Observation is the standard for what ideas are true or not. We observe that atoms move in predictable ways, and we also observe that humans, who are made of atoms, have free will. Therefore, by observation, reductionism is false.
What about the possibility that free will is either a fundamental/essential property within the universe (like an elan vital for free will), or an emergent property of certain complex systems? In either of these two cases, reductionism would still be true, it would just leave most current reductionists wrong about free will.
Thanks for the reading. I’m still playing some catch-up with the community.
Elezier’s issue with the word “emergence” seems to stem from the fact that people treat the statement “X emerges from process Y” as some sort of explanation. I completely agree with him that it’s actually a nice-sounding non-explanation. I’m in no way claiming or trying to imply that by my above statement that because consciousness is an emergent property that I’ve explained something. However, being an emergent property is the only alternative to being an essential property. I think my statement above does a good job of spanning the space of possible explanations, which was its purpose.
Please do correct me again if I’m wrong on that, though.
Ah, I see — so you were only saying that in contrast to the possibility of it being a fundamental property. I’m still not sure how that would “leave most current reductionists wrong about free will”, though; if you can define in enough detail what free will actually does, then the idea of it being something that emerges from certain complex systems would be agreeable to most reductionists. The only point of disagreement may be over whether to use the term “free will” at all, because of the metaphysical connotations and insufficient denotation it traditionally has.
I think we completely agree about all of this, then. I’m just letting the terminological confusion that was introduced by Ian C’s comment muddy my own attempts at articulating myself.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that, regardless of the result—free will exists, or free will doesn’t exist—there’s no reason to think that this result would have anything to do with the question of whether reductionism is a good research programme. We would still attempt to reduce theories as much as possible, even if free will was “magic”.
The part about “what current reductionists believe”—I assumed that most reductionists think of free-will as nonexistent, or an illusion. So the hypothetical case where free will does exist (magical or otherwise) would leave them hypotheically wrong about it.
Myself, I’m a fan of Dennett’s stance—might as well call the thing we have “free will” even though there’s nothing magic about it. Sorry for the long string of muddled comments. I’ll try thinking harder the first time around next time.
Observation is the standard for what ideas are true or not. We observe that atoms move in predictable ways, and we also observe that humans, who are made of atoms, have free will. Therefore, by observation, reductionism is false.
We don’t have the kind of free will that would imply a contradiction here.
What about the possibility that free will is either a fundamental/essential property within the universe (like an elan vital for free will), or an emergent property of certain complex systems? In either of these two cases, reductionism would still be true, it would just leave most current reductionists wrong about free will.
I found two things for you to read!
http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the_futility_of_emergence/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ix/say_not_complexity/
Thanks for the reading. I’m still playing some catch-up with the community.
Elezier’s issue with the word “emergence” seems to stem from the fact that people treat the statement “X emerges from process Y” as some sort of explanation. I completely agree with him that it’s actually a nice-sounding non-explanation. I’m in no way claiming or trying to imply that by my above statement that because consciousness is an emergent property that I’ve explained something. However, being an emergent property is the only alternative to being an essential property. I think my statement above does a good job of spanning the space of possible explanations, which was its purpose.
Please do correct me again if I’m wrong on that, though.
Ah, I see — so you were only saying that in contrast to the possibility of it being a fundamental property. I’m still not sure how that would “leave most current reductionists wrong about free will”, though; if you can define in enough detail what free will actually does, then the idea of it being something that emerges from certain complex systems would be agreeable to most reductionists. The only point of disagreement may be over whether to use the term “free will” at all, because of the metaphysical connotations and insufficient denotation it traditionally has.
I think we completely agree about all of this, then. I’m just letting the terminological confusion that was introduced by Ian C’s comment muddy my own attempts at articulating myself.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that, regardless of the result—free will exists, or free will doesn’t exist—there’s no reason to think that this result would have anything to do with the question of whether reductionism is a good research programme. We would still attempt to reduce theories as much as possible, even if free will was “magic”.
The part about “what current reductionists believe”—I assumed that most reductionists think of free-will as nonexistent, or an illusion. So the hypothetical case where free will does exist (magical or otherwise) would leave them hypotheically wrong about it.
Myself, I’m a fan of Dennett’s stance—might as well call the thing we have “free will” even though there’s nothing magic about it. Sorry for the long string of muddled comments. I’ll try thinking harder the first time around next time.
That theory has been thoroughly demolished by the evidence.
The essentialist theory? I agree. I’m simply being as generous as conceivable about empirical details in my still-winning argument.
I don’t understand what you mean. If the free-will-is-fundamental claim has negligible support, it isn’t worth mentioning.
Edit: Ah, I didn’t read the context. Bad RobinZ!