Why determinism doesn’t result in us sitting on the couch doing nothing with our lives: a rant
One of my mom’s favorite things with which to counter my determinism argument is this: “if we don’t have free will and we can’t choose what we do, then why aren’t we all just lying in bed doing nothing with our lives?”
I can see where she’s coming from, of course. It’s similar to a viewpoint fought against by many of the early Existentialists (Sartre, Camus, etc.) who had to respond to people claiming that an Existential outlook pretty much doomed you to something along the lines of, “oh, well, life is meaningless, so why bother?” Similarly, when you’re someone who believes in free will, the idea that all of our actions and “choices” are predetermined (and that we have absolutely no say in anything we do) is pretty freaking distressing. Why do anything if everything that’s supposed to happen happens regardless of what we “choose” to do? Why bother with anything?
Here’s how I see it: determinism doesn’t make us brainless, opinion-free automatons who stand passively aside as the world and our actions in it are dictated to us. It’s obvious we all have opinions and make conscious choices to do things. Examples: I like the color orange, I decided to go to the rec center today. I think a lot of people who oppose the idea of a deterministic universe think that these things—choices, opinions, even indecisiveness—are incompatible with determinism. Makes sense—how can our universe be deterministic if I can’t decide whether to wear pants or streak through the backyard?
That’s the thing about determinism (the way I see it, at least): it kind of sits in the background, unnoticed as we go about our daily lives. I’m not going to use the puppet master/puppet show analogy ‘cause that doesn’t translate exactly (puppet master = god and I don’t buy that), but that’s generally the idea. In other words, our opinions and choices are all determined, even though they don’t appear as such to us (unless we think about it constantly, then things start getting weird). So what does this mean? Well, if I’m a person who buys into a deterministic universe (and I do), and I were to consciously say to myself “screw this noise, I’m going to go play Fallout 3 until I die of thirst,” I would do it—but only if I were determined to think that thought and act accordingly. But me being me, I know I won’t do that. But it’s not my own choosing that prevents me from a Fallout 3-related death—it’s determinism. I’m determined to choose (or determined to believe I’m choosing, I guess, is more appropriate) to get up and go do stuff tomorrow (apart from Fallout 3), just as I’m determined to like orange, you’re determined to read this blog (because you are if you’re reading this sentence), and my mom is determined to resist the idea of determinism.
In fact, I think that’s why so many people (at least, so many people I talk to) are against the idea of a deterministic universe. They know that they have opinions, they make choices, they grow indecisive about some things. It seems odd to consider that all such things are, ultimately, determined.
At least, that’s how I see it.
Today’s song: I Predict a Riot by Kaiser Chiefs
AAAHHHHHHHH LAPLACE I LOVE YOU
(Don’t worry, Leibniz, you’re still my #1!)
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
YES! YES!!!!! This is EXACTLY how I’ve always thought of it, I’ve just never found a quote so close to my viewpoint!
I now forgive the distribution named after you, even if it is a pain.
Freaking yay.
Today’s song: Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine
Free Will! Determinism! Dr. Pepper!
Okay okay, no Dr. Pepper.
Here are my top 5 reasons for determinism, or at least my top 5 reasons against free will as most people see it. Probably not very well argued and certainly not comprehensive, because it’s 4 in the morning and I just ate a metric ton of M&Ms and am bouncing off the walls. From “least powerful” to “most powerful.”
Have fun.
“Choice” doesn’t really exist
I know this point is probably splitting hairs, but it’s a point that I think should be made. We can’t not “choose.” We may assume we’re in control of what we decide to do, but in truth, we’re not. Suppose I had an apple and an orange, and I got to pick which one I wanted. Even if I were to say, “I don’t like apples or oranges, so I’m not going to pick one,” I would still be making the choice not to choose between two options presented outside of my control. The choice not to choose is in our control, but it’s still a choice.
We are constrained and ultimately directed by our desires
I think we like to believe we have free will because we assume that we can choose to follow our desires or not. Suppose I had to choose between eating a crap ton of M&Ms (obviously the choice I want) or going to the rec center. If I chose the M&Ms, I would be choosing in the favor of my desire. But if I chose the rec center instead, I would be going against my desires, thus showing I could choose against what I want, right?
