Humans have discovered the ethics of liberty over and over again throughout history. Of course, an ethical system for rational animals has to take account of the dynamic aspects of conflict, and not just zero sum scenarios. All other species in the world are not characterized after a vigorous a) capability and b) need, for owning and creating property. Men profit from a more advanced division of labor, whereas the animals and plants suffer when they compete for scare resources, since they cannot create more or just conceive of any alternatives for large numbers. The need for property is now evident. But how are we to validate the justice behind property and -of course- its allocation?
The best answer available to us (yet) is Hoppe’s development of Habermas-Apel’s concept of discourse or communicative ethics. Those German thinkers have written about it to justify democracy and even dialog for the sake of dialog. Hoppe, a student of Habermas and a scholar on both, took the concept one step beyond. Thus, we can properly speak of Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics.
Prof. Hoppe studied and applied the epistemological breakthrough that Ludwig von Mises provided as an answer to Kant’s dilemma: how are categories of the mind supposed to fit reality. Is it that humans create reality or at least that there is no reality but our mind makes sense (arbitrarily) of a senseless cosmos? Is it that reality created the human mind, and because of that human mind can understand reality around him?
The last position fits perfectly with what Neurobiology teaches us about the human brain. Our brain is not, by any means, a tabula rasa. We are born with a brain (mind) that is the result of millions of years of evolution, and even if free will is a fact (which it is), we still have analogical processes that allow us to understand concepts which are key to our survival.
One of those concepts is the concept of property. Intuitively or rationally, men have always known that property homesteaded (by mixing labor with a resource) or created, belongs to the actor. But a contract to homestead a forest implies understanding more than meets the eye: the capitalist is the homesteader, and the employees just play a limited role and accept to receive a reward for it from his capital fund. That someone now owns the forest after some labor exerted over it, may be intuitive to some point. What cannot be is the fact that the capitalist existed, since he hired them over the phone and was not present to the eye of the natives in the zone. Those subtle categories of action (contract, fraud, wages) and the fact of -inevitably- limited information in an individual brain (no human being is omniscient, although I couldn’t know, since I am not and so I have to deal with categories and generalizations). Those categories require reflection upon the meaning of human action, and in this case, human relations. The capitalist-wage earner relation is not self-evident, as we see. But neither is property. From the simplest to the most advanced form of property (say, company stocks or insurance policies), the human mind has to reflect upon basic categories of action in order to establish the proper relation between owner and property.
What about the human body? Nature (before us, that is) never had to deal with organ donation or robbery. Donation implies contract through the will of the parts. Robbery implies just the opposite. In order to distinguish both to a degree that will satisfy the victim or a judge, proper ownership of body parts has to be established.
But it is action what creates property around us. Isn’t action capable of determining property of ourselves too? A right to self-determination embodied (yes, literally) on self-ownership?
Argumentation as action: the act of engaging in an argument is certainly revealing of some facts. First of all, we are willingly interacting in a peaceful way with the interlocutor. Argument, after all, is not any form of talking: it implies at least two people engaging voluntarily and freely in it. A speech to the slaves in a galley may not be an argument although it certainly is communication, of course. But if we talk about ethics, we are talking about principles equally valid (the universalizability of rights is a vital part of its definition, as a table has to hold things from falling to the ground in order to be a table) for all humans in the same situation.
Second, then, some ethical principles are revealed in the course of argumentation. One of them is contract, of course (and this is not tautological by any means, just keep in mind the galley example). But contract requires property. So denying self-ownership to the parts, would be denying the whole argumentation possibility. And yet, the one denying it would be engaging in some sort of argument if he was free to do it or not from the start. So in this case, we have a clear case of proof by contradiction of the opposite.
Human beings have a right to own themselves, as the act of argumentation clearly shows: nobody else can have command of their own bodies.
In sum, Hans-Hermann Hoppe has discovered and developed a system of rights that is grounded on the fact that humans act, that humans have a mind that is analogical to its circundating reality and that does not require an “is-ought” duality in order to show us the proper ethical system for rational animals. We are the rightful owners of our bodies and of property we create through the use of our minds, ourselves or through contract. If slaves in a galley can dream of freedom in the near future, so can citizens of an statist world. Argumentation Ethics provides us with a template based on facts of how to untangle, understand and finally free a world ridden with contradition and denial of justice.
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Free-will is not a fact. Either we can attribute the processes in our brain to classical physics, in which case they are deterministic with no room for a “will” to enter in and change anything or to indeterministic quantum mechanics which has no more to do with free-will than an electron.
Please tell the processes or electrons that made you post your coment, that I chose to disagree.
TGGP, what are your thoughts on compatibilism?
Please tell the processes or electrons that made you post your coment, that I chose to disagree.
