You objected to what I had said before with the following words: This statement makes no sense to me! According to logical positivism, logical necessity is the only necessity there is regarding statements about nature since empirical science consists only ofpatterns in experience and the deductive (logically necessary (analytic aprior) relations that follow from them. The logical positivists/empiricists believe that is the only necessity pertaining to statements in science (since they (Hume/Leibnitz/but not Kant) deny synthetic apriori judgments.) Then you go on to say that science cannot tell us whether events happen necessarily. I'll take that as a rehash of the Empiricist/Logical Positivist position that there can be no synthetic aprior judgments . You can't have your cake and eat it too. Knowlege is possible in science! [Incidentally, I do believe as Kant did that synthetic apriori knowledge is possible. I would replace the transcendentally ideals of space and time (which Kant got wrong since space is not Euclidean), with an inductive partial ordering. But that's a different fish to fry.]
My reply: I think that there are a couple of reasons why I seem to you to be trying to have my cake and eat it too. The first is because I found your own position inconsistent and was arguing against both sides of that apparent inconsistency. The second is because my own position doesn't fit neatly into your schema.
Regarding the first. You seem either to deny or to be unsure of whether we can know causes occurring in nature. Well that seems to me to imply that we cannot know whether and which necessities might obtain in nature. For how can there be necessity in nature without causality? And how, therefore, can there be knowledge of the former without knowledge of the latter?
On the basis of your caution about ascribing causes in nature, I (wrongly) took you as a logical positivist. So I meant in my reply to point out what follows if logical positivism is true. I did not do so because I adhere to that position, but because I mistakenly interpreted you as doing so. So when I seemed to you to be adopting the position of a logical positiviist I was in fact I arguing reductio ad absurdam against what I took to be your own stance.
That said, I want to underscore my point about the connection between knowledge of causality in nature and knowledge of necessity in nature. The former is a necessary concition of the latter. So if you deny the former, you must deny the latter. In which case, you would not have a basis for asserting that the universe is deterministic, as determinism involves necessity, and knowing that we are determined rather than free requires the ability to know necessities occur in nature, which in turn requires that we be able to recognize causes oiperating in nature.
Moving on, I have the following nice quote from you:
Anyway, I agree that determinism carries with it the element of necessity. The necessity follows from the mathematical duality of reachability-observability. This is mathematics so it is logical.
Here among other places, you seem to be talking more like a logical positivist: but it would be more accurate for me to say that you are finding the sort of necessity that pertains to mathetmatics and then ascribing it to nature.
You continue:
I agree that there is no third alternative at any given time between “determined” or “stochastic.”
My reply: I disagree, but I think I know where you're coming from--and I think you know where I'm coming from. You are approaching the question from the perspective of physics, I am approaching it from the perspevtive of common sense. I don't think that these two perspectives contradict each other, but they do focus differently on their respective subject matter(s). Consider how when one is not doing physics, one thinks of how animals (and maybe plants--and maybe non-living things) act for goals. They may or may not achieve these goals. Their operations are not randomt according to the everyday understandng of that term. Lions don't play the violin: they hunt prey. Humans don't try to mate with whales (er... I suppose if you may want to point out that this is at least possible: granted) they do, however, talk quite a bit. The outcomes of the activities of these animals are not entirely ra ndom, nor are they determined. The lion may not succeed in hunting, the human may fail to communicate.
But as soon as we try to look at these same activitieis solely in terms of what we can measure, as soon as we do so with the goal of describing their behavior using mathematical expressions... as soon as we do this, we find that all mention of goal-directed activity disappears. If you were to observe the event of one human talking to another and describe it solely in terms of what is measurable, you would leave out of your description any recognition that a goal-directed behavior is going on. Imagine an extra terrestrial who visits earth. She thinks and communicates in a way that is so different from ours that it doesn't occur to her that the human behavior she is observing is communication. Suppose she is a natural scientist from the galaxy Zorg (made that one up). She will collect all sorts of data about humans, but none of that data will suggest to hear (or to any rational being not acquatined with human con municative activity) that communication is going on.
