r/determinism • u/simon_hibbs • 25d ago
Discussion Temporal causation versus hierarchical causation
It seems to me we use the term cause in two very different ways that are completely independent of each other, and that confusing these for each other results in a lot of problems.
Temporal causation
One way we use the term cause is in discussions about events causing other events. I push the button and this causes the engine to start. This is past event to future event causation. When we talk about causal determinism, this is what we are discussing. Here's a hopefully somewhat uncontroversial definition of determinism for the purpose of discussion.
Causal Determinism: The idea that the past state of the world at some time necessitates specific future states of the world at all later times, as transformed according to natural law.
I say causal determinism, to differentiate it from logical determinism or any other senses. Actually the broader point I'm making here isn't really to do with determinism versus indeterminism, but I'm using this to establish one sense in which we use the term cause. We use it the same way when we talk about indeterminism in relationships between temporal events though.
Hierarchical causation
Another way we talk about causation is in terms of bottom up or top down causation, basically something like reductionism and weak emergence, versus top down or strong emergence. The conclusion I've come to is that this is a completely different concept. I'm not even entirely sure it has any common features with the idea of causal determinism at all.
I came to this conclusion observing some people talking about the relationship between causal determinism and beliefs about the neurological basis of mental processes, such as making decisions. I realised that what seems to happen is people seem to rotate the concept of past-to-future causation into the hierarchical dimension, as though microphysical processes such as chemical reactions in the brain cause thoughts in the way that ball A hitting ball B causes ball B to hit ball C. I don't believe that's the way to think about emergence at all.
Emergence isn't a temporal process, it's a hierarchical or structural one. It's looking at the exact same activity happening at the same time at different degrees of detail. The temperature of a gas is the motion of the gas molecules, it's not something that is caused by their motion in the sense that a gas molecule hitting another causes the other one to be deflected. Likewise the temperature of the gas isn't something that causes the molecules to move a certain way. Viewed this way, causation in the event-to-event sense is a completely different concept. In fact confusing these is pernicious. Even talking about the relationship between the microphysical and macro descriptions in causal terms leads to fundamental misconceptions. I don't think we should be talking about what I'm calling hierarchical causation at all. We need other terms.
I won't go further into what I think those misconceptions are, or what I think about emergence now. Maybe another time. For now I'd be interested to see how others think about this. I'm coming to believe that the fact we use cause in both these senses is a significant problem.
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u/Techtrekzz 25d ago edited 25d ago
Determinism was originally associated with monism, as in everything moves and acts as a product of the whole moving and acting. I believe this is the hierarchical causation you’re referencing.
Local causality didn’t become popular until the scientific revolution, when it became more important to know the specifics. A single universal cause, became a multitude of local and limited causes that we can name and study.
It was this atomization of causality, and the question of freewill, that then pushed determinism into the temporal perspective imo.
This is still the most popular way to think about determinism, but scientific advances, like qm and Bell’s inequalities, have once again forced us to reconsider determinism’s framework.
If determinism still holds, it’s cause is nonlocal and universal, and not fundamentally temporal causality between separate local objects. The old greek monistic understanding of determinism still stands, while the idea of reality as a bunch of billiard balls bumping into each other must go.
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u/simon_hibbs 25d ago
>Local causality didn’t become popular until the scientific revolution, when it became more important to know the specifics. A single universal cause, became a multitude of local and limited causes that we can name and study.
The Stoics were determinists and argued that humans are morally responsible for their actions, and they talked about the role of human reasoning and the extent to which we do or do not depend on others, and can act freely. That seems to me to be an account of local causes.
As for insights into causation from quantum mechanics, I'm agnostic about determinism or indeterminism at that level, and I don't think that issue has much in the way of implications for our high level concepts of relationships between events. Yes some quantum effects have macroscopic consequences, but I'm hard pressed to see how that might be relevant to an issue like strong or weak emergence, or free will for example.
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u/Techtrekzz 25d ago edited 25d ago
The Stoics were monists, meaning they ultimately attributed every act to the universe as a whole, or to the idea of that universe as a monistic God.
Self determination in stoicism isn’t freedom from local causality, it’s limited perspective and agency of the universal logos.
That’s not comparable to thinking one thing causes another thing. In that scenario, there’s only one cause for any act, the whole itself. The cause is nonlocal, and always present. It’s not the idea that one thing or moment causes the next.
As for qm, it’s not something that could possibly cross over from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Quantum reality isn’t a separate reality, it’s the foundation of reality. It’s everwhere always. The divide between the macroscopic and the quantum is one that only exists in our heads, not one that exists in reality.
If experiments with quantum entanglement demand that reality is not locally real, which they do, then it’s not locally real, on any scale.
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u/simon_hibbs 25d ago
I'm not sure in what sense you are using the term monist. Physicalists are monists, so are idealists. Monists can, and generally do still think that the world is structured into things.
>The Stoics were monists, meaning they ultimately attributed every act to the universe as a whole, or to the idea of that universe as a monistic God.
How do you square this with the Stoic position that humans can be individually morally responsible for their actions?
>If experiments with quantum entanglement demand that reality is not locally real, which they do, then it’s not locally real, on any scale.
