How to live with hard determinism
Having gone through a journey of discovery, I find I have firmly landed as a hard determinist. But I am having a heck of a time finding any writing that addressed how we should live our mental lives as a hard determinist. I have a lot of ideas on the topic but was hoping not to have to try to reinvent the wheel. My moderate search over the last few months has only turned up a few paragraphs that directly address this problem. I'm hoping to find a writing on how to view justice, personal motivation, and the like, for a hard determinist. Anybody know of such a how-to writing??
Comments (69)
Alternative, maybe determinism doesn’t exclude the possibility of choice, but if you agree then you’re not a hard determinist, you’re some variety of compatibilist.
It’s a frantically difficult topic to deal with as most readers will come at you with a good amount of vested interest in one, or more, particular areas. A historic account of how these thoughts have developed would be a safe approach I feel.
Within the field there are various tangental and aligned topics that tilt in many directions including determinism, reductionism, functionalism, phenomenology, and various other areas. It can be fun trying to pick out the ideas each present and which direction their personal views tend to be directed.
If you determinism is correct (in the fatalistic sense you seem to have displayed) then it makes no difference what you do as it’s already decided upon (effectively it’s already ‘happened’). On the other hand, if you are actually wrong about determinism, yet believe you have no ‘choice’ then you’re living a delusional life under the false belief that you have no real say in anything that happens to you.
The fatalistic attitude is a useful one for when we’re overwhelmed in life. It’s always easier to blame the world than consider that our actions (which could’ve been made differently) may be the very reason we’re in the current quagmire we happen to find ourselves - even then the common response is to lay the fault at someone’s door if ‘fate’ is a no goer!
As we’re effectively limited creatures in terms of our understanding of the environment we find ourselves in there is a pretty good argument to be made for EVERY position in terms of our attitude towards our effectiveness. Sometimes it pays to be fatalistic, and others it pays to assume we much more capable than we truly are in terms of shaping our paths.
Adhering to either without question for prolonged periods of time reduces our capacity to explore and test ourselves - maybe that too is ‘better’ sometimes in certain circumstances. The crux is the ethic. Your ethic orientation is ‘determined’ by your attitude toward self-reliance and your sense of ‘free-will’. Even Dennett wouldn’t suggest that his sense of ‘hard determinism’ means he lacks responsibility in any ethical sense.
That is nothing extraordinary given that most scientists wouldn’t claim that a deterministic world means we can, or should, act as if we have no choice. That is just one kind of compatibilist position that has, as far as I can see, very dubious reasoning.
The position I put forward is merely that if it is our choice then choosing not to choose - under a false assumption - is pretty silly even though some could argue that it is more comforting (which I would argue against quite strongly).
But experimenting with your life is a bad idea, causing problems for you and other people. You should investigate the knowledge / logic inherent in common discourse, to find out what your actual practical position is. And then from there you can bargain towards a slightly different position. And basically it is impossible to develop a discourse based on hard determinism. You can only hope to cheat and lie your way to an idea where the role of emotions in people's lives is strongly reduced.
That was the reason I stated that such terms need to be put forward with great care.
His position is based on determinism evolutionary processes not some inherent ‘choice’. The issue people have is they believe they could’ve done otherwise where Dennett would say they couldn’t. In that sense he is a hard-determinist and I don’t much care if he chooses to label himself otherwise.
Nevertheless from an ethical position he acts as if he has ‘free will’ in the sense that he could’ve done otherwise even though he doesn’t conclude that he could have. Dennett doesn’t believe the physical laws of nature could’ve been different - quantum weirdness is his ‘get out of jail free’ card though.
I think this is a pretty decent summation of his thoughts regarding his view of ‘free will’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpgCYPqPpnQ
I think I recall watching a lecture where he made a distinction between ‘choice’ and ‘free will’. Stating that we don’t have ‘free will’ (in the sense highlighted above) but we still have ‘choice’ - overtime I believe he switched to saying the ‘choice’ was a kind of ‘free will’.
Again, ethically it is perfectly sane to assume free will as a given - as in ‘I could’ve done otherwise’. To you couldn’t have done otherwise is not the same thing as believing (in a scientifically causal sense) that you had no choice in the matter.
Then there is the case of the phenomenological view of ‘free will’. Posing the question of what determines our course through time frames the idea of ‘free will’ with a particular gravitas - whether it warrants any reasonable degree of our attention is neither here nor there as we’re curious idiots so that it isn’t really surprising that we cling to questions that invest or divest us of a sense of worth/purpose (in terms of the possession of our actions and sense of authorship in general).
Maybe I misunderstood Dennett? If so please correct.
Why?
Why hasn't the existence/nonexistence of free will been proven? This is a question I've asked many times and no one till date has fielded a satisfactory answer. Care to have a go at it?
The problem, as I see it, is that if there's nothing in the way we operate (specifically the way we make choices) that can aid us in knowing whether we have free will or not then it implies that our behavior is compatible with both the existence and the nonexistence of free will. Isn't that why we don't know the truth about free will? If that's the case then how did you come to believe in hard determinism? It seems to be an open question, perhaps even undecidable.
