The case for determinism

Quoting MattS

In my mind, the universe is one incredibly complex chain of dominoes set into motion after the Big Bang.

But it's not. As you note, there is an element of uncertainty, and so indeterminacy, at the fundamental levels of the Universe. It isn't set in stone, so to speak, and could have played out in an incalculable variety of ways. The old LaPlace daemon is well and truly put to rest.

Quoting MattS

I struggle with how we are capable of freely controlling our brains/actions rather than the underlying chemical reactions dictating them

People frequently sign up here and ask this question, and what I always ask them in return is: is this something they did freely? Were they compelled to do it? And if they were compelled to do it, then could anything anyone says here change their minds? And if does not, i.e. if they are compelled to believe in determinism, then what is there to discuss? Part of the point of philosophizing is persuading by rational argument, so if that's not possible, then so much for philosophy.

I also often feel like asking determinists if they have considered the possibility that they want to believe in determinism, because it saves them from having to take responsibility for their lives.

I consider myself an indeterminist-the opposite of determinism. The complex arrangement of interaction, and cause and effect, which cause what we experience as our lives is not determined per say, by an individual, overall power, or plan.

There is no plan and no real way to predict the future beyond educated guesses, and playing probability. Things happen because other things happen.

This is not to be confused with compatibility.

Free will does exist-to an extent, but even the concept of 'free' is hindered by larger, more complex, and subtle systems, such as the neurological functions and capacities of the human brain, our finite brains can only understand such an abstract concept to a certain degree..

• Therefore, we are all subject to various overarching and under arching systems (depending on your position in said universe. Even the universe (as in the collection of plants and solar system) in subject to various overarching, increasingly complex, systems, such as the Big Bang, larger solar systems, and blackholes ect..

• While we are subject to so many restrictions as per the process of ever-changing, seemingly random, chaotic, but meaningful systems this does not necessarily fully exclude moral culpability. People are perhaps 99.9% resultant of their environments (systems) including the most benign as unconscious recognition (a study showed that individuals secretly flashed and presented the same number in various random and inconspicuous locations throughout their day, would later almost every time, use that number to gamble with, unless another number was chosen for a distinct and clear reason. .1% allows for the reality, that it is impossible for the human brain to conceive of such a system at large, let alone in situations of perceived injustice or danger...therefore we need to place blame on something tangible-lest we seize with injustice and anger. Most then, seek to blame, and as social beings, we all have to accept the reality, that we will be held accountable by our peers-at the very least because the human psyche cannot live with unabated frustration, and that placing such blame allows large societies to cooperatively function. Not all do of course, there are people much more forgiving than others, perhaps because they are empathetic, intelligent, and reasonable enough to realize at least some of the complex systemic and probabilistic events at play (consider to, people who claim they found solace or peace in their lives following a traumatic event, after concluding that life is some a kind of system, some kind of life cycle, or that it led/impacted some other more positive event in their lives (ie. bad marriage leads to eventual successful career change). People who can comprehend such an obvious model of complex systems as the concept of cyclical poverty-or intersecting oppression, are thereby more empathetic and less resentful towards people in such circumstances-it could be said they see less individual moral culpability

• This view of life as huge, interacting, overarching systems is understandably problematic. Not because it excludes a full amount of individual moral culpability but rather for two reasons, one) because it questions fundamental social pillars-human intersubjective systems that lay waste to lives while simultaneously making other people's lives better. For example, hyper-focusing on individual moral culpability on topics such as recycling or limiting motor use is resultant of the threat posed by focusing on systemic causes, such as capitalist economics, or the power of big business and technological innovations that make such plundering of the environment possible on such a large scale.

• Life is a series of indeterminate systems, interacting with each other in complex probabilistic ways. Appears chaotic and random to those within the system, thus giving the illusion of complete free will, comprehension, and control.

Quoting MattS

Determinism has become very compelling to me. I understand that many believe determinism to not be true, and I'd like to understand better why (because frankly, I don't like the idea of free will not existing). Here is the line of thought that has made it so compelling to me:

I don't see a line of reasoning here. You just make statements to the effect that determinism is the case "in your mind" and leave it at that, without providing any reasoning.

P.S. Same goes for Reply to Grre's assertion of indeterminism.