Note also that this extra-terrestrial might come up with formulae describing what she has observed. Her descriiptions would note two sorts of correlations between human behaviors. Some would seem utterly consistent. She would describe these in equations that would imply a necessary relationship between different terms. Others would seem utterly random, and others still would seem highly probable. But being the natural science she is, she would look for deeper level laws (which would be deterministic) to explain the non-determined events.
In any case, she would totally miss the fact that the behaviors she is observing are goal-directed. That is, she would miss this fact unless she noted some similarity between the observed behavior and her own. But I've stipulated that she won't do this.
So someone wearing the hat of a natural scientist looking for laws of nature necessarily overlooks goal directed behavior. That is not because goal-directed behavior does not exist. It is because this sort of scientist relies upon mathematics as a lens, and lenses bring some things into focus by leaving other things out of consideration.
Note also that it is likely that the extra-terrestrial could mistakenly attribute necessity where it does not occur. In such a case, she would not be observing necessity: she would be observing causal relations. But in formulating these relations in the language of mathematics, she would reading mathematical necessity into her object of study.
Let me kick that point up a notch. I propose that any neessity noted by the E.T. natural scientist is read into the subject matter rather than observed. We observe causlity. We describe it (when we have our natural scientist hats on) in the language of math. And since mathematical truths are necessary truths, we read those truths into nature.
I am not proposing that natural scinece is fictional. Rather, I am trying to argue that it relies upon an analogy between math and nature. To forget that this is merely an analogy is to mistake the lens for the thing behind the lense. It is to read nature as geometry in motion. It is, I think, a mistake.
Note that there is no need to get into advanced math or science to recognize this difference between common sense and physics. In fact, to do so would be counter-productive. For the perspective shift is so baic, that to appeal to advanced mathematical or scientific notioins would be to adopt the assumption that natural science can describe everything about nature using the language of mathematics and then discover that one was correct. That would be a circular argument.
Later you say
String theories are only speculative because they have, so far, made no predictions. Rather they are coherence driven - in that they are able to unify the 4 forces of nature. Gravity fits "naturally' into the formulation because general relativity and quantum mechanics are unified. The theories are mathematically "beautiful." Right now (except for Hawking's 11-D Quantum gravity) they are the only show in town!
All I can say is that a little bit of history of science would be good medicine here. Newtonian physics was once the only game in town... Furthermore, we shouldn't engage in philosophical speculation on the basis of a theory that is presently untestable. String theory, when expressed in a testable fashion, may be quite different from what you expect. When and if it is confirmed, it may be even more different.
The following passage from your letter is to me a clear example of taking the necessity that pertains to math and imposing it on nature:
However, I started from the EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMMODEST position - that a proved theorem in dynamical control system theory could be extended generally. The analytic conclusion of that extension was that all mathematical representations of the universe as a dynamic system through which we obtain real results could be axiomatically based upon the premise that the universe (as a dynamic system) is deteministic.
Last point: if the E.T. is unable to recognize goal-directed behavior using only the purely quantitative methods of physics, then physics is limited in what it can discuss. If she reported back to Zorg saying, there is no goal-directed behavior on planet 3 (i.e., earth), she would be mistaking the limitations of her methodology for the limitations of reality.
Similarly, physics done by scientists on earth cannot recognize goal-directed behavior. One who thinks that reality consists only of what physics can describe in matematical formula must deny the existence of goal directed behavior. It follows that one who thinks physics is a comprehensive discipline must deny the very existence of the human will (regardless of whether or not it is free). Not only is free will an illusion, but will itself is as well (I consider the last point a reductio ad absurdam).
I have to sign off soon, but I wanted to note that while I have not addressed your argument point by point, I think that the general principle that one cannot argue from the nature of mathematical necessity to necessity in nature is applicable to what you wrote.
In any case, I want to reassert that it's pretty much a mainstream position that quantum theory shows that randomness exists in nature at the most basic level (and thus it is possible that humans are free). Since I cannot understand the details of this science, I rely upon Stephen M. Barr, a professor of physics at the University of Delaware (see his homepage at http://www.physics.udel.edu/contact/people/barr.php), as a source of information about what is going on in this discipline. He wrote the following book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (see http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Physics-Ancient-Faith-Stephen/dp/0268034710), which argues, among other thi ngs, for indeterminacy at the most basic physical level. By the way, I would loan my copy of this book to you in a heartbeat if you are interested in reading it.
