Science vs Free will

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I must confess; listening to a one and a half hour lecture from someone like Professor Dennet would; I say - further damage my faith in academic standards…

Is it possible we could have a run down on the key points? Or; for that matter; any specific points you would like an elaboration on?
 
My only experience with Dennett was The Mind’s I, which while in parts quite good, was also infected with subtle circular atheistic arguments.

That said, I came across an argument a couple of years back which made the claim that even if free will ends up being able to be described mechanistically/deterministically, it still might be in every observable way just like if it were not so-- that is, really “free”. It involved the theory of computation, complexity theory, etc, and while the details were quite over my head, the gist of it sounded plausible.

So for the time being at least, I do not see the need for “vs” in the thread title.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
That explains his erroneous opinions then.👍
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Indeed. He’s a philosopher of science (in part). I do agree with him that, for example, quantum indeterminacy is unnecessary for the sake of free will.

The issue is very difficult, leading Immanuel Kant, if I remember properly, to hold that these issues are both absolute (science requires determinism and morality requires free will), and contradict each other. Since these are formulations of our own mind that are only necessary to believe, not necessarily true, Kant was able to “get away with it”. It’s still an unsolved problem in my mind.

Also, what particular scientific errors did you find in his lecture?
 
sinnerdexter said:
Please watch this video:

Is Science Showing That We Don’t Have Free Will?
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The Dilbert comic at the beginning does not acknowledge that the laws of physics (QM, Boltzmann distributions, etc) are not deterministic. So it is entirely reasonable to say that the free will exists and obeys the “laws” of physics in the brain. Consider Oxford professor Roger Penrose’s statement:

“With the possibility that quantum effects might indeed trigger much larger activities within the brain, …] quantum indeterminacy might be what provides an opening for the mind to influence the physical brain. Here, a dualistic viewpoint would be likely to be adopted, either explicitly or implicitly. Perhaps the ‘free will’ of an ‘external mind’ might be able to influence the quantum choices that actually result from such non-deterministic processes. On this view, it is presumably through the action of quantum theory’s [wave-function collapse] that the dualist’s “mind-stuff” would have its influence on the behaviour of the brain.” (Shadows of Mind, page 349)

It is entirely reasonable to say, as the scholastics did, that the soul is the act of the body, imposing form on the non-deterministic quantum wavefunctions (or potencies, to use Heisenberg’s term). More specifically, since neurons fire spontaneously (article), due to quantum properties of sodium channels (article), these firings may combine in inhibitory and excitatory patterns to give rise to many of the higher functions of animals (article). In this last article, neuroscientists have come face to face with the bird’s “sensitive soul,” as it is known in Thomistic philosophy, but these researchers have denied its existence, rather attributing the spontaneity to ‘randomness’ because ‘birds don’t talk.’ Truly, we are free, but these folks would rather call it random to deny their responsibility for their actions.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
 
rvilbig said:
The Dilbert comic at the beginning does not acknowledge that the laws of physics (QM, Boltzmann distributions, etc) are not deterministic. So it is entirely reasonable to say that the free will exists and obeys the “laws” of physics in the brain. Consider Oxford professor Roger Penrose’s statement:

“With the possibility that quantum effects might indeed trigger much larger activities within the brain, …] quantum indeterminacy might be what provides an opening for the mind to influence the physical brain. Here, a dualistic viewpoint would be likely to be adopted, either explicitly or implicitly. Perhaps the ‘free will’ of an ‘external mind’ might be able to influence the quantum choices that actually result from such non-deterministic processes. On this view, it is presumably through the action of quantum theory’s [wave-function collapse] that the dualist’s “mind-stuff” would have its influence on the behaviour of the brain.” (Shadows of Mind, page 349)

