Needed or Enough?

Clark,

Nowhere in this post did I reference libertarian accounts of free will. I’m not sure how saying that agency plays in a role in human affairs points to any particular rendition of what agency is. The existence of agency, however, is certainly an essential aspect of LDS thought. And I just don’t see agency in chemical reactions.

I definitely agree that the reality of the spirit is evidence that we are more than the chemistry of our brain. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind)

Since, according to standard functionalist theories, mental states are the corresponding functional role, mental states can be sufficiently explained without taking into account the underlying physical medium (e.g. the brain, neurons, etc.) that realizes such states; one need only take into account the higher-level functions in the cognitive system. Since mental states are not limited to a particular medium, they can be realized in multiple ways, including, theoretically, within non-biological systems, such as computers. In other words, a silicon-based machine could, in principle, have the same sort of mental life that a human being has, provided that its cognitive system realized the proper functional roles. Thus, mental states are individuated much like a valve; a valve can be made of plastic or metal or whatever material, as long as it performs the proper function (say, controlling the flow of liquid through a tube by blocking and unblocking its pathway).

Dave,

I agree absolutely. I suspect we probably have a similar academic background. Have you studied with Slife, Gantt, and Williams?

He is presently my honors thesis advisor. Awesome!

Clark,

Jeff, note I didn’t say you were talking about Libertarianism. But if one says that agency entails that materialism isn’t enough then that sort of follows necessarily.

Jut because you deny materialism doesn’t mean that you have to embrace Libertarianism and its attendant conception of agency as fundamentally ungrounded and “random”. The mechanical determinism usually implied by materialism and the ungrounded freedom of Libertarianism aren’t the only two options on the table.

The argument that you can’t see agency in chemical reactions is basically a Libertarian argument.

True enough. But that doesn’t mean that it is only a Libertarian argument.

Those who accept normal emergence would have no trouble seeing agency as an emergent phenomena from the brain.

I’m sure they wouldn’t. However, they would nonetheless still have tremendous difficulty making a viable case for agency if they endorse emergentism.

Ultimately, I find emergence arguments entirely unconvincing. They try to conjure away a serious conceptual problem by simply invoking a hefty word. I understand how new biological phenomena can emerge from other biological phenomena in such a way that the new phenomena can’t be adequately reduced back to the originary ones (there is evidence for these sorts of things). Likewise, I can understand how new social/psychological phenomena can emerge from other social/psychological phenomena in such a way that they cannot be adequately reduced back to the original sources (there is, here too, evidence for these sorts of things). However, I have yet to encounter a convincing argument for how any social/psychological phenomenon could emerge from any biological context. In the end, the whole thing strikes me as a version of a “creation from nothingness” appeal. The biological and the social are—at least in the traditional Cartesian view upon which emergentism hinges—two distinct ontological realms and you can’t adequately account for how something like agency arises out of (but is not reducible to) biology simply by invoking an abracadabra word like “emergence”. The word is just not weighty enough to support the claim that something that is fundamentally meaningful, moral, social, and contextual like human agency arises out of something mechanical (and, therefore, a-meaningful, a-contextual, a-moral, and a-social) like neuronal activity. It just manages to present the illusion of an explanation without actually bothering to provide the reality of an explanation.

Ed, that’s fine. Although I think that’s basically an appeal to intuitions. And not everyone shares your intuitions, although they are quite common. (More interestingly, the intuitions appear to be context-dependent which is quite interesting—one of the more interesting results out of experimental philosophy)

For the record, I’m a property dualist for largely the same reasons you outline. However I just think that in making these sorts of discussions, we just have to be careful not to take our intuitions for granted, i.e., the sort of talk where one position is obvious.

I think that people within the LDS tradition can have differing intuitions on these issues. Further I’m rather distrustful of intuitions as providing any support for a position. They just say what our position is and not why we hold it. I think that LDS theology is open to many different readings here and I don’t want people to say LDS theology entails a particular ground when it’s really LDS theology plus a bunch of unstated intuitions some philosophers take for granted.

Clark,

Please explain why you see me as making an appeal to intuitions. I don’t see where anything I said was based on intuition. I made two points:

1. Materialist determinism and Libertarianism aren’t the only two positions available on the agency question, so just because Jeff rejected the one that doesn’t mean that he is endorsing or assuming the other.

