If ‘lawful’ just means ‘not completely random’ then I agree. But I’ve never been convinced that there’s no conceivable third option beside ‘random’ and ‘deterministic’. Setting aside whether there’s a non-negligible chance that it’s true, do you think the idea that consciousness plays some mysterious-to-us causal role—one that isn’t accurately captured by our concepts of randomness or determinism—is definitely incoherent?
Consciousness does play a mysterious-to-us-today causal role. It is mysterious, in that no-one has yet explained how there can possibly be such a thing as subjective experience, yet there it is. Perhaps someone might explain it in the future, but no-one has done so today. And it must be causal, not epiphenomenal, because the doctrine of epiphenomenalism just adds another layer of mysteriousness on top of that one, explaining the obscure by the more obscure. Epiphenomenalism is no more coherent an idea than p-zombies.
Randomness vs. determinism is a red herring. The universe has to be lawful, for us to be able to direct it into desired configurations. Randomness, such as some current theories of quantum mechanics say are physically unreducible to determinism, is an obstacle to doing that, but has no more significance than that. That goes for chaos as well, which some put forward as a “third alternative” to randomness and determinism. But none of these matter for this view of what “free will” is.
I recommend that people do click through to the article by Eliezer that I linked before, if they haven’t already. It’s not very long, and any précis I could write would just be a repetition of it. Epiphenomenalism, btw, is described by the first diagram in that article.
And it must be causal, not epiphenomenal, because the doctrine of epiphenomenalism just adds another layer of mysteriousness on top of that one, explaining the obscure by the more obscure.
I don’t follow this. Adding another layer of mysteriousness might not make for a satisfying explanation, but why must it be false? (I also think the p-zombie is a perfectly coherent idea, for whatever that’s worth.)
When I say “must” I’m rounding to zero probabilities so negligible that they should not even come to my attention. Epiphenomenalism has consciousness be a real thing (that is what it is a theory of) but which has only a one-way connection to the rest of the universe, like a redundant gear in a clock that is not part of the train that drives the hands. Nowhere else do we see such a thing; in fact, by definition, we could not. The hypothesis is doing no work.
Nowhere else do we see such a thing; in fact, by definition, we could not.
I think the second clause implies that our not seeing it anywhere else provides no evidence. (Just for the obvious Bayesian reason.)
The hypothesis is doing no work.
I’m not sure why it has to. The ‘consciousness is real’ part isn’t a hypothesis; it’s the one thing we can safely take as an axiom. And the ‘consciousness doesn’t affect anything else’ part is as reasonable a candidate for the null hypothesis as any other, as far as I can tell. Where does your prior against redundant gears come from?
What would legitimately draw the hypothesis to our attention? One of the things that we have experience of is being able to act in the world. Epiphenomenalism says that we do not act in the world, we are merely passengers without the power to so much as twitch our little fingers. This is so plainly absurd that only a philosopher could take it seriously, but as Cicero remarked more than two thousand years ago, no statement is too absurd for some philosophers to make.
What would legitimately draw the hypothesis to our attention?
The fact that subjective experience exists and we haven’t been able to figure out any causal role that it plays, other than that which seems to be explicable by ordinary physics (and with reference only to its ordinary physical correlates).
Epiphenomenalism says that we do not act in the world, we are merely passengers without the power to so much as twitch our little fingers. This is so plainly absurd that only a philosopher could take it seriously
I’ve been trying to articulate why I find it hard to reconcile this with your endorsing Eliezer’s requiredism, and this is the best I can do:
I don’t think I see a meaningful difference between epiphenomenalism (i.e. brain causes qualia, qualia don’t cause anything) and a non-eliminative materialism that says ‘qualia and brain are not separate things; there’s just matter, and sometimes matter has feelings, but the matter that has feelings still obeys ordinary physical laws’. In both cases, qualia are real but physics is causally closed and there’s no room for libertarian free will.
If the quoted passage referred to that kind of materialism rather than to epiphenomenalism, it would be an argument for libertarianism. And I know that’s not what you intended, but I don’t fully understand what you do mean by it, given that it must not conflict with requiredism (which is basically ‘compatibilism but more so’).
In both cases, qualia are real but physics is causally closed and there’s no room for libertarian free will.
Libertarian FW isn’t ruled out by the causal closure of the physical, it’s ruled out by determinism (physical or not). Causal closure would rule out something like interactionist dualism, but that’s fairly orthogonal to LFW...it could even be deterministic.
I don’t see a difference between that argument and saying that a jumbo jet doesn’t cause anything, only its atoms do.
