. Man is a product of the universe, and obviously did not exist from the beginning of time. Peikoff believes that there is something about human consciousness that "breaks" causal chains that existed prior to his action or intervention and that man's conscious, volitional actions are essentially an "uncaused cause" (as God was often held to be.) Essentially, Piekoff sees a disconnect between the mechanistic factors which influence man's consciousness (the universe) and man's intellect which chooses outcomes not necessary based on those factors as presented to him. For example, for lunch today I had soup although having a sandwich was also an option. Peikoff's position would mean that if we could somehow "turn back the clock" to 11:30 today before I made the choice to get soup, and let the clock start ticking again, I might very well end up getting a sandwich. Nothing in the makeup of the universe would have changed, none of the factors that influenced my lunch choice would have changed, yet somehow my choice would have changed. There may very well still be scholars or philosophers who entertain the idea of "hard" determinism. But these people have essentially been sidelined in the current academic debate for the obvious reason that their position is untenable not to mention impractical. In terms of my personal background on the subject, while getting my BA in philosophy I specialized for a time in the philosophy of science of which these issues play a large part. Now that I am in law school I am currently studying the issue of causation in the law in-depth, both in a seminar as well as an independant research project in which I am writing a law review note on three causally problematic areas of the law.

The reason I skipped over that section is because it does not answer the question. Peikoff's answer does (and should) strike us as odd. He essentially says that there is no reason to say that "mechanistic" causation is the only type of causation and that (apparently) there can be another kind, the kind where volition is causally irreducable yet doesn't violate the law of causality. This is, at best, skirting the issue. I am not sure what this has to do with volition. Gravity is different from volition because gravity is a natural law existing at all times simultaniously with whatever can be caused or acted upon. IE, at the time immediately following the Big Bang, gravity and all other natural laws governing matter, energy, etc were in existance as they are now. Similarly, you can trace the root of scientific causation to the Big Bang. In short you can say that gravity and the law of causation are "necessary" in the scientific sense. Neither the concept "volition" nor its referent has always existed, nor is it necessary, anymore than the concept "automobile" is. Objectivistism sees volition as more than a descriptive concept of scientific reality, however, it sees it as a exception to normal mechanistic, scientific processes. This is essentially the "layman" argument brought up earlier combined with the straw-man argument Peikoff uses. Nothing in the idea of a deterministic universe precludes rational, thinking beings discussing the idea of volition and accepting or denying it as the case may be. You are essentially assuming a determinist position which does not exist and then arguing why it is impossible. The difference between your position and mine is more than that. I would say that given the same set of preconditions, a man's choice will always be the same regardless of how many "trials" are run. You would say that given the same set of preconditions, a man's choice may (and likely will) be different each time. This I see as a flat-out contradiction of the nature of reality (quantum mechanics excepted).

I have a copy of OPAR in front of me open to the "Sense Perception and Volition" chapter. Here it is explicitly clear that Peikoff sees volition and choice as not necessitated by the starting conditions. Again, it is clear that Peikoff sees a disconnect between material causality and human volition. Here is where I think the big logical gap is. How is deciding governing reasons not governed by the starting conditions? Peikoff is stating, from what I can tell, that nothing in the makeup of the universe before a human choice will predict of necessitate the governing reasons a man uses to make a choice. This seems, on its face, entirely unfounded. Although Peikoff denies a hole in the law of causality, that is exactly what this is. To him, the human weighing of governing reasons is caused only by the human rather than any other preconditions. Thus it follows that to Peikoff, given the same initial starting conditions before a human choice, you could "run the experiment" multiple times and end up with different choices each time. This seems absurd to me. It turns human conciousness into a sort of quantum "switch" in the law of causality where normal rules don't apply. As to the straw-man argument, here it is: This is a straw-man argument because it assumes that the determinist position holds that man's consciousness is automatic, and that man can have "awareness" of some sort of the deterministic forces shaping his thoughts and actions. IE, it would be as if man was simply a passenger along for the ride who could see what was coming up ahead but not react to or change anything. The problem is that this is not a valid determinist position at all. A deterministic view of human choice does not mean that such choices are automatic or that humans have any knowledge whatsover about what "he had to accept." Whether or not the universe and human consciousness is deterministic, humans would still act as if they had free will because of their unique perspective of reality. As such morality, epistemology, and all other disciplines still have their essential function. The only thing that changes is that past decisions are said to be necessitated by their preconditions. IE, a decision could not have been otherwise. I won't go into Peikoff's absurd narrative characterization of a determinist on page 71 as it is just an even more absurd straw-man position based on the one I already quoted above.

