RogerSH wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:37 pm
Identity through time is a special case of causation: something is as it is at a later time because that it is how it was at earlier times.
It's actually not. Identity (using the word to refer to sameness, not human "identity") does not cause anything. It's simply a recognition that an item at this chronological time is the same one as at a prior chronological time.
But nothing in that relationship has been "caused." It's purely descriptive.
you can imagine a separate mental world that is unable to intervene in the physical world.
Two problems with that hypothesis: one, it's ontologically Dualist. There's no stipulation in a dualistic view that says how the two "realms" must relate to each other, simply that
there are two realms. Two, it's evidently the case that the mental and the physical DO appear to interact or "intervene," and every single person alive is mysteriously inclined to act as if they do -- as you are acting right now, by discussing this.
Among the things that might influence the choice are: personal preferences; knowledge of the situation in hand and of the likely consequences of each possible choice; lessons gained from experience; some new insight gained by combining past observations; previous mental commitments (e.g. on moral grounds) to make such a choice in a particular way; and so on. You may not have been aware of some of these things, but nevertheless they enter your conscious state when you turn your mind to the matter in hand. These are all things that make up the resources of your personal consciousness, that make it YOUR choice in particular.
But it's not an exhaustive list that you have given here.
We must include such things as, "intuition," or "creativity," or "acting on an intention to produce something new." And what about "fear of possibilities," or "curiosity"? There are lots more mental states that those you've listed.
They at least potentially contribute to the expression of your will.
Of course.
Because all these things come from previous experiences they depend on causal links from the past to the present.
Well, thought, the truth is that that claim is merely presumptive, not demonstrable. In point of fact, many of them, like the ones I've listed, appear to project new realities, not simply achingly play out old lines of cause. It looks very much like creative mind-states project into reality things that have not yet existed, and then are somehow capable of creating them in reality, in the physical world.
Are you familiar with Jaegwon Kim's ideas on this? It's called the "downward causality problem" pointed out by him and by various other philosophers of mind. The problem goes like this:
Take an ordinary sentence like, "When I am ready to shop, I'll go to the store."
Deterministic thinking has to say that the operation it describes goes this way:
Action
⇧
Mind
⇧
Brain (and prior chain of material causes that produce the brain state)
In words, this reads, "The brain (along with the prior chains of material cause it implicates) causes the mind state of 'readiness,' which in turn causes the mobilizing of the body to go to the store." This is necessary, because Materialism says "The mind is caused by the brain." So it has to be the case that the brain is causing the mind to have the required thought, and the mind is responding to, or being produced by, the brain, and then the individual acts.
This is what's called "upward causality." Things are caused from the lower bases to the higher manifestations. Brain is basic, mind is a consequence of brain, and action is a consequence of mind. The whole thing moves upward.
But ordinary experience has us understanding the chain quite differently. The ordinary meaning of this sentence goes like this:
Action
⇧
Brain (and then body)
⇧
Mind
This is also "upward causality," but with brain and mind reversed in order of basicness.
Common sense, and common usage, says something like, "When my mind state is made up ('readiness'), I will tell my brain to mobilize my body to go to the store." The initiative seems to be coming from the mind, not from the physical brain. The physical brain is, so to speak, merely the housing of the mind or the connective step between mind and action, and the lower physiology is the servant of both.
But if we start from the assumption that brain "causes" mind to be what it is, we get a rather awkward, counterintuitive diagram. It looks like this:
Action
space⇧
Mind ⇧
⇩
Brain ⇧
In other words, the mind -- which is supposed to be produced by the brain -- is somehow speaking "downward" to the brain, and making it produce the action.
"Downward causality."
But here's the problem: IF the "mind" is merely a projection of "brain," and is "caused by" brain states, then
how is it even possible for the causal chain to reverse, such that "mind" looks as if it comes to "cause" things in the material realm? But it does; and it does so routinely. We all seem to feel and think and act as if that is what is happening. We all act as if the mind is the basic source of the action, not as if the brain is.
So that problem needs a solution: and so far, I see none has come about in the Philosophy of Mind generally, save to pretend the problem does not exist. What most try to do is say that the "mind" is a mere "epiphenomenon": that it doesn't really exist, but is a seeming of what the brain is doing. So the causal chain they opt for looks like this:
Action
⇧
⇧ (Mind?)