I don’t know how my microwave works, that shouldn’t make you believe it doesn’t work. Ask a neuroscientist.
Compatibilism is essentially admitting there is no free-will yet acting like there is.
Science says reality is deterministic. There’s no compelling reason to deny this. Even quantum mechanics is perfectly deterministic if you treat the wave function as a pysical reality – and there’s no compelling reason not to do that, except to desperately hang on to some hope of indeterminism.
Meanwhile, discussions of justice and politics and ‘should’ versus ‘shouldn’t’ are all completely pointless if the world is deterministic. Determinism means consciousness is like going to the movies – it FEELS like decisions are being made and events are unfolding as you watch, but really you’re just rolling forward and discovering the immutable script as it is revealed to you.
A discussion about ‘should’ versus ‘shouldn’t’ is only relevant to a reality where free will exists. Despite the contrary evidence of science, I still feel like I have free will, so I’m willing to presuppose the existence of free will, say we don’t understand it yet and more study is needed to discover its origin and eliminate any contradiction with science… and then proceed to happily discuss should versus shouldn’t.
Determinism reveals this:
Rocks and men are very similar in that their every motion, all events that they cause or do not cause, have been predetermined through sets of large chains of physical and chemical cause and effect interactions, since the beginning of time.
Yet man has one important thing the rock lacks: delusion of free will. Poor delusional man doesn’t even know he doesn’t ultimately choose a single act of his. Yet he puts so much importance on them. Is that not rather pathetic?
LOL!
TGGP,
If there were no free will and our thought processes were based entirely upon the laws of physics, it would seem to me that everyone would arrive at similar (if not the same) conclusions. I would imagine that the “arts” would be much different than what they are now.
It was just a thought…
JFC> …and even if free will is a fact (which it is),…
and…
TGGP> Compatibilism is essentially admitting there is no free-will yet acting like there is.
As best I’ve been able to gather, I have no choice but to act as though I have a choice. laughs.
IMHO> If there were no free will and our thought processes were based entirely upon the laws of physics, it would seem to me that everyone would arrive at similar (if not the same) conclusions.
That assumes that the brain (and sensory organs) have the capability to absorb all environmental data, has infinite memory, have infinite processing power, and can somehow download all past information about the universe. That is not the structure of any living thing, as best as I can tell. So each conscious being has very sparse information, and different information than any other conscious being. No two beings have identical structure or processing power, nor are they processing in absolutely identical environments. Nor do they have the same history. We are stuck with an assumption of free will, even if it is not true. So ironically, we have no choice but to act as though we do have a choice. It is not suprising they don’t reach identical conclusions — they are different by any definition — and that can’t be evidence of free will.
There is not a shred of evidence that humans have free will. But the practical fact of our limited perception and knowledge leaves us with uncertainty, so that “free will” is a practical operational solution to our construction. I reckon a better term than “free will” could come into being. Maybe “blind disobediance” is a good one. laughs.
“I reckon a better term than “free will” could come into being.”
We think there are options because we are ignorant of the future. “Ignorant of the future” seems fitting.
Even if there is no real choice, and action is predetermined, can there still be chance?
How about BROKEN BALLS to replace FREE WILL?
That’s for “we wish we had a crystal ball, but we don’t.”
Dear Juan Fernando Carpio,
If you are so inclined go to my blogsite (http://divineeconomyethics.blogspot.com/) and read about the fifteen axioms of a positive ethical system that I developed as I wrote my most recent book (ETHICS of the Divine Economy).
The assumption that I made as I wrote “ETHICS of the Divine Economy” was that I was continuing the work embarked on by Murray Rothbard as he laid the foundation for a positive ethical system.
I am thankful to you for the pdf of Chapter Ten from the work of Hans Hoppe (http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf). All of his work is masterful and impeccable.
“There is not a shred of evidence that humans have free will.â€
There is one shred, at least. And that is that determinists keep forgetting that the people they intend to persuade via reason that there is no free will, have no free will of their own to see reason, and choose to change their minds about the status of free will. You’d think the proponents of determinism, at least, would see the futility of reasoning with a predetermined robot of the truth of determinism. But I suppose they would answer that they themselves, are destined to pursue what is already determined to be either futile, or redundant – they have no choice in the matter. What fun and what futility.
“Even if there is no real choice, and action is predetermined, can there still be chance?”
How could there be genuine chance? Determinism has it that all things were ultimately determined at the very beginning of the universe. It is all one ultimately predictable sequence of cause and effect physical interactions. Whatever occurs in time, had to have occurred, due ultimately to how the first event of the universe played out – as it was the first of the chain of events leading to any other particular event.
Can radicals and revolutionaries ever be hard determinists?
