there are no ‘unanswerable’ questions, only ill-formed ones.
He talks specifically about the concept of free will (emphasis below is mine):
By “free will,” I’ll mean a metaphysical attribute that I hold to be largely outside the scope of
science—and which I can’t even define clearly, except to say that, if there’s an otherwise-undefinable
thing that people have tried to get at for centuries with the phrase “free will,” then free will is that
thing! More seriously, as many philosophers have pointed out, “free will” seems to combine two
distinct ideas: first, that your choices are “free” from any kind of external constraint; and second,
that your choices are not arbitrary or capricious, but are “willed by you.” The second idea—that
of being “willed by you”—is the one I consider outside the scope of science, for the simple reason
that no matter what the empirical facts were, a skeptic could always deny that a given decision
was “really” yours, and hold the true decider to have been God, the universe, an impersonating
demon, etc. I see no way to formulate, in terms of observable concepts, what it would even mean
for such a skeptic to be right or wrong.
So “unanswerable” does not necessarily mean “should be dissolved”, but rather that it’s not clear what answering such a question “would even mean”. The “breaking-off” process creates questions which can have meaningful answers. The original question may remain “undissolved”, but some relevant interesting questions become answerable.
I see no way to formulate, in terms of observable concepts, what it would even mean for such a skeptic to be right or wrong.
Hmm, but why should Aaronson restrict himself to understanding the skeptic’s objection in terms of observable concepts (I assume he means something like ‘empirical concepts’)? I mean, we have good reason to operate within empiricism where we can, but it seems to me you’re not allowed to let your methodology screen off a question entirely. That’s bad philosophical practice.
Because that is what “answerable” means to a scientist?
I guess I could just rephrase the question this way: why should Aaronson get to assume he should be able to understand the skeptic’s objection in terms of, say, physics or biology? We have very good reasons to think we should answer things with physics or biology where we can, but we can’t let methodology screen off a question entirely.
Must be the inference gap between a philosopher and a scientist.
I don’t think so, I think I was just unclear. It’s perfectly fine of course for Aaronson to say ‘if I can’t understand part of the problem of free will within a scientific methodology, I’m going to set it aside.’ But it’s not okay for him to say ‘if I can’t understand part of the problem of free will within a scientific methodology, we should all just set it aside as unanswerable’ unless he has some argument to that effect. Hardcore naturalism is awesome, but we don’t get it by assumption.
True, I agree that philosophers are uniquely equipped to see an “unanswerable” riddle as a whole, having learned the multitude of attempts to attack such a riddle from various directions throughout history. However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts. Pass along and not pretend to solve it, because most philosophers (with rare exceptions) are not area experts and so are not qualified to truly solve the “answerable questions”. The research area can be math, physics, chemistry, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology etc.
However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts.
Absolutely, we agree on that, though I think the philosophical work doesn’t end there, since area experts are generally ill equipped to evaluate their answer in terms of the original question.
No disagreement there, either. As long as after this evaluation the philosopher in question does not pretend that she helped the scientists to do their job better. If she simply applies the answer received to the original question and carves out another solvable piece of the puzzle to be farmed out to an expert, I have no problem with that.
He talks specifically about the concept of free will (emphasis below is mine):
So “unanswerable” does not necessarily mean “should be dissolved”, but rather that it’s not clear what answering such a question “would even mean”. The “breaking-off” process creates questions which can have meaningful answers. The original question may remain “undissolved”, but some relevant interesting questions become answerable.
Hmm, but why should Aaronson restrict himself to understanding the skeptic’s objection in terms of observable concepts (I assume he means something like ‘empirical concepts’)? I mean, we have good reason to operate within empiricism where we can, but it seems to me you’re not allowed to let your methodology screen off a question entirely. That’s bad philosophical practice.
Because that is what “answerable” means to a scientist?
I guess I could just rephrase the question this way: why should Aaronson get to assume he should be able to understand the skeptic’s objection in terms of, say, physics or biology? We have very good reasons to think we should answer things with physics or biology where we can, but we can’t let methodology screen off a question entirely.
Sorry, I don’t understand your rephrasing. Must be the inference gap between a philosopher and a scientist.
I don’t think so, I think I was just unclear. It’s perfectly fine of course for Aaronson to say ‘if I can’t understand part of the problem of free will within a scientific methodology, I’m going to set it aside.’ But it’s not okay for him to say ‘if I can’t understand part of the problem of free will within a scientific methodology, we should all just set it aside as unanswerable’ unless he has some argument to that effect. Hardcore naturalism is awesome, but we don’t get it by assumption.
Hmm, I don’t believe that he is saying anything like that.
True, I agree that philosophers are uniquely equipped to see an “unanswerable” riddle as a whole, having learned the multitude of attempts to attack such a riddle from various directions throughout history. However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts. Pass along and not pretend to solve it, because most philosophers (with rare exceptions) are not area experts and so are not qualified to truly solve the “answerable questions”. The research area can be math, physics, chemistry, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology etc.
Absolutely, we agree on that, though I think the philosophical work doesn’t end there, since area experts are generally ill equipped to evaluate their answer in terms of the original question.
No disagreement there, either. As long as after this evaluation the philosopher in question does not pretend that she helped the scientists to do their job better. If she simply applies the answer received to the original question and carves out another solvable piece of the puzzle to be farmed out to an expert, I have no problem with that.