Freedom under Naturalistic Dualism
post by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-27T14:34:41.148Z · LW · GW · 32 commentsContents
Introduction Naturalistic dualism Definition of freedom Time and consciousness Responsibility in a mechanist universe Conclusion References None 32 comments
Introduction
This article discusses the classic issue of free will under naturalistic dualism. The literature on free will (O’Connor, Timothy and Franklin, 2022; Timpe, 2016) revolves around the tension between agency and either physical or metaphysical necessity. Those who consider that free will is a legitimate concept in a physicalist Universe are named “compatibilists”, while those who don’t are named incompatibilists. A very interesting position is that of Helen Stewart (Steward, 2012) that from a incompatibilist stance considers the pervasiveness and immediacy of agency both in human and animals a reductio ad absurdum of mechanistic naturalism.
The position here defended is that the free will problem is inexistent under naturalistic dualism. Agency is a part of the subjective realm, and is real as such. Moreover, given that consciousness is the most ontologically dense part of reality, subjective realities are more unproblematically real than the physical world itself. By evaluating (however imperfectly) the set of possible futures conditional on its own actions, the subject builds a mental object that is what it is defined as the scope of their "freedom". That subjective map is a legitimate mental object. On the other hand, conscience is epiphenomenal, and consequently arises from the autonomous physical reality, so (subjective) choice is real, but as the rest of the Universe, mechanistically determined.
While the philosophical problem is inexistent, the existence free of will depends on a very definite characteristic of reality: the fact that the future cannot be remembered. Time asymmetry is not properly understood in modern physics: the thermodynamic arrow of time is not clearly related to the massive knowledge asymmetry that exists between past and future. I conjecture that the future cannot be remembered because some of the fundamental laws of Physics imply fundamental (ontic) randomness.
I close the article with a modest discussion on moral responsibility, where it is argued that moral responsibility does not require causative agency. The abhorrence that evil deeds produce is granted because they signal an unworthy (or at least less worthy) conscientious perpetrator.
In Section 1 of this article naturalistic dualism is summarized. In section 2 the definition of freedom in that framework is presented. Section 3 discusses the relation between time asymmetry and agency. Section 4 sketches how the proposed definition of free will deals with moral responsibility and Section 5 concludes.
Naturalistic dualism
This section describes naturalistic dualism[1] (see Chalmers, 1996 for a canonical exposition[2]). Naturalistic dualism postulates the existence of two ontological domains of reality: first it is the conscious subject, or to be more exact the flow of consciousness over time, whose existence is immediate (it is the philosopher himself, and hopefully also the gentle reader). Since Descartes, the stream of consciousness has full ontological legitimacy (thinking means being immediately), and although memory is fallible and personal identity somewhat volatile (Minsky, 1986), even lies and errors when they occur as a part of the conscious experience have the legitimacy of "being" in the full sense of the word.
On the other hand, modern Science since Newton postulates (with immense explanatory success) the existence of an irrational, automatic, and objective matter, whose behavior can be described in mathematical terms. Within this framework, all scientific work is divided into two tasks: the discovery of the fundamental laws of Physics that can be mathematically expressed, but not explained (hypotheses non fingo), and the "scientific explanation" that consists of reducing observable phenomena to an application of the laws of Physics. The scientific explanation thus understood is recursive, with the most complex phenomena explained in terms of the simplest in a hierarchy (the so-called reductionist hierarchy) where (limiting ourselves to the field of natural sciences), Biology[3] is based on Chemistry and Chemistry is determined on Physics (the laws of Chemistry are mainly a consequence of the quantum properties of the electron orbitals). In fact, the "reduction" begins in Physics itself, where heat and its properties are explained as an emerging phenomenon in the so-called Statistical Mechanics that provides the micro-foundation of Classical Thermodynamics.
Laplace’s synthetic summarization of this worldview remains unsurpassed: “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
Laplace describes a deterministic Universe where that postulated intellect (generally known as “Laplace's demon”) can perfectly know the future, but in Quantum Mechanics, physical prediction becomes probabilistic. By their very nature, the laws of Physics are “mechanical”: physicalism is precisely the idea that the evolution of the Universe at all scales is fully determined by the execution of the mechanical laws that rule elementary particles and fields (when those mechanical laws allow for complete prediction, and no stochastic variables are needed we are in the particular case of deterministic mechanism).
For Descartes the mechanistic res extensa ended in the pineal gland, where the conscious soul (res cogitans) joined the automaton body. By contrast, Laplace's demon owes his omniscience to the autonomy of matter. Laplace suggests that there is no soul connected to the pineal gland and that Descartes is as much an automaton as the rest of the Universe. This position is anti-intuitive, but its denial implies that the laws of Physics, with their mechanical concatenation of causes and effects are not and cannot be complete, and that animism is justified in the last citadel of the human brain. That the atoms of the brain know where they are and have the courtesy to alter their general behavior when located in the cranial cavity, or that they are subjected there to the influence of a supernatural substance.
In any case, whether the soul descends from heaven or emerges from the mud, consciousness remains entirely real. In a physicalist world, however, its existence is not necessary as a cause of anything, and it does not act on material reality, but it is rather parallel to it (this position on the matter-consciousness relationship is called "emergentist epiphenomenalism”).
David Chalmers devotes many pages and quite a few thought experiments to convince the reader that consciousness cannot be "reduced" to a physicalist explanation like the one that brought down vitalism, but it is more pertinent to point out that there is nothing to reduce. Explaining the functioning of physical systems (for example, of living beings) as a consequence of the laws of Physics is part of Science, but the most minute mechanical description of any phenomenon is entirely divorced from any attribution of sentience. [4]
Laplace's demon could know the exact future evolution of each neuron in Descartes's brain without this giving him the slightest information about whether Descartes thought and existed as a conscious subject. In fact, the demon himself would not even know whether computing Descartes's future evolution would generate the realization of his conscious experience. If the answer were affirmative, only the “simulated Descartes” himself would know it (!), and if it were negative then nobody would. In naturalistic dualism consciousness is the ultimate noumenon.
In fact, the “neural correlates of consciousness” research agenda (Koch, Massimini, Boly and Tononi, 2016) substantially depends on our trust on human subjective reporting. The extension of this methodology to animals is undermined for their lack of language, which limits reporting. On the other hand, for computers, even superhuman cognitive and linguistic skills would be not enough to guarantee conscience, because the specific physical implementation of a neural network (and not only her outputs) is likely important for the emergence of conscience (see Marshall, Albantakis, Mayner, Koch, and Tononi, 2019).
The autonomy of matter and the fact (observable by the subject himself) that the flow of consciousness is synchronized with the evolution of the material system from which it emerges, reverses the Cartesian worldview and makes the mind a passive automaton (an epiphenomenon) of the brain. What this article will argue is that the concept of freedom of a conscious being is well defined even within the framework of naturalistic dualism.
Definition of freedom
Suppose a conscious physical system (eg. a human brain). The dynamics of that physical system are as determined by the laws of Physics as the rest of the universe, but having an attached consciousness flow creates a well-defined boundary between that subset of the universe and the rest. Indeed, one essential characteristic of human consciousness is that it is a unitary experience, which emerges from a determined physical system (Massimini and Tononi, 2013).