Despite the contrary evidence of science, I still feel like I have free will, so I’m willing to presuppose the existence of free will, say we don’t understand it yet and more study is needed to discover its origin and eliminate any contradiction with science… and then proceed to happily discuss should versus shouldn’t.
Saying you “feel” it exists is a crappy reason to presuppose its existence. The purpose of scientific investigation is not to confirm what you already believe either.
If there were no free will and our thought processes were based entirely upon the laws of physics, it would seem to me that everyone would arrive at similar (if not the same) conclusions. I would imagine that the “arts” would be much different than what they are now.
That does not make any sense. Human beings are not all the same, otherwise DNA tests would be unable to tell us apart. We also are not exposed to the same stimuli or environment. If you agree that rocks and computers are deterministic, you would also have to conclude that every computer is running the same program and every rock must fall if one does, which is clearly not the case. When you are skipping stones on a lake you may think two stones are identical and you have thrown them identically, yet one skips very differently from the other. This is not because the stones decided to behave differently.
You’d think the proponents of determinism, at least, would see the futility of reasoning with a predetermined robot of the truth of determinism.
Who says a robot must stay the same? Interacting often changes its state. But I primarily interact because I enjoy it.
The notion of “chance” is useful because the future is still uncertain. Coin-flips and dice-rolls are deterministic but modeling them as purely probabilistic is still useful for prediction.
Can radicals and revolutionaries ever be hard determinists?
Yes, Marx believed in dialectical historical materialism where forces inevitably lead from slavery to feudalism to capitalism to communism (with a dictatorship of the proletariat right before the end).
If humans don’t have a free will, then not only does morality become meaningless, but so does reason. So why are you determinists posting here? You can’t change anyone’s mind; our choices are predetermined by the chemical reactions in our brains. It just so happens that your chemical reactions rolled the dice and came up with “determinism” as the answer to everything. You didn’t arrive at that answer by study, reason, or superior intelligence; it just happened. Our chemical reactions ended up with a different answer.
But if all our decisions are hard-wired, how is it possible for us to learn, adapt and to change our minds?
not only does morality become meaningless
Calvinists would disagree, but I do not.
but so does reason
Sounds like a non sequitur to me.
So why are you determinists posting here?
I enjoy it.
You can’t change anyone’s mind; our choices are predetermined by the chemical reactions in our brains.
Those chemical reactions can be affected by the photons entering your eyes from a screen whose content was altered by my writing.
It just so happens that your chemical reactions rolled the dice and came up with “determinism” as the answer to everything. You didn’t arrive at that answer by study, reason, or superior intelligence; it just happened. Our chemical reactions ended up with a different answer.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Computers are deterministic but some computer programs can find answers better than others. A pseudo-random number generator will do a worse job than an algorithm in solving a math problem.
But if all our decisions are hard-wired, how is it possible for us to learn, adapt and to change our minds?
Have you ever heard of machine-learning?
For more on gut feelings versus evidence-based reasons for belief, read this.
“Who says a robot must stay the same? Interacting often changes its state. But I primarily interact because I enjoy it.”
And a rock also need not stay the same, as physical interaction often changes its state as well. And so it is true, a rock remains a rock and a robot remains a robot.
I suppose you must be predetermined to at least try to persuade the world of determinism, irrespective of the superficial reason you may give. And the rest of us must be predetermined to believe whatever it is we will believe. You can no more ultimately choose to stop doing something that is either futile or redundant, anymore than anyone else can choose to resist to remind you that you must believe your efforts are either futile or redundant. That this makes your efforts rather illogical and pointless, is of little importance to you, again because you are predetermined to see your contradiction as unimportant. You have no choice but to ignore it, just as we have no choice but to point it out.
TGGP: “Have you ever heard of machine-learning?”
I’ll concede your other points, but this one needs a response. “Machine learning” is an exaggeration typical of the computer industry, like “artificial intelligence.” Algorithms that perform “learning” do nothing more than pattern matching at very rapid speeds. It’s nothing at all like what humans do when we learn something. With machine learning, someone has to tell the computer what the correct answer is to a question; then the computer will rapidly scan new data and tell you whether or not the correct pattern is in the new data. For example, if you store the images of criminals in a database, a computer can scan the faces of people and rapidly match the new images to those in the database. But no computer can scan the faces of individuals not in the database and determine which ones are criminals.
Another example: “machine learning” is used extensively to catch fraud at banks. But the users must show the computer examples of real fraud. Then the computer can match new data with those examples and determine the possibility of fraud in specific transactions.
But notice in these examples that the computer is not learning in the sense that humans do. Humans can take new data and find new patterns or come up with ideas no one has thought of before. (Computers can do very limited discovery of patterns with cluster analysis algoriths, but to be meaningful, they require a lot of human interaction.) Computers can’t do that.
