Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Discussion of articles that appear in the magazine.

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ughaibu
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Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by ughaibu »

MGL wrote:My understanding of free-will is that it requires the possibility of someone being able to have done something different in the same circumstances.
I think this is a poor way of considering the matter.
What does it mean to "have done something different"? Usually it's posed as a case in which time is wound back to before a decision is made and we're asked how the agent could have made a different choice, yet that choice be the intended choice. There are two problems with this thought experiment.
1) if at time zero the agent apparently has two courses of action available, it would be to beg the question if the free will denier stated that only one was actually available. However, the thought experiment states that at time one, the agents makes a decision and at time two the agents enacts that decision. Time is then wound back to time zero and the question "can the agent do otherwise?" is posed. But if time has been wound back, then there is nothing for the agent to do otherwise than. To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two. In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment. Thus the thought experiment begs the question in favour of determinism, and is flawed.
2) incompatibilist free will requires that, at time zero, there is no truth about what action the agent takes at time two (assume a correspondence theory of truth), this means that the agent will be able to, at time two, either perform or refrain from performing some relevant action. It is not the claim that the agent can both perform and not perform that action. Free will doesn't require contravening non-contradiction, so there is no reason for an affirmer of free will to think that they would or could make alternative decisions, even given some non-question begging form of the thought experiment.
MGL
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Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

ughaibu wrote: I think this is a poor way of considering the matter.
What does it mean to "have done something different"? Usually it's posed as a case in which time is wound back to before a decision is made and we're asked how the agent could have made a different choice, yet that choice be the intended choice. There are two problems with this thought experiment.
1) if at time zero the agent apparently has two courses of action available, it would be to beg the question if the free will denier stated that only one was actually available. However, the thought experiment states that at time one, the agents makes a decision and at time two the agents enacts that decision. Time is then wound back to time zero and the question "can the agent do otherwise?" is posed. But if time has been wound back, then there is nothing for the agent to do otherwise than. To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two. In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment. Thus the thought experiment begs the question in favour of determinism, and is flawed.
2) incompatibilist free will requires that, at time zero, there is no truth about what action the agent takes at time two (assume a correspondence theory of truth), this means that the agent will be able to, at time two, either perform or refrain from performing some relevant action. It is not the claim that the agent can both perform and not perform that action. Free will doesn't require contravening non-contradiction, so there is no reason for an affirmer of free will to think that they would or could make alternative decisions, even given some non-question begging form of the thought experiment.

I am afraid I don't understand what you are saying here.
chaz wyman
Posts: 5304
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by chaz wyman »

MGL wrote:
ughaibu wrote: I think this is a poor way of considering the matter.
What does it mean to "have done something different"? Usually it's posed as a case in which time is wound back to before a decision is made and we're asked how the agent could have made a different choice, yet that choice be the intended choice. There are two problems with this thought experiment.
1) if at time zero the agent apparently has two courses of action available, it would be to beg the question if the free will denier stated that only one was actually available. However, the thought experiment states that at time one, the agents makes a decision and at time two the agents enacts that decision. Time is then wound back to time zero and the question "can the agent do otherwise?" is posed. But if time has been wound back, then there is nothing for the agent to do otherwise than. To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two. In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment. Thus the thought experiment begs the question in favour of determinism, and is flawed.
2) incompatibilist free will requires that, at time zero, there is no truth about what action the agent takes at time two (assume a correspondence theory of truth), this means that the agent will be able to, at time two, either perform or refrain from performing some relevant action. It is not the claim that the agent can both perform and not perform that action. Free will doesn't require contravening non-contradiction, so there is no reason for an affirmer of free will to think that they would or could make alternative decisions, even given some non-question begging form of the thought experiment.

