This, by the way, is also the subject of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, by the same author behind Sapiens.
One can argue for democracy, free speech, and other modern liberal ideas on the basis that they produce a more stable, prosperous society.
This assumes that we've already decided that stability and prosperity are attributes that society should have.
I think science is a great tool for figuring out what the consequences of a particular action are likely to be, but it's not a tool that will tell us which of several outcomes we should prefer.
It's also not necessarily contradictory for it to be a bit of both.
- Mainstream science operates on the assumption of physicalism.
- Mainstream science operates on the assumption that mind/consciousness is reducible to the brain organ.
- Mainstream science operates on the principle of causation.
What follows from that is that libertarian free-will is impossible. What you're left with is determinism (and compatibilism which isn't a scientific view, but a moral one).
Not true even at a fundamental level.
Why should it be true at a macro/aggregate one?
(And if it starts with a Q, then at most one can say is that it's possible that it's not deterministic. It's perfectly compatible with determinism, just not (AIUI) (and IANATP) currently known whether or not it is the case.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Modern_scientific_...
Edit: why downvote this?
Quantum randomness isn't truly random. There's no free lunch for free will to be found in QM.
> the result is not traditional determinism, but rather determined probabilities
> Thus, quantum physics casts reasonable doubt on the traditional determinism of classical, Newtonian physics in so far as reality does not seem to be absolutely determined.
> A critical finding was that quantum mechanics can make statistical predictions which would be violated if local hidden variables really existed. There have been a number of experiments to verify such predictions, and so far they do not appear to be violated. This would suggest there are no hidden variables, although many physicists believe better experiments are needed to conclusively settle the issue
This appears to be an open issue. With evidence pointing towards true randomness.
You mentioned the pilot wave theory. Is there experimental evidence in favor of it beyond standard quantum mechanics?
> Bohmian mechanics has never been widely accepted in the mainstream of the physics community. [0]
Thanks. This is all quite over my head.
This is the crux you should retain.
--I don't know what 'physicalism' means.
--Mainstream science doesn't even claim to know what consciousness is, let alone what it can be reduced to.
--Science does not operate on the principle of causation. The point is to make falsifiable predictions that can, when verified, be considered as evidence that your hypothesis for how things work might just be how they work.
There is just so much we don't know. Using science to justify some new-agey claptrap about determinism is just malfeasance.
>--I don't know what 'physicalism' means.
Is "well-defined" a codeword for "I don't understand"? Physicalism is as well-defined of a concept as anything can be.
>--Mainstream science doesn't even claim to know what consciousness is, let alone what it can be reduced to.
Since you don't understand what is "physicalism" I don't think you're going to get this point. The idea is that everything is reduced to elementary physical structures. Therefore nothing can be extra-physcial, super-natural or otherwise. I.e. non-dualist. Therefore the mind must be reduced to physical structures.
>--Science does not operate on the principle of causation.
So is there anything that is uncaused? When the scientist constructs an experiment do they think "oh what if the billiard ball moved without cause?".
>There is just so much we don't know. Using science to justify some new-agey claptrap about determinism is just malfeasance.
Actually "new-agey" thought tries to do the exact opposite: save dualism and free will.
I understand that some people claim this to be a definition, but that hardly makes it one. What's 'extra-physical'? To do this, you must first define what boundaries physicality has. I don't think there is any good definition to be offered here without begging the question.
>So is there anything that is uncaused? When the scientist constructs an experiment do they think "oh what if the billiard ball moved without cause?".
A scientist has a model for certain phenomena that can be verified experimentally. One can call this causality, sure, but that it leads inexorably towards determinism seems far from clear to me.
>Actually "new-agey" thought tries to do the exact opposite: save dualism and free will.
I have no opinion on the question of 'free will' as you frame it. Is it part of the human condition that one's circumstances have a large role to play in how life proceeds? Certainly! I'm just against the view that science has anything to say about it.
