it seems basic to me that events can be caused, chosen, or random.
Can you give a specific, meaningful definition of “choice” that cannot be reduced to causality, randomness, or some mixture thereof? I’ve tried, and I really can’t think of any that hold up under scrutiny. Most of my attempts (from back when this seemed like a serious problem to me) turned out to be meaningless or circular definitions, or homunculi. Even if, for example, you posit an extraphysical soul that controls one’s body like a puppet, then the question of “How does the soul make its choices?” is still meaningful — a given choice can either be for a reason or for no reason — and there would in theory be a right answer, even if there we somehow could never find out what it was (and we probably could anyway, by studying behavior and reverse-engineering general principles: the same thing science always does, even if it cannot directly study the underlying mechanism).
No, I can’t. I think that, in practice, the three categories are hopelessly interwoven. You should be able to “reduce” any event into any of the three categories.
Take the thing about the wallet. I can focus on the choice I made, and say it was my choice that mattered; I could have chosen differently, and but for my choice, the wallet would not have been returned. I can focus on the randomness, and say it was the randomness that mattered; I happened to win a small prize on a scratch-off lottery earlier that day, and but for that randomness, the wallet would not have been returned. I can focus on the casuation, and say that it was the prior conditions that mattered; a perfect computer could have known that I had brain-state X immediately before returning the wallet; and brain-state X is sufficient to induce wallet returns.
Well, why did I have brain-state X? It could be because I had brain-state Y a moment ago, which is a sufficient cause of X, or it could be because the electrons in some of my neurons randomly happened to be in the right place at the right time, or it could be because I chose to look down at the ground and see what was there.
And so on—any given event can be explained in any of three different ways; when it comes to anything as complex as the human brain, the pure types exist only in our imaginations.
I assume that there is some line you would draw, be it at individual neurons, or cellular structures, or molecules, or individual atoms, beyond which you would say, “these types of things don’t make choices.” If so, how would you reply to the question: in what sense can a system built out of components that don’t make choices be said to make choices?
[grin] Cyan, I actually do believe that even subatomic particles, in some limited sense, can be said to make choices. I do agree with you that choice can’t arise out of choiceless components.
If you’re curious about what it might mean for an electron to make a choice, and you have a high tolerance for whimsy, I recommend the book Reenchantment without Supernaturalism. The philosophy isn’t very rigorous, and it’s rather out of date, but it’s the only one I know of that (a) takes physics seriously, (b) takes logic seriously, and (c) accounts for my intuition that I make choices without (d) dismissing that intuition as an illusion.
Quantum amplitudes evolve deterministically, and it’s generally held that quantum systems either decohere deterministically or collapse randomly. How does this permit subatomic particles to be said to make choices, even in a limited sense?
Is there a more easily accessible explanation of the argument in the book? (I’m not going to shell out for it.)
Not that I know of, although it might be in a good public library. Sorry about that; I know it’s unfair to ask you to look in an obscure book to get the basic drift of a contrarian argument; that sort of thing is rarely worth people’s time. If you happen to live near Boston, Miami, or San Francisco, which are places I’ll be over the next few months, then I’ll be happy to lend you my copy.
I don’t know nearly enough quantum physics to give you an intelligent answer to your question about amplitudes and systems in my own words. Again, sorry about that.
If you happen to live near Boston, Miami, or San Francisco...
Nope. Oh well, at least the exchange served to clarify that you really do consider choice ontologically fundamental, and not just a useful category for practical purposes.
Can you give a specific, meaningful definition of “choice” that cannot be reduced to causality, randomness, or some mixture thereof? I’ve tried, and I really can’t think of any that hold up under scrutiny. Most of my attempts (from back when this seemed like a serious problem to me) turned out to be meaningless or circular definitions, or homunculi. Even if, for example, you posit an extraphysical soul that controls one’s body like a puppet, then the question of “How does the soul make its choices?” is still meaningful — a given choice can either be for a reason or for no reason — and there would in theory be a right answer, even if there we somehow could never find out what it was (and we probably could anyway, by studying behavior and reverse-engineering general principles: the same thing science always does, even if it cannot directly study the underlying mechanism).
No, I can’t. I think that, in practice, the three categories are hopelessly interwoven. You should be able to “reduce” any event into any of the three categories.
Take the thing about the wallet. I can focus on the choice I made, and say it was my choice that mattered; I could have chosen differently, and but for my choice, the wallet would not have been returned. I can focus on the randomness, and say it was the randomness that mattered; I happened to win a small prize on a scratch-off lottery earlier that day, and but for that randomness, the wallet would not have been returned. I can focus on the casuation, and say that it was the prior conditions that mattered; a perfect computer could have known that I had brain-state X immediately before returning the wallet; and brain-state X is sufficient to induce wallet returns.
Well, why did I have brain-state X? It could be because I had brain-state Y a moment ago, which is a sufficient cause of X, or it could be because the electrons in some of my neurons randomly happened to be in the right place at the right time, or it could be because I chose to look down at the ground and see what was there.
And so on—any given event can be explained in any of three different ways; when it comes to anything as complex as the human brain, the pure types exist only in our imaginations.
I assume that there is some line you would draw, be it at individual neurons, or cellular structures, or molecules, or individual atoms, beyond which you would say, “these types of things don’t make choices.” If so, how would you reply to the question: in what sense can a system built out of components that don’t make choices be said to make choices?
[grin] Cyan, I actually do believe that even subatomic particles, in some limited sense, can be said to make choices. I do agree with you that choice can’t arise out of choiceless components.
If you’re curious about what it might mean for an electron to make a choice, and you have a high tolerance for whimsy, I recommend the book Reenchantment without Supernaturalism. The philosophy isn’t very rigorous, and it’s rather out of date, but it’s the only one I know of that (a) takes physics seriously, (b) takes logic seriously, and (c) accounts for my intuition that I make choices without (d) dismissing that intuition as an illusion.
Quantum amplitudes evolve deterministically, and it’s generally held that quantum systems either decohere deterministically or collapse randomly. How does this permit subatomic particles to be said to make choices, even in a limited sense?
Is there a more easily accessible explanation of the argument in the book? (I’m not going to shell out for it.)
Not that I know of, although it might be in a good public library. Sorry about that; I know it’s unfair to ask you to look in an obscure book to get the basic drift of a contrarian argument; that sort of thing is rarely worth people’s time. If you happen to live near Boston, Miami, or San Francisco, which are places I’ll be over the next few months, then I’ll be happy to lend you my copy.
I don’t know nearly enough quantum physics to give you an intelligent answer to your question about amplitudes and systems in my own words. Again, sorry about that.
Nope. Oh well, at least the exchange served to clarify that you really do consider choice ontologically fundamental, and not just a useful category for practical purposes.