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Indeterminism
You have been assigned this page because you appear to assume that random (or undetermined) acts are the same as free acts. That is, you write as if the only way you can act freely is if you act in a way that has no logical connection to your state of mind before you act. For instance, you may wish to pet your cat, but juggle it or kick it into the next yard, or do some other random action instead. When asked why you did whatever it was you did, you would reply "I have no idea. I was just about to pet Whiskers, but then I did something else instead. Still, I'm glad I stomped on my cat's tail, because it was an action undetermined by my previous state of intending to pet my cat, and therefore was an act of free will. I hope I do more free actions in the future. Of course, I can never intend to do any particular free act, because if I intend to do it, and then do it, my intention will have determined what I did, making it not free."
Answer the big type, bold and underlined question below.
Indeterminism (otherwise known as "randomness") says that not every event that ever happens is precisely
caused by the ensemble of relevant conditions that immediately preceded it. A
slightly different ensemble of conditions may or may not produce a significantly
different event, but exactly the same conditions will not produce
exactly the same event. This applies to every object and condition in the
universe, such as cars. If there is any indeterminism in the control system of
your car, then how you manipulate the controls will have no necessary
relationship to how the car behaves. Turning the wheel left might result in a
left turn, or it might result in a right turn, or a sudden stop, or a screaming
surge of acceleration that shoots you headlong into a gasoline tanker. Stomping
on the brake pedal might stop the car, or it might result your headlights coming
on, or a friendly toot on the horn, or a screaming surge of acceleration that
shoots you headlong into a gasoline tanker. You just can't tell. The more
indeterminism in the system, the less you can control your car. If indeterminism
is significantly present in your brain it will affect your behavior. For
example, if you generate an impulse that yesterday resulted in you buying a
hamburger, today it might result in you screaming at the top of your lungs, or
sticking your finger in your ear, or insulting your mother, or dancing a jig, or
anything else you can think of. In general, if any part of your decision making
process contains indeterminism, any decision you make can result in you doing
things that are very different from the thing you decided to do. If
indeterminism pervasively affects your brain, you will act completely at random.
No matter how hard you try to control your own actions, you will fail because
the thing you do that you think will result in your body doing what you
want it to do will have no relationship whatsoever with what your body actually
does.
"Random" doesn't always mean random. Sometimes people use the word "random" to mean "out of sequence" or "changing the subject" or "unexpected" or "unpredictible." These usages are all perfectly fine, but they do not correspond to "random" in the sense of "undetermined". Out of sequence events can be determined events, changes of subject can be determined, unexpected events can be determined events, unpredicted events can be determined events, so being "random" in the sense of "out of sequence" or "changing the subject" or "unexpected" or "unpredictible" is not "random" in the sense that this word is used in this assignment.
Random actions cannot be chosen actions. If an action was not determined by anything, then it certainly wasn't determined by you. If it wasn't determined by you, then it cannot possibly have been chosen by you.
Unexplained events are not undetermined events. The fact that some events are (so far) unexplained does not mean that any events are undetermined. Existance, especially human existance, is very very very complicated, and it is almost never the case that we know everything about any particular situation. From this it follows that it is often the case that we do not know enough about the situation to be able to explain what happened. Still, humans have managed to explain a very large proportion of the events that happen in the world, and no-one has come up with any reason why we won't eventually be able to explain everything. If you want to claim that you have personally experienced an undetermined event, you will have to prove that absolutely everything about that event is known, and that even with that complete knowledge, and all the laws of science, no-one can ever explain that event.
Thoughtless actions are not undetermined actions. If a person acts without thinking, that does not mean that his action was not caused. Most human actions are actually done without conscious thought, but are instead caused by unconscious physiochemical processes involving feelings, emotions and ultimately impulses. An uncaused action (say a wild Irish jig) would be one in which the brain was in a state of being about to do something else (say carry a cup of very hot coffee across the room) and then the body, without any reason at all, suddenly did the uncaused action (the wild Irish jig). If you want to assert that an uncaused action has actually occured, you will have to do more than show that it happened without conscious thought. You will also have to prove that it was not the result of unconscious thought, or emotional impulse, or neurological defect, or chemical imbalance. Only if you can prove that none of these explanations is possible will you be able to claim that an uncaused action has occured. If it's possible that there was a physical cause of the action, then you will have failed to prove that the action was uncaused.
Free Will says that some of the things
we do we do because we are forced to do them by things outside of our own minds,
such as falling boulders, rising flood waters, high winds and traffic policemen.
Those actions are not done of our own free will because, we would act
differently if we could, but don't because we are not given the choice to do
what we decide to do. In other situations we are given our own choice of what to
do, and the choice of what action we take is the result of our own decision
making process, not of some outside coercion. These actions are done of our own
free will. If such actions ever happen, then free will exists.
If indeterminism is true, and pervasively affects our
brains, can we have free will? Why or why not?
Before you jump in with an answer, you should be very clear about the fact that the obvious answer to this question is "NO!" If you understand free will and understand indeterminism, you will see that utter randomness is absolutely incompatible with control. Since indeterminism is utter randomness and free will requires control, it follows that indterminism is incompatible with free will.
If
you think that we can have free will even if indeterminism does pervasively
affect our brains, you should be able to explain how we manage to choose our actions even though we can't determine what we will choose.
Remember that free will only exists if there are any situations in which
what someone does is actually decided by that person.
If you cannot come up with a way for people to determine their own actions in situations where nothing is determined by anything, you should conclude that indeterminism does not allow free will, and write your paper accordingly.
Remember that you must answer this question without
changing the definitions of any of the words used here. If you think my
definition of free will or my definition of indeterminism is wrong, you can
write about why you think it should be different, but don't change the meanings
of words like "choice" and "coercion."
For hints
about the logical consequences of failing to find a way that free will can exist
in the presence of indeterminism, see burden.htm
You may add any other comments or questions you happen to
think of.
Copyright © 2008 by Martin C. Young.