(Article
originally published in 2005 Journal of Consciousness Studies 12(1) 76-95: journal web page: http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs.html)
DAVID HODGSON
I am very grateful to the commentators for their
consideration of my target
article. I found their comments
thought-provoking and challenging, but I am not persuaded that any substantial
departure is required from the views I expressed in the article. I will respond to each comment in turn, and
then I will briefly review how my nine propositions have fared.
Cairns-Smith
The first commentator, Graham Cairns-Smith, seems
sympathetic to my position, and even allows that it is possible; though he
himself leans towards a ‘somewhat weaker’ version.
He agrees with me that feelings
contribute to our behaviour, but suggests that feelings might be part of a
‘piece of clockwork’, driving each other (and presumably contributing to our
actions) like cogwheels. This is a
possibility I acknowledge; but I ask, why pain, if the same result could be
achieved by unfeeling cogwheels, or computations? And I also ask, if particular gestalt experiences contribute to
behaviour, can they engage with other ‘cogwheels’ so as to contribute automatically,
or do they require a subject to experience them and respond?
Cairns-Smith’s analogy of evolution is
interesting; but unless and until a satisfactory account can be given of the
place of conscious feelings in the generation of behaviour, evolutionary
explanations of the emergence of consciousness will be deficient; and the use
of the analogy of evolution to illuminate the development of an autonomous
human personality will likewise be deficient.
In my article, I said that each person
is the same in respect of capacity to choose, and Cairns-Smith says this sounds
odd. But all I am saying is that every
difference between persons is embodied (or at least reflected) in physical
differences that affect the alternatives available and their respective probabilities;
and although each person has the capacity to select from available
alternatives, there are no further differences between persons beyond
those embodied or reflected in their physical differences.
I am indebted to Cairns-Smith for the
beautiful quotation from Shakespeare’s Iago.
My position, however, is that there is no gardener distinct from the
garden: the garden must cultivate
itself.
Clark
I am particularly grateful to Tom Clark for providing
a response to my paper that forcefully expresses a version of the mechanistic viewpoint
favoured by many, perhaps most, scientists and philosophers.
A central disagreement I have with him
concerns his use of the expression ‘black box’ as applying to my account of
free will. It suggests that I am
proposing that, in the production of choices, there operates a discrete system,
as to which no explanation is or can be given of what happens inside it,
whereas a complete explanation can be given of the inputs to this system and of
what happens to the outputs of the system.
I think this misapprehends my account in two important ways.
First, Clark’s black box terminology
attributes to my account a separation, into discrete parts, of one element of
choice-making that is mechanistic and another distinct element that is not
mechanistic, a separation that my account in fact strongly rejects. I say that choice-making can be considered
as an exercise of informal rationality, and thereby understood as a process in
which a rational agent makes a choice on the basis of reasons that were, prior
to the choice, inconclusive.
Alternatively, choice-making can be considered as if it were a
mechanistic process, either in terms of physical processes evolving in
accordance with laws of nature, or in terms of computation-like
algorithms. However, if my position is
correct, any mechanistic approach to choice-making can at best explain what
alternatives are available and give numerical probabilities, and must treat the
occurrence of just one of the alternatives as a matter of chance within those
probability parameters. I certainly do
not suggest a ‘black box’ that determines which alternative occurs, after
mechanistic processes run out. Rather,
I say that the mechanistic approach gives an incomplete account of a whole
process that can best be understood in terms of a choice made for reasons.
Second, Clark’s approach suggests I am
proposing something wholly inexplicable and incapable of being understood,
whereas I fact I say we are very familiar with and have a reasonable
understanding of informal rationality; and I would also contend that this
understanding can be further developed and improved. Clark himself suggests that our rational processes are ‘perhaps
only fully understood at the representational, not physical, level’; and it is
clear that, except in so far as our rational processes are algorithmic at the
representational level, at that level those processes are indeterministic
because premisses do not wholly constrain conclusions. The difference between his position and mine
on this point is not that I propose some mysterious black box that takes over
where algorithms run out, but rather that I suggest that our informal
rationality, which (as Clark and I agree) we understand pretty well at the
representational level, is truly explanatory and causally efficacious; whereas
Clark seems to say that it merely supervenes on some underlying mechanistic
process that we do not fully understand (Clark’s black box?).
Another important disagreement between
us arises from Clark’s suggestion that the conscious self is but one of the
contents of consciousness. Now, I
accept that many of us may be fundamentally mistaken as to the nature of the
subject of experience, for example in so far as we take this subject to be
distinct from associated brain processes and/or to have continuity and
stability and capacity to be active; and that some of our ideas about these
matters may be no more than fallible contents of consciousness. But the idea that experiences are had by a
subject (rather than being somehow ‘free-floating’) is so deeply presupposed
and embedded in our language and in our ways of thinking that to deny this,
without proposing a language concerning experiences that does not have this
presupposition, is nonsense. In our
language, ‘pain’ means ‘pain as experienced by some feeler of pain’ and cannot
be understood in any other way; and the same goes for any other references to
and descriptions of conscious experiences.
It could be argued that our language is
in this respect not adequate to accurately reflect or describe reality; but
Clark makes no suggestion as to why this might be so, much less any plausible
proposal for a new language that does a better job. In fact the only faintly plausible strategy that has been
proposed for talking and thinking about experiences in a way that does not
presuppose a subject that has the experiences, is the suggestion that
experiences are useful fictions. (This
seems to be Dennett’s position.) This
avoids the contradiction of asserting there are experiences but denying there
is a subject; but does so at the cost of denying that there really are
experiences – that is, denying that there really are contents of consciousness.
Turning to more specific points, I do
not suggest that volitional causation is special to human agents. Rather, I say that there is volitional
causation wherever there is consciousness; although I also say that free will,
as generally understood, requires rationality of the order of that possessed by
human agents.
I do not overlook ‘the possibility that
(eg) pain has a particular subjective feel because of the functional and
representational roles of the neural states that constitute it’; but I do
consider it highly implausible. I
believe this possibility is the merest speculation, in the absence of any
account of how or why algorithmic computations could involve subjective
feelings such as pain, or of what would distinguish algorithmic computations
that involved such feelings from algorithmic computations that did not involve
such feelings. Further, it is close to
being disproved by scientific work on such things as phantom limbs and
synaesthesia, where feelings occur in the absence of their usual causal roles.
