Can we work around physical determinism?

[mgb]

Extreme determinsts maintain that the physical universe is just an outworking of the laws of nature and everything is predetermined by these laws. It is even argued that our brains are determined by neurological processes etc that are physically deterministic.

There seems to be a way around this determinism. It involves making a list of possible actions and making a choice from that list in such a way that the choice is not determined by either neurological states or any physical state in the world.

Here is how it works. Make a list of ordinary events and label them 0 to 9.

0. Read a book
1. Go to the library
2. Play tennis
3. Drive your car
4. Go to the cinema
5. Go to the supermarket
6. Listen to the radio
7. ...
8. ...
9. ...

Next get the decimal expansion of an irrational number such as the square root of 23
or 1/23.

We can take the square root of 11 to get going.

The square root of 11 is 3.3166247903554

Now take the first digit in the decimal expansion, 3
and go to your list;

3 = Drive your car

the next is 1

1 = Go to the library

6 = Listen to the radio

etc.

Now our choice is not determined by any physical or neurological state. It is determined by purely non physical mathematical entities. So we seem to have broken with any previously determinism by letting digits make our choice for us. If we are in the library, for example, we are engaged with a series of physical acitivities that, as a set, cannot be traced back to any previous physical state because the digit intervened and determined what set of physical events we would enter into. Comments?

[TSGracchus]

But when you make your list, the order is determined by your neurological configuration. When you choose your key, that is also determined by your physiology.
The point is, just because you are ignorant of the factors that have determined the outcome does not mean they are indeterminate.
See, for instance the second epilogue of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.

[mgb]

But when you make your list, the order is determined by your neurological configuration. When you choose your key, that is also determined by your physiology.
The point is, just because you are ignorant of the factors that have determined the outcome does not mean they are indeterminate.
See, for instance the second epilogue of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The digits in the decimal expansion are unknown and cannot be determined by physical events. The arrangement of digits is mathematically determined and this determination is non physical. Even if the number chosen is physically determined, the digits are not. What those digits are is outside physical causes and what they are determines what happens.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 3 by mgb]

Platonic realism has no philosophical justification outside of some major assumptions that naturalists have no need to grant. If the state of the mind is deterministic, and can be determined by observing preexisting conditions (which would require computational and mathematical finesse we don't have), then the sequence of numbers drummed out would be predicted. We can predict human behavior to an extent because it is not entirely random. You've substituted "non-physical" in for "abstract," as if that means anything. But when an idea is stored in the brain, it results in physiological changes the same way data alters the memory in a machine.

You'd first need to demonstrate that the physical world is unaffected by this generated string of numbers, otherwise "determinists" can figure it out using pragmatic application of scientific theory. I think you've run into a dead end on this one.

A computer cannot generate random numbers. It goes "semi-random" by having an internal algorithm that rapidly changes out the "random" number it currently has stored by using the system's clock. With enough knowledge of the algorithm, we can predict what the "non-physical," "random" number will be based on a preexisting state. The number doesn't even exist yet!

You seem to have forgotten that determinism is about making predictive models based on the otherwise mechanistic interactions we observe in the universe.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 1 by mgb]

It is even argued that our brains are determined by neurological processes etc that are physically deterministic.

You present that ("even argued that") as if it were absurd to even think that such an explanation is reasonable or correct (I assume you mean to say the "functions of our brain" rather than "our brains" since we know the physical composition of the brain and so can say with certainty what it is constructed of). But with no evidence to the contrary, there is no a priori reason to believe that brain functions are not entirely the result of the complicated interactions of neurons and other brain physical components. Why arbitrarily introduce some supernatural component to the explanation of a brain function like consciousness, for example, simply because science cannot yet fully explain it mechanistically? What is the rationale for that?

There seems to be a way around this determinism. It involves making a list of possible actions and making a choice from that list in such a way that the choice is not determined by either neurological states or any physical state in the world.

How does this get around determinism? It was your choice of the items to include on the list, and your choice that they be selected from using a number assigned to each item. They you chose to determine the numbers by choosing a method that produced a sequence of numbers in an order that is completely defined by the method you chose to create this sequence of numbers (in this case, the square root of a number that you also chose). So everything in this process is deterministic, and once you chose a method for creating the sequence of numbers it was then just a matter of going back to your original numbered list and carrying out the task in question according to the sequence that resulted from the predefined process. Once you chose the method (square root of a number), and then chose that number, the sequence of events was determined completely because the square root of a positive, real number is unique.

You could just as easily have chosen letters instead of numbers, and determined those by filling a lottery ball machine with lettered (a-z) balls that pop out at random. This would be even more undetermined as to which task to execute. But even though the balls pop out at random so that you don't know what task you will do next until one pops out, it was still your choice of which tasks to include, and what letter to assign to each one, and the method of arriving at the sequence of letters. The fact that some random process is implemented to select which task will be done (so that you don't know it beforehand), doesn't make the process indeterminstic because you have chosen the method to produce the sequence of letters, and may choose that to be more or less random in nature.

So we seem to have broken with any previously determinism by letting digits make our choice for us

I don't see this as ruling out a completely determinstic explanation of our universe, our brains, etc. You've just created a process whereby a series of predefined tasks were selected by a random process, that you also define beforehand and then follow. If you choose a process that arrives at the numbers or letters randomly, then of course you will execute each task in random order, by definition.

[Divine Insight]

Extreme determinsts maintain that the physical universe is just an outworking of the laws of nature and everything is predetermined by these laws. It is even argued that our brains are determined by neurological processes etc that are physically deterministic.