The physical system from which consciousness arise may be connected to a device that we will call "body" that serves it as an interface to affect external reality. The conscious (epiphenomenal) subject is aware of their own ability to affect “external” reality and the idea of freedom is based on that perception. By evaluating (more or less imperfectly) the set of possible futures conditional on their own actions, the subject builds a mental object that is what I define as the scope of its "freedom".
If the conscious physical system is volitional, it also has a subjective assessment about the desirability or utility of future states of the world. Laplace's demon (phenomenologically) observes the action of the conscious physical system as the mere ordinary application of the laws of Physics, but from the perspective of the epiphenomenal subject that action is an optimization of the universe for their own ends.
The reader may object that what has been argued so far does not refute that freedom is an illusion (we place freedom in the subjective domain), and indeed, we believe it is. Freedom is as much an illusion as an orgasm, the color red, the set of natural numbers or the statement that in chess the bishop stays on squares of a given color. All the objects of our mind are illusions, and at the same time they are the only thing that fully and immediately exists. Among those objects, however, freedom is well defined, and linked to physical reality in a direct way. It is much more like a Hamiltonian than like a unicorn.
It is true that, as opposed to a Hamiltonian, the self-assessed domain of free action is not a purely physicalist description of reality: the conscious subject does not attempt to physically predict their own action, but considers it as a "free variable". But consciousness is real and the subject makes not mistake when regards their self as a volitional unit.
On the other hand, the ability of the conscious being to think rationally to improve the universe is seen by the Laplace's demon as a mere mechanical consequence of a given state of the matter and of the laws of Physics, and of course, he is right too.
Time and consciousness
Chalmers explores in detail the matter-consciousness relationship through a mental object called a "philosophical zombie ", a human being identical to those that exist, but without consciousness. In the realm of freedom, however, the experiment on what the absence of freedom means for a conscious being does not involve any hypothetical exercise. Freedom only exists towards the future, so regarding the past we are all philosophical “free will” zombies: if freedom is the set of possible futures conditional on the subject’s actions, and the subject’s actions cannot affect the past, freedom with respect to the past is inexistent.
Our intuition about time is clear: there is a unique past that we remember over which human action is impossible; there is a present instant of consciousness in the Cartesian sense, and there is the future that is unknown and that can be affected by the present action. The experience of these three times is essential in our perception of the world and the structure of language. Freedom refers to the self-assessed power of the subject to affect reality, and therefore, as consciousness knows that it cannot affect the past, freedom always refers to the future.
At this point it seems to me of immense importance to remember that contemporary Physics and the Philosophy of Physics do not have a consensus on why it is not possible to remember the future, and in my view this is the open scientific question of greatest philosophical relevance (Hemmo and Shenker, 2022). The thermodynamic time arrow is not related in any obvious manner to the massive information asymmetry between future and past that characterizes our experience. Additionally, it is extremely unlikely that such a pervasive and structural feature of reality comes from a mere biological limitation.
I am going to risk in this matter a (dangerous) scientific hypothesis, whose exploration I will leave to others more qualified: the reason why the future cannot be remembered is because there is fundamental (ontic) randomness in the Universe. Any random experiment generates irreversibility: towards the past the random process has been carried out (we know all the realizations of the involved random variables), and towards the future we only have probability distributions of the ontically random variables.
In the architecture of modern physics, Born's rule turns quantum mechanical observation into a random experiment, but whether quantum measurement is truly ontic randomness is still an open issue (see Nath Bera, Acín et al., 2017 on quantum randomness and more generally Maudlin, 2019 for a philosophical inquiry on Quantum Mechanics).
From the perspective of distinguishing between the past and the future it is irrelevant whether the realization of a random experiment selects one event among several possibilities, or if it splits reality into several branches (as Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests). In both cases ontic randomness generates the possibility of several futures, and with that possibility the reversibility of the fundamental laws of the universe is broken and remembering the future becomes impossible. The void left open by the impossibility of remembering the future is where the scope of freedom appears.
Responsibility in a mechanist universe
The reader accustomed to the philosophical literature on freedom would undoubtedly miss an analysis of the consequences of our definition of freedom for the freedom-responsibility problem. Up to this point, this article has been firmly in the realm of descriptive philosophy, and the freedom-responsibility binomial can only be addressed within a normative framework. For this reason, I am not going to deal with this issue in depth. But at the same time, avoiding it completely could suggest a certain lack of confidence in the practical applicability of the proposed definition of freedom.
The folk intuition on moral responsibility is that the determination of behavior has a “strong part” that encompasses genetic inheritance, extreme nurture conditions, or neurological damage, and to the extent that behavior can be explained based on those strong determinants it is considered outside of the scope of moral responsibility. The rest of the behavior not explained by the strong determinants is what is considered susceptible of moral responsibility.
In this article we contend that freedom is not “absence of determination”, and we define free behavior as that which is under the control of a conscious entity. Using Helen Stewart definition (Stewart, 2012), agency is the “power to act”. A conscious being that can choose among several options has the power to act, no matter how determined is the way it effectively uses that power (vg. if you offer poison or food to one hundred people, and all of them chose the food, their unanimity detracts nothing from their “power to act”).
Beyond innocuous choice, on the moral realm, when a conscious being performs acts that we consider immoral, our condemnation does not come merely from the social desirability of the punishment, but mainly from the horror that a conscious being performs the considered acts. That intentionality comes down from heaven or emerges from the mud does not change anything: it is intention anyway. The fact that a configuration of matter is able to perform evil deeds does not reduce the horror that the existence of that kind of corrupted conscience produces on those that are not so corrupted.
To clarify my position, let's consider three cases: i) A runs over his wife in a traffic accident, ii) B is a person with a normal and non-violent behavior until a brain tumor is found; then his behavior turns violent and he kills his wife, iii) despite being born into a middle-class family, and having no known problematic relatives, C develops increasingly violent behavior from puberty that culminates in him killing his wife. Folk theories of responsibility consider A and B fundamentally not responsible and C strongly responsible.
I now apply the proposed definition of freedom to the case considered before. While folk moral responsibility acquits B because he is not guilty of developing a tumor, from our perspective B and C are equally responsible because the path that turns you into a monster does not change the monster you have become. A's unintentional act is innocent, since it tells us nothing about the moral value of his current conscious self. The case of B is totally different. There was a time when B was a good person, but the tumor has already killed that good person, bringing about murderous post-tumor B. The intuition that post-tumor B must be absolved of his responsibility because he is not the true B is only an animistic fallacy.
Of course, nobody really wants to punish B, because we can all have a brain tumor, and end up being like him, but once you're like B, you're no longer you. Pre-tumor B would probably be the first to condemn post-tumor B for killing his wife. In any case, even if one is averse to punishing B, it must be recognized that his post-tumor moral value has been reduced, and the lives of non-aggressive people must be considered of more value than him. Even if one clings to an animistic view of responsibility, a re-adjustment of the moral value of post-tumor B is warranted.
The existence of consciousness is what gives moral relevance to physical systems. Any attribution of moral value can only be made to a conscious being (only the conscious being can be a moral object), and at the same time moral responsibility is only required from the conscious being (only the conscious being can be a moral subject). To a certain degree this allows for the metaphysical grounding of moral reciprocity: the immoral conscious subject excludes himself (to the extent of its immorality) from the moral circle to which his own conscience gives him access to. Of course, other considerations are relevant for exclusion from the moral circle, as the degree of hazard that the considered agent can pose to others (reciprocity arguments for moral exclusion are weakened when the excluded can instead be easily neutralized).
