Those of you who live in America have no doubt heard about the curious case of George Santos, the newly elected Republican representative from Long Island who appears to have lied about every single element in his biography. I reflected that I have only known one real pathological liar in my life. In the summer of 1953, after I graduated from Harvard, I got a job as a counselor at Camp Winamac, an eight week sleep away camp in the Berkshires. One of the little boys in my cottage was an odd sort who lied about everything. He lied about where he was from, what his parents did, whether he had brothers and sisters, and everything else. He did not seem to do it for any purpose, to gain status or rebut criticism or to claim abilities that he did not have. He simply lied all the time. It was weird and a little creepy. It looks to me as though George Santos may be one of those peculiar characters.
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I unfortunately have known several people who lied profusely. I don’t know that it rose to the level of being pathological, but it was extremely unnerving. Also, unfortunately, they were usually lawyers. I have even found defense attorneys who have deliberately misrepresented deposition testimony in their legal briefs, as well as the holdings of legal decisions. In one of the cases I am handling, I maintain that the chief witness committed perjury which can be confirmed by documentary evidence, and his attorney knew he was committing perjury and put him up to doing it. And although I have pointed this out to two judges who have been involved in the litigation, as well as the local prosecutor, none of them have been willing to do anything about it. It obviously does not speak well of the legal profession.
Off topic.
Does Existentialism prove God's existence? I'll give it a spin.
The nonexistent is something either that (1) its existence precedes its essence, or (2) its essence precedes its existence.
--If #2, then God exists since only God can assign an essence to nonexistence.
--However, #1 is impossible since how could nonexistence have existence? Is not nonexistence, nonexistent?
--Therefore, this deduction proves God exists. I think.
Santos lied in a Trumpian way. Everything he lied about made him (in his head)a more admirable person.
ML,
“Neither from itself nor from another, nor from both, nor without a cause, does anything whatever, anywhere arise.”
I had a friend who lied all the time.
Part of it was simple bragging: I came in second in the Boston Marathon or I'm a black belt in karate or I was trained as a commando for the Special Forces, generally very improbable bragging.
Part of it seemed to be playing with others: If you going to see John X, say hello to him for me. He's married to my first cousin. I would innocently convey the message and then be told by John X that he had never heard of my friend.
Finally, he appeared in my apartment one night, with a very improbable story about how he had caught his girl-friend with another guy and beat the shit out of the guy and now was hiding from the cops since his rival was in critical condition in the hospital. He drank all of my beer and ate all my best cheese and my son, then around 12 or so, angered by the whole thing, called him out with the frankness one finds in children. That was the end of our friendship.
Sad news. Judy Woodruff retired tonight as anchor of the PBS News Hour. She was given a grand send-off with multiple accolades by the staff and other correspondents. She was a treasure and will be missed.
Marc,
I listened to the radio version of PBS NewsHour tonight (as I frequently do).
She is a good journalist and, as you know since you watched the program, will be remaining with the NewsHour as a special correspondent. Her main reporting project will concern "division" in the U.S. electorate and population.
I do not regard her departure from the NewsHour anchor chair as "sad news." Her successors are likely to do an entirely competent job (within the confines of the "mainstream" boundaries that the NewsHour inhabits).
Prof Wolff,
Remember that woman who had been hired by the Tampa police department as a sign language interpreter but who didn't actually know ASL and was just signing gibberish a few years ago?
It seems every few years there is another report in the news of a politician or someone else in the public eye who has been found to have pretty brazenly lied about their background. Trump nominated a man to be the Director of National Intelligence who was found to have lied about his national security credentials. CNN used to have a guy on as a national security expert who it turned out had apparently fabricated his credentials.
I used to be shocked that people would try to get away with something so obvious, but now I suspect that lying about credentials is a lot more common than is generally recognized. More often than not, nobody seeks to verify the credentials, so the liars are able to get away with it. They just fake it until they make it. We only hear about the spectacularly absurd cases.
Santos' case is extreme in that he lied about so many different aspects of his background, which is probably why he was outed (although one of his challengers in the race had been pointing out during the campaign that there were red flags).
A few examples of people lying about credentials that come to mind:
Joe Biden lied quite egregiously about his law school record, and about his participation in the Civil Rights movement, to take just two examples from his record.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSUPfnYdXFU
https://shaunking.substack.com/p/2-truths-and-31-lies-joe-biden-has
Donald Trump - if his lips are moving, he is lying.
One of the more egregious lies he and other members of his family told is that his grandfather had immigrated from Sweden, when in fact the elder Trump had immigrated from Germany. Being German with all the anti-German sentiment during and after the War would have been bad for business, especially if you had a lot of Jewish customers, as the Trumps did.
