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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 7/28/2005 12:31 PM (GMT -6) |   | | This seems to be the question behind the question, so...
My position is that probability is incompatible with LFW. Probability deals in randomness, not freedom. I'm not talking about the scriptural issue of God expecting certain human actions. I would explain that with character solidification, but that explanation has apparently not been worth noticing. So here I'm focusing on just the concept of probability.
Choice C has probability P of being made. What does this mean? Given 100 chances to choose in the same situation, the choice will be made 100P times, give or take. This is set before any choice has been made. It's just the way it is. You could say that I'm distorting things by applying the probability over a greater domain, but how else do we interpret probability? Tautology seems to be the only other alternative. Choice C has probability P means choice C has probability P?
A free choice is about to be made. This choice is completely the choice of the chooser. There are no metaphysical dice being rolled determining his actions. Were this so, his actions would be determined outside of the will, not free. You could take the position of God and calculate the probability of me choosing chocolate over vanilla to be .9, and, if I'm free, I could choose vanilla for all eternity. Similarly, you can calculate the probability of post-mortem-me choosing heaven over hell to be .999999, and if I'm free, I could choose hell for all eternity. Assuming there is some basis for the very high probability (other than wishful thinking), there would still be no meaning in such a probability if it describes a LFW choice.
A LFW choice is not determined by any odds 1, 0, or anywhere in between. In addition, choice associated with a probability has no moral value. What's the moral value of rolling a four? Assuming I need to roll a four to get out of hell, would dropping a pair of dice and seeing them happen to land on four be the equivalent of faith? No, faith must be chosen. It can't be random.
Maybe the point of confusion is the idea of being "controlled" by probability. To say that an event has a set probability is to assume the probability is the sum total of all influences taking into account randomness. If the probability does not fully describe the event, it is not really the event's probability. If there is some other factor that is not taken into account, the probabilty has not been calculated. This would be a guess, not a probability. To think that a probability does not "control" the event is not to understand probability. Maybe "accurately describes" is better than "controls." To talk about probability from the perspective of God, we must assume that the event is, at least partially, random. Free is not the same as random.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 7/28/2005 12:40:37 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 8/1/2005 12:57 PM (GMT -6) | | Sahid,
There are several different types of probability. What you're talking about seems to be what is called a 'relative frequency' concept of probability. On this concept, probability is the (long run) ratio of favorable trials to the total number of trials. To apply this concept of probability to LFW we would have to suppose counterfactually a libertarian free agent being reset to the moment of choice over and over again and chosing differently on some of those trials.
This conception does not presupposes randomness, however, because we can ground relative frequencies in causal propensities. On this concept, known as the 'propensity theory', probability is not fundamentally a ratio but the strength of the causal tendency of things to unfold a certain way. Relative frequencies are simply numerical estimates of causal tendencies; propensities are the tendencies themselves and serve as the ontological ground of the relative frequencies. Applied to LFW what this means is that the probability of a libertarian free agent choosing A over not-A is a matter of the degree to which that choice is causally determined. If the choice is determined, then the propensity is maximal and the choice is not free in a libertarian sense.
Anyone who grants some degree of causal indeterminism--that not all events are determined by prior events (a necessary precondition for the possibility of LFW)--should find the notion of propensities congenial. On this view, though, probability has nothing to do with randomness and everything to do with the degree to which things are causally determined by prior events.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 8/1/2005 4:48 PM (GMT -6) | | | Alan, I think you might have lost me in some vocab that I wont pretend to be able to put together perfectly. What I think I hear you saying is that in this case probability is referring to causes that don't really cause choices. I'm wondering how you can have it both ways. On one hand, these influences are causal allowing us to attach probabilities. On the other, they are not causal allowing us to keep LFW. If we can just pull things out of thin air like non-causal causes and circular squares, then why do we need to resort to the open view in the first place? Isn't this the same logic that is used in plain ol' compatiblism? Our choices are both free and unfree, determined and undetermined. This makes very little sense to me, and I hope you can see why. I'm wondering, do you guys understand this criticism and how do you get around it?
You said, "Anyone who grants some degree of causal indeterminism..." To me this sounds like, "Anyone who grants some degree of circular squareness..." Causal indeterminism? Either you've diminished the meaning of one word or the other (it seems to me).
"On this view, though, probability has nothing to do with randomness and everything to do with the degree to which things are causally determined by prior events."
This is full of concepts I can't put my brain around. How can something be causally determined to a degree? Even if I suspend my disbelief, there is still at least some room for the individual's free will to have influence, right? If so, wouldn't a truly free will be able to trump any other "causally indetermined" influences? If the "free" will is bound by outside "causally indetermined" influences to any degree, how can we still justify the adjective 'free?'
