CAUSALITY, FREE WILL CONVERSATION

CONCEPTS SIMPLIFIED (Purpose - 4)

For three centuries stretched between Newton and Heisenberg, causality ruled scientific thought in full glory, scientific method as synonymous with it. Curiously though, during this long span of time opponents of causality were never defeated (vanquished) completely. There is no reason why now in their turn, believers of causality should not hold their fort in the present period of so-called suspense, after the advent of Heisenberg-era.

For the benefit of a layman an imaginary discussion between a causal law believer and free will believer is reproduced below.

Free-will is not synonymous with the ‘principle of indeterminacy’ in scientific terminology though the latter is supposed to have scientifically allowed existence of free will. As Eddington says, commenting on situation in science after 1927, "Science withdraws its moral opposition to free will".

CONVERSATION

Free Will Believer: I feel allured to shoot one of the white featured birds on the top of the tree. It looks as if an inspiration, a result of 'free-will' that I enjoy.

Causal Law Believer: From where comes free will? Has it no source?

F.W.B.: I do not know. We all are in dark about the first cause.

C.L.B.: That is so. There is no opposition from any quarter, worth mention for 'first cause' being taken for granted. We are at present concerned about your immediate origin of free-will that induces will to kill.

F.W.B.: -Possibly, in the present case, I am pressed to touch the target to test my capacity of shooting accurately. However, others may do it with entirely different intentions, say, for eating it.

C.L.B.: Let us pursue your case as given. Your intense desire at aiming at the bird springs from a cause Mind. Eventually your individual mind turns out to be a specific cause of the proposed shooting.

F.W.B.: Do you insist that I shall shoot?

C, L.B.: Yes, as based on your own statement (averment).

F.W.B.: Then I don’t shoot to put you in the wrong.

C.L.B.: Be that so. I will hold that your ‘individual mind' were not to shoot in the next few moments. Have I not made myself explicit beforehand, admitting that my assertion is based on your own declaration?

F.W.B.: Your stand seems to be soapy. You change as it suits your purpose.

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C.L.B.: Yes, because you yourself change. I believe in causal relation, but I do not claim predictability of each event. If I had known all the components of your mind from its existence, in all its details the prediction was possible. But such knowledge in all details remains beyond human comprehension. That does not mean uncertain nature of action. I moot a question. Why hanker (restless desire) after shooting?

F.W.B.: To kill the nice little bird for shooting practice. .

C.L.B.: So you endorse a relation between your action and the desired result. Thus, if your present freak of will causes to produce a correlated ‘effect', logically you present 'will to kill' in its role as an effect up with a 'cause' in the unknown past.

 

F.W.B.: But supposing I shoot at the top of the tree, I wonder whether the specific bird chosen as a target in my mind can get a correct hit or otherwise.

C.L.B.: Very true. That can be understood, given, as I said all the authentic record of your personality, in its true perspective. In the absence of the relevant account, "causality" as a logical mode of Nature's operations, need be only course of deductions.

F.W.B.: Do you vote against individuals, possessing free-will at all?

C. L. B.: They have free will. Each one has a free will to understand causal laws, according to one's own individual way.

F.W.B.: If causality has created my individuality, has it no omnipotence (God like infinite power) to dictate me, instead of leaving things to my free will?

C.L.B.: Causality has not created you. Nature has created you or not obstructed your creation. But as we all rightly hold, we can never fathom into the depths of Nature directly, nevertheless, nature of Nature can be apprised of, through the inklings (indication or hint) she gives on her own. Causality is merely a "process of Nature", a primary manifestation which assists us to build a coherent picture of objective reality.

F.W.B.: This assumption absolves me from any charge of cruelty, in the event I successfully hit at my target, it is indeed the bird that invites death.

C. L. B.: It must be presumed that the bird has invited death. In process of evolution, death has played a part of heightening (increasing) the value of organism. Death, at most of the stages, has been paid as a price of a given development. In the opinion of Dr. Walker, every sensation of pain makes the concerned organism wiser. If that is so, approach of death; that we often suppose / consider inflict piercing torture; ought to be taken to shelve out still higher knowledge. Well. This need be made clear in great details, as it is expounded (stated in details) in "New Way'' series. For the present, we can but suppose the bird itself to have caused its own death, through you. Rather the bird also was the ‘party to the event’, that is how I would like to put it, since my statement must be objective.

As for the charge of cruelty against you, that again would vary according to observers. A sportsman, would applaud for the fine shooting, a member of 'animal-protection committee' will report to a police, an over-passionate pseudo philosopher will- tend to accuse you of barbarism and a science lover like me would just keep quiet. All happenings, actions and reactions, have bearing upon respective causes and those causes develop growing complexity as we attempt to trace it back step by step. In the ultimate analysis, it all presents a perplexing picture. The more we hanker after 'remote causes’ there universal causality becomes our unmistakable guide.