It is entirely reasonable to say, as the scholastics did, that the soul is the act of the body, imposing form on the non-deterministic quantum wavefunctions (or potencies, to use Heisenberg’s term). More specifically, since neurons fire spontaneously (article), due to quantum properties of sodium channels (article), these firings may combine in inhibitory and excitatory patterns to give rise to many of the higher functions of animals (article). In this last article, neuroscientists have come face to face with the bird’s “sensitive soul,” as it is known in Thomistic philosophy, but these researchers have denied its existence, rather attributing the spontaneity to ‘randomness’ because ‘birds don’t talk.’ Truly, we are free, but these folks would rather call it random to deny their responsibility for their actions.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
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My only problem with this line of reasoning (I don’t buy into the opinion of certain philosopher-scientists that quantum mechanics is connected to free will), is that there are many unpredictable, or spontaneous quantum mechanical occurrences. This line of reasoning leads right to Freeman Dyson’s philosophy, where every unstable nucleus has free will, because we can’t predict when it will decay.
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
My only problem with this line of reasoning (I don’t buy into the opinion of certain philosopher-scientists that quantum mechanics is connected to free will), is that there are many unpredictable, or spontaneous quantum mechanical occurrences. This line of reasoning leads right to Freeman Dyson’s philosophy, where every unstable nucleus has free will, because we can’t predict when it will decay.
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Absolutely right! To agree to those philosopher-scientists would essentially concede to the equivocation of volition with spontaneity; which in essence equates to nothing more than pseudoscience.
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
My only problem with this line of reasoning (I don’t buy into the opinion of certain philosopher-scientists that quantum mechanics is connected to free will), is that there are many unpredictable, or spontaneous quantum mechanical occurrences. This line of reasoning leads right to Freeman Dyson’s philosophy, where every unstable nucleus has free will, because we can’t predict when it will decay.
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The traditional Catholic understanding of such spontaneous processes is that they are actualized by God, who “continues to work until now,” as it is written in John 5:17. Both Aquinas and Augustine (others too I’m sure) held that God immanently governed the world based on this passage in the Gospel of John. So whether Schrödinger’s cat is dead or alive is ultimately determined by whether God actualizes this potential nucleus decay.

Cardinal Newman argued likewise:

“[A]s in the human frame there is a living principle, acting upon it and through it by means of volition, so, behind the veil of the visible universe, there is an invisible, intelligent Being, acting on and through it, as and when He will. Furthermore, I mean that this invisible Agent is in no sense a soul of the world, after the analogy of human nature, but, on the contrary, is absolutely distinct from the world, as being its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord.” (Idea of a University, page 46)

Make sense?

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
 
JohnDamian said:
Absolutely right! To agree to those philosopher-scientists would essentially concede to the equivocation of volition with spontaneity; which in essence equates to nothing more than pseudoscience.
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Thank you. We are on the same page. I think that the will has a mental and spiritual component that, not being divorced from the physical, corresponds to the physical as form does to matter.

That which is greater than science belongs rightly to the work of philosophers and theologians.
 
rvilbig said:
The traditional Catholic understanding of such spontaneous processes is that they are actualized by God, who “continues to work until now,” as it is written in John 5:17. Both Aquinas and Augustine (others too I’m sure) held that God immanently governed the world based on this passage in the Gospel of John. So whether Schrödinger’s cat is dead or alive is ultimately determined by whether God actualizes this potential nucleus decay.
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Though I think this is true in an ultimate theological sense, in that God is the cause of all things, I don’t think God directly actualizes the decay of isotopes. I could be wrong in this, but I think there is a yet-unknown and underlying mechanism that is both complex and prevalent enough to, over the average of so many isotopes, correspond to a random process about a particular distribution.

One reason I think this is, if it’s directly God that’s making isotopes decay, then why does he seem to locked into a boring pattern? Why do cesium isotopes decay at one rate, while carbon isotopes decay at another? Maybe Carbon-14 tomorrow will have a half-life of 3 seconds, and some Potassium-46 will last for years. The fact that large numbers of the same isotope follows a predictable and set pattern, while the isotopes themselves randomly decay, suggests an underlying order that we do not yet understand, an order (as with the formation of snowflakes) established and governed imminently by a loving and all-powerful God and Father.
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
Though I think this is true in an ultimate theological sense, in that God is the cause of all things, I don’t think God directly actualizes the decay of isotopes. I could be wrong in this, but I think there is a yet-unknown and underlying mechanism that is both complex and prevalent enough to, over the average of so many isotopes, correspond to a random process about a particular distribution.

One reason I think this is, if it’s directly God that’s making isotopes decay, then why does he seem to locked into a boring pattern? Why do cesium isotopes decay at one rate, while carbon isotopes decay at another? Maybe Carbon-14 tomorrow will have a half-life of 3 seconds, and some Potassium-46 will last for years. The fact that large numbers of the same isotope follows a predictable and set pattern, while the isotopes themselves randomly decay, suggests an underlying order that we do not yet understand, an order (as with the formation of snowflakes) established and governed imminently by a loving and all-powerful God and Father.
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Two explanations have been offered:
  1. Robert John Russell argues that God is immanent through Non-Interventionist-Objective-Direct-Action (NIODA). He argues that God does not have to break any laws to interact with the world (non-interventionist), because the laws of the universe are non-deterministic (direct action), though these are nonetheless under certain constraints (objective).
  2. Wolfgang Smith argues creativity requires the interplay of restriction and freedom, or “bounds ‘from below,’ which are somehow given, and bounds ‘from above,’ which are freely imposed.” He goes on to write that “It is by virtue of such indeterminacy that tonality and meter, for example, can serve as a canon for musical composition. …] It happens that there is a certain harmony or kinship between the two bounds; for not only is the artist heedful not to transgress the prescribed canon, but as one knows, he carefully selects this ‘constraint’ with an eye to the artistic idea he wishes to express.” (Quamtum Enigma, page 104)
In other words, God is an immanent Divine artist, working within a pre-established format to give unity to the whole; just as, for example, Palestrina would never use parallel fourths, fifths or octaves in composition, and would return to the unison, octave or fifth for resolution, these boundaries give the work an harmonious unity that makes its order apparent to the observer (or listener, as the case may be). Nonetheless, these rules may be violated for a good reason, as Palestrina did for artistic effect, and as God has done in the case of miracles. Make sense?

