I agree. I guess where I was headed is that an idealist can also be a determinist. LD can be revised to know everything about a universe that is essentially mind. — frank

I don't see why not. If idealism is correct, the reality the minds are thinking up that we take to be physical has consistent properties, rules, etc. No reason LD couldn't know all there is to know about all those properties, rules, etc., regardless of their true nature.

That's if you limit LD to so-called physical events, which automatically excludes non-physical things like numbers and mental states. We could imagine an LD that has knowledge of the non-physical stuff, right? — frank

That, I believe, is the point of LD. Maybe? If all is deterministic, then numbers and information, and consciousness and intent, are irrelevant. It can all be reduced to particle physics, just as thermodynamics can. I suppose it would know why brain states also feel like mental states to us. But if "feel like" is all there is, but they have no casual power, and are, themselves, determined by the physical events, then it doesn't matter. Itt doesn't interfere with the calculations.

The quote can be found on anything number of sites...

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. — Laplace

I believe this is saying that LD knows everything about everything IF everything about everything is deterministic. That, I believe, is the point of Laplace's thought experiment.

But if all of reality is not deterministic, LD's calculations would not be able to figure everything out. Comparing what, based on its calculations, it says the universe would look like at any given point with what the universe actually looks like, there would be discrepancies. I suppose LD would say, "Something non-deterministic took place at that spot."

Chalmers adapted LD to accommodate quantum physics by just making it open ended. In other words, the demon knows how events unfold, however that may be (I think that's what he meant anyway). So couldn't we have an LD that know mental states and however it is they evolve? — frank

I don't know how LD would deal with quantum events. I suppose it's possible that it would understand why things happen randomly, uncertainly, and, to it, the events would not be random and uncertain. If half the atoms of plutonium are going to decay in 81 million years, maybe it knows which half, and maybe even which one at which moment. I have no idea. But I am certainly willing to stipulate that for the sake of argument.

however, if consciousness is not the result of, or at least not entirely the result of, physical events, of which LD has absolute knowledge, then it would not have absolute understanding of consciousness. LD only knows what it knows knows.

Not determined in the same way? — frank

Right. if there is free will. If everything we think, feel, and do is not determined solely by progressions of arrangements of all the constituent parts of our brains, which change from one arrangement to the next because of the ways the laws of physics act upon them.

Well sure we cannot know it.But the really question is,could Laplace's Demon know it indeed? — dimosthenis9

Yes, that's the question. Knowing where every particle in the universe is, and what each is doing, would LD be able to calculate exactly what we were going to do, think, and feel at any point in the future? Or would it say, "I don't know, because there is something going on in conscious beings that is not determined in the same ways everything that is not conscious can be determined."

Knowledge that one will be held accountable may very well result in better behavior than would be the case if no accountability were expected. — Relativist

I agree. If there is no free will (however anyone wants to define that), and we all do what we do only because that's how the billion bouncing billiard balls in our heads landed, then, yes, the knowledge that we will be punished if caught also becomes part of the bouncing.

Am I correctly understanding what he's saying?
— Patterner
I think so. Great analogy. (And your quote was hilarious!) — Relativist

Thanks. And yeah, he's awful funny. Lol.

So if Tse is correct, let me ask about this:

In what way is this robot less a casual agent, affecting the world less, less of a "self" than we are?
— Patterner
It is a causal agent, but lacks a mind. Our minds mediate our actions, and provides our sense of self. — Relativist

Certainly, the physical interactions taking place among the components of our brains are more complex than those taking place among the molecules of air in a room, among the robots parts and programming, and maybe even among the components of anything else in the universe. Still, our minds are the product of nothing but physical interactions. What is the value of our sense of self if it can do nothing other than move from one arrangement of its constituent parts to the next, as the laws of physics require? Even wondering about the value of itself is nothing but the progression of arrangements, as determined by the laws of physics. One person's thought that there is value in the self, and another person's that there is not, are, ultimately, both the result of the properties of particles and the forces that act upon them.

You can say 'how do you know it isn't determined?', but you can't say with any accuracy that plans don't change the future. — Barkon

I can. Because the future isn't something that exists in the present. Something can only change if it exists. My television can be on channel 2, and I can change it to channel 4.