I do not say, as Clark suggests, that
choice is determined by the self and not by the reasons. I say that neither the self nor the reasons
(nor indeed both of them together) pre-determine the choice, but that
the subject and the reasons together determine the choice (by the subject
making the choice for the reasons). It
is a self-refuting fallacy to say that, if reasons are non-conclusive, there is
no reason why the self reaches the choice it does – self-refuting because to
deny the rationality of all reasoning apart from reasoning in which the reasons
are conclusive is to deny the rationality of all informal reasoning, and thus
to deny the supportability of most of our beliefs. I accept that it is possible that our informal reasoning is
supported by processes that are algorithmic/computational, but we certainly do
not know that this is so; and in order to have any confidence in our
beliefs, we must accept the rationality of our informal reasoning, whether or
not it is supported by algorithmic/computational processes. And of course I do not suggest that the
rules of formal reasoning are unimportant – only that they do not account for
all human rationality.
I do not deny that very often, perhaps
most of the time, people find reasons for acting well (or badly) to be
compelling, so that action in accordance with those reasons follows almost
inevitably. The circumstance that the
likelihood of any different action may be near zero (whether considered in
terms of a numerical probability derived from physical laws, or some more
generally understood likelihood based on a high-level agent-centred account)
does not mean these actions are not freely chosen.
Clark claims that any indeterministic
slack between the influence of reasons and behavioural output would decrease
the efficacy of goal-directed action.
This of course presupposes that our informal rationality depends
entirely on computational algorithms – which might be the case, but is not
certainly so and is contrary to my contentions. In my paper I give a specific reason why ‘indeterministic slack’
may contribute to efficacy, a reason which Clark does not address – namely,
that it leaves room for a conscious organism to respond appropriately to
particular gestalt experiences, grasped as a whole, and not merely to general
features that can engage with natural laws or computational algorithms.
Clark says that to compete against
mainstream evolutionary explanations, I ‘must explain precisely how evolution
installed the black box of free will and what indispensable function it
serves’. This is a bit rich, when the
mainstream explanations have totally failed to explain what installed
subjective consciousness or what function it serves, whereas my account does at
least propose a function for consciousness.
Clark suggests I say that the totality
of the way a person is does not determine the outcome, whereas in fact I say that
it does not pre-determine the outcome:
as noted above, I say that the outcome is determined by the subject
choosing on the basis of reasons. And
in focussing on the capacity to select as being the determinant, Clark
is again misconstruing my position: I
say as plainly as I can that the capacity to select, as to which we are all the
same, is not a severable part of the totality of the way we are; and I
certainly do not say that the ‘us’ that provides the clincher is unaffected by
differences between different persons.
The clincher is provided by the totality choosing on the basis of the
reasons.
Gomatam
Early in his comment, Ravi Gomatam says this:
This immediately raises a difficulty with Hodgson’s position. His opening stance that his plain-person-view of free will is incompatible with the determinism of classical physics would be true only if he also considers deterministic physics to give the full story about all causation that there is. Hodgson clearly doesn’t believe in this, since he thinks volitional causation is over and beyond physical causation. These two stances appear contradictory.
I find this puzzling.
Classical physics is generally seen as purporting to give deterministic
laws of universal application, that operate in the real world so as to
prescribe a unique path of development for any actual physical situation; and
this surely is incompatible with a plain person’s view of free will. So on that basis, my ‘opening stance’ is
true; and the fact that I don’t believe classical physics gives the full story
about causation does not contradict this stance.
Gomatam supports the view that the
scientific law is a short-hand way of representing regularities amidst our
experiences, and that the identity between the ‘physical object’ (presumably,
any object described by any physical theory) and the corresponding
‘common-sense object’ is not perfect; and he argues that accordingly even the
determinism of classical physics is not incompatible with non-deterministic
non-random free will. Of course, once
one rejects any claim of classical physics that its laws exactly correspond
with laws operating in the real world, this is correct. However, I do believe that there are natural
laws operating in the real world, to which the laws proposed in physical theories
approximate ever more closely as theories are developed and improved; and it is
appropriate to consider how ideas about free will can relate to the operation
of these real laws in the real world, even though we do not know and may never
know these real laws with absolute precision.
I agree with Gomatam that my first
three propositions are necessary but not sufficient conditions for conscious
free will; but I do not think that quantum theory shows that the second and
third of them apply to all physical systems.
I believe however that my first five propositions together give
conditions that are sufficient as well as necessary for conscious free will.
Gomes
I take issue with Gilberto Gomes where he says that I
believe ‘free will is incompatible with natural causation’. I say rather that natural causation is not
limited to the evolution of systems as determined by laws of nature coupled
with randomness; that is, I say that choice is part of natural causation, as
proposed by my proposition 5.
Gomes also asserts that ‘if conscious
processes of free will are another aspect of physical processes of the brain,
it is hard to see how they could escape being subject to physical
causation.’ But I don’t say that they
do escape: I say that physical
causation limits the available alternatives, and also the reasons on the basis
of which choices are made. Just as the
physical aspect of the process imposes constraints not fully explicable in
terms of the conscious aspect, the conscious aspect can by choice impose constraints
not fully explicable in terms of the physical aspect.
He also says I believe ‘that physical
determinism plus randomness cannot account for “the subject’s particular
gestalt experiences that are part of the pre-choice state”’. I do not say this. As explained in some detail in Hodgson (2002), I believe that
laws plus randomness do account for, in the sense of giving rise to,
particular gestalt experiences. What I
say is that these particular gestalt experiences cannot themselves then engage
with laws, and that accordingly QM statistics cannot take into account
such experiences as wholes, and laws and randomness cannot account for all
their effects.
I entirely agree with Gomes that
conscious judgment may be a naturally caused non-algorithmic process. But if Gomes accepts that this is so, he
needs to explain how a process can be wholly determined by rules and
randomness, and yet be both rational and non-algorithmic. It may be the case that our informal
rationality is based on law-governed processes that we do not understand,
selected through millions of years of evolution – but if so, such processes
would in my book be algorithmic.