Melania Trump - lied about college degree
Ivanka Trump - lied about graduating summa cum laude from Wharton when her grades were decidedly less impressive than that
Ben Carson - claimed West Point offered him a scholarship
Herschel Walker - claimed he graduated from U of Georgia, then lied & claimed he never had claimed that
The late Africana studies scholar Yosef Ben-Jochannan - probably lied about university degrees
Harvard student Adam Wheeler - was in the news for lies & forgeries too numerous to count, including having claimed to have attended Phillips Andover & MIT and being proficient in French, Old English, Classical Armenian, and Old Persian. He finally got caught when one of the English professors reviewing his Rhodes scholarship application noticed Wheeler had plagiarized the work of a fellow professor. He was convicted for fraud over financial aid money he'd received. After being expelled from Harvard, he then applied to and got accepted at Stanford(!), although Harvard alerted Stanford's dean and the admission offer was rescinded.
There've been a number of studies over the years looking at the frequency with which medical students applying for residency training positions or residents applying for fellowships misrepresent their accomplishments. Here are a couple of examples
"Retrospective review of all 236 applications submitted for [a gastroenterology] fellowship in a recent year for confirmation of research experience and cited publications. Results: 138 applicants (58.5%) reported research experience during residency in a U.S. training program. Research activity could not be confirmed for 47 of 138 applicants (34.1%). Fifty-three applicants (22.4%) reported published articles, and 16 of these applicants (30.2%) misrepresented articles. Misrepresentation included citations of nonexistent articles in actual journals, articles in nonexistent journals, or articles noted as 'in press.'"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7762913/
"Among 280 (54%) applicants for orthopedic surgery fellowships, 151 claimed journal publications. It was found that 16 (10.6%) of these 151 applicants had misrepresented their citations. This rate was highest in spine fellowship applicants (20%).... These results are comparable with those reported in other medical fields (P > 0.1)."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12671346/
Make of that what you will.
(And of course you know my opinion of Freud. lol )
(Today marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR.)
aaall
"Neither from itself nor from another, nor from both, nor without a cause, does anything whatever, anywhere arise."
This saying is regulated by 4th dimensional spacetime. God existed prior to time. God created time. Meaning his infinite mind exists outside of time.
Let me clarify this:
The nonexistent [this is just speaking of the nonexistent & not God] is something either that (1) its existence precedes its essence, or (2) its essence precedes its existence.
--If #2 [is true] , then God exists since only God can assign an essence to nonexistence [the nonexistent itself, not God].
--However, #1 is impossible [for the nonexistent] since how could nonexistence have existence? Is not nonexistence, nonexistent? [We know the nonexistent is nonexistent, since we know the nonexistent is nonexistent. So therefore #1 is cancelled out as a possibility [for the nonexistent, meaning only #2 is true concerning the nonexistent.]
--Therefore, this deduction proves God exists [because only #2 is possible for the nonexistent and not #1, concerning Existentialism & its rules towards other things, including the nonexistent because God needs to exist to give nonexistence its essence to precede its existence. An existential philosopher may say God or man needs to make something's essence to precede its existence. Man couldn't make the nonexistent, let alone give it its essence. Only an all powerful God has that power]. I think.
con.
However, we know the nonexistent is nonexistent since its known to be nonexistent. However the nonexistent doesn't exist as the nonexistent unless its essence precedes its existence. The nonexistent is not a living being who has the choice to make its existence precede its essence.
Here is a better summary:
The nonexistent [this is just speaking of the nonexistent & not God] is something either that (1) its existence precedes its essence, or (2) its essence precedes its existence.
The nonexistent is not a living being who has the choice to make its existence precede its essence. Only God or mankind can do that.
However, mankind cannot create nor give the nonexistent an existence to precede its essence. Neither can mankind create nor give the nonexistent an essence to precede its existence. Only God can do such. And since we know the nonexistent exists as the nonexistent we know the nonexistent exists. So therefore mankind didn't create the nonexistent so the obvious answer is God or nature created the nonexistent.
However, the nonexistent's existence does not precede its existence, since the nonexistent is not God or man. And since nature does not have the power to make the nonexistent, but only the existent, since things destroyed are only transformed into other things in the universe, the only available option left is for God to exist so God could create the nonexistent and for its essence to precede its existence. Therefore, this is one proof or sign that God exists.
"The nonexistent is not a living being who has the choice to make its existence precede its essence. Only God or mankind can do that."
I meant this:
The nonexistent is not a living being who has the choice to make its VERY OWN existence precede its essence. Only God or mankind can do that.
God's existence precedes his essence because he is all powerful and all wise, & man's existence precedes his essence because he has freewill in a finite universe and is the only finite animal aware of his own freewill. Determinism is impossible for man because he is too stupid & is not an infinite being like God.
aaall, what's that quote from? Sounds a bit like Plato's Parmenides.
ML, for what it's worth, here's how I'd attempt to understand and evaluate your argument (from 11:54PM). This will be a bit sloppy and quirky; I still have a long way to go in learning the history of metaphysics and the like...
(To get started, I'm going to use a few letters as abbreviations, just for convenience. Let "A" mean "The existence of X precedes the essence of X"; let "B" mean "The essence of X precedes the existence of X"; let "N" mean "nonexistence." And "X" can be used to refer to any individual thing in the world - this horse, that cat, etc. - anything we can name or in some way meaningfully gesture toward.)
Now, your argument would have this as its basic structure:
(1) For every X, it is the case that either A or B.
(2) N is an X.
