[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
...I can only believe something if I actually think it is true. Clearly we don't choose beliefs freely. In fact there is no "I" outside of such value patterns. Rather we ARE our beliefs (as well as our other patterns of preference.)

dmb says:
Right, we can only adopt new beliefs if they fit. They have to harmonize with existing beliefs, our temperament and purposes, etc.. It has to be plausible, it has to work and it has to matter. The new view has to be a "live option", as James called it. We are "wedged and controlled", he said. Our truths are wedged between sensible, concrete realities and the whole set of existing beliefs. But to say there are controlling factors is not the same thing as saying they are determined. Determinism is a pretty strong word. In fact, we don't need to exaggerate or use hyperbole to paint it as a rather drastic view. It says all events are determined by a perfect chain of causality, going all the way back to the big bang or to God, conceived as the First Cause.

Steve said:
The above had the problem I always had with Pascal's Wager. Even if we think it would be good to believe something we think is false, we can't simply will ourselves to do so.

dmb says:
Yea, and Pascal tries to motivate us to place a bet on God by arguing that eternity is a long time and so there is a great deal at stake. It begs the question because you have to believe in eternal heaven to think there is anything at stake. I can't think of a less pragmatic way to frame it. The consequences of our beliefs will be felt in the afterlife? This is the sort of thing that gave rise to James's notion of beliefs as either dead and living options. For me, pearly gates and golden streets are impossible to believe. Sure, that would be nice and I'd like to believe that I'll live forever but what I CAN believe is that life will go on for millions of years. Hope it includes human life of some kind for a long while. I think we shouldn't say anything about "eternity". I also think mortality has always been a fact of life for everything that has ever lived. It's about time we got used to it.


Steve said:
My point was to say that free will/ determinism is an issue with no practical consequences and therefore a fake philosophical problem not that we ought to "choose free will." What could it ever mean to behave as though you don't have any choice in the matter at hand? It is to ask, what would you choose if you had no choice? A nonsensical question.

dmb says:
Well, the issue sort of dissolves for MOQers because, like you said, the autonomous subject and causality itself are no longer assumed starting points. But the determinism would have profound moral consequences. Nobody could ever be held responsible for their actions and nothing we say or do could ever make a difference. All we can do is play the roles exactly as they were written. 
And yes, the debate lends itself to all sorts of seemingly paradoxical claims about being determined to believe in free will or being free to choose determinism. I think these aren't much more than linguistic card tricks. The consequences of believing one or the other would be felt in practical situations, like the courts. What does democracy and political freedom mean in a determined world? In that sense, it's not a fake problem. 

Steve said:
Outside of a religious context I can't see how the free will/determinism question is one we ought to feel like we need to solve. It is purely philosophical in the derogatory sense of the term unless you need to sort out the theological problem of evil.

dmb says:
Well, there is a theistic version of determinism but we don't find this in any of the mainstream forms of Christianity, which is all about accepting or not accepting salvation. I think notions of predestination and such are all but extinct. 
But there is also determinism of the materialist kind. That's the kind that made James suicidal, specifically "medical materialism". If he inherited his father's brian, young William worried, he would be doomed to a lifetime of mental and emotional problems just like dear old dad. I hear Pirsig complain about this kind of materialistic determinism when he's talking about amoral scientific objectivity. It paints a picture of reality, he says, where nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like machinery. This is the kind of determinism that we might take more seriously.
I wondered if there were contemporary proponents so I took a quick look at Wikipedia. Yep. There are all sorts of debates still going on. There are softer and harder versions, broader and more narrow versions. It's mostly names and isms we already know about. I was tickled to find the label "linguistic determinism". They say Marshall McLuhan is a "technological determinist". Marxism posits a kind of economic and technological determinism. The notion plays a very big role in the nature vs nurture debate.s Skinner's Behaviorism is a nurture-focused determinism. There is genetic determinism, cultural determinism, psychological determinism. You get the idea. Determinism is still with us and the theological kind is just one of many versions. The article lists the main philosophers who've dealt with the issue, including Hume, James, Nietzsche, Einstein, Searle and Dennett.

Steve said:
I would like to see both notions dropped from discourse and replace them with a continuum of predictable versus unpredictable human behavior which is our pragmatic concern and all that we could be concerned about once we dispense with notion of an omnipotent omniscient god pulling the strings or not.

dmb says:
Well, it seems unlikely that the terms will be dropped anytime soon because there are still many scientific and philosophical versions of determinism, which is much harder to dismiss than is the theistic kind.