Computers are limited to solution that are preprogrammed into them. Humans clearly aren’t. So I ask again: But if all our decisions are hard-wired, how is it possible for us to learn, adapt and to change our minds?
TGGP: not only does morality become meaningless
Calvinists would disagree, but I do not.
That’s interesting, isn’t it? As far as I can tell, Calvinists don’t believe in free-will. Maybe someone who is a Calvinist can enlighten us on that. BTW, Muslims don’t believe in free will, either, at least orthodox Islam doesn’t. A lot of popular Islam assumes a free will.
All religions accepting fate reject free will in a sense. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all of them.
Marxists also reject it.
Actually most of the people on this earth reject free will on some level.
Free will is a very scary concept. It comes with responsibility which is had to bear for most people.
To ameliorate your fear (‘very scary concept’) of free will I suggest that you consider it as an inherent part of the human operating system. Is subjectivism frightening to you? Subjectivism stems from the human reality spoken of when referring to ‘free will.’
However, if you understand human science then you appreciate subjectivism. What would truly be ‘scary’ would be to deny subjectivism (which is a pretty good explanation for many if not most of the ills afflicting humankind currently) in favor of an alternative view such as empiricism.
Ethics and free will are like the turmoils of adolescence. Discovery comes from testing the standards and through that discovery process an enlightened individual is born.
TGGP says: “Saying you “feel” [free will] exists is a crappy reason to presuppose its existence. The purpose of scientific investigation is not to confirm what you already believe either.”
The scientific method – this is to remind rather than to teach, as I am sure you know this already – is to gather observations from the senses, determine a pattern in the observations, and refine the pattern into laws until it is clear you have it correct because the laws now perfectly predict all new observations. If the predictions are contradicted by observations, you’re ‘not quite there yet’ and your understanding needs to improve.
Science is a system I embrace wholeheartedly. It is true that no matter of mere belief may be allowed to contradict the conclusions of Science. But science is silent on many matters – and until it catches up on these matters (if it ever does), science cannot be used as a trump card to dismiss other ideas.
To date, science has very much failed to explain or dismiss the observation of my own free will, or for that matter the experience of the ‘ego’.
So no, saying we observe free will is not a crappy reason to suggest it exists. It’s the only, and in fact the scientific reason, to claim something exists – because we observe it.
Why has one “impasse†(Murray Rothbard’s evaluation of the pre-Hoppean state of libertarian rights theory) engendered another? Perhaps we need less preaching to the choir and more practice of the ethics of argumentation with those who accept it but deny Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s inferences therefrom. Perhaps Hoppe should invite none other than global democrat Karl-Otto Apel himself to examine and evaluate Hoppe’s use of his insights. I think we could all learn from such an exchange.
That’d be worth it just to see Apel’s reaction.
I am not sure why this emphasis on free will. Neither Hoppe’s nor Mises’s insights hinge[d] on free will at all; in fact I believe Mises was somewhat of a compatibilist.
PE> And that is that determinists keep forgetting that the people they intend to persuade via reason that there is no free will, have no free will of their own to see reason, and choose to change their minds about the status of free will.
Who says a mind capable of reason didn’t also give birth to free will? After all, it may well have given birth to gods and the easter bunny.
PE> It is all one ultimately predictable sequence of cause and effect physical interactions.
Maybe in cartoons and seances it is “ultimately predictable.” But I haven’t met anyone with that amount of mental horsepower. Or if I did, I was too meager to understand it.
Fund.> If humans don’t have a free will, then not only does morality become meaningless, but so does reason.
I suppose you are unable to see why one does not follow the other. Apparently the way you were constructed, and given your location in space and time, made such a disconnect appear plausible inside your brain.
Fund.> But if all our decisions are hard-wired,…
It wouldn’t be a “decision” if it was hardwired, now would it?
Fund.> …how is it possible for us to learn, adapt and to change our minds?
If the universe is predetermined, why would you need to adapt? How could there even be such a thing? How would you know you weren’t constructed to carry that sort of illusion? How would you know that a successful organism like a human being didn’t benefit from the illusion?
PE> I suppose you must be predetermined to at least try to persuade the world of determinism,…
It is actually the opposite. Belief in free will is a positive assertion. “Determinism” is a negative, it asserts nothing. Free willers seek converts, so they try to persuade. I suppose it is inherent in the construction of humans — perhaps genetic and/or memetic — to get others to conform to one’s views. It seems common enough, after all. Juan Fernando Carpio made the assertion.