Here is some information about Barr's qualifications that I borrowed from his homepage.
"He got his graduate degrees from Princeton. The special emphasis of his research is on theoretical particle physics with special emphasis on grand unified theories, theories of CP violation, the problem of the origin of the quark and lepton, theories with extra space-time dimensions (such as Kaluza-Klein and superstring theories) and the the interface between particle physics and cosmology. He has made significant contributions in all these areas, perhaps the most notable being the development of classes of models that solve the important “strong CP problem” (the problem of why the strong interactions unlike the weak are symmetric under CP), the development of the idea that the pattern of quark and lepton masses is due to effects at the unification scale, the co-discovery of the important “flipped SU(5)” grand unification scheme, work on theories of baryogenesis (the origin of matter at the time of the big bang), the discovery of large contributions to the electric and magnetic dipole moments of elementary particles in theories with an extended Higgs structure, contributions to the development of realistic SO(10) grand unified models, and a mechanism for explaining the large mixing observed in atmospheric data between muon and tau neutrinos."
Of course, I haven't a CLUE as to what all of the above means, but it sure does sound like he must know a thing or two about the issue.
Almost finally: you asked me to restate my my original attempt at a rebuttal to your own argument against freedom of the will so that you might look at it again (and address it). Well, I have posted it below in purple. Here's a short summary (but please read the whole purple section). In the response below, I argue that the denial of free will entails the denial of rationality, which includes all of mathematical reasoning. If this argument is correct, then I have undercut any appeal to math or science as a basis for denying free will. After that I'll add a quick sketch of another argument about necessity, rationality and freedom of the will../best wishes/Leo
>>>Here begins my earlier response:
I will argue against your conclusion with a math argument requiring knowledge of only basic arithmetic. I argue that to deny that we have free will on the basis of physical determinism is to imply that we are not rational, i.e., that we are not capable of knowing universal and necessary truths as such. But such an implication undermines the very math and science David uses to establish the thesis that we are determined. Hence David, your argument, when brought to its conclusion, is self-contradictory. Why? because if every event (including every time we think) is determined by a previous event, then it seems that our thinking that we really know that 2+2=4 is determined by previous event(s) as well. But if we are forced into thinking that the above equation (which is a stand-in for all claims to universal knowledge) is true, then it is also conceiva ble that we could be forced into thinking that 2+2=5: all this would require is that the right antecedent event occur to make us think we know that 2+2=5 is a mathematical truth. There is nothing extraordinary about this last claim: it would be something akin to an hallucination. So, given the determinist hypothesis, we can, under the right circumstances, be forced into thinking that we see the truth of a claim that, as a matter of fact, presently seems absurd to us. Furthermore, given the determinist hypothesis, the two cases (i.e., that of thinking we know that 2+2=4 and that of thinking that we know that 2+2=5) have no discernable differences, at least as far as our experience of grasping what is supposedly self-evident. In other words, given the determinist hypothesis, we can't we really know anything--including the basic claims of arithmetic, without which science cannot even begin. Because we can be F ORCED into THINKING that we SEE the truth of claims that might not in fact true. Given the determinist hypothesis, math loses its status as the source of necessary truths. Science becomes relativized, no longer a privileged form of rationality. In fact, rationality goes down the toilet.So if David's argument is premised upon math and science, then his conclusion attacks his premises--surely a house built on sand. Addendum: I propose that the reason why we should reject determinsm--at least "physical event" determinism, is because we CAN in fact see that the truth that 2+2=4 is a necessary truth. But in such case, knowing this truth is not predtermined by a prior event. How then do we know this necessary truth? I submit that in knowing that this and other truths are necessary ones, we are connecting to a source that transcends the flux (and necessity) pertaining to physcial events. Our ability to know trut hs that transcend immediate physical limitations is, I propose, the source of our freedom. As Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
Lastly, here's a sketch of an argument that runs somewhat parallel to the arguments I've already proposed. The fact that 2+3=5 is not an event: nor is any other abstract mathematical or logical truth. It seems, furthermore, that our knowing that such truths are necessary truths is based upon something intrinsic to the truths themselves. But in this case, our knowledge of necessity is caused by something other than an event. Hence the acting of knowing that 2+3=5 is an event that is caused by something other than an event. This assertion breaks down the claim that all events are themselves caused by other events. It thus breaks down the claim that all events (especially human operations) are one's that are necessitated by previous physical events.