Quoting Wayfarer

But it's not. As you note, there is an element of uncertainty, and so indeterminacy, at the fundamental levels of the Universe. It isn't set in stone, so to speak, and could have played out in an incalculable variety of ways.

Assuming this is true - even though the universe could have played out in an incalculable number of ways to get us to this point in time say due to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, does that necessarily preclude what I stated in my post: that when you raise it to a higher level than the quantum level, things still start looking pretty deterministic? Take the laws of physics. If I throw a ball with sufficient force, the odds are pretty darned good that it's going to leave my hand and fly through the air. What are the odds that it doesn't? 1 in a trillion? quadrillion? quintillion? Even if things are probabilistic and not certain at the quantum level, it seems that when you raise it up high enough, things still start to look pretty deterministic.

To continue with my initial example - how can we actually have control of our thoughts/actions when these thoughts/actions are driven by chemical reactions at a level that we can't possibly control? For instance, I can't trigger a chemical reaction just by my will alone - it's just something that was set into motion by the close proximity of those molecules, and those molecules were where at that moment due to external impacts that I also did not control. In the end, I didn't have direct control over that chemical reaction that produced the electrical impulse in my brain that eventually materialized into a thought/action. Help me understand how this is not the case.

Quoting Wayfarer

People frequently sign up here and ask this question, and what I always ask them in return is: is this something they did freely?

I think you're suggesting that I must have free will in order to decide to come on here and post. But I don't see it that way. Life can function as we see it with the illusion of free will even if it doesn't really exist. I can see our brains still going through the "decision making process" that seems as if we have control over ourselves even if the decision we ultimately arrive at is not really something we had control over, because the factor that tips the scales in that decision was something we didn't ultimately have control over.

I also often feel like asking determinists if they have considered the possibility that they want to believe in determinism, because it saves them from having to take responsibility for their lives.

I agree this can be the lure of determinism for some people. Not me - I would prefer to think that I have responsibility for everything good that's transpired in my life. The whole topic of moral culpability etc. doesn't really interest me because if determinism exists, a murderer may not ultimately have responsibility for their actions, true, but that doesn't change the fact that society will continue functioning as it is and punish them. I don't see determinism as changing any of that.

Quoting Wayfarer

But it's not. As you note, there is an element of uncertainty, and so indeterminacy, at the fundamental levels of the Universe. It isn't set in stone, so to speak, and could have played out in an incalculable variety of ways.

Assuming this is true - even though the universe could have played out in an incalculable number of ways to get us to this point in time say due to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, does that necessarily preclude what I stated in my post: that when you raise it to a higher level than the quantum level, things still start looking pretty deterministic? Take the laws of physics. If I throw a ball, the odds are pretty darned good that it's going to leave my hand and fly through the air. What are the odds that it won't leave my hand? 1 in a trillion? quadrillion? quintillion? Even if things are probabilistic and not certain at the quantum level, it seems that when you raise it up high enough, things still start to look pretty deterministic.

To continue with my initial example - how can we actually have control of our thoughts/actions when these thoughts/actions are driven by chemical reactions at a level that we can't possibly control? I can't trigger a chemical reaction by my will alone - it's just something that was set into motion by the close proximity of those molecules, and those molecules were where they were due to external impacts that I also had no control over. So in the end, how did I myself affect the chemical reaction that caused the electrical impulse in my brain that led to a thought/action? Help me understand.

Quoting Wayfarer

People frequently sign up here and ask this question, and what I always ask them in return is: is this something they did freely?

I think you're suggesting that I must have free will in order to decide to come on here and post. But I don't see it that way. Life can function as we see it with the illusion of free will even if it doesn't really exist. I can see our brains still going through the "decision making process" that seems as if we have control over ourselves even if the decision we ultimately arrive at is not really something we had control over, because the factor that tips the scales in that decision was something we didn't ultimately have control over.

I also often feel like asking determinists if they have considered the possibility that they want to believe in determinism, because it saves them from having to take responsibility for their lives.

I agree this can be the lure of determinism for some people. Not me - I would prefer to think that I have responsibility for everything good that's transpired in my life. The whole topic of moral culpability etc. doesn't really interest me because if determinism exists, a murderer may not ultimately have responsibility for their actions, true, but that doesn't change the fact that society will continue functioning as it is and punish them. I don't see determinism as changing any of that.

