tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post3672603232292292284..comments2024-02-28T02:22:20.886-08:00Comments on homunculus: Free will and physics: the next instalmentPhilip Ballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09986655706443117158noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-55756599832122784152021-01-28T10:26:21.236-08:002021-01-28T10:26:21.236-08:00Hi Philip:
These discussions are always bedeviled...Hi Philip:<br /><br />These discussions are always bedeviled by people meaning different things by the same terms! <br /><br />In your link it seems that "top-down causation" amounts to the idea that the organisation of stuff, the pattern it is in, matters and affects how it behaves. (So, in an example from that link, the 3-D folding structure of protein affects the behaviour.) <br /><br />And yes, indeed it does, and yes, the information content of biological systems is hugely important. But that's not a new and radical suggestion, it's not even worth arguing for, because absolutely everyone agrees in all contexts, including all of physics! <br /><br />Here's an example from physics: A carbon-12 atom in an excited state will behave differently from a carbon-12 atom in its ground state. But "excited state" and "ground state" are higher-level concepts; that is, they are about how different parts of the system are arranged with respect to each other. So you could describe the de-excitation of a carbon-12 atom as "top-down causation", in the sense that information from the top-level description ("excited state") is part of the explanation for what the low-level component ("electron", "photon") then does. <br /><br />So, again, this is not anything different from how everyone always did think about how things work. Everyone (including physicists) agrees that the pattern and arrangement of stuff (as described by higher-level concepts) is utterly crucial to everything. It's not peculiar to biology and it doesn't need a new name like "top-down causation".<br /><br />[Especially since the term "top-down causation is <i>also</i> used for a much stronger and more radical thesis about low-level accounts being in-principle incomplete, since that then leads to miscommunication over what people are arguing for.]Coelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597364388910614174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-8566664841487286212021-01-28T08:58:41.734-08:002021-01-28T08:58:41.734-08:00Thanks again. I'm not sure how anyone could ha...Thanks again. I'm not sure how anyone could have read my piece as a defence of libertarian/dualistic free will, unless I guess they were labouring under a confirmation bias. <br /><br />What I think of top-down causation is, e.g. this kind of thing:<br />https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/5/3/424/htm<br />Whether that means you can't use the laws of physics alone to predict where the atoms in my (used) coffee cup will be tomorrow morning seems a moot point, or at best a metaphysical one. I'm not sure it's a very useful question. Philip Ballhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09986655706443117158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-42357056295993017242021-01-22T13:40:37.819-08:002021-01-22T13:40:37.819-08:00Hi Philip:
I agree that you are "expressing ...Hi Philip:<br /><br />I agree that you are "expressing an argument about volition that could be categorized by philosophers as a compatibilist position", and I'm pretty much agreed that that's the right position to take and the right way of thinking about "free will". <br /><br />(The response from Jerry Coyne would be that that's not "real" free will, since only libertarian/dualistic free will is "real" free will, and that you should therefore say that you're rejecting "free will". There's something to be said for Jerry's position on this but I don't agree with it.)<br /><br />When I said that "that's not how the world works" I meant only that top-down causation is not how the world works. Though, here again, we need to clarify our terms. "Top-down causation" is generally taken to be a radical thesis that a low-level account of low-level particles would be causally incomplete. That is, you could not use the laws of physics alone to predict the low-level behaviour of entities such as atoms and molecules, and that to do that you'd need to bring in high-level information such as "intentions" and "volition". Given your statement that "only physics is (as far as we know) operating at the microscopic level", I don't think you're proposing top-down causation (as that terms is generally interpreted). <br /><br />The claim that high-level behaviour is qualitatively different from low-level behaviour and thus needs to be described by different concepts that only pertain at the high level (as Phil Anderson was saying), doesn't need anything as radical as "top-down causation", and is also pretty much agreed upon in the sense that I'm not aware of anyone arguing against it.Coelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597364388910614174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-39852943425378903812021-01-18T08:52:55.750-08:002021-01-18T08:52:55.750-08:00Coel,
Thanks for these comments. If Coyne thought ...Coel,<br />Thanks for these comments. If Coyne thought I was arguing for libertarian free will, he had even less understanding of my piece than I thought. I don't see how one could have reasonably arrived at such a conclusion.<br /><br />I can see your point, though, for defining what one means by free will at the outset. My concern is that the classic philosophical positions of compatibilism and libertarianism/incompatibilism strike me as unhelpful, since they seem to me to be points ot arrival, not departure. Given that I don't question that only physics is (as far as we know) operating at the microscopic level, and yet I think something like free will (or rather, volitional behaviour) can be found at the macroscopic level, I guess what I'm saying does constitute a kind of compatibilism. But so what? - that seems an empty statement in itself. I'm not "adopting a compatibilist stance", in my view, but simply expressing an argument about volition that could be categorized by philosophers as a compatibilist position.