hope you enjoyed.
peace,
Leo White
My reply: I think that there are a couple of reasons why I seem to you to be trying to have my cake and eat it too. The first is because I found your own position inconsistent and was arguing against both sides of that apparent inconsistency. The second is because my own position doesn't fit neatly into your schema.
Regarding the first. You seem either to deny or to be unsure of whether we can know causes occurring in nature. Well that seems to me to imply that we cannot know whether and which necessities might obtain in nature. For how can there be necessity in nature without causality? And how, therefore, can there be knowledge of the former without knowledge of the latter?
On the basis of your caution about ascribing causes in nature, I (wrongly) took you as a logical positivist. So I meant in my reply to point out what follows if logical positivism is true. I did not do so because I adhere to that position, but because I mistakenly interpreted you as doing so. So when I seemed to you to be adopting the position of a logical positiviist I was in fact I arguing reductio ad absurdam against what I took to be your own stance.
That said, I want to underscore my point about the connection between knowledge of causality in nature and knowledge of necessity in nature. The former is a necessary concition of the latter. So if you deny the former, you must deny the latter. In which case, you would not have a basis for asserting that the universe is deterministic, as determinism involves necessity, and knowing that we are determined rather than free requires the ability to know necessities occur in nature, which in turn requires that we be able to recognize causes oiperating in nature.
Moving on, I have the following nice quote from you:
Anyway, I agree that determinism carries with it the element of necessity. The necessity follows from the mathematical duality of reachability-observability. This is mathematics so it is logical.
Here among other places, you seem to be talking more like a logical positivist: but it would be more accurate for me to say that you are finding the sort of necessity that pertains to mathetmatics and then ascribing it to nature.
You continue:
I agree that there is no third alternative at any given time between “determined” or “stochastic.”
My reply: I disagree, but I think I know where you're coming from--and I think you know where I'm coming from. You are approaching the question from the perspective of physics, I am approaching it from the perspevtive of common sense. I don't think that these two perspectives contradict each other, but they do focus differently on their respective subject matter(s). Consider how when one is not doing physics, one thinks of how animals (and maybe plants--and maybe non-living things) act for goals. They may or may not achieve these goals. Their operations are not randomt according to the everyday understandng of that term. Lions don't play the violin: they hunt prey. Humans don't try to mate with whales (er... I suppose if you may want to point out that this is at least possible: granted) they do, however, talk quite a bit. The outcomes of the activities of these animals are not entirely ra ndom, nor are they determined. The lion may not succeed in hunting, the human may fail to communicate.
But as soon as we try to look at these same activitieis solely in terms of what we can measure, as soon as we do so with the goal of describing their behavior using mathematical expressions... as soon as we do this, we find that all mention of goal-directed activity disappears. If you were to observe the event of one human talking to another and describe it solely in terms of what is measurable, you would leave out of your description any recognition that a goal-directed behavior is going on. Imagine an extra terrestrial who visits earth. She thinks and communicates in a way that is so different from ours that it doesn't occur to her that the human behavior she is observing is communication. Suppose she is a natural scientist from the galaxy Zorg (made that one up). She will collect all sorts of data about humans, but none of that data will suggest to hear (or to any rational being not acquatined with human con municative activity) that communication is going on.
Note also that this extra-terrestrial might come up with formulae describing what she has observed. Her descriiptions would note two sorts of correlations between human behaviors. Some would seem utterly consistent. She would describe these in equations that would imply a necessary relationship between different terms. Others would seem utterly random, and others still would seem highly probable. But being the natural science she is, she would look for deeper level laws (which would be deterministic) to explain the non-determined events.
In any case, she would totally miss the fact that the behaviors she is observing are goal-directed. That is, she would miss this fact unless she noted some similarity between the observed behavior and her own. But I've stipulated that she won't do this.