⇧
Brain
The "mind" isn't even really a thing anymore. It's a weird side-effect, and the whole process is actually strictly Materialistic.
Is that your view? I think not: but I should ask, not tell, of course. If it were, what role would be left for the "mind"?
Typically, none of these causes would be determining of your decision on their own, but only combined in your consciousness with all the other contributory causes to construct a new state of mind that comes to a decision. What could “agency” be but this?
It could be quite a few other things, actually.
I don't deny that the past may furnish some of the elments that are combined into innovation, invention and creativity. But the combinations and permutations that ensue actually bring about totally new things.
(So when you say that to a determinist '"the will" has to be no more than a very odd way we describe a physical step in an inevitably physical chain of causes-and-effects', the answer is that what is so utterly different from other combinations of causes is that it takes place in the conscious mind. If you use language that fails to make this distinction, of course it sounds odd.)
It doesn't merely "sound" odd: you can see, above, it creates the most implausible, counterintuitive, awkward kind of causal description. The brain doesn't even really need the mind to exist. And in truth, it doesn't.
Hence, Determinism.
*Conversely, consider some choice that simply comes into your mind at whim (in circumstances where there is no need to mentally question the choice using the resources noted above), for no reason at all to do with the fact that it is you and not some generic person. Since it happened for no reason...
There's the flaw. What does it mean to say something happened "for no reason"? The Determinist has to say that such a thing is impossible: "for no reason" would mean "without prior physical-causal chain." But the free will advocate would say the same: there's no such thing as "for no reason,"
but "reasons" include the initiatives of a personal mind.
The free will advocate says that Picasso's "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar"were produced in accordance with the physical laws of paint and canvas. But physical laws of paint and canvas are in nowise capable of producing "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar." "Guernica" and "Blue Guitar" were conceived in the mind of Pablo Picasso before he employed the physical laws of paint and canvas, and he produced unique results
because he was Picasso, and not Braques or Cezanne or Joe Blow.
Without Picasso, there would be no "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar."
And that description looks exactly right. It's how we see the world. But it does not fit well with the sort of description required by Physicalist Determinism: "A long chain of prior causes, stretching back infinitely in history, eventually created a brain, and the brain created both "Guernica" and "Blue Guitar," because it had to."
Really?
"If a 'free' act be a sheer novelty, that comes not from me, the previous me, but ex nihilo, and simply tacks itself onto me, how can I, the previous I, be responsible?"
The problem with this objection is in its construction of the problem. Nobody thinks a will happens "ex nihilo." Nobody thinks there's such a thing as "for no reason." It's just that the free will side includes
personal causes in its more general account of causality, and Determinism excludes them from even being a possibility.
But the objection then reverses savagely. For if I am nothing but the sum of prior physical forces, THEN what is the basis of my alleged "responsibility"? There is no "me," no "I" to be responsible for anything. A long chain of prior causes forced to be done what was done. There is no personal agency in there for us to blame, and none to praise if "good" things happen, either.
Now, let us for the sake of argument [1] assume dualism of the usual kind, with a mental world that is able to affect the material world in some way, as well as being affected by it. Now suppose [2] it was the case that uncaused events don’t occur in the mental world. This in itself would not make the mental world per se deterministic, since mental events can be caused by material events;
No: it wouldn't.
Because free willians have "personal causes" in their account of causality. So to say "uncaused events don't occur in the mental world" is only to say, "no event happens without either a prior physical reason OR a personal decision." But it does not imply "uncaused" events.
but if [3] we also assume away quantum uncertainty,
We don't need to: it's actually irrelevant to the question. Quantum uncertainty does not tell us anything about how the will operates. It just suggests that
physical causality may itself be less easy to understand than we (and Determinists) have previously thought.
By contrast, suppose we amend assumption [1] and suppose that although there is a separate mental world which is affected by the material world, it can have no affect on the material world in its turn. Then the material world on its own would be deterministic – nothing would have no cause.
Yes, that would be true: but it would take us back to the downward causality problem. We could only keep that worldview by dismissing the mind from the realm of the real.
So I repeat: determinism (causal closure) of a system only denies freedom to an agent that is not part of the causally-closed system.
This doesn't follow. If the system is Deterministic, then there is no "agent" and no "freedom"...especially not in a "causally-closed" system.
Thanks for your thoughts. Let us continue.