I also agree with Gomes that ‘our
control’ may be included in antecedent natural causes. What I say is that there are powerful
reasons for thinking that the way our control is exercised is not itself
simply a function of our pre-choice state plus laws of nature and randomness.
Jaswal
Liberty Jaswal argues that I fail to address the challenge
arising from the ‘constraint within QM … that the character in which an event
occurs must be random’; and that because I stipulate that choice is non-random,
my account of free will violates QM by definition.
It is true that standard interpretations
of QM assert that events occur at random within probability parameters; but
there are other ‘hidden variable’ interpretations, notably that of David Bohm,
that assert that randomness is only apparent, the appearance being caused by
limitations on what we can know. My
approach would challenge standard interpretations in so far as they suggest
that QM requires randomness; and also ‘hidden variable’ interpretations,
in so far as they suggest that the underlying reality is deterministic.
What I say is that, if one accepts that
QM can do no more than give the best available account of how systems develop
over time, based on the application of rules to physical features, then no
violation of QM is involved in an account that says that what is chosen will be
possible according to QM, and will tend to conform to QM statistics, with any
deviation from those statistics being explained by the ability of the choosing
system to take account of gestalts with which no rules (QM or otherwise) can
engage.
Kane
As Robert Kane says, there is much that he and I agree
on. However, there may be an important
difference between us concerning my proposition 5, and its relationship to
randomness and to conformity to physical laws.
This may in turn give rise to somewhat different approaches to the
question of agent causation, although I don’t have any significant disagreement
with what Kane says on this topic in his response.
In my article, I suggest that it is an
important and positive feature of our rationality that it is indeterministic;
and that outcomes that are chosen could be more advantageous than outcomes that
occur randomly in accordance with QM statistics. Kane says this would mean that choices must fail to conform to
the statistical laws of QM. I said much
the same in my target article, but I now think this is incorrect. Statistics only give a high probability that
results (say, ‘yes’ or ‘no’) will conform to certain proportions, and say
nothing about which occasions will have one result (‘yes’) and which will have
the other (‘no’). Non-random selection
could give a higher likelihood that the result ‘yes’ will occur on those
occasions when ‘yes’ would be advantageous, and that the result ‘no’ will occur
on those occasions when ‘no’ would be advantageous, without necessarily
altering their proportions. Certainly,
I contend, a demonstrated departure from QM statistics is unlikely in the
extreme, because the felt strength of reasons is likely to reflect QM
probabilities, and because of the complexity and uniqueness of pre-choice
states (see Hodgson 1999).
However, I accept that my position
makes a choice-caused deviation from QM statistics possible; and I argue that
this would not be a violation of physical laws but a limitation on their
applicability. Against this, Kane
argues that, if there were such a limitation, there must then be further
physical laws that do apply, which will themselves be either deterministic or
statistical.
In relation to this, what I suggest is
that there may be different types of physical laws – that there may be not only
laws that constrain outcomes (laws of constraint), but also laws that determine
in what circumstances physical systems can select outcomes from those left
available by the laws of constraint (laws of empowerment). There may also be laws that assist or guide
systems in making their selections (laws of guidance). My suggestion is that consciousness and
capacity to select are two sides of the same coin, emerging in evolution and in
the development of individual systems just as determined by laws of
empowerment. Laws of guidance would be
at best dimly grasped by primitive conscious systems, but grasped progressively
more completely as the rationality of conscious systems increases.
No doubt some would call this panicky
metaphysics; but before they do so, I would ask that they carefully read the
two articles (Hodgson 2001, 2002) in which I introduce and develop these
ideas. I suggest that these ideas are
plausible and have considerable explanatory power, although of course they themselves
raise further questions.
So, when I talk about a limitation on
the applicability of the laws of QM, what I am saying is that the those laws
may give the best possible explanation of outcomes based on all features with
which laws of constraint can engage, by way of determining what outcomes are
possible, and giving an indication of their numerical probabilities that is the
best possible on the basis of those features.
However, I argue that no laws can engage with gestalt features of
particular experiences: and that if, as seems to me highly plausible, such
features enter into the making of conscious choices, their contribution cannot
be determined by any rules. This
contribution can only be understood as one element (and not a severable
element) in the plausible reasoning of a conscious subject.
Maxwell
There is also much about which Nicholas Maxwell and I
agree, but there are areas of fundamental disagreement.
One such area concerns the formulation
of problems. I am extremely wary of
saying categorically what are the fundamental problems in various areas
of philosophy, including free will.
There are many problems and many issues, and I think it is often a
mistake to say that some are fundamental and others are not. It may be that investigation does show that
some problems are more fundamental than others; but I am doubtful whether we
can yet make that judgment about the various problems and issues concerning
free will discussed by Maxwell.
I certainly do not assume that the
central philosophical issue about free will is whether or not it is compatible
with determinism, although I do believe this is one important issue. I believe that another important issue is
what if any versions of free will are compatible with what modern science tells
us about the world. However, I do not
agree with Maxwell that this is the proper way to formulate the
problem. It is one issue alongside and
related to the free will / determinism issue, and both issues are important.
I believe that the possibility that the
universe is physically comprehensible, in the sense that everything that we
experience, think and do has a complete physical explanation, requiring no
mention of our intentions, desires and decisions, is a threat to free will; but
I do not agree with Maxwell that it is the real threat. There are other important threats, including
I believe threats associated with acceptance of determinism (or the combination
of determinism and randomness) and with dilemmas about responsibility such as
those powerfully put by Galen Strawson.
Maxwell’s first suggested
characterization of free will (FW1) is as the capacity to realize (that is, to
apprehend or make real) what is of value in a range of circumstances. He says this capacity can be misused; and
indeed I would contend that in fact any plausibility of identifying this
capacity with free will depends on a tacit assumption that a person having this
capacity can exercise it so as to realize what is of value to a greater or
lesser extent, or not at all. It is
this assumed flexibility, or availability of choice, in the exercise of this
capacity, not the realizing of what is of value as such, that links this
capacity to free will. What identifying
free will with this capacity does is essentially to limit the concept to areas
where its exercise may be of moral (or perhaps aesthetic) significance. It does not contribute to the resolution of
issues such as whether free will is compatible with determinism or with what
science tells us, or how to draw the line between what if anything we are truly
responsible for and what we are not responsible for.
