[FRIAM] Free Will in the Atlantic

Wed Apr 7 19:50:01 EDT 2021

Actually, I got access for free by logging in with my Google account as an
independent researcher.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021, 5:19 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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>>
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