My argument (which I no longer believe) against free will
Determinism can be defined in different ways. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, determinism is described as follows: “the world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.”1 The Big Questions in Free Will Lexicon of Key Terms defines it as “the thesis that a complete statement of the laws of nature together with a complete description of the entire universe at any point in time logically entails a complete description of the entire universe at any other point in time.”2 In other words, if you have a complete description of the entire universe at one point, you can get a complete description of the universe in the past or future by calculating in the complete laws of nature (in theory).
According to these definitions, determinism implicitly includes the concepts of pan-causality, reductionism, and fatalism. What is meant by “pan-causality” is simply that every event or thing in the universe has a cause. “Reductionism” means that higher-level systems are reducible to lower-level systems. For example, reductionists believe the human mind is reducible to the firing of neurons in the brain and physical and chemical processes in the brain or the “behaviors” of molecules and atoms. As for “fatalism,”The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states “philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.”3 Given these included concepts in the larger concept of determinism, it becomes apparent with some thought that free will as conventionally conceived (the ability to do other than what was done) is not compatible with determinism.
Let’s first consider pan-causality. If every event and thing has a cause, then it becomes necessary to question whether these causes are necessary causes, sufficient causes, or just contributory causes. A is a necessary cause of B if B necessarily implies the presence of A. For example, oxygen is a necessary cause of aerobic life. You cannot have aerobic life without oxygen. However, just because there is oxygen doesn’t necessitate that there will be aerobic life. This must have been the case in the early evolution of our planet. However, aerobic life soon arose after oxygen came into the atmosphere. On the other hand, A is a sufficient cause of B if A necessarily implies the presence of B. For example, the sun is a sufficient cause of light. The sun necessarily implies light. However, you can have light without the sun (starlight, lamplight, candles, etc.). So, the sun is a sufficient cause of light, but it is not a necessary cause of light. Lastly, a cause is contributory if it contributes to the effect, but it need not be a necessary or sufficient cause. For example, financial ruin may be a contributory cause of someone’s suicide but it is neither sufficient nor necessary. Someone may face financial ruin and not commit suicide. So, it is not a sufficient cause of suicide. Likewise, it is not a necessary cause of suicide as a rich person with no financial troubles may commit suicide due to other factors. The conventional conception of free will (the ability to do otherwise) generally attributes contributory causes to our actions that are neither sufficient nor necessary causes. If all the causes of our decisions were merely contributory, then this would leave room available in our universe for the conventional conception of free will. Determinism denies that the true causes of our decisions are contributory causes that are neither sufficient nor necessary.
However, determinism is much more than just pan-causality. If higher-level events are reducible to lower-level events down to physical-chemical processes, then events such as human decisions are reducible to the “behaviors” of atomic and subatomic particles and the four forces of nature: electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. The conventional concept of causality is not sufficient to explain the workings of physics, as the objects of physics are explained in a more relational way than in a “one precedes or causes the other” way. Take for example the presence of the Moon and the tides. It is not accurate to say that the Moon causes the tides. It is more of a relation between the Earth and the Moon. It is not easy to put this relation in the ordinary language of cause and effect. It is not so much that the Moon exerts a gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans and then that causes the tides. This would be an inaccurate statement. It is more of a relationship between the gravitational pulls of both the Earth and the Moon. (Despite what Bill O’Reilly might think: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/oreilly-god-causes-tides_n_805262.html.) Hence, the interactions and processes on the molecular, atomic, and subatomic level in our brains is a relational one with the rest of the molecular, atomic, and subatomic functions in the environment. However, when “looking” at this level, there really is no distinction between my body and the environment. Particles and forces interact and there is no clear border where the body ends and the environment begins. As such, the universe as a whole is entirely connected by the forces of nature. Even in an indeterministic universe, the forces of nature that occur on the molecular, atomic, and subatomic level determine what happens on the higher, “more complex” human macro-level. So, there is no room for the conventional conception of free will if reductionism is true.