That suggests that that notion of “free will” is not a useful one, and probably not what ordinary people mean, what the term was coined to refer to. Look instead to paradigmatic cases where ordinary people say something was or wasn’t done of someone’s free will, and figure out what’s different between those cases. I guarantee it’s not whether or not the universe was deterministic, and consequently ordinary people don’t really mean “free from determinism” when they say “free will” — and any sense of “free will” that is taken to mean that surely is irrelevant to actual human life.
That makes you a compatibilist. Can you tell me how that's possible?
I think I just did. If “free will” doesn’t mean “free from determinism”, then determinism can be true and people can still have free will. Basically, the question of whether or not we are determined is a different question from whether or not we have free will, so their answers don’t have to correlate any specific way.
How?
Determinism: everything, including our decisions, is an effect of prior states.
Free will: Our decisions are not effects of prior states.
Because as I see it. in determinism everything is factual. All the causes, all the effects, they are all factual matters.
While with incompatibilist free will, then you have the agency of the choice as inherently subjective, validating the idea of emotions, and the concept of subjective opinion.
And just saying you support emotions and subjective opinion is not sufficient. You must show that the logic of determinism supports the idea of emotions, and the concept of subjective opinion.
Isn't the whole point about what defines the subject in the first place, mind or matter? Why should intrinsic properties of matter constituting a self be something alien to said self? I do not get it.
Don't think about it so much? Just a, um, thought.
Then you will want to cram opinion into the material and fact category. Then facts=opinions.
Sure. But there is some epistemology also.
See http://marxistphilosophy.org/stalin1938.pdf
You have free will to believe there is free will. This is determinism.
None of anyone's business I suppose but why does it trouble you? Things are perhaps not going your way? And if they were or perhaps you were determined to make different choices and soon become much better off and happier? Determinism would be great, would it not? Are you thinking something along the lines of I'm predetermined to not succeed as opposed to not being able to fail for long with enough effort? Couldn't hurt.
Probably a shortsighted analysis but sounds like a concept that can easily be over thought. If I drink and drive and start to really feel out of it far from home, I can't just "will" myself sober enough to make it home safely now can I? So, I am predetermined to instead pull over and perhaps call a friend or take a nap. What you have to answer to yourself is, if everything happens for a reason, what I assume the concept of determinism is. In a world largely governed by scientific and natural law, and non human beings governed largely by instinct, why does a being capable of creating, understanding, and then raising the question about the concept need to feel bound by it? Were you before? Why are you now?
I’m not sure any ethical system requires that we always act in correlation with our beliefs. I actually started a somewhat similar thread, but it seems to have gone nowhere.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8353/on-the-relationship-between-belief-and-action
If you’re interested.
What's the proof that convinced you?
What's your definition of free will?
The part in bold? Say what?
One's beliefs obviously have practical implications and no doubt yours are as you say; the same belief in another might cause them to make no effort to be moral or self-improve. So it goes. But it is interesting that positive or negative, these effects are effects of the belief, whether it is true or false.
And your anger is part of the deterministic effects of their actions. People react to other people's actions deterministically. How you reacted was predetermined, and is possible that has a deterministic effect on their behavior in the future.
If you decide to not be angry anymore at how people treat you, then you are inviting more mistreatment. Anger is a good thing that informs other's that you've been mistreated at their hands.
You seem to be asserting that everyone else's actions are predetermined, but yours aren't - as if others don't have free will, but you still do.
If others can't help doing what they did, then could you not help becoming angry?
What does it even mean to say that someone can't help doing what they did? It seems to imply that people are separate from the things that they do.
You starting this thread and asking these questions was predetermined from the state of your ignorance and your need for clarification.
We all have reasons for our actions. Once you reach a conclusion, you find that your reasons determined your conclusion.
Quoting I like sushi
The process of
You should read (or watch. I forget) "A Sound of Thunder" by someone I also forget.
Usually, maybe, but I think it depends on which effect we're talking about.
Say what is happening is a crime. The observer isn't a participant in the crime, but can later point out the criminal in a line-up that ends up putting them in prison. That's a lot of causal influence just based on being an observer. Standing quietly out of the way is often how spies and nosey people get their information to sell or gossip.
Here I see a problem. You seem to be conflating things that have no causal power with things that have causal power and yet don't produce an effect. In modern scientific terms, according to noAxioms, the former lie outside a given lightcone and the latter within.
So hard determinism and everyday life..hmm...perhaps these traits or perspectives are useful.
1). Organisation: organising, categorizing and planning are all to enhance control and order. But they are time consuming. Seeing as you believe in not having control or free will, it would make sense to spend less time doing these activities and more time addressing issues and errands immediately and spontaneously when they arise.
2) Anticipate the future less; A lot of people get anxiety and stress over possibilities, simulating different outcomes before they happen, trying to steer their life around potential obstacles on the horizon and looking ahead. As a hard determinist be present. What is happening now is where you are and what you are doing. It should be where your focus of attention is. The future will happen only exactly one way for you.
