Expressions of Causality

The problem with free will, as I see it, is that people have the wrong impression of what it means.  Free will is not all it’s cracked up to be but there’s no doubt we have a modest form of it.  I prefer to call it “self-determinism”.  This self-determinism is empirically proven every time we conceive and execute a plan. I’ve found this is hard to explain because so many people assume that any free will must contradict causality and, thus, determinism.  I claim that the only free will we have is actually self-determinism and that it isn’t in conflict with causality: in fact, it’s a product of human intelligence interacting with causality.  I’ll try to explain . . .

I maintain that “free will” is an awful term to express the independent agency humans possess to define purpose for themselves and pursue it. Our choices aren’t free in a libertarian sense: they’re free within the constraints of our heredity and experience (which are both products of causality).  Perhaps Arthur Schopenhauer summed it up best: “Man can do what he wills but he can not will what he wills.”  We can do, in the present, whatever our experience has prepared us for.

Experience represents the past.  Experience — what we’ve learned — is all we know.  With the exception of instinct and reflex, I believe it’s virtually impossible to think or act beyond our experience.  Even inspiration comes from experience. Where the rubber meets the road is in the present.  This is where our human brains interact with the world around us to form the conceptual continuity of consciousness: our identity.  Experience influences us so much because it’s been layered into our identity just as the present will be.  THAT is the self in self-determinism.

Don’t get me wrong . . . causality rules.  We might think we’re in control until that fire or disease or earthquake or tsunami or accident or economic crash changes our lives.  Causality is the ultimate big dog.  We can make choices to maximize security but we can never be sure we’re secure.  We can’t anticipate everything.

So how do you explain the fact that, despite the pervasiveness of causality, we can still map out our own futures and achieve our plans (if they’re any good)?  How do you explain how we, for the most part, hack our own paths into the future?

Feedback.

Mental feedback is the key.  Without it, we could not have memories or analyze problems or learn or make plans.  Without it, we could not understand causality or anticipate it.  Intelligence and consciousness itself hinge on mental feedback.  Mental feedback gives us a temporal advantage over causality by allowing us to anticipate it and plan for the future accordingly. THAT is the determinism in self-determinism.

It lacks the flourish and romanticism of unbridled, libertarian, free will but self-determinism has its own beauty revealed in the paradox of independent agency in a clockwork universe. Causality determines the scope of our abilities and actions and we use those abilities and actions to hack our own paths into the future.  We’re so good at it, we’re getting cocky. But we’re not masters of causality . . . merely expressions of it.

Check out http://atheistexile.posterous.com/expressions-of-causality (forwarded from http://AtheistExile.com). Showcase your essays, art, music and more with our Publish feature. The problem with free will, as I see it, is that people have the wrong impression of what it means.  Free will is not all it’s cracked up to be but there’s no doubt we have a modest form of it.  I prefer to call it “self-determinism”.  This self-determinism is empirically proven every time we concei ...

Neuroscience and Free Will

Neuroscience and Free Will

The Vatican Battles Satanism

According to an article, by Nick Rees, in The Daily Telegraph, the Catholic Church conducted a conference in Rome to combat the dangers of Satanism.

A conference for demon-busters?

This is, apparently, not a joke. There were Catholic clergy, doctors, psychiatrists, teachers and social workers – ostensibly grown adults with college educations – all gathered together in a coordinated effort to do something about the insidious, dangerous, threat of devil worship.

Traditionally, any priest could perform exorcisms to cast The Devil out of a possessed person but 3 years ago the Vatican decreed that such supernatural purging should be left to professional exorcists.

Professional exorcists?

I guess parish priests aren’t up to the task. Do grown adults really believe people can be literally, physically, possessed by The Devil? Do they really believe that The Devil’s possession of a victim is so potent that only a professional exorcist can force him out? What does it take, I wonder, to become a professional exorcist? If parish priests aren’t up to the task, where does one start their quest to specialize in demon-busting?

One such specialist is Father Nanni of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. He says that one should first have a “moral certainty” of an actual possession before calling in the big guns. Apparently, moral certainty is not an oxymoron within the church but I suspect it has become cliché, even among clergy, with overuse. In case you’re not sure how to identify such moral certainty, look for freaky changes in behavior or voice.

Sudden glossolalia (speaking in tongues) often accompanies possession, so the professional exorcist must be careful to ensure he’s not mistakenly exorcising a Pentecostal charismatic. A mistake like that could lead to some really bad publicity. I guess that’s one of the reasons the Vatican requires exorcisms be performed by professionals.