As for fatalism, the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do, it follows from what was explained above that if reductionism is true, then we have no control over our decisions. Our decisions are merely a function of physical and chemical laws. Hence, it follows that whatever we do we have no control over. Although in an indeterministic universe, there are different possible futures (with some presumably more probable than others), our decisions are still just functions of physical and chemical processes in the brain (according to reductionists). It may be possible to conceive in an indeterministic universe that I could have done otherwise because in such a universe atomic and subatomic particles “behave” according to probabilities. Different degrees of probabilities entail different possible futures. However, if reductionism is a truth about the universe, and even if there is some indeterminism in the universe, then I cannot have any control over my future as these probabilities are a function of nature, not a function of me. Hence, fatalism holds if reductionism is true.
So, is reductionism true? To be short, to my belief, yes. Professional philosophers and academics differ on this question and are liable to give you a very esoteric sounding explanation for whatever stance they take. I will try to explain my reasons for believing in reductionism as regards the reducibility of the mind to neurology, chemistry, and physics in as plain terms as possible. This will not be easy, so bear with me.
I’ve heard one objection to reductionism that goes as follows. Suppose you try to write a book about World War II, but not by using the ordinary language and explanations of psychological and economic motivations, but instead translate that story about the war into the language of physical and chemical processes in the brains of the participators of the war or the molecular and atomic movements in the muscles of the combatants. Would anyone even recognize that it was a book about World War II?4 Perhaps not, but I believe this objection to reductionism misses the point.
The point of reductionism in the theory of mind and psychology is not to translate the language of subjective experience into another language. The point is to explain what we subjectively experience in an objective, scientific way. (I espouse the theory of reductionism as explanation. I will not discuss reductionism as derivation or reductionism as translation. For a more technical and in-depth discussion of reductionism, I refer you to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on reductionism athttp://www.iep.utm.edu/red-ism.) I may not recognize that a story describing a series of a vast multitude of molecular movements and reactions corresponds to a story of a man firing a gun, but I can certainly acknowledge that every action the body takes and every thought a person has is caused by physical and chemical changes in the brain. This has been demonstrated time and time again by the beautiful invention that is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A working brain is a sufficient cause (and perhaps a necessary cause) of subjective thought. A working brain necessarily implies having subjective thoughts (in humans). It may someday be discovered that having subjective thoughts also necessarily implies having a working brain. (However, there are many people working on artificial intelligence that would like to think otherwise.) So, subjective thoughts can be explained by changes in the brain. As such, theories in psychology can be explained using theories in neurology, chemistry, and physics.
But, the skeptics may say, economics certainly cannot be reducible to neurology, chemistry, and physics. It’s a social science. How can you explain something as abstract as the money multiplier in terms of physical and chemical processes? My answer is this. Abstract ideas are instantiated by brains that recognize patterns. These patterns are mapped in the neuronal structure of the brain, and the brain recognizes these abstract ideas and forms new ideas by exercising these neuronal pathway patterns and forming new pathways in the brain. When someone thinks of the money multiplier, the brain’s neurons fire in a particular pattern unique to that individual. When he talks of the money multiplier and communicates his thought to someone else, his brain’s neurons fire in a particular pattern, and if the listener is familiar with the social convention known as the money multiplier, then her brain’s neurons will fire in the particular way that she has that abstract idea mapped in her brain. Likewise, all abstract ideas are instantiated and mapped in physical brains. This is where abstract ideas exist. Without brains there would be no abstract ideas. So, abstract ideas are reducible to neuronal pathway patterns which can be described in terms of molecular and atomic structure.
Furthermore, it is generally recognized in the neuroscientific community that processes in the brain operate according to sufficient causes. It is not widely agreed upon whether subjective thoughts play any causal role in the universe by themselves. So, given these scientific assumptions, viz. that the brain operates according to sufficient causes, and subjective thoughts distinct from the brain functions that they arise from don’t play a causal role, it becomes easier to recognize the need for reductionism of the human mind to the brain’s neurological, chemical, and physical processes in order to give a scientific explanation for the workings of the human mind. Without reductionism, we would have no scientific knowledge of the way the mind and brain work. On the other hand, with reductionism we have had tremendous progress in the study of the mind. Because of reductionism as explanation, we have had tremendous progress in understanding neuroscience, neurobiology, psychology, and psychiatry over the years. To put the argument in a valid form: (1) If reductionism were not true, then we wouldn’t have made any progress in neuroscience. (2) We have made progress in neuroscience. (3) Therefore, reductionism is true.
