That’s some seriously circular reasoning. But what do you mean by “free will”?
Not exactly. I think some quantum events may be uncaused and random. Over the long term, that randomness builds up to prevent anything from being pre-determined “from the beginning of time”. But aside from that, yes.
Of course, if something other than brains determine consciousness, the problem is unchanged, assuming it’s really a problem. I don’t think it is. The article assumes that determinism results in mindlessness, in fact apparently in randomness (which seems self-contradictory), but there’s no reason for that. Valid reasoning and logic are as deterministic as anything. Just because thoughts have causes doesn’t prevent you from reacting to circumstance, so the image of two tape machines mindlessly going through the motions is fallacious.
How does a non-material mind change anything? Free will is a magic black box, apparently.
No wonder you’re so confused if that turgid nonsense is what you’re reading. It’s too long to comment on as a whole, but if you would like to make some kind of argument, feel free to pick bits from it. But ask yourself, what is the immaterial mind supposed to be doing, and what causes it to do whatever that is? If there’s a cause, that’s determinism. If there’s no cause, that’s randomness. Which one is free will?
Someone confronted to a moral choice can choose either the good or the bad path. But whatever his choice, there is a cause to it. And yet, I don’t think his choice is either determined or random. So I would have to disagree with your claim that if there is a cause, that’s determinism.
That’s nothing more than denial and refusal to consider the question. If a choice has a cause, and if the word “cause” means anything, that choice is determined. We could now ask about the cause of the choice. Is that cause itself determined or random? Or is there a third option, and if so what would it be? Where is free will in that?
Please don’t. For one thing, “interesting” and “Jordan Peterson” are oxymoronic. For another, you should make your own argument rather than posting random videos. I have little interest in those and generally won’t watch them. If you have no further interest in engaging with me, just say so.
It was only 4 minutes long so I can report that Jordan Peterson says nothing of relevance on the question of the nature of free will in that video.
As usual he never gives us an actual opinion of his own that can be pinned down to a concrete statement about what he actually believes on the matter, just tossing out a short rant about what Jordan Peterson apparently believes the legal system is based on, a talk he had with Sam Harris, and what others have said about Dan Dennett and his views on consciousness.
He mentions merely that he thinks there’s a third option between nature and nurture, which is the “you” that can affect your surroundings. We are still left without an explanation for how the will of “you” manages to be anything other than either random or determined by something deeper.
So there’s a you that is making choices. What are those choices based on? If it isn’t just emerging without explanation by some sort of inscrutable fiat (brute facts), you must have some sort of nature that… determines what you do? One that you didn’t choose (or we are left with an infinite regress of choices, and you just aren’t that old.)
Not to nitpick, but one could, in fairness, argue that those insisting that determinism and randomness are a true dichotomy have a burden of proof on that point. One could say that “free will” (or even just “neither”) is a third option, and those insisting that there cannot be one have not demonstrated as much yet. The opposite of determinism is non-determinism, and the opposite of randomness is non-randomness. It is not at all obvious, that there is no overlap between the two.
What I would go with, instead of denying the logical possibility of a third category, is questioning how one would go about practically distinguishing between non-determined events and randomly occurring ones, absent conclusive knowledge that an agent with free will was involved. If there is a way to do that, then there may be a place for a third category. If not, then it would seem to be unnecessary to account for our experiences and can therefore be dismissed in pursuit of parsimony.
I think of it this way. Add up every factor that influences your decision. If they are sufficient to guarantee a particular choice you have determinism. If not, then the difference must just come out of nowhere for no reason - because we’ve already accounted for every reason.
This is why I prefer compatibilism. By redefining free will so that internal states - such as your nature and desires - don’t count against it, we preserve the important parts of the idea of free will, while rejecting the incoherent- and therefore useless - idea of libertarian free will.
Being interested by Peterson for some years now, I wanted to know what he had said about free will. So nothing random here.