(3) For N, it cannot be the case that A.
(4) For N, it must be the case that B. (This is the same as saying: "The essence of nonexistence must precede the existence of nonexistence.")
The conclusion, (4), follows from the three preceding propositions. In this sense, the argument is logically valid.
But how are we to decide whether (1) is true, (2) is true, and (3) is true? Take these in reverse order:
I think (3) - which says "It cannot be the case that the existence of nonexistence precedes the essence of nonexistence" - makes sense. As you say, there can be no such thing as the existence of nonexistence. If something doesn't exist, then it cannot have existence; and in that case, it is nonsensical to say of it that "its existence" precedes its essence or vice versa.
So, there's good reason to accept (3).
But (2) is harder to accept. Does the term "everything" refer to all things including a special sort of thing called "nonexistence" - or, does the term "everything" refer to all existent things? The second option is far easier to make sense of.
And (1) is not clearly true. Why can't there be a third alternative? Neither A nor B, but "C" - "The essence of X and the existence of X are 'co-dependent' or 'equiprimordial'" or something like that... (I can't think of a good word.) Informally, "You never find an essence without also finding something that exists, and you cannot find anything existing without an essence" - the two are inseparable.
Wouldn't C be reminiscent of Aristotle's view, which (I think) has it that a Platonic Form cannot be real unless there are also some particular thing(s) in possession of it? (No such thing as Beauty unless there are also beautiful thing(s).)
Also, I'm not sure how you'd get to "God exists" from (4) alone. Intuitively, there seems to be a connection: If "independently subsisting essences" (or "Platonic Forms" - not sure how to distinguish the two) are real, then maybe they are ideas in the Divine Mind; hence, God. But this inference would need fleshing out.
So, the most I can get out of your argument is that there is at least one independently subsisting essence - namely, nonexistence. (Maybe there are others in addition to this, but this hasn't been shown.) On the other hand...that sounds an awful lot like saying that independently subsisting essences do not exist.
Couple briefer points, too, for ML:
-The talk of "existence preceding essence" makes me think you've been getting into Sartre. But Sartre is an atheist, who thought his philosophy showed the nonexistence of God. (Man cannot have a creator, precisely because man has no essence preceding his existence. Hence, no God. I think that's how it goes.) If you haven't, you might also want to check out Gabriel Marcel for a Catholic take on existentialism.
-You write in your last comment, "God's existence precedes his essence" - I think this is false according to any classical view which has it that God's essence is God's existence. (The two coincide in the one special case of God. God cannot be God unless he necessarily exists; it's in God's very nature to exist. That sort of thing.)
Fun stuff. Happy reading.
Michael
'-You write in your last comment, "God's existence precedes his essence" - I think this is false according to any classical view which has it that God's essence is God's existence. (The two coincide in the one special case of God. God cannot be God unless he necessarily exists; it's in God's very nature to exist. That sort of thing.)'
You have to remember that the idea of God does not begin with the First Cause of God alone but what choices God made before the First Cause. The First Cause was the introduction of linear time to existence. Of course you could say how could God make a choice without linear time? It was a choice he made in static infinite thought with his infinite consciousness without finite time. Of course finite minds cannot comprehend awareness without time. Our unconscious mind wakes us up in the morning, & that is the closest thing to which we can experience the First Cause. What was before the First Cause like? I know it wasn't like a dream since even human dreams consist of linear time.
George Santos
https://twitter.com/LorenzoTheCat/status/1608436493684555779
Michael Llenos,
The most your syllogism proves, if it proves anything, is that something necessarily exits, which you name “God.” Like St. Anselm’s ontological argument, It does not prove anything regarding the characteristics of this entity – it does not prove that the entity is sentient; or omnibenevolent, or omniscient. In sum, it does not prove the existence of an anthropomorphic entity as depicted in the Old or New testaments.
Happy New Year!
Go Blue!
Well, it may necessarily exit, but I meant "exists."
^Not an anthropomorphic entity, sure. (At least, not until/unless you can get to the incarnation, or whatever the word would be.)
But there are arguments which claim to show logical pathways from one divine attribute to all of the divine attributes, and/or which claim to show that every divine attribute is identical to the others: necessary existence, eternal existence, infinite/unlimited existence, uniqueness, simplicity, perfection...
I'm not at all thoroughly acquainted with this stuff, but I've seen enough to find that it's more interesting and less sophistical than I initially preferred to think. Just to throw together a pretty rough illustration, drawing on a variety of half-digested, vaguely remembered sources... In the present case one might want to argue that the necessary existence of any entity implies:
(A) its eternal existence, because it - unlike every non-necessary being - exists at all times; as well as...
(B) its uniqueness (at some particular time T), because (A) implies that it exists at some possible time T when nothing else - no non-necessary being - exists; as well as...
(C) its unlimitedness (at T), because (B) implies that at T nothing distinct from it exists to delimit it; as well as...
(D) its unchangingness (at T), because (C) implies that at T nothing distinct from it exists to induce change or to be changed; as well as...
(E) its immutability, because (D) implies that it has no reason to change at any time (including all the time succeeding T); as well as...