I get that this question can be recursively applied. It's children's favorite game -- to keep asking "what is ____?". I'm going to guess that you disagree with philosophy as a whole and will keep questioning if anything philosophers discuss is well-defined. If that's the case why are we then discussing philosophy?
EDIT: you can also say "I disagree with physicalism" or "I'm a dualist". But saying all those things are not well-defined is merely a cop-out.
I just have a distaste for bringing science into a discussion where it can be finagled into whatever one finds convenient for the matter at hand.
Because that's the definition that everyone is using in this kind of free-form conversation? Nah. If we were all using the same definition, it wouldn't generate this much discussion.
There are religious scientists - they personally believe that miracles exist so they oppose the real methaphysical naturalism but they assume naturalism during work (that is the methodolical kind), and that is enough for progress, science doesn't care.
What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might be (or "super deterministic)).
A deterministic universe is in no way incompatible with the notion of "liberty". You might think of each "choice" you make as a transition in a finite state machine. If you have more potential transitions from any given state, you have more liberty. You do choose what transitions to take, your issue is just that at some level the universe caused you to choose one of those transitions... well what would "free will" look like? A ghost ("soul") outside of the universe controlling your actions instead? How is that any better? Why does the ghost make it's choices?
Not sure what you even mean by science maintains we aren't individuals?
>You haven't even bothered trying to give a definition of what free will is
I assume you read the article and we're using that as context in our discussion as people do when they're discussing articles on HN.
>The definition of which is something for philosophers to debate.
Not really, there are three accepted mainstream philosophical views on free will: libertarian, determinism, and compatabilism.
>What I think you mean to say is, at the level of human perception, mainstream science maintains the universe is deterministic (as opposed to non deterministic (which quantum mechanics might be (or "super deterministic)).
Not sure what this exactly means, but the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims.
>You might think of each "choice" you make as a transition in a finite state machine. If you have more potential transitions from any given state, you have more liberty.
You're pushing a homunculus theory of free-will here. The idea that there is a "you" that is making a choice for you. That's libertarian point of view.
>well what would "free will" look like? A ghost ("soul") outside of the universe controlling your actions instead? How is that any better? Why does the ghost make it's choices?
Actually based on your previous sentence you seem to believe that -- not me.
>Not sure what you even mean by science maintains we aren't individuals?
The break-down of the "individual self" as a theory. Look into studies done on patients with severed brain hemispheres. It shows you that there is more than one competing selves.
> the "universe is deterministic" is part of what mainstream science claims
Well, deterministic or fundamentally random, right.
It doesn't. Quantum physics is as mainstream as they come, and so is chaos theory.
But determinism doesn't actually have much to do with "free will". There are many known indeterminate stochastic processes, yet nobody would claim that they possess free will, i. e. radioactive decay.
In fact, ultimate causal determination is proven for both. Consider Broglie–Bohm.
There is no true randomness. Not in math and certainly not in QM.
"Actually based on your previous sentence you seem to believe that -- not me." If you really aren't an individual it's not that hard to extend... You are a collection of finite state machines... Same conclusions apply. However as far as people are concerned you might as well assume a "homunculus" theory since the transitions they care about happen inside a first person narrative (for the most part). Kind of like how classical mechanics isn't exactly precisely true, but still best at explaining macroscopic behavior.
"Look into studies done on patients with severed brain hemispheres. It shows you that there is more than one competing selves." It shows you that each half of a brain is capable of qualifying as "human". It does not show you there are two competing selves in humans whose hemispheres are connected. Kind of like sometimes one twin absorbs the other in the womb. I bet if you take a random grown adult, partially lobotomize them, entirely remove half their brain, if they're not completely disabled they'll be more on par with dog than human level intelligence.
What is your definition of free will such that mainstream science says that we do not have it? In general, I'd recommend always stating your definition of free will when discussing it, because people's definitions differ.
Given that definition, how would the world look if we did have it, and if we didn't? (You are part of the world, so your inner feelings count, if that's all you think would differ.)
