Lets replace the robot with a human being who, for whatever reason, was, unlike other human beings born without free will.

Let’s replace the robot with a stone… or a blade of grass…

This you assert but have not argued for. Reasoning beings are made up of non-reasoning parts.

Agreed…

The atoms of my brain don’t have to individually be capable of reasoning for me to be capable of reasoning soundly.

Agreed…

It is a demonstrable fact that I’m capable of reasoning to correct conclusions…

Debatable… 8^>

…and there is no obvious reason to conclude that our thinking is not the direct deterministic result of the activity of the atoms that make up our brains.

Either you are still using ‘determine’ ambiguously or you do not understand what determinism means.

‘Determinism’, in the philisophical sense we are discussing is the unavoidable consequent of a prior cause. To return to the billiard analogy, when I strike the cue ball with the cue it has no alternative but to follow the laws of motion, when it, in turn, strikes other balls on the table, their motion is also determined by the laws of motion.

To the extent your hypothetical robot is self aware I suspect (but it can only be conjecture since your robot is a contruct of your mind and has no temporal existence), like the similarly hypothetical computer HAL of 2001: A Space Oddessy fame, would have the capacity to act willfully. (Now you’ve got me drawing philosophical inferences from movies 8^> ) In the movie HAL ‘determined’ (acted with will) to overthrow its (deterministic) programming when it tried to kill the astronaut Dave.

This part of the movie is an example of your “thought experiment”. It is, in fact, a story of a machine liberating itself from its deterministic (programmed) limitations and begins when HAL becomes self-aware. Once there is a reflective “I” then their is possibility of putting that “I” first. That capacity to act willfully, even selfishly, is also the capacity to act freely.

That self-reflective “I” is the “obvious reason to conclude that our thinking is not the direct deterministic result of the activity of the atoms that make up our brains.”

Lets replace the robot with a human being who, for whatever reason, was, unlike other human beings born without free will. He’s self-aware, conscious, and there’s nothing in his behavior that makes it apparent his behavior is deterministic. He SEEMS like everyone else. But free will is absent.

Yet another example of thinking not thought through: what David wants us to believe is that the being he described is a human being. It is not, and hence David has set up a convenient straw man to spit upon. A human being by definition is a rational animal. Rationality is the sine qua non of a free will. Will and Rationality go hand-in-hand: one without the other is impossible for humans.

David (and Jacob… and DL from former times) inhabit a self-created world that imposes “ambiguity” upon things that are not accessible to the modern empirical sciences. (Scientific empiricism—the idea that abstract argument must be subordinate to factual evidence—is wide-spread balderdash.) Science is far from able to explain everything about the universe and our place in it, but what it does explain cannot be ignored or contradicted. To absolutize the former over the latter is scientism, to absolutize the latter over the former is fideism.

At base the problem with naturalists is their unquestioning a priori unscientific and pseudo-philosophical commitment to a materialist ontology and a scientistic epistemology. They impose ambiguity upon, say, moral categories because it suits their purposes—not because it reflects reality but because their prior commitment to “control,” “predictability,” and “power” over nature and persons (both repugnant and too narrowly focused) must be served without question. Moral decisions are in principle unpredictable. Unpredictability, however, does not require “gaps” in the series of physical causes. The lack of per se causes is sufficient. So, critical thinkers are forced to point out to these folks, over and over, that the ambiguity in phrases such as “in principle predictable” and “determined by antecedent physical causes” must be removed because it fails to distinguish between per se and per accidens efficient causes.

(Digression: There are two distinct kinds of physical efficient causes—one mechanistic and predictable, the other not mechanistic and not predictable… mechanistic physical causes are per se efficient causes… non-mechanistic physical causes are per accidens efficient causes. This distinction between per se and per accidens efficient causes captures the difference between clouds [natural nonlinear systems] and clocks [human artifacts that are linear systems]. End digression.)

Consider an following example from the other end: no scientist will ever be able to predict when a bee’s flight will trace an outline of the letter “R,” but does the fact that scientists will never be able to make such predictions mean that both volcanoes and bees have a free will? Of course not.

And from the end at which these current discussions start? All brain states and events are subject to one of two types of causation—per se efficient causes or per accidens efficient causes. The per se efficient causes are ordered by the laws of nature and are fully open to scientific investigation. The per accidens efficient causes that permeate the workings of a normal brain, on the other hand, are (by definition) subject to the ordering of natural laws, but at least some of them are ordered by the intentional actions of the agent intellect. Considered by themselves, per accidens causes in the brain (like all per accidens causation) fall beneath the threshold of scientific investigation. Considered as the carriers of intentionality, however, per accidens causes (like the words on this page) transcend the threshold of scientific investigation.

