Leibniz, Zeno, and Free Will

TheMadFool

Zeno of Citium (Stoicism)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Leibniz: You know Zeno, old fella, everything has a cause [The Principle Of Sufficient Reason]. The entire past/present/future of the universe, us included, is simply a link in the chain of causation.

Me: Herr Leibniz, do you mean that determinism is true and that free will doesn't exist?

Leibniz: Zeno should be able to clarify. He believes that we should go where reason leads.

Zeno: I believe we do possess free will.

Me: But if everything has a cause then our thoughts, particularly the choices we make, are also determined. How can there be free will in such a scenario?

Leibniz: Yeah, Zeno, tell us how one could be free in a deterministic universe? I believe you stoics make a big deal about how some things are beyond our control and these things, arguably, reduce or nullify our freedom. Isn't that why you advise people to be indifferent in the face of suffering?

Zeno: You're right on all counts but do you see the full implications of the beliefs we stoics espouse?

Me: What do you mean Zeno?

Leibniz: I'm intrigued. Go on, Zeno.

Zeno: Suffering and other passions/emotions need a cause, agreed?

Me; Agreed.

Leibniz: Surely, yes.

Zeno: The loss of a loved one evokes pain for example and every other emotion has its specific trigger. In other words, emotions/passions are part of the web of causation in being effects of some experience one goes through.

Me: Yep.

Leibniz: I concur.

Zeno: A key aspect of stoicism concerns passions. We stoics believe that a sage is, well, unaffected by what the universe throws at him. Disease, loss, pain, death, etc. don't have an effect on the stoic sage.

Me: So?

Leibniz: Do you mean to say that the the stoic sage has, in a way, transcended causation? After all he seems to have stepped outside the causal web insofar as emotions are concerned.

Zeno: Exactly. Herr Leibniz, isn't it clear, looking at the stoic sage that everything needn't have an effect. The stoic sage is in a state of mind that makes him immune to things that cause an emotional reaction, or "effect" if you will, in ordinary people.

Leibniz: I see your point. If some things don't have an effect then there's the possibility that our brains or minds, if you like, could be, through understanding, sequestered in a cause-empty environment, sealed off, as it were, from all influences and that makes us free.

Me: In other words, free will is possible.

Zeno: Yes

Leibniz: Well, Zeno, even though your argument doesn't prove we have free will, it makes room for that possibility.

Zeno: All that I've said, if the stoic sage can indeed achieve a mental state of total indifference to anything that happens to him and around him, hinges on not everything having an effect.

Pfhorrest

Everything has an effect, but not everything has the same effect on everything.

Having free will does indeed consist in being unaffected by certain things and one’s behavior instead determined instead by other things. Namely, in one’s behavior being determined by one’s practical or moral reasoning (what you think you should do), and other influences having negligible interference in that process.

TheMadFool

Everything has an effect, but not everything has the same effect on everything. — Pfhorrest

How do you explain the "stoic calm", an allegedly possible state, even in the eye of a storm, in the midst of causally potent chaos? There are expressions in ordinary language like "he didn't bat an eyelid", "she was unfazed by his disparaging remarks", etc. that bespeak of such mind states that are practically isolated from the causal web.

Pantagruel

How do you explain the "stoic calm", an allegedly possible state, even in the eye of a storm, in the midst of causally potent chaos? There are expressions in ordinary language like "he didn't bat an eyelid", "she was unfazed by his disparaging remarks", etc. that bespeak of such mind states that are practically isolated from the causal web. — TheMadFool

I have cultivated this state of mind for ages, with much success. Near the end of my undergrad, in the late eighties, I was reading in a Greek diner near Bloor and Spadina when the waitress dropped a whole tray full of glasses. I did not even blink, but in my peripheral vision it was quite easy to see every other head in the place whip around simultaneously. To me, it is a desideratum.

TheMadFool

↪Pantagruel

:up: On a side note, I've always been doubtful about the popular image most folks have of so-called "sages" - hermits most often, living an austere lifestyle away in a cave or monastery, ready to dazzle visitors with pithy aphorisms, and above all, possessing an aura of tranquility, calm and poise. I'm particularly concerned about "tranquility, calm and poise". I mean if that's the goal then might as well just turn into a lifeless rock; after all, a rock exudes the quintessential indifference to the world at large.