I am afraid I don't understand what you are saying here.
He has been reading too much Jean Baudrilard.
I don't think he knows what he is saying either- that is what Post modernism does to you.
ughaibu
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:26 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by ughaibu »

MGL wrote:
ughaibu wrote: I think this is a poor way of considering the matter.
What does it mean to "have done something different"? Usually it's posed as a case in which time is wound back to before a decision is made and we're asked how the agent could have made a different choice, yet that choice be the intended choice. There are two problems with this thought experiment.
1) if at time zero the agent apparently has two courses of action available, it would be to beg the question if the free will denier stated that only one was actually available. However, the thought experiment states that at time one, the agents makes a decision and at time two the agents enacts that decision. Time is then wound back to time zero and the question "can the agent do otherwise?" is posed. But if time has been wound back, then there is nothing for the agent to do otherwise than. To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two. In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment. Thus the thought experiment begs the question in favour of determinism, and is flawed.
2) incompatibilist free will requires that, at time zero, there is no truth about what action the agent takes at time two (assume a correspondence theory of truth), this means that the agent will be able to, at time two, either perform or refrain from performing some relevant action. It is not the claim that the agent can both perform and not perform that action. Free will doesn't require contravening non-contradiction, so there is no reason for an affirmer of free will to think that they would or could make alternative decisions, even given some non-question begging form of the thought experiment.
I am afraid I don't understand what you are saying here.
Well, it seems quite straightforward to me, so, I'll need some idea of what you dont understand if I'm to make it any clearer.
chaz wyman
Posts: 5304
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by chaz wyman »

MGL wrote:Many of your responses either seem to have completely missed my point as they seem to be responding to something I never said, or are just contradictions with no supporting argument. As one example of your misunderstanding consider the following thread.

==========

MGL

Any case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will, but of course not the probability of free-will.
It might be worth noting that these phrases are equivalent, if a thing is probable then it is possible. The conditions of the experiment do not allow for this distinction to be made.
The experiment does not suggest Free-will, nor does it support it. It simply removes it from a place it should be evident.
You might have heard of the god of the gaps. Here we have free-will of the gaps, but it looks to me that there is basically no room for it.
If free-will is true then the test would have to show 50%. It does not.

Chaz


No it does not. It simply points to the fact that there are a multitude of causes that are no easy to identify or predict. The brain is as complicated as any thing in the know universe. We have every reason to think that people's actions are hard to predict.

MGL

If neuroscientist like Libet and Haynes did not think unpredictable behaviour allowed for the possibility of free-will, why did they set up an experiment to test arbitrary choices to falsify this hypothesis?

Chaz


That is what scientists do. They set out to examine a problem. Whilst people like you demand that such a thing exists without evidence they seek to falsify such a claim.
They have verified that your case is wrong.
I ought to have added that this is a ridiculous argument. If a scientists sets out to demonstrate stellar parallax, it doe not mean that it is possible for the universe to revolve around the earth.

================

You have simply re-stated what I thought I was making implicit in my question without answering the question. My question was not a general question about why scientist conduct experiments. It was a specific question about why they thought testing ARBITRARY choices was relevant to falsify the hypothesis that there is free will? Surely it was becasue they thought that a case of seemingly unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will and if they could show that this unpredictable behaviour actually had deterministic causes then the free-will hypthesis could be shown to be false.

No. You completely misunderstand what they are looking for. They set out to find out if the brain could be seen to make a choice before the conscious will was aware of it. If free-will exists then they ought not to be able to do that, and the results would show around 50%.
That does not mean that a case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will. The case of free-will ought to mean that there would be effectively zero predictability from the scan, as it was testing the moment of conscious choice against the ability of a machine to be be able to tell the person what their choice would be even before they knew it themselves.
That is why the results are so staggering.


My point was that the scientist did not think that apparently arbitrary\random behaviour was irrelevant to the question of free-will which is what you seem to be claiming. Otherwise they would have felt no need to perform the experiment.

Your point, as it appears to me, is wrong. Such a thing is not apparent. The experiment is not testing random behaviour. It is demonstrating pre-concious decision making upon the assumption that an unconscious choice is not free.

Rather than respond to the rest of your responses, I will summarise what seems to be behind our disagreement - the issue of determinism and defintions of free-will.


2) Your insistence that the world is wholly deterministic seems to be based on the scientific method of induction which is the practice of projecting from patterns we have observed in the past onto the rest of reality including the future. There are good pragmatic reasons for adopting this practice, however, I am not aware of any rational reason why the principle of induction should encourage us to always project wholly deterministic patterns rather than probablistic ones.

There are very good reasons for doing just that. The ubiquitous results of 100s of years of experimentation have shown that by limiting the number of casual factors inevitably leads to less experimental error. Although this, with every other finding of science is also inductive, it is hard to see how this would not support determinism. Add to that the interlocking verification of the entire panoply of scientific finding is an ever increasing field of knowledge based on uniformitarianism based on a causal world that co-verifies the assumptions that things cause other things, begs the question what is "probabilistic pattern?" that is simply no more that the result of the problem that in many cases experiments that limit causal factors are no always possible to design. In particular scanning a live brain has to have major limitations is is even more surprising that results they have achieved.