Maxwell’s second characterization of
free will (FW2) is as control by our authentic self of our inner and outer
actions; so that those actions are free which are correctly explained as being
produced and guided by this authentic self.
I think the idea of control carries with it the idea of being able to
direct actions as we choose, and that again any plausibility of this
characterization depends heavily upon the tacit assumption of the availability
of choice. Further, I think that the
notion of an authentic self is unsatisfactory in that it is either circular and
vacuous or else excludes important cases from being exercises of free
will. Take for example a decision to
reform. A person’s long history of
wrongdoing may be such that his or her ‘authentic self’ must be considered one
that overvalues the fruits of wrongdoing and undervalues the worth of a good
life. If that person decides to reform,
there may be nothing in the person’s history prior to this choice that would
justify describing the decision as an exercise of control by the person’s
authentic self. If it be contended that
the person’s authentic self is that which is manifested by the decision to
reform, this would make circular and vacuous the identification of authentic
selves for the purpose of determining whether free action is occurring.
Maxwell says it is ‘wildly implausible’
to suggest that physical events occur that cannot be fully explained
physically. I do indeed suggest
this: I say that the physical
explanations of conscious choices can only go so far as to give the available
alternatives and the probability parameters for each of them, while
explanations in terms of a choice made for reasons by a conscious agent an give
an understanding why one of the alternatives occurred rather than any of the
others. Indeed, I say that the choice
does actually do what physical processes considered as such cannot do, namely
determine which of the alternatives actually does occur. Maxwell says this is wildly implausible
because it would mean that evolutionary processes (being presumably, until the
appearance of conscious agents, processes in which there can be no
incompleteness of physical explanations) lead (with the appearance of conscious
agents) to the occurrence of physical events that do not have a full physical
explanation.
This is an aspect of the problem of emergence,
which is indeed a difficult one; but its difficulties are not peculiar to incompatibilist
versions of free will. There is the
parallel problem of how physical processes, fully describable in an objective
and third-person way, give rise through evolution to conscious processes, which
are adequately describable only by reference to a subjective first-person point
of view. And Maxwell’s own version of
compatibilism faces a similar problem (albeit perhaps in a milder form), namely
how it is that physical processes give rise to physical events that constitute
or correspond with human actions, which actions themselves can be adequately
explained only by way of what Maxwell calls personalistic explanations – that
is, explanations in terms of experiences, beliefs and so on, which according to
Maxwell can be intelligible, true, and irreducible to physical
explanations. Maxwell addresses this
problem at some length in Maxwell (2001).
I think that, if there are such
personalistic explanations of human actions, as Maxwell contends, it is by no
means implausible to suggest that they may add something to the explanation of
the physical events to which the human actions correspond or correlate, and
indeed that what the personalistic explanations describe may actually
contribute to the causation of these events.
In my target article and in other articles referred to in it, I give
substantial positive reasons for believing that this is the case. Maxwell does not address these reasons, so
his assertion of implausibility is given little support.
Maxwell concludes with a remark to the
effect that I have not shown that my incompatibilist version of free will is
more worth having than compatibilist versions of FW1 or FW2.
My purpose in my article was not to
show that my version of free will is more worth having than other
versions. Rather, it was to give an
elaboration of what I took to be a plain person’s idea of free will, so as to
make it philosophically and scientifically respectable – and to consider
whether it was plausible as compared with other views. Maxwell has said that my version is implausible,
and his last remark may be taken as suggesting that plausible compatibilist
versions of free will (either FW1 or FW2) adequately reflect the plain person’s
view, or at least capture what is worthwhile in the plain person’s view. Now I have already identified what I see as
particular shortcomings with FW1 and FW2, notably that both gain plausibility
because of an unstated assumption that choice is involved, that FW1 does no
more than restrict the concept to areas of moral significance, and that the notion
of authentic self in FW2 is unsatisfactory.
In addition, there is in my opinion a
general problem with all theories that make free will compatible with
acceptance of the view that all physical occurrences have complete physical
explanations, to which personalistic explanations add nothing; namely, that
this precludes any reasonable attributions of responsibility to persons, and in
particular allocations of responsibility as between things that are in no sense
up to us (our genes, our early upbringing, other environmental factors) and
things that are in some sense at least up to us (our choices).
Galen Strawson argues forcefully that
the way we act at any time is the result of the way we are at that time; that
we cannot be truly responsible for the way we act at any time unless we are, to
some extent at least, responsible for the way we are at that time; and that we
cannot be to any extent responsible for the way we are unless we have been
responsible for the way we have acted in the past – so we can never become
responsible for the way we are or the way we act. In my opinion, if the physical events of the way we act are
either determined uniquely by prior physical events and laws of nature, or else
occur randomly within probability parameters that are so determined, there is
no plausible answer to this argument.
No distinction could be drawn between the hand of cards we are dealt by
our genes and environment, and the way this hand is played. Life’s game would be like clock
patience. Now I do not say that life’s
game is like bridge, because that would suggest a dualism of players being
distinct from the cards: I say rather
that the cards, or some of them, play themselves, though not automatically or
mechanistically.
I think it is only if choice contributes
to what is determined by the existing hand of cards that Strawson’s dilemma can
be overcome; so that it becomes possible to say that, yes, this person’s
actions were influenced by and partly caused by genes and environment, but they
were also partly the person’s choice, which itself was not fully pre-determined
by genes and environment. It then
becomes possible to say that the person is responsible, but the degree of
responsibility (for good or ill) may be more or less, because of the influence
of genes and environment. This is, I
believe, part of a plain person’s view of free will, and an important part that
is not captured by any compatibilist view.
In his comments, J. J. C. Smart raises questions about
the definitions of determinism and chance, and also about the intelligibility
of a positive characterization of free will that is neither determinism nor
chance.
I fully agree with him that it would be
wrong to equate determinism with predictability. I adopt a conception of determinism as involving the unique
determination of what happens by prior conditions and laws of nature, and I
think this conception is clear enough for the purposes of the free will
debate. There can be disagreement about
details, and no doubt there are technical issues I am skating over, but I
believe this is similar in substance to the model theoretic approach that Smart
endorses.