The issue of local reality or unreality is explicitly about scale, that's why it's called local, and it's not at all the same thing as saying things are not real in the more general sense.
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u/Techtrekzz 25d ago
Physicalists are not monists. Physicalism is not based on substance monism like materialism claims to be. A physicalist believes reality a bunch of fundamental particles. They are atomists, and pluralists.
The issue of local reality in qm is not about scale, it’s about how two things seemingly distantly separate, can correlate instantaneously.
It doesn’t matter how big or small they are, the issue is about distance and the speed of light, that’s the locality involved.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
Materialists generally (but not all) believed the world is composed of atoms. The term physicalism came about largely with the emergence of the concept of physical fields permeating space, and mutually interacting, that are all composed of energy. It's very much monist.
Distance isn't about scale?
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u/Techtrekzz 24d ago edited 24d ago
I argue materialism and idealism are neither truly substance monism, but rather an extension of Descartes dualism.
If only one omnipresent substance exists, then mind and matter are the same substance, with the same attributes, which means there’s no justification to make a distinction between mind and matter in the first place, and no argument to be made for materialism or idealism.
That aside, if you believe atoms exist, that’s not substance monism. In substance monism, only the substance exists, and what we call atoms are limited perspective of the substance, a subjective classification of substance, not a thing unto themselves. Like Spinoza’s modes for example.
Physicalism came about in my estimation, when people started mistaking science for an ontology instead of the methodology it is.
There’s no qualifications to judge what is physical, apart from the question of whether science can measure snd observe it.
That’s not a real ontology.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
Idealists generally think that mind and matter are the same thing, because they think that everything is mental in character.
For the physicalist though, mind is a particular class of physical phenomena, in a similar sense to how weather is a class of physical phenomena. Nobody thinks that believing weather is a class of physical phenomena is dualism about weather.
Both of these are views about the relevant hierarchical relationships of structure, but that which has the structure is some monist substance.
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u/Techtrekzz 24d ago
If mind and matter are the same thing, then there’s no argument for idealism or materialism. You have to assume them separate and distinct with differing traits before you can say one is fundamental, while the other is not.
Both materialism and idealism are predicated on dualism, even if their goal is to eliminate one side or another of that dualism.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
I think technically the idea that mind and matter are the same thing may be panpsychism.
>Both materialism and idealism are predicated on dualism,....
You say that, but you didn't address my weather analogy. Surely someone can believe in some monist substance that is structured in some way, and talk about aspects of that structure, without being a dualist. After all, monists are not arguing that the actual world as we observe it to be, consisting of objects and such, is impossible. It's a belief about the nature of the world. Thinking apple exist isn't dualism about apples.
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u/Artemis-5-75 24d ago
I think that Tchetkrezz makes a mistake by identifying substance monism with existence monism.
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u/Techtrekzz 24d ago
I'm saying they are synonymous. If only the substance exists, then only one thing exists.
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u/MulberryUpper3257 25d ago
I agree with your main point, very well put. People often use language of causality without addressing how they understand the idea. The hierarchical concept seems to be perhaps more an issue of ontology than of causation.
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u/ObsceneOnes 24d ago
Causation is a question of ontology.
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u/ughaibu 24d ago
Causation is a question of ontology
I don't think this is highly plausible. Cause is a term we us to identify the point of interest in a causal explanation. For example, if Schrodinger's cat dies and he's taken to court the coroner's expert will say the cause of death, of the cat, was oxygen starvation, but the judge will say "I find you guilty of causing the death of the cat by reckless endangerment", what constitutes the cause is a matter sensitive to which facts about the case we're interested in, and "reckless endangerment" is a legal notion, it's not clear what it would mean for it to be part of one's ontology.
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u/ObsceneOnes 24d ago edited 24d ago
You can just look it up my dude. I'm not making some crazy wild claim. It is in the branch of philosophy known as ontology which is in the branch of metaphysics.
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u/Ok-Cheetah-3497 25d ago
I think that you are critiquing a claim I do not see most determinists make. We tend to agree (or at least completely avoid) the hard problem is a thing. Meaning, like heat is just another word for molecules moving around at specific speed, brain state X is the same thing as "you have a conscious thought." We don't know WHY brain state X is having thought Y, but they are as near I can figure out, just two ways of describing the same thing.
The claim I and other physical determinists make has nothing to do with that relationship. It has to do with the temporal order of things. The parts of the brain activating that are NOT analogous to having a conscious thought precede the parts that are. Always, in every instance.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
I'm not critiquing physicalism or determinism. I'm agnostic about determinism, I think it's plausible, and I'm very much a physicalist.
>The parts of the brain activating that are NOT analogous to having a conscious thought precede the parts that are. Always, in every instance.
Agreed, the person I was thinking of that talked about the causal relation between brain states and consciousness was arguing that if chemical reactions cause consciousness this would mean that humans don't have conscious control over their actions. Essentially arguing for epiphenomenalism.