Well, you are free (or are you ? ) to find Peterson not interesting, but millions of people around the world find him interesting. So saying that « interesting » and « Jordan Peterson » are oxymoronic seems an audacious claim to me.
I think John’s point here was, that – aside from a personal distaste for Peterson, which is fair enough – there is no sense diving into a position no one present here is either pledging to defend or claiming as inspiration, or even so much as prompting a comment on instead of explicitly inviting none. Your posting the clip is “random” in the sense that you posted it with a context that would, if anything, only discourage paying attention to it.
If Peterson’s position is yours, then at least say as much, or, better yet, present it yourself. If it is rather one you want or need comment on, then say that, instead of saying that this is what you “leave with”. If it is neither, then it’s the position of a third party who is not here to partake in this discussion, nor one of any particular interest to those who are here, so there is no point in addressing it at all.
And yet no one has been able to conceptualize what this overlap would be like. If there is indeed such an overlap, what sort of thing is it? Just calling it “non-deterministic non-randomness” says nothing. Show me the square circle.
It’s a bit of an aside, and would most assuredly not satisfy proponents of libertarian free will, but fatalism, for instance, is neither deterministic nor random. In fatalism, events are “fated” to happen, there is no possibility for things to go any other way. It is not a matter of probability. At the same time, fatalism does not require that events unfold in accord with any sort of rule set, so knowing a fatalistic universe’s state in one instant of its history is insufficient to predict or retrodict its state at all other times, because there are no regularities it reliably follows.
An answer like that wouldn’t satisfy my challenge either, for a system whose evolution is fated but does not follow any recognizable pattern is (without time travel, at least) functionally indistinguishable from a system that evolves randomly. Still, the fact that those who insist on freely willed things as being neither determined nor random have not met my challenge of showing how one would go about identifying such things, is no reason for the rest of us to adopt the (arguably equally as heavy) burden of having to show that no such class of events can exist at all.
The only way I can conceptualize this is to consider a block universe. In such a universe there may be the appearance of causation, but since it’s all one piece, with no progression from “before” to “after”, what looks like causality is mere adjacency in the time dimension. In such a system there may be discontinuities, violations of apparent causality. “Fated” just means “set into the structure of the universe”, and for some reason the universe is set up so that to us there seems to us to be an arrow of time, with prior events usually, for some unknown reason, appearing to cause subsequent events. Would that be a reasonable characterization?
Sure, I suppose this could be a fair way to interpret specifically our universe as a fatalistic one. As I said, it still retains the problem that one cannot detect the fatalistic character from the inside: Flukes could be errors in perception/measurement, after all, or maybe the beings inside do not have a full enough understanding of the deterministic rules, or maybe there is genuine randomness and the universe would evolve differently, were one to wind it back up and start anew.
But at least conceptually randomness and determinism are not a true dichotomy. And I, for one, am less than entirely comfortable asserting just how many other options there are, at least in a philosophical discussion. Of course, as a man of science, I would still ask what practical implications and/or use there is to bin events into more categories than determined and random, but that’s a pragmatic challenge moreso than a position on what things are or could “truly” be like.
Still, it should be up to the person claiming that there are other options to present one, and up to the person asserting libertarian free will to say something about how that would work. I should also say that this fate-controlled universe is puzzling, as it doesn’t give us any reason to expect the appearance of causality.
I’m at a loss to define what free will is even supposed to be. If I’m at an ice cream parlor, is free will the freedom to choose a flavor I do not want? Why would I do that? If I choose my favorite, licorice, does that mean I do not have free will? Then it seems that the only sensible course in life is to dispense with the idea of free will and go ahead and choose the life one wants.
I think I agree. In regards to free will, both classical determinism and quantum randomness can be just as fatalistic.
I would say that anyone “choosing” licorice for anything is not exerting free will but is under the influence of a dark power. But I sense (without engaging free will) that this is off topic.
And it’s not a nitpick.
) to find Peterson not interesting, but millions of people around the world find him interesting. So saying that « interesting » and « Jordan Peterson » are oxymoronic seems an audacious claim to me.