It would be good practice to always search for deterministic patterns behind apparent probablistic ones, but to rule out the possibility that probablistic patters are inherent in nature is an assumption that needs some further justification which the principle of induction just does not provide. If it does you need to explain how it does without relying on other principles such as nothing comes from nothing which are also in need of further justification.

So what exactly does a "probabilistic pattern" look like and why should it advance the idea of free-will?

3) a) My understanding of free-will is that it requires the possibility of someone being able to have done something different in the same circumstances.
b) That implies that actions are arbitrary\random\unpredictable. That means they would only be possible in a universe with probablistic laws of nature.

Sentence a is the commonly held position.
Sentence b reduces the commonly held position to no choice at all , but a throw of a dice.
I agree that a is what most people think is free-will.
But as I have always thought that incoherent, I need not spend further time on it.

As b reduces free-will to a abrogation of the will by turning over a decision to a random choice I do not see that as a threat to a refutation of free-will as most people supporting free-will would simply reject the proposition in favour of the common fantasy that they hold about their power as an individual agent, able to make decisions despite the fact that they are part of a causal world. i.e. Most proponents of free-will would not agree with your definition.

I think we are getting some clarity now.
As I said before if the world has true randomness to it, which I doubt. I do not see that as in any sense helping the case of free-will.
ALthough I can understand you definition of it, I think it is close to an abuse of language.


Your definition of free-will seems to require a spritual\ghost in the machine entity which can override the laws of nature and is not subject to any causal laws of its own, yet still somehow not be random\arbitrary\unpredictable.

That is not my definition. That is the one asserted by the Dualist. Those that think the soul or spirit has some element to play in human decision making. This is a Christian myth.


[random\arbitrary\unpredictable do not sit well together. BTW]


If you posit such curious phenomema it is not surprising that you will find it easy to dismiss it as nonsense. What I would like to know is why my understanding of free-will is nonsense - or why it fails to amount to free-will.

As I say above. The notion of free-will is not mine. Laughable as it is, it is one that has sustained Christian and earlier ideologies. It is a legacy of ancient history.

I think I have explained (above;"reduces free-will to a abrogation of the will by turning over a decision to a random choice I do not see that as a threat to a refutation of free-will") why your own version does not amount to much. Induction has shown us that even apparently random events are predictably random within certain parameters. If you throw a 6 sided dice long enough the results converge what ever number you wish or will to come up. Which suggests determinism via unpredictability.


Your arguments denying that it is free will seem to depend on your understanding of causation which presume determinism.

Sometimes circular argument are correct. Ultimately all truth is circular; not all that is circular is true.

On a note of brevity I was in hospital having suffered 4 broken ribs. The fist scan report came back negative - with all organs and diaphragm intact and perfect.
"So why," asked my partner,"is he in so much pain.?"
"Because it hurts." answered the nurse without a hint of irony.
You can't argue with that!



MGL
Posts: 235
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Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

ughaibu wrote:
To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two.In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment.
Just to tak your first concern.

It sound like you are saying that:

a) At time T2 the agent could perform either action X again or action Y instead.
Implies:
b) There is a truth at time T0 about what the agent does at time T2
Implies:
c) An assumption of determinism

What I don't understand:

1) Why a implies b and why a and b implies c
2) What do you mean by saying there is a truth at time T0 about time T2? That what happens at T0 deterministically causes what happens at T2? Why could it not mean that what happens at T0 PROBABLY causes X at T2?
ughaibu
Posts: 59
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Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by ughaibu »

MGL wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
To claim that there is an action, at time two, that the agent can do again or do otherwise to, is to claim that there is a truth, at time zero, about what the agent does at time two.In short, it is to smuggle an assumption of determinism into the thought experiment.
Just to tak your first concern.