Have you forgotten that in modern physics the randomness of Quantum Mechanics forbid any extreme determinism. The choices we make today could not have been determined very long ago at all. In fact, choices you make today could not have even been determined as long ago as last week. They may have already been highly probably by then, but they most likely were not yet carved in stone.

Your ultimate choices could have ultimately only been finally determined only within minutes, even even seconds before you've made the actual choice. There's still a problem concerning "free will" and whether there is an actual agent responsible for having made the choice. But it's highly unlikely that your choices were determined very far in the past at all.

Now our choice is not determined by any physical or neurological state. It is determined by purely non physical mathematical entities. So we seem to have broken with any previously determinism by letting digits make our choice for us. If we are in the library, for example, we are engaged with a series of physical acitivities that, as a set, cannot be traced back to any previous physical state because the digit intervened and determined what set of physical events we would enter into. Comments?

Nope. Even irrational numbers cannot be said to be "non-physical entities".

In fact, the specific example you gave (i.e. the square root of 11), can definitely be worked out via a physical algorithm. How do you think we figure out what those digits are? They aren't just arbitrary digits.

Even a computer can calculate an "infinite" list of the digits of the square root of 11. Can it calculate the "complete list"? No, of course not, but it can keep calculating more digits until it either runs out of memory, or runs out of juice, or runs out of time.

So the digits of the square root of 11 are COMPLETELY DETERMINISTIC. Just because you can never get to the end doesn't mean that the digits themselves aren't deterministic.

So you're better off pointing to the randomness of QM if you want to avoid strict determinism. Not an irrational number which CAN be calculated via a deterministic algorithm.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 5 by DrNoGods]

How does this get around determinism? It was your choice of the items to include on the list, and your choice that they be selected from using a number assigned to each item.

I want comment on this. OP's list includes things that he presumably can do. What if one cannot do what he has included in his list? I for one cannot drive a car. Nor can the residents of Fair Isle (a Scotland island with a population of only 57) go to a library, considering they don't have one.
Of course, I could generate a list of activities I could do...but then again, that list would be biased. I would choose activities I know I can do.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 5 by DrNoGods]

How does this get around determinism? It was your choice of the items to include on the list, and your choice that they be selected from using a number assigned to each item.

I want comment on this. OP's list includes things that he presumably can do. What if one cannot do what he has included in his list? I for one cannot drive a car. Nor can the residents of Fair Isle (a Scotland island with a population of only 57) go to a library, considering they don't have one.
Of course, I could generate a list of activities I could do...but then again, that list would be biased. I would choose activities I know I can do.

That's an interesting point. mgb wrote out a list of things to do with ... after them. Like as if this list itself could be infinite. But actually there are only a finite number of things we can actually do. It might seem infinite to us, but that's only because it's a very large number of finite options.

Not only are we restricted by a finite number of things we can do, but we are also restricted by only having a finite length of time in which to do them (i.e. a single human lifespan).

So our options are actually quite limited compared to having an imagined infinite list from which to choose.

Although, for our brains, the extremely large number of finite choices we have would not doubt "appear" to be infinite from our perspective. But that's only because we can't even begin to comprehend large finite numbers, much less infinity.

Although, I do have to say that lately it often seems that I have started an infinite number of hobbies. I really need to cut back on my interests.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 7 by rikuoamero]

OP's list includes things that he presumably can do.

Yes, and my main point was that no matter what items are on the list, if he chooses a method for selecting among them that is as random as it possibly can be, then by definition the order in which they are done (for the ones actually selected by the process) would be random and so not determinable beforehand.

But I don't see where even "total" randomness in such a process would support an argument that the example has "broken from any previous(ly) determinism", because the choice of a random process for selection from among the items was made deterministically, and as a result the order of selection among the items is necessarily random.

If the method of selection were to do items in sequence then the order would be known and predetermined, but that is simply because the (predetermined) choice of the method for choosing the items was one that produced a known order rather than an unknown (before the event) order. I would argue that the process is still deterministic in both cases.

[mgb]

A computer cannot generate random numbers. It goes "semi-random"

The numbers in question don't have to be random. In fact they are mathematically deterministic. But when they exist as the causes of physical actions, as described, they disrupt purely physical determinism. The events that follow (the choices) cannot be traced back to a previous physical state. They are traced back to a digit and the digit is mathematically, not physically, determined to be what it is.

How does this get around determinism? It was your choice of the items to include on the list, and your choice that they be selected from using a number assigned to each item.

Yes some elements of the method are physically deterministic but only one element needs to be physically non deterministic to break the physical causal chain. This element is the mathematical selection of a digit. Exactly what this digit is, is determined mathematically, not by my brain state or by any physical means. If the digit is a 3, it is a 3 for purely mathematical reasons. In this way, physical actions can be chosen by purely mathematical causes.

You could just as easily have chosen letters instead of numbers, and determined those by filling a lottery ball machine with lettered (a-z) balls that pop out at random.

Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with randomness or trying to exploit physical mechanisms. It has to do with breaking a physical chain of causes by means of mathematical determinism.

I don't see this as ruling out a completely determinstic explanation of our universe,

It only takes one demonstrably non physically deterministic event to show it is not 'completely' deterministic.

Nope. Even irrational numbers cannot be said to be "non-physical entities".

All numbers are abstract and non physical.

In fact, the specific example you gave (i.e. the square root of 11), can definitely be worked out via a physical algorithm. How do you think we figure out what those digits are? They aren't just arbitrary digits.

Yes they can be worked out by an algorithm but that algorithm cannot determine what those digits are. What they are is determined by purely non physical realities.