(F) its perfection, as implied by (E); as well as...
(G) its uniqueness and unlimitedness at all times, as implied by (B), (C), and (E); as well as...
(H) its omnipotence and omniscience and simplicity, as implied by (E), (F), and (G).
Again, not trying to accurately (much less persuasively) depict the thought process of any thinker(s) in particular - just trying to convey something of their "flavor," in a suggestive, bare-bones sort of way. Some steps feel more problematic, more of a stretch than others, especially as the argument moves along. But honestly, my thought/feeling as I get further into this stuff is, "This is kind of cool, there might be something to it."
Michael, Nagarjuna's "Mulamadhyamakakarika."
Thank you!
MARC
"if it proves anything, is that something necessarily exits, which you name “God.” Like St. Anselm’s ontological argument, It does not prove anything regarding the characteristics of this entity – it does not prove that the entity is sentient; or omnibenevolent, or omniscient. In sum, it does not prove the existence of an anthropomorphic entity as depicted in the Old or New testaments."
I am fascinated by Anselm's Ontological Argument. If I ever gave a proof for God's existence, I would be most elated. I'm not trying to prove any religion but God's existence in a general way.
Michael
"But honestly, my thought/feeling as I get further into this stuff is, "This is kind of cool, there might be something to it."
If only we both could find the next philosophical proof for God's existence. That would be awesome! Plus, Sarte's existentialist philosophy could be used in another way. Do you know how many people think up philosophical proofs for God's existence? No one. Maybe every 500 years or so one pops up. It would be glorious to think up one.
Michael,
If Marc had any belief that there is a God, today's 51-45 result in the Fiesta Bowl would erase it. No God, he would conclude, could let Michigan fall to TCU.
This is the second time I've seen TCU in a bowl game, and the second time I was rooting against, and the second time they won. The first time was in the Cotton Bowl 66 years ago, on January 1, 1957. TCU beat Syracuse, my alma mater, 28-27. Jim Brown ran for three touchdowns for Syracuse and passed for another. He also kicked three extra points. On the fourth one, there was a bad snap from center and he never got it off. Final score: TCU 28, Jim Brown 27.
Yeah, poor Marc. That one must've stung.
"The Philosophy Superbowl" -
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/65
U of M? Never heard of it.
It was a real nail bighter.
Who ever called that quarterback reverse somersault after that great run opening the game should be fired - was it Harbaugh. They should have kicked a field goal instead. They gave the momentum to TCU.
But U of M didn't have a prayer, After all, God was on TCU's side.
Life goes on. It's only a game.
As the explosions happened this it what I wrote...
Anselm's Reversal
1. If Anselm's Ontological proposition is correct, it is easier to exist in animal thought than to exist in reality. But evolution proves the opposite fact. It is easier for stars & planets & moons to exist first than for animals with thoughts to exist afterwards.
2. Therefore, it is easier for the universe to exist first than later for animal thoughts to exist.
3. However, is God not the main cause & everything else the effect? Is not God the reverse of creation in many ways? Are not we defined as creation & God the creator? Does not God have awareness before existence, and not existence before awareness like we do? Does God not have knowledge before time, and it takes us time to have knowledge?
4. So if God is that which nothing greater can exist (as Anselm stated), and God exists in thought, then God must exist in reality, since it is much easier for God to exist in reality & so much greater & harder for God to exist in animal thought. And since God is defined as the infinite, it would be infinitely easier for God to exist in reality than for God to exist in animal thought.
5. If it is greater for God to exist in animal thought than for God to exist in reality, and God is the greatest of all animal thoughts, then how much more so must God exist in reality, since it is so much lesser & easier to exist as the greatest of reality than to exist as the greatest of animal thoughts.
Michael Llenos
The ontological argument is flawed because existence is not an attribute- I prefer the more poetic ornithological argument.
Anyway, if God is real why is everything else religious people believe in so egregiously wrong?
The ornithological argument for the existence of God:
Short version:
Birds exist. Therefore God exists.
The long version:
“I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted. In this case I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer — not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, not-five, etc. — is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists.”
Jorge Luis Borges
Howie, good question (seriously), but I can't resist name-dropping Josiah Royce.
The fact that such error does occur indicated to Royce that the true object of any idea must exist, in a fully determinate or absolute state, in some actual mind, or mind-like entity, with which my own mind is or may be connected. From the possibility of error, Royce concluded that there is an Absolute Knower, a mind for which all thoughts do correspond correctly and adequately to their true objects. (SEP)
Also of interest (an onto-ornithological argument?):
As a published expert on bird song, [Charles] Hartshorne is the first philosopher since Aristotle to be an expert in both metaphysics and ornithology. He writes specifically of the aesthetic categories required to explain why birds sing outside of mating season and when territory is not threatened - two occasions for bird song that are crucial to the behaviorists' account. Birds like to sing, he concludes... Hartshorne's ornithology thus serves to highlight the crucial role that aesthetic categories play in Hartshorne’s philosophy...from the minuscule feelings of microscopic reality to divine feelings. (SEP)
Hartshorne's self-assessment: "I think my great book is Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song." (Harvard Square Library)
The SEP link also discusses Hartshorne's treatment/rehabilitation of the ontological argument.
