[MD] Anti-reductionism in the MOQ

[Akshay Peshwe]

When Napoleon was asked why, even when he believed in Fate, he continued to
plan and act, his reply was: "it is because I am Fated to plan and act". Or,
in Schopenhauer's words, man can do what he wants but he cannot will what he
wants.

I cannot deny that man cannot do what he wants. Our entire system of
morality is based upon this notion -- that because a man chooses to do
something out of his own will, he is to be rewarded or punished or ignored,
because he *deserves* to be given his share in return. This is the law of
karma. But this does not conflict at all with determinism. Often, when we
are discussing free will and determinism, we separate volition into mine and
not-mine, at least subconsciously. In reality, however, you and not-you is a
mistaken dichotomy, it is all continuous. You are only a discernible
constituent of the universe, not an eternal part or fragment.

My will is in complete harmony with God's will. Even if I pretend to act
against God's wishes, or to somehow rebel against his doctrines, that is
still verily a part of God's plan. That's right, God is not the
always-good-and-pure being that he is touted to be in mythology, God is
simply the Law. We often think of God as someone large watching us all the
time. But this is simply not accurate. We *are* God. If we think that if it
is God's will, why do I have to suffer for his decisions (like you going and
murdering somebody and landing in prison), then the reply is that it is God
also who is bearing the pain. God is not a foreign agent controlling us like
puppets. He is verily us. To put it in a more Christian-friendly way, I and
my Father are one.

We are humans, a tiny part of this universe. If we had any choice at all, it
would mean that there would be a break in the chain of cause and effect,
because momentarily, until we make a choice, a lot of causes have stopped
acting. It seems ridiculous to me that the entire chain of causality of the
universe breaks down when I'm contemplating whether to have another slice of
pizza or not. Free will is only an illusion, nothing more. Will is something
we know, and what we know is always conditioned by space, time and
causality.

Even the so-called tendencies (i.e., the idea that your choices are being
only influenced by some habits and not absolutely determined by them) are a
product of the Law and hence even if you manage to break away from those
tendencies, to break away from tendencies was itself a tendency, only that
it so happened that this tendency to break away was stronger than the
tendency to stay in. It was the Law which decided which tendency would win.
Even though you decide which dress to wear today, your decision itself has
been preprogrammed by the Law/God, hence you are merely an instrument or, as
is said in Sanskrit, nimitta, for the event.

Law -> you -> your dress

A twist within this system would be to interpret the Law by saying that it
is the Law itself that has left things undecided, to be decided by us au
moment de choix. This argument seems to have been made stronger by QM's
indeterminacy argument supported by the HUP, but the flaw there is that
minds don't work at the level of quanta; if it were so then even plants
could have been able to think and plan. It is by virtue of higher-level
structures such as complex neural networks that minds are possible.

>You refute the concept of individual freedom with the laws of scientific
>objectivism.

Not just scientific objectivism. The whole debate of free will and
determinism is founded in the intellect, hence you have to resolve it by
intellectual means or a higher level of evolution.

Let me clarify by analogy. You know that a computer is made up of hardware.
All software written for the computer must be limited by its hardware,
software cannot go beyond the hardware. It is on
the hardware that the software is based and built. An outside entity (like a
programmer) decides how a computer is to behave. All the software (which is
nothing but the patterns of changes in hardware -- such as the states of the
various transistors, resistors and capacitors) is determined by the
hardware. Can it be said that the computer has free will? Well, we know that
it does what it wants, with the added fact that what it wants has been
caused by what we want. The computer is not free from the chain of causality
of the universe. If it be asked within the reference frame of computers, as
to who it is that has spread a virus, then we have to blame one invidual
computer. However, speaking on a more absolute reference frame, that of
humans, we have to point out that it is the owner/programmer of that
computer who is really responsible. We are merely instrumental causes, we
are not absolute causes. Even though it may appear as if the software is
controlling the hardware, it is only a derivation from the hardware's own
permission.