In conclusion, it appears that we are not free in the conventional sense. We cannot do other than what we do.
According to these definitions, determinism implicitly includes the concepts of pan-causality, reductionism, and fatalism. What is meant by “pan-causality” is simply that every event or thing in the universe has a cause. “Reductionism” means that higher-level systems are reducible to lower-level systems. For example, reductionists believe the human mind is reducible to the firing of neurons in the brain and physical and chemical processes in the brain or the “behaviors” of molecules and atoms. As for “fatalism,”The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states “philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.”3 Given these included concepts in the larger concept of determinism, it becomes apparent with some thought that free will as conventionally conceived (the ability to do other than what was done) is not compatible with determinism.
Let’s first consider pan-causality. If every event and thing has a cause, then it becomes necessary to question whether these causes are necessary causes, sufficient causes, or just contributory causes. A is a necessary cause of B if B necessarily implies the presence of A. For example, oxygen is a necessary cause of aerobic life. You cannot have aerobic life without oxygen. However, just because there is oxygen doesn’t necessitate that there will be aerobic life. This must have been the case in the early evolution of our planet. However, aerobic life soon arose after oxygen came into the atmosphere. On the other hand, A is a sufficient cause of B if A necessarily implies the presence of B. For example, the sun is a sufficient cause of light. The sun necessarily implies light. However, you can have light without the sun (starlight, lamplight, candles, etc.). So, the sun is a sufficient cause of light, but it is not a necessary cause of light. Lastly, a cause is contributory if it contributes to the effect, but it need not be a necessary or sufficient cause. For example, financial ruin may be a contributory cause of someone’s suicide but it is neither sufficient nor necessary. Someone may face financial ruin and not commit suicide. So, it is not a sufficient cause of suicide. Likewise, it is not a necessary cause of suicide as a rich person with no financial troubles may commit suicide due to other factors. The conventional conception of free will (the ability to do otherwise) generally attributes contributory causes to our actions that are neither sufficient nor necessary causes. If all the causes of our decisions were merely contributory, then this would leave room available in our universe for the conventional conception of free will. Determinism denies that the true causes of our decisions are contributory causes that are neither sufficient nor necessary.
However, determinism is much more than just pan-causality. If higher-level events are reducible to lower-level events down to physical-chemical processes, then events such as human decisions are reducible to the “behaviors” of atomic and subatomic particles and the four forces of nature: electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. The conventional concept of causality is not sufficient to explain the workings of physics, as the objects of physics are explained in a more relational way than in a “one precedes or causes the other” way. Take for example the presence of the Moon and the tides. It is not accurate to say that the Moon causes the tides. It is more of a relation between the Earth and the Moon. It is not easy to put this relation in the ordinary language of cause and effect. It is not so much that the Moon exerts a gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans and then that causes the tides. This would be an inaccurate statement. It is more of a relationship between the gravitational pulls of both the Earth and the Moon. (Despite what Bill O’Reilly might think: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/oreilly-god-causes-tides_n_805262.html.) Hence, the interactions and processes on the molecular, atomic, and subatomic level in our brains is a relational one with the rest of the molecular, atomic, and subatomic functions in the environment. However, when “looking” at this level, there really is no distinction between my body and the environment. Particles and forces interact and there is no clear border where the body ends and the environment begins. As such, the universe as a whole is entirely connected by the forces of nature. Even in an indeterministic universe, the forces of nature that occur on the molecular, atomic, and subatomic level determine what happens on the higher, “more complex” human macro-level. So, there is no room for the conventional conception of free will if reductionism is true.
As for fatalism, the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do, it follows from what was explained above that if reductionism is true, then we have no control over our decisions. Our decisions are merely a function of physical and chemical laws. Hence, it follows that whatever we do we have no control over. Although in an indeterministic universe, there are different possible futures (with some presumably more probable than others), our decisions are still just functions of physical and chemical processes in the brain (according to reductionists). It may be possible to conceive in an indeterministic universe that I could have done otherwise because in such a universe atomic and subatomic particles “behave” according to probabilities. Different degrees of probabilities entail different possible futures. However, if reductionism is a truth about the universe, and even if there is some indeterminism in the universe, then I cannot have any control over my future as these probabilities are a function of nature, not a function of me. Hence, fatalism holds if reductionism is true.