Shouldn't we be embracing, at least in part, an essential feature of being alive, our feelings?

Pantagruel

↪TheMadFool

I provide IT support in the medical community. Typically, having computer problems and dealing with your tech guy is pretty stressful. These folks have so many times asked me how I manage to stay so constantly calm and tranquil. I figure, when a psychiatric counselor asks you your secret of serenity, you are moving in the right direction.

I don't feel I have suppressed anything, just reached a healthy state of mind. I am deeply passionate about many issues, which only motivates me to work even harder.

TheMadFool

↪Pantagruel

What bothers me is that the stoic philosopher Zeno of Citium is known to have said "follow where reason leads" and, assuming he did what he advised others to do, it lead him to stoicism. That must mean that, as a matter of fact, there are no reasons to get emotional about anything at all.

From what I read, stoicism would have us achieve a harmony with nature and its laws and in that state acquire the so-called "stoic calm". Does this not give you the impression that like a rock - always complying, never resisting nature's laws - our minds too are under the sway of logic, a law in its own right, and thereafter to "follow where reason leads" is to immediately realize that the only reasonable position is to face reality with "stoic calm"?

Pantagruel

Does this not give you the impression that like a rock - always complying, never resisting nature's laws - our minds too are under the sway of logic, a law in its own right, and thereafter to "follow where reason leads" is to immediately realize that the only reasonable position is to face reality with "stoic calm"? — TheMadFool

Agreed. Stoicism has this sense of dispassion. But I think not all stoicism really implies this. There was some discussion of this around the M. Pigliucci topics.

Pfhorrest

↪TheMadFool

As I said, not everything has the same effect on everything.

A stack of paper may blow away into total disorder under the effect of wind, but a stack of paper bound at the edges like a book may not, instead only slightly ruffling at the unbound edge before settling back to exactly how it was before. The bound stack of paper is not immune to cause and effect; wind just had a different and much smaller effect on it than on an unbound stack.

The stoic state of mind just comes from binding your pages together, not from being metaphysically immune to cause and effect.

EDIT to reply to the remaining conversation: like the bound paper, a rock is immune to the effects of the wind, though not in any fancy metaphysical way. But not only inert things like rocks can be so immune. Sufficiently dense animals can shrug off the wind too, while still going about their business actively. I think the stoic aspiration is to be like that with regard to everything: to be moved entirely by reason, not completely inert, still doing stuff, but unperturbed in that action by the metaphorical winds that would try to blow you this way or that.

EnPassant

Leibniz: I see your point. If some things don't have an effect then there's the possibility that our brains or minds, if you like, could be, through understanding, sequestered in a cause-empty environment, sealed off, as it were, from all influences and that makes us free. — TheMadFool

Perhaps free will means the ability to be a free causal agent.

TheMadFool

The bound stack of paper is not immune to cause and effect; wind just had a different and much smaller effect on it than on an unbound stack. — Pfhorrest

Indeed, nevertheless a very palpable difference in a person before and after tasting the stoic pie. What gives? A reduction in the potency of causes points in a favorable direction for free will, no?

TheMadFool

Perhaps free will means the ability to be a free causal agent. — EnPassant

Could be but why desire that?

Pfhorrest

↪TheMadFool

A reduction in the potency of certain causes, freeing up other causes to be more effective, yes. As I said earlier:

Having free will does indeed consist in being unaffected by certain things and one’s behavior instead determined instead by other things. Namely, in one’s behavior being determined by one’s practical or moral reasoning (what you think you should do), and other influences having negligible interference in that process. — Pfhorrest

and

I think the stoic aspiration is to be like that with regard to everything: to be moved entirely by reason, not completely inert, still doing stuff, but unperturbed in that action by the metaphorical winds that would try to blow you this way or that. — Pfhorrest

TheMadFool

A reduction in the potency of certain causes, freeing up other causes to be more effective, yes. — Pfhorrest

What are these "other causes"?

Pfhorrest

↪TheMadFool

The causes involved in the process of reasoning. Reasoning is still a causal process.

EnPassant

Could be but why desire that? — TheMadFool

Because the alternative is slavery.