It sound like you are saying that:

a) At time T2 the agent could perform either action X again or action Y instead.
Implies:
b) There is a truth at time T0 about what the agent does at time T2
Implies:
c) An assumption of determinism

What I don't understand:

1) Why a implies b and why a and b implies c
2) What do you mean by saying there is a truth at time T0 about time T2? That what happens at T0 deterministically causes what happens at T2? Why could it not mean that what happens at T0 PROBABLY causes X at T2?
If we ask "could the agent do otherwise?", there must be some action A, with respect to which, any action which is not A, is an example of "otherwise". If, at time zero, A is the action which the agent performs at time two, then there is a truth about the future at time zero. Assuming a correspondence theory of truth, this means that the state of the world, at time two, is fixed at time zero, which means that a determined future has been smuggled into the thought experiment. From this it follows that the agent can only perform A at time two, as the performance of anything other than A would be a contradiction, a performance of both A and not-A.
MGL
Posts: 235
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:58 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

Chaz

So what exactly does a "probabilistic pattern" look like

MGL

For example - probablistic predictions of Quantum mechanic theories.
The kind that prompted Karl Popper to develop his propensity theory of probability.

See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/proba ... et/#ProInt

Look for:

...propensity interpretations locate probability ‘in the world’ rather than in our heads or in logical abstractions...
Popper (1957) is motivated by the desire to make sense of single-case probability attributions that one finds in quantum mechanics—for example “the probability that this radium atom decays in 1600 years is 1/2”.

Please don't simply answer that these are based on as yet unknown deterministic laws as that is the very assumption being challenged.

Chaz

Induction has shown us that even apparently random events are predictably random within certain parameters. If you throw a 6 sided dice long enough the results converge what ever number you wish or will to come up. Which suggests determinism via unpredictability.

MGL

Here you seem to be describing what I would call a probablistic pattern. With the example of the dice I am quite happy to presume that there are deterministic forces at work and that the unpredictability of each throw is just down to our our lack of knowledge. However I still do not see why it is necessary to presume determinism for ALL stochastic patterns.



==========================
MGL

a) My understanding of free-will is that it requires the possibility of someone being able to have done something different in the same circumstances.
b) That implies that actions are arbitrary\random\unpredictable. That means they would only be possible in a universe with probablistic laws of nature.

Chaz

Sentence a is the commonly held position.
Sentence b reduces the commonly held position to no choice at all , but a throw of a dice.

MGL

Are you denying that b is implied by a or simply agreeing with me that it does?
If the latter my question is why an arbitrary choice less of a choice than a deterministic one?


==========================

Chaz

random\arbitrary\unpredictable do not sit well together. BTW

MGL

Why not?

Are not random events unpredictable?
Are not arbitrary choices not random choices?
In what sense are they inappropriate bedfellows?

=========

Chaz

Sometimes circular argument are correct.Ultimately all truth is circular;

MGL

The conclusion of a circular argument may be correct, but it will not be correct BECAUSE of its circular argument. At most, a circular argument will point to a certain coherence among the premises but that will not guarantee the validity of its conclusion.

But your last point makes me think we don't share the same idea of what a cicular argument is. To me, a circular argument is one that justifies a conclusion by including that very conclusion it its premises.

==========


Chaz

No. You completely misunderstand what they are looking for. They set out to find out if the brain could be seen to make a choice before the conscious will was aware of it. If free-will exists then they ought not to be able to do that, and the results would show around 50%.
That does not mean that a case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will.

MGL

As well as misunderstanding me you are now confusing me. I am not claiming their experiment shows that free-will is possible, just that their experiment was testing wether it is possible. My point was that becasue they tested arbitrary choice they thought arbitrary choice was relevant to the issue of free-will, something you think is irrelevant, despite saying that you would expect the prediction rate to be 50% if free will existed, suggesting that you do agree that a case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will.
chaz wyman
Posts: 5304
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by chaz wyman »

MGL wrote:Chaz

So what exactly does a "probabilistic pattern" look like

MGL

For example - probablistic predictions of Quantum mechanic theories.
The kind that prompted Karl Popper to develop his propensity theory of probability.

See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/proba ... et/#ProInt

Look for:

...propensity interpretations locate probability ‘in the world’ rather than in our heads or in logical abstractions...
Popper (1957) is motivated by the desire to make sense of single-case probability attributions that one finds in quantum mechanics—for example “the probability that this radium atom decays in 1600 years is 1/2”.

Please don't simply answer that these are based on as yet unknown deterministic laws as that is the very assumption being challenged.

I disagree. Popper's assertion of indeterminism is based on an assumption of determinism. For cases where the micro casues cannot be known we have a positive theory for substituting our knowledge.
None of this related to free-will.