How sure are you that the world looks the first way, and not the second way?
> “Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millennia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.)
The first three sections after that (1.1, 1.2, 1.3) are about different definitions of free will. Where did you get the idea that free will had a settled definition? Is there something else I should be reading?
>If there is such a thing as free will, it has many dimensions. In what follows, I will sketch the freedom-conferring characteristics that have attracted most of the attention
Citation needed!
In the end, those decisions, even if they were possible, would not be free will, but either arbitrary (random) or requiring some homunculus doing the thinking somewhere inside us.
Rather, I say, our will, and that's free enough, and as free as it gets, is mixed up in ourself: it is ourself. Our body, past history, experiences, brain structure, etc, define us, and their sum is what ends up taking the decisions.
Thus it doesn't even matter if our "conscious self" is not aware of a decision we've made as some studies say [1]. Our body is still us (in fact, that's all there is when we talk about our self, our body + our neural synapses as shaped by our life experiences from our trajectory in space-time). We are not some souls independent of our body/life story. We ARE our life story/body.
This means that determinism (that the universe makes us takes exactly a specific decision at every point etc), if exists, is totally combatible with such a notion of free will. Free doesn't mean "able to go random" but "expressing freely its owner" -- and since our will's owner is our body+history, it cannot but take a single decision each time, those that determine who we are, and thus our essence.
[1] http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.ht...
However, most people would disagree with you. The lay person's view are actually more of a libertarian view of free-will.
Sure, it's combatible with compatibilism (e.g. similar to Frankfurt's ideas) but it's not one of the classic variants. I find incompatibilistic (sp?) theories hopelessly dualistic.
>But it's not a scientific view, it's a moral one.
I'd say it's fundamentally a philosophical one, on the nature of self, and only derivatively a moral one. I also don't think they are "scientific" views on such matters, as they transcend observation.
(As for the moral part: I don't think morality is about what we "freely chose" to do: rather it's about who we are -- the choosing after all is secondary and stems from that. This reconciles morality with both the influences of a personal history beyond one's control, and the person's "agency").
>However, most people would disagree with you. The lay person's view are actually more of a libertarian view of free-will.
Yeah, but the "most" part shouldn't matter, as reality is not a popularity contest. It's only whether they are right that matters.
... "Sapolsky quotes American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky in support of the position that free will is really just “internal forces I do not understand.” ...
I never liked this argument. By saying it's "internal forces", subconscious struggles within myself, seems to conclude we've learned all there is to know about "physical reality".
We can't see beyond the boundary of our own reality (universe). To say we're certain reality only exists within those boundaries seems dubious.
> However, mainstream science maintains that we're neither individuals nor have free will.
You are conflating government control and social interactions. Liberal western politics is based on individual liberty and free will in the context of government policy. Such policies are focused on reducing the control that governments have on individual rights and not how individuals are influenced by other individuals within societies, which is the topic that Homo Deus and Sapiens focus on.
The distinction here becomes very blurry very rapidly.
Governments are composed of individuals within societies. Individuals influence each other within a socio-political framework.
Also false on Homo Deus, it covers both and much of it is about governments, politics and policies. Happy to quote some, but really just open the book on a random page you'll probably see that.
As a famous Kenyan has said, "reality has a way of biting back".[1]
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Notes:
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-38671714/obama-...
this was contested in a recent HN thread[1], with regards to norway in particular:
> Only a few prisoners enjoy the freedom of this island, which is equivalent to a trustee camp in a US min security prison. The rest who were given 10+ year sentences are in complete isolation in what the media loves to refer to as hotel prisons. In these cells everything is provided for you including your own shower, therefore there's no reasons for the guards to ever let you out and you stay in there 23hrs per day. Because the media calls them hotels, it prevents any prisoner from being able to complain and be taken seriously, so often these guys will either light their cells on fire and hopefully get transferred to one of the older style jails so they can talk to other inmates, or they just kill themselves.