Everything is connected, man! ;)
Marc
First time I read Borges & the ornithological argument. I haven't read Berkeley that much but it sounds similar to Berkeley's take on the matrix philosophy.
Howie
"The ontological argument is flawed because existence is not an attribute- I prefer the more poetic ornithological argument. Anyway, if God is real why is everything else religious people believe in so egregiously wrong?"
Shockingly wrong? Like feeding the homeless, giving the Creator praise for creation & life & the universe (which even are the actions of the transcendentalists), & believing the good you do in this life translates into the good you'll receive in the next one, or even in this life: like with karma & bachi?
Of course, the question is why do the religious show so many bad actions? (1) they are only human, & (2) if that traitor Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus himself, and the former was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, then it is only fair to say that almost 10% of all the congregation of Churches will consist of devils (nefarious people) & bad apples. If it happened to Jesus it can happen to the rest of the churches. Church tradition even speaks of the Antichrist coming from the tribe of Dan which is one tribe out of the Twelve tribes of Jacob.
But before you condemn many religious people, realize that our present society is replete with devils and bad apples who are not religious at all. And religious people come from present society. So please do the logical math.
On God Existing
I believe in ghosts. Because I believe in ghosts I also believe in devils. Because I believe in devils I also believe in angels. Because I believe in angels I also believe in God.
Fascinating forum on free will.
Generally, the discussion I've seen on free will are very dogmatic: philosophers tend to have very pat schematic views on the subject, but here there's not only a philosopher, but also a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist, chaired by a philosopher, so the complexity of the topic becomes clear. A mind opening conversation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXxw4qQqWII
“I change my mind about the problem of free will every time I think about it." Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere.
David Palmeter,
Sure. However, generally when we talk about free will (I'm not a philosopher but I do follow the philosophical discussions from a distance), we talk it about it in traditional terms, that were set by the 17th and 18th century if not before then. Descartes proposes libertarian free will, Spinoza is a determinist and Hume is a compatibilist.
What I got from the forum is that maybe it's none of the above, given the advances in neuroscience, the study of animal behavior and artificial intelligence. Maybe the traditional philosophical discussion is framed in terms that are in some sense out of date.
SW:
You suggest that: "What I got from the forum is that maybe it's none of the above, given the advances in neuroscience, the study of animal behaviour and artificial intelligence. Maybe the traditional philosophical discussion is framed in terms that are in some sense out of date."
It would take a long time to spell out why this idea is false... in the meantime and for a start, see Al Mele "Free: Why Science has not Disproved Free Will." The facts is that all three traditional positions you mention have been refined in the last fifty years or so, and are still very much live options.
As a point of clarification: Compatibilists ARE determinists (i.e. they insist that the truth of determinism is compatible with the existence of any kind of free will worth wanting). The third position, which you label "determinism," is better called "incompatibilist determinism."
David Zimmerman,
You obviously haven't listened to the video.
However, they in no way claim that "science has disproved Free Will".
Quite the contrary. At the end of the conversation the moderator, who is a philosopher, asks the three panelists, a philosopher, a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist if they believe in free will and they all, after a bit of hesitation, say "yes".
I understand that you defend your profession, but before you opine, wouldn't it be wiser to listen to the video?
Instead of arguing with someone as ignorant as myself, which is easy, why not take on "people your own size", those in the video in question?
s. wallerstein,
I do not, atypically, have a dog in this fight. But I wish to point out that I have seen a photograph of Prof. Zimmerman, as well as a photograph of you, and you look bigger than him.
s. wallerstein,
I found that discussion very frustrating. It's too big, too complex a topic to begin to satisfactorily explore in such a limited forum. Steward seemed to be on the right track in arguing that it's important to remember that humans ultimately are animals, like other primates or even spiders. But she still just falls back on 'yes, humans have free will' and rejects the possibility of non-human (as in AI) free will without much if any justification.
Let's define "free will" as the capacity of a sentient being to make choices that generally cannot be predicted.
And let's define making a choice that cannot be predicted as follows. Assume we had a nearly limitless amount of time for observation and we were able to observe a nearly limitless number of clones of the sentient being (like the original in every relevant way) making a choice when confronted with a particular, fixed question. If after a large number of observations we were unable to recognize with a high degree of accuracy a pattern of choice-making, that would be an example of making choices that cannot be predicted. (A high but not a perfect degree of accuracy due to the influence of events that are generally taken by definition as being random/beyond knowledge [as in quantum indeterminacy].) The point of this constrained example of making a single choice is to illustrate the approach to take in the definition; it would need to be expanded to making many choices, not just a single choice, for the definition of free will.
I am a determinist. The choices we make are based on our feelings (and knowledge and reasoning) in the moment, and those are based on our genetically-determined capacities as shaped by the sum total of all our experiences up to that moment. If it were possible for an observer to know all of those genetically-determined capacities and to know how all of the experiences had inflected those capacities, then it would be possible to predict with a very high degree of accuracy what choices would be made. In this strict sense, there is no free will under the definition proposed.