F.W.B.: But you have already declared inability of setting back to first cause. Eventually, we become helpless spectators to a predetermined course of events. Ultimately you seem to suggest that whatever be the first cause, rational man at this level of understanding gives up all his action and struggle. This looks an utterly pessimistic picture. End of the world, virtually.

C.L.B.: Remember, that there was no man on this earth a million years back and it is likely that there will be no man on this globe in distant future, says science. I recommend you to go through the literature on evolution, geology and thermodynamics. Ignoring these theoretical postulates, your anxiety that causality shall demolish prospects of true enjoyment and useful action are far from having valid foundation, in the immediate future.

Give a proposal to ten budding youths who earn a specific sum per month, that they should accept an equivalent sum as a pension and sit quiet completely under compulsion. A minority of them will accept it, the majority would choose to act and earn. And those who would prefer an idle income may continue to work for work’s sake because action is taken to be mental oxygen for them. Assuming however two youngsters of the lot appreciate causal laws in its true perspective, the frame of reference changes. Not that the enlightened twin can abruptly stop action; they however shall utilize their action-and enthusiasm in promoting the unimpeachable (above suspicion) laws of causality. Devoid (not possessing) of any craving for material gain, they are hardly bound by their new stride of action. In due course, they may reduce themselves to inaction, which having a potential to inspire others can ever (or never) be termed as inaction.

F.W.B.: This holds out no charm.

C. l. B.: Not the charms, but causal laws are under discussion. Objectivity holds well to a hair, whether it means a treat or a trial for you.

F.W.B.: Causal laws in philosophical sense do concern themselves with pleasure. They strictly pronounce, "Good begets good".

C.L.B.: This no doubt reflects on a state of development at a very high level. Yet, in the last analysis, till 'good' in the maxims speaks of 'good action', the law that unavoidably follows is: 'Action begets reaction'. In the realm of ultimate’s, 'good' and 'bad' carry little sense, but the laws of motion rule supreme as the 'process' of Nature'. From here should science and philosophy go hand in hand.

F.W.B.: If every action is bound by causal laws chances of upward development are negativated (denied).

C.L.B.: In the days of 'relativity', such 'one directional' phenomenon finds no place.

F. W.B.: It reduces to this predicament (unpleasant difficulty): every action of my personality is predetermined, as per causal process and so I should submit to any evil dispensation (exemption from rule) Cool and collected, I should continue with the work on hand- Is this what do you mean?

C. L. B.: Mostly so. Everything is predetermined in a sense every action initiates reaction. Your longing for effect to be -produced by present action renders itself invalid; unless you imbibe belief in your present 'will' having a previous cause. Understanding of this characteristic, absolute phenomenon makes you feel 'action' itself to be redundant. You consequently quell (put an end to) the new action and invite no new reaction.

F. W. B.: But whether I would rest on the oars (cease to make efforts) or not, again depends on my personality. If I am destined to realize what you propound, I will, otherwise not.

C.L.B: This statement itself amounts to encomium (expressing higher praise) of causal laws. Most wonderful part of the situation is: Causal law believer's decision to indefinitely differ action itself involves free will. On the other hand, when a free will believer wishes to cause all his actions by his free will he essentially hails causality in practice, in as much as he expects every action to meet a desired reaction. The outcome is, the free-will follower, as a necessity adheres to causal laws, which causal law believer esteem as a code. In effect, causality excels.

F. W. B. We have no grudge for not obtaining the desired result, because we believe in probability only.

C.L.B.: It certainly does not mean that an abortive attempt evokes no depression in the free will believer. His adjustment with a frustration is much the same “as action of readjustment" of mind, after his cheerfully optimistic hope of probable fortunate stroke terminates without producing result. This action obeys laws of motion and so of causality. About probability I have already explained above as to how probability must be a component of total causality though unknown to us.

F.W.B.: But then, as I have argued if everything is predetermined so is my moment of knowing causality of your conviction. 

C.L.B.: For me, I hold in mind (harbor) a notion that all of us are believers of existence of causality. Some scientists rule out 'causality' because predictability of the events has been beyond the reach of experiments. They indirectly do concede causality to be one of the alternative possibilities. A probability theory cannot discard causality as one of the probabilities to be true law of Nature, if probability seeks to retain spirit of the theory. A probability believer finds it impossible to observe Nature in its totality or to its microscopic details, as he himself admits. But then how are you justified in being dogmatic about the unseen process, particularly in face of the fact that a very reliable section of scientist - never mind esoterically (secretly or confidentially) in your opinion - adheres to causality?