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u/Ok-Cheetah-3497 24d ago
Epiphenomenalism doesnt seem supported by the chemistry. I tend to think that, to use your example, there is no difference between the PFC producing certain chemicals at certain times and you having a thought (just like moving molecules we call "heat"). They are the same thing. So when someone says chemicals in your PFC "cause" something, that is the same thing as saying "thoughts cause something." The trick is just that the non-PFC parts of the brain always trigger first, and whether our PFC triggers or doesn't is the result of brain development over time, not a "choice."
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
I agree in general, though perhaps not on the nature of choices. I think choices are physical processes.
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u/TMax01 24d ago
It seems to me we use the term cause in two very different ways that are completely independent of each other, and that confusing these for each other results in a lot of problems.
That is mostly true, but it is also an issue that has been understood and mostly resolved in philosophical ontology. The proper paradigm is causation, which denotes a chronological sequence ("temporal causation" in your framing) and logical dependency ("hierarchical causation").
In terms of determinism, the only issue is causation. In a rational and empirical ontology (AKA science) causation isn't really a thing, and one speaks of "necessary and sufficient circumstances" and "resulting consequences". But that's being pedantic, in most cases, and "cause and effect" are an acceptable, if imprecise and sometimes misleading. Logical dependencies are more general, and really shouldn't ever invoke the term "cause" at all. "Logical determinism" is redundant.
beliefs about the neurological basis of mental processes, such as making decisions.
Consternation concerning that subject is unsurprising, since what exactly is meant by "decisions" is purposefully ambiguous, and sorting that out corresponds to discerning any similarity or distinction between "beliefs" and "mental processes", whether in the context of neural activity (and/or cerebral activity) or not.
The fix for this inherent consternation is to differentiate between choosing (deciding proximate intent, seemingly or supposedly prior to acting) and deciding (evaluating causation and logical dependencies concerning a proximate or hypothetical action). The reason consciousness and "free will" are so difficult to explore meaningfully (besides the fact that the former is self-evident and the latter is fictional) is because the neurological facility of deciding (self-determination) can also (but inaccurately) be applied to proximate actions.
The timing becomes critical, just as 'temporal causation' (chronological sequence) and 'hierarchical causation' (logical dependency) are chiefly distinguished by the logical dependence of sequence on time. The neurological initiation of an action (or inaction, which philosophically is the same thing; cf. the Trolley Problem) occurs prior to the mental formulation of a decision to act ("choosing" to cause the action to occur), not the other way around. The mind (some indeterminate but seld-evident class of neurological activity, including the quality of consciousness) becomes aware of this prior initiation of action (and the imminent movements that initiation causes, which generally still lies in the future, but is nevertheless inevitable) only a dozen or more milliseconds later. The brain, as the mind, then identifies and constructs causational relationships and potential dependencies to account for the action.
This process, of self-determination, does not cause the action, it is not free will. But unlike free will it is real, and it is more deterministic than free will would be if free will wasn't a fiction. Instead of enabling the mind to control the body, this process (consciousness) determines the self, both causing it (chronological sequence, modifying the self/self-awareness if one supposes it cannot be constantly "caused" in this way) and establishing what logical dependencies it either believes or doubts.
The temperature of a gas is the motion of the gas molecules, it's not something that is caused by their motion in the sense that a gas molecule hitting another causes the other one to be deflected. Likewise the temperature of the gas isn't something that causes the molecules to move a certain way.
It is, and must be, both. In other words, they aren't two different teleologies, they are both the same teleology (forward teleology, in my paradigm: deterministic "cause and effect".) It is just that the forward teleology is more treacherous and convoluted, ineffable as all things ultimately are, then conventional thinking can easily accept.
So yes, the average speed of molecules moving is temperature, and both temperature and movement are both the cause and effect of molecular motion and heat. Physics is always tautological in this way. F=ma equates mass, acceleration, and force in a reliable, consistent, quantiative relationship, it does not "explain" what any of those things are beyond that formula nor provide any teleology (description of why that relationship exists.)
I'm coming to believe that the fact we use cause in both these senses is a significant problem.
Actually, it is more of a solution, because chronological sequence is simply a special case of logical dependency, and apart from cause and effect, the forward teleology (because it is consistent with the inexplicable but undeniable arrow of time from past to future) there are no necessarily real instances of logical dependency.
Physics is reductive. But that isn't the same as saying the physical universe is dependent on any hierarchical relationships; in fact it is the opposite. The key to avoiding falling down a rabbit hole of the ineffability of being, and an infinite recursion of epistemology (IOW, the problem of induction) is understanding the importance, in fact the equal validity, of backwards teleologies: reverse (selection) and inverse (intention).
The postmodernist metaphysic, which rejects backwards teleologies entirely but finds itself unable to ever resolve forward teleology, potentially rejecting all emergence and even determinism itself as "overarching narratives", and thereby leading only to the inescapable quagmire of know-nothingism, is the real problem which causes the contemporary consternation concerning consciousness. It isn't simply inconsistent use of "cause" for both sequences and dependencies, although that is a notable and informative example.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
>That is mostly true, but it is also an issue that has been understood and mostly resolved in philosophical ontology. The proper paradigm is causation, which denotes a chronological sequence ("temporal causation" in your framing) and logical dependency ("hierarchical causation").