Maybe this is the problem. I can only think of three possible 'influences' on a human choice right now: free will, outside pressure, and randomness. Now if you leave outside pressure to be less then total, you're left with freedom and randomness. Real freedom cannot be causally determined to any degree or it is less than free, so now all we've got is randomness. But you say it's not random. So what am I missing? Is there another influence? I'm not trying to be difficult. I really can't see it. The arguments given here are (or seem to be) the very compatiblistic arguments I fled to the open view from.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 8/1/2005 4:51:06 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 8/1/2005 4:52 PM (GMT -6) | | | Tom,
But don't worry, I'll find out after he translates this for me when he gets home!
Until then... yup, here's to Alan!
If you're going to be skeptical, be fair and be skeptical of skepticism. | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 8/1/2005 7:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Sahid: You said, "Anyone who grants some degree of causal indeterminism..." To me this sounds like, "Anyone who grants some degree of circular squareness..." Causal indeterminism? Either you've diminished the meaning of one word or the other (it seems to me).
Alan: In my post I clarified that by causal indeterminism I meant the view that not every event is causally determined by prior events. Frankly, I'm not sure why that should be confusing. Are you familar with the notion of quantum indeterminacy? I won't defending the reality of such indeterminacy here--some argue that such indeterminacy is merely epistemic--but simply point out that it has become quite commonplace in both physics and philosophy to admit the possibility of nondetermining causes.
I suspect this strikes you as oxymoronic because you are thinking of "cause" solely in the sense of "determining efficient cause", i.e., that which effectively and irresistibly brings out some effect. But historically the notion of cause is much broader than that. Aristotle identified four different types of causes--efficient, final, material, and formal--and I see no reason why there might not be more besides. Roughly speaking, for Aristotle a "cause" was anything that was in any way responsible for something's being a certain way or acting the way it does. It is in this sense that one can make sense of propensities as nondetermining.
Here's an example. What do you need to get a fire going? At the very least you need oxygen, something to burn, and some kind of spark or input of energy sufficient to kick off the exothermic chemical reaction that we call fire. Each of those is partly responsible for there being a fire because without any one of them there would be no fire. Each is, if you will, a "contributing cause" but none is by itself a sufficient cause.
In this broad sense of "cause" are included factors that affect the propensity that something comes about. For example, tempting me with chocolate ice cream will make me more likely to break my diet--I'll certainly feel an inclination in that direction. It doesn't suffice to determine my choice but it does modify the propensities; hence it makes a real contribution to the causal matrix within which I exercise my libertarian freedom.
Sahid: How can something be causally determined to a degree? Even if I suspend my disbelief, there is still at least some room for the individual's free will to have influence, right? If so, wouldn't a truly free will be able to trump any other "causally indetermined" influences? If the "free" will is bound by outside "causally indetermined" influences to any degree, how can we still justify the adjective 'free?'
Alan: I think I've already answered the first question--something is causally determined to the degree that its propensity for occurring approaches one. With respect to LFW, as long as the causal propensity for my making a given choice is less than one it is possible that I choose otherwise. As for your last question, this assumes a false dichotomy--either our will is completely uninfluenced by external factors or it is not free. Does not my ice cream example above show this assumption to be false? You can observe from your own experience times in which you have felt quite strongly inclined to some action but nonetheless resisted. If I am right that causes can influence without determining by modifying probabilities then there is no problem here. Indeed, some such view is necessary for making sense of the ways in which our free choices are in fact influenced without denying libertarian freedom.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 8/3/2005 10:33 AM (GMT -6) | | | Ok, I undestand what you mean. Still I think probability cannot apply to free choices. I'll grant that it may feel to you that chocolate influences your probabilities, but that's not the point. In you icecream example, both choices are open to you. You may desire the consequences of one choice over the other, but this says nothing about "modifing the propensities." There can be no "causal matrix within which I exercise my libertarian freedom." LFW exists in the absence of a causal matrix. Freedom is not determinism plus randomness. Such a "freedom" suffers the same problems as pure determinism: God is not just in assigning moral consequences to unfree actions, actions that you had no say in.
As long as you retain free will, the choice to eat the icecream or not is up to you. Influences and forces may put the decision to you in an unique way; they may have changed the setting and the consequences or even your desires, but all this is background to your choice. The choice is yours. Probability doesn't apply here. If it does, we are talking about an action governed by force and chance, not freedom. Freedom is that instant when it's all you. No excuses. No "But I was 80% inclined." A free choice is yours.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/5/2005 7:03 PM (GMT -6) | | | Zach: There could be one million dollars to the right and a nasty smell to the left, but you are free to act against your desires.
Jeff: Absolutely. My point about the hierarchy of values was made to show how "events" and circumstances can give rise to the conflict of values. These conflicts are then resolved volitionally based on which value is more fundamental. Thus, the probability has nothing to do with the will, per se, but with the events that actually occur in one's life which bring values into conflict. Basically, I'm saying that BOTH you and Alan are right. There is an element of probability (Alan) because events and circumstances can be probabilistic, but the will is truly free within the limits of it's power (Zach).
wjsPost Edited (jefscott) : 8/5/2005 8:58:34 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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