The professional exorcist knows the intricacies of his craft and is undaunted by victims that “scream, dribble and slobber, utter blasphemies and have to be physically restrained”. A real pro is even prepared for supernatural phenomena like vomiting “shards of glass and pieces of iron”.

According to the Vatican’s chief exorcist, demon possessions are so insidious that Satan even lurks in the clergy and the Vatican itself. That’s right: the Anti-Christ is attacking the Holy See. As proof of this, Father Gabriele Amorth pointed to the sex abuse scandals that have engulfed the Church. Need I say more?

Exorcism is serious business at the Vatican and is “wholeheartedly” endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI.

Scary. Isn’t it?

God is Flawed

This satirical piece challenges Christians to take a serious look at their dogmas and doctrines.

God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If this was the only way they could understand the difference between good and evil, how could they have known that it was wrong to disobey God and eat the fruit?" ~Laurie Lynn

Have you ever done something you regret? If so, how does that compare to eating a fruit from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”? If all sins are the same to God and all sins are disobedience to God, then eating the apple was, by God's own terms, a pedestrian sin.

Yet God condemned all of us to death because of a single sin: the first sin ever sinned. Are you guilty of Eve’s sin? Of course not! No more so than for Hillary Clinton’s sins or for mine. Right off the bat, common sense tells us that the Bible, in Genesis, is preaching a twisted morality. It puts us in opposition to ourselves by claiming our nature is sinful.

I'm no genius but I know a scam when I see one. Biblical sin is God's heads-I-win-tails-you-lose con game: it's a sham used to manipulate and control us via fear and guilt. I reject the neurosis of biblical sin: I believe our nature is basically good but we sometimes make mistakes. Hell, if we believe we're not good, we probably won’t be.

But that’s definitely not what the Bible preaches, is it? We’re ALL unworthy, wretched, sinners.

The Bible says God created the universe and everything in it, including Adam and Eve. He did this in 6 days; executing his allegedly perfect plan on schedule and without a hitch (except that Eve was an afterthought). Adam and Eve were pure and sinless: they had all eternity, in Eden, to bask in God’s glory.

Unless, of course, they pissed him off.

And it doesn’t take much to piss off God. No sir! And second chances? Forget about it. One mistake and you’re history. By the way, all of your offspring, forever, will also be cursed with death. How do you like them apples?

Because of Adam and Eve, we’re all born guilty of “Original Sin”. So much for God’s perfect plan (let’s call it, “plan A”). In fact, Original Sin made the human condition so intractably degenerate that God had to wipe out all life (human or not) with a catastrophic flood so that Noah’s family could start humanity anew, from scratch. This was God’s idea of plan B.

Well guess what? God’s plan B was all for naught. A few thousand years later, humanity had repopulated itself from Noah’s incestuous Ark and – surprise, surprise – was no better than before. I guess that’s what inbreeding gets you. You’d think God would know that.

Time for plan C.

This time, instead of genocide, God chose suicide. He came to Earth personally, as Jesus, to act out a script he divinely inspired, in biblical prophesy, that ended with his own trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension back home to heaven.

Why did God do this? Original Sin. Because of Original Sin, we can never be innocent enough for eternal life. We must be forgiven before heaven’s gates will open for us. If you know your dogma, you know Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross so that we may be redeemed from sin (and have everlasting life). Because God eternally cursed mankind with death, he had to provide some means for our redemption. The alternative was to abandon us. Quite a conundrum God put himself in, no?

Basically, God had to “save” us from the curse he imputed upon us to begin with. I’m amazed that so many people don’t see through this preposterous charade. Perhaps the pretzel logic is too tangled for most to unravel. The Bible would have us believe – and doctrine upholds – that we are all miserable wretches who will be granted eternal life only if we love Jesus. Of course, this assumes we can trust God not to resort to a plan D or E or whatever. After all, God is perfect and all-powerful: who’s going to stop him from tossing out plan C if he decides, yet again, that he still hasn’t gotten creation right?

God must regret cursing mankind with death. God is perfect, so we can’t say he makes mistakes; I prefer to say he has regrets. Anyway, I suppose God was hot-headed in his youth; the Old Testament clearly depicts him with a short fuse. So once he imputed death upon us, he couldn’t “un-impute” it. I mean, he’s God! Right? His word is law and immutable. What kind of self-respecting God would change his mind? If God is love, then I guess it’s true that, “love means never having to say you’re sorry”.