So someone wearing the hat of a natural scientist looking for laws of nature necessarily overlooks goal directed behavior. That is not because goal-directed behavior does not exist. It is because this sort of scientist relies upon mathematics as a lens, and lenses bring some things into focus by leaving other things out of consideration.
Note also that it is likely that the extra-terrestrial could mistakenly attribute necessity where it does not occur. In such a case, she would not be observing necessity: she would be observing causal relations. But in formulating these relations in the language of mathematics, she would reading mathematical necessity into her object of study.
Let me kick that point up a notch. I propose that any neessity noted by the E.T. natural scientist is read into the subject matter rather than observed. We observe causlity. We describe it (when we have our natural scientist hats on) in the language of math. And since mathematical truths are necessary truths, we read those truths into nature.
I am not proposing that natural scinece is fictional. Rather, I am trying to argue that it relies upon an analogy between math and nature. To forget that this is merely an analogy is to mistake the lens for the thing behind the lense. It is to read nature as geometry in motion. It is, I think, a mistake.
Note that there is no need to get into advanced math or science to recognize this difference between common sense and physics. In fact, to do so would be counter-productive. For the perspective shift is so baic, that to appeal to advanced mathematical or scientific notioins would be to adopt the assumption that natural science can describe everything about nature using the language of mathematics and then discover that one was correct. That would be a circular argument.
Later you say
String theories are only speculative because they have, so far, made no predictions. Rather they are coherence driven - in that they are able to unify the 4 forces of nature. Gravity fits "naturally' into the formulation because general relativity and quantum mechanics are unified. The theories are mathematically "beautiful." Right now (except for Hawking's 11-D Quantum gravity) they are the only show in town!
All I can say is that a little bit of history of science would be good medicine here. Newtonian physics was once the only game in town... Furthermore, we shouldn't engage in philosophical speculation on the basis of a theory that is presently untestable. String theory, when expressed in a testable fashion, may be quite different from what you expect. When and if it is confirmed, it may be even more different.
The following passage from your letter is to me a clear example of taking the necessity that pertains to math and imposing it on nature:
However, I started from the EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMMODEST position - that a proved theorem in dynamical control system theory could be extended generally. The analytic conclusion of that extension was that all mathematical representations of the universe as a dynamic system through which we obtain real results could be axiomatically based upon the premise that the universe (as a dynamic system) is deteministic.
Last point: if the E.T. is unable to recognize goal-directed behavior using only the purely quantitative methods of physics, then physics is limited in what it can discuss. If she reported back to Zorg saying, there is no goal-directed behavior on planet 3 (i.e., earth), she would be mistaking the limitations of her methodology for the limitations of reality.
Similarly, physics done by scientists on earth cannot recognize goal-directed behavior. One who thinks that reality consists only of what physics can describe in matematical formula must deny the existence of goal directed behavior. It follows that one who thinks physics is a comprehensive discipline must deny the very existence of the human will (regardless of whether or not it is free). Not only is free will an illusion, but will itself is as well (I consider the last point a reductio ad absurdam).
I have to sign off soon, but I wanted to note that while I have not addressed your argument point by point, I think that the general principle that one cannot argue from the nature of mathematical necessity to necessity in nature is applicable to what you wrote.
In any case, I want to reassert that it's pretty much a mainstream position that quantum theory shows that randomness exists in nature at the most basic level (and thus it is possible that humans are free). Since I cannot understand the details of this science, I rely upon Stephen M. Barr, a professor of physics at the University of Delaware (see his homepage at http://www.physics.udel.edu/contact/people/barr.php), as a source of information about what is going on in this discipline. He wrote the following book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (see http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Physics-Ancient-Faith-Stephen/dp/0268034710), which argues, among other thi ngs, for indeterminacy at the most basic physical level. By the way, I would loan my copy of this book to you in a heartbeat if you are interested in reading it.
Here is some information about Barr's qualifications that I borrowed from his homepage.