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
 
You all might be interested in Dennett’s book Freedom Evolves, in which he argues that free will can evolve in a completely deterministic world.
 
AntiTheist said:
You all might be interested in Dennett’s book Freedom Evolves, in which he argues that free will can evolve in a completely deterministic world.
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Excuse my harsh words, but this book is a waste of paper. Clearly, Dennett has no background in physics. Even evolution presupposes the non-deterministic quantum processes of DNA, such as tautomeric shifts and wobble pairing. The laws of physics leave plenty of room for God to act and for human souls to choose.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
 
rvilbig said:
In other words, God is an immanent Divine artist, working within a pre-established format to give unity to the whole; just as, for example, Palestrina would never use parallel fourths, fifths or octaves in composition, and would return to the unison, octave or fifth for resolution, these boundaries give the work an harmonious unity that makes its order apparent to the observer (or listener, as the case may be). Nonetheless, these rules may be violated for a good reason, as Palestrina did for artistic effect, and as God has done in the case of miracles. Make sense?
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Yes, this makes sense, and this is the answer I agree with most. However, I’d say that the rules themselves, and the forces involved with them, are not likely the direct result of God, but the result of another underlying mechanism, and that eventually you get back to God, but probably after many of these iterations, maybe too many for the human mind to comprehend.

The laws and the forces are not directly God. And I cannot accept that by studying scientific processes, I’m studying God’s direct work on nature.
 
Paul_Rimmer said:
Yes, this makes sense, and this is the answer I agree with most. However, I’d say that the rules themselves, and the forces involved with them, are not likely the direct result of God, but the result of another underlying mechanism, and that eventually you get back to God, but probably after many of these iterations, maybe too many for the human mind to comprehend.

The laws and the forces are not directly God. And I cannot accept that by studying scientific processes, I’m studying God’s direct work on nature.
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We have no need to postulate such intermediaries between God and the world. Something is giving form to the matter of quantum mechanics, which requires one outcome to be chosen over the others (otherwise we still have wavefunction (potency) which has not collapsed (actualized)). The agent that actualizes these outcomes, must be God and no other intermediary, as Aquinas argued in the Summa:

“Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8): “We must not suppose that this corporeal matter serves the angels at their nod, but rather that it obeys God thus.” But corporeal matter may be said thus to serve that from which it receives its form. Corporeal forms, then, are not from the angels, but from God.” (STh, q.65 a.4)

There is no intermediary, be it a deterministic equation or the angels or a dice-throwing demon, between the world and God. He immanently governs the world. Nor is He the world itself, as Newman argued:

“[T]his invisible Agent is in no sense a soul of the world, after the analogy of human nature, but, on the contrary, is absolutely distinct from the world, as being its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord.” (Idea of a University, page 46)

Hope this helps,

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
 
It does help. I postulate these intermediaries still, though, because it gives me something to look for, study, and try to explain as a scientist.

I’m not a philosopher, and once we really reach the edge of what God is doing, I think we leave the confines of science, and enter into the world of theology and philosophy. In other words, the world of stuff I don’t really understand.

To be fair, though, I think that the mechanisms that our laws and principles are invented to explain are part of the world, the universe, and that at end (and it may be many steps) we get to God’s direct action.
rvilbig said:
We have no need to postulate such intermediaries between God and the world. Something is giving form to the matter of quantum mechanics, which requires one outcome to be chosen over the others (otherwise we still have wavefunction (potency) which has not collapsed (actualized)). The agent that actualizes these outcomes, must be God and no other intermediary, as Aquinas argued in the Summa:

“Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8): “We must not suppose that this corporeal matter serves the angels at their nod, but rather that it obeys God thus.” But corporeal matter may be said thus to serve that from which it receives its form. Corporeal forms, then, are not from the angels, but from God.” (STh, q.65 a.4)

There is no intermediary, be it a deterministic equation or the angels or a dice-throwing demon, between the world and God. He immanently governs the world. Nor is He the world itself, as Newman argued:

“[T]his invisible Agent is in no sense a soul of the world, after the analogy of human nature, but, on the contrary, is absolutely distinct from the world, as being its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord.” (Idea of a University, page 46)

Hope this helps,

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
Click to expand...
 
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