I can cut the legs off of my table, and screw skies onto it, thus changing my table into a sled.

I can add a floor to my house, changing it from a one-story to a two-story.

I can sell my Nissan and buy a Ford. I won't have changed the physical object, but I will have changed the car I own.

But if I take saw, hammer, nails, and wood, and build a chair, I will not have changed the future because I had said I was going to build a table. I only changed my intention, my plan of what I would have in the future. There was no table in the future that ceased to be and was replaced by a chair.

Basically it's being suggested by the opposition that if we make a plan, it's not us, but some universal force controlling us to make a plan, and thus, no will is involved. — Barkon

Yes, I believe the opposition is saying that. However, I don't think they are saying the force that is controlling us is doing so with intent, thought, or purpose. I think they are saying it's the laws of physics, or physicalism, or whatever the best term is now.

Thanks for pointing me at these things. When a page or two after what I quoted last time says

Endogenous attentional binding/tracking is realized in cholinergic/noncholinergic bursts sent from the basal forebrain and other areas that trigger a transition from tonic to phasic processing in pyramidal circuits from retinotopic areas up to anterior inferotemporal cortex and hippocampus, facilitating recognition. — Tse

I fear I'm not going to get too much out of the book.

The quote in your post before the diagram post makes me think of this analogy. I don't know if this is what he's saying, so let me know.

There are an uncountable number of air molecules in my living room. They are all flying about in various directions, at various speeds. We have nothing resembling the slightest hint of hope of tracking them all. But we can measure the temperature of the room. As Anil Seth writes in Being You : A New Science of Consciousness

Importantly, thermodynamics did more than merely establish that mean kinetic energy correlated with temperature—it proposed that this is what temperature actually is. — Seth

We, likewise, have no hope of tracking the activity of every neuron and synapse in someone's brain. As with the air molecules, the numbers, alone, make it impossible. But it's even more complicated, because, due to the nature of neurons, as Tse says, "The criteria for what makes a neuron fire can change." If we have no hope of mapping out the motion of the molecules of air in the room, then "no hope" is a pitifully inadequate way of expressing our ability to map out neutral activity. Nevertheless, if I'm understanding this, Tse is saying that, to paraphrase Seth, neural activity doesn't merely correlate with thought— this is what thought actually is. Although we can measure the macro property of temperature in a room, but cannot map out the motion of the air molecules, we know that the temperature is nothing more than the motion of the molecules. And, although we can comprehend thoughts, but cannot map out the neural activity of the brain, we know that the thoughts are nothing more than the neural activity.

Am I correctly understanding what he's saying?

I think this is the main problem here when we start from the logical premiss of "the future is what really will happen".

To change the future assumes a variety of "possible futures" that then don't happen, through our actions. Which goes against the definition that the future is what really will happen. — ssu

Indeed. There is no such thing as a future that "really will" or "is supposed to" happen. We only have what comes to be. Planning to do something is not establishing a future state, and changing that plan is not changing the future.

Even though mental states are the product of neural processes, it's still the case that there is mental causation. So your thoughts and feelings actually do affect the world in a unique way. The 'self' is your consciousness; a "machine" that develops intentions and acts upon them. You are caused to be what you are, but you were not caused through prior intent (not entirely). — Relativist

What if we build a robot that does various things under various conditions. When it's optic sensors detect something of a certain size range coming into the room, it sprays that thing with water. When its auditory sensors detect sounds within a certain frequency range, it opens a can of cat food and puts it in the dish on the floor. We can go on and on, programming it to compare different sensory input, having it act on only one in some cases, act on multiple in other cases, modify a typical action under shine circumstances, as complex as we can manage.

In what way is this robot less a casual agent, affecting the world less, less of a "self" than we are?