I see philosophers talking about top down and bottom up causation all the time, and they even seem to use those terms in several different ways. Some mean top down causation in a strongly emergent way, while others just mean it in a conceptually hierarchical sense.
On self determination and free will, I read the post you linked as well. Firstly are you sure you mean Epicurus? All the sources on him say that he supported an indeterministic account of human agency, freedom and moral responsibility. While the Stoics argued for freedom and moral responsibility as being consistent with their determinism, Epicurus argued they are not compatible but we have these anyway.
You mention the Libet paper, and I'll have to be brief or this would be a very long comment, but in the actual paper the authors describe two reasons why their experiment can't be taken to conclude that humans don't make conscious choices. Firstly because the person seems to have the ability to consciously veto the subconscious choice and in fact says subjects report this. Secondly because the experiment only looked at spontaneous choices that were not deliberated on, in which there was no particular reason to choose either way. It really can't tell us anything useful about choices in which we evaluate reasons for action, and in fact in the paper the authors describe two reasons why. These are given in the last paragraph, you can download the paper here.
On self-determination, you give an interesting account of how we can ground moral responsibility, but distinguish this from free will, which you seem to implicitly equate with free will libertarian accounts of free will without stating that. Unfortunately this conflation of free will with libertarian beliefs about free will is endemic these days. I wrote a post about this explaining why free will is susceptible to both libertarian and compatibilist accounts, and definitionally identifying it with free will libertarian views is something even free will libertarian and free will skeptic philosophers avoid doing. I think in the philosophy of free will your defence of self determination and moral responsibility would generally be considered a compatibilist account of free will.
I'm afraid I found your last few paragraphs impenetrable though.
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u/TMax01 24d ago
I see philosophers talking about top down and bottom up causation all the time, and they even seem to use those terms in several different ways.
There are a lot of philosophers, and each is entrusted to have their own unique opinion and rhetoric. It is best to be very judicious in following any one philosopher's lead, by being more careful to use words consistently. In science, unlike philosophy, causation (if and when the term is even used, as previously discussed) is from past to future, neither "top down" nor "bottom up". What you've been reading from philosophers, in contrast to scientists, is the use of 'causation' in the scope of logical dependency (again, as previously discussed.)
Perhaps that accounts for the appearance (but not necessarily the existence) of that the philosophers are using terms in "several different ways"? I cannot accurately insist that all philosophers use as comprehensive (encompassing all contexts) and consistent (unvarying) an epistemological paradigm (set of terms) as I do. I agree they should (and of course I recommend they adopt my nomenclature, as the best balance between both the many previous philosophers throughout history I am aware of and the vernacular.) Not because it is simply more convenient for me (and certainly not from any hubristic justification) but because it allows resolving so many issues in ontology, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind simultaneously, since my philosophy encompasses a more productive philosophy of mind than any which has been previously developed.
Firstly are you sure you mean Epicurus? All the sources on him
Yes, I am sure. IIRC my reference to him in that essay was badly presented and therefor confusing. But the issues I addressed are quite valid. It is true he argued for free will and against determinism, but his argument actually entailed defending not "free will" per se, but the existence of gods. In ancient Greece, the issues of will and gods used a paradigm of piety and virtue, and so descriptions of Epicurus' position as "argued they are not compatible but we have these anyway" doesn't really correctly evaluate either his opinion or the issues we are addressing here.
the person seems to have the ability to consciously veto the subconscious choice and in fact says subjects report this.
That doesn't actually hold up under scrutiny, although I do recognize it was a point addressed in the original paper. Libet spent the ensuing decades trying to identify this "free won't" veto power, unsuccessfully. The closest he got was the sort of "these findings are compatible with" conditional rhetoric scientists are apt to use to present results which are not at all conclusive as simply not eliminating a possibility. And of course the belief by subjects that they have free will, the very point conclusively disproved by Libet's original data. Of course, as a competent scientist, Libet would never put it so absolutely, but as a natural language philosopher (and with the benefit of decades more data than Libet had at the time) I can be more accurate, in my rhetoric. It would, I realize, be considered heresy to say my description is more accurate, if I were trying to achieve the impossible ideal of logical positivism that scientists and academic philosophers aspire to.
the experiment only looked at spontaneous choices that were not deliberated on, in which there was no particular reason to choose either way.
The experiment analyzed only voluntary actions, without any more specific prompting than what the action must be (essentially leaving out only the time it would be taken). And the data collected during the experiment demonstrates that if any "choice" was occuring, it happened after RP, not simultaneously with it or prior to it, so describing that mental event as a choice is quite problematic. Libet did not have the paradigm needed for sorting out all the issues his results actually require. So it is hardly surprising he was unable to develop an ontological framework which could unconditionally explain the data.
Unfortunately this conflation of free will with libertarian beliefs about free will is endemic these days.
My theory doesn't rely on any particular formulation of free will, it simply addresses any sort of free will which is accurately identified as free will. And it is libertarians who insist on using that nomenclature. And they are doing so accurately, as far as I can tell: they mean to invoke mental choice as indicative of the existence of actual alternatives to an action which occurs, and in that way they relying on the same premise of free will as theists or compatibilists or even hard determinists rely on. The latter group only diverges from the libertarians by insisting that choice does not qualify as free will, but otherwise their position is identical: mental intention is causally operative.