However, since it is impossible to know all of the relevant genetically-determined capacities, all of the relevant experiences, and how they have interacted, as a practical matter we do have free will. But in an absolute sense (from the standpoint of the omniscient observer), the freedom of our will is just an illusion.
(The near-infinite number of observations is for the extreme cases. In many cases it would probably be possible to identify patterns of decision-making after a relatively few observations.)
Incidentally, the comment from the audience about AI programs being shut down when the bots began to invent a language of their own seems to have been wrong and based on misleading reporting.
https://towardsdatascience.com/the-truth-behind-facebook-ai-inventing-a-new-language-37c5d680e5a7
https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/01/facebook_chatbots_did_not_invent_new_language/
Eric,
Thanks for taking the trouble to see the forum and for the feedback.
I focused on predictability of choices in the definition of free will, but predictability per se is not the crucial factor; it's just a useful proxy because it tracks almost identically with what must be the real defining factor. Predictability is a proxy for being able to choose independently of constraints (ie, the "free" in free will means free of constraints), such that when repeatedly confronted with, say, a binary choice, either option could be selected on a given take.
A thought experiment:
1. Suppose God can infallibly predict the outcome of all future events.
2. Suppose God predicts whether or not Steve will hit the snooze button on his alarm clock tomorrow morning.
3. Suppose Steve asks God to share this prediction with him; God responds truthfully.
4. Suppose Steve hears his alarm clock tomorrow morning, begins to reach toward the snooze button, but pauses to recall what God told him.
5. ???
There's something weird going on here, and I don't know what to make of it. At some point(s) in the thought experiment, we're being asked to divide by zero, so to speak.
Probably if you had sufficient data about my genetic makeup, my upbringing, my education
and my life experience you could predict whether at age 50 I was going to become a vegetarian or to eat meat.
But could "sufficient" date ever predict what note was going to follow any given note in a piano sonata from Beethoven's late period?
That is, most of us are fairly predictable in our life choices, but isn't there a level of human creativity that defies any possible prediction?
The Ornithological proof: God is a rare bird some folks think they spotted, but it is just trees ruffling in the wind
s. wallerstein,
Your question demands a definition of "creativity."
When you say "being creative," do you mean an individual choosing to do something that most others, similarly situated, would not do?
Do you mean that same individual choosing to do something in a given moment that he or she him- or herself would not usually do? Acting on a whim?
Not that most others would not do it, but that most others could not do it because they're not creative geniuses.
Each sonata of Beethoven or of any great commposer is unique, so it's something he or she would not usually do. It's original.
I don't have a snap definition of creativity, but I imagine that you are sensitive enough to art, be it music or painting or poetry, to understand what creativity is.
Eric, in your comments at 6:11 PM, did you mean to exclude society? Or are you smuggling society’s influence into your “feelings (and knowledge and reasoning) in the moment”?
"Each sonata of Beethoven or of any great commposer is unique, so it's something he or she would not usually do. It's original. "
Well, actually, artists frequently reuse ideas, themes, moods, styles ("Picasso's blue period"), in their works. What ends up getting called "Symphony No. X" is highly influenced by commercial pressures and/or real or perceived demands from the potential audience (in other words, external constraints).
I framed the definition to focus on observing choices made with regard to a single question because for the determinist the question isn't what note would Beethoven usually choose in a composition. It's what note would Beethoven choose for *this* composition, at *this* point in the piece, at *this* point in his life. Knowing what he did last week and what he will do next week might help, but he wasn't exactly the same Beethoven/won't be the same Beethoven at those points in time, so the question he was facing (or will face) won't be exactly the same question as the one he is facing in this moment. Remember, we need to take into consideration all the prior experiences.
There's that passage from "A Christmas Carol" where Scrooge attributes the sight of a ghost to being a hallucination brought on by a bit of undigested beef or something else he had eaten.
Maybe an argument Beethoven has had with a shopkeeper in the afternoon affects his mood, and which note he chooses, later that evening.
That's why for the conceptual definition I talk about observing clones of the original agent making the choice, all other circumstances being the same.
But if creativity is more than that, we need a definition for it.
anon,
Experiences includes everything that has happened to the being, including their interactions with other beings ("society"), even in the womb.
Dear Michael Llenos:
Just as "is" does not imply "ought" so "Ought" does not imply "is"
I have a good friend Gerard who beats me at chess all the time and is smarter than me, and who is very Christian. Though he is a morally and intellectually admirable human being meaning it is ridiculous to regard his religious beliefs as ridiculous since they participate in "Gerardness" for most Christians their religious belief are a pretext for human weakness. There are a few people like you and Gerard who are true Christians you are rare birds and therefore your religion is but a child's game or. a toy as Marlowe would have it- you play in a metaphysical sandbox and your arguments are dirty from the free play of children at recess
Your nobility of soul can fit in a different wine bottle than Christian dogma
Thanks for the elucidation, Eric. But if you allow society that significant role--to a considerable degree shaping the individual and framing individual choices (which I happen to think is the case)--doesn't that then transform the whole issue of 'free will', including the concept itself, into something rather different than the individualistic notion of it that others have espoused in this thread?