Chaz

Induction has shown us that even apparently random events are predictably random within certain parameters. If you throw a 6 sided dice long enough the results converge what ever number you wish or will to come up. Which suggests determinism via unpredictability.

MGL

Here you seem to be describing what I would call a probablistic pattern. With the example of the dice I am quite happy to presume that there are deterministic forces at work and that the unpredictability of each throw is just down to our our lack of knowledge. However I still do not see why it is necessary to presume determinism for ALL stochastic patterns.

You are contradicting yourself here because you DO see why it is necessary to presume determinism from what you are saying. A probabilistic pattern derives from what Popper called indeterminism. As you have stated, throwing a dice is indeterministic, but even when we can guess at the determinants this does not help us, as it is not possible to measure the speed and vector of a dice in motion without changing the outcome; not because it is truly random. But the fact is, skilful people can learn how to throw the dice in such a way to improve the outcome. But the parameters are not beyond our imagination or somehow ultimately unpredictable. That means the indeterministic dice obey the uniform laws of causality and once it has left the hand its course is fixed into a determined, though indeterministic pattern.

When muse the maybe not all stochastic patterns are deterministic you are not really saying much more than I do not know if the sun will rise tomorrow even-though I have already seen it happen 19,000 times already.



==========================
MGL

a) My understanding of free-will is that it requires the possibility of someone being able to have done something different in the same circumstances.
b) That implies that actions are arbitrary\random\unpredictable. That means they would only be possible in a universe with probablistic laws of nature.

Chaz

Sentence a is the commonly held position.
Sentence b reduces the commonly held position to no choice at all , but a throw of a dice.

MGL

Are you denying that b is implied by a or simply agreeing with me that it does?
If the latter my question is why an arbitrary choice less of a choice than a deterministic one?

a is the commonly held position. It is not meaningful
b does not naturally follow from it, nor does b amount to what is commonly held to be free-will.



==========================

Chaz

random\arbitrary\unpredictable do not sit well together. BTW

MGL

Why not?

Are not random events unpredictable?
Is that de facto?
A 'random' event is nothing other than 'unpredictable'.
That would mean that all events that are not predicted might be called random but are causes unknown, not necessarily unknowable.

Are not arbitrary choices not random choices?
No. An arbitrary choice is a choice made with the intention of being random, therefore it is not random at all. It is selected by a human and based on the usual determining factors that all choices are made from.

In what sense are they inappropriate bedfellows?

By lumping them together in this way you are either pretending they are all the same, or trying to get something under the negotiating table.
What do you take random to mean?


=========

Chaz

Sometimes circular argument are correct.Ultimately all truth is circular;

MGL

The conclusion of a circular argument may be correct, but it will not be correct BECAUSE of its circular argument. At most, a circular argument will point to a certain coherence among the premises but that will not guarantee the validity of its conclusion.

But your last point makes me think we don't share the same idea of what a cicular argument is. To me, a circular argument is one that justifies a conclusion by including that very conclusion it its premises.

I think Wittgenstein might even argue that all arguments are like this. It's just that the circles we draw are very big. But in drawing that circle we have more 'chance' (no stochasticism intended) of revealing problems or inconsistencies. It is a sort of falsification.

==========


Chaz

No. You completely misunderstand what they are looking for. They set out to find out if the brain could be seen to make a choice before the conscious will was aware of it. If free-will exists then they ought not to be able to do that, and the results would show around 50%.
That does not mean that a case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will.

MGL

As well as misunderstanding me you are now confusing me. I am not claiming their experiment shows that free-will is possible, just that their experiment was testing wether it is possible. My point was that becasue they tested arbitrary choice they thought arbitrary choice was relevant to the issue of free-will, something you think is irrelevant, despite saying that you would expect the prediction rate to be 50% if free will existed, suggesting that you do agree that a case of unpredictable behaviour allows for the possibility of free-will.
I see. I think.
MGL
Posts: 235
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:58 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

chaz wyman wrote: Popper's assertion of indeterminism is based on an assumption of determinism
You are simply wrong.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QT7C ... sm&f=false

