6 ms·

Are those ideas not essentially orthogonal and therefore never were in conflict? Determinism is about what can or will happen given the current state of the uni

Are those ideas not essentially orthogonal and therefore never were in conflict? Determinism is about what can or will happen given the current state of the universe, panpsychism is trying to explain where your experience of the current state comes from. There might be some conflict, for example if you conclude from your experience of having free will that you actually have free will, but those do not seem central enough to necessitate conflict. 1. Moral Responsibility: The concept of moral responsibility would need to be re-evaluated. [...] You are not going to reevaluate anything in a deterministic universe.

AndrewDucker 3y ago
I might well re-evaluate things in a deterministic universe. I just won't have any choice over whether I do.
- bondarchuk 3y ago
  "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road." (Stephen Hawking) People get so hopelessly confused about determinism and minds...
  - danbruc 3y ago
    Because he makes an easy mistake in the quote? I would say the real confusion will start showing up once you try making sense of the words »noticed« and »claim« in that sentence.
    - efitz 3y ago
      I think that determinism is not a useful theory, and I think that is what Hawking was getting at in his wry comment. Even if the universe is deterministic, it doesn’t feel deterministic, and determinism doesn’t help me with ethics or morality. It reminds me of The Stranger.
      - danbruc 3y ago
        [...] determinism doesn’t help me with ethics or morality. It does. When we look at criminals we nowadays take into account medical and psychological conditions, we are aware that people are not always in full control of what they are doing. This is obviously a weaker form than full blown determinism, but we certainly take into account that people are not completely free in their actions at all times. Similarly the assumption of a deterministic universe will influence ethics and morality, even though it will of course not be the only thing under consideration. [1] [1] Ignoring the big complication that talking about considerations and things like that in a deterministic universe is itself something that needs a lot of care.
        mcpackieh 3y ago
        > It does. When we look at criminals we nowadays take into account medical and psychological conditions, we are aware that people are not always in full control of what they are doing. But that doesn't change anything one way or the other. The efficacy of policies can be determined by measuring the outcomes. Policies which reduce crime / recidivism rates are good; policies that don't are bad. Whether or not anybody has free will makes no difference, the outcomes are what they are whether or not people have free will. If raising the DUI fine 10x causes a drop in DUI rates, then that's a good policy even if people don't have free will. And if it has no effect on DUI rates, then it's an ineffectual policy even if people have free will. Free will is irrelevant, measurable outcomes are what matters.
        danbruc 3y ago
        Policies which reduce crime / recidivism rates are good; policies that don't are bad. Killing all people will reduce the crime and recidivism rates to zero. At the very least you want some more nuance. The efficacy of policies can be determined by measuring the outcomes. Killing a healthy person and taking two of its organs to save two terminally ill people waiting for an organ transplant will increase the number of years lived. Is outcome really all that matters? Breaking the window of a car because you like breaking stuff and breaking the window of a car to unsuccessfully save a dog left behind in the car on a hot day, are they really morally the same because the outcome is the same? Yes, you talked about policies and not individual actions, but with some more thinking I could certainly find a good example for policies.
    - bondarchuk 3y ago
      I think he does not make a mistake at all. It is more than just a snarky joke, it actually gets at the heart of the issue, which is that determinism of physical laws happens at a different level of description than considerations about human minds such as making a decision, or any thought process at all. And you can see in the long sibling thread once again what kind of confusion ensues when people don't take that distinction seriously. Minds are implemented within physics, but human concepts w.r.t. minds (e.g. responsibility, choice, freedom..) are only valid on the level of the minds, without any reference to the underlying physics. Any time people use physics to make judgments about morality they are just hopelessly confusing themselves by switching between "standard" physics and dualist metaphysics without noticing.
      - danbruc 3y ago