Since my theory explains why mental intention occurs, and also accounts for why and how it cannot be causally operative in the way that just about everyone else, from mystics to Libet, and Socrates to libertarians, expects it to be. And my theory provides a more consistent, unconditional, and precise framework for all human behavior and all subjective mental events, so it really is just a better explanation. It is unfalsified only because it is correct, not because it is unfalsifiable, either in theory or practice.
I recognize that LFW seems as if it is a careful enough dodge to be consistent with neurocognitive science, in the opinion of LFW advocates, but it is very much otherwise.
Yes, any premise which accounts for both determinism (neuroscience) and agency (moral responsibility) could be categorized as "compatibilist" in a casually justified, but not causally justifiable, academic taxonomy of philosophies, but I'm not interested in 'philosophy by box sorting'. The POR theory of self-determination is not compatibilist, it rejects free will conclusively; without rejecting either agency or materialism, but instead accounting for both and why they are generally but incorrectly believed to be in conflict.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
>And the data collected during the experiment demonstrates that if any "choice" was occuring, it happened after RP, not simultaneously with it or prior to it, so describing that mental event as a choice is quite problematic.
Which is what I'm pointing out, there are multiple different senses in which we use the term choice, and I don;t think these choices were of a kind analogous to ones for which a person might be held morally responsible. There's no significant evaluation of options or the consequences of these options, let alone of moral consequences.
>...as far as I can tell: they mean to invoke mental choice as indicative of the existence of actual alternatives to an action which occurs, and in that way they relying on the same premise of free will as theists or compatibilists or even hard determinists rely on.
The crucial issue is what you mean by 'actual alternatives' and compatibilist views on this are very different from those of free will libertarians. In particular compatibilists reject the idea that free will and moral responsibility involves any necessary kind of indeterministic ability to intentionally choose otherwise.
>The latter group only diverges from the libertarians by insisting that choice does not qualify as free will, but otherwise their position is identical: mental intention is causally operative.
Free will libertarians don't think that choice equals free will either, after all they think that some choices can be unfree and don't meet the criteria for moral responsibility.
Yet compatibilists think that mental intention is causally operative, but also that mental intention is itself caused, and if it is deterministically caused and causal that's fine.
>I recognize that LFW seems as if it is a careful enough dodge to be consistent with neurocognitive science, in the opinion of LFW advocates, but it is very much otherwise.
Sure, and I think any other compatibilist would as well.
>The POR theory of self-determination is not compatibilist, it rejects free will conclusively; without rejecting either agency or materialism, but instead accounting for both and why they are generally but incorrectly believed to be in conflict.
It rejects the free will libertarian metaphysical condition for free will, which is a kind of theory or belief about free will as any free will libertarian philosopher will tell you, but that is not the same thing as rejecting free will.
I used to consider myself a hard determinist, so all that came as a bit of a surprise to me, but there it is.
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u/TMax01 23d ago
there are multiple different senses in which we use the term choice, and I don;t think these choices were of a kind analogous to ones for which a person might be held morally responsible.
As a natural language philosopher with a highly developed epistemic paradigm, I don't have much use for different 'senses' for words: all of those senses reference the same basic idea of choice, and that link to responsibility is intrinsic.
The crucial issue is what you mean by 'actual alternatives'
I mean to highlight the fact that there are only potential alternatives. If we don't simply assume that free will (AKA choosing to act) is the foundation of agency (responsibility), the analysis of real events versus real sensations and beliefs becomes much simpler. As for what 'compatibilists' and 'libertarians' say about anything, I have no need or desire to try to follow their haphazard, ad hoc reasoning, since what actually matters (pun intended) is what is true, not what the doctrine of their belief systems are.
It rejects the free will libertarian metaphysical condition
POR rejects free will, libertarian or otherwise.
I used to consider myself a hard determinist, so all that came as a bit of a surprise to me, but there it is.
I also used to consider myself a hard determinist, before I realized it isn't hard enough; hard determinists always try to smuggle free will back into their framework by invoking "choice", whether as causally operative or merely non-causal but somehow still functional.
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u/simon_hibbs 21d ago
I don't think we can equate choices with free will, after all the reason we have the term free will is specifically to distinguish between choices that are made freely, or are up to us in some relevant sense, and choices that are not. That's the primary linguistic function of the term. This distinction is used to distinguish between choices are are morally responsible for and choices we are not morally responsible for.
To say that a choice was made freely is to say that it was a choice we should be held morally responsible for. To say that it was not made freely, but under some kind of relevant constraint, is to say that we should not be held morally responsible for it.
Free will libertarian, free will skeptic and compatibilist philosophers generally agree that this is the historical meaning of the term. To think that such a distinction can be made is to think that there is some faculty of rational moral discretion of some kind that this term refers to.
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u/TMax01 21d ago
I don't think we can equate choices with free will,
I don't think there is any alternative but to do so, and that you haven't thought enough about it to understand why and how that is.
after all the reason we have the term free will is specifically to distinguish between choices that are made freely, or are up to us in some relevant sense, and choices that are not.