Happy to leave this here if you’ve had enough, but if you do want a response I’ll need more than that to go on. I’ve been struggling to understand how your position fits together, and that doesn’t really help. (I’m not even sure exactly what you’re referring to as ‘that argument’. Admittedly I am tired; I’ll take a break now.)
If ‘lawful’ just means ‘not completely random’ then I agree. But I’ve never been convinced that there’s no conceivable third option beside ‘random’ and ‘deterministic’. Setting aside whether there’s a non-negligible chance that it’s true, do you think the idea that consciousness plays some mysterious-to-us causal role—one that isn’t accurately captured by our concepts of randomness or determinism—is definitely incoherent?
Consciousness does play a mysterious-to-us-today causal role. It is mysterious, in that no-one has yet explained how there can possibly be such a thing as subjective experience, yet there it is. Perhaps someone might explain it in the future, but no-one has done so today. And it must be causal, not epiphenomenal, because the doctrine of epiphenomenalism just adds another layer of mysteriousness on top of that one, explaining the obscure by the more obscure. Epiphenomenalism is no more coherent an idea than p-zombies.
Randomness vs. determinism is a red herring. The universe has to be lawful, for us to be able to direct it into desired configurations. Randomness, such as some current theories of quantum mechanics say are physically unreducible to determinism, is an obstacle to doing that, but has no more significance than that. That goes for chaos as well, which some put forward as a “third alternative” to randomness and determinism. But none of these matter for this view of what “free will” is.
I recommend that people do click through to the article by Eliezer that I linked before, if they haven’t already. It’s not very long, and any précis I could write would just be a repetition of it. Epiphenomenalism, btw, is described by the first diagram in that article.
I don’t follow this. Adding another layer of mysteriousness might not make for a satisfying explanation, but why must it be false? (I also think the p-zombie is a perfectly coherent idea, for whatever that’s worth.)
When I say “must” I’m rounding to zero probabilities so negligible that they should not even come to my attention. Epiphenomenalism has consciousness be a real thing (that is what it is a theory of) but which has only a one-way connection to the rest of the universe, like a redundant gear in a clock that is not part of the train that drives the hands. Nowhere else do we see such a thing; in fact, by definition, we could not. The hypothesis is doing no work.
And I see p-zombies as another incoherent idea.
I think the second clause implies that our not seeing it anywhere else provides no evidence. (Just for the obvious Bayesian reason.)
I’m not sure why it has to. The ‘consciousness is real’ part isn’t a hypothesis; it’s the one thing we can safely take as an axiom. And the ‘consciousness doesn’t affect anything else’ part is as reasonable a candidate for the null hypothesis as any other, as far as I can tell. Where does your prior against redundant gears come from?
What would legitimately draw the hypothesis to our attention? One of the things that we have experience of is being able to act in the world. Epiphenomenalism says that we do not act in the world, we are merely passengers without the power to so much as twitch our little fingers. This is so plainly absurd that only a philosopher could take it seriously, but as Cicero remarked more than two thousand years ago, no statement is too absurd for some philosophers to make.
The fact that subjective experience exists and we haven’t been able to figure out any causal role that it plays, other than that which seems to be explicable by ordinary physics (and with reference only to its ordinary physical correlates).
We have also not figured out how the physical brain does the things that we do.
Agreed, and that’s part of why I see mysterious libertarian free will as not having been ruled out.
I’ve been trying to articulate why I find it hard to reconcile this with your endorsing Eliezer’s requiredism, and this is the best I can do:
I don’t think I see a meaningful difference between epiphenomenalism (i.e. brain causes qualia, qualia don’t cause anything) and a non-eliminative materialism that says ‘qualia and brain are not separate things; there’s just matter, and sometimes matter has feelings, but the matter that has feelings still obeys ordinary physical laws’. In both cases, qualia are real but physics is causally closed and there’s no room for libertarian free will.
If the quoted passage referred to that kind of materialism rather than to epiphenomenalism, it would be an argument for libertarianism. And I know that’s not what you intended, but I don’t fully understand what you do mean by it, given that it must not conflict with requiredism (which is basically ‘compatibilism but more so’).
Libertarian FW isn’t ruled out by the causal closure of the physical, it’s ruled out by determinism (physical or not). Causal closure would rule out something like interactionist dualism, but that’s fairly orthogonal to LFW...it could even be deterministic.
I don’t see a difference between that argument and saying that a jumbo jet doesn’t cause anything, only its atoms do.
Happy to leave this here if you’ve had enough, but if you do want a response I’ll need more than that to go on. I’ve been struggling to understand how your position fits together, and that doesn’t really help. (I’m not even sure exactly what you’re referring to as ‘that argument’. Admittedly I am tired; I’ll take a break now.)