Pfhorrest

↪EnPassant

Political liberty is not the same thing as free will, of either a compatibilist or incompatibilist sense. Those are three separate things.

TheMadFool

The causes involved in the process of reasoning. Reasoning is still a causal process. — Pfhorrest

Yes, as I mentioned in my discussion with Pantagruel, the stoic's aim is to be in harmony with nature; in other words, to obey its laws and that includes logic/reasoning too, right? However, what we need to take note of is the fact that a person is different before and after being exposed to Zeno's ideas.

You seem to be of the opinion that this change in a person is just a case of one cause (reason) negating and/or canceling another (emotion evoking causes). I would've agreed with if not for the fact that to demonstrate the existence of free will, we need a sound argument. If I were to take your side and believe that reason is causally potent, I would have to say that no matter how good an argument for free will, we're actually not free because reason is involved.

It seems that reason is, well, not like the "others" in that being under its influence or being guided by it doesn't constitute a loss of freedom.

Because the alternative is slavery. — EnPassant

:up:

Pfhorrest

If I were to take your side and believe that reason is causally potent, I would have to say that no matter how good an argument for free will, we're actually not free because reason is involved.

It seems that reason is, well, not like the "others" in that being under its influence or being guided by it doesn't constitute a loss of freedom. — TheMadFool

The only reason (no pun intended) that reason is different is that the ordinary cases we refer to when we talking about someone acting "of their own free will" are cases where they did something because they thought (reasoned) it was the best course of action and not because something else contrary to that made them. Basically, because we identify ourselves with our reason, for good reason I think: the ego, the "I" of a self-aware, self-controlled, sapient being, is the middle part of the loop of reflexivity:

Free will is not having our behaviors be uncaused entirely, but having them be caused by that reflexive process that we identify with, rather than caused by something else.

TheMadFool

Free will is not having our behaviors be uncaused entirely, but having them be caused by that reflexive process that we identify with, rather than caused by something else. — Pfhorrest

Indeed. Employing reason doesn't amount to losing one's freedom.

Malice

Being able to stay calm in situations that most people do not, doesn't mean anything other than they can stay calm in situations where most people do not. I can do the same thing. Humans and other animals have emotional reactions to specific stimuli in varying degrees. Some humans freak out over tiny things, like leaving their house (agoraphobia) and others don't react emotionally much at all (sociopaths).

Whether or not free-will exists comes partly down to how you define it, and what you consider to be "you", the self. Even if you're a deterministic process, you're still making decisions based on who you are. You are simply doing what it is in your nature to do.

If we find out that our neurology is affected by some amount of indeterminism, that can influence decision making, all that means is that part of our identity is affected by randomness.

EnPassant

Whether or not free-will exists comes partly down to how you define it, and what you consider to be "you", the self. Even if you're a deterministic process, you're still making decisions based on who you are. You are simply doing what it is in your nature to do. — Malice

This is a thread I started on this subject some time ago-
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4458/determinism-and-mathematical-truth/p1

Pantagruel

Being able to stay calm in situations that most people do not, doesn't mean anything other than they can stay calm in situations where most people do not. I can do the same thing. Humans and other animals have emotional reactions to specific stimuli in varying degrees. Some humans freak out over tiny things, like leaving their house (agoraphobia) and others don't react emotionally much at all (sociopaths). — Malice

Actually, there is a strong biological foundation for "delayed reaction" being fundamental to the development of more sophisticated responses (and response mechanisms). The earliest manifestations of neurogenesis (that is, in the evolutionary development of nerve, and ultimately cortical, cells) are associated with the phenomenon of hysteresis (delay in signal transmission). In fact, this occurs in the simplest organisms, where the membrane functions to delay the immediate responses to chemical changes in the environment.

So, perhaps the phylogenetic basis of "reflection"?

TheMadFool

Some humans freak out over tiny things, like leaving their house (agoraphobia) and others don't react emotionally much at all (sociopaths). — Malice

Are you in any way insinuating that stoics are sociopaths on the basis of being emotionally blunted?

:chin:

EnPassant

Political liberty is not the same thing as free will, of either a compatibilist or incompatibilist sense. Those are three separate things. — Pfhorrest

I don't imagine they are. I'm talking about free will in a mental/spiritual/moral sense.

Leibniz, Zeno, and Free Will

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