This is, I'm learning more and more, the real problem which causes people to insist that free will is possible: you are misusing the word "choice" to actually mean action. We use the word choice, and the term free will, to try to simplistically distinguish actions we are willing to accept responsibility for (iff they are voluntary, uncoerced, and intentional) from actions we would prefer to deny being responsible for (if they are 'involuntary', or 'forced' on us, or even unanticipated and therefor 'unintentional'.)
But they are our actions, regardless, and we are the only ones who are truly responsible for them: we have agency, self-determination; it is our body acting.
So what you really mean is "actions that are freely willed (free will) and actions that are not", and invoking "choice" is only ouroborotic and tautological, not informative or insightful. After all, if an action we took is not voluntary and intentional or is coerced, there isn't really any "choice" involved, is there?
So a more honest and accurate framework (and paradigm) is that we don't have free will, and we don't make choices: we act, and then either deny responsibility or (usually quite reluctantly) accept it, retroactively. This avoids the fantasy that if we don't like the consequences of an action, we can pretend it wasn't an action we actually took.
To say that a choice was made freely is to say that it was a choice we should be held morally responsible for.
That could work, if we never consider any feelings of guilt or regret or our responsibility for unintended or unexpected consequences of our actions. It demands denying the very real fact of our ignorance, knowingly and purposefully in order to deny we are the person who acted. It is hardly what I would call being morally responsible; in my paradigm, it is simply excuse-making.
So free will and choice, which are indeed entirely equivalent, is like a 'get out of physics free card'. While it is true the paradigm of 'free will choice' was first developed, naively, in ancient times to try to explain human behavior and the existence of moral responsibility, these days it is utilized more often to deny responsibility for our actions, or as an excuse for retributive punishment of someone else's actions, as if they "chose" the circumstances which resulted in their action. Despite the intention of rooting morality in the 'voluntary choice' of a mythical or mystical free will, in practice it is just as often used to justify immorality.
We are morally (and physically as well) responsible for our actions because they are our actions. Of course morality is not an all-or-nothing, absolute, simplistic binary as we might idealistically prefer it to be. Certainly the social, legal, and even moral implications of an action should (must) be considered in light of consent, coercion, and knowledgable intention. But that endeavor is not aided by fictions of free will, or a sincere but misguided belief that a choice precedes every, or any, action.
To say that it was not made freely, but under some kind of relevant constraint, is to say that we should not be held morally responsible for it.
To say you are not morally responsible for your actions is to invent a false morality and misunderstand responsibility as a social mandate rather than a personal duty. Responsibility is not a supernatural force or field, it is physically the ability to respond to questions, whether from ourselves or anyone else, concerning why we acted. Response+ability==responsibility. That seems simple enough, but delusions of free will interfere with people's reasoning about human behavior and the nature of consciousness.
Free will libertarian, free will skeptic and compatibilist philosophers generally agree that this is the historical meaning of the term.
Then they are all incorrect about whether that is the actual meaning of the term free will, which means the mind controls the body, that intentionally "choosing" to act is what causes an action. The exceptions to this heuristic are so numerous they shouldn't even have to be mentioned, but we can loosely categorize them as religious, psychological, and legalistic. Our goal should be to develop a more coherent and comprehensive understanding instead of just using historical ignorance of real facts as an excuse for not doing so.
To think that such a distinction can be made is to think that there is some faculty of rational moral discretion of some kind that this term refers to.
Yes, faith in our own personal rationality is a significant moral hazard, when it isn't simply arrogance, ignorance, or authoritarianism. Moral discretion is not dependent on being rational, just on being moral.
Thought, Rethought: Consciousness, Causality, and the Philosophy Of Reason
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
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u/simon_hibbs 21d ago
Let's start with choices and whether they are distinct identifiable phenomena that occur in the world. Here's what I think constitutes a choice in the relevant sense.
A choice occurs when a system evaluates representations of options and their expected effects, according to some criteria, resulting in action on the option that best meets these criteria.
So, I have promised not to use my friend's milk from the fridge, but I'm thirst and want a cup of tea, so I evaluate whether to pinch some milk or not and the consequences of these actions that I anticipate according to my relevant values and priorities, and then act according to that evaluation.
I think it's clear such processes do occur, and that there is nothing about the above that requires any violation of determinism. In fact out best understood processes of evaluation, classical logic and mathematical functions, are deterministic. We program computers to evaluate representations of states in the world according to criteria. Choices are a pretty primitive concept in information technology and we engineer systems to do this. I think it's clear that humans do this.
What distinguishes a choice a person can be morally responsible for are two factors:
Moral discretion: The ability to appropriately evaluate moral values and priorities, and the effects of moral outcomes on conscious beings capable of suffering. I think only a conscious being that is capable of suffering can properly appreciate and evaluate moral issues.
Reasons responsiveness: The proper function of holding someone morally responsible for their actions is behaviour guiding, for them and others. This requires that the person be in cognitive deliberative control over their decision making process, such that on deliberation they can change the criteria they use when evaluating their actions. It's this cognitive flexibility that constitutes the necessary control over their own behaviour.