Conclusion
In this article I have explored the issue of freedom in the framework of naturalistic dualism. Given that for physicalism the universe is no more than the execution of the mechanical (either deterministic or stochastic) laws of Physics, reality is not more than chance and necessity.
On the other hand, under naturalistic dualism consciousness is still real and legitimate (more ontologically legitimate than anything else). By evaluating (more or less imperfectly) the set of possible futures conditional on their own actions, a conscious subject builds a mental object that is what we define as their scope of "freedom". If agency is “power to act”, a conscious being that can choose among several options has the “power to act” no matter how determined is the way it effectively uses that power.
An important observation regarding freedom is its relation with time: in our universe, where past is remembered and future unknown, freedom is always related to the future. In my view the physical basis of the time asymmetry is the most important open issue in Physics from a philosophical point of view, and I conjecture that it is related to the existence of ontic randomness.
The proposed definition of freedom is used to deal with the liberty-responsibility duet. On the moral realm, when a conscious being performs immoral act, our condemnation does not stem merely from the social desirability of the punishment, but mainly from the horror that a conscious being is capable of performing the considered acts.
The existence of consciousness is what gives moral relevance to physical systems. To a certain degree this allows for the metaphysical grounding of moral reciprocity: the immoral conscious subject excludes himself (to the extent of its immorality) from the moral circle to which his own conscience gives him access to.
References
Chalmers, D., “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory”, Oxford University Press, 1996
Epstein, J.M., “Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling”, Princeton University Press, 2006
Hemmo,M., Shenker,O., "The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Psychological Arrow of Time", The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2022
Koch,C., Massimini,M., Boly,M. and Tononi,G., "Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems", Nature Reviews, Neuroscience, 2016
Marshall,W., Albantakis,L., Mayner,W., Koch,C., Tononi,G., "Dissociating Intelligence from Consciousness in Artificial Systems - Implications of Integrated Information Theory.” Proceedings of the 2019 Towards Conscious AI Systems Symposium, AAAI SSS19, 2019
Massimin, M., Tononi, G., “Sizing Up Consciousness: Towards an Objective Measure of the Capacity for Experience”, Oxford University Press, 2013
Maudlin, T. “Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory”, Princeton University Press, 2019
Minsky, M., “The Society of Mind”, Pocket Books, 1988
Nath Bera,M., Acín, A., Kuś, M., Mitchell, M.W, and Lewenstein, M., ”Randomness in quantum mechanics: philosophy, physics and technology”, Reports on Progress in Physics, 2017
Steward, H., ”The Metaphysical Presuppositions of Moral Responsibility”, The Journal of Ethics, 2012
Timpe, K. “Leeway vs. Sourcehood Conceptions of Free Will”, The Routledge Companion to Free Will, 2016
O’Connor, Timothy and Franklin, C., "Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022
[1] The lack of reference to the specifically physicalist type of naturalism is a serious drawback in this name. A more precise label would be “subjectivism-physicalism-emergentism”.
[2] See Greg Egan 's (vg. “Axiomatic” and “Diaspora”) for a disciplined literary work compatible with naturalistic dualism. To some extent Egan’s books can be considered as the problem sheets for Chalmer’s “The Conscious Mind”.
[3] From Biochemistry to Ecology (through Cell Biology, Histology, Physiology...) this science encompasses multiple layers of reduction itself.
[4] In a memorable statement Epstein (2006) describes the scientific reductionist enterprise as “growing” the macrostructure from a micro-specification. Exact replication from mechanical rules is the maximum attainable goal for Science. The fact that even having a complete generative model does not contribute much to the discussion about the consciousness of artificial neural networks shows in practice the limits of even perfect phenomenal knowledge to assess the existence of (noumenal) consciousness.
32 comments
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comment by Charlie Steiner · 2023-06-28T08:55:03.416Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Well, I gave this a read, but I'm not a big fan.
The strategy "If presented with a mystery, ascribe complete responsibility for that mystery to some ontologically basic thing" is the main culprit here, especially since I count it being used three times.
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-28T09:37:11.813Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The problem with conscienciouness, is that full scientific knowledge of a phenomenon, tells nothing about it. It has been allways obvious, but now, with neural networks it is even more evident. You have the generative model, that is, the perfect scientic knowledge on a system. Still you know nothing about sentience.
I agree with Chalmers, but I dislike his presentation of dualistic naturalism, because he goes into long mental experiments. This is far more immediate: Laplace demon cannot assess sentience. And Laplace's deamon is the "omniscient materialist"... In this limited (but critical) sense, conscience is not material.
You dont need to postulate conterfactual zombies.
Replies from: javier-caeiro-canabal, Ape in the coat↑ comment by JavierCC (javier-caeiro-canabal) · 2023-06-28T10:34:57.856Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
But conscious states are strongly determined by brain states as far as we can check. The argument that people use to argue against fully identifying the two comes down to deriving the metaphysical nature of qualia from their phenomenological properties. It seems to me that is epistemically problematic to argue against objective claims with intuition about something that we cannot even contrast with anything. We just have our intuition about phenomenology, no conceivable way to track the processes behind the phenomenon from that intuition. This is the reason why people imagine qualia to be individual entities and then think they can remove them ceteris paribus, or that they can't be tracked by Laplace's demons.
Consciousness doesn't need to be fundamentally distinct from non-consciousness. Rocks can't monitor their own states at all, but computers can, that doesn't mean that a fundamentally new property was added when you turn a rock into a computer. If we stop trying to derive metaphysics from phenomenology, the same account can be applied to consciousness. Then whatever processes track with what we feel consciousness to be will be trackable by a Laplace demon.
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-28T11:09:12.609Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"But conscious states are strongly determined by brain states as far as we can check"
You can only "check" your own mental states, so that is not very far.
"Consciousness doesn't need to be fundamentally distinct from non-consciousness"
I cannot argue against eliminativism, because perhaps you are nos conscious. Still, I would not eat you because of cultural taboos and legal complications...but no longer for moral reasons! :-)
As commented in the article, this philosopher is conscious for sure, but the regarding the gentle reader, he only can hope. Not even the Laplace demon would know, and my phenomenic knowledge is vastly inferior.
Replies from: Ape in the coat↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-28T11:50:27.769Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I cannot argue against eliminativism, because perhaps you are nos conscious.
Consciousness not being fundamental doesn't equal consciousness not existing.
↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-28T10:30:58.502Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"Laplace demon cannot assess sentience" is begging the question just as much as "philosophical zombies are possible" It's obviously true only if you assume the premise of counsciousness epiphenomenality.
It has been allways obvious, but now, with neural networks it is even more evident. You have the generative model, that is, the perfect scientic knowledge on a system. Still you know nothing about sentience.
NNs do not represent the full scientific knowledge of a system. Also I think you are mistaken where the evidence point due to repetative goalpost shifting that has been happening with the term "counsciousness". It used to be much much bigger concept but everytime we discovered how some part of it worked on a mechanical level, it got redefined to be smaller - the still unknown part of the previous definition. We do know a lot about counsciousness in the original meaning of the term.
Replies from: TAG↑ comment by TAG · 2023-06-30T18:04:38.600Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Laplace demon cannot assess sentience” is begging the question just as much as “philosophical zombies are possible” It’s obviously true only if you assume the premise of counsciousness epiphenomenality.
It's also true if you assume there is no possible reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness ... which dualists like Arturo do.