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wxzo ... sm&f=false


http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... id=6217752

Popper on Determinism
• Article author query
• clark p [Google Scholar]
Peter Clark
There is no doubt at all that the issue of determinism versus indeterminism was a central, dominating theme of Popper's thought. By his own account he saw his criticism of the thesis of determinism as crucial to his defence not only of the reality of human freedom, moral responsibility and creativity but also as equally fundamental to his account of human rationality and to his theory of the content and growth of science as an objective, rational and most importantly demonstrably rational enterprise. Consequently a great deal of his writings discussing both the content and methodology of the natural and the social sciences
chaz wyman
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Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:31 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by chaz wyman »

MGL wrote:
chaz wyman wrote: Popper's assertion of indeterminism is based on an assumption of determinism
You are simply wrong.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QT7C ... sm&f=false

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wxzo ... sm&f=false


http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... id=6217752

Popper on Determinism
• Article author query
• clark p [Google Scholar]
Peter Clark
There is no doubt at all that the issue of determinism versus indeterminism was a central, dominating theme of Popper's thought. By his own account he saw his criticism of the thesis of determinism as crucial to his defence not only of the reality of human freedom, moral responsibility and creativity but also as equally fundamental to his account of human rationality and to his theory of the content and growth of science as an objective, rational and most importantly demonstrably rational enterprise. Consequently a great deal of his writings discussing both the content and methodology of the natural and the social sciences
You might be right, but "human freedom" is not equivalent to free-will, and "human freedom" is compatible with a deterministic compatibilist position.
MGL
Posts: 235
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:58 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

ughaibu wrote: If we ask "could the agent do otherwise?", there must be some action A, with respect to which, any action which is not A, is an example of "otherwise". If, at time zero, A is the action which the agent performs at time two, then there is a truth about the future at time zero. Assuming a correspondence theory of truth, this means that the state of the world, at time two, is fixed at time zero, which means that a determined future has been smuggled into the thought experiment. From this it follows that the agent can only perform A at time two, as the performance of anything other than A would be a contradiction, a performance of both A and not-A.
1) If by a truth at T0 I you mean there is propoistion at T0 which is true, then this does not make sense as propositions do not have temporal relations - they are abstractions.
2) If you mean by a truth at T0, there is a statement S1 instantiating a proposition, then the truth of that statment is relative to a possible world conjured up by the thought experiment which is imagining an alternative state of affairs. If W1 is the actual possible world then S1 will be true in W1, but S1 will not be true in an alternative possible world W2 where some action other than A occured.
3) If by truth you simply mean fact, the same logic in 2) applies. Facts are relative to possible worlds conjured up by the thought experiment.
ughaibu
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Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:26 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by ughaibu »

MGL wrote:3) If by truth you simply mean fact, the same logic in 2) applies. Facts are relative to possible worlds conjured up by the thought experiment.
As I said, I mean "truth" in a correspondence sense, and if one is a realist about possible worlds, then the experiment makes no sense at all, as the agent performs all possible actions in all runnings of the scenario.
MGL
Posts: 235
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:58 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by MGL »

ughaibu wrote:
As I said, I mean "truth" in a correspondence sense, and if one is a realist about possible worlds, then the experiment makes no sense at all, as the agent performs all possible actions in all runnings of the scenario.
1) All of my points are consistent with the condition of correspondence as I understand it. Thus a proposition is true if its description of the world corresponds to what is realised in the world. But when you are imagining alternative possible worlds, as you are in the thought experiment, the truth of an assertion you want to anchor in time depends on the world the assertion is referring to.

2) To assert at T0 something about T2 that subsequently turns out to be true in the real world does not help the determinist as they have go from this assertion to the assertion that given the same state of the world at T0 there is only one possible state of the world at T2. I can't see how the thought experiment allows this other than in the sense of presenting it as a possibility in the same way it presents an alternative action as a possibility. All the thought experiment does is spell out the difference between determinism and non-determinism - it favours neither one nor the other.

3) I agree that if one is a realist about possible worlds then the experiment makes no sense at all. But that is just because, as it is a thought experiment, the possible worlds it implies are merely imagined ones, not real ones.
ughaibu
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:26 pm

Re: Why Buridan’s Ass Doesn’t Starve

Post by ughaibu »

MGL wrote:2) To assert at T0 something about T2 that subsequently turns out to be true in the real world does not help the determinist as they have go from this assertion to the assertion that given the same state of the world at T0 there is only one possible state of the world at T2.
When was the action, to which the thought experiment asks could the agent have done otherwise?, performed?
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