[FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

[Frank Wimberly]

If you have access via a library this article by Glymour might be of
interest:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/521968?seq=1

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 4:47 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> No, it isn't ideal to pin free will on determinism.   There's some
> consensus reasonable people can come to about the physical world, and we
> can either agree that humans are a part of the physical world or that we
> are decoupled or partially decoupled from it.   If such a decoupling is
> suggested, then I think it is reasonable to want to know how that
> decoupling would work, and what experiments could shed light on that
> decoupling.   Why can't we just go beyond the Standard Model to understand
> that decoupling?   What is this pantheism and why can't we take it apart or
> study it?
>
> So, sure, it is possible to pull the rug out from under the whole debate
> with other metaphysics where anything can happen.   If one is arguing with
> someone who insists that analysis of their metaphysics is not possible,
> then that's the end of the conversation.   To continue, there has to be
> some ability to reason about what happens in that metaphysics and what
> cannot, and why that is, and there has to be some rationale for how things
> we observe in our (physical) world could map to that metaphysics.
> Otherwise why waste their time, they can go back to their important
> business with Q-Anon.
>
> Maybe the physical world really is random.   On the other hand,
> superdeterminism does seem to address the measurement problem. [1]
> Either way, how does one get to free will, as in It Could Have Been
> Otherwise?  The real or illusory randomness collapses to definite
> measurements either way.   There has to be a magical homunculus that is
> shifting that random distribution around somehow if there is free will.
>  Or if the physical world is actually deterministic all the way down, then
> there is a big problem because Mind just defies causality.
>
> I'm an atheist, not an agnostic, because I have no patience for
> implausible models.   If you want to understand the world, you follow the
> evidence, not what you want to be true.
>
> [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139/full#h5
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of jon zingale
> Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 2:33 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic
>
> "Or do we assert, as the Free Will contingent do, that Will is above the
> fray?"
>
> Ok, so I continue to struggle with what it is that concerns me about the
> assumption of determinism. Marcus's point about the loci of *will* requires
> serious consideration. From where I stand, arguments opposing free will to
> determinism are instances of dialectical argument, where the former is
> posed as the pure negative to the latter[!]. The particular choice here
> then is seen to be part of a class of such opposites: chaos and order,
> irrationality and rationality, randomness and computability,
> non-representation and representation, absence and substance,...
> Each negative object then is presented as either failing to have scrutable
> qualities or have qualities explicitly defined relative to their positive
> counterpart. What follows is an asymmetry that is baked into the form of
> the argument, regardless of its content.
>
> Now, as far as I can tell, an argumentative *mode* arises when we relate
> positive objects to positive objects via metaphor, for instance, when we
> say that determinism is computation or determinism is pure order, etc...
> An effect of such metaphor making is the attribution of an object as a
> quality of another (comprehension), i.e., ascribing determination to a
> computation or tracing out a determination by a computation. Meanwhile, in
> the opposite category, free will comes to be identified with randomness.
>
> My concern, then, is that positive theories are objectifying whereas
> negative theories are reflective[!], and since *will* here is presented in
> its negative form, we are denied access to speak directly about its
> qualities. Instead, we come to know *will* in terms of randomness via
> coming to know determination in terms of computation. Ultimately, it leaves
> me feeling like I am looking for my keys (will) under some nearby
> streetlight (determination).
>
> [!] Evoking Raymond Guess in his analytic exposition "The Idea of a
> Critical Theory".
>
>
>
> --
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