If Laplace's Demon knows All Physics, and the reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness isn't part of All Physics, then Laplace's Demon doesnt know any facts about consciousness.
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-01T07:27:01.437Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
We belive this, because Laplace demon has an explanation of all material facts (that is physicalism, isn't it?). What else can you "know", what else can you explain?
The most you can do is to trust is the "neural correlates of conscience" research agenda, but it depends on having a Rosetta stone (=credible accounts of subjective experience), and beyond other humans, we have nothing (while perhaps IA translation of some cetacea will be available, increasing a little bit the "interpretability circle").
But we will never know "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-28T10:10:51.180Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Good point about the importance of time/information/causality assymetry. Indeed the requirement for free choice is not knowing what you will choose. And when you know - it means that you've already chosen.
Another good point in framing free will as a mental property. However, I feel that all the talk about Naturalistic Dualism harms the understanding, because it helps pull under the rug the rest of the confusion.
Try removing the premise of dualism from your reasoning and see the situation from the lense of reductive materialism. What changed? The assymetry of time is still here. Free will is still a mental property, and our minds are made from matter and thus are not non-existent in the same sense that unicorns are.
The only thing that changed is that you don't have this easy way to prescribe the label of "methaphysical realness" to free will. But what is this label for, other than just vibes? What actual properties "not methaphysically real" free will lacks compared to "methaphysically real" one? How is our decision making or moral responsibility affected in any way? Taboo the word "real"and try to figure out what exactly do you mean by it. Maybe this label is empty and we do not need it at all?
Another direction in which you may want to look is distincting free will from counsciousness. Lumping them together is a popular confusion. But you may notice, that you do not need to perceive the redness of red to make decisions under uncertanity, selecting the course of actions that in expectation better satisfy your goals than the alternatives.
Replies from: TAG, arturo-macias↑ comment by TAG · 2023-06-28T21:14:56.009Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The only thing that changed is that you don’t have this easy way to prescribe the label of “methaphysical realness” to free will. But what is this label for, other than just vibes? What actual properties “not methaphysically real” free will lacks compared to “methaphysically real” one
The ability to make a difference , and choose non-inevitable futures.
Libertarian free will allows the future to depend on decisions which are not themselves determined. That means there are valid statements of the form "if I had made choice b instead of choice a, then future B would have happened instead of future A". Moreover, these are real possibilities, not merely conceptual or logical ones.
Under determinism, events still need to be caused,and your (determined) actions can be part of the cause of a future state that is itself determined, that has probability 1.0. Determinism allows you to cause the future ,but it doesn't allow you to control the future in any sense other than causing it. (and the sense in which you are casusing the future is just the sense in which any future state depends on causes in he past -- it is nothing different from physical causation). It allows, in a purely theoretical sense "if I had made choice b instead of choice a, then future B would have happened instead of future A" ... but without the ability to have actually chosen b.
Replies from: Ape in the coat↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-29T05:09:33.651Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The ability to make a difference , and choose non-inevitable futures.
Actually, absolutely not the case here! The way Macias uses "real" has nothing to do with non-inevitability.
Moreover, these are real possibilities, not merely conceptual or logical ones.
And here you failed to describe the word "real" without using the word "real" not only in spirit but also in letter.
The ability to make a difference , and choose non-inevitable futures.
And this ability affects our desicion making or moral responsibility, how exactly? Last time I directly asked you this question about five times and you kept dodging it. Now, when you just renamed "real choice" to "non-inevitable" choice, the question still stands.
Are you actually talking about an epiphenomenon? Like is it logically possible to have two universe where everything happened exactly the same for the same reason but one had libertarian free will and the other didn't?
Replies from: TAG↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-01T19:38:51.033Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Actually, absolutely not the case here! The way Macias uses “real” has nothing to do with non-inevitability.
I was speaking for myself.
Moreover, these are real possibilities, not merely conceptual or logical ones.
And here you failed to describe the word “real” without using the word “real” not only in spirit but also in letter.
I mean the same thing by "real" as you do.."in the territory".
A possibility could be a feature of reality, "in the territory" or it could be a merely apparent, in the map as, a result of ignorance, AKA "Knightian uncertainty". The existence of real, in the territory possibilities is the equivalent to the falsehood of strict causal dterminism. Which means Laplace's Demon could settle the question of the existence of real possibilities: if it cant predict the future given perfect knowledge of the present, determinism is false, and real possibilities exist.
The ability to make a difference , and choose non-inevitable futures.
And this ability affects our desicion making or moral responsibility, how exactly?
It makes it more worth having, since it makes more of a difference. That's the question I was answering: why is libertarian free will worth wanting?
You might make the same decisions, whether it not you have LFW, but that's another question.
Last time I directly asked you this question about five times and you kept dodging it. Now, when you just renamed “real choice” to “non-inevitable” choice, the question still stands.
I've always answered your questions as stated, but you keep jumping from one to another.
Are you actually talking about an epiphenomenon? Like is it logically possible to have two universe where everything happened exactly the same for the same reason but one had libertarian free will and the other didn’t?
Yes it is, but that has nothing to do with epiphenomenality. Given a finite sequence of random events that have already happened you could always construct a deterministic algorithm that produces the same sequence...but that doesn't show the initial sequence was deterministic.
OTOH, given an infinite random universe, you can find any compressible sequence, too. (Boltzman brains). Randomness can be mistaken for determinism.
There are circumstances under which determinism and indeterminism are hard to distinguish, but that doesn't mean they are the same, and it doesn't mean they are of equal value.
Replies from: Ape in the coat↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-07-10T08:54:36.586Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I mean the same thing by "real" as you do.."in the territory".
Maps are embedded in the territory. So everything that is on the map is also in some sense in the territory. The question is whether it is the same sense that the map claims to be or not. That's why I dislike "real" as a category. It's a legacy of the times where philosophers didn't understand map-territory relations, when they were talking about it as single variable property of an object and not two-variable property of both object and subject.
since it makes more of a difference
How it "makes difference" if then you agree that there can be no difference whatsoever?
Yes it is, but that has nothing to do with epiphenomenality.
Seems very much like epiphenomenalism from my perspective. We can even construct a similar mind experiment to p-zombies with the sole difference that it will actually make sense.
Imagine there are two universes U1, U2 with exactly the same physics, yet in U1 the outcome of random events are selected through a deterministic process. Say, the universes are run on two computers in a parent universe Up, one computer uses a pseudorandom generator, and the other a "true random" one. And for the symmetry lets assume that the sequence of outcome of both random generators happened to be the same for U1 and U2. Now a Laplacian demon who knows everything about U1 and U2 will also have to know an additional fact whether the computer than implements them uses pseudorandom generator or "trully random" one, which is a fact about a parent universe Up and not U1 or U2.
Actually it's even worse than that. What if Up has its own parent universe Upp? And what if Up is implemented via pseudorandom generator in Upp? Then what we thought to be a "trully random" generator in Up is also only a pseudorandom one. Now the Laplacian demon will have to know all these extra facts about all the universes in chain just to claim whether entities in U2 has libertarian free will.
So the "libertarian free will" is an epiphenomenon. An extra badge of "metaphysical reality" without any causal effect on the decision making and moral responsibility.
Replies from: TAG↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-17T12:41:17.434Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Everything that is on the map is also in some sense in the territory.