I don’t think so. The extent of our control over our desires lies only in the psychological realm, I think. I don’t believe we can ultimately choose pain over pleasure, even if, in the short run, what we’re choosing appears to be pain. I hate going to the rec center and think it’s boring. So why would I ever choose to do it? Because after I’m done, I feel better. Even people who do stuff that are “painful” or “not desirable” as characterized by the majority of people do so because, for some reason or another, the activities are desirable to themselves. I think, with any choice we make, we can find some positive link to a desire.
True free will would “eliminate” this desire
Okay, so what if you still think we have free will despite this element of desire? I’ve talked to some people (I talk about this a LOT, trust me) who have said that free will is the absence of any sway or any outside force influencing your decisions (like for example, one guy mentioned God’s influence). Well, wouldn’t that just put everything onto a level playing field, then? I would think it would be impossible to get anything done if we weren’t swayed by any influence outside of our own mind. “Do I wash the car or do I kill the president? DO I WASH THE CAR OR DO I KILL THE PRESIDENT?!?”
Parsimony
It seems like the inclusion of free will eliminates a portion of the parsimony of universal laws that can be retained if the same phenomena can be explained using determinism. That is, I think that determinism retains a simplicity that is lost when free will is added to the mix. I believe that our choices and actions in our world can be explained just as well with determinism as they can with free will. If this is so, then a universe with determinism included in its model rather than free will is a more parsimonious universe.
Finally…
Materialism lends itself to determinism
I’m a materialist, which basically means that I think that all of consciousness arises solely out of the biological functionings of the brain and has nothing to do with any sort of “outside” source like a soul. The biological processes of the brain, of course, involve various chemical and electrical interactions. I think processes like these—things going down on an atomic level—are essentially governed by causation. Positive and negative charges influence sodium-potassium gates, if I can remember back to Bio 102 (sorry if I’m wrong, Matt). I think these causal influences, if we take materialism as our assumption and assume that consciousness arises out of purely biological mechanisms, can run all the way up the chain. That is, causal processes at the atomic level = causal processes at the level of the whole consciousness. To me, that just makes sense.
Leibniz: a Short and Mildly Subjective Explanation of Why I Love the Man
So it’s now common knowledge that Leibniz was the coolest philosopher ever to me, right?
Good.
I figure now is a good a time as any to actually attempt to explain (briefly, cause I could go on for reams) why I like him so.
Frivolous reason first: have you seen that wig? Dear LORD, that’s amazing. Go to Wikipedia and check it out. It will change your life.
Now serious reasons.
Though Leibniz gets crap for his “best of all possible worlds, pre-established harmony” ideas, the way he justifies them makes perfect sense to me. Why is this? Well, it’s because, I realized a few days ago, that if you remove the God factor from Leibniz’ ideas, you essentially have what I’ve always thought of the universe.
Demonstration:
Leibniz says: we live in the best of all possible worlds because God, being omnipotent and in possession of moral and metaphysical perfection, could not possibly choose and create anything but the best. It is impossible for God to have chosen anything but what has been chosen, because that would imply he chose things that are less than the best. God can’t do that—he’s got moral and metaphysical perfection! Also, Leibniz explains the pre-established harmony in a way that basically states that God has “pre-aligned” all of the different substance’s actions so that they work in harmony together, making it seem like we interact with each other when we really don’t.
I say: we live in the best of all possible worlds because the mere existence of what is essentially nullifies and “cancels out” the existence of any other possible things. We live in the best world because it’s the only one we’ve got—the way things are are the way things are, and because they are, they cannot be anything else. Anything else that could be considered “better” simply cannot exist, because that would mean that it would take up the same space as what already exists, and that’s not really possible. As for the pre-established harmony thing, the fact that things exist and the fact that things will play out in exactly the way they’re going to play out (I know that’s vague and confusing, I’ll clear it up in a later blog) eliminates the possibility of all other occurrences. If we were to have a priori knowledge of all the courses of action every single atom in the universe were to take, we would essentially have knowledge of pre-established harmony. It’s pre-established in the sense that what is going to happen is going to be the thing that happens. If we have two choices, A and B, and we choose A, then we essentially eliminate the possibility of B ever occurring, and thus eliminate all branching off probabilities from that one probability.
Yeah.
Like I said, I’ll clear this up later.
I just wanted to give you the main reason why Leibniz is so appealing to me. So there you go!
Short blogs. Waiting for grades. Deal.
Tell me your opinion of free will. Does it exist?
My opinion, of course, shall come in a later blog. After grades come in.
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