So, is reductionism true? To be short, to my belief, yes. Professional philosophers and academics differ on this question and are liable to give you a very esoteric sounding explanation for whatever stance they take. I will try to explain my reasons for believing in reductionism as regards the reducibility of the mind to neurology, chemistry, and physics in as plain terms as possible. This will not be easy, so bear with me.
I’ve heard one objection to reductionism that goes as follows. Suppose you try to write a book about World War II, but not by using the ordinary language and explanations of psychological and economic motivations, but instead translate that story about the war into the language of physical and chemical processes in the brains of the participators of the war or the molecular and atomic movements in the muscles of the combatants. Would anyone even recognize that it was a book about World War II?4 Perhaps not, but I believe this objection to reductionism misses the point.
The point of reductionism in the theory of mind and psychology is not to translate the language of subjective experience into another language. The point is to explain what we subjectively experience in an objective, scientific way. (I espouse the theory of reductionism as explanation. I will not discuss reductionism as derivation or reductionism as translation. For a more technical and in-depth discussion of reductionism, I refer you to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on reductionism athttp://www.iep.utm.edu/red-ism.) I may not recognize that a story describing a series of a vast multitude of molecular movements and reactions corresponds to a story of a man firing a gun, but I can certainly acknowledge that every action the body takes and every thought a person has is caused by physical and chemical changes in the brain. This has been demonstrated time and time again by the beautiful invention that is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A working brain is a sufficient cause (and perhaps a necessary cause) of subjective thought. A working brain necessarily implies having subjective thoughts (in humans). It may someday be discovered that having subjective thoughts also necessarily implies having a working brain. (However, there are many people working on artificial intelligence that would like to think otherwise.) So, subjective thoughts can be explained by changes in the brain. As such, theories in psychology can be explained using theories in neurology, chemistry, and physics.
But, the skeptics may say, economics certainly cannot be reducible to neurology, chemistry, and physics. It’s a social science. How can you explain something as abstract as the money multiplier in terms of physical and chemical processes? My answer is this. Abstract ideas are instantiated by brains that recognize patterns. These patterns are mapped in the neuronal structure of the brain, and the brain recognizes these abstract ideas and forms new ideas by exercising these neuronal pathway patterns and forming new pathways in the brain. When someone thinks of the money multiplier, the brain’s neurons fire in a particular pattern unique to that individual. When he talks of the money multiplier and communicates his thought to someone else, his brain’s neurons fire in a particular pattern, and if the listener is familiar with the social convention known as the money multiplier, then her brain’s neurons will fire in the particular way that she has that abstract idea mapped in her brain. Likewise, all abstract ideas are instantiated and mapped in physical brains. This is where abstract ideas exist. Without brains there would be no abstract ideas. So, abstract ideas are reducible to neuronal pathway patterns which can be described in terms of molecular and atomic structure.
Furthermore, it is generally recognized in the neuroscientific community that processes in the brain operate according to sufficient causes. It is not widely agreed upon whether subjective thoughts play any causal role in the universe by themselves. So, given these scientific assumptions, viz. that the brain operates according to sufficient causes, and subjective thoughts distinct from the brain functions that they arise from don’t play a causal role, it becomes easier to recognize the need for reductionism of the human mind to the brain’s neurological, chemical, and physical processes in order to give a scientific explanation for the workings of the human mind. Without reductionism, we would have no scientific knowledge of the way the mind and brain work. On the other hand, with reductionism we have had tremendous progress in the study of the mind. Because of reductionism as explanation, we have had tremendous progress in understanding neuroscience, neurobiology, psychology, and psychiatry over the years. To put the argument in a valid form: (1) If reductionism were not true, then we wouldn’t have made any progress in neuroscience. (2) We have made progress in neuroscience. (3) Therefore, reductionism is true.
In conclusion, it appears that we are not free in the conventional sense. We cannot do other than what we do.