I don't think "you" exist apart from your physical body, but you do have a mental life. IMO, agential control is not an illusion if mental causation exists. It certainly seems like we have it, and it can be accounted for with purely physical processes (Peter Tse provides such an account in his book, "The Neural Basis of Free Will"). — Relativist

I tried to read Tse's book about fifteen years ago, but I have to admit I found it unconvincing (assuming that I understood it). — Janus

I have started the book a couple times. I'll try again. But I can't find it in me to be overly hopeful that Tse provides an account of how mental causation exists, Relativist, when he begins the book by saying:

§0.4 The deepest problems have yet to be solved. We do not understand the neural code. We do not understand how mental events can be causal. We do not understand how consciousness can be realized in physical neuronal activity. — Tse

I'm asserting that if we aim to change course, i.e. switch the mode we're in (what we're doing right now) it changes the future indirectly. — Barkon

What is an example of changing the future directly?

(I had a debate earlier which a person asserted a coin flip is in fact not random as, much like your rock example, could in theory be measured by force, friction, etc.) — Outlander

Sure. If we could measure EVERYTHING. In theory, we could tell how the coin would land if we had all of the variables at the instant it lost contact with your hand. The question is whether or not the instant it leaves your hand is as knowable, in theory.

While I don't take the ideas of me being a simulation or being in a VR seriously for a second, here's a thought. IIRC, the characters in Sophie's World think they are real. I think they are not. What if I wrote a book about characters in another reality, with entirely different physics, who thought they were real? Someone could ask them about their physics, and they could respond with as much detail as I can invent. Maybe I'm the character in someone's book.

I agree with you. But I'm asking if what I said is the idea of the thread. Sorry, should have specifically asked .

I have no idea what this topic is about. If I go to my refrigerator and take out the ham and cheese for a sandwich, then put it back and make pb&j, have I changed the future? Is that the idea?

Idealism is going to have to posit that for some reason, we're all dreaming of a reality where matter seems to exist. This, to me, seems like less of a problem than the Hard Problem. — RogueAI

It seems odd enough that beings of a certain nature would come up with the idea of a reality that was of a nature unlike anything they had or could ever experience. Odder still that they would only ever see themselves as inhabiting that reality, and, indeed, being of that nature themselves. That doesn't seem like less of a problem than anything I can think of. :grin: I'll stick with proto-consciousness.

That's a far stronger argument for mind independent stuff. It doesn't refute solipsism since there aren't other minds also agreeing on the rock that you haven't even noticed yet. But similar arguments can be used to refute solipsism. — noAxioms

Yes, for things I haven't even noticed yet. But I think an explanation is needed if I am in a place I've never been, write a list of what I see, and another person in the same situation puts the same things on their list.

Why is the burden of proof on me? We know mind and consciousness exist. The existence of mind-independent stuff is simply asserted. I would like to see a proof that this stuff exists. Something a little more robust than "go kick a rock". — RogueAI

I don't know enough about this. Is the idea that the many minds/consciousnesses all think up the same things that we generally take to be mind-independent stuff?

Or is there another explanation for our agreement on so much of what's mind-independent?

Perhaps only my mind exists, and, since it thinks up what I usually take to be other minds, it only makes sense that I think them up to perceive the same things that I take to be mind-independent?

:up:

For me, life is not nothing more than suffering. There is plenty other than suffering. We are all the universe becoming aware. To get all poetic, that's magic! We are freakin' magic! Of course we suffer at times. It's yin/yang. If there is no bad, then there is no good. If there is no dark, then there is no light. If we did not feel pain, then we would not understand pleasure.

I realize people have different degrees of chemicals in them. Hormones, neurotransmitters, what have you. And people have very different experiences in their formative years. These things play a big role in how we feel. We can look at the same thing, and feel exactly opposite about it. But my first paragraph should be the lens through which we try to view our lives. Not the lens of "Everything is suffering." We probably can find a reason to think we are suffering at every moment, it we choose to. I can look at the aurora borealis, and call it suffering because it makes my floaters stand out. But we can choose the things we think to a much greater degree than many realize. I can direct my thoughts to the gorgeous display instead.

It's because I'm atonal, mixing with an arid humor. — ENOAH

I do love me some Bartók! And it doesn't get more arid than Arrakis and Raraku!

We once again see the exact same thing, from such opposite directions, in such contrasting words, but overlapping precisely in other moments. — Fire Ologist

I told ENOAH the same thing not long ago.

