If you were in my AS class last year, you might remember me showing you a couple of clips featuring the avuncular Russell Stannard, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University.
In the OU video below, Stannard discusses the problem of free will.
' Russell Stannard, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University.'
ReplyDeleteSo not a philosopher then....
Is Russell Stannard claiming he does things at random, because his actions are not determined?
ReplyDeleteIf we asked him 'If I give you one pound, would you rape that 6 year old girl?', would he answer 'Never. There is literally no chance I would do that.' , or would he answer 'There is no way I can predict what I will do.'
Oh, and he is not a computer expert. It took him about 1 minute to demonstrate his ignorance.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of computer systems that are not predictable.
I guess Russell Stannard can tell me how the computer will encode my credit card number when it sends it to Pay Pal. No other person in the world can (that is why it is secure), but Stannard claims that cryptographic systems are *predictable*.
Not just deterministic, but predictable.
Stannard fails on his philosophy.
Computers are deterministic, but they can run pseudo-random functions, which are not predictable, even if you allow the attacker to encode any messages he wants at any time he wants, to see what the pseudo-random functions generate.
They are only 'predictable' to an omniscient being.
But such a being can also predict what Stannard will do....
This is an awful video.
Apparently, Stannard had no idea he was going to make that video. He claims that he cannot predict his own decisions!
Steven,
DeleteThanks for the above comments.
1) No, Stannard is not a philosopher (though he is interested in philosophical questions). In A level RS, we don’t just study philosophers. Students are also expected to know about the work of scientists, psychologists, and sociologists where they are relevant to the topics we study (as they are here in the debate between free will and determinism)
2) Stannard actually says he isn’t a computer expert! He’s using an everyday example to contrast the perceived predictability of computers with our perception of human actions as free. Stannard doesn’t mention cryptographic systems, much less claim that they are predictable.
3) I’m not sure I quite get your other point. Stannard is noting that there is a difference between a random action and a free one. As such, libertarians who wish to appeal to randomness at the quantum level as evidence for free will have missed the point – i.e. a random action is not a free one. If this doesn't answer your point, perhaps you could restate it?
'Stannard is noting that there is a difference between a random action and a free one. '
ReplyDeleteWhat difference?
Stannard points out that identical nucleii will decay at different times and that this is randomness. He points out that identical Stannard's will make different free will choices, and that this is not randomness.
What was Stannard's point?
Because he cannot predict the lottery numbers, he knows the lottery balls have free will?
Or is he claiming he can predict the lottery numbers?
His video is so confused that there is no point to what he is saying. I think that is the point. He seemed to be trying to get over the fact that he finds the idea that human beings can choose things deeply puzzling. I'm sure he is puzzled.
“ 'Stannard is noting that there is a difference between a random action and a free one. ' What difference”
ReplyDeleteA free action implies a free agent who could have *chosen* to act differently. So when I ate peanut butter on toast for breakfast this morning, we could say that my action was free *if* I could have *chosen* otherwise.
Let’s say a doctor invents a chip that can be implanted in the brain of patients with eating disorders. This chip controls the patient’s body at mealtimes, and automatically selects a breakfast from a list of options according to factors such as the patient’s weight, external temperature, etc. In this instance, we would not claim that such a patient is acting freely if they eat peanut butter on toast, since they could not have chosen to do otherwise (the choice was not theirs).
Even if our doctor modified the program so that the breakfast was selected according to a randomly generated number, we would still not claim that the patient’s behaviour is free. This holds true regardless of whether we could predict the patient’s behaviour or not. A random action is, therefore, not a free one.
Stannard is not claiming that an unpredictable event is a free action. In the lottery ball example you give, which balls will be “selected” is actually the outcome of thousands of physical interactions in the physical world, each of which is subject to known laws. We don’t consider that the lottery machine is choosing the numbers freely, regardless of whether or not in practice we can predict the numbers that are chosen: The "choice" of numbers is simply the outcome of a series of physical events.