As for chance, my conception is that
chance obtains where (1) prior conditions and laws of nature do not uniquely
determine what happens, but determine only alternatives and probability
parameters, and (2) what actually happens is the occurrence of one of these
alternatives, with nothing else contributing to the determination of
which alternative it is. As I
understand it, this is broadly the conception of chance or randomness adopted
in the standard approach to quantum mechanics (QM).
My positive conception of free will is
that, as with chance, prior conditions and laws of nature determine
alternatives and probability parameters, but (unlike chance) something else does
contribute to the determination of what actually happens. This something else is not a separate or
severable something just added on to the determination of alternatives and
probability parameters, but rather an integral part of a whole process of
conscious decision-making or acting, to which the determination of alternatives
and probability parameters contributes, and by which one of the alternatives is
selected. In this process, the person
or other agent exercising free will may resolve inconclusive and
incommensurable reasons supporting different alternatives. This positive conception is elaborated
throughout my target article, particularly in relation to proposition 5.
Smart very quickly dismisses my
contention that the non-locality of QM is required for the perception of
gestalts, apparently because the span of the specious present is sufficient to
accommodate communication between all parts of the brain involved in such
perceptions. In Hodgson (1996) I said
this about this argument:
In TMM
at p384, I dealt with this by pointing out that our awareness of different
aspects of viewed objects is not sequential:
for example, if we see something even as simple as a red circle, the
circleness and the redness are inextricably together, not successive, even
though it seems clear that circle-detecting neurons are spatially separated
from red-detecting neurons. So unless
one supposes that it is all brought together in some red-circle-detecting
neuron - which seems just about as unlikely as the once-postulated ‘grandmother
neuron’, which was supposed to fire whenever one recognised one’s grandmother -
one needs nonlocality to explain the all-at-once awareness of the red circle.
I still think this is a good argument, but the approach of this section permits another and broader argument. Granted that the psychological present has duration, it is still grasped as a whole, with co-consciousness of many elements: for example, a stable visual scene with both co-present properties and sequential changes, and slabs of auditory sequences such as spoken words or melodies. All these elements, corresponding to many events in different parts of the brain occurring during the relevant slab of time, are bracketed or chunked in the conscious experience. If our brains were systems which, for all practical purposes, operated on the basis of local causes obeying the requirements of relativity theory, then this bracketing or chunking by the brain itself would at best be superfluous and epiphenomenal - and an outside observer’s suggestion that this bracketing or chunking was performed in or by the system itself would be gratuitous, and eliminable by Occam’s razor.
I remain of this view. Of course, if one takes the position that
the experience of gestalts is epiphenomenal (or, as Dennett would have it,
fictional), then non-locality is not required.
Otherwise, I believe, it is required.
Smart then focuses on my suggested classification of laws of nature. I do not agree that, in my classification, only C-laws express regularities. I say that all three classes express regularities of different kinds. In the case of C-laws, the regularities are those of constraint; in the case of E-laws, the regularities are those of empowerment; in the case of G-laws, the regularities are those of guidance. Thus, I would argue, E-laws are such that, whenever certain conditions are satisfied, there is a subject with the capacity to experience and act. Smart suggests that to postulate laws that are, like G-laws, in effect in the imperative mood, is to appeal to the supernatural or at least to retreat to a pre-scientific view of what laws of nature are. Plainly I have a wider conception of what is or may be natural than does Smart. And I believe that the wrongness of some things (such as torturing children for amusement) is more than a reflection of an evolutionary artefact and that there must, accordingly, be some kind of natural imperatives existing alongside the scientific laws of nature.
I disagree strongly with Smart’s
suggestion that consciousness is awareness of awareness, with mere awareness
being when we are on ‘automatic pilot’.
I believe that consciousness involves the interdependent existence of a
subject and contents of consciousness (that is, in general terms, a combination
of subject-and-experiences), and that the qualitative ‘feel’ of the experiences
to the subject is an important feature of consciousness. Whenever I actually feel pain, I contend, I
am neither on automatic pilot nor just monitoring some other first-order
‘awareness’: I am feeling something
having a distinctive quality, and I am conscious of this experience, whether or
not I enter into any second-order monitoring of what I am feeling.
I also disagree strongly with Smart’s
suspicion of ‘psychocentrism’. There is
of course a sense in which conscious systems like human beings may be ‘small
beer in the cosmic scheme of things’, namely in terms of physical quantities
like size, mass, energy, distance, and so on.
Yet even in purely physical terms, size isn’t everything; and it is
widely accepted that the human brain is the most complex physical system known
in the universe. More importantly, I
think there is a vast difference between a universe without observers and a
universe with observers. Although I
don’t agree with those idealist thinkers who say that we can only conceive of a
universe as observed, so that an unobserved universe is inconceivable, I do say
that a universe without observers would be pointless in a way that our universe
is not. In addition, there is the
possibility suggested by QM that participation of observers is an essential
feature of our universe; and there is also the view of many thinkers that the
universe happens to be fined-tuned in just such a way as to permit the
emergence of conscious intelligence. I
think it is reasonable to believe that consciousness is very important in the
scheme of things.
As regards the evolutionary selection
of consciousness, Smart agrees that we have heightened consciousness when in a
crisis, such as being approached by a man-eating tiger; but he suggests this is
because there are advantages in monitoring one’s awareness. I disagree:
I think the heightened consciousness is of what is going on around us,
and of possibilities for action in the world that may avoid or minimise
the danger, rather than any monitoring of our own awareness, which would seem
to be of little direct benefit in the circumstances.
I’m not sure what part of my article
Smart is referring to when he says I elucidate free will as being guided by
reasons as opposed to causes. In fact,
I believe reasons, or at least reasons-as-apprehended-by-a-subject, are causes
of a kind; but that they are different from physical causes particularly
because they are inconclusive and often incommensurable, and have causal
efficacy only in so far as they are given effect to through the decisions or
actions of conscious subjects. Physical
causes, on the other hand, operate automatically, and in their totality
conclusively, so as to bring about either a unique result or (where chance or
free will is relevant) a situation where there are alternatives with determined
probabilities, just one of which occurs.