Practicing a religion could gain you divine favor in the afterlife. — Scarecow

Practicing a religion could gain you nothing, and could be seen as a waste of every moment spent practicing it.

However, atheism couldn't possibly gain you any divine favor, — Scarecow

It could if gods exist that reward us for reasons other than practicing any, or a particular, religion.

That's amazing! Holy cow!

I disagree because this sense of responsibility is a part of our mechanism, and contributes to our choices. — Relativist

How did this situation come to be? For millennia, people were entirely fooled into thinking they had free will. I don't know when someone first came up with the concept of free will, but, since there wouldn't have been any thought that we don't have it, the idea that we do wouldn't have been floating around. A yin/yang idea. So it was a given that we are responsible for our actions, without even questioning it. And people were punished for bad actions.

Now, people think we don't have free will. But we can't not be responsible for our actions. First, because that's just not acceptable. We can't have people getting away with, literally, murder just because we know we don't have free will, and the murderer couldn't have done otherwise. Somebody has to pay! Second, because we still feel that we are responsible for our actions. You can't tell me I'm not responsible. Even if I'm not! Third, because the feeling that we're responsible, and the virtue of holding people responsible, is part of our culture, and our language.

We don't think of punishing a storm or avalanche for killing someone. Or a swarm of bees, although it seems that was their intention. We might put a dog down if it kills someone, buy we don't do it for punishment. We just can't have it killing again. We don't feel it really had a choice, for whatever reason, and don't hate it. Maybe it was an abused animal. Maybe it was in great pain at the moment it killed. Maybe it was trained to kill (if that can be done without abuse).

But we hold humans responsible. We harbor very bad feeling for humans who do evil. In many cases, we blame the owner of the dog, even when the situation doesn't allow us to impose any legal penalty. All because we are not simply subject to our pasts and physical factors, like storms and avalanches, bees, asked dogs.

Except we are.

Genuinely - get into poker. Getting 'in the tank' is a common thing and the reason some tournaments take a week to play out. Decisions are long, arduous processes in poker. Think you'll enjoy. — AmadeusD

What a surprising response! :grin: I probably know as close to nothing about poker as is possible. I hadn't thought I was suited to it in any way. Now I wonder...

Yes, determinism doesn't necessarily prevent me from feeling pleasure or having meaning, but it also doesn't give me any say in the matter.
— QuixoticAgnostic

Does indeterminism? It wouldn't seem so to me. — flannel jesus

An extremely important point. A few scenarios come to mind.

1) My genetic makeup, and every experience I've ever had, and everything about how I feel, and whatever other factors there may be, are all physically reducible. And, at the cusp of decision, they are all weighed against each other, as physical events, and the choice is determined by how all the physical interactions play out.

2) Consciousness is, at least in part, non-physical. A soul, or panpsychism, or something else. This does not rule out determinism. Consciousness still makes choices because of those factors, even though we can't possibly consciously weigh such an incalculable number of things.

3) Choices are not based on those factors. At least not ultimately. I doubt anyone would deny the past plays at least some role. But perhaps the final instant is not determined by any physical or nonphysical weighing.

I think #3 is what fj means? In what way would we have any say in the matter if we don't make the decision based on factors from the past? Does "indetermed" mean "random"? If so, then how do we have any meaningful say in it?

I often chose randomly. I have been told I have Analysis Paralysis. (Which is very cool, and I now have a shirt that says Master of Analysis Paralysis.) I was told this because I take an inordinately long time to make decisions while playing board games. I often just have to pick an action for no reason just so I don't piss the other players off any more than I already have. But board games is fairly new. I've been unable to decide what to eat at restaurants for decades. I usually hope the waiter says one or another meal comes with noticably more food than the other(s). That's a good way to decide. Alas, there is usually not a clear winner in that regard. So I sit, unable to pick one over the other(s), until I just pick randomly, or my wife picks for me.

We don't doubt the mechanistic independence of breathing because it is obvious. We doubt the mechanistic dynamics of choosing because, built-into (evolved) that process is the placement of the Subject "I." Hence "I am deliberating," seems like there is a being at the center of the mechanistic process pulling the strings at its will. I say there is not — ENOAH

That's very well said. The question is: Why does it seem there is a being in the mechanistic process? IOW, the Hard Problem. Why do these physical processes have this seeming if they are nothing but physical processes, when these other physical processes don't? And if there is no being present, then to what does the seeming seem to be?

