Specter of Reason

Just one more quick thought on the Consequence Argument. Consider the premise, "If we have no power over X, and X completely determines Y, then we have no power over Y." The logic of this statement seems to conflate power and determination. One of the common ways "determinism" is defined is as follows: If you are given the state of all of the elements of the universe at any particular time, you can theoretically deduce any future state of the universe. The idea is that we, as investigators, can determine what will happen by looking at what has happened, or what is happening. Similarly, if determinism is true, then what happens is determined by what has happened in the past, which means that whatever happens is the necessary consequence of what has already happened. Determinism doesn't postulate some particular relationship of power between all past and future events. Nothing in the notion of determination implies anything about what events have power over...

The consequence argument is as follows: If we have no power over X, and X completely determines Y, then we have no power over Y. If determinism is true, then the past and the laws of nature together completely determine the future. We have no power over the past or over the laws of nature. Thus, if determinism is true, then we have no power over the future. Thus, free will and determinism are incompatible. I've posted on the Consequence Argument a couple times in the past. My conclusion was that the argument is flawed because it ignores the role the present plays in the way the past shapes the future. If we recognize the present as an integral part of the process by which the future is determined, then the argument loses its force. I want to elaborate on my point of view and point out some weaknesses with the Consequence Argument. I am not a staunch determinist. However, I do think that any coherent notion of free will (that is, any free will worth having) is compatible with...

I recently wrote about the consequence argument and suggested that it might involve a notion of power which we don't necessarily need in order to have an influence over the future. I just came up with a much better response to the argument, however, which does not require any fussing over the word "power." The consequence argument is as follows: If we have no power over X, and X completely determines Y, then we have no power over Y. Since we have no power over the past or over the laws of nature, and the past and the laws of nature together completely determine the future, then we have no power over the future. Thus, free will and determinism are incompatible. The problem with the argument seems to be that it regards agents as existing outside of the causal nexus comprising the past and the laws of nature. If we think of ourselves as part of the past and the laws of nature, and we accept that the past and the laws of nature determine the future, then we are part of w...

This month, physicist and popular science writer  Sean Carroll weighs in  on the everlasting debate about free will. He says it's "as real as baseball," which means that it is not the sort of thing that we would expect to find in a detailed physical description of the universe, but that we can't imagine trying to talk about humanity without accepting it as a real phenomenon. I have to criticize Carroll for failing to explain what he means by the phrase "free will" (a phrase which, he explains, does not have an agreed upon meaning) and for failing to give us a reason to think it is as real as baseball. Carroll defends a pragmatic realism--a view that we should take as  real  whatever entities we benefit from postulating in a given language, regardless of whether or not we benefit from postulating them in our widest available language. So, we benefit from postulating the existence of baseball even though there is no need for it in the language of physics, and ...