In a misleading sense. There are maps of Narnia, but Narnia is not in the territory. The map as meaningless squiggles of ink is in the territory, but that's misleading.
The question is whether it is the same sense that the map claims to be or not. That’s why I dislike “real” as a category.
I don't see how you can dispense wit the concept, even if you don't like the word,
It’s a legacy of the times where philosophers didn’t understand map-territory relations, when they were talking about it as single variable property of an object and not two-variable property of both object and subject.
It's not wrong to say the territory itself is real, as a one place predicate, and it's possible to use some other term for successful correspondence.
How it “makes difference” if then you agree that there can be no difference whatsoever?
I didn't say it makes no difference in the sense that that it doesn't matter. I said it could be indetectable (to finite minds). That's not the same thing. Things you can't know can matter a lot. For instance don't know when you will die, but it matters to you. "isn't detectable", "doesn't matter", and "casually idle" are all different properties.
Seems very much like epiphenomenalism from my perspective. We can even construct a similar mind experiment to p-zombies with the sole difference that it will actually make sense.
Imagine there are two universes U1, U2 with exactly the same physics, yet in U1 the outcome of random events are selected through a deterministic process. Say, the universes are run on two computers in a parent universe Up, one computer uses a pseudorandom generator, and the other a “true random” one. And for the symmetry lets assume that the sequence of outcome of both random generators happened to be the same for U1 and U2. Now a Laplacian demon who knows everything about U1 and U2 will also have to know an additional fact whether the computer than implements them uses pseudorandom generator or “trully random” one, which is a fact about a parent universe Up and not U1 or U2.
Knowing that U2 is using genuine randomness is no help to the LD, because it won't be able to make predictions. In fact, it can deduce the the existence of genuine randomness from it's own failure. Considering only the special case where genuine randomness corresponds to pseudo randomness disguises the point. Of course, the fact that an LD would not work on a genuinely random universe is a difference that indeterminism makes.
Actually it’s even worse than that. What if Up has its own parent universe Upp? And what if Up is implemented via pseudorandom generator in Upp? Then what we thought to be a “trully random” generator in Up is also only a pseudorandom one.
Who's we? You and I are finite and ignorant, an LD isnt. A deterministic PRNG is just part of the laws of physics, and a LD is supposed to know all the laws of physics , so it would know which PRNG the pseudo random universe is running on by default..it's not an extra assumption. So parent universes are irrelevant: they don't tell the LD anything it doesn't know, and they can't help it predict the random.
So the “libertarian free will” is an epiphenomenon. An extra badge of “metaphysical reality” without any causal effect on the decision making and moral responsibility
Again, indeterminism and free will affect the nature of causality. It's a category error to say that causality itself is a cause. So determinism , as a form of causation , is an epiphenomenon too!
↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-28T12:40:17.410Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I answer all comments together (with low karma you can only make one comment by hour):
"Consciousness doesn't need to be fundamentally distinct from non-consciousness. Rocks can't monitor their own states at all, but computers can, that doesn't mean that a fundamentally new property was added when you turn a rock into a computer. ". "Consciousness not being fundamental doesn't equal consciousness not existing."
Conscience is "fundamental" in the sense that the philosopher itself is the conscious subject. In fact, the entire physical reality could be unreal, and still the “brain on the vat” would be real and its experience too. The self is immediately real, and that is why Descartes is the father of modern philosophy. If I were a “brain on a vat”, still there would be an infinity number of primes, and pleasure and pain would be entirely real. In that sense, conscience is fundamental: in the sense that it is the "hard" reality for you (subject) no matter what causes it. On the other hand, consciousness is not "fundamental" in naturalistic dualism in the sense that it does not even play any role in physical reality: it is only epiphenomenal.
In our current physicalist-reductionist vision of Nature, the Laplace demon only deals with positions and speeds (or more exactly wave functions) of all particles in the universe. This is a complete and autonomous description of Nature, and being complete and not having "conscience" as an input, the demon cannot assess the "other side" of reality (the side where Descartes thinks and consequently is). Perhaps, if quantum wave collapse is related to conscience, then, conscience could play an active role in reality and this article would have to re-written after some additional courses on Physics. Otherwise epifenomenality is un-avoidable.
"Try removing the premise of dualism from your reasoning"
How dualistic is "Naturalistic dualism" when conscience is purely passive and epiphenomenal? In my opinion, naturalistic dualism is the most materialistic non-eliminativist worldview (and eliminativism is meaningless).
"Another direction in which you may want to look is distincting free will from counsciousness"
In fact, "free will" in my definition is some very specific consequence of conscience and time asymmetry. The fact that the physical system with an attached conscience flow can "affect" reality [=possible Worlds conditional on own body actions], means that it considers some possible futures and choses one of them. The possible futures given own choice are meaningful, but for an external observer that can predict also the evolution of the conscious being [=brain], the choice is as materially determined as the rest of the Universe. The existence of conscience is what divides the universe on two subsistems, and makes sensible to use "own possible actions on reality" as free variable to pursue (volitional) ends. So in my proposal, free will is not confused with conscience!
Replies from: TAG, Ape in the coat↑ comment by TAG · 2023-06-28T21:04:59.323Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Conscience is “fundamental” in the sense that the philosopher itself is the conscious subject
"Fundamental" dosnt have to have a single meaning. From our point of view, we are individually fundamental, from someone else's we are some Joe Schmo who need not have existed.
How dualistic is “Naturalistic dualism” when conscience is purely passive and epiphenomenal? In my opinion, naturalistic dualism is the most materialistic non-eliminativist worldview
Consider, if you will, dual aspect neutral monism, which is similar, but without the epiphenomenonalism.
In fact, “free will” in my definition is some very specific consequence of conscience and time asymmetry. The fact that the physical system with an attached conscience flow can “affect” reality [=possible Worlds conditional on own body actions], means that it considers some possible futures and choses one of them. The possible futures given own choice are meaningful, but for an external observer that can predict also the evolution of the conscious being [=brain], the choice is as materially determined as the rest of the Universe
Doesnt that amount to saying that free will isn't really real,but seems real?
↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-28T15:07:34.504Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The self is immediately real
What exactly do you mean by this? Try explaining it without using the words "real", "actual" or "objective", instead think about the issue in terms of "map" and "territory".
If I were a “brain on a vat”, still there would be an infinity number of primes, and pleasure and pain would be entirely real. In that sense, conscience is fundamental
Are you using a different definition of "fundamental"? What I mean by it is an element that is not produced by any other elements. And in this scenario consciousness isn't fundamental - it's a result of physical process that is manipulating the brain in the vat.
How dualistic is "Naturalistic dualism" when conscience is purely passive and epiphenomenal?
It's the dualism of the gaps. The last attempt to redefine idealism and smuggle it inside our worldview. And it still allows to pull the confusion under the rug. Instead of trying to understand the mystery of how consciousness is produced by matter interactions it just postulates that it's a separate entity.
In my opinion, naturalistic dualism is the most materialistic non-eliminativist worldview (and eliminativism is meaningless).
There are other possibilities for materialistic worldview. One can say that counsciousness is not fundamental but still real. That it's produced from material interactions in the brain not unlike how computer runs programms. Trees, houses, planes, people - neither of them are fundamental as well as they are made from smaller elements but they are still still pretty real.
In fact, "free will" in my definition is some very specific consequence of conscience
So I figured. And that's why I invite you to think about it from a bit different angle where only one of the assumption holds. I expect that it can give you a new insight.