The problem of freewill is whether the human mind, as a physical object governed by physical laws, is any different to the lottery machine. Similarly, are our choices really different to the lottery machine's selection of numbers (i.e. the result of physical events we cannot control). If so, how and why?
I don’t think Stannard is proposing a solution to this problem, he’s simply trying to outline it.
'The "choice" of numbers is simply the outcome of a series of physical events.'
ReplyDeleteAnd Stannard failed dismally to say why the outcome of his choices is any different, apart from possibly to claim that both his choices and the choices of the lottery machine are unpredictable.
Are you claiming that if your choices are determined by your brain, then they are not free?
'A free action implies a free agent who could have *chosen* to act differently.'
Just put a random number generator into a chess playing program and you have a Stannard approved free agent. It could have chosen differently. Therefore it is a free agent.
I think your definition is really 'A free action implies a human being who could have *chosen* to act differently.'
If I asked you to rape a 6 year old girl for a free of one pound, and you say 'Never in a million years', could you have chosen differently, if I asked you again in 5 minutes time?
If Martin Luther said 'Here I stand. I can do no other.', was he declaring that he could have chosen differently?
A) There is no freedom as such in the simple act of being able to choose differently. That is not the freedom people want, as your example shows.
In your example, I could still act differently. I would still have the choice of eating my peanut butter quickly or slowly , and so still have perfect Stannardian free will, which has been defined as the act of choosing between 2 things. If you can choose between any two actions (eating slowly or eating quickly), Professor Stannard would claim you have free will, no matter how drugged or controlled you actually are.....
B) There is no evidence that people actually could have chosen to act differently, if they were placed in *identical* circumstances. That can't be done. People might choose differently in very *similar* circumstances, but there is nothing in determinism which claims that objects in very similar circumstances can't do different things.
C) Professor Stannard's single minded approach led him very high in the physics world, but has clearly deprived him of the leisure time to read books like Daniel Dennett's 'Elbow Room' - an excellent, and approachable work of philosophy.
Again Steven, I think the point of the video is to introduce the free will debate, and some of the issues, not advocate any particular position. Although from a book of his I’ve read, I think Stannard is a libertarian.
ReplyDeleteAre you claiming that if your choices are determined by your brain, then they are not free?
I’m claiming that this is the determinist position, or at least a shade of it. Personally, I’m a pragmatic libertarian, though I’d say in practice it’s hard to show how or why we should have free will. If you have your own explanation for how and why free will does (or doesn’t) arise, I’d certainly be keen to hear it.
There is no freedom as such in the simple act of being able to choose differently.
Actually, I’d argue that the simple act of being able to choose differently is a good definition of freedom.
In your chess playing example, no a computer chess program would not be a free agent, even if it had some degree of randomness built into the way it plays the game. Again, I do not think that Stannard is arguing that a random action is a free one. Quite the reverse: he’s pointing out that libertarians who argue that randomness at a quantum level might allow us free will have a problem: random behaviour is not free behaviour. And as above, I don’t think that makes Stannard a determinist, I think he’s just acknowledging the problem.
In our peanut butter example, you would indeed be acting freely if you could choose whether to chew fast or slow. However, my hypothetic example point was about a chip that controlled a specific aspect of your behaviour (i.e. choice of what to eat), so I don’t see how highlighting freedom in a different behaviour really answers the point.
There is no evidence that people actually could have chosen to act differently, if they were placed in *identical* circumstances. That can't be done. People might choose differently in very *similar* circumstances, but there is nothing in determinism which claims that objects in very similar circumstances can't do different things.
I completely agree with both points. The fact that we can’t replay history or create carbon copies of ourselves is one of the things that make the free will vs determinism debate such a thorny one.