Quoting MattS

Does that necessarily preclude what I stated in my post: that when you raise it to a higher level than the quantum level, things still start looking pretty deterministic? Take the laws of physics. If I throw a ball, the odds are pretty darned good that it's going to leave my hand and fly through the air. What are the odds that it won't leave my hand? 1 in a trillion? quadrillion? quintillion? Even if things are probabilistic and not certain at the quantum level, it seems that when you raise it up high enough, things still start to look pretty deterministic.

Not in any long run, no. Small differences are amplified, not lost in the averages. Get familiar with chaos theory, or what is popularly known as the butterfly effect.

How can we actually have control of our thoughts/actions when these thoughts/actions are driven by chemical reactions at a level that we can't possibly control?

How do you not have control of your thoughts and actions if the parts are functioning correctly? If you had conscious control over that function, such abilities would be lost, not gained. The free-will proponents sometimes talk about initiating cause rather than propagating it. I cannot see how that would be a benefit in a situation, for example one trying to cross a street at a time of ones own free choosing.

I can't trigger a chemical reaction by my will alone

Why would one want to do that? There are those that claim to have this ability (pyrokinesis say), and it isn't evidence of free will if they can actually do it any more than me using a match to achieve the same ends.

So in the end, how did I myself affect the chemical reaction that caused the electrical impulse in my brain that led to a thought/action? Help me understand.

I think you're confusing will with the means by which your will is implemented. I'm a monist, so I consider my will to be free. If a 'soul' were to suddenly possess my mind and make this body do different (more moral say) things, that would be a great example of my will suddenly being overridden by this possessing influence. It would no longer be free. I'd be just a vehicle (an avatar) then and responsibility for my actions falls on my 'driver', not on me, and my suppressed will would be epiphenomenal at best. "There is no Dana, there is only Zuul".

I don't see determinism as changing any of that.

Determinism has almost nothing to do with it. Lack of determinism doesn't mean ones will is not a function of physics.

Quoting MattS

To continue with my initial example - how can we actually have control of our thoughts/actions when these thoughts/actions are driven by chemical reactions at a level that we can't possibly control? For instance, I can't trigger a chemical reaction just by my will alone - it's just something that was set into motion by the close proximity of those molecules, and those molecules were where at that moment due to external impacts that I also did not control. In the end, I didn't have direct control over that chemical reaction that produced the electrical impulse in my brain that eventually materialized into a thought/action.

How would macro-level indeterminism help? It wouldn't give you any control - on the contrary, it would make your actions erratic, out-of-control. Your actions would be nominally "free" in the sense that they would not be due to anything external to you. But you still wouldn't be able to take ownership of something over which you have no control - and by definition, you cannot control random events. So those erratic actions wouldn't be freely willed by you.

Quoting noAxioms

Does that necessarily preclude what I stated in my post: that when you raise it to a higher level than the quantum level, things still start looking pretty deterministic? Take the laws of physics. If I throw a ball, the odds are pretty darned good that it's going to leave my hand and fly through the air. What are the odds that it won't leave my hand? 1 in a trillion? quadrillion? quintillion? Even if things are probabilistic and not certain at the quantum level, it seems that when you raise it up high enough, things still start to look pretty deterministic.
— MattS

Not in any long run, no. Small differences are amplified, not lost in the averages. Get familiar with chaos theory, or what is popularly known as the butterfly effect.

That's true for classical nonlinear systems. But quantum systems are linear and aren't so sensitive to initial conditions. From the SEP:

Quoting SEP - Quantum Chaos

However, since Schrödinger’s equation is linear, quantum mechanics is a linear theory. This means that quantum states starting out initially close remain just as close (in Hilbert space norm) throughout their evolution. So in contrast to chaos in classical physics, there is no separation (exponential or otherwise) between quantum states under Schrödinger evolution. The best candidates for a necessary condition for chaos appear to be missing from the quantum domain.

I think Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiments are a good example of this. Small differences in path lengths (and thus small differences to the phases of the arriving beams) make similarly small differences to the particle ratios measured at the detectors.