There is a universe of difference in saying the world appears to have patterned behavior through observation and inductive (reasoned) argument, and then saying one has the ability to know without uncertainty what *any* particular pattern is. No one has that ability. You confound the restricted capability of a human being with the argument of whether “a pattern” (and what the heck is a singular pattern?) exists or does not exist. And that is about “a pattern” that cannot even be observed correctly, because again of the limited capabilty of the observer.
BK> Subjectivism stems from the human reality spoken of when referring to ‘free will.’
My observation is that subjectivism stems from me having limited capability and limited knowledge. It says nothing about “free will.” And so what? I accept that I am limited. But ironically due to my limitations, I don’t know were my limitations are with absolute precision. Some things I’ll try, but I won’t be jumping off tall buildings based on a hunch about my ability to fly like a bird.
JP> The scientific method – this is to remind rather than to teach, as I am sure you know this already – is to gather observations from the senses, determine a pattern in the observations, and refine the pattern into laws until it is clear you have it correct because the laws now perfectly predict all new observations. If the predictions are contradicted by observations, you’re ‘not quite there yet’ and your understanding needs to improve.
I am an engineer, so I deal in applied science, by definition. It is one thing to have a very general hard law — there are not that many of them. It is quite another thing to apply these general laws to a complex evironment we can’t by definition know completely correctly. Most often we have shortcut models that tend to work, but the models are not precise law in themselves, and also have bounded capability. The purpose of models is to make the intractable tractable. It seems it is most often only the near trivial problem that easily lends itself to the pure law. It would be nice if that were not so, but it is so. Again, the problem is our own limitations. It says little about the nature of the universe itself.
JP> …science cannot be used as a trump card to dismiss other ideas.
To date, science has very much failed to explain or dismiss the observation of my own free will, or for that matter the experience of the ‘ego’.
So no, saying we observe free will is not a crappy reason to suggest it exists. It’s the only, and in fact the scientific reason, to claim something exists – because we observe it.
Silence on a matter is an admission of nothing. It is no big deal to say “I don’t know,” since knowing is finite and unknowing is infinite. Science does not admit or deny a God, for example.
You observe your free will. I observe nothing of the kind. I observe that I can’t see the future, and that I know very little of both the present and the past. And even what I do see is only partly processed well by my reasoning abilities. The present and the past are very big “places.” So is the future. Free willers ask so much of humans in the way of knowledge and processing power. Why?
————
It is really pointless to worry about whether humans have free will or not. A human being is limited — they can’t see the future except through a thick haze. It is only their limited reasoning abilitly that lets them see into the haze at all. (And there ironically is the source of the free willer conflation.) So they must treat the world as one of choice, regardless of whether or not it is. Deal with it. While you are out on the razor’s edge, staring at the abyss on either side, try not to get sawed in half.
Greg,
“PE> And that is that determinists keep forgetting that the people they intend to persuade via reason that there is no free will, have no free will of their own to see reason, and choose to change their minds about the status of free will.
“Who says a mind capable of reason didn’t also give birth to free will? After all, it may well have given birth to gods and the easter bunny.â€
I thought the determinists say that the mind did not and cannot give birth to genuine free will, except in the same sense that it gave birth to the imaginary Easter bunny.
“PE> It is all one ultimately predictable sequence of cause and effect physical interactions.
“Maybe in cartoons and seances it is “ultimately predictable.” But I haven’t met anyone with that amount of mental horsepower. Or if I did, I was too meager to understand it.â€
The implication of determinism is that whatever a man chooses to do, it was determined long before he ever chose to do it – in fact it was all determined at the start of the physical universe. That man is not smart enough to make use of this fact to predict anything much with any certainty is irrelevant.
“PE> I suppose you must be predetermined to at least try to persuade the world of determinism,…
“It is actually the opposite. Belief in free will is a positive assertion. “Determinism” is a negative, it asserts nothing. Free willers seek converts, so they try to persuade. I suppose it is inherent in the construction of humans — perhaps genetic and/or memetic — to get others to conform to one’s views. It seems common enough, after all. Juan Fernando Carpio made the assertion.â€
Determinism asserts nothing. That’s a relief. I thought it asserts that all choices that men appear to make are always actually necessarily predetermined and could not have been otherwise, given the physical reality of the universe from its beginning. Does determinism not even say this?
I always get a kick out of the sort of argument that goes: “I am not making a positive assertion – You are! I am not defending a position; I’m just telling you why your position is wrong.†Which is the positive assertion: “Your mother is not by any stretch of the imagination, slender.†Versus: “Your mother is fat.†LMAO. People take one side of a position or the other. There’s no such thing as particularly positive except in the way you rhetorically frame the question.