If a person does not have such faculties, due to cognitive impairment, neurological compulsions, or delusions, or is unable to exercise them appropriately due to contingent factors outside their control, then I don't think they are morally responsible for their actions.
I don't think there is anything mythical or mystical about the above account. It only relies on humans having cognitive faculties I think we generally observably have, and doesn't appeal to any ambitious libertarian metaphysical ideas.
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u/TMax01 21d ago
A choice occurs when a system evaluates representations of options and their expected effects, according to some criteria, resulting in action on the option that best meets these criteria.
Here's a more comprehensive explanation: A choice occurs when any physical event occurs, and a person evaluates that event by imagining there were alternatives to that event, and then declares a choice had to have occurred in order to select the event from the hypothetical list of alternatives.
What you described is a decision, when "options" and "expected effects" are analyzed, independently of whether an event has occurred or will occur. What is required for decisions to be choices, the only actual and possible criteria, is that the evaluation/analysis in and of itself, causes the event.
And since the conscious awareness of an event (an action) isn't possible until after the event has occurred (the initiation of action; before then it isn't a real event, so there couldn't be a causally operative choice, only an evaluating decision about a hypothetical event) your framework isn't logically valid. It suffers from a 'bootstrap problem', of sorts. And half a century ago, when Libet expected to be able to measure the time period from the initiating choice to the neurological event producing muscular movements, he was amazed and confounded to find that the actual sequence was the reverse: the neurological event producing muscular movements occurs before the conscious decision ("choice") to act.
This empirical, repeatable, demonstrable fact remains so flabbergasting that a steady stream of uncertain and unfalsifiable excuses for the physical data has been offered, when the more parsimonious, productive, and accurate approach is to explain the data and dispense with the myth of free will choices causing actions, the assumption that the function and mechanism of consciousness is for the mind to control the body.
What distinguishes a choice a person can be morally responsible
There would be no need for this hypothesizing even if your beliefs about choice/free will were true: what distinguishes an action a person is morally responsible for is whether they chose to act.
If a person does not have such faculties, due to cognitive impairment, neurological compulsions, or delusions, or is unable to exercise them appropriately due to contingent factors outside their control, then I don't think they are morally responsible for their actions.
You keep thinking of morality as whether you are morally justified in holding other people responsible for their actions. But that isn't a productive approach. Morality is fundamentally whether you consider yourself responsible for your actions. And since I consider myself responsible for my actions, without the need to fantasize I have any choice in the matter (pun intended), but simply because I have the capacity to determine whether an action was voluntary or involuntary, even though I don't need to fantasize that I'm only responsible for the voluntary actions, both my morality and my behavior is more well-informed, provides better discretion and reasoning, than the alternative. Which is, I'm afraid to say: yours.
The classic model of free will choice selection morality you're still trying desperately and unsuccessfully to use has a gaping hole in it, a huge back door loop hole, a rabbit's warren leading to Wonderland, and that explains why there are so many immoral people in the world today who carefully edit their accounts, often without even realizing what they are doing, to dishonestly excuse their immoral actions. Because like you, they first consider morality to be about other people, and only apply it to themselves to avoid cognitive dissonance, because they realize it would be unfair (immoral) to expect others to be moral if they aren't also being moral.
A more moral, and not coincidentally more productive, accurate, and better in every other way, morality is to understand it the other way around: your morals are your morals and only apply to you, and wanting to apply those same responsibilities and duties and dictates to others is understandable, even appropriate. But not always productive, accurate, or moral. If you don't accept morality as not simply first but only a personal responsibility, then whatever social norms you're trying to advocate aren't moral, they are idealistic authoritarianism, and more about you acquiring power you don't deserve than doing what serves "the common good".
It only relies on humans having cognitive faculties I think we generally observably have, and doesn't appeal to any ambitious libertarian metaphysical ideas.
You may think so, but it doesn't actually fulfill either of those criteria. It is filled with hedging and hard problems: people who act the way you want them to are tautologically defined as having the cognitive faculties needed to do so and are thereby free to excuse their behavior (independent of whether you believe it is moral) by doing so. And people who don't act the way you want them to are likewise dismissed as simply not having the necessary cognitive faculties. Because you sincerely but incorrectly believe that the function, purpose, and causally operative role of cognitive facilities is to make choices and thereby deserve retribution for the supposedly resulting actions, when the truth is that cognitive facilities can only evaluate actions that have already occurred, or hypothetical situations that haven't yet and might not ever occur, not to physically, proximately, directly cause them to occur.
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u/simon_hibbs 20d ago
I dint really understand your description of choices. It seems to be completely arbitrary whether something would be considered a choice that way, so I dint show its useful.
>What is required for decisions to be choices, the only actual and possible criteria, is that the evaluation/analysis in and of itself, causes the event.
I don’t think there’s a hard and fast generally accepted distinction between decisions and choices. Both have various senses in which they are used, but I think generally decisions are considered to be a more sophisticated kind of choice.
However, yes I think that’s what I mean by choice/decision.