I have read Freedom Evolves and found it a very interesting book. Dennet's discussion of game theory and complex outcomes in particular was very interesting to me. The type of insight Dennet seeks in regards to free will is what I look for in any intelligent discussion. Not "free will is axiomatic, end of story" as many here seem to believe. As with many other things, I have a "gut feeling" that many objectivists believe that abandoning the axiom of free will means the entire objectivist house of cards will crumble. I think Dennet's book shows how this is far from the truth.

I am afraid I don't understand the question. Are you asking me what methods I would use or what level of proof/evidence I would demand?

It would indeed be interesting to see the advanced objectivist materials on the subject. Hopefully at some point in the future I will have the time to study them. What disturbs me about the objectivism position as I currently see it is the acceptance of free will as an axiom, and saying that the denial of it as such is a denial of "everything" ie reason, logic, existance, etc. I think it is clear that free will is far from axiomatic, the opinion of the "layman" being largely irrelevant in this context. it is clear that objectivism makes much use of the concept of "volition" as involving human free will, and built on the axiom that free will exists. Yet I see the rejection of axiomatic free will as in no way mandating the rejection of any other objectivist premises or conclusions. A scientific "deterministic" explanation of human behavior is not incompatible with the idea of objecivism, in fact in many ways I think it is more compatible than an inexplicable and unprovable concept of "free will." As with anything, it is easy to mandate a conclusion by building a straw-man argument for the alternative, which is largely what I see objectivism as having done by treating free will as an axiom.

Feldblum, I think there is a bit of a misrepresentation of what "predetermination" means in your post. Predetermination does not "force" anything upon you. It doesn't mean there isn't observation or logic or that the results obtained by them are invalid. Predetermination simply means that given a set known array of starting conditions, the outcome from them will always be the same. And this can only be seen by looking backwards in time through the process of counterfactuals, which is what is why it is of such interest to humans as they are the only beings who can think in such a manner. Remember that accepting an idea of scientific predetermination doesn't negate human conciousness. It doesn't mean humans are just mindless drones following the rote orders they are "predetermined" to execute. What predetermination does mean in the context of logic and observation is that for any given human decision there could not have been any other outcome. This is interesting in the human context because we often think that there could have been other outcomes. For instance, we find questions such as "What if Napoleon hadn't invaded Russia?" interesting because we can posit alternative decisions having been made in the past. Yet it seems odd to think of Napoleon's decision as anything but following inevitably from the preconditions before it. We think of our current and future decisions as being open to free will, but once we look at them in hindsight it is unclear whether they could have been otherwise. And as strange as the deterministic position is, the free will position seems just as odd. Is the human brain a sort of "quantum computer" as some have alleged such that it can operate in violation of the normal macro laws governing outcomes? This seems even more improbable than a deterministic universe. And again, it is likely that regardless of the actual result (free will or determination) that the philosophic enquiry doesn't really affect our every-day lives. For determinism to reshape our thoughts and actions, we could have to have a vastly greater understanding of physical processes and how they affect the brain. As DavidOdden says, this is more of a mental conjecture than a realistic possibility. The result is that we act as if we have free will because we have no way to act otherwise. Whether we actually have free will is not a question that will likely be resolved.

How does denying volition presuppose it? And how can something be an axiom yet inexplicable and unanalyzable?

It does indeed seem strange to think of human volition as an "uncaused cause." What seems more likely is that human thought is deterministic, but so complex that it is unlikely we will ever (in the reasonable future) be able to discover the exact weight and processes that underpin human reasoning. Thus, it would be in a sense possible for an onmiscient (or nearly so) computer to be able to predict human action based on its having all the required prerequisite knowledge, the structure of the individual's brain, his personal history, interactions, etc. This of course is not something that seems very practical as a solution, however. I have always been a bit disappointed with the philosophers who assert that human thought and action is deterministic but we should treat it as willful "just because." Yet when it gets right down to it, this is what most scientifically consistant philosophies have to do. There is no scientific or physical proof or need for the idea of "free will." On the contrary, all the processes we can think of for explaining the human brain and human action are entirely deterministic.

I like the outdoors because I like to explore in general, and the outdoors is perhaps the best place for it. It is also a great place to find solitude. I also enjoy in the context of military reenacting quite a bit. It is interesting how you can survive in the field with "primative" 19th or early-20th century equipment as compared to the highly technical outdoors equipment seen today. I sometimes smile when I see someone wearing a pair of spotless $200 Gore-tex hiking boots around the city, when my m1917 leather-soled, hobnailed boots have likely seen far more rough use in all weather and climates.

Not every means, the right of a nation to self-defense is not an unlimited right. To some extent there is a moral duty to limit "innocent" bystander casaulties where possible, although the fact there are such casualties is not itself a moral wrong. I don't see it as an authoritarian/democratic divide. All nations are hesitant to use nukes for exactly the same reason: retaliation. The US was afraid to use nukes in Korea and Vietnam because of potential retaliation by China and the USSR. The USSR and China were afraid to use nukes because of the USA, etc.