Let me suggest some reading. Read the last chapter of GEB (Six-part
Ricercar, from Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter). Read also R
Smullyan's "Is God a Taoist?" for interesting resolutions on the problem.

> Is it the philosophy of Hinduism?

Hinduism has no word for free will, simply because it is non-existent. Refer
to my causality note at the beginning of this post. Of course, in Hinduism
the central goal of life is liberation, by achieving which one is freed from
the bondage of causality. Hinduism speaks of the law of karma, that you will
reap what you sow.

Akshay


On 13/01/2008, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Akshay --
>
>
> > Ham Priday, on your comment on individual freedom (and us being robots
> of
> > God's Will): Why, it is true, we are indeed robots of God's Will. And
> why
> > would this be a bad idea?
> >
> > Wherever we can look, we will find proof of determinism, and by
> extension
> > predestination, except of course our own personal experience. But a good
> > science education will show that intuition is rarely fully correct,
> > especially an unrefined one. ...
>
> Ah!  And so we come to the fundamental point about which you and I
> disagree.
> Let me respond to your question first: Why would being robots of God's
> Will
> be a bad idea?  Good and Bad are subjective judgments, but belief in God
> (as
> you describe Essence) presupposes a meaning or purpose for existence.
> If the individual is not a free and autonomous agent, existence has no
> meaning.  There is no morality, no reason for value, no purpose for the
> creation of a cognizant entity with value sensibility.  It's all a
> mechanistic system based on cause-and-effect probability which serves no
> moral or logical purpose.
>
> You refute the concept of individual freedom with the laws of scientific
> objectivism.  But the objective world investigated by Science is itself an
> intellectual construct.  What the scientists do is develop a set of
> principles that define objective reality in terms of what is consistent
> and
> predictable about the system.  Biological evolution, for example, can be
> explained as a continuous series of events by which protoplasmic cells
> react
> to environmental forces and acquire the physical properties needed to
> survive and multiply.  Over long periods of time the cells become more
> complex, eventually forming conglomerate organisms that behave as
> independent creatures.  They are still subject to cause-and-effect, but
> exhibit rudimentary self-awareness.  More time passes, and one species
> evolves with the ability to intellectualize its environment, control and
> manipulate it to its own purposes, and in an accelerated time span
> transform
> its values into a highly sophisticated cultural system called
> civilization.
> It can all be explained as the outcome of natural forces operating
> according
> to the law of mathematical probability, the scientists say.
>
> Of course the scientists can't account for cognitive awareness, except
> that
> it is "associated with" complex nerve cells and electro-chemical
> processes.
> They also can't account for the fact that human behavior does not conform
> to
> the laws of cause-and-effect but responds instead to conscious experience
> and value judgments which are unpredictable.  They don't acknowledge the
> autonomy of individuals because "selfness" can't be defined objectively.
> Because it can't be localized, quantified, or directly observed,
> subjective
> awareness is not included in the scientific paradigm of existence.  In
> fact,
> scientists take great pains to remove subjectivity from their
> investigation
> of the universe.  As a consequence, from the scientific viewpoint life
> forms
> have no purpose but to fulfill the laws of nature as they have been
> defined.
>
> Now you come along, and say that's exactly right: man has no will of his
> own
> and cannot act independently.  Like the rocks and trees of his experienced
> environment, man is a predetermined entity--a robotized product of
> whatever
> created him.  Is this what you would have me agree to?  Is it the
> philosophy
> of Hinduism?
>
> Essentially confused,
> Ham
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> > Even though someone tried to "prove free will"
> > by making conclusions out of the Uncertainty Principle, it is not
> provable
> > in theory or in practice, simply because the Uncertainty Principle only
> > tells us that we cannot know a system completely, it does not say that a
> > system has been left undecided or "left on its own". Read my blog for
> many
> > more arguments: http://thegreatwheel.blogspot.com
> >
> > Akshay
>
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