        Minds are implemented within physics, but human concepts w.r.t. minds (e.g. responsibility, choice, freedom..) are only valid on the level of the minds, without any reference to the underlying physics. I agree that the concepts we use to deal with human minds are higher level concepts. I am somewhat hesitant to call them emergent because that does not seem to quite fit the common usage of the term, but if hard pressed, I would probably call them emergent at the end of the day, just in a more complex way than the color of things or the wetness of water emerges. I would also agree that some of the concepts are in one way or another substrate independent, i.e. they are not strongly tied to the underlying physics, i.e. you could build the same concept on top of other physics or maybe oven on top of something completely different, say mathematical set theory. But...I don't think it valid to think of physics and minds as completely separable. If physics is deterministic, you do not get to introduce a fundamentally nondeterministic decision process at the level of minds. You can have one that seems nondeterministic to the mind because it lacks knowledge of all the positions and momenta of all the particles, but it would not be truly nondeterministic. You can also talk about a fictitious nondeterministic decision process that is just not realizable in the deterministic universe. So I think there are at least two classes of human level concepts, those that are independent of the underlying physics and those that are not. And some times there will be overlap, prime example free will. Even in a deterministic universe you can have free will in one of the compatibilistic senses, say doing what you want to do, but you will neither get to determine what you want do, nor what you do or whether the two are the same.
- danbruc 3y ago
  We of course mean the same thing. Reevaluation has, at least to me and in the context it was used in here, this quality of deciding to have another look. Well, in some sense you will even in a deterministic universe decide to have another look, this really comes down to how you determine and count the available options.
dalmo3 3y ago
I never understood hard determinists who also claim they're not fatalists and spend their lives discussing morality (eg Sam Harris). I guess they have no choice whether they do...
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  Even if everything is deterministic, human society can only function successfully with the illusion of free will. If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. Just cause and effect. That we exist as we do is a result of evolution selecting for perception of free will. That's my theory, anyway. (Make of my username what you will.)
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    The question should not be whether or not people have "free will" over their actions, since free will is impossible to emperically measure. Rather, the question should be whether deterrence and/or rehabilitation have measurable impacts on how people behave. Does Policy X reduce Crime Y? If yes, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is effective. If no, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is not effective. Either way the cookie crumbles, free will doesn't matter. So the question of free will is quite literally irrelevant.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. That's not true. You can put people behind bars, say for example murderers, without blaming them for what did but in order to protect others. Even today we will, for example, lock people with dangerous mental illnesses up in order to protect others from them, even if we know that what they did, they did because of some condition outside of their control.
    - naasking 3y ago
niam 3y ago
Moral culpability would seem to go out the window in a deterministic universe, no? Not in the sense that people shouldn't be held responsible for actions, but in the sense that retributive punishment becomes a much harder sell. A murderous Roomba may warrant separation from other Roombas, or some sort of intervention which may incline it less towards murder, but we don't put it in a box or pry off its plastic for the mere sake of 'deserving it'.
- danbruc 3y ago
  At least in some countries we have not been locking people up for punishment for quite some time. You go to prison to protect the public, change your behavior, and deter others from committing crimes, not for punishment. The public perception, I would guess, has not quite kept up with this development, I think that prison is for punishment is still a widespread idea.
  - niam 3y ago
    > we have not been locking people up for punishment for quite some time Whether or not this is true seems kind of beside the point. All I'm saying as that, for an arbitrary reader, a consequence of determinism is that the morals of "desert" are meaningfully impacted—whether that convinces them against retribution, or buttresses their existing notions against it.