Eventually, God found a loophole in his own immutable law: leave mankind cursed but offer individuals an exemption by redemption. Yeah, that’s the ticket! For Christ’s sake – why didn’t God think of plan C before plan B? After all, if redemption is a workable plan, God flooded the Earth and wiped-out humanity for nothing. I hate when that happens!

From Original Sin to redemption, the story twists a pretzel-logic plot of servile spiritual entrapment, with a theme of self-loathing morality.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think the Supreme Being should be an elected position. Surely we can put somebody with more compassion and foresight onto the throne of the Ruler of the Universe. At least, if we elect poorly, we can vote for a replacement next time.

© Jim Ashby, AtheistExile.com

Free Will and Prescient Imagination

Free Will Explained

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Determinism is the principle that causality is responsible for all events in the universe: that everything is determined by causality.

Free will is a more slippery concept than is determinism and has different meanings to different people.  This essay will try to explain free will from my compatibilist point of view.

Because time is linear, the future hasn't happened yet. Future events unfold everywhere simultaneously, yet is locally unique. The birth and death of an entire galaxy is irrelevant to us if it's so remote we can't even see it. While the senseless death of a starving child in Africa is tragic and heartbreaking, you'll undoubtedly never know about it. The point is that causality permeates the entire universe and makes its mark on everything: whether or not any particular event seems momentous or even noteworthy. But how do these events affect the future? Will anything we do make a difference in the grand scheme of things? The Big Bang has predetermined the demise of the universe . . . so aren't our own lives equally predetermined?

With this frame of reference, I propose that the future does NOT exist and is NOT predetermined everywhere, for everything. The futures of inanimate objects, however, ARE predetermined unless they fall under the control of animate beings. Wherever intelligent life leaves an impression, the future is far from predetermined. What I'm talking about is the distinction between animate and inanimate modes of response to causality -- the difference between us and rocks. This distinction is most clear when we use humans as the example. This is because humans, unlike other lifeforms, embody ALL the key phenomena of life -- motility, consciousness, intelligence and, yes, free will.

The law of causality states that: "every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause". This is true of both animate and inanimate objects. The difference between the animate and inanimate modes of response to causality is that inanimate objects have only one potential reaction to an event while animate beings have variable potential reactions to an event. One major reason for this is that animate beings are complex systems. They have many functional parts that integrate, holistically, into single entities. Animate beings are much more complex and much less predictable than inanimate objects. I'll be discussing determinism versus free will, so, for animate beings, let's stick with humans.

Whether or not you believe in determinism or free will . . . or believe free will is compatible with determinism (as I do), it's pretty difficult to deny causality (and, therefore, determinism). Without a single scientific experiment for support, we can, at any time, observe that cause always precedes effect. Conventional wisdom holds that free will is antithetical to determinism . . . but I hope to show that determinism (causality) actually creates free will.

Human identity and experience presents a problem for determinism. We all live as if we have free will: we work, play, think and plan as if we have free will. On the other hand, we can see that causality determines all events. How do we reconcile the difference? First, we need to acknowledge there might not be a difference. What if causality creates free will?

That's my basic premise: causality (determinism) creates free will. Nothing I've written above is essential to what follows -- I just wanted to frame free will in context of time and animate beings: of life.

Allowing no exceptions to causality, we must accept that effects can't exist without antecedent causes.  Therefore, the processes of the brain, such as memory, thought, analysis and imagination, can be thought of as effects caused by the brain. Of these effects, imagination is most relevant to free will . . . because imagination can be prescient. We can extrapolate cause and effect into the future to imagine potential scenarios that might occur. We then evaluate these potential scenarios and gauge the likelihood (and to what extent) they might actually happen. This is, essentially, the process of planning. We use our experience and intelligence to estimate future outcomes, then plan the steps and contingencies necessary to best ensure -- or avoid -- those outcomes. Of course, short term, simple, plans are more likely to succeed than long term, complicated, plans. Depending on our skill at prognostication, our success rates vary from person to person. But, on the whole, short term plans usually succeed. I know this, without question, from my professional experience as a project manager.

How does planning relate to free will? Here's the interesting, awesome, part. Our ability to mentally anticipate cause and effect represents a temporal advantage over causality. Causality must wait for the future to unfold in the present but we can keep steps ahead of causality by extrapolating it into the future. In other words, we can (in our imagination) go where causality can't . . . and bring back conclusions that greatly affect our decisions. Steered by these conclusions, our choices guide us, step by step, through potential futures.