F.W.B.: Assuming I yield an assent to the theory by my free-will just now-and don’t shoot the bird then the bird that I was to kilt, will miss the predetermined event.

C.L.B.: We have already agreed upon the complex mode of Nature's innermost features. There can evolve a number of alternatives,

First: That the bird may have been destined to miss a probable hit.

Second: Process of Nature might have provided the bird with an alternative self- punishment. Third: Even on your accepting causality at the moment, you may open fire, as death of the flying animal by itself carries no special meaning and torture for you after realization.

Fourth: Even after self-realization, certain time for adjustment may be required. So you may choose to go ahead with your hunting, at the present juncture.

Fifth: Other mechanism inherent in nature might bring about adjustments, in keeping with her main Process, though the details of this process are lacking and the lacuna lies in human limitations.

F.W.B.: Without knowing the process and entire design of Nature, why should causality be taken as a faithful guide?

C.L.B.: Because it is inexorable (unalterable) and more logical. Besides, admittedly indeterminacy also involves ignorance of total objectivity. So, at least you should have no objection in embracing causality, on this plea alone.

F.W.B: Well, after this long argument, if I remain dogmatic about free-will, will it not repudiate (the authority of the) causality- since all your labor on me would cause no effect on me?

C.L.B.: Your taking part in the polemic (controversial argument) lends support to causality, in as much as you wish to "effect" change in me by the 'cause' of your argument. So far as the endeavor to convert you is concerned, I had myself admitted that change in you can keep pace with your own personality and not beyond.

Vijay R. Joshi.

Source: Appendix A to the Book "PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE'. Author Swami Vijnananand. (December 1961), with minor changes. 

FREE WILL RESEARCH

Science and Philosophy on FREE WILL (Purpose – 3)
 

Scientists think they can prove that free will is an illusion. Philosophers are urging them to think again.

In 2007, Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, put people into a brain scanner in which a display screen flashed a succession of random letters. He told them to press a button with either their right or left index fingers whenever they felt the urge, and to remember the letter that was showing on the screen when they made the decision. The experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activity in real time as the volunteers chose to use their right or left hands. The results were quite a surprise.

"The first thought we had was 'we have to check if this is real'," says Haynes. "We came up with more sanity checks than I've ever seen in any other study before."

The conscious decision to push the button was made about a second before the actual act, but the team discovered that a pattern of brain activity seemed to predict that decision by as many as seven seconds. Long before the subjects were even aware of making a choice, it seems, their brains had already decided.

As humans, we like to think that our decisions are under our conscious control — that we have free will. Philosophers have debated that concept for centuries, and now Haynes and other experimental neuroscientists are raising a new challenge. They argue that consciousness of a decision may be a mere biochemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on a person's actions. According to this logic, they say, free will is an illusion. "We feel we choose, but we don't," says Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London.

You may have thought you decided whether to have tea or coffee this morning, for example, but the decision may have been made long before you were aware of it.

Philosophers aren't convinced that brain scans can demolish free will so easily. Some have questioned the neuroscientists' results and interpretations, arguing that the researchers have not quite grasped the concept that they are ridiculing. Many more don't engage with scientists at all.

Neuroscientists and philosophers are talking about different subjects, whilst they believe they are talking about the same thing. Such a remark is passed by Walter Glannon, a philosopher at the University of Calgary in Canada, who has interests in neuroscience, ethics and free will.

There are some signs that this is beginning to change. This month, a lot of projects will get under way as part of Big Questions in Free Will, a four-year US$4.4-million program funded by the John Templeton Foundation in, Pennsylvania, which supports research bridging theology, philosophy and natural science. Some say that, with refined experiments, neuroscience could help researchers to identify the physical processes underlying conscious intention and to better understand the brain activity that precedes it. And if unconscious brain activity could be found to predict decisions perfectly, the work really could confuse the notion of free will. A possibility that what are now correlations could at some point become causal connections between brain mechanisms and behaviors is expressed by Glannon (philosopher). In such a situation it would threaten the concept of free will by philosophers, he further feels.

Pointing out that Haynes and his team could predict a left or right button press with only 60% accuracy at best the critics raised their objection. Although better than chance, this isn't enough to claim that you can see the brain making its mind up before conscious awareness, argues Adina Roskies, a neuroscientist and philosopher who works on free will at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Besides, "all it suggests is that there are some physical factors that influence decision-making", which shouldn't be surprising. Philosophers who know about the science, she adds, don't think this sort of study is good evidence for the absence of free will, because the experiments are caricatures (mockery, distortion) of decision-making. Even the seemingly simple decision of whether to have tea or coffee is more complex than deciding whether to push a button with one hand or the other.