The end of god-bothering:
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/12/26/hamline-university-apparently-fires-art-history-lecturer-for-showing-depictions-of-muhammed/
Howie,
Since I'm really truly instead an idiot with no nobility of soul, I guess I'll stick with the Christian wine bottle I'm lucky enough to have because I have no where else go.
BTW, to make one last ditch effort at defending the footsteps of theists everywhere I'll say why it wiser to believe in God than not to. I can't remember if I previously posted this before...
Since in this vast existence we call the universe & beyond, it is quite possible to find out one day if God exists if he reveals himself to the universe's inhabitants one day in the future. For no matter how unseen, such a possibility is still possible. So it is possible one day for believers to see God. However, on the other side of the coin, if an omnipotent God decided to hide himself from the universe's inhabitants for all eternity, how could any atheist find out in the future, no matter how long they lived, if God truly doesn't exist? For a believer in God, their actions are motivated by the hope of some future time & place. For an atheist or agnostic, their thinking is a logical error.
Codicil
I'm saying if it is possible for God to exist, he may exist. And it is possible for God to exist, so he may exist since anything in the universe is possible. Now Ockham's Razor is based on probability & not possibility, so it cannot be used against what is possible.
Surely it's not the case that anything in the universe is possible. It's not possible, for instance, that various planets and stars will be found to be made of green cheese, or if it is deemed possible that would drain the notion of possibility of much meaning, I would think.
LFC
"Surely it's not the case that anything in the universe is possible. It's not possible, for instance, that various planets and stars will be found to be made of green cheese, or if it is deemed possible that would drain the notion of possibility of much meaning, I would think."
It's possible, just not probable. Suppose some great civilization in the future built a Death Star, but instead of using it to destroy planets, they made it into a atom & molecular transformer like the food replicators on Star Trek, just a lot bigger. Say they also figured out time travel and made it big enough to transform whole galaxies into green cheese. They can do it at any time & any place. What stops it from happening or not are the laws of probability, not possibility. Anything is possible, just not probable.
Many people don't make the distinction between possibility & probability even though they've heard both terms throughout life. Children for example live with the idea that everything is possible. They know very limited about probability because they have limited experiences in their youth. As they reach adulthood they have much more experience about life & know more about probability and improbability. The only problem is they think what is probable is possible & what is improbable as impossible. And if they make no distinction between the terms & their definitions then they will continue to err for the rest of their life. It only gets worse with age with such because the older one gets the more life experiences one has. So for them the laws of probability are the laws of possibility. And whenever a miracle or quasi-miracle happens they freak out and say: "That is impossible!" But what it really is is improbable & not impossible. Everything is possible in existence. What's needed is only the right combination of probability for anything improbable to occur.
Michael LLenos,
Since you distinguish between what is possible and what is probable, is it probable that God exists?
Sure, it's possible, but is it probable there's a just, loving, eternal, omniscience supreme being who created the universe and who punishes the bad and rewards the good?
I assume that when you speak of the existence of God, you refer to such a God, not to Spinoza's God, which is simply the order of the universe seen as divine.
If it's Spinoza's God (who isn't really a who, still less concerned about us) you're referring to, I doubt that anyone here is going to argue much if it makes sense to talk about it or not.
SW
"Sure, it's possible, but is it probable there's a just, loving, eternal, omniscience supreme being who created the universe and who punishes the bad and rewards the good?"
I wrote about this topic at my website in a short essay called On the Goodness of God here:
http://michael.www2.50megs.com/index0111.html
Note: Below that short piece I went straight into religious dogma. Please ignore the dogma & do not read it as I was trying my hand at religion & it was mostly written for theists.
"If it's Spinoza's God (who isn't really a who, still less concerned about us) you're referring to, I doubt that anyone here is going to argue much if it makes sense to talk about it or not."
I have not met God yet so I don't know what God looks like or how he acts. All my knowledge about God mostly comes through various religions esp. the texts of the Bible and the Koran. So I would not be surprised if I (or anyone else) will actually be surprised at what God is actually like if I look at him in the future. Meaning right now I know hardly anything about God.
Michael Llenos,
God for Spinoza doesn't "look like" anything nor is God a "he" or a "she". God for Spinoza is Being, not a Being. You might try Spinoza's Ethics.
Einstein shared Spinoza’s concept of God, writing in a letter, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”
See “Einstein’s (Bad) Love Poem”:
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/dujs/2013/11/03/einsteins-bad-love-poem-2/#:~:text=Einstein%20agreed%20with%20Spinoza's%20idea,and%20actions%20of%20human%20beings.%E2%80%9D
anon.,
Most people believe that each human being has a soul, an immaterial essence that manifests as the individual's personality and that animates his or her corporeal body but which is, on some level, independent of or different from it. Many people further believe that each soul was individually created, purposefully, by a/the Supreme Being, and was given the ability to judge right and wrong, to reason, and to make choices. If that is your orientation, then seeing the exercise of free will as an individualistic act, as you suggest, is basically a matter of faith.
Thanks for the input;)
If you were responding to me, Eric, then either I misstated something or else youmisunderstand me.
