Re: Making your mind up

Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me> wrote:

On 20/04/2024 18:11, DB Cates wrote:

On 2024-04-19 4:10 AM, Arkalen wrote:

On 19/04/2024 03:36, Mark Isaak wrote:

On 4/7/24 8:01 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

 
snip
 

One exception to that is your suggestion of a
random number generator when the two options look more or less equal
but your problem is that that randomness is very antithesis of
determinism.

 
I don't think that's true. A process can be both random and
determined. But that hinges on definitions of random, and is outside
my area of competence.
 

 
I don't know if I ever talked about this on this forum but I had an
epiphany on definitions of "random" when looking at regression plots
ages ago. Which is that "random" isn't a word that applies to a thing,
it applies to *the relationship between two things*. So if you plot
the temperature of a place over 100 years against the days in the year
you'll get an up-and-down trend showing summer and winter, and if you
control for that trend you'll be left with a cloud of "random noise"
that represents the year-to-year variation in temperature. On the
other hand if you plot the same temperature points against the year
you'll get a trendline representing the year-to-year variation (maybe
a rising trend for example), and if you control for it you'll be left
with random noise that represents the within-year variation. The same
thing can be "random noise" or "trend" just depending on your choice
of x-axis! Because "randomness" describes the correlation between two
variables (or more specifically, the lack thereof).
 
 
I think that extends to almost all uses of the word "random", there is
almost always a "with respect to..." hidden in there that clarifies
what variables it is one is claiming are uncorrelated. For example how
is a coin toss random even though it's deterministic? Well, it's
random *with respect to* any guesses the thrower and observers can
make as to what the outcome of the throw will be. It's not random with
respect to precise position and velocity of the coin a millisecond
before it lands, but that's not what it's being asked to be random
with respect to.
 
 
Or in the context of evolution, the "random" in "random mutation"
means "random with respect to whether the mutation is beneficial,
harmful or neutral for the organism".
 
 
In the context of Martin Harran's comment on using a random number
generator to make the decision I'd say that the randomness in question
is with respect to all of the pro-and-con factors that otherwise would
go into making the decision. For example if we're debating whether to
go on vacation at the beach or in the mountains and we can't decide, I
could say "OK let's just pick the one that's closest" and we wouldn't
think of that as "random"; it's choosing one pro-or-con factor to
prioritize above others. Same with "We'll go with what you prefer". On
the other hand if I say "some neutral third party will hide a shoe in
the house, first to find it gets to decide" that *could* be random
even though hiding and finding the shoe aren't what we'd think of as
random processes, because who finds the shoe (and therefore, what
decision gets made) is presumably uncorrelated to any of the reasons
that might otherwise have contributed to the decision. If it's not
uncorrelated (because you're better at finding things, or I bribed the
third party to tell me where they hid it) then we no longer think of
the decision as having been "random".
 
 
 From that point of view the "random" decision is indeed completely
compatible with determinism, the same way a random coin toss is.
 

That is not the type of 'random' that I am talking about in the 'free
will/determination' discussion. There are physical events that are, even
in principle, unpredictable (which unstable atom will be the next to
fission and where the alpha particle goes and with how much energy).
Once that has happened then those results become part of the conditions
that determine what happens next. So I see short term determination and
long term indeterminacy characterized as determination with an overlay
of some random input.
The necessary randomness of this variation from determinism offers no
support or comfort to the dualist position.
 

 
There have been many participants in this conversation; in this case the
two directly involved in this mention of random number generators were
Martin Harran and LDagget, who might have had their own ideas of what
they meant by the concept. But thank you for explaining what you mean by
the term, it really goes to show that it's a very, vary ambiguous word
to be using blithely in this kind of discussion! (which isn't to say we
shouldn't use it, I think there's a reason that we do, but yeah let's
not assume we all agree on what it means or implies).
 
Something I could have added but didn't think in the moment is that it
also depends what we mean by "determinism". Like, if it's "the decision
could be predicted from full knowledge of the person's brain and their
pro and con list" then some forms of randomness used to split ties could
genuinely get in the way of that, it really depends on whether we add
the random factor into the scope of info that would allow us to
perfectly predict the decision. If it's "fated by the initial conditions
of the Universe", less so. Like, there's quantum, but that induces its
own issues in terms of free will (i.e. what we think of as "free will"
should be neither determinate or random; its naïve form requires that
decisions be caused by the person's will, and only by the person's will,
and neither determinism or randomness at their most naïve seem to
satisfy the constraint)
 

It should be said, given he was a proponent of a version of free will, that
Daniel Dennett has passed away.