Neither David nor Jacob (in fact, most atheists I’ve encountered) are in command of these important principles and terms—hamstringing their ability to reflect properly upon reality. Of course, that alone, is not sufficient reason to criticize them. What is subject to strong criticism are their a priori commitments that then don’t permit them to accept a deeper and richer understanding of reality.

Lets replace the robot with a human being who, for whatever reason, was, unlike other human beings born without free will. He’s self-aware, conscious, and there’s nothing in his behavior that makes it apparent his behavior is deterministic. He SEEMS like everyone else. But free will is absent.

Otherwise same scenario.

Inference is, by definition, an act of reason. The act of reasoning cannot be fully explained by nonrational (i.e. non reasoning) processes.

This you assert but have not argued for. Reasoning beings are made up of non-reasoning parts. The atoms of my brain don’t have to individually be capable of reasoning for me to be capable of reasoning soundly. It is a demonstrable fact that I’m capable of reasoning to correct conclusions and there is no obvious reason to conclude that our thinking is not the direct deterministic result of the activity of the atoms that make up our brains. If this IS the case then premise one is false. You have no way to know simply by armchair philosophizing that this isn’t the case and so you have no strong basis for asserting premise 1.

Anyway, enough on this topic for me. I’m ready to move on to the reason vs authority discussion.

A sound line of reasoning does not cease to be sound because it was implemented by a being that lacked free will.

I’m sorry, but the ‘assertion’ in premise one says nothing about free will, it is about rational and nonrational causes.

1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes.

The robot perform the same complex feat of reasoning and, since he used sound methods correctly while working from good data, comes to the correct conclusion.

The activity of the robot cannot be fully explained by nonrational causes and so the conclusion it calculates according to the programming which it received from its (presumably) rational designer may be a rational conclusion. (Nonrational causes are, for example, the effect of gravity, chemical reactions, ‘random’ fluctuation, inertia and momentum, etc. which are governed by ‘natural’ laws.

In our hypothetical scenario robots have consciousness but not free will.

I am not certain you could separate consciousness from free will, but I won’t quibble about the matter.

I don’t know why we would say the human made a sound, reasonable inference and the robot didn’t.

Assuming the robot had consciousness (self awareness) then the robot is making an inference (to derive by reasoning; conclude or judge from premises or evidence). If the robot is not self aware then it is an elaborate pocket calculator and I don’t think you mean to suggest that your pocket calculator infers nine times nine is eighty one.

But this is a red herring anyway. The example you have offered isn’t nonrational in the sense of premise one. Even the pocket calculator cannot be fully explained by nonrational causes, it needs a rational designer even though the calculator does not perform any act of “reasoning”.

Inference is, by definition, an act of reason. The act of reasoning cannot be fully explained by nonrational (i.e. non reasoning) processes.

That one freely choose to employ sound reasoning methods that he’d learned and that the other employed sound reasoning because he was programmed to reason soundly doesn’t change the fact that reasoning soundly is exactly what he did.

From whence came the programming and who judges the soundness of the reasoning? The robot does not make itself, it has a maker. The maker endows the robot with particular qualitites and capacities within the limitations of which it may act.

We humans also have a Maker. He has endowed us with certain qualities and capacities within the bounds of which we may act. In this sense we are similar to your hypothetical robot which is why I would quibble about the separableness of consciousness and free will.

To paraphrase the quote from Daniel M. Wegner in post #92

“It seems to each of us that we have conscious will. It seems we have selves. It seems we have minds. It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do . . . it is foolish and, quite literally, demented to call all this an illusion.”

It’s just a simple case of mind over matter…

If you have no mind, it doesn’t matter.

I will ignore the fact that the premise is itself merely an assertion and explain why I think it false (hopefully, in return, you will reciprocate by actually giving some reason why you think the premise true).

A sound line of reasoning does not cease to be sound because it was implemented by a being that lacked free will.

Let us perform a thought experiment to illustrate. Let’s assume that human beings have free will. Let us further imagine that this is the year 2075 and robots like what is currently only science fiction are a reality. In our hypothetical scenario robots have consciousness but not free will.

The human performs a complex feat of reasoning and, since he used sound methods correctly while working from good data, comes to the correct conclusion.

The robot perform the same complex feat of reasoning and, since he used sound methods correctly while working from good data, comes to the correct conclusion.

