On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 1:26 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > ...which fully supports my entire philosophy of science and understanding of > free will. > > http://mills.quora.com/Free-Will-and-the-Fallibility-of-Science/comments?__ac__=1#comment200399 > > >> Free Will and the Fallibility of Science >> >> Mills Baker >> 5 votes by David Cole, Marc Bodnick, Craig Weinberg, (more) >> One of the most significant intellectual errors educated persons make is >> in underestimating the fallibility of science. The very best scientific >> theories containing our soundest, most reliable knowledge are certain to be >> superseded, recategorized from "right" to "wrong"; they are, as physicist >> David Deutsch says, misconceptions: >> >> I have often thought that the nature of science would be better understood >> if we called theories “misconceptions” from the outset, instead of only >> after we have discovered their successors. Thus we could say that Einstein’s >> Misconception of Gravity was an improvement on Newton’s Misconception, which >> was an improvement on Kepler’s. The neo-Darwinian Misconception of Evolution >> is an improvement on Darwin’s Misconception, and his on Lamarck’s… Science >> claims neither infallibility nor finality. >> >> >> This fact comes as a surprise to many; we tend to think of science —at the >> point of conclusion, when it becomes knowledge— as being more or less >> infallible and certainly final. Science, indeed, is the sole area of human >> investigation whose reports we take seriously to the point of >> crypto-objectivism. Even people who very much deny the possibility of >> objective knowledge step onto airplanes and ingest medicines. And most >> importantly: where science contradicts what we believe or know through >> cultural or even personal means, we accept science and discard those truths, >> often enough wisely. >> >> An obvious example: the philosophical problem of free will. When Newton's >> misconceptions were still considered the exemplar of truth par excellence, >> the very model of knowledge, many philosophers felt obliged to accept a kind >> of determinism with radical implications. Give the initial-state of the >> universe, it appeared, we should be able to follow all particle trajectories >> through the present, account for all phenomena through purely physical >> means. In other words: the chain of causation from the Big Bang on left no >> room for your volition: >> >> Determinism in the West is often associated with Newtonian physics, which >> depicts the physical matter of the universe as operating according to a set >> of fixed, knowable laws. The "billiard ball" hypothesis, a product of >> Newtonian physics, argues that once the initial conditions of the universe >> have been established, the rest of the history of the universe follows >> inevitably. If it were actually possible to have complete knowledge of >> physical matter and all of the laws governing that matter at any one time, >> then it would be theoretically possible to compute the time and place of >> every event that will ever occur (Laplace's demon). In this sense, the basic >> particles of the universe operate in the same fashion as the rolling balls >> on a billiard table, moving and striking each other in predictable ways to >> produce predictable results. >> >> >> Thus: the movement of the atoms of your body, and the emergent phenomena >> that such movement entails, can all be physically accounted for as part of a >> chain of merely physical, causal steps. You do not "decide" things; your >> "feelings" aren't governing anything; there is no meaning to your sense of >> agency or rationality. From this essentially unavoidable philosophical >> position, we are logically-compelled to derive many political, moral, and >> cultural conclusions. For example: if free will is a phenomenological >> illusion, we must deprecate phenomenology in our philosophies; it is the >> closely-clutched delusion of a faulty animal; people, as predictable and >> materially reducible as commodities, can be reckoned by governments and >> institutions as though they are numbers. Freedom is a myth; you are the >> result of a process you didn't control, and your choices aren't choices at >> all but the results of laws we can discover, understand, and base our >> morality upon. >> >> I should note now that (1) many people, even people far from epistemology, >> accept this idea, conveyed via the diffusion of science and philosophy >> through politics, art, and culture, that most of who you are is determined >> apart from your will; and (2) the development of quantum physics has not in >> itself upended the theory that free will is an illusion, as the sorts of >> indeterminacy we see among particles does not provide sufficient room, as it >> were, for free will. >> >> Of course, few of us can behave for even a moment as though free will is a >> myth; there should be no reason for personal engagement with ourselves, no >> justification for "trying" or "striving"; one would be, at best, a >> robot-like automaton incapable of self-control but capable of >> self-observation. One would account for one's behaviors not with reasons but >> with causes; one would be profoundly divested from outcomes which one cannot >> affect anyway. And one would come to hold that, in its basic conception of >> time and will, the human consciousness was totally deluded. >> >> As it happens, determinism is a false conception of reality. Physicists >> like David Deutsch and Ilya Prigogine have, in my opinion, defended free >> will amply on scientific grounds; and the philosopher Karl Popper described >> how free