Smart endorses a weak kind of fatalism,
based on the four-dimensional world of relativity in which the future exists
tenselessly, just as real as the past.
I think the jury is out on that one:
although it seems that quantum non-locality cannot be used to support
faster-than-light communications, quantum non-locality does suggest that there
may be simultaneity of space-like separated events according to some preferred
frame of reference (see Davies and Brown 1986 at 48-50, Bell 1987); and thus it
suggests that, although the four-dimensional world of relativity may remain a
useful model, it does not fully capture the true relationship between space and
time.
Finally, Smart suggests that
compatibilist theories of punishment may be more humane than retributive
theories, and in any event we are concerned with truth not morality. I have discussed in Hodgson (1998) and
(2000) what I see as problems for wholly utilitarian theories of punishment;
and although I agree that this does not directly impact on questions of the
truth of the plain person’s conception of free will and responsibility, I do think
it does bear on questions of the onus and standard of proof. I think this plain person’s conception is
important in the defence of human rights, and that it should not be dismissed
without convincing proof – which is not yet forthcoming.
Spence
I agree with Sean A. Spence that, if philosophers wish
to address the basis of will, they will increasingly need to understand
neurobiology. However, I contend that,
if neurobiologists wish to draw conclusions from neurobiology as to the
efficacy, or non-efficacy, of what feel to be conscious choices, they should
attend carefully to the reasoning by which they draw those conclusions, and to
philosophical considerations that may bear on that reasoning.
In his response to my paper, Spence
seems to suggest that demonstration that brain function imposes ‘constraints’
on our choices, or that choices are not ‘independent’ of brain function or of
genes, would be contrary to my position – whereas in fact my position fully
accepts those propositions. Spence
seems to concede this at one point, but then elsewhere seems to disregard it.
I do not, as Spence suggests, equate an
experience with its own causation.
Our feeling of making a choice is an aspect of physical-and-mental
processes that have causal antecedents in prior processes – although I suggest
that these prior processes only pre-determine the available alternatives and
their probabilities. The progress of
the choice and its outcome are contributed to by the choice-making itself; and
to that extent (only), the choice-making (though not the feeling of
choice-making) can be considered as causing itself. However, as I have said a number of times in these responses, I
certainly do not propose that there is ‘something special which sits at the end
of the causal chain, which makes the decision’; rather, I say that the choosing
subject is a totality, having features with which causal laws can engage, but
also (and inseverably) having a capacity to choose.
I did not undertake in my paper to give
a critique of opposing views, but rather to give a clear statement of the plain
person’s view (which is essentially my view); so it is perhaps understandable
that my critique of opposing views might be seen as cursory. To my mind, Spence’s critique of my position
is cursory in that it does not squarely address the main support for my
position and the main shortcoming in mechanistic views such as his own, namely
the problem of explaining consciousness and its function(s). Spence’s main argument against my position
is to the effect that the feeling of conscious choice is merely a feeling that
accompanies the mechanistic working out of physical processes that preceded
it. But if this is right, then what
function does consciousness have? All
Spence can suggest is that ‘its role may be to acquaint us with what has just
occurred, and thereby to influence (through feedback mechanisms) what is next
to be done’. Let us look a little more
closely at this.
The words ‘acquaint us’ suggest that
the ‘feedback mechanisms’ may involve some contribution from ‘us’; but if so,
why and how could this contribution be any different from the contribution ‘we’
make at the time of action, that is, in Spence’s opinion, no more than an
illusory feeling, accompanying the mechanistic working out of physical
processes. To put this another way, if
‘we’ can make a contribution, by way of some kind of choice or decision, to the
operation of feedback mechanisms, this means there must be something about
conscious processes that makes them more than a reflection of the working out
of physical processes; and there is then no reason why that ‘something’ cannot
be active, as it feels to be, at the time of actual decisions and actions.
So it would seem that, despite the
words ‘acquaint us’, Spence is really talking about some automatic process that
involves no element of choice or decision.
But if so, what role does consciousness have in such an automatic
process? Does it operate by engaging
with laws other than the ordinary laws of physics, and if so what laws? And if they are laws additional to physical
laws, what room do the physical laws leave for their operation? Does consciousness operate otherwise than
through computational algorithms that are carried out in accordance with the
operation of physical laws on the system carrying out those algorithms? If so, why and how? If not, what contribution does consciousness
make to the performance of algorithms?
I believe that, to be coherent, Spence
has to deny a role for consciousness, even in feedback mechanisms; and his
views, like most mechanistic views, ultimately collapse into
epiphenomenalism. Like many
neuroscientists, Spence is strong and persuasive when giving an account of
neural mechanisms, but to my mind wholly unconvincing when trying to explain
consciousness and its role in our behaviour.
Turning to Libet, I do not suggest that
a choice between doing something and doing nothing is trivial. However, it is different from cases where
two or more alternative actions are being actively considered. And although Spence says the ‘same effect’
can be seen in such cases, I do not understand him to be saying that physical
changes observed prior to the feeling of making the choice indicate which
alternative will be chosen. That could be damaging to my position. But I
understand Spence to be saying merely that, prior to the choice, physical
processes can be observed that correlate to choosing when to act and
other physical processes can be observed that correlate to choosing which
way to act; and that does no harm to my position.
Even in the case where the choice is
between doing something and doing nothing, the role of consciousness is not
excluded. A conscious decision is made
to press a button at some time in the future.
Pursuant to that decision, brain activity later occurs, that makes
immediately available the alternatives of pressing the button or not doing
so. Since a decision to press was made
earlier, it is very unlikely that the alternative of not pressing will be
chosen. The conscious process in effect
confirms that the pressing is to go ahead.
One does not look for some separate brain process that might explain a
veto, if it occurred – in the unlikely case that a choice is made not to go ahead
with the pressing, it is one of the alternatives made available by the same
brain activity that made available the alternative of immediately pressing the
button.
Henry Stapp makes two main points in his comment on my
article: first, he argues that choice
should be located squarely in the particular QM process that von Neumann called
Process 1; and second, he challenges my suggestion that choices cannot be
accounted for by strict rules of any kind.
I will consider these in turn.
In my article, I say that, according to
QM, any indeterminism is mere randomness.