When causality meets human intelligence, we make decisions based on forecasts of events likely in our futures. There are other causal factors involved, like experience, heredity, education, circumstances, etc., but it's prescient imagination that steers our decisions in self-directed ways. When determinism meets human imagination, it becomes self determinism: free will.

The claim that free will (volition) is antithetical to determinism is a false dichotomy stemming from any assertion that assumes free will is undetermined or indeterminate.  If that's how you define free will then, of course, free will would be impossible.  After all, EVERYTHING is determined.  Right? Free will is not a conscious process or goal of itself, requiring effort to exercise: it's an on-going, natural, human, reaction (effect) to the world around us (cause).

Volition, of itself, is not free will.  That would make free will indeterminate -- and we know that's not possible: EVERYTHING is determined.  Volition, desires, plans -- whatever you want to call them -- are just causal factors that combine with other causal factors to influence our decisions.

The compatibilist view sees free will as natural and within the confines of physical laws. Undetermined or indeterminate choices or actions would be anything but free will: acting without reason or purpose is not free will. Neither is acting randomly. So, claiming that free will is not deterministic means that, if we do have free will, then we must act without reason or purpose, or we must act randomly, or some combination thereof.

But we KNOW we act with purpose. We don't stumble through life continually shocked to find ourselves doing things we don't want to do. That would make planning impossible! We KNOW we've planned our own dinners, careers, families, retirements and funerals.  Our experiences represent continuous empirical evidence for free will.

Our ability to plan is so natural and human that we take it for granted. We're inured to it. The future and planning is a larger consideration in our lives than most people realize. Planning, as a prescient form of imagination, is caused by the brain's interaction with the world (causality). Free will is the effect -- the product -- of our prescient imaginations.

It's a paradox. We have no choice but to be self-directed. We are causally self-determined.  Free will is a part of human nature.

Our individual destinies are NOT written in the stars (may the force be with you) -- our destinies are ours to make. We (as well as ALL life forms) might eventually face extinction as the universe grows cold and fades away. Our collective destinies might be extinction but our individual destinies are ours to make. Most of us will die obscure deaths but a select few -- as long as humanity survives -- will be remembered by history because they exercised their free will to fundamentally change our world.

Why Islam is a Rabid Dogma

What, exactly, do I have against Islam? Plenty!

I lived, for 6 months, in Kuwait and I've been in the Philippines (where there's a Muslim insurgency, in the south) for over 3 years now. It's very important to understand that the adherents aren't the problem: the religion -- Islam, Muhammad and the Quran -- is the problem. Extremists have NOT hijacked Islam -- Islam has hijacked extremists. This difference can't be emphasized enough.

Having spent most of my life overseas (Japan, Panama, Okinawa, Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Kuwait, Philippines) I know for a fact that people are the same everywhere. Most people are good and decent: some are not so nice. A few are downright pathetically depraved. It's the same everywhere.

The problem with mainstream adherents is that they're apathetic about their religious institutions. It's the squeaky wheels that end up commandeering the agenda. With religions, squeaky wheels = fundamentalists. Extremists constitute the fringe of the fundamentalists. Yet these minorities tend to control or overly influence the direction of their religions: particularly when those religions have a weak hierarchy or no hierarchy at all.

Islam is a rabid dogma. I challenge anybody to find uplifting verses in the Quran. For every one you find (there ARE a few), I'll quote you at least 20 to 50 negative verses. Islam is a harsh, uncompromising religion: there is no wiggle-room for a moderate interpretation.

Then why do so many people subscribe to Islam? Early on in Islamic history, they were converted at the edge of the sword. After that, people mostly inherited the religion and haven't really studied it closely (much the same as Christians). Many of the ones who have studied Islam, started as children, in school, where they were encouraged to memorize the Quran. As a consequence, most adults don't know much about the Quran and many of the ones that do were brainwashed as children. I won't even go into the teaching of hatred for Jews and Israel to school children . . .

Consider the areas where Islam prospers: the Middle East / Mediterranean, Africa, and Asia. These are all harsh, under-developed, locales: harsh geography, harsh environment and/or harsh economy. The harsh, uncompromising, discipline of Islam, in human terms, is best matched to these harsh locales.

Though most Muslims are basically good people, many of them don't know what their own religion stands for. They repeat the few positive verses of the Quran as if the whole scripture is positive. For them, Islam is more defined by their Mullahs than by the Quran. And most Mullahs are fundamentalists, though there are exceptions, of course. With western cultures condemned as immorally decadent and with exposure to western cultures often restricted, Muslim countries depend on censorship to keep their populace ignorant of the superior ideals of the west. I know that last sentence will be a red flag for the moral relativists out there but they're going to have to admit that Islamic values just aren't up to progressive, modern, standards.