2. Appeals to emergence to account for agency typically assume that the biological and the social/psychological are two distinct ontological realms, and, insofar as they do so, anyone making such an appeal is going to have difficulty accounting for how exactly a phenomenon proper to one realm arises out of the other. Until such an account is made (and I have yet to see one), there are reasons to be suspicious of appeals to emergence as an account of agency.

I don’t see how any of that is based on an appeal to intuition . . . except perhaps the intuition that rational argument is relevant here.

Now, having said that, I also must say that I agree that we shouldn’t just assume our position is the correct and obvious one and proceed without articulating what our position is and why we hold it. However, again, I’m not sure I so much stated a position as I analyzed an argument (or, at least, a term that often stands in for an argument) and presented the reasons why I find it unconvincing. I think that just based on my written comments here that anyone would have a pretty tough time spelling out what exactly my position on the agency question is.

By the way, when you wrote:

“Further I’m rather distrustful of intuitions as providing any support for a position.”

Why? Is it intuitively obvious that we should be distrustful of intuitions? 🙂

Okay, I’m just joking around now. I, too, don’t think that intuition provides much in the way of support for a position—though it may have a great deal to do with arriving at the position in the first place.

I’m not sure what text/codes you tried, but when I went to edit your comment, your pointy brackets:

<>

were coded like this:

&lt;&gt;

which means “less-than symbol” and “greater-than symbol.” Is that what you originally typed? If not, what code did you type when you tried to quote another comment?

Ed, I certainly don’t think the choices in the free will debate are either materialistic determinism or libertarianism. (Especially since I hold to neither of those positions) Sorry if it appeared I was pushing such a view. I do think that the kind of position being pushed by the original poster entailed libertarianism. But heaven knows I might be wrong in that. My whole point is that there are many philosophies under the sun so we should be careful about making assumptions that are “obvious” for reading LDS theology.

Regarding emergence, I think you are confusing regular emergence (i.e. water out of hydrogen, oxygen and the laws of physics) with what is sometimes called ontological emergence or (by Searle) radical emergence. Certainly this latter kind of emergence pops up in the free will literature. O’Conner pushes for a version of it as does Clarke. In an LDS context Blake Ostler has been a big proponent although his version is wrapped up in his process theology and thus differs from the other two who are more traditional analytic philosophers.

For the record I find ontological emergence complete bunk.

However when I talk emergence I’m always careful to distinguish the two kinds.

It doesn’t necessarily, although it does point to that. Consider the main positions in the free will debate. Most are materialistic. There is then event libertarianism (i.e. Kane’s position) but that is compatible with biochemical interactions. (Since it just requires a random moment) So if we are talking about how agency demands something beyond physics then that leaves agent libertarianism in terms of the positions. I’m just not aware of any other positions although perhaps in theory there could be some.

I think libertarianism requires that while there are explanations they are underdetermined. (The determinism requirement of libertarianism) So Leibniz’ law fails. The ungrounding is basically the same thing. There is no necessary causes.

I admit that I don’t like the “either/or” nature of this debate, mainly because it focuses on two sides of a debate which are highly dogmatic and unverifiable.

Determinism essentially hinges upon the necessarily unprovable viewpoint that every event can be accounted for as a result of some other event. The logical mind reels at any attempt to explain every occurrence on the Earth as a result of some sort of “push”, mainly because it’s such a phenomenally-unprovable philosophy, even if we don’t take into account things like quantum theory, which, even in our limited understanding of the topic, throws a huge monkey wrench into the philosophy of determinism. Societal determinism, the likes of which are proposed by folk like Jared Diamond, is a little easier to rationalize, as it depends more on “reasons” for things and studies of which situations allow people to thrive without necessarily knocking at agency.

The competing philosophy, proponed by folk like Dr. Gannt and our friend Jeff T. (Dr. Gannt by proxy), is leagues better in one way: it moves the argument a step away from concrete terms and definitions and toward something that we can relate to. Words like “antecedent”, “meaningful”, “context” and “necessary” serve as weaker forms of secular or determinist words like “cause” or “effect”.