Stapp rightly points out that, in the von Neumann formulation of QM,
there is at least the potential for indeterminism that is not mere
randomness. This is because, in that
formulation, QM has three processes:
the deterministic development of a system in accordance with the
Schroedinger equation, the Process 1 probing of the system, and the random
occurrence of one of the possible outcomes.
And as Stapp points out, there are no presently known laws that govern
choices concerning what Process 1 probing is to be undertaken; and such choices
can strongly influence the course of physical events. A good example of this is the quantum Zeno (or ‘watched pot never
boils’) effect: frequent measurements
of a quantum system can reduce to near-zero the chances of a change occurring
within a certain time, which otherwise would have significant probability if
the system were measured only at the end of that time. Stapp postulates that experiential qualities
enter in a non-redundant and non-eliminable way into Process 1 choices, and in
that way significantly affect what happens.
This is an approach that is generally
consistent with my position, although my understanding of QM and of the brain
is insufficient for me either to reject it or to wholly embrace it.
One difficulty I have with Stapp’s
approach is that it may require some lack of correlation between Process 1
choices and physical processes in the brain.
To be consistent, Stapp should I think accept that physical processes in
the brain are themselves subject to QM, in its three aspects. If the transition from the pre-choice state
to the post-choice state in Process 1 choices did correlate wholly with such
processes, it would seem that these choices themselves must be caused by some
combination of deterministic development, prior Process 1 choices and random
outcomes – and those Process 1 choices would be similarly caused, and so
on. Any ‘non-redundant and
non-eliminable’ role for experiential qualities would then seem to be pushed
indefinitely into the past and thus effectively excluded. On the other hand, if the transition process
in Process 1 choices does not correlate with physical processes themselves
subject to QM, in its three aspects, then a question arises as to why only Process 1 choices, and not other
elements of the subject’s volitional decision or action, have this lack of
correlation with physical processes subject to QM.
Accordingly, at present I prefer to
take a broader view, and not to commit to associating choice with von Neumann’s
Process 1, rather than any other process not required by QM to be
deterministic.
Stapp suggests that it is inconsistent
with QM to treat as non-random any process that according to QM is random. However, I would argue that it is inconsistent
only with certain interpretations of QM; and I see my position rather as
accepting that QM (and subsequent developments of quantum theory) tells us
everything that can be gleaned from physical quantities, but cannot tell us
about the impact of non-physical properties.
It can tells us what alternatives are available, and give probabilities
for them; but those probabilities are themselves based solely on physical
quantities and conceivably could be affected by experiential qualities that QM
can say nothing about. In particular,
since QM can only apply to general physical quantities, it cannot say anything
about what if any effect unique experiential gestalts may have. Thus, I see my position not as being
inconsistent with QM, but rather as saying it cannot tell us everything.
Stapp’s second point has two
aspects. First, he suggests that,
unless the selection process is governed by strict rules, it could not produce
pertinent determinate actions and beliefs.
And second, he argues that personal responsibility is rooted in the
immediate causes of an agent’s actions, and in particular that ‘it stems from
the capacity of the agent to grasp and understand the consequences of its
actions, and from its physical capacity to act in accordance with the freedom accorded
to it by its inner nature, and in particular by the qualitative process
that allows its actions to be controlled by sufficient willful effort’.
My initial reaction to this was to
think that Stapp was arguing for a form of compatibilism of responsibility with
determinism. However, on further
reflection, I now do not think this is so.
Rather, I suspect that any difference between us relates to our
understanding of what it is for a selection process to be governed by strict
rules.
I see my position as consistent with
extensive philosophical literature that tends to support the view that human
rationality transcends conformity with rules, including the work on induction
by Hume, Popper, Hempel, Goodman and others; critiques of attempts such as
those by Carnap to formalise plausible reasoning; Goedel’s theorem and
Penrose’s development of it; Quine on indeterminacy of translation and
Wittgenstein on rule-following; and Putnam’s arguments to the conclusion that
human rationality cannot be formalised without formalising complete human
psychology, and possibly not even then.
This literature is not conclusive, and there remains the possibility
that human rationality depends on evolution-selected computation-like processes;
but the alternative view that I adopt does not deserve to be summarily
dismissed.
In addition, in my arguments concerning
proposition 5, which Stapp does not address, I have put forward positive
reasons for thinking that this (that is, rationality that does not depend on
conformity with rules) is just what consciousness is for; and also some
suggestions as to how this is achieved.
As I put it in Hodgson (2002):
If rationality is partly
explained by our ability to grasp particular whole experiences, then our
beliefs may be justified by many factors going beyond consistency with other
data according to rules of logic, probability, and mathematics. Properties of experiences such as immediacy,
clarity, vividness and consistency can support belief as to the reality of the
apparent objects of experience. Beliefs
can also be supported by properties such as coherence, profuseness of support,
and proximity and similarity to accepted beliefs. We can reason by analogy on the basis of unanalysable
similarities and differences between some gestalts and others. Theories underlying beliefs can be supported
by properties such as coherence (again), simplicity and beauty.
Stapp criticises my position on the basis that rules
are necessary if selection is to produce pertinent actions and beliefs; but in
a private communication he has said that he is not thinking about rules that
are implementable in mechanistic ways.
This may mean that the rules which
Stapp suggests must support rational choices are not dissimilar from what I
call laws of guidance, these being laws that do not operate automatically to
constrain outcomes but rather guide conscious systems in selecting
outcomes. Stapp’s communication
continued:
I am writing a paper with Kathy Laskey on plausible reasoning by quantum agents, based on the propagation of beliefs by Baysian inference. The rules are nonmechanically and nonlocally implemented. I suspect that when it is worked out it will evade traditional philosophical arguments: various normal ideas about determinism will not hold, but there will be rules of a more general kind. I do not think that possibility deserves to be summarily dismissed.
This paper may clarify whether there is or is not any
fundamental disagreement between us. Bayesian
inference does follow rules that can be mechanically applied, but it depends on
estimates of prior probabilities that cannot be mechanically arrived at. I have argued (Hodgson 1995) that such
inference is best regarded as a useful check on the consistency of our
estimates of probabilities, rather than as fully explaining or justifying
informal reasoning. I remain of the
view that informal reasoning may be guided by rules, but is not wholly
determined by them.