Comments (45)
I myself prefer to consider all levels as efficient causes, and not merely effects; this so because each level contributes new ways of organising energy and information, and these new interactions don´t stay in the level but communicate or radiate to the rest. You give the example of neuroscience and psychiatry, but these sciences are precisely based on studying the mutual influence among different levels. You can say that I get frightened at the sight of an armed thug because certain patterns in my neurons determine that reactions; but we can also say that those patterns exist becouse in the upper secondary level of my imagination and memory, I know that armed criminals are dangerous.
If all levels affect all levels (in different degrees), the whole picture is a universe (or meta-universe, or omni-verse, whatever the case) with many many levels of complexity and no real separation, as causes go up and down and everything interacts with everything. Now, if we accept that spacetime itself is emergent and not fundamental (as different theories claim to explain how spacetime could have a beginning), with spacetime out of the equation you only have one single object where the past and the future, the top and the bottom, do not follow one another, but co-exist and co-evolve. In a human body, you can say that everything that happen is just atoms behaving, or you can also say that everything that happens is just the manifestation, or effect, of an idea in your parents´mind. Both approaches are partly wrong, because they only consider as real and efficient one level of reality and forget about the rest, as they forget the context of the whole universe.
Reality seems to work through causal means, in a deterministic way; but considered in its totality, is acausal because Reality needs to rest on a question without answer, that is, why does Reality exists? Nobody can answer that. It just is. And it seems to communicate with itself following deterministic laws, so far as we know.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Diego.
I no longer believe in reductionism, but prefer the idea of supervenience which you seem to be explaining here.
Thanks for reading my essay.
Do you consider that a rational question? What should that be good for? If I was a religious person I could simply say that divine matters are not for humans. As I'm not I just ask why anyone would or should be interested in something that is - per definition - not real. Nonsense, right? We've got TV for those things. And just maybe philosophy forums.
That is what Simon LaPlace thought. And then quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle came along. You can argue on that basis that the so-called fundamental constituents of matter are indeterminate. And secondly that the observer has a role in their observation, thereby undermining the idea that scientific knowledge is wholly objective.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
‘We are often told that a nucleus of an atom consists of protons and neutrons. This basic model of the atom was developed in the early twentieth century when protons and neutrons were thought to be basic building blocks of matter.
But there is something wrong even with this account. A bare neutron has a half-life of about eleven and a half minutes. Over time it decays into a proton, an electron and a neutrino. However, once inside the nucleus of an atom, this basic property of the neutron ceases to function. Its integration into the higher order intelligibility of the atomic nucleus changes its properties’ (Neil Ormerod.)
And that’s just one example of top-down causation. The ‘reductionist’ paradigm you’re quoting simply assumes that as a matter of principle, everything can be explained and understood in terms of physical entities. But fundamental physics is itself in an epistemological and ontological crisis at this time, what with arguments over string theory, many worlds and multiverses.
Secondly I don’t see the remotest scintilla of a chance that science will ever understand, well, science. What is the nature of these ‘scientific laws’ that ‘everything’ is supposed to be determined by? I’m not proposing to explain that, but whatever kind of question it is, it’s not a scientific question. Science really has no account, or needs one, of why f=ma or e=mc[sup]2[/sup]. It discovers such laws - god bless it - and then makes incredible things happen, including this amazing comms technology we’re using to exchange these ideas. But why these laws, is another kind of question (often defrayed behind the appeal to the possibility of there being countless ‘other universes’, as if that amounted to an explanation.)
Anyway, at least you’ve spotted the problem, but I think you have a ways to go in really coming to terms with it.
But even if we consider the possibility that science may one day predict human behavior, that is no reason to reject free will. Such a consideration would be based upon nothing more than a belief that science can and will explain everything. If we consider the existence of free will about equally likely as it is unlikely, and we're choosing to believe either one is correct, we may as well choose to believe the most productive of the two propositions. The idea that we can't be held accountable for our actions and that nothing matters because everything has already been decided is hardly productive. And then these people wonder why they become depressed...
:ok:
I think you’re confusing epistemic and metaphysical issues.
Whether or not supervenience or reductionism is true is a metaphysical issue. Whether or not supervenience or reductionism is able to be known or discovered to be true is an epistemological issue.