Reply to Andrew M Right, but still, we, with our macroscopic sense organs, would never know about quantum effects if they did not propagate to our scale. So although the world at our scale is mostly classical (for most practical purposes), it is not entirely so.

Indeed, even before quantum mechanics, some held out hope that micro-level indeterminism might rescue human free will (it is a little-known fact that indeterminism is possible, in principle, even in classical Newtonian mechanics). And nowadays some similarly speculate that the apparent paradoxes of free will can somehow be resolved via (quite real) neuronal quantum effects.

But as I said (and I am not the first to make this fairly obvious point), randomness, whether quantum or otherwise, is not a solution to the challenge to free will that is posed by determinism: if anything, it makes things worse. No, the only positive resolution of the problem (i.e. one that does not end up denying free will) is to invalidate the challenge itself, as compatibilists try to do.

Reply to SophistiCat :up:

"[One must] reject the common sop that somehow the indeterminism of quantum physics helps us out here. First, there is no evidence that the neurons of the brain are subject to indeterminancy in the way, say, firing of elections is (and in fact there is much evidence against it); even if that were the case, however ... the indeterminancy of some outcomes in the brain would not help with establishing personal causal origination of actions. For randomness in fact would make us more rather than less subject to unexpected turns of fact. ...

Moreover, human free choice would not be made possible by neuronal randomness in any case (and all the evidence so far seems to be against it) because no conscious human choice could ever operate to refashion neural networks directly at the neuronal level. Neural networks change through experience, not through will. ... We do not have direct access to neurons and their patterns of firing any more than we have the capacity for direct intervention into the functioning of our liver, even if the liver sometimes were to function randomly". (Heidi Ravven, The Self Beyond Itself)

Quoting StreetlightX

We do not have direct access to neurons and their patterns of firing any more than we have the capacity for direct intervention into the functioning of our liver, even if the liver sometimes were to function randomly".

I appreciate the thoughtful responses everyone has provided. The quote above is the sticking point I keep ending up at in my mind. To put it another way, if we don't have direct control over the pieces (neurons firing), how can we have direct control over the whole (our brains and the thoughts/actions that stem from them)? Does anyone have some theories on how to refute that? How can the tail wag the dog (as an analogy)?

Indeterminism at the quantum level also doesn't seem to invalidate that statement. (and as SophistiCat/StreetlightX stated, indeterminism or randomness at the quantum level seems like it could pose some potential problems as well for free will - something that hadn't occurred to me)

Quoting MattS

frankly, I don't like the idea of free will not existing

Is this because you are equating free will with a soul? If it is a soul you really want then you can have one without free will. Free will is not necessary for a soul.

Reply to MattS There are a few common responses to such challenges. One is to bite the bullet and deny free will. This is a very common response among amateur philosophers: free-will-does-not-exist is one of the most popular topic starters on internet philosophical forums. It seems to be much less common among professional philosophers. Of the latter, one of the most forceful exponents of this position is Galen Strawson: a typical example can be found in his 1994 paper The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility. (Here he takes on moral responsibility, but he may as well be talking about free will.) He exemplifies reasoning that you will find familiar, and takes it to the bitter end.

Libertarianism is one of the less popular alternatives. It is often caricatured and rejected out of hand in internet discussions, but the positions of some of its contemporary proponents are rather nuanced and, at the end of the day, can be seen as not that far apart from some compatibilist accounts. Timothy O'Connor is a typical representative of this cohort, and he is the author of the SEP entry on Free Will, where he, understandably, gives a sympathetic outline of libertarian accounts. If you are interested in philosophers' take on free will in general, you can start from this article and drill down from there. (Libertarianism seems to be more common among religious philosophers, and O'Connor is typical in that regard as well. But his SEP article is far from partisan and, in my opinion, well presented. He gives a helpful breakdown of constituents of free will and shows how various positions deal with them.)

Then there is compatibilism, which in its more narrow form states that free will is compatible with determinism, but often comes to this conclusion by way of a broader argument that says that the question of determinism vs. indeterminism is irrelevant to free will. Note that compatibilists are not necessarily committed to determinism; some of them do not take any position on this question, and some may even be indeterminists. This is by far the most favored position among contemporary philosophers, if the survey linked above is to be believed. You can read about it in another SEP entry on Compatibilism.