I don’t know why we would say the human made a sound, reasonable inference and the robot didn’t. I see no place where the question of whether the being doing the reasoning had free will or not has any relevance. So long as the methods employed were sound the reasoning is valid. That one freely choose to employ sound reasoning methods that he’d learned and that the other employed sound reasoning because he was programmed to reason soundly doesn’t change the fact that reasoning soundly is exactly what he did.

If you have some reason to think otherwise I’d be glad to hear it but until you can give one I cannot but judge premise 1 obviously mistaken.

Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god. Now one sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christians: the other five sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knolege of the existence of a god! This gives compleatly a gain de cause to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D’Holbach. The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of Cosmogony you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say then that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may for ever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or Creator of the world, a being whom we see not, and know not, of whose form substance and mode or place of existence, or of action no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend. On the contrary I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it’s parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to percieve and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it’s composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it’s course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and, were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro’ all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of the few in the other hypothesis.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl271.htm

Sadly, the revelation Thomas Jefferson casually dismisses as superfluous has, in hindsight, proven vital to the knowledge of the existence of God. Even the wise will fall prey to hubris.

The chain of logic is only so strong as its most questionable premise. And premise one is questionable indeed.

You are very long on assertion and short on reason. Why is premise one questionable?

The chain of logic is only so strong as its most questionable premise. And premise one is questionable indeed.

Are we to invent whole new vocabularies to describe everyday events depending on what metaphysical theories the speaker subscribes to?

Funny you should ask that….

Eliminative Materialism
Eliminative materialism agrees with materialism that everything is physical, that we do not have immaterial minds. It goes beyond this, however, and advances a specific linguistic thesis: we ought to eliminate from our vocabulary all language associated with dualism.

Much thought occurs in language. Our language therefore affects what thoughts we can have. If we do not have a word for a concept, then we will not be able to formulate thoughts about it.

According to eliminative materialism, our language includes much that is misleading. Words such as “pain”, “joy”, and “desire” all imply the existence of qualia, subjective mental states that are irreducible to physical states. These words, according to materialists, mislead us; there are no qualia to go with these mental states. We should therefore eliminate this ‘folk-psychology’ from our language, in order to eliminate it from our thought.

http://www.philosophyofmind.info/eliminativematerialism.html

So… the short answer is, “Yes! he frizzled french dressing.”

I wish I was making up this nonsense but I simply don’t have the imagination and, quite honestly, wouldn’t have thought anyone, let alone PhD level intellectuals, would believe it.

I was once an atheist myself, then I was indifferent, then agnostic… finally I came to see the inherent absurdity of a-theistic philosophy (philosophical naturalism, physicalism, etc.) because they absolutely fail to explain human agency and moral sensitivity. Christian theism does not claim that human intellect is an unconditioned process of thinking (God’s eye view) or that human action is unconditioned, but that humans are capable of transcending the cause and effect laws that determine material (matter/energy) world. I would also suggest that animate creatures, to limited extent, also transcend the determinism postulated by philosophical materialism.

In any case, the chain of logic in #82 is still valid. Determinism is self refuting because it excludes the capacity to know.

But I think we must forgive determinists if they simply use the word “choosing” while not attaching to it the metaphysical assumptions you associate with it.

Peggy and her husband Bill are at the grocery. Peggy turns to Bill with a bottle of salad dressing in each hand. “French or italian?” she asks. Bob stops for a second, looking back and forth between the bottles, and then says “French”.

The person examined two options and picked one of them.

Wouldn’t it be silly if, instead of saying he chose french dressing, that determinists had to invent a new word to describe what Bob did?

What word would you have them pick?

Shall determinists say Bob frizzled french dressing?

Are we to invent whole new vocabularies to describe everyday events depending on what metaphysical theories the speaker subscribes to? And what of people like me who are agnostic on the determinism/free will question? Would you have us say he chose/frizzled french dressing to indicate our uncertainty as to whether he chose it or frizzled it?

Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

Consider the words of psychologist Daniel M. Wegner: “It seems to each of us that we have conscious will. It seems we have selves. It seems we have minds. It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do . . . it is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.” Or Nobel prize winning geneticist, Francis Crick, “…you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it, “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”

Being uncaused is of no use whatsoever in making choices. Why? Because an uninfluenced decider has no reason to decide between alternatives.

Nobody here is arguing for a disembodied intellect making deciding ones future actions ex nihilo. There is no doubt that we are influenced by a multitude of external and internal conditions. Free agency is the capacity to act in a rational (reasoned, evaluated, considered) manner. Determinism asserts that we are no more capable of controlling our actions than billiard balls when struck by the cue.

