Some thoughts on the p-zombie idea

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Wouldn’t positively asserting that everyone but yourself is a mere meat shell without rational consciousness just put the burden of proof on Determinists all the more?

[UnseenParticipant]

Dennett redefines free will so that it no longer involves a truly free choice among alternatives and can thus be made compatible with the truths of science. So, he accepts determinism, but limits its scope so that it stops at the door of morality.

He makes the reality of free will depend on our need for morality rather than the other way around. It’s not so much that he wants to vindicate free will per se. Rather, he wants to do so instrumentally to keep it as a basis for morality, similar to Kant’s argument for God, which is basically that if there’s no God, there’s no Judgment Day for the wicked, and so God must exist.

Dennett says that calling an action “freely chosen” does not mean that a person had actual alternatives, which is never true (remember, he doesn’t deny determinism), but rather means that we are justified in holding people responsible for their actions: He has written, “In other words, the fact that free will is worth wanting can be used to anchor our conception of free will in a way metaphysical myths fail to do.” (p. 257 of his Freedom Evolves)

So, he dishonestly argues that free will must be true because we want or need it to be, just like Kant’s “proof” of God.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

Dennett redefines free will so that it no longer involves a truly free choice among alternatives and can thus be made compatible with the truths of science. So, he accepts determinism, but limits its scope so that it stops at the door of morality. He makes the reality of free will depend on our need for morality rather than the other way around. It’s not so much that he wants to vindicate free will per se. Rather, he wants to do so instrumentally to keep it as a basis for morality, similar to Kant’s argument for God, which is basically that if there’s no God, there’s no Judgment Day for the wicked, and so God must exist. Dennett says that calling an action “freely chosen” does not mean that a person had actual alternatives, which is never true (remember, he doesn’t deny determinism), but rather means that we are justified in holding people responsible for their actions: He has written, “In other words, the fact that free will is worth wanting can be used to anchor our conception of free will in a way metaphysical myths fail to do.” (p. 257 of his Freedom Evolves) So, he dishonestly argues that free will must be true because we want or need it to be, just like Kant’s “proof” of God.

Yeah, I disagree with some aspects of Dennett’s reasoning. Neutrons from space smash into semiconductor chips and actually flip memory bits surprisingly often in airborne computers. Avionics equipment requires designed-in mitigation to protect from these bit upsets. As far as we are concerned this is a random event. It matters little to our frame of reference if that neutron is predictable from a cosmological perspective. In the same way our nervous system could be acted on at the molecular/cellular levels and we would never know. We can easily be fooled into thinking we have agency.

It doesn’t matter if people are truly guilt-free or not from a cosmological perspective. For our frame of reference, we appear to have degrees of agency and that’s the way we have to handle things.

[jakelafortParticipant]

I more or less agree with Unseen and Robert although i was distracted while listening to the Dennett video. I did listen carefully some time ago when he explained his version of compatibilism. I see why Harris and he parted on this issue.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I think it’s a lot easier to trace the broad-strokes of what has been, than to predict what will be.  There’s probably a mathematical theorem that states it would take more resources than there are in the universe.

Reality is chaotic and contingent.  So are we in some ways.

I can see the logic in determinism – that we are now a complete product of the past.  However.  What about this?  It has been determined that we have a level of free choice given the many constraints on our existence.  The more sophisticated an organism’s brain is, the more free choice it has within a given biological and physcial environment, compared with species with less sophisticated brains.  Look at the octopus, and how it has a very wide range of options at any one time.  Also, parrots, are very flexible and intelligent in what they do.

In fact, I believe that flexibility is an evolved human trait that has enabled us to get so far in the world.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I can see the logic in determinism – that we are now a complete product of the past.  However.  What about this?  It has been determined that we have a level of free choice given the many constraints on our existence.

The determinism I talk about only refers to the immediately proximate causes, the sufficient causes, ignoring anything from the big bang up to those causes because the history of the universe is fraught with chaos and random events generated by the subatomic world.

As far as “It has been determined that we have a level of free choice given the many constraints on our existence,” it seems like a lot of what I’ve written above went in one ear and then over your head (LOL). How can choices be free in any sense if they are generated by a part of the brain where things just happen. We don’t run our brain. Our brain runs us.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Simon, how do you like this?

Is he choosing to treat his wound with ointment? Imagine you are in the jungle alone naked and afraid when you stumble and crack your head and you are left for dead? Along comes an orang who gives ya a med.

[_Robert_Participant]

Does anyone have an argument against an infinite number of possible futures, each one dependent on the present state?

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Does anyone have an argument against an infinite number of possible futures, each one dependent on the present state?

Not sure what you’re getting at, so I’ll just say that the future will probably be just like the past that got us here today: cause and effect, cause and effect, with some of those causes happening randomly (different kinds of rays effing up DNA and microscopic circuitry, for example) as well as just plain old chaos. So, yeah, a myriad of potential futures lay ahead. I don’t know about an infinity, though. That’s a pretty huge claim.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

_Robert_ wrote:

Does anyone have an argument against an infinite number of possible futures, each one dependent on the present state?

Not sure what you’re getting at, so I’ll just say that the future will probably be just like the past that got us here today: cause and effect, cause and effect, with some of those causes happening randomly (different kinds of rays effing up DNA and microscopic circuitry, for example) as well as just plain old chaos. So, yeah, a myriad of potential futures lay ahead. I don’t know about an infinity, though. That’s a pretty huge claim.

Does the prospect of many possible futures fit in with your view of hard determinism?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Our understanding of physics just gets more and more Alice.

Have you seen the new discoveries in which the macro world is acting similarly to quantum and massive structures gazillions of light years apart are entangled? I don’t think broad sweeping statements like an infinite number of fill in the blank can capture reality or the lack of it.

[_Robert_Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Our understanding of physics just gets more and more Alice. Have you seen the new discoveries in which the macro world is acting similarly to quantum and massive structures gazillions of light years apart are entangled? I don’t think broad sweeping statements like an infinite number of fill in the blank can capture reality or the lack of it.

Well, the question remains: are these entanglements and quantum processes set in stone by the past or is there true randomness that excludes any possible omniscience? The believers in God’s gift of “free will” also believe in omnipotence and omniscience so in reality they are the hard determinists. There is only one possible future: God’s plan.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Well, the question remains: are these entanglements and quantum processes set in stone by the past or is there true randomness that excludes any possible omniscience? The believers in God’s gift of “free will” also believe in omnipotence and omniscience so in reality they are the hard determinists. There is only one possible future: God’s plan.

Rife with contradiction is the bible and its fiction.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Does the prospect of many possible futures fit in with your view of hard determinism?

I believe that effects have causes, which normally are effects themselves of sufficient causes which sometimes (very rarely for sure) are random or the result of chaos. If hard determinism is that everything on the level where Newtonian/Einsteinian physics happens has a cause, then, that is the definition of hard determinism, is it not? An event triggered by a random subatomic intrusion is still an effect with a cause.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

The believers in God’s gift of “free will” also believe in omnipotence and omniscience so in reality they are the hard determinists. There is only one possible future: God’s plan.

Those believers will have to believe in a weird logic that embraces nonsense because omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible in the sense that a being with one can’t have the other. If I’m God and my omniscience embraces the future, then there is no distinction between past and future. Both have in a way already happened. And no amount of omnipotence can change it. In other words, if the future is up for grabs, then God isn’t omniscient, because God should also know his own mind and what he will do with his powers.

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