"He got his graduate degrees from Princeton. The special emphasis of his research is on theoretical particle physics with special emphasis on grand unified theories, theories of CP violation, the problem of the origin of the quark and lepton, theories with extra space-time dimensions (such as Kaluza-Klein and superstring theories) and the the interface between particle physics and cosmology. He has made significant contributions in all these areas, perhaps the most notable being the development of classes of models that solve the important “strong CP problem” (the problem of why the strong interactions unlike the weak are symmetric under CP), the development of the idea that the pattern of quark and lepton masses is due to effects at the unification scale, the co-discovery of the important “flipped SU(5)” grand unification scheme, work on theories of baryogenesis (the origin of matter at the time of the big bang), the discovery of large contributions to the electric and magnetic dipole moments of elementary particles in theories with an extended Higgs structure, contributions to the development of realistic SO(10) grand unified models, and a mechanism for explaining the large mixing observed in atmospheric data between muon and tau neutrinos."
Of course, I haven't a CLUE as to what all of the above means, but it sure does sound like he must know a thing or two about the issue.
Almost finally: you asked me to restate my my original attempt at a rebuttal to your own argument against freedom of the will so that you might look at it again (and address it). Well, I have posted it below in purple. Here's a short summary (but please read the whole purple section). In the response below, I argue that the denial of free will entails the denial of rationality, which includes all of mathematical reasoning. If this argument is correct, then I have undercut any appeal to math or science as a basis for denying free will. After that I'll add a quick sketch of another argument about necessity, rationality and freedom of the will../best wishes/Leo
>>>Here begins my earlier response:
I will argue against your conclusion with a math argument requiring knowledge of only basic arithmetic. I argue that to deny that we have free will on the basis of physical determinism is to imply that we are not rational, i.e., that we are not capable of knowing universal and necessary truths as such. But such an implication undermines the very math and science David uses to establish the thesis that we are determined. Hence David, your argument, when brought to its conclusion, is self-contradictory. Why? because if every event (including every time we think) is determined by a previous event, then it seems that our thinking that we really know that 2+2=4 is determined by previous event(s) as well. But if we are forced into thinking that the above equation (which is a stand-in for all claims to universal knowledge) is true, then it is also conceiva ble that we could be forced into thinking that 2+2=5: all this would require is that the right antecedent event occur to make us think we know that 2+2=5 is a mathematical truth. There is nothing extraordinary about this last claim: it would be something akin to an hallucination. So, given the determinist hypothesis, we can, under the right circumstances, be forced into thinking that we see the truth of a claim that, as a matter of fact, presently seems absurd to us. Furthermore, given the determinist hypothesis, the two cases (i.e., that of thinking we know that 2+2=4 and that of thinking that we know that 2+2=5) have no discernable differences, at least as far as our experience of grasping what is supposedly self-evident. In other words, given the determinist hypothesis, we can't we really know anything--including the basic claims of arithmetic, without which science cannot even begin. Because we can be F ORCED into THINKING that we SEE the truth of claims that might not in fact true. Given the determinist hypothesis, math loses its status as the source of necessary truths. Science becomes relativized, no longer a privileged form of rationality. In fact, rationality goes down the toilet.So if David's argument is premised upon math and science, then his conclusion attacks his premises--surely a house built on sand. Addendum: I propose that the reason why we should reject determinsm--at least "physical event" determinism, is because we CAN in fact see that the truth that 2+2=4 is a necessary truth. But in such case, knowing this truth is not predtermined by a prior event. How then do we know this necessary truth? I submit that in knowing that this and other truths are necessary ones, we are connecting to a source that transcends the flux (and necessity) pertaining to physcial events. Our ability to know trut hs that transcend immediate physical limitations is, I propose, the source of our freedom. As Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
Lastly, here's a sketch of an argument that runs somewhat parallel to the arguments I've already proposed. The fact that 2+3=5 is not an event: nor is any other abstract mathematical or logical truth. It seems, furthermore, that our knowing that such truths are necessary truths is based upon something intrinsic to the truths themselves. But in this case, our knowledge of necessity is caused by something other than an event. Hence the acting of knowing that 2+3=5 is an event that is caused by something other than an event. This assertion breaks down the claim that all events are themselves caused by other events. It thus breaks down the claim that all events (especially human operations) are one's that are necessitated by previous physical events.
hope you enjoyed.
peace,
Leo White
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