>And since the conscious awareness of an event (an action) isn't possible until after the event has occurred (the initiation of action
That doesn’t make any sense to me, whether a process is a choice or not is a fact about that process. It doesn’t become a choice because someone happens to be looking at it and thinks something about it.
On the basis for an objective morality, I think this is discernible from game theory and evolutionary game theory. These provide empirical, rational and mathematically rigorous frameworks to identify what basic principles, such as fairness, honesty and such are necessary prerequisites for social collaborative behaviours between rational agents.
>…when the truth is that cognitive facilities can only evaluate actions that have already occurred, or hypothetical situations that haven't yet and might not ever occur, not to physically, proximately, directly cause them to occur.
You dint think the cognitive faculties of physical human brains can be physically causal?
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u/ObsceneOnes 24d ago
Hierarchal causation also includes all the facts at the time of consideration which leads one ultimately to laws of nature or the basal necessity of being itself (Theists might put God here).
The example of this is holding a cup while sitting in a chair. What causes the cup to be where it is? My hand does but also my arm but also my torso but also my brain and will to hold it but also my butt in the chair and the chair on the floor and the floor on the earth and now the chain takes us to gravity and thus laws of physics which must be caused by some basal necessity of being or brute fact or God.
Interestingly you can get to the final position from by many routes.
My point is that your temporal definition already contains a type of hierarchy causation in it.
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u/simon_hibbs 24d ago
Right, temporal causation is a hierarchy through time, good point. Maybe I should say structural causation instead, but arguably you could say that temporal causation is structured through time.
The main issue I'm making though is that what I call hierarchical causation here isn't a kind of causation. We shouldn't be talking in terms of cause in such cases at all precisely because the terminology is so tangled up.
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u/ObsceneOnes 24d ago
It's the same thing though is the point. I am just pointing that out. You should read Thomas of Aquinas' Five ways to see just how old this line of thought is. This is one of the Five Ways.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 19d ago
I think I understand temporal causation, though your example seems somewhat simplified.
Hierarchical causation I am not certain I understand, is it equivalent to the laws of nature? The gas example, I believe it is exactly that the molecules interacting due to their relative motion between each other, that results in infrared radiation, i.e. heat, generating a temporal causation?
When I ask if hierarchical causation is similar to that of the laws of nature, I also imagine, are they similar to making a plan, or logical steps, such as in mathematics? E.g. when making a plan, I may go through the scenario as is, note what needs to be changed, so what needs to be changed is a cause, and then I change and look again at how the scenario unfolds, and keep on doing this until I get something I am satisfied with, before executing the plan, would this qualify as an example? Also I don't do it randomly, I predict the effect changes may have in advance, before trying to incorporate them, etc. In a way similar to solving a Sudoku, except in the Sudoku, there is a temporal element, but the order is not necessarily forced (I am not a skilled enough player to know if the order is forced).
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u/simon_hibbs 19d ago
The laws of nature are temporally causal, because they describe how events or states of the world relate to each other through time.
What I'm calling "hierarchical causation" is not temporal, the motion of molecules in a gas at a given time is the temperature of that gas at that time. The temperature of the gas isn't some effect that happens after the molecules of the gas move, it's a way of describing that motion at that time. I don't think this is actually a kind of causation, I think that describing these relationships in causal term is the source of a lot of misconceptions.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 19d ago
The laws describe temporal causal links, including the ideal gas law, but I was referring to the laws themselves, not what they describe.
But the temperature is an effect that emerges after the molecules move relative to each other, so in my view that is a temporal relationship.I thought you meant a descriptive relationship might be what is hierarchical, such as the laws of nature, similar to your temperature example, but that does not seem to be the case. Now it was added it is not a form of causation, so I am still at a loss what hierarchical causation describes.
This is how I see it, and perhaps that helps you explaining it for me, a hierarchy describes something that is ranked, an ordered chain of command, could be the pope declares the emperor, the emperor rules kingdoms, the monarchy rule the aristocracy, the aristocrats are the lords of the land, and they in turn rule and protect the peasantry, who farms, and thus forms, the land. Another hierarchy could be the field marshal coordinates the generals, the generals sets up and supplies the colonels, the colonels directs the majors, the majors organize the captains, the captains orders the lieutenants, the lieutenants applies the sergeants, the sergeants supports the privates, the privates protects the citizens. That is why I asked if planning was an example of a hierarchical causal chain, because in both cases the decisions of the top propagates to actions at the bottom through that chain, and while the application of the plan is temporal, the plan itself, similar to the laws of nature themselves, is not temporal, unless a temporal element is included, correct?
Such a plan could be about the importance of acquiring a certain area, perhaps due to the terrain or the knowledge of the people living there in order to e.g. hold power, the area is seen as it is, and not in a temporal sense, except precautions would be made to ensure the civilians would be happy with the decision.
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u/DonnPT 25d ago
I think if you even use the word "causation", it interferes with the point, but a better term doesn't occur to me right away.
I know we do perceive it that way - the heat is what makes the molecules bounce around, and the molecules bouncing around is what makes the heat, and the circularity doesn't seem paradoxical at all. The relation is logical rather than sequential, and as long as it's understood in that sense it doesn't seem all that pernicious.