Let me just say this: whether or not reductionism or supervenience Is true is one thing, and whether or not they can be known is another thing.The two aren’t necessarily related
Let me put it this way: reductionism or supervenience Could still be true, and we could never prove it at the same time
I'm a physicalist. Whether I'm a reductionist is a matter of debate, maybe--it depends on the exact definition, it depends on just what people are implying by an endorsement or rejection of reductionism, but I'm a physicalist at any rate.
I'm neither a determinist nor a compatibilist. I buy free will/I buy the idea that there's at least some ontological freedom in general.
I'm not a realist on natural law per se. For one, I don't believe there are any real (in the sense of non-mental) abstracts, and I don't think that the idea of natural law makes much sense if we don't buy real abstracts.
Shouldn't you have written "I can not even think of real processes not fully explainable via [s]non[/s] deterministic causes, whether we know those causes or not"? (In other words, shouldn't the "non" be removed?)
You are entitled to your beliefs as am I. I am open to a free will argument, but so far I haven’t been satisfied by any.
For me it's good enough that (a) it seems to be the case that I can make choices with some element of randomness to them between at least two different possible options, (b) there's no good reason to believe that all phenomena are (ontologically) deterministic, and (c) the very idea of natural law is difficult make sense of, re what it could amount to as an existent, exactly, so that particulars would be ontologically deterministic.
Those posts don't seem to have much to do with my comment above.
They are an argument for determinism. How do they not address your comment?
You mean you think you were stating good reasons to buy determinism in those posts? I certainly wouldn't agree with that.
Well, a good reason would be something that would count as evidence (and in a water-tight, rigorous way that would stand up to scrutiny) for the universal claim (re all phenomena being ontologically deterministic).
the geometric-fractal structure of spacetime, the component parts of the human brain and their respective functions...these are all evidence.
Ignoring how that would even imply anything about determinism, that's something water-tight and rigorous that stands up to scrutiny?
It's consistent and coherent at least.
I'm not sure I'd agree with that.
I know you mention the "esoteric sounding" but you are just throwing away an option just cause it doesn't go well with your epistemological ideas that are a product of the empiricist and causalist mode, that is not just obvious and irrefutable, is an stance that functions well if you want to explain the "natural world", but has really awful consecuences when you try to do it on everything.
The one who dared to take Kant ideas and try to know the thing in itself, was Schopenhauer, i haven't read him yet because i want to understand all Kant first, but he basically thinks that will is the thing in itself.
You speak English very well! I will have to put Kant on my to-do list.
Overall, I learned a lot. I can't wait to dig into some of the books mentioned here, but I feel as if I should "build up" to those by reading something simpler and ramping up the difficulty over the years.
Perhaps Kant was a mason and wanted to preserve the beliefs of his sect; with a boundless divine realm and a sublunar, cyclic, machine like material plane.
It´s a good one that Reality has an acausal "beginning", which means, mind you, that all of reality past, present and future is not caused ultimately by anything. However, we need to be humble and use what we know about the manifest world; and the way it communicates with itself is always deterministic so far. Besides, Kant doesn´t seem to know how a free-will that is not determined by causality or chance would work. How does that work? how can an entity have "free" thoughts without cause or luck as agents?
I believe we have free-will the same way we have knowledge, that is, we can develop it as far as we can. Also, in the same way our application of knowledge and beliefs are subject to various influences, so also is our free-will. Different people have different degrees of exerting free-will under the various circumstances of our lives.
Free-will cannot imply something absolute when it is the possession of relative beings. I think most people mistake free-will for omnipotence.
If we apply the above to free-will, then it is obvious that we determine some aspects of our lives by exerting our influence over them; however, our influence is not absolute.
So, if free-will means omnipotence, then we do not have it. If free-will means the capacity to exert our influence over circumstances, then we do have it albeit to a limited degree but which can also be improved upon.
You may say what you mean. I hear, or read what you say, but what I understand it to mean, is particular to me. So you can never be in complete control of what you say to me. What I understand as a consequence of what you said, is only the same as what you meant, insofar as we share a common lexicon and concept of reality. Otherwise, it's inherently non deterministic.