The fact that the physical system with an attached conscience flow can "affect" reality [=possible Worlds conditional on own body actions], means that it considers some possible futures and choses one of them.
What if there was an entity that could consider possible futures conditional on its actions and choose one of them - suiting its goals the best, - and yet this entity completely lacked conscious experience? What properties of free will would such entity lack? Or do you believe that such entity is impossible in our universe (or even in any universe?) thus leaving the possibility for the falsification of your theory?
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-29T11:07:15.416Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Ape in the coat
“Are you using a different definition of "fundamental"? What I mean by it is an element that is not produced by any other elements”
Epistemologically, your subjective experience is more fundamental than physical reality. The entire world could be a simulation, and then Physics would be false; on the other hand, subjective experience and Mathematics is true in absolute and aprioristic grounds. Color red, an orgasm, and natural numbers and the Fermat theorem are true, even if you are trapped in Matrix, under the power of a “malign genius”.
Cartesian subjectivism and Newtonian mechanism were almost contemporaneous, and they created a massive Schism in philosophy and the Western mind. From the perspective of the mathematician and the philosopher, subjective experience is immediate and “fundamental”, while sensorial experience imply “faith”. You cannot prove anything about physical reality because you cannot prove there is a physical reality at all. But in Mathematics, you can prove many things, because they refer to mental objects, and your mind and its objects are (unproblematically) real. That is why mathematical theorems are more certain than physical laws. When you accept that, it implies that conscience is more epistemologically fundamental than physical reality. You are trapped in your self, and the “world” is not more than an act of faith or a useful hypothesis that coordinates your experience.
Of course, I have faith in sensory experience (unlike Tensor White, see comment below, that has more faith in God and less in brutal matter). But I am aware of the abyss that separates me from wherever Physical reality is, and the fact that that abyss can only be crossed by faith (unlike you accept St Anselm ontological proof of God existence, as Descartes did).
“Instead of trying to understand the mystery of how consciousness is produced by matter interactions it just postulates that it's a separate entity”
I begin my exposition describing what means “explanation” in Physicalism. Life is explained by pointing out that its apparent special characteristics (reproduction, autopoiesis, etc) are simply results of the laws of Physics. Reductionist biology takes a life form, makes inverse engeneering and show the “plans” of the being, and you can understand how it works from physical and chemical laws (that means finally only Physics).
But what about chat GTP? How helpful are the “plans” of the machine to assess conscience? What additional scientific knowledge do you need? You have the generative model, the most complete set of plans and physical relations you can dream of. Regarding chat GTP you are almost like the Laplace demon. Still, you don’t know how sentient is it.
For me that is “Naturalistic dualism”: the physicalist-reductionist explanation (no matter how perfect) is simply not enough for the assessment of sentience. Either there is some other type of scientific explanation beyond reductionism-physicalism, or simply conscience is beyond our scientific assessment (not understanding! The typical naturalistic dualist thinks that “there is nothing to explain” nor understand, probably because we accept what explanation is since Newtonian “hypothsys non fingo”). Sentience is real, and it is simply “there” for some physical systems, there is no way to assess which ones.
“What if there was an entity that could consider possible futures conditional on its actions and choose one of them - suiting its goals the best, - and yet this entity completely lacked conscious experience?”
If it “considers”, “chose” and “has goals”, it is conscious.
Tensor White
Thank you for your comment. I cannot answer you with the kind of detail that I did to “Ape in the coat”, because I am a materialist (as materialist as possible, in a Universe where conscience exists). I agree that it takes a lot of intellectual machinery and some leaps of faith, but reality is as it is: atoms and emptiness, as Democritus discovered more than 2500 years ago.
TAG
“Doesnt that amount to saying that free will isn't really real,but seems real?”
It is as “real” as the set of natural numbers or as real as “true love”. For me that is more real than a neutron star that nobody has ever seen. The stream of my conscience is more real than anything else and well defined mental objects there are very real.
“Libertarian free will allows the future to depend on decisions which are not themselves determined.”
Everything is physically determined. But when a conscious being has N options, and choses one, he chooses what he wants (=he is free), no matter how determined is what he wants.
The discussion on moral responsibility comes from that: when you accidentally kill your wife you can say you didn’t chose. On the other hand, if there is intent, the determination by material causes of your act does not change that the act was conscious and then your conscience [=you] is evil.
As Jan Blomqvist said, we are “ghosted machines”. The fact that the ghost comes from the machine doesn’t mean that the product of the machine cannot be an evil ghost.
Thank you very much for this marvelous discussion. At least, even if does not end as an academic paper, I am very happy with this exchange.
Sorry for the delay, but there are posting (one per hour, 3 per day) limitations for low karma participants even in their own posts.
Replies from: TAG, Ape in the coat↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-01T13:47:31.773Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
“Doesnt that amount to saying that free will isn’t really real,but seems real?”
It is as “real” as the set of natural numbers
That isn't helpful, because there is no agreement about how real numbers are. I'm an anti realist myself.
or as real as “true love”. For me that is more real than a neutron star that nobody has ever seen. The stream of my conscience is more real than anything else and well defined mental objects there are very real.
What you are not doing is arguing against the counter-claims ...that there is a much more robust sense of "real" than "seems real to me", that "seemingly real" is more "seeming" than "real".
Epistemologically, your subjective experience is more fundamental than physical reality.
But what about ontologically? Surely that is the gold standard.
Indeed the requirement for free choice is not knowing what you will choose.
That doesn't make a choice free of anything at all. At best, it's an illusion of indeterminism.
Everything is physically determined. But when a conscious being has N options, and choses one, he chooses what he wants (=he is free), no matter how determined is what he wants.
That's the standard argument for compatibilist free will. Compatibilist free will only needs preferences and the ability to act on them. Adding a dualistic layer to physical reality doesn't give you any more compatibilist free will, and it doesn't get you libertarian free will, as you admit. So what is doing?
My position is that freedom is a property related to conscious experience, so as long as there is no conscience, my definition of freedom cannot be applied. Conscious choice is the basis of freedom.
So being able to do what you want isn't the basis of freedom?
The discussion on moral responsibility comes from that: when you accidentally kill your wife you can say you didn’t chose. On the other hand, if there is intent, the determination by material causes of your act does not change that the act was conscious and then your conscience [=you] is evil.
There are reasons for being concerned with libertarian free will other than moral responsibility.
“Libertarian free will allows the future to depend on decisions which are not themselves determined.”
We belive this, because Laplace demon has an explanation of all material facts (that is physicalism, isn’t it?). What else can you “know”, what else can you explain?
It's obvious to you that "all physical facts" doesn't include consciousness, it's obvious to Ape that it does. It's pretty circular either way.
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-02T21:21:54.302Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
That's the standard argument for compatibilist free will. Compatibilist free will only needs preferences and the ability to act on them. Adding a dualistic layer to physical reality doesn't give you any more compatibilist free will, and it doesn't get you libertarian free will, as you admit. So what is doing?
Let’s work over the case of a deterministic physicalist universe, to simplify. You can divide reality in two disjoint arbitrary sets covering the whole universe, called “Brain” and “Rest”. Laplace demon has all information about “Rest” while no information about “Brain”. Now, he can compute all possible futures of the universe for each possible configuration of “Brain”. This set of possible futures tells us the “degrees of freedom of Brain”, that is, how this subset of the reality can influence the Universe. This is a cumbersome but legitimate exercise, and a totally materialistic one.
