Materialism & "Free Will"

[redstar2000]

I could use some help with this one.

Thesis: a consistent materialist must reject the objective reality of "free will"...though the subjective impression of "free will" is perfectly acceptable.

If everything we think, say, or do has objective material causes (a few of them very strong, but most of them too weak to be perceptible), then it logically follows that we are "determined" even though it doesn't "feel" that way.

What we perceive as "liberation" is simply the elimination of one or more "strong (material) causes" of our behavior...but all the rest of material reality continues to operate, determining what we think, say, or do.

If it were possible, even in principle, to "know all" of the causes, strong and weak, measure their relative strengths and how they interact with each other, then one could not only predict what you would have for breakfast tomorrow morning but the content and most of the exact words of your conversation with whomever you had breakfast with.

The illusion of free will arises from our ignorance of the myriads of "weak (material) causes" that govern our thoughts, words, and deeds.

This is what also makes it a practical impossibility to "predict the future" in useful detail. There are "strong causes" that can give us a rough idea of what is likely to happen "on a grand scale"...but there are enormous numbers of "weak causes" that determine the details.

We do indeed have little choice but to act "as if" we had free will; but to the consistent materialist, it is, objectively, an illusion resulting from our ignorance of "all material causes".

Comments...

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[The Feral Underclass]

:blink: I dont understand, could you please explain it in laymans turns...?

[Pete]

I tend to agree with that, and after hours long discussions have come to a similar place.

Basically: Everything we do is dependant on previous actions. Everything we do is a reaction to something that has already happened. Nothing we do is independant of outside forces, and there fore there is no free will but a plephora of forces pushing or pulling us in one way, and the outcome, which is our action.

[The Feral Underclass]

Surely we just exist. Nothing pulls or pushes us except our economic necessity. Peoples, lives and actions are determined by surviving, and you cant do that without working, usually. Except for the lucky people who do what they do, enjoy their job or are rich.

[canikickit]

If it were possible, even in principle, to "know all" of the causes, strong and weak, measure their relative strengths and how they interact with each other, then one could not only predict what you would have for breakfast tomorrow morning but the content and most of the exact words of your conversation with whomever you had breakfast with.

For that to be the case, you'd also have to known the factors influencing the person who you were going to have breakfast with. You could determine your own path (hypothetically), but only up until someone else was to interact with you.

[BuyOurEverything]

Yes, essentially everything you do is predetermined. Free will is an illusion. Does it really matter though? As you said, it is a practical immpossibility to predict the future based on this hypothesis. Therefore, does it really have any practical application?

[canikickit]

This is what also makes it a practical impossibility to "predict the future" in useful detail. There are "strong causes" that can give us a rough idea of what is likely to happen "on a grand scale"...but there are enormous numbers of "weak causes" that determine the details.

If we take this to be true, I think it shows this to be untrue:

We do indeed have little choice but to act "as if" we had free will; but to the consistent materialist, it is, objectively, an illusion resulting from our ignorance of "all material causes".

The details are what makes up what is interesting to us, as people. The grand scale is what happens to society.

For instance, I can go to the cinema when I want to, which is free will. However, on the grander scale of things, me going to the cinema has little effect on the material conditions which shape the future and society.

[sanpal]

I also believe, at interaction of particles of substance at a microlevel all things submit to laws of a determinism. The quantum probability can be only a degree of our ignorance. The human is only structure of substance.


But what can you tell about a situation when breakfast is prepared for two persons and there are two identical plates with meal when you are alone?


They say one donkey has died because could not choose one of two identical heaps of hay to start to eat :P

[SittingBull47]

I agree. Very few things in the world are truely the choice of free will. Everything we do is a response to something else. small example: I'm going to bed soon. Why? I had a bad day.

[Fidelbrand]

RedStar2000, Very Sophisticated. ;)

Comment: "Free will" under capitalism is the artifical "end" created, but in fact, it is used for as the "means" the purpose of purposeless growth and indulgence for the whole system.

E.g. Invisible trap of Consumerism.

[Rasta Sapian]

in a capitalist society, u have all the free will you could ever hope for!
You can buy anything that you want!
You can be as picky as you want, to find something specific or different!
However, if you eat breakfast tomorrow there is a 50% probibility that your breakfast will include: either eggs, toast, or both!

the point is that you will remain a consumer, which means that your freewill will most likely be fueled by greed, and vanity!

2 buy or not 2 buy that is the question?

[sanpal]

SittingBull47

Very few things in the world are truely the choice of free will.

I think there is no free will at all. It is seeming thing. Return to the example:


But what can you tell about a situation when breakfast is prepared for two persons and there are two identical plates with meal when you are alone?

Firstly, 2 eat or not 2 eat is not a question.Certainly to eat not to be hungry. Secondly, which of two plates with identical meal could be chosen is not a question too because the results of eating either similar meals will be similar. You try to use free will if the meals on the plates are different (E.g. meat and potatoes). But choosing is the comparing of the good of both meals so it isn't free will too.

In materialistic view
freedom is as realization of necessity.