I don’t see where your (rather unpleasant) hypothetical situation really takes us. If the choice to commit the act is a free one, it would remain free however many times you replay it. Of course, most libertarians would wish to assert that our personalities remain fairly stable over time (which gets us into the other tricky issue of what part of our person can be said to persist through time). So a reasonably sane person who declines the offer first time around is likely to do so on subsequent occasions.
'Actually, I’d argue that the simple act of being able to choose differently is a good definition of freedom.'
ReplyDeleteSo being able to make different choices is a good definition of freedom?
' However, my hypothetic example point was about a chip that controlled a specific aspect of your behaviour (i.e. choice of what to eat), so I don’t see how highlighting freedom in a different behaviour really answers the point.'
So being able to make choices is not a good definition of freedom?
Stannard claims that if you can make choices, then you are free. You claim that is true. I point out that even in your chosen scenario, you can still make choices.
You claim this is irrelevant.....
Why?
There are always choices we cannot make. Stannard was not free to eat a tartan Smartie.
But according to Stannard, if he can choose from the available options, then he is free, no matter how restricted his choice of Smartie is (No white Smarties either for him to choose from)
You agree with this, yet claim that if somebody only gives you peanut butter to eat then you are not free (even though you can still make choices), just as if Stannard only had Smarties to eat, then he was free....
This is all so inconsistent by you.....
'So a reasonably sane person who declines the offer first time around is likely to do so on subsequent occasions.'
Ask Professor Stannard if we can predict human behaviour and he will say no.
This is why it is really difficult to learn something from committed Christians. They read books of apologetics and Christian thought, and imagine that they are works deserving of making videos about.
In reality, compatibilism is a perfectly respectable position. Stannard may not agree with it (perhaps he is right not to do so), but it is achingly clear that he appears not to have researched his philosophy enough even to suggest that some people have proposed it....
That would be like me making a video claiming that nobody had ever come up with any ideas how the universe could have been formed. I may not be a theist, but at least I know enough not to make statements like that.
Stannard claims to be baffled by how determinism and free will can be compatible. He could at least mention compatibilism, rather than claim that physical processes can be predicted (I'm sure he would fail any Open University student who made such a claim in a TMA)
He must have been murder to work with.Nobody knew what he would do next - not even himself.
Steven, in the hypothetical example I outline, the patient is not freely choosing their breakfast, so there is no contradiction in my understanding of freedom. Their selection of cereal is actually the result of a computer program over which they have no control. This “choice” would not involve the kind of freedom that libertarianism requires.
DeleteThe chip would remove any element of freewill in the patient’s choice of what to eat for breakfast. Of course, if the chip did not control how the patient ate, the patient would still be free to chew fast or slow, but clearly this would not make the choice of what to eat a free one. That’s why your point is irrelevant.
To give you a different example: Let’s imagine our patient pops up to the top of Blackpool tower to catch a breath of air, and the computer chip in their brain temporarily malfunctions and triggers a brief muscle spasm that causes the patient to leap from the top of the tower… nobody who understood the cause of the leap would claim that the patient acted freely in jumping. Now on the way down, the patient might have be able to act perfectly freely, at least for the few seconds before gravity and concrete catch up with them. Our patient could choose to say a silent prayer, or stoically hum the Marseillaise. But that would still not mean that in removing themselves from the top of Blackpool tower, the patient acted freely.
In your Smarties example, I don’t think that limited choices in practice weaken the libertarian case, if we define freedom as the capacity to have chosen otherwise. And of course, a libertarian would point out that Stannard still has the free will to scream at the nearest production assistant until they go find some food colouring and damn well make him a tartan Smartie!
As for the rest of your post… Again, it’s a short clip that sets out the problem of free will. Compatilbilism is indeed a respectable viewpoint, and one that gets a decent amount of coverage in the RS and Philosophy courses I’ve taught. If pushed, myself I’d go for a form of Sartrean libertarianism, but I don’t take Stannard’s lack of reference to Sartre as evidence of his ignorance of existentialism.