Now, we go to the other side of reality: suppose that “Brain” is not an arbitrary part of the universe, but one that has an attached stream of unified conscientious experience (those systems exist: I am one of them, hopefully you too). “Brain” is volitive and has a feeling of free will and choice. What I say, is that the scope of possible futures among which a conscious being chose is an approximation to the “degrees of freedom of Brain” that I defined in the previous paragraph (with the help of a Laplace demon). What I claim from this is that the feeling and the scope of freedom are rigorous mental objects. That they illusory as a Hamiltonian, not as a unicorn!
So I guess my position is “compatibilist”, but my experience reading compatibilist texts is that they are not as clear as my exposition before.
Of course, everything depends on conscience, because it is the mental experience of free will what is under analysis here. What I am trying to do is to assess the rationality of that experience. The unpredictability of the disintegration of an atomic nucleus is not an instance of free will, and in fact, I have developed all my argumentation for a purely deterministic universe (but one where the future can be affected by the present, but no the other way around. How is that possible if the laws of Physics are time symmetric?… That is for me the real open question; the philosophical part [=relation between physical reality and epiphenomenal conscience] is straightforward).
Replies from: TAG, arturo-macias↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-04T20:24:11.575Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Now, he can compute all possible futures of the universe for each possible configuration of “Brain”. This set of possible futures tells us the “degrees of freedom of Brain”, that is, how this subset of the reality can influence the Universe.
From L's D's point of view , everything that your brain does is predictable given Brain+Rest, and in fact, everything your brain does is predictable from the global state of the universe before it existed. So Brain has no degree of freedom.
What I say, is that the scope of possible futures among which a conscious being chose is an approximation to the “degrees of freedom of Brain”
If you consider Brain separately from everything else, then you introduce Knightian Uncertainty: it appears to have degrees of of freedom, because you have neglected a bunch of causal factors. The freedom only seems to exist because of absence of complete information.
how this subset of the reality can influence the Universe.
But it can't, really, because it's mutually causally dependent on everything else. You could make the same argument about anything that isn't a brain+rest.
Of course, everything depends on conscience, because it is the mental experience of free will what is under analysis here. What I am trying to do is to assess the rationality of that experience
You have argued that some things that seem real are real because they seem real. The problem is that because the (degrees of) freedom don't really exist, the feeling of freedom doesn't imply actual freedom, so the feeling of freedom is one of the illusory feelings.
The unpredictability of the disintegration of an atomic nucleus is not an instance of free will,
It has the property thats lacking from compatibilist free will (but not libertarian free will) the ability to have happened otherwise, but doesn't have the purposiveness. You're not rescuing compatibilist or feeling-based free will.
, I have not better arguments than Bishop Berkeley
Oh, dear!
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-05T08:15:46.885Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"You have argued that some things that seem real are real because they seem real. The problem is that because the (degrees of) freedom don't really exist"
There are things I can do (because they are under my conscient control, like move my finger) and others that I cannot do (like altering Earth orbit). I am "free" to move or nor a finger, and I am not "free" to alter Earth orbit. Is there anything irrational in this? Anything illusory?
Of course, the way I use my freedom is determined. "Brain" has degrees of freedom, they are real (Laplace demon can compute them, by considering all futures conditional on possible Brain configurations), but, at the end, "Brain" is also a physical system, and can be predicted too.
The set of all possible futures conditional on brain configurations is the "degrees of freedom" of Brain, while, when you predict what "Brain" does with those degrees of freedom, you predict Brain use of its freedom.
How important is that dinstiction? From the perspective of Brain, hugue, for Laplace's demon irrelevant.
Both are rigth.
Replies from: TAG↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-05T19:24:06.636Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
There are things I can do (because they are under my conscient control, like move my finger) and others that I cannot do (like altering Earth orbit). I am “free” to move or nor a finger, and I am not “free” to alter Earth orbit. Is there anything irrational in this? Anything illusory?
You have been assuming determinism, and if determinism is true you are not free to move your finger or not as you choose. Determinism means that the movement of your finger was pre ordained before you were born.
So determinism seems to mean that you can never do anything except the one thing you do. That's the deterministic argument against libertarian free will. But it's pretty counterintuitive that both "cannots" are the same.
Compatibilists like Dennett argue that you can move your finger or not in the sense that a very similar version of you, it the same you under slightly different circumstances, would move his finger...but no such slightly different or nearby version of you can change the Earths Orbit.
That leaves everything unchanged ... You still lack libertarian free will, you still have compatibilist free will, and having consciousness or qualia still doesn't make a difference.
How important is that dinstiction? From the perspective of Brain, hugue, for Laplace’s demon irrelevant.
Surely Laplace’s demon wins?
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-06T04:56:07.329Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"You have been assuming determinism, and if determinism is true you are not free to move your finger or not as you choose"
I freely chose to move my finger, but my (free) choice is pre-ordained. I can do as a I please (in the set of my "degrees of physical freedom"), so I am free within those bounds; on the other hand, what I want is pre-ordained.
Replies from: TAG↑ comment by TAG · 2023-07-06T13:40:21.538Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I freely chose to move my finger, but my (free) choice is pre-ordained.
So it's not free from determinism. So it's not libertarian free will.
I can do as a I please (in the set of my “degrees of physical freedom”)
You can do only one thing in any particular situation, the thing that is predetermined.
on the other hand, what I want is pre-ordained.
So it's compatibilist free will, and having a quale of libertarian free will doesn't change that.
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-06T14:07:19.969Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
"So it's compatibilist free will, and having a quale of libertarian free will doesn't change that"
Well, in fact the whole point was to legitimize the quale of libertarian free will (as a Hamiltonian, not as a unicorn), so I think at this point all our differences are reconciled :-)
↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-07-03T08:05:58.144Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Now two smaller points:
"It's obvious to you that "all physical facts" doesn't include consciousness"
If Laplace demon needs conscience attribution to compute future positions and velocities, I rest my case. That could be possible, if "quantum collapse" is both ontologically real and triggered by a conscient observer. This is obviously over my payroll...
But what about ontologically? Surely that is the gold standard.
Regarding this, I have not better arguments than Bishop Berkeley, who turned the Cartesian epistemological subjectivism into ontological subjectivism. That is the real birth of anglo-continental divide, while perhaps Occam laid grounds to the tradition in the Middle Age.
↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-29T13:45:43.659Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I understand the subjective idealist perspective very well as I used to be one myself. I'd recommend you to understand my usage of the word "fundamental" because currently when, you just interchangably use it with "real" you are missing the point I'm trying to make.
Again, try reasoning in terms of map and territory, I suspect it can be enlightning for you as it was for me. Mental things are part of a map. Initially when you see a map you are more certain of its existence than the territory that this map describes. And yet the map itself can still be just a part of territory. Drawn on the wall of a building or on a piece of paper that was produced on a factory that is shown on this exact map.
I begin my exposition describing what means “explanation” in Physicalism.
To explain something is to show how it reduces to something you already understand, making mysterious things not mysterious anymore.
But what about chat GTP? How helpful are the “plans” of the machine to assess conscience? What additional scientific knowledge do you need? You have the generative model, the most complete set of plans and physical relations you can dream of. Regarding chat GTP you are almost like the Laplace demon. Still, you don’t know how sentient is it.