“There is a universe of difference in saying the world appears to have patterned behavior through observation and inductive (reasoned) argument, and then saying one has the ability to know without uncertainty what *any* particular pattern is. No one has that ability. You confound the restricted capability of a human being with the argument of whether “a pattern” (and what the heck is a singular pattern?) exists or does not exist. And that is about “a pattern” that cannot even be observed correctly, because again of the limited capabilty of the observer.â€
Huh? Since determinism says nothing, I suppose I have nothing in respect to it to object to. If you change your mind and it really does say something interesting, then fire away and we can continue the debate.
ktibuk: “Judaism, Christianity and Islam all of them.”
What little I know about Judaism, I would guess that they are free-willies. In Christianity, only the Calvinists are free-willies. Hinduism leans toward determinism because in their belief system the universe is just a dream of the supreme being, so whatever he dreams is what happens. Islam is deterministic without a doubt. When talking about the future, Muslims often say something like “It is written.” They mean by that that Allah has predetermined every simple act and decision that we make and even written it down.
Greg: “I suppose you are unable to see why one does not follow the other.” That was in response to my “If humans don’t have a free will, then not only does morality become meaningless, but so does reason.” You’re right. I am unable to see it. Please explain.
Greg: “It wouldn’t be a “decision” if it was hardwired, now would it?”
So it’s an illusion, too? Why is it that so much that seems obvious to reasonable people is nothing but an illusion? What if determinism is the illusion?
Greg: “If the universe is predetermined, why would you need to adapt?”
Again, history and science seem to indicate that we do in fact adapt to changing circumstances. I guess that’s an illusion, too.
It seems to me that if the “illusion” of free will is so strong that a lot of reasonable, intelligent people think it’s reality, maybe it’s not an illusion. It’s clear that determinism eradicates morality and reason, both of which are essential to the welfare of humanity. So if it violates human nature, maybe it’s not true.
If the determinists are correct, then the only way that free-willies like me happen to exist is that the genes which promote such thinking got lumped together over time in the western world among a few people. That means that the ideas of respect for life, liberty, and property (which depend upon humans having a free will) were nothing more than the accidental convergence of genetic material. Since we’re a small minority, we probably won’t survive, and since the majority of humanity doesn’t have the appropriate genetic structure to appreciate those principles, those principals will die out.
I can be a happy robot.
It is not merely the case that everything is pre-determined. According to Einstein we only subjectively perceive time to be moving forward from an absolute past to present to future, but in fact no two events can actually be objectively “simultaneous”, and when two different observers disagree over which of two events happened first there is not necessarily a correct answer. Space and time are one and every event is not simply destined to happen but in a sense HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.
Free-will is not something you have observed and can present evidence for, but a subjective feeling.
According to Einstein we only subjectively perceive time to be moving forward from an absolute past to present to future, but in fact no two events can actually be objectively “simultaneous”, and when two different observers disagree over which of two events happened first there is not necessarily a correct answer.
That’s wrong. Two observers can never disagree about which event happened first. They can disagree about how much time elapsed between two spatially-separated events, but not the order.
“Free-will is not something you have observed and can present evidence for, but a subjective feeling.”
Where is the evidence for everything being determined? I take an agnostic position on this issue, because I do not think there is sufficient proof for either position – except perhaps that we have an idea of free will, illusory or not.
Anthony: “Where is the evidence for everything being determined?”
This debate reminds me of the evolution/intelligent design debate. Many evolutionists say that the universe only appears to be designed, but that’s an illusion. But if the illusion is so strong, and we don’t have reason to believe that someone is deliberately trying to fools us, maybe their is some reality behind it and it’s not all illusion.
Someone has written that if God didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him and act as if he did. The same goes for determinism. Even if it’s true, so what? We have to act as if it isn’t in order for society to work and humanity to progress. The alternative is fatalism.
I know a little about fatalism by observing how some muslims act. I spent some time in Iran and saw dozens of car wrecks where people passed other cars on hills and curves. The Iranian attitude in such cases, often, is that their future is “written”, so they have no reason to practice safe habits. If their death while passing is “written”, there is nothing they can do to prevent it. If not, there is no way it can happen. Oil field workers testify to similar disregards toward safety on the part of muslims in their dangerous line of work.
That’s wrong. Two observers can never disagree about which event happened first. They can disagree about how much time elapsed between two spatially-separated events, but not the order.
“Consider a classic example. Imagine a moving train car, with a light source in the exact center. At a predetermined moment, the light source switches on and fires two photons, one toward a detector on the front wall of the car, one toward a detector on the back wall. Which detector will be triggered first?
An observer on the train, moving along with its motion, will observe both detectors trigger simultaneously. After all, the emitter was in the exact center of the car, so the two photons have to travel the same distance to their respective detectors. This is undoubtedly a correct answer.
But an observer on the platform, watching the train pass by, will observe something different. To that observer, the back wall of the train was moving toward the photon, while the front wall was moving away from it. The difference in distance is miniscule, but it exists; so the back detector should trigger first. This, too, seems to be a correct answer.