3). Learn from the past. The past has happened. It is determined. Learn from the power of hindsight. In a hard deterministic world there is qualitatively little difference in hindsight as there is in foresight. Use the past to navigate what is to come as it likely indicates the direction you are going in terms of successes, goals, relationships etc.
4). Study "Time". If the course of time is totally pre-written then possibilities and probability are illusions masking what is definitely and always was going to be. How then does the present differ from the past and future? What are the determined 'rules' of development for this pre written story? What laws have stayed consistent to allow for complex change and evolution when the mechanism is finite and determined. In essence what determined substance or quality "writes" for everything that seems more uncertain but is not and how can you incorporate these rules into your life.
5). Establish your purpose. You were always planned. Always going to happen. And then influence the universe and environment around you before you die (also planned). Contemplate not how to achieve your purpose (you already are in the process) but rather define it. What exactly is it and why is it already happening and how is it likely to progress?
6). Read about the "Tao". Taoist philosophy delves into what can only be poorly described as a force or flow of existence. It is indescribable by human means but anyways. ...familiarise with this flow as you cannot change the currents or fight them but only integrate. How do you make your life seamless with the changing happenstance around you. Be aware of the state of non-resistance to your planned route.
7). Life happens to you not through you. You dont impact the environment it impacts you. That isnt to say be reckless or irresponsible but rather ...resist reacting badly to negative situations as they are necessary to progress. They were going to happen for 13.8 billion years so why bother get emotional about it.
I did this for fun but hope its useful
It's not as simple as that. Experimental philosophers and social psychologists have done quite a bit of research over the last couple of decades to try to find out what it is that folk actually believe about free will. It's a mixed bag: neither consistently compatibilist, nor consistently incompatibilist, but some of both.
For me, the primary proof is the materialist view, that at the bottom of things are inanimate subatomic particles going about their business, strictly adhering to laws of physics, determining where each particle goes from moment to moment. Quantum physics, at best, introduces randomness into the situation, but not free-will control of the particles movements. Higher level determinist arguments utilizing psychology or brain science do not conflict with subatomic view, and do themselves point independently to hard determinism, but its the materialist view upon which I rest my hat.
So there isn't a problem, yet you applaud that Brook Norton is struggling with a problem that you say doesn't exist?
Quoting prothero
It seems to me that accepting some philosophy is simply accepting the facts of that philosophy, free-will or not.
Hard determinism is simply a way of thinking that you can only be you and you can only behave like you would behave in any given situation given the same information. It is the reflection on what how you behaved, as if you could have behaved differently, that complicates things.
Are you familiar with the concept of [I]belief in belief[/I]?
If this was any other topic, I'd say you asking the question is a performative contradiction, and that it implies you don't actually believe in hard determinism. Perhaps you believe that you believe, but the belief doesn't actually inform your view of the world.
Of course this topic is tricky, because the distinction is between your view of the world and your view of yourself. I suspect you have no problem viewing the world, that is everything external to you, as deterministic. But viewing yourself, the observer, as deterministic seems to be a contradiction. If you are deterministic, then "you" don't exist.
You could consider that, as an observer, you are the cause of there being a world you see in the first place, and therefore whatever applies to your world need not apply to you. Though the question would be whether that is still hard determinism.
https://aeon.co/essays/can-retrocausality-solve-the-puzzle-of-action-at-a-distance
Compatibilism and related approaches (e.g. some strains of libertarianism) deal with these questions as axiological issues that are largely decoupled from physics. I know that you said that you reject compatibilism, but that is owing to your peculiar definition of free will that reduces it to physics. We do not need to get sidetracked by terminological disputes. If you want answers to the questions that you ask in the OP, then don't change the subject - think about those questions. What do they have to do with physics? On the face of it - nothing. You jump from one to the other too hastily; I don't think you quite thought it through.
Please note, I'm brand new here, having joined just a few minutes ago, so please forgive any formatting gaffs.
Thank you.
As for your difficulty living as a hard determinist, keep in mind that any problem you may have is/was inevitable, and there is no such thing as choosing to make it better. That said, let me offer a few insights that may register and help out.
Although there's no such thing as free will, from what I've seen of like-minded folk we all eventually come to live with the illusion and act accordingly. We can't do otherwise. As a hard determinist myself, long ago I was persuaded to give up trying to focus on the inevitability of my actions and those of others. It led nowhere and was obviously a fruitless pursuit. So while intellectually aware that I never choose to do anything, I put this realization in the closet (I do take it out when discussing free will) and live the illusion---of course I have no choice in the matter. And living the illusion means accepting the injustice of holding people personally responsible for some of the hurtful and harmful things they do. Of course this also makes praise a pretty hollow concept as well, but that's simply the other side of the coin. What does save a person living such a two-faced existence is the surprise of the unexpected. None of us knows what's around the corner. So with this plus an acceptance of the illusion---putting the truth of determinism in the closet---life ain't all that bad.
I praise and blame just like a dyed-in-the-wool free willer, I can't do any differently.