We have good understanding how to make one. We still lack in understanding how exactly it works. Interpretability research are ongoing and we are slowly learning more and more about it, filling the blancks in our understanding. I'm not sure why you call an opaque box "the most complete set of plans and physical relations you can dream of" - it's clearly not the case.
the physicalist-reductionist explanation (no matter how perfect) is simply not enough for the assessment of sentience.
It's not that you had the pleasure to experience the most perfect physicalist-reductionist explanation. So how can you know that you are not giving up too early? Epiphenomenalism doesn't try to solve the mystery so it won't be able to do it. Had we just assumed a priori that we would never learn anything more about GPT we wouldn't be doing all the interpretability research and as a result it would be a self fulfilling prophecy leaving us less knowledgeble then we are now.
If it “considers”, “chose” and “has goals”, it is conscious.
I notice a contradiction here. Previously you've said that we can't know whether somthing other than us is conscious. Now you say that we can, if this something considers, chooses and has goals. Or are you claiming that we can't possibly know whether something possess such abilities via materialistic science? If so, would you agree that epiphenomenalism is wrong if I showed you the way to do it?
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-29T14:31:30.368Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
“Mental things are part of a map. Initially when you see a map you are more certain of its existence than the territory that this map describes. And yet the map itself can still be just a part of territory”
Well, this quite metaphorical for a hard materialist … :-)
Additionally, I cannot compare “map” and territory, because I (subject) can only deal with different maps (I cannot access reality, wherever it means, directly), at most different internal representations of something I believe is “out there”.
“Now you say that we can, if this something considers, chooses and has goals”
I am only sure of the fact that I "consider", "choose" and "have goals". For the rest, it is only a hypothesis (quite persuasive for very similar organisms that also speak, and the more different from me the harder is to use analogy to assess sentience).
“We have good understanding how to make one. We still lack in understanding how exactly it works. Interpretability research are ongoing and we are slowly learning more and more about it, filling the blanks in our understanding “
I agree with this. In this particular case of “biology”, we have perfect knowledge of biochemistry [=the generative model], but as humans we want also the intermediate layers (like cytology). Still, in my view it does not matter if you go top-down [classical biology] or bottom-up [AI interpretability], what you have is phenomenal knowledge.
The “neural correlates of conscience” people are working in axiomatic formulations (Information Integration Theory), because they can only trust human experience (where analogy and language are available). For the rest of beings we have no Rosetta Stone that allow sentience comparison. Even in the case of humans, everything depends on “trust” on others’ experience, because the only conscience I can measure is the mine one.
“It's not that you had the pleasure to experience the most perfect physicalist-reductionist explanation. So how can you know that you are not giving up too early? Epiphenomenalism doesn't try to solve the mystery so it won't be able to do it.”
Epiphenomenalism suggest that there is no mystery to solve. Of course, epiphenomenalists are as interested in “understanding” phenomenologically either AI and biological systems as anybody else. But after explaining everything, either by having the generative model of the systems or the intermediate layers of reduction, sentience can only be assessed by the the conscious entity itself.
Every conscious being in the universe is epistemologically alone, owning the knowledge of their sentience as a metaphysical absolute certainty that cannot be transferred to any other subject. Splendid loneliness...
Replies from: Ape in the coat↑ comment by Ape in the coat · 2023-06-29T15:16:23.570Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Well, this quite metaphorical for a hard materialist … :-)
Were you under a misconception that materialists can't use metaphors because they are not "sciency" enough?)
Additionally, I cannot compare “map” and territory, because I (subject) can only deal with different maps (I cannot access reality, wherever it means, directly), at most different internal representations of something I believe is “out there”.
True, the initial model is imperfect. But it's a start. You can improve on it when you understand the initial framework. A model where you are writing your own map based on the other maps or even where you are locked in the infinite recursion of maps referencing other maps, without being able to access the territory in any other way than through a map. And still despite that, the maps can be made from the trees that grow on the territory.
I am only sure of the fact that I "consider", "choose" and "have goals". For the rest, it is only a hypothesis (quite persuasive for very similar organisms that also speak, and the more different from me the harder is to use analogy to assess sentience).
I think I understand your reasoning very well. And it seems obvious to me that if I managed to show you a counter example that I'm talking about, an entity about which I can be quite certain that it can "consider", "choose" and "have goals" despite all the reasons that you brought up, you would have to accept that you made a mistake somewhere. But I want you to explicitly acknowledge this. Sorry for the annoyance, I promise that I'm not doing it just for my own amusement, that I expect it to be more helpful for your this way. So, please, say: "Yes, if you show me such an example it will falsify my theory".
Replies from: arturo-macias↑ comment by Arturo Macias (arturo-macias) · 2023-06-29T16:12:04.363Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
“ What if there was an entity that could consider possible futures conditional on its actions and choose one of them - suiting its goals the best, - and yet this entity completely lacked conscious experience? What properties of free will would such entity lack? Or do you believe that such entity is impossible in our universe (or even in any universe?) thus leaving the possibility for the falsification of your theory?”
I don’t think I am making a “theory”, but more an “interpretation”.
My position is that freedom is a property related to conscious experience, so as long as there is no conscience, my definition of freedom cannot be applied. Conscious choice is the basis of freedom. In fact, this is specially obvious, because my definition of freedom opens the door to moral responsibility, that obviously cannot exist with no conscience! What am I missing here?
comment by Tensor White (tensor-white) · 2023-06-28T15:55:52.038Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
conscience is epiphenomenal, and consequently arises from the autonomous physical reality, so (subjective) choice is real, but as the rest of the Universe, mechanistically determined.
You're assuming consciousness arises out of physics, when physics arising out of consciousness is at least as correct. See: Idealism. If anything, Idealism breaks the causal-hierarchy-model symmetry since consciousness can behave deterministically (you can count to ten, you can draw out Conway's Game of Life, you can simulate a pendulum in your mind, etc), but the reverse requires huge assumptions.
So it doesn't sound like you're talking about free will, but merely the illusion/functionality of free will. A free will decision is one where all the causality of all the options being considered points to that one specific moment of your decision. As in, all the considered futures share the same physical causality, you. An agent without free will would hang and never be able to produce an output to choose between the considered futures. It would be like a perfectly balanced Newtonian ball at the top of a dome, it the ball rolls left, the physical agent will choose pepsi, if the ball rolls right, the physical agent will choose coke. This system will never make a decision. The brain is more complicated than a balanced ball, but still has the same issue. Multiple futures are consistent with the present physical state, yet a decision can still be made thanks to free will.
Also, you're ignoring the fact that the Beginning wasn't mechanically determined. So even if everything after the Beginning was mechanically determined, it doesn't really matter. The Beginning can be calibrated into any precise state such that any future determined outcome can occur. And there are infinitely many possible initial states that correspond to any one past. At least to the degree of physical/phenomenological indistinguishability. In other words, Beginning A causes Past P and Future X, Beginning B causes Past P and Future Y. So the same Past P corresponds to both Beginnings A&B and to both Futures X&Y. All while preserving mechanics. So when you choose Future Y over Future X, you force Beggining A&B to become Beginning B.
In clear and correct terms, God knows your future choices ahead of time, so He makes the Beginning precisely such that it will evolve deterministically to be materially consistent with your future choices (~Monism). Your decisions remain the cause since that's God decided to make the universe based on your decisions. And you don't need to exist in order for God to know your decisions ahead of time. This means you chose to be born, for ex.