I agree that the process is, in one sense, programmed, but you are the program. — Relativist

Right. And ChatGPT is the program. And Deep Blue is the program.

There's also a sense in which you aren't programmed: you aren't the product of design. You weren't built in order to perform the functions you execute. — Relativist

I agree. But that's another conversation entirely.

I very much appreciate your view. I've been more than somewhat interested in taoism for most of my life. I loved Le Guin's Earthsea books and the old Kung Fu tv show as a kid. Years later, for whatever reason, I started reading the Tao Te Ching , and immediately recognized it.

I don't know much about Buddhism, but I gather it goes much farther than taoism does in the direction you're speaking of. But I believe both offer paths to a life that is more content and less frantic. Which probably also helps people be physically healthier.

(Joel learned these lessons in the last season of Northern Exposure, and seemed to me to be a much better person for it.)

So I can see a great value in applying aspects of this truth, if it is, indeed, truth, to our lives. Heck, even if it isn't truth, I see the value. (I suppose that's a matter of opinion.)

The problem I have is that taking this view to the logical conclusion, of I can call it that, which you seem to be advocating, is a rejection of our individuality. The universe allows for me, and for you, to exist. Why should we not embrace and explore this? Why reject what is possible? Why try to not fully embrace that individually?

I would think this attitude would be even more logical if there is a universal consciousness. If a universal consciousness is (what's the right word) focusing itself in one place/time, why would that focused consciousness reject what it, as the universal consciousness, is trying to do? One day, I'll be dead. At which point, I'll, shall we say, melt back into the universal consciousness. What would have been accomplished by having tried to deny the individual point of acute consciousness when it was possible?

And what would have been the point if there is not a universal consciousness, and this is it?

And your choices aren't meaningless. You give meaning to the factors, and those meanings influence the choice. The person who chooses to keep the money you drop is doing so because of what money means to him. — Relativist

But you don't get to "give meaning to the factors" if it's all deterministic. Your genetic makeup, experiences, etc., give everything meaning to the group of cells referred to as Relativist. Then, when you are in a situation where different directions are taken by different people, the meaning that all those factors have determined you have determine which direction you take.

But if the choices are determined, then are they really choices? I throw a ball into the air, and give it a choice: continue to rise forever, or fall back down. Who are we kidding? The ball doesn't get to choose. It does the only thing it can do.

If I drop a lot of money while walking in front of someone, we can say that the person has the choice of calling out to me to alert me that I dropped it, or quickly picking it up themself and walking in another direction. If determinism is true, and the person's genetic makeup, upbringing, other past experiences, health at the moment, and all other factors, will allow only one option, then calling it a "choice" is as meaningless as with the thrown ball. No, we can't even know what all the factors are, much less see how they all combine to produce the only outcome they can produce. But that doesn't mean it was any more possible for the outcome to have been other than it was than in the cases of the ball.

No worries. I never took anything as adversarial, or an accusation thereof.

I don't really know where we part ways. It seems you describe things as I see them. You, shall we say, put the puzzle pieces together as I do. But then you see a different picture when the puzzle is assembled.

I'm not sure what your picture is, however, so I'm not sure. Tell me. Serious question, because I just don't know what you're thinking. For you, does what I view as the Self have any value? If you were told it was going to end, because of death, or you were going to develop amnesia, or maybe some scifi thing... Would you have a problem with that? Would it bother you?

I would say you describe the scenario very well. :up:

Whenever the hard determinist view is brought up in online discussions there is almost always someone that says no free will or genuine moral responsibility logically entails fatalism and nihilism. If everything that happens couldn’t help but happen and people’s choices aren’t truly free then somehow life is meaningless and morality doesn’t exist. — Captain Homicide

If it really is the case that everything that happens couldn’t help but happen and people’s choices aren’t truly free, then those who believe life is meaningless and morality doesn't exist have no choice but to believe that. And nobody has any choice but to live their lives as they do in response to that.