AndrewDucker 3y ago

I might well re-evaluate things in a deterministic universe. I just won't have any choice over whether I do.

bondarchuk 3y ago
"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road." (Stephen Hawking) People get so hopelessly confused about determinism and minds...
- danbruc 3y ago
  Because he makes an easy mistake in the quote? I would say the real confusion will start showing up once you try making sense of the words »noticed« and »claim« in that sentence.
  - efitz 3y ago
    I think that determinism is not a useful theory, and I think that is what Hawking was getting at in his wry comment. Even if the universe is deterministic, it doesn’t feel deterministic, and determinism doesn’t help me with ethics or morality. It reminds me of The Stranger.
    - danbruc 3y ago
      [...] determinism doesn’t help me with ethics or morality. It does. When we look at criminals we nowadays take into account medical and psychological conditions, we are aware that people are not always in full control of what they are doing. This is obviously a weaker form than full blown determinism, but we certainly take into account that people are not completely free in their actions at all times. Similarly the assumption of a deterministic universe will influence ethics and morality, even though it will of course not be the only thing under consideration. [1] [1] Ignoring the big complication that talking about considerations and things like that in a deterministic universe is itself something that needs a lot of care.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        > It does. When we look at criminals we nowadays take into account medical and psychological conditions, we are aware that people are not always in full control of what they are doing. But that doesn't change anything one way or the other. The efficacy of policies can be determined by measuring the outcomes. Policies which reduce crime / recidivism rates are good; policies that don't are bad. Whether or not anybody has free will makes no difference, the outcomes are what they are whether or not people have free will. If raising the DUI fine 10x causes a drop in DUI rates, then that's a good policy even if people don't have free will. And if it has no effect on DUI rates, then it's an ineffectual policy even if people have free will. Free will is irrelevant, measurable outcomes are what matters.
        danbruc 3y ago
        Policies which reduce crime / recidivism rates are good; policies that don't are bad. Killing all people will reduce the crime and recidivism rates to zero. At the very least you want some more nuance. The efficacy of policies can be determined by measuring the outcomes. Killing a healthy person and taking two of its organs to save two terminally ill people waiting for an organ transplant will increase the number of years lived. Is outcome really all that matters? Breaking the window of a car because you like breaking stuff and breaking the window of a car to unsuccessfully save a dog left behind in the car on a hot day, are they really morally the same because the outcome is the same? Yes, you talked about policies and not individual actions, but with some more thinking I could certainly find a good example for policies.
  - bondarchuk 3y ago
    I think he does not make a mistake at all. It is more than just a snarky joke, it actually gets at the heart of the issue, which is that determinism of physical laws happens at a different level of description than considerations about human minds such as making a decision, or any thought process at all. And you can see in the long sibling thread once again what kind of confusion ensues when people don't take that distinction seriously. Minds are implemented within physics, but human concepts w.r.t. minds (e.g. responsibility, choice, freedom..) are only valid on the level of the minds, without any reference to the underlying physics. Any time people use physics to make judgments about morality they are just hopelessly confusing themselves by switching between "standard" physics and dualist metaphysics without noticing.
    - danbruc 3y ago
      Minds are implemented within physics, but human concepts w.r.t. minds (e.g. responsibility, choice, freedom..) are only valid on the level of the minds, without any reference to the underlying physics. I agree that the concepts we use to deal with human minds are higher level concepts. I am somewhat hesitant to call them emergent because that does not seem to quite fit the common usage of the term, but if hard pressed, I would probably call them emergent at the end of the day, just in a more complex way than the color of things or the wetness of water emerges. I would also agree that some of the concepts are in one way or another substrate independent, i.e. they are not strongly tied to the underlying physics, i.e. you could build the same concept on top of other physics or maybe oven on top of something completely different, say mathematical set theory. But...I don't think it valid to think of physics and minds as completely separable. If physics is deterministic, you do not get to introduce a fundamentally nondeterministic decision process at the level of minds. You can have one that seems nondeterministic to the mind because it lacks knowledge of all the positions and momenta of all the particles, but it would not be truly nondeterministic. You can also talk about a fictitious nondeterministic decision process that is just not realizable in the deterministic universe. So I think there are at least two classes of human level concepts, those that are independent of the underlying physics and those that are not. And some times there will be overlap, prime example free will. Even in a deterministic universe you can have free will in one of the compatibilistic senses, say doing what you want to do, but you will neither get to determine what you want do, nor what you do or whether the two are the same.
danbruc 3y ago
We of course mean the same thing. Reevaluation has, at least to me and in the context it was used in here, this quality of deciding to have another look. Well, in some sense you will even in a deterministic universe decide to have another look, this really comes down to how you determine and count the available options.

dalmo3 3y ago

I never understood hard determinists who also claim they're not fatalists and spend their lives discussing morality (eg Sam Harris). I guess they have no choice whether they do...

sanitycheck 3y ago
Even if everything is deterministic, human society can only function successfully with the illusion of free will. If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. Just cause and effect. That we exist as we do is a result of evolution selecting for perception of free will. That's my theory, anyway. (Make of my username what you will.)
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  The question should not be whether or not people have "free will" over their actions, since free will is impossible to emperically measure. Rather, the question should be whether deterrence and/or rehabilitation have measurable impacts on how people behave. Does Policy X reduce Crime Y? If yes, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is effective. If no, then it doesn't matter if people have free will or not, Policy X is not effective. Either way the cookie crumbles, free will doesn't matter. So the question of free will is quite literally irrelevant.
- danbruc 3y ago
  If we admit nobody can be blamed for their actions, we can't punish them and thus the incentives not to do bad things disappear and the whole shebang collapses. That's not true. You can put people behind bars, say for example murderers, without blaming them for what did but in order to protect others. Even today we will, for example, lock people with dangerous mental illnesses up in order to protect others from them, even if we know that what they did, they did because of some condition outside of their control.
  - naasking 3y ago

niam 3y ago

Moral culpability would seem to go out the window in a deterministic universe, no? Not in the sense that people shouldn't be held responsible for actions, but in the sense that retributive punishment becomes a much harder sell. A murderous Roomba may warrant separation from other Roombas, or some sort of intervention which may incline it less towards murder, but we don't put it in a box or pry off its plastic for the mere sake of 'deserving it'.

danbruc 3y ago
At least in some countries we have not been locking people up for punishment for quite some time. You go to prison to protect the public, change your behavior, and deter others from committing crimes, not for punishment. The public perception, I would guess, has not quite kept up with this development, I think that prison is for punishment is still a widespread idea.
- niam 3y ago
  > we have not been locking people up for punishment for quite some time Whether or not this is true seems kind of beside the point. All I'm saying as that, for an arbitrary reader, a consequence of determinism is that the morals of "desert" are meaningfully impacted—whether that convinces them against retribution, or buttresses their existing notions against it.