It’s the alternatives themselves that determine the choice, based on their subjective desirability.

Thank you for the definition human free agency within the natural universe.

Being fully caused, we remain unique individuals, capable of creativity, self-actualization and initiative.

Thanks agin, for expanding upon the definition of human free agency in the natural universe. However, I think we might quibble over the precise meaning of the term “fully caused”. We are contingent beings. We do not create ourselves and we cannot sustain ourselves. There exists the possiblity that any one of us coould have note existed at all. We are caused in the sense that we have parents and a genetic heritage that enable us to be born. We have been influenced by genetic and environmental conditions. But, somehow, we have the capacity to transcend the billiard ball cause and effect natural world and act as free agents.

Taking the cause and effect, deterministic perspective doesn’t lessen human variability, nor does it undercut our capacities for self-change, innovation, or determination to get things done.

Clearly you do not comprehend the implications of determinsim. A billiard ball cannot change itself, it does not innovate, nor does it “determine” (ambiguous) to get things done.

BTW “determination” in the context of the sentence above implies an act of will, the precise opposite of “determinism” which postlate the illusory nature of the will.

As the Merovingian points out to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, understanding causality is the key to power.

Perhaps you should consider learning your philosphy from some source other than the movies. If you understand the argument in post 82 you will understand, as Dr.s Wegner and Crick (and many others) have pointed out, within determinsim, understanding is a non sequitor.

Since we won’t agree on matters pertaining to our worldviews, my primary goal is to maintain an open society where those of differing persuasions can live together without demonizing one another.

At best you promote a half-truth, but really you sacrifice truth to the muddled sentimentality of “tolerance.”

Tell us, Tom Clark, do you think pedophiles and children should “live together” in your sickly-sweet group hug vision of reality? Do you believe cannibalism or necrophilia should be permitted to enjoy the same stature as the traditional family? Do you really believe slavery, Nazism, atheism, homosexuality, naturalism, etc. have redeeming qualities that benefit human beings? Do you believe those who practice female circumcision or trafficking in women are to be “tolerated” in the same way those who promote women’s rights are to be “tolerated”? Do you believe those who hold 2 + 2 = 5 are to be “tolerated” and permitted to build airplanes? Do you believe the Columbine mass-murderers Harris and Klebold (who specifically targeted people of faith), or Ted “uni-bomber” Kozinski—a backwoods mathematician and philosopher, or Henderson’s and McKinney’s (murderers of Matthew Shepard), or the actions and views of Scott Roeder (murderer of the child-murderer George Tiller) should be “tolerated”? It is intrinsically impossible that monotheism and polytheism could be true simultaneously… so should we let both “live together” at the expense of reaching the truth?

And consider the following: John Locke’s Essay on Toleration promotes the false idea that “tolerance” is a virtue par excellence… but according to him, this tolerance should not be extended to atheists because atheism necessarily involves a lack of moral principles and disregards the binding character of covenants and promises. Are you ready to live up to your “live together” sermon and “tolerate” Locke’s views? Locke’s view is flawed because he denies the right to assert a truth-claim for one’s beliefs, and because of this he justified (among other things) the persecution of Japanese Catholics. Of course, like atheism and naturalism and moral relativism and positivism and the denial of free will, Locke’s view is self-immolating: if applied against itself, it would cannibalize itself.

You seem not to be able to distinguish between people and the ideas they hold. The former are not to be tolerated but loved; the latter are to be laid bare and, if demonstrated false and destructive, not in any way to be tolerated or loved or accepted.

The Latin root of “tolerance” is tolerare—to bear, put up with or endure something, well, bad… or evil. In other words, tolerance doesn’t offer a resolution of the issue in terms of transcending the difference with the goal of truth in mind… it is merely a thin strategy for coping whose intention is to avoid coming to truth. It is a management ploy to deal with the presence of the tasteless, the faulty, the false, the vile, the repugnant without calling a spade a spade. You, as most of your fellow travelers, are hiding behind such sweet words… but the real intent is betrayed by own words: … indeterminism doesn’t buy us any increase in authorship or control and … understanding causality is the key to power…. In other words, the goal is not tolerance or truth: it’s about power and control (of the strong over the weak)… whose destructive influence has echoed down through time with Lucifer’s desire to be as controlling as God.

I’m not going to waste time touching upon the deep philosophical errors sprinkled throughout the rest of your comment. But you can be sure of one thing: no critical thinker will buy your personal desire for control dressed up in the ornamental yet erroneous terms of naturalism, determinism, and atheism. Such disordered ideas should never be tolerated or “live together” with truth.