Rasta Sapian

in a capitalist society, u have all the free will you could ever hope for!


In a capitalist society, your free will is seeming thing too. You are choosing "what to eat for breakfast" - meat or potatoes or delicacy of crabs. And it depend from your possibility (have you any money or not).

[cubist]

oh your all so synical, you have free will to ***** about captialism on a website.

yes your restrained by money but really is your life that bad?

[sanpal]

What is absolute free will? Your choosing without any reasons is. As soon as a motivation has appeared you become not free and this reason (unobserved or obvious) impels all your further acts.

cephas

you have free will to ***** about captialism on a website.

Do you believe I am on website without reasons? You are mistaken.


yes your restrained by money but really is your life that bad?

It depends on pessimistic or optimistic view, but I prefer philosophic one. :)

[Pete]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2004, 07:04 AM
oh your all so synical, you have free will to ***** about captialism on a website.

yes your restrained by money but really is your life that bad?
We are only here because we are influenced by the actions of others into becoming opponents of capitalism and believing that posting on this website will be either productive or educational to ourselves or others, because of past events the future is controlled, though this does not require any superior being.

We are restrained by money (my bank account is sitting around 50cents if it is still open) but that is because of the reactions to the actions of other which over time has created the material condition to which we react today, such as in opposition to capitalism. We have some wiggle room, but every action has to be influenced by a past action, or it would be unimaginable in the purest sense of the word.

[Wenty]

surely the 'reaction' in itself is a choice, be it a limited one or whatever.

[sanpal]

What a choice is? To survive or not to survive? Of course, to survive if there is no suicide.

[monkeydust]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2004, 07:19 AM

This is what also makes it a practical impossibility to "predict the future" in useful detail. There are "strong causes" that can give us a rough idea of what is likely to happen "on a grand scale"...but there are enormous numbers of "weak causes" that determine the details.


I found this bit quite interesting.

Quite rightly you stated that it's a practical impossibility to predict the future.

If however, all that you've written is 'true', is it perhaps the case that the future is entirely predetermined and thus predictable theoretically

If all actions are a result of external influences and forces. We may be unable to determine our own decisions and actions (though we may believe we're able). Could then, this be reason for the notion of fate to be realistic?

[sanpal]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2004, 08:07 PM


If however, all that you've written is 'true', is it perhaps the case that the future is entirely predetermined and thus predictable theoretically



I suppose the future is not predetermined because the future does not exist in reality. Human consciousness have a possibility to predict the future but not exactly, with errors.

[redstar2000]

If however, all that you've written is 'true', is it perhaps the case that the future is entirely predetermined and thus predictable theoretically?

Yes, provided...

1. The uncertainties at the quantum level "cancel out" one another...so that they have no causative weight at the macro-level;

2. If we could discover and weigh all of the "weak causes" of human behavior and how they interact with each other and with the "strong" causes.

I'm uncertain about the first and the second does seem to be a practical impossibility.

You see, by the time you "scale up" from the "quantum foam" to the level of protons and neutrons (matter "as we know it"), the quantum effects are quite small. Large atoms have been photographed...and they are "fuzzy balls"; the "fuzziness" is the remnant of quantum uncertainty.

There is one school of thought that locates human consciousness at the "intersection" of quantum and "normal" reality. But I don't find the argument very convincing...and, at this time, neither do most of the people working in that field. As far as is known, human consciousness is a product of electro-chemical activity in the brain...where quantum uncertainty does not appear to have any role.

But that could be wrong. If there is such a thing as objective free will, then it seems to me that the only material source of that would be quantum uncertainty.

In which case, you could never -- even in principle -- predict human behavior with perfect accuracy...you could only predict probabilities.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[apathy maybe]

I'm afraid that it seems a bit religious to me redstar2000. Your argument (and others) seems to be that,
Since all things effect things that come after them, that the big band effects everything. Therefore there is a theory of everything.

The major flaw in this argument is your ignorance on quantum theory. You ignore randomness. Randomness can't be predicted, it is not predetermined. So sorry the whole argument falls down.

[Trissy]

1. The uncertainties at the quantum level "cancel out" one another...so that they have no causative weight at the macro-level;

2. If we could discover and weigh all of the "weak causes" of human behavior and how they interact with each other and with the "strong" causes.

I'm uncertain about the first and the second does seem to be a practical impossibility

As an existentialist I tend to agree with Redstar's latter comment. So what if we are determined? I doubt we can never know all the factors that 'determine' our lives, and so what is the use in worrying about it? Freewill may very well be a phenomena, but as such we can should only be concerned with phenomena since noumena and the noumenal world is out of our grasp. I think I take a libertarianist/soft-determinist stance in which we are either completely free or ultimately we have choice no matter what factors influence our lives. Hard determinists (like B.F.Skinner) think that in the end our every move is predictable, yet I have slightly less confidence in the ability of humans to discover what influences us. We cannot deny the appearance of choice in our lives, and to do so only ever results in bad faith. The authentic human life hinges on our recognition of choice as Sartre, Nietzsche, Heideggar, Camus and numerous others may suggest...