will is compatible in principle with a physicalist conception of >> the universe; he is quoted by both scientists, and Prigogine begins his book >> The End of Certainty, which proposes that determinism is no longer >> compatible with science, by alluding to Popper: >> >> Earlier this century in The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism, >> Karl Popper wrote," Common sense inclines, on the one hand, to assert that >> every event is caused by some preceding events, so that every event can be >> explained or predicted… On the other hand, … common sense attributes to >> mature and sane human persons… the ability to choose freely between >> alternative possibilities of acting." This "dilemma of determinism," as >> William James called it, is closely related to the meaning of time. Is the >> future given, or is it under perpetual construction? >> >> >> Prigogine goes on to demonstrate that there is, in fact, an "arrow of >> time," that time is not symmetrical, and that the future is very much open, >> very much compatible with the idea of free will. Thus: in our lifetimes we >> have seen science —or parts of the scientific community, with the rest to >> follow in tow— reclassify free will from "illusion" to "likely reality"; the >> question of your own role in your future, of humanity's role in the future >> of civilization, has been answered differently just within the past few >> decades. >> >> No more profound question can be imagined for human endeavor, yet we have >> an inescapable conclusion: our phenomenologically obvious sense that we >> choose, decide, change, perpetually construct the future was for centuries >> contradicted falsely by "true" science. Prigogine's work and that of his >> peers —which he calls a "probabilizing revolution" because of its emphasis >> on understanding unstable systems and the potentialities they entail— >> introduces concepts that restore the commonsensical conceptions of >> possibility, futurity, and free will to defensibility. >> >> If one has read the tortured thinking of twentieth-century intellectuals >> attempting to unify determinism and the plain facts of human experience, one >> knows how submissive we now are to the claims of science. As Prigogine >> notes, we were prepared to believe that we, "as imperfect human observers, >> [were] responsible for the difference between past and future through the >> approximations we introduce into our description of nature." Indeed, one has >> the sense that the more counterintuitive the scientific claim, the eagerer >> we are to deny our own experience in order to demonstrate our rationality. >> >> This is only degrees removed from ordinary orthodoxies. The point is >> merely that the very best scientific theories remain misconceptions, and >> that where science contradicts human truths of whatever form, it is rational >> to at least contemplate the possibility that science has not advanced enough >> yet to account for them; we must be pragmatic in managing our knowledge, >> aware of the possibility that some truths we intuit we cannot yet explain, >> while other intuitions we can now abandon. >> >> It is vital to consider how something can be both true and not in order to >> understand science and its limitations, and even more the limitations of >> second-order sciences (like social sciences). Newton's laws were incredible >> achievements of rationality, verified by all technologies and analyses for >> hundreds of years, before their unpredicted exposure as deeply flawed ideas >> applied to a limited domain which in total provide incorrect predictions and >> erroneous metaphorical structures for understanding the universe. >> >> I never tire of quoting Karl Popper's dictum: >> >> Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a >> sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it >> was intended to solve. >> >> >> It is hard but necessary to have this relationship with science, whose >> theories seem like the only possible answers and whose obsolescence we >> cannot imagine. A rational person in the nineteenth century would have >> laughed at the suggestion that Newton was in error; he could not have known >> about the sub-atomic world or the forces and entities at play in the world >> of general relativity; and he especially could not have imagined how a >> theory that seemed utterly, universally true and whose predictive and >> explanatory powers were immense could still be an incomplete understanding, >> revealed by later progress to be completely mistaken about nearly all of its >> claims. >> >> Can you imagine such a thing? It will happen to nearly everything you >> know. Consider what "ignorance" and "knowledge" really are for a human, what >> you can truly know, how you should judge others given this overwhelming >> epistemological instability!
First: every scientific theory is tentative. Most will probably be displaced at some point with a better theory. It's only natural for scientists to become attached to their theories, but they will always admit that they could be wrong if enough new evidence comes along. Second: theorems in mathematics and logic are not tentative. They are true for all time, true in all universes, true for omnipotent beings. Third: the article does not define "free will" and does not explain why randomness (which is the alternative to determinism) is better than determinism for free will. Fourth: confused though the article is about determinism and free will, it does not claim that determinism is incompatible with CONSCIOUSNESS, nor does it claim that determinism is impossible A PRIORI. These positions are yours alone. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