<br /><br />My complaint is that, whatever Coyne believed my position to be, he tried to dismiss it without really referring to it or even understanding it (by his own admission). That seemed a very questionable angle for a so-called rationalist to take.<br /><br />"Top-down causation" is, on reflection, not an ideal term either, since my position doesn't assume or assert that causation starts at the top and filters down. It can arise predominantly at *any* level of the hierarchy of scales. I'm not sure why you feel my argument will work without that notion (though I'd be delighted to be shown how it might!). I'm not sure also why you say "that does not seem to be how the world works" - others have argued how it can arise. Phil Anderson was not exactly talking about that, but his point was that different levels of the hierarchy have a mechanistic/causal autonomy that is not simply an integration of the level below - that idea seems to me to invoke the same spirit.Philip Ballhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09986655706443117158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-7563571472943265132021-01-17T06:59:22.084-08:002021-01-17T06:59:22.084-08:00Quoting: "Coyne complains that I don’t define...Quoting: <i>"Coyne complains that I don’t define free will at the outset [...] I don’t define it because I think it is a terrible term, which we seem lumbered with for historical reasons. A key aim of my article is in fact to suggest it is time to jettison the term and to talk instead about how we (and other creatures) make volitional decisions."</i><br /><br />These debates are bedeviled by people talking at cross-purposes. The advantage of giving clear definitions of "free will" is that it helps readers understand what you're saying. Jerry Coyne took you as arguing for libertarian free will. I don't think you are, I think you are arguing for compatibilistic free will. <br /><br />Coyne then couldn't see why your article was a good argument for libertarian free will (hence his rather dismissive article), and that's because it wasn't, it was instead an argument for compatibilistic free will (though it didn't explicitly say so, and would have been a lot clearer if it did). <br /><br />By the way, I agree with you: compatibilistic accounts of "free will" (if one wants to retain the term, I also agree with you that one could ditch it) do work, and yes we should interpret "volition" and "moral responsibility" as you indeed do. (I also don't think that there's any longer any "problem" of "free will", compatibilists have solved it; and you seem to be agreeing with them.)<br /><br />But, I don't think you should invoke "top-down causation". It's not necessary to do so for your argument to work, and "top-down causation" is a radical concept that does not seem to be how the world works. It is a radically different claim from the "more is different" of Philip Anderson et al.<br /><br />PS You seem to have 2 "spam" comments out of 6. It's in your interests to delete them; search-engines down-weight websites that allow spam.Coelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08597364388910614174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-64868715101230946772021-01-12T13:18:51.530-08:002021-01-12T13:18:51.530-08:00I have no training in this area, but does Conway a...I have no training in this area, but does Conway and Kochen's Free Will Theorem add to the evidence that physics does not support determinism? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14376036366284191956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-26576802252508012422021-01-12T12:27:57.959-08:002021-01-12T12:27:57.959-08:00Thanks for your interest. A non-paywalled version....Thanks for your interest. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x-uj3NpJAhzz3jziJ9Llx2ANt5-i6h0l/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">A non-paywalled version</a>.Russ Abbotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15431389045571531450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-45947543281505880282021-01-12T12:00:47.699-08:002021-01-12T12:00:47.699-08:00That does sound very interesting Russ - I'd be...That does sound very interesting Russ - I'd be glad to see it. Is there a non-paywalled version online?Philip Ballhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09986655706443117158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26741618.post-75634176118556403212021-01-12T10:44:09.169-08:002021-01-12T10:44:09.169-08:00You may be interested in my paper, "Meaning, ...You may be interested in my paper, "<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000125" rel="nofollow">Meaning, Autonomy, Symbolic Causality, and Free Will</a>" (Review of General Psychology, March 1, 2018, 22(1), 85-94). Here's the abstract.<br /><br />As physical entities that translate symbols into physical actions, computers offer insights into the nature of meaning and agency. Physical symbol systems, generically known as agents, link abstractions to material actions. The meaning of a symbol is defined as the physical actions an agent takes when the symbol is encountered. An agent has autonomy when it has the power to select actions based on internal decision processes. Autonomy offers a partial escape from constraints imposed by direct physical influences such as gravity and the transfer of momentum. Swimming upstream is an example. Symbols are names that can designate other entities. It appears difficult to explain the use of names and symbols in terms of more primitive functionality. The ability to use names and symbols, that is, symbol grounding, may be a fundamental cognitive building block. The standard understanding of causality—-wiggling X results in Y wiggling—-applies to both physical causes (e.g., one billiard ball hitting another) and symbolic causes (e.g., a traffic light changing color). Because symbols are abstract, they cannot produce direct physical effects. For a symbol to be a cause requires that the affected entity determine its own response. This is called autonomous causality. This analysis of meaning and autonomy offers new perspectives on free will.Russ Abbotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15431389045571531450noreply@blogger.com