Which observer is right? As Albert Einstein first demonstrated, the answer is that they both are. Strange as it seems, there is no one absolute answer to this question. Rather, simultaneity is relative: it depends on the perspective of the observer. Observers who are in motion relative to each other will disagree on which events are simultaneous – in other words, they will disagree on what is happening “now” – and there is no way to say that one is right and the other is wrong.”
Now add a third observer who is traveling in the same direction as the train relative to the person on the platform, but twice as fast. To him the photon will hit the front detector first, and so he and the person on the platform will disagree about the order.
Where is the evidence for everything being determined?
We now know that the behavior of the brain is dictated by the firing of neurons, which merely obey the laws of chemistry. There is no room in there for the addition of “free-will” to make an impact.
This debate reminds me of the evolution/intelligent design debate.
It’s not a debate. People like the folks at the Discovery Institute have not published anything in peer-reviewed journals for evolutionists to respond to.
But if the illusion is so strong, and we don’t have reason to believe that someone is deliberately trying to fools us, maybe their is some reality behind it and it’s not all illusion.
The reason behind the illusion is promiscuous teleology.
Someone has written that if God didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him and act as if he did.
That was Voltaire.
Even if it’s true, so what?
The article states that free-will is a “fact”. If it’s not true, it isn’t a fact.
TGGP: “…every event is not simply destined to happen but in a sense HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.”
I agree with TGGP. From the point of view of an observer travelling at the speed of light (such as a photon), all events are happening at once.
It’s no big deal.
TGGP: “We now know that the behavior of the brain is dictated by the firing of neurons, which merely obey the laws of chemistry.”
Scientists know less about the brain than they do about the dark side of the moon. Describing the brain as neurons obeying the laws of chemistry is like describing economis as following the law of supply and demand; both are true, but constitute such a small portion of the whole as to be trivial. Are the simple chemical reactions in a neuron a sufficient cause for for human thought? The cause is to small for the effect. That’s why people find the chemical determinist explanation unconvincing.
TGGP: “People like the folks at the Discovery Institute have not published anything in peer-reviewed journals for evolutionists to respond to.”
Austrian economists can’t get published in the journals of mainstream econ, either. Does that mean they have nothing worthwhile to say? Peer reviewed journals exist to preserve the status quo paradigm. They’ll allow small controversies within the paradigm, but refuse to publish anything that challenges the paradigm, which both ID and Astrian econ do.
TGGP: “The reason behind the illusion is promiscuous teleology.”
Or, as I wrote above, it’s not an illusion; reasonable people can see that the chemical “cause” is just too small an engine for the amazing effect that is the human mind.
TGGP: “The article states that free-will is a “fact”. If it’s not true, it isn’t a fact.”
Some of us think it is a fact. But that wasn’t my point. Even if I concede that your chemical determinism is a fact and that free-will is an illusion, so what? Everyone will continue to act, pass laws, write books, and argue as if free-will is the fact and determinism is false. We have no other choice than to act as if free-will is true, whether it is or not.
Anthony> I take an agnostic position on this issue, because I do not think there is sufficient proof for either position – except perhaps that we have an idea of free will, illusory or not.
It would be most techically correct to say I am agnostic regarding the existance of gods/god. I always have to strictly say “I don’t know.” But since I have never witnessed a single thing I could characterize as supernatural, I really don’t go looking for it. So functionally I am an atheist, because I don’t bother with the question itself due to persistant lack of evidence. And so it goes with free will. Since there is no evidence, it isn’t just assumed into existance. It would seem unnecessary, and perhaps as Paul Edwards might put it: “uninteresting.”
Fund.> We have no other choice than to act as if free-will is true, whether it is or not.
Hey, if you keep stealing my ideas, we can warp this into an IP thread. lol. I am amused at you language: “we have no other choice…” Of course, no choice is not choice. That’s my original conflictory line, in essence.
As best as I can tell, history is uni-factual. That means history only happened one way. Where is the evidence of choice in that? While we may internally feel like we are making a choice that lays down history, we can’t really say that “being who we are, we could make any other choice than the one we actually made.” The singularity calls into question that we could have done anything other than what we actually did. “Being who we are” is our makeup in totality — something we can’t even comprehend itself. It includes a physical history and makeup we have only a sliver of knowledge about. “Choice” is simply not a given, regardless of our feelings. Now that is an agnostic stance, technically speaking. There is not evidence that free will exists. There is no proof that it does not exist, and I dare venture that it cannot be proven away. So technically speaking, I am agnostic also on free will. But persistant lack of evidence does incline one to terminate efforts along a dimension.