I do think many people see the free will from an individualistic perspective, but I don't. As to all the god talk, I leave that to others.
anon:
What does it mean to "... see the free will [sic] from an individualistic perspective"?
D.Z. I mean that they believe they are making decisions as entirely autonomous individuals free from the constraints, perceptions, and modes of evaluating that society has inculcated in them since their moment of birth. It seems to me that should one begin with the notion that we’re all social beings, free will beomes something of a non-starter except insofar as it might be construed as a forlorn desire to escape one’s socialization.
Oddly enough, and much to my discomfort, one can encounter something like that, or at least so it has been argued, in the work of Hayek. To quote Leslie Marsh, “Oakeshott and Hayek: Situating the mind” :
“It might strike the reader as odd to say that neither Hayek nor Oakeshott
were individualists: in a word, Oakeshott and Hayek would be termed “exter-
nalists” in the philosophy of mind. Broadly speaking, externalism is the thesis
that an individual’s environment has some causal determinant on the content
of the individual mind. By contrast, Cartesian individualism (or internalism)
is internal in the sense that knowledge relies solely on, or is fashioned by, the
operations of the cognizer’s mental states without any appeal to external con-
siderations. The methodological supposition that cognition can be studied
independently of any consideration of the body and the physical and ambient
social environment is characteristic of orthodox philosophy of mind.”
Should you read the entire piece, you may conclude that I'm misunderstanding Marsh's points. But I offer it merely as an example. Best wishes
anon.,
I should have written, "If that is one's orientation, then seeing the exercise of free will as an individualistic act, as you suggest many people do, is basically a matter of faith for them."
Anon,
Marsh doesn't seem to have any idea what they're talking about. It seems like they might be running together the internalism/externalism debate about mental content and the internalism/externalism debate about epistemic justification. In any case, they don't seem to get much right about any of these topics.
See the Stanford Encyclopedia articles on those topics for more.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-intext/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/
To TJ:
Hear, hear.
Marsh is a muddle... or rather, many muddles.
Addendum to the last comment re Marsh:
Moreover, there are no direct connections, perhaps no connections at all, between the externalist/internalist disputes in semantic content and epistemology, on the one hand, and the free will issue, on the other.
I finally had a chance to watch the panel discussion on free will which s. wallerstein linked to. I found it very worthwhile. The dispute over whether free will exists reduces to a semantical misunderstanding of what the term “free will” stands for. The fact that panelist Nura Sidarus has conducted neurological experiments which demonstrate that before one makes a decision to press a right or left button, neurons in the brain signaling the movement to be made fire does not rebut the existence of free will. Nor does the fact that every event in the universe has a cause, including the firing of the neurons, the raising of one’s arm, the movements of an athlete’s arms and legs, etc., negate the existence of free will. As Prof. Helen Steward stated, causation is not inconsistent with the existence of free will, as long as the causes in question are an internal part of the human making the decisions.
There are only three possible scenarios in the universe: (1) everything has a cause; (2) everything is random; (3) there is a combination of causation and randomness in the universe. None of these scenarios would be inconsistent with the existence of free wills, as long as whatever occurs is occurring within the human being, whether caused or random. As Prof. Steward pointed out, the issue is viewing the human from the top down – the decision to move one’s arm is a decision made by the human, regardless what preceded the decision. If I decide to move my right arm, regardless that the decision was preceded by neurons firing in my brain, it is my decision. By contrast, if I were controlled by puppeteer, with strings controlling my arms, then the decision to move would be controlled by the puppeteer, not by me. One may say, well what makes you think you are not controlled by a puppeteer? Because I make the decision to move my right arm, or my left arm. If I were controlled by a puppeteer making me move my right arm, then I would be unable to move my left arm instead. The use of the word “free” in “free will” does not entail that my decisions are uncaused.
Eric wrote above:
“I am a determinist. The choices we make are based on our feelings (and knowledge and reasoning) in the moment, and those are based on our genetically-determined capacities as shaped by the sum total of all our experiences up to that moment. If it were possible for an observer to know all of those genetically-determined capacities and to know how all of the experiences had inflected those capacities, then it would be possible to predict with a very high degree of accuracy what choices would be made. In this strict sense, there is no free will under the definition proposed.” But the question is one of predictability. As one of the panelists pointed, even if one knew all the laws of physics, and knew where every molecular particle was at any point in time, it would not be possible to predict where every molecule would be at some time in the future. So, no program, however complex, an predict what decision anyone will make at some time in the future, even if one applies the laws of physics. It is this inability to predict one’s future decisions that confirms the existence of free will in humans. In the absence of neurological conditions which prevent self-control, e.g., sleep-walking, schizophrenia, autism, one can be held morally responsible for one’s exercise of free will, even if one’s decisions are preceded by causes.
Divine determinism does not preclude free will. We are puppets on a divine string, but we get to choose what kind of puppets we are.
Free will
Aquinas argues that there is no contradiction between God's providence and human free will:
... just as by moving natural causes [God] does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature.
— Summa, I., Q.83, art.1.
—Thomas Aquinas
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