At 09:23 PM 5/3/00 -0500, Chris wrote:
>someone:
> > >There is no objective test for the existance of free will.
> >
>Brian
> > Do you mean proof or test? Oh, sorry. Did God predestine
> > you to have your brain wired in such a way that you do not
> > believe that there is a proof or test?
> >
> > Here is a test. You can come to Columbus and observe my
> > behavior for some specified period of time. [please note, this
> > is a thought experiment only :-0] . Use whatever analysis
> > techniques you want. At the end of the specified time period
> > you must submit to me, in writing, your prediction about what
> > shirt I will wear the following day. Then we'll wait and see if
> > you are right.
>
>Chris
>This would not be a valid test. The level of knowledge required to ensure an
>accurate prediction would vastly too great. It would (or could, at least)
>require the ability to determine the precise position and precise behavior
>of every subatomic particle in your brain in virtually infinite detail up
>until the time you chose a shirt. Thus, if the prediction were to be made 12
>hours ahead of time, it might require knowledge of the current details of
>every particle, photon, whatever, within a 12-light-hour space around you,
>including the current state of every particle in your brain at the moment,
>again, to an almost infinite level of detail. Then, given current knowledge
>of physics, it would require a computer that would be, I'd guess, larger
>than a sphere around the Solar system just to store the data at the
>beginning of the calculation. Oh, then there'd be the calculations
>themselves, involving numbers accurate to thirty or forty or more places
>(possibly a *lot* more places, I don't know).
Hi Chris, thanks for your reply. I was hoping someone would give this
argument and had been thinking of the possibility of presenting it myself
as a devil's advocate. When I say this I don't mean to imply that I have
some knockdown argument. I'm happy to admit that I have a difficult
position. I would say, along with William James, that my first response,
upon deciding that I'm free, is to behave as if I'm free. Of course, I may
be deluded, but I often wonder whether determinists live consistently
with their beliefs. Do they pretend to be free? Perhaps they don't have a
choice :).
Oh, that reminds me. I've always wanted to ask a determinist the
following type of question (I hope you won't think I'm picking on you,
I'm just dreadfully curious :). Recently you criticized someone for
deleting words in a quotation that resulted in an alteration of the meaning
of the person quoted. Well, I didn't look myself at the details of this
allegation, so I'm not going to take sides. My question is whether you
believe this person freely chose to delete those words.
OK, now to details. I've come to call your argument above the "in principle"
argument. In principle we can do this calculation, but ...
To me this is an enormously weak argument that forever shields
determinism from refutation. I hope you won't take this the wrong
way :), but I'm amazed at how you can talk at such length about
the weakness of the deterministic position and then somehow
conclude the opposite.
I agree that the proposed test is not likely anytime soon :), but
let me propose a thought experiment. Let's suppose that this
supercomputer has been built and all its analytical might is aimed
at poor little me, what shirt I'll wear on such and such a date. As
before, I have to be given a prediction in writing at least 12 hours
in advance. Would anyone seriously doubt that I could select a
shirt other than that predicted?
Let's make it more interesting. Suppose you are the computer
operator and it is your responsibility to hand over to me the
prediction. Suppose you get the output and the computer predicts
that it will not make a prediction? If all is predetermined, then
surely this result is possible. Suppose the computer predicts that
I will wear such and such a shirt but also predicts that you will
not hand me the prediction? Will you be tempted, in a moment
of rebellion, to give me the prediction anyway? What if the computer
predicts that I will be murdered in eight hours and will be on an autopsy
table (wearing no shirt !) in twelve hours. Will you try to warn me ?
Of course, the above seems absurd, but that's the whole reason for
insisting that I get advance notice of the prediction. Pretty soon
one will, I believe, become convinced that the computer needs more
information, specifically, my reaction to reading the prediction. But
as soon as this is admitted, one will also have to admit that my
reactions are random with respect to an algorithm that is trying to
predict my behavior.
>Sorry, there is no empirical test to validate indeterminism. In any case,
>even if the above-suggested procedure were to be carried out and the
>prediction were still to fail, it would not prove indeterminism. It would,
>*maximally,* suggest that there are what are called "unknowns."
Well, I disagree of course. IMHO, all you are doing here is begging the
question.
>Our
>knowledge of physics is still far from perfect, despite Hawking's suggestion
>that we might be nearing the end soon. *Logically,* indeterminism does not
>even arise as an option, and it was scientifically and philosophically
>invalid for Bohr, et al, ever to suggest it. It was invalid because it was
>the purest form of argument from ignorance one might imagine.
Remarkable. Are you suggesting that quantum mechanics is not indeterminate?
I know little of quantum mechanics, but I thought Einstein lost this argument.
Anyway, to say that indeterminism doesn't even arise as an option is, as
far as I'm concerned, begging the question.
Also, from my experience with other determinists I would say they
are guilty of the argument from personal incredulity. Given the various
regularities (which we sometimes call laws) observed in Nature, they cannot
imagine how its possible that there might exist any physical beings whose
behavior is not completely determined in advance by said regularities.
>Their argument
>amounted to: "We don't have empirical access to what's happening. Therefore
>it's indeterministic." They had the burden of proof and could not, even
>theoretically, carry it, and have thus failed to do so to this day. Why?
>Because there is no empirical distinction between something deterministic
>that we don't have enough access to to enable us to see the mechanism and
>something that would be indeterministic. Just as sufficiently advanced
>technology can be indistinguishable (to us) from magic, so sufficiently deep
>and non-visible determinism can be indistinguishable (to us) from
>indeterminism.
So? I'm not trying to be rude. I just don't understand what the significance
of this is.
>Of course, this does not, in any way, change the accuracy of the
>mathematical descriptions of the behavior of matter -- as far as such
>descriptions go. They do not make any claims of determinism or
>indeterminism, anyway.
If you are incapable of making a long term prediction even for something
as simple as, say, a double pendulum, then how can one possibly ascertain
the accuracy of mathematical descriptions?
As far as mathematics goes, I'm curious your response to Chaitin's proof
that there is randomness even in pure arithmetic?
>Put another way, indeterminism is a *philosophical* (specifically
>*metaphysical*) proposition, and it is not subject to empirical
>corroboration (since a strictly determinist universe could behave in
>*apparently* the exact same way), but only (*sometimes*) to empirical
>disconfirmation (when an indeterminist theory implies that there should
>*not* be a causal pattern that *is* found to occur).
I don't understand why this is implied. Are you saying that all future states
of the Universe are predetermined by its current state if you can find a
single
causal pattern?
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
The Ohio State University
"One never knows, do one?"
-- Fats Waller
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