As a final note, I don’t usually respond to the language of “free will.” Even though there is no technical evidence of it, I can usually just let it pass (when the language is not so strong) as a shorthand of the human condition. This is with regard to limitations in the ability of humans, which means these limited humans can only make vague predictions as they peer into the fog of the future. We leave the future to God, and trust him in the grants he has made to us, including our meager ability to sketch a vignette of his plan.
Human Action:
Chapter 1. Acting Man.
1. Purposeful Action and Animal Reaction
——————————————————————————–
Human action is purposeful behavior. Or we may say: Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is the ego’s meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment, is a person’s conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life. Such paraphrases may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself is adequate and does not need complement of commentary.
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
Mises has some interesting quotes on the matter of free will. I can never quite make out where he stands on the matter, though he seems like a soft determinist. He noted that humans always act as though they have a choice, even though from the vantage point of an omnipotent force we may seem entirely determined.
I think that Mises quite clearly supported the view that man has a free will as he wrote:
“is a person’s conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life.â€
That is also my interpretation of a free will.
Human Action:
“We may say that action is the manifestation of a man’s will.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
Björn, I’ve noticed you often use Mises and Rothbard quotes as answers to questions. Can Mises be wrong? Or was he just using “free will” shorthand? What difference would it make in practice?
Certainly Mises could be wrong. He did, for instance, not believe in axiomatical principles of justice. I quote him and Rothbard when my own reason tells me that their views are correct or, in other words, when I believe that their views are in harmony with reality.
He said “may.” I didn’t see any absolute assertion of free will in the statements you quoted, although I can see how someone might read it that way. So you believe he asserted it or proved it?
Greg,
“And so it goes with free will. Since there is no evidence, it isn’t just assumed into existance. It would seem unnecessary, and perhaps as Paul Edwards might put it: “uninteresting.”â€
Evidence? Do you really think the reason you don’t believe in free will is due to your reasoning skills and a lack of evidence? Why is it not simply that you have been predetermined as dictated by the concept of determinism to not believe in it? And if you were to happen to change your mind on the subject, one day, it will again, naturally be because it was necessary, again as explained by determinism?
Why do you pretend that it is reason and evidence on which you decide these things when you know very well that for whatever the reason, logical or illogical, with good evidence or none, whatever you believe was set from the beginning of the universe, and that you have really no genuine choice in the matter?
Greg
Mises wrote:
Human action is purposeful behaviour. That is all what he intended to say. Then he uses the word “may†and by using this word “mayâ€* in sentences like this he meant “in other wordsâ€.
*Answers.com for the word may: used to express contingency, purpose, or result in clauses introduced by that or so that: expressing ideas so that the average person may understand.
In the end he wrote:
Such paraphrases* may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself (that is: Human action is purposeful behaviour) is adequate and does not need complement of commentary.
*Babylon online dictionary for the word paraphrase: use different words; present something in a different manner
I think that Mises both asserted it and proved it. What I mean by “proved it†is that we as humans can understands the meaning of “that human action is purposeful behaviour†and that we also can understand, because of the reason that we are humans, that we function in this manner.
Greg, this one is clearer and nicer!
Mises wrote:
“Human action is purposeful behaviour.†That is all what he intended to say. Then he uses the word “may†and by using this word “mayâ€* in sentences like this he meant “in other wordsâ€.
*Answers.com for the word may: used to express contingency, purpose, or result in clauses introduced by that or so that: expressing ideas so that the average person may understand.
In the end he wrote:
“Such paraphrases* may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself (that is: Human action is purposeful behaviour) is adequate and does not need complement of commentary.â€
*Babylon online dictionary for the word paraphrase: use different words; present something in a different manner
I think that Mises both asserted it and proved it. What I mean by “proved it†is that we as humans can understands the meaning of “that human action is purposeful behaviour†and that we also can understand, because of the reason that we are humans, that we function in this manner.
In addition to Mises, Greg ought to read Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit.” Hayek directs his argument against socialists, but much of what his writes applies equally well to some non-socialists. Hayek distinguishes between real reasoning and pseudo reasoning: real reasoning humbles itself before the accumulated wisdom of humanity, what Hayek calls tradition, even though it can’t prove those things to be true emperically or through pure reason. Real reason is willing to give tradition the benefit of the doubt, knowing that one person can understand everything. True reasoning places the burden of proof on the attacker of tradition, not on tradition.
Pseudo reasoning accepts nothing as true unless the individual doing the reasoning can understand it, prove it, and predict the consequences of it. Everything begins and ends with that individual’s ability to grasp it. Hayek traces pseudo reasoning to the French enlightenment, Rousseau in particular.
If Hayek is correct about true and false reasoning, then the burden of proof lies with the determinists, not with the free will thinkers.
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