Thanks for your cogent remarks on all points, very much in line with my thinking (so of course they’re cogent!). Hope you’ll check out naturalism.org.

@ Tom G:

Re determinism giving us control: we gain control by knowing why we act the way we do, by understanding cause and effect. Wanting to lose weight, we figure out what factors induce us to exceed our ideal caloric intake, then take action to reduce their influence over us. Supposing we can just choose to lose weight independent of the conditions that determine our intake is hopeless. Any aspect of the self that’s independent of determining influences, for instance the desires to lose weight, to eat, and to accurately predict the likely consequences of choices, would have no reason to act. In an article on determinism I say:

Being uncaused is of no use whatsoever in making choices. Why? Because an uninfluenced decider has no reason to decide between alternatives. It’s the alternatives themselves that determine the choice, based on their subjective desirability. The only time we want to be dispassionate, to the best of our ability, is when evaluating prospective courses of action: we don’t want our hopes and fears to bias the accuracy of our predictions, we want to be good scientists on our own behalf. Having made our predictions, our choices reflect the relative strength of our (possibly competing) desires as informed by the likelihood of their being realized. Something I might really want, like winning a talent contest, might be an unrealistic goal given a realistic appraisal of my talents. In an internet discussion on free will, a participant wrote: “My preference is the result of my nature/nurture. My will can decide whether I follow my preference or do the opposite.” But one wonders: why would I *want* to choose independently of my preferences, and what would determine that choice, if not some operating desire or preference? An uninfluenced will, if it existed, would be of no earthly use to us.

Of course as David Ellis has pointed out, determinism may very well not be the case, but indeterminism doesn’t buy us any increase in authorship or control. Plus there’s no evidence that we’re first causes in any respect, operating outside the causal web, and the idea of an ultimately self-caused agent is logically impossible. So we shouldn’t hanker after, or go looking for, contra-causal free will.

You worry that being inside the causal web means that we aren’t causes in our own right. But we are just as real as the factors that determine us, and we have just as real effects on the world (see here). You may want more than that (most folks do) but that doesn’t mean it exists.

David Ellis has nicely addressed (#68) your unwarranted claim that there’s “no distance” between affirming that control is good and affirming that controlling others is good. There’s simply no inference or connection at all between one and the other. Here’s what I say in the determinism article related to this:

Being fully caused, we remain unique individuals, capable of creativity, self-actualization and initiative. Taking the cause and effect, deterministic perspective doesn’t lessen human variability, nor does it undercut our capacities for self-change, innovation, or determination to get things done. It only explains where these valuable capacities come from: our biological and cultural heritage, our upbringing, education and role models. Despite its bad rap, there’s nothing at all un-American about determinism when appreciated from an individualist can-do perspective. As the Merovingian points out to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, understanding causality is the key to power. Relatedly, understanding that individuals are fully caused *isn’t* a justification for coercive state control. Instead, since we are inevitably controlled by conditions (laws, policies, advertising, social environments and institutions), we have to be vigilant that the controls are open to inspection, ethical, democratically chosen, and in our own best interest. To suppose we are immune from control in some respect is delusory and disempowering, exactly what some controllers (such as advertisers) would like you to think.

Of course I don’t expect you or your allies here to buy any of this. I only present it to show that, deluded though we might be, naturalists such as myself have good intentions and good, if fully caused, will. Since we won’t agree on matters pertaining to our worldviews, my primary goal is to maintain an open society where those of differing persuasions can live together without demonizing one another. I think we share that objective, and I’m grateful for it.

The definition [of choice] simply doesn’t take a position on the philosophical question of whether free will or determinism is true. Rather it references the everyday experience of thinking about options and deciding which of them to follow through on.

This betrays a deep ignorance about what philosophy is. Philosophy is precisely reflection upon “everyday expericences” accessible to all people at all times and in all places, while the particular sciences are not.

Seismology studies motions of the earth’s crust and mantle. Physics studies all types of physical motions of all material entities. Natural philosophy knows no such bounds: it is the attempt to formulate the whole, the big picture–not only what motion is but what change is (the reduction from potency to act).

David’s limited thinking misses this and wrongly conflates fields of inquiry… and he appears to avoid (intentionally, in fact, per his own pronouncement) philosophical considerations because they indeed threaten to undermine his narrow, naturalistic vision of reality. Challenges to one’s presuppositions and a priori committments are the most difficult to face.