Review of my Propositions
There was little direct attack on proposition 1, the
alternatives requirement. However,
plainly Clark, Maxwell, Smart and Spence would contend that any indeterminism
that may be suggested by QM has nothing to do with voluntary action; and Jaswal
contended that QM requires any departure from determinism be random, not
chosen. My view that the existence of
alternatives is relevant to free will was supported by Gomatam, Gomes (I
think), Kane and Stapp.
Proposition
2, the consciousness requirement, was attacked most strongly by Spence, who
suggested that neuroscience showed that the real decisions occur prior to any
conscious awareness that a decision is being made. I think this grossly overstates what is shown by experiments such
as those by Libet, and also inevitably leads to epiphenomenalism, which in my
opinion is highly implausible. Gomatam,
Kane and Stapp supported the view that it is essential to free voluntary
actions and choices that they be made consciously. This appears also to be supported by the compatibilism of Gomes
and Maxwell.
Proposition
3, the grasping requirement, attracted little direct comment. I remain of the view that, unless a person
grasps, at least to some minimum extent, the availability of an alternative,
there is no exercise of free will (although there may still be responsibility,
because the action is the result of prior exercises of free will); and also
that when we are conscious, we generally do in fact grasp the availability of
alternatives, if only the alternative of doing nothing.
To my
mind, it is an important and striking feature of our reasoning that we are
conscious of reasons, and that generally these reasons are inconclusive. This seems to me particularly obvious when
there are competing reasons that are incommensurable, as is often the case with
plausible reasoning about what to believe.
This view, expressed in proposition 4, was supported by Kane, but hardly
noticed by anyone else. To me, this was
disappointing, but not altogether surprising.
The existence of a gap between reasons and decision is I believe a major
problem for deterministic or mechanistic views. If epiphenomenalism is to be avoided, reasons must be
efficacious; but it is difficult, indeed I believe impossible, to ascribe an
efficacious role for inconclusive reasons in a mechanistic or deterministic
account of human conduct.
Clark
attempted to turn this around by suggesting that my position is falsified
because people find reasons compelling, and act in accordance with compelling
reasons; and he also suggested that what is unformalizable at the phenomenal
level may be formalizable at the machine or design levels. But compelling is not conclusive, and it is
part of rationality that even compelling reasons can sometimes be ignored or
defeated. And Clark does not explain
how what is formalizable at the machine or design level can be both
unformalizable and also efficacious at the phenomenal level.
Proposition
5, the selection requirement, was opposed particularly by Clark and Smart, with
Clark focussing on what he called the ’black box’ of decision-making, and Smart
focussing on my suggested extension of the notion of a laws of nature, as well
as on his difficulty in grasping a libertarian notion of free will. I need not add here to my comments on these
objections, which in my opinion do not outweigh considerations in favour of
proposition 5, particularly those numbered (1), (2), and (5) in my target
article.
I was
hoping for some direct consideration of the argument numbered (5), which as I
mentioned in a footnote was introduced and developed in Hodgson (2001) and
(2002). I find it compelling that there
cannot be rules or laws that engage with whole gestalts, as distinct from their
constituent features or parameters; so that if we can respond to whole gestalts,
our response cannot be as pre-determined by rules or laws. For those who, like me, think that we
probably can grasp and do respond to whole gestalts (such as a Schubert
melody), this would both support indeterministic rationality and explain why
such rationality could have advantages over procedures that depend entirely on
computational algorithms. I would
welcome debate on this.
Stapp
seems sympathetic to my overall position, but suggests I go too far when I say
that the selection process cannot be accounted for by strict rules of any
kind. He suggests that rationality
requires that decisions be determined by rules, albeit rules that are different
from the local and mechanistic rules of classical mechanics; and that this does
not preclude personal responsibility.
At present, I do not see how rules that uniquely pre-determine the
transition from one state of the world (S1) to another (S2) can be other than
mechanistic, even if those rules engage with conscious mental features of S1;
but it may be that further dialogue between us could bring our views closer
together.
Kane
agrees with proposition 5, though I’m unclear how this stands with his
insistence that choices must conform to QM statistics. But again, I suspect that further dialogue
may bring our views closer together.
Consistently
with their views on other propositions, Clark, Smart and Spence suggest that
indeterministic free will would require something supernatural, contrary to
proposition 6. Jaswal and Kane suggest
that my version conflicts with QM, although Kane, along with Gomatam and Stapp,
consider that at least some version of indeterministic free will is consistent
with physical science.
If
proposition 5 is accepted, then it must be accepted that subjects have the
capacity to make selections. My
suggestion in proposition 7 that we are all alike in our capacity to select
drew particular attack from Clark, and scepticism from Cairns-Smith. However, as noted earlier, the essence of my
position is that each totality that chooses is distinguished from other
totalities only by features that engage with laws and thus affect the available
alternatives and their respective probabilities.
Proposition
8, concerning moral principles, ventures into the question of whether moral
requirements constitute or reflect some objective feature of the universe, or
are merely evolution-generated human artefacts, or are some combination of the
two. I have barely touched on this
topic, and do not pretend to have done anything like justice to it; but I think
that perhaps the plain person’s theory of free will, coupled with my suggested
classification of laws of nature, could provide a framework within which moral
requirements could be seen as being objectively based, while having substantial
flexibility in their detailed content and application. Although such a view is opposed by many
philosophers, including Smart, I believe that the wrongness of some conduct is
more than a reflection of an opinion which, for evolutionary reasons, is widely
held but is otherwise baseless.
So
lastly, do we have a measure of ultimate responsibility, as proposed by
proposition 9? Not according to Clark,
Smart and Spence, consistently with their comments on the other propositions. However, Kane and Stapp think we do; and
Gomes contends his compatibilism leaves voluntary conduct ‘under our
control’. I am unpersuaded by this, but
remain of the view we do have some ultimate responsibility for what we do.
Concluding remarks
To my mind, the most interesting area for further
consideration is that involving proposition 5.
It may be that ongoing work on self-organization and non-linearity has
some bearing on it; and certainly I would like to explore the possibility of
rapprochement between my views and those of Kane and Stapp, and possibly also
Gomes.
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