And yet neither thermodynamics, nor chemistry nor biology are deterministic in nature. They all use probabilities to make predictions. Something does not compute here.To my knowledge, they all do — Isaac
Whatever his opinion on the matter, no neuroscientist will ever be able to predict what he will think tomorrow. If he did, he would think it today and no tomorrow.If you know of any neuroscientist who consider cell-level interactions to be non-deterministic, I'd be interested in some citations. How would they even go about conducting research? What would they research? — Isaac
And yet neither thermodynamics, nor chemistry nor biology are deterministic. They all use probabilities to make predictions. Something does not compute here. — Olivier5
As a matter of fact, none of these "jumps" from one level of organization to the next has been actually understood, let alone 'reduced' by science. — Olivier5
Whatever his opinion on the matter, no neuroscientist will ever be able to predict what he will think tomorrow. — Olivier5
The use of probabilities could be down to measurement errors, chaotic systems, accuracy at scale, informational constraints, ...etc. Why would you see it as evidence of those fields not being fundamentally deterministic? — Isaac
I watched a thing by Jim Al-Khalili about something like that a long while back, but not having much understanding of the basics I didn't really come away with anything more than a very general picture. I didn't get the impression that biochemicals were going to suddenly start reciting Shakespeare or forming an impromptu dance troop any time soon though, so I think we're still safe to presume they'll continue to have the effects we've so far discovered them to have! — Isaac
The use of probabilities could be down to measurement errors, chaotic systems, accuracy at scale, informational constraints, ...etc. Why would you see it as evidence of those fields not being fundamentally deterministic? — Isaac
I haven't caught up on this convo. Is this the usual "<magic thing> is possible because quantum mechanics"? — Kenosha Kid
Ah. Yes, having basically the same conversation with the same person on another thread. I didn't really get anywhere with it, but good luck. — Kenosha Kid
You seem to take a tiny amount of certainty and make it absolute.Faced with someone suffering from a particular type of brain damage, it's a rare case when the resultant behavioural change will be a complete surprise. You seem to be taking a tiny amount of uncertainty and pretending it means we've no idea what causes what. — Isaac
In the case of the neuroscientist predicting what he will think tomorrow, the impossibility is purely logical: if he can predict his future thoughts, he will think them today and not tomorrow. So if his prediction is correct, it becomes incorrect as a result of being correct.. An inability to carry out some calculation is not the same as randomness — Isaac
What intrigues me is the expression "what we've been talking about all this time is not what we thought it was". I'm afraid I can't quite make sense of this. A word has to mean what we (community of language users) think it means doesn't it? Could you perhaps rephrase? — Isaac
What really matters morally is the difference between having one's actions driven by desires an thoughts one considers one's own, and having one's hand forced by the unwanted desires of others, or desires and thoughts one does not consider one's own (psycho-pathology). All of this can be dealt with without having to send a single electron through any slits! We just don't need to know, in most cases, anything about ultimate cause, we only need go a few steps back and see if such causes are still within or outside of what we consider ourselves. — Isaac
Can one of you guys start a thread on determinism/indeterminism, instead of hijacking other threads? (I have the damnedest time making OPs, but I might contribute if there is one.) — SophistiCat
I was thinking of folk theories, as in folk physics or folk theory of mind - intuitive or conditioned but unschooled understanding of how some aspect of the world works. — SophistiCat
This is where things get complicated. What we hold an individual to be accountable for vs. what we consider to be an external cause can vary quite a bit. — SophistiCat
I'm sometimes required to help plead for judicial leniency on the grounds of a person's upbringing or environment. The basis for such action is that somewhere in this muddle we (those involved at the time) can agree that such influences were outside of the person's preferred choices. — Isaac
The basis for such an action seem more like mercy to me... i.e. the poor fellow couldn't help but turn out that way given his upbringing and has it already bad enough as it is without the extra punishment. — ChatteringMonkey
Considering upbringing as something outside of one's preferred choices seems like a strange notion given that, I would assume, one's upbringing is always to some extend part of what determines one's will or preferred choices. — ChatteringMonkey
In retrospect, I think you are right that determinism is neither here nor there in the issue of moral responsibility and free will. It's largely a distraction, one that I was proposing to get rid of. The discussion was on Strawson's position "where everything is caused externally, deprecating personal responsibility".It just seems that you (or maybe just Olivier) are itching to have this discussion - so why not have a dedicated topic for it? That would invite wider participation. — SophistiCat
Once one assumes determinism, as Strawson surely does here, then there is no thing which is uncaused. As such 'responsible' becomes a word without a referrent. That, to me, seems silly. Rather, we'd work out what it is we still mean by 'responsible' despite determinism. — Isaac
I wasn't so much complaining about a derail. It just seems that you (or maybe just Olivier) are itching to have this discussion - so why not have a dedicated topic for it? That would invite wider participation. — SophistiCat
That would in my view make it easier to think through the issue of moral responsibility. One can ask questions such as "should she have reacted differently, or taken the issue more seriously?" And these questions now have a clear meaning, because we assume that she could indeed have acted differently, — Olivier5
Is this sort of passive aggressiveness par for the course around here? — Olivier5
That's the point. Given a full notion of free-choice we would not be able to make such an argument as, upbringing or not, the person was completely free to choose their behaviour and so can be held entirely responsible for it. — Isaac
I never said anything like that. — Olivier5
we assume that she could indeed have acted differently — Olivier5
either mental states do not constrain our free choice at all (which means no one has any diminished responsibility), or mental states do constrain our free choice, — Isaac
there's no logical problem with those constraints being absolute. — Isaac
We are our mental states, own them, identify with them. — Olivier5
if you Isaac are completely and totally determined as you seem to think you are, is what you are saying still philosophy, or is it instead just the product of some molecular machine that can't think otherwise? — Olivier5
I think my word choice has caused some confusion. I introduced the notion of preferred simply to be clear that there aren't any objective measures of selfhood we can use to distinguish external (non-self) constraints on choice from internal ones (like preference). In some cases it will be obvious (a gun to the head is obviously an external constraint) but in some cases we have to take a clients subjective judgment into account (anything from feeling depressed without cause to actually hearing voices which do not feel part of oneself).
So one's environment creates external constraints in obviously external ways, but also in ways which are subjectively external - mental processes which are not identified with the self, which one would prefer not to have, but are present nonetheless. — Isaac
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