This isn’t necessarily wrong: we don’t really have the vocabulary to discuss the nth-level inscrutably-complex structure of this universe (a universe which has more depth and complexity than we could ever imagine or understand). Thus it’s beneficial not to throw away human agency altogether. I prefer to take the “wishy-washy” (I prefer to say “careful”) way out and worry less about figuring out “why things happen” and more time worrying about what I’m going to have for lunch.

Still, the fact that this midrange sort of philosophy (one which states that things happen for reasons but not causes and that people do things because they want to but that their actions are also informed by other important “antecedents”) isn’t treated carefully but is thrown about so dogmatically by its proponents as another “only possible explanation” almost makes me want to throw it out altogether as well. After all, the assumption being made by these people is that real order and meaning cannot come from chaos, or, more precisely, that human disorder (and its accompanying emotions and agencies, all of which culminate nicely in everybody typing on keyboards) cannot come from orderly building blocks.

It’s not really that any of these philosophies are wrong, per se (though I tend to lean away from strict determinism because my perception that I really do make choices is so vivid). It’s just that they’re stated so confidently by people as the only explanations, when in reality they’re just other possible explanations.

I’ve meandered a bit, so here’s my thesis: When we all find out that strange loops and incompletedness theorem accounts for human consciousness without marginalizing agency, you’re all going to be sorry :).

Hmm. . . Clark, I don’t necessarily disagree with any specific of your comments, but when I say that I don’t think they’re necessarily valid I’m using the same degree of judgment I use with the philosophy taken up by this site.

My point is that we’re so limited we can’t hope to prove what must “necessarily” follow from something else. For example, it’s difficult for us to dictate under which terms omniscience or omnipotence can be formed (getting back to your God statement), as we’re not omniscient and by our limited abilities to perceive and measure essentially only have a tiny subsect of “reality” to experiment on for our philosophical opinions (assuming, of course, that we ever see things the way they really happen).

From a more scientific perspective, as a part of any system it’s impossible for us to understand or know about a larger system. Thus the methods we use to understand the universe and the data we gain from said methods must needs be part of our limited system and, as a rule, incomplete.

The scientist, bless her heart, does the best she can to come up with a working model of how everything works based on study and the scientific method. The philosopher does the same, studying and adapting new information to fit into their current view of things (bless the philosopher’s heart also). But it’s impossible and we’re all so very cute for trying (especially the scientist, who, in my example, is female. And I’ve just turned the feminism inherent in not using “he” in the example on its head by making her the cute one).

My point is that it’s just as unprovable that if “there is four dimensionalism then there is determinism” as it is to say that a brain made out of matter cannot make a choice. (Remember, read up on Strange Loops.)

Four-dimensionalism (sometimes also called Eternalism) is the metaphysical claim that the future is as real as the present and past. In General Relativity the math and theory tend to entail what is called a block universe. i.e. you treat time akin to space and the whole thing exists at once. There are numerous arguments pro and con about this. Presentism is the claim that only the present exists. The problem is that in GR there isn’t an absolute present. The present for you is different from the present for me. This is one reason why people tend to see GR as entailing a block universe. But there are counter-arguments and so forth.

Libertarian Free will requires Presentism since otherwise there is a truth of the matter about all future events and you can’t do otherwise than you do. (i.e. at some time t prior to the time of your choice it is already true what you will chose) So you’ll note that in Blake Ostler’s book he has a short section on this arguing that GR isn’t real but just apparent.

Clark, you understand that technically we’re all brains in jars or computer simulations or something so this whole conversation is vain :).

“But within any given universe the future is determined.”

At last, something we can agree on :). (My first smiling emoticon was more playful and this one is a little more ironic. It’s all the same ASCII but there’s a subtle difference.) But “determined” is a word we’re likely to misinterpret as people who move vocationally through 3 dimensions and passively through a fourth – meaning time, of course.

As time is technically an illusion and the universe is just one vast “thing”, I suppose the future’s been determined from the standpoint that at some level time probably exists as some sort of static construct. Thankfully this doesn’t really end debates on free will or God – the fact that only one thing can happen at a time in a given universe is pretty obvious and mostly irrelevant for the practical context most debate relates to.

Well, time isn’t so much an illusion as something that we perceive in a certain way because of our limited nature to perceive. The way we view time effects our sense of cause and effect, so we naturally make certain assumptions about how it works. Of course it’s completely impossible to prove that time and space are some sort of combined, solid construct, but I find the idea intriguing.