Philosophers question the assumptions underlying such interpretations. "Part of what's driving some of these conclusions is the thought that free will has to be spiritual or involve souls or something," says Al Mele, a philosopher at Florida State University. If neuroscientists find unconscious neural activity that drives decision-making, the troublesome concept of mind as separate from body disappears, as doe’s free will. This 'dualist' conception of free will is an easy target for neuroscientists to knock down, says Glannon (philosopher). "Neatly dividing mind and brain makes it easier for neuroscientists to drive a wedge between them," he adds. (Spoil the relationship between two)

The trouble is, most current philosophers don't think about free will like that, says Mele. Many are materialists — believing that everything has a physical basis, and decisions and actions come from brain activity. So scientists are weighing in on a notion that philosophers consider irrelevant.

Nowadays, says Mele (philosopher Alfred Mele, professor at Florida State University, having a long standing research on the concept of FREE WILL); the majority of philosophers are comfortable with the idea that people can make rational decisions in a deterministic universe. They debate the interplay between freedom and determinism — the theory that everything is predestined, either by fate or by physical laws. But Roskies (Adina Roskies, Department of Philosophy, Dartmouth College, Hanover), says that results from neuroscience can't yet settle that debate.

They may speak to the predictability of actions, but not to the issue of determinism.

Neuroscientists also sometimes have misconceptions about their own field, says Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In particular, scientists tend to see preparatory brain activity as proceeding step wise, one bit at a time, to a final decision. He suggests that researchers should instead think of processes working in parallel, in a complex network with interactions happening continually. The time at which one becomes aware of a decision is thus not as important as some have thought.

There are conceptual issues — and then there is semantics (study of meaning or interpretation). "What would really help is if scientists and philosophers could come to an agreement on what free will means," says Glannon. Even within philosophy, definitions of free will don't always match up. Some philosophers define it as the ability to make rational decisions in the absence of coercion (threatening). Some definitions place it in cosmic (universal) context: at the moment of decision, given everything that's happened in the past, it is possible to reach a different decision. Others stick to the idea that a non-physical 'soul' is directing decisions.

Neuroscience could contribute directly to tidying up (bring order, straighten) definitions, or adding an empirical (experimentally provable) dimension to them. It might lead to a deeper, better understanding of what freely willing something involves, or refine views of what conscious intention is, says Roskies.

Mele is directing the Templeton Foundation project that is beginning to bring philosophers and neuroscientists together. "I think if we do a new generation of studies with better design, we'll get better evidence about what goes on in the brain when people make decisions," he says.

Philosophers are willing to admit that neuroscience could one day trouble the concept of free will. Imagine a situation (philosophers like to do this) in which researchers could always predict what someone would decide from their brain activity, before the subject became aware of their decision. "If that turned out to be true, that would be a threat to free will," says Mele. Still, even those who have perhaps prematurely proclaimed (openly declare) the death of free will agree that such results would have to be replicated on many different levels of decision-making. Pressing a button or playing a game is far removed from (very different from) making a cup of tea, running for president or committing a crime.

The practical effects of demolishing free will are hard to predict. Biological determinism doesn't hold up as a defense in law. Legal scholars aren't ready to ditch (discard) the principle of personal responsibility. "The law has to be based on the idea that people are responsible for their actions, except in exceptional circumstances," says Nicholas Mackintosh, director of a project on neuroscience and the law; run by the Royal Society in London.

Mele is hopeful that other philosophers will become better acquainted with the science of conscious intention. And where philosophy is concerned, he says, scientists would do well to soften their stance. "It's not as though the task of neuroscientists who work on free will has to be to show there isn't any."

It seems that the areas which require immediate attention are:

Even within philosophy, definitions of free will don't always match up

Agreement on what free will means does not exist.

Definition of FREE WILL not spelled.

Neuroscientists also sometimes have misconceptions about their own field

Bringing philosophers and neuroscientists together and developing approach toward each other with softened, positive attitude. (Ego less approach to search the Truth).

The will (desire) of the Templeton foundation to progress the work on FREE WILL thus appears to depends upon the attitude (intent) of the academicians in defining the terms of reference and developing a positive approach towards the problem with the aim for the search of TRUTH and not nurturing the subjective interests.

The ‘desire’, ‘intention’, ‘attitude’, (and also ego), to a layman they are the faculties of Mind. Academicians are not able to define MIND in spite of research of decades. Without defining MIND would it be possible to define free will?

Vijay R. Joshi.

Source: Neuroscience vs. Philosophy http://archive.is/a0QeG