In Kuwait, there are daily calls to prayer at specific times during the day. All activity stops and everybody prays. If you're in a grocery store, you better quit shopping until the prayer ends. From minarets across the city, clarions bellow prayers in Arabic. As the sun sets, some drivers on freeways pull over to the shoulder, lay down their prayer rugs, and kneel to Mecca. There are many devout Muslims across the world. The vast majority of the devout are very nice people. A few are murderously hateful: they fill the ranks of the Jihadis. If only 1 percent of Muslim men are recruitable to the Jihadi cause, that would equal over 7 million Jihadis. I'm sure there are far fewer active Jihadis than that but if the conflict should escalate, there is a ready reserve of potential Jihadis.

Judaism and Christianity have both been reformed over the centuries. They lack the power they used to have. The worst thing about Islam is that it's still unreformed. The Old Testament (Torah) has worse atrocities than you'll find in the Quran but the Quran is dominated by us-versus-them, Muslim-versus-infidel, rhetoric. The Quran gives ample license and cover to violent Jihad. Jihadis know that they'll be admired by most Muslims because they actually practice what the Quran preaches. They fully embody the Quran and follow Muhammad's example.

Of course, there are others who could care less about religion. The most cynical of them will gladly take advantage of the Quran's license to kill and join Jihadis and terrorists out of sheer bloodlust. It takes all kinds of people . . . but the Quran empowers the worst of them to join ranks and kill indiscriminately in the name of Allah.

Absolute Determinism: May the Force be with You

Many people believe in determinism – not just determinism, but “hard” determinism (I’ll call it by its more descriptive name, absolute determinism). They claim that absolutely everything, including our acts and thoughts, has been predetermined ever since the Big Bang (Prime Mover). Their belief is based on the universal, cascading, chain reaction of cause and effect as defined by the laws of physics. With their belief that the laws of physics are on their side, determinists can be downright dogmatic. Debating them can be like debating fundamentalist Christians or Muslims. They often treat their opinions as fact and are dismissive and derisive of other opinions: just as all fundamentalists are. Too many hard determinists appear to have knee-jerk reactions provoked by the mere assertion of a contrary opinion. Absolutes and fundamentalism go hand in hand, it seems.

In science, a hypothesis or theory is scientific only if it is “falsifiable”. This doesn’t mean it’s false; just that if it is, it can be revealed as such. Outside the quantum realm, determinism is NOT falsifiable. It is therefore relegated to philosophy but, of course, may find support in scientific arguments. The laws of physics surely provide argument for determinism but those laws do not extend beyond the physical realm. For instance; life, consciousness and intelligence are dependent on physical bodies but are not, themselves, physical. They’re abstractions – projections – without any physical properties of any kind. Trying to extend the laws of physics into this abstract realm is just not legitimate.

The unique, animate, nature of life marks a radical departure from the strictly inanimate nature of the physical universe which preceded it by many billions of years. Relatively speaking, life made its appearance very recently and human intelligence arose just a virtual heartbeat ago. This represents a dramatic development in the history of the universe.

Not ALL physics lend support to determinism. Quantum theory is the most precise model of physics man has ever devised and is the vanguard of modern physics. It’s a theory imbued with randomness and uncertainty. This doesn’t negate determinism but it does blow absolute determinism out of the water. As an indeterministic model of random, unpredictable events, quantum theory demonstrates that there are other modes of existence compatible with determinism. Thus, absolute determinism does not extend to everything, everywhere, all the time and is absolutely falsified by quantum theory.

Outside the quantum realm, determinism, given the above considerations, then becomes a model of physical causality that describes the interactions of inanimate matter. This model provides predictability, in perpetuity, unless interfered with by “free agents”. You guessed it -- we are the free agents.

Though springing from the human brain, human intelligence directs and, to large measure, controls the brain via a “feedback loop”. This synergistic symbiosis is revealed by many of our “higher” mental activities, such as: memorization, learning, invention and creativity. For instance, we can choose to read a poem or to memorize it. If we choose to make the conscious effort to memorize it, we may not know which modules of the brain has stored that poem but we do know we can recall it at will and without external prompting. That is the feedback mechanism that provides us free agency.

Another essential component of free agency is motility: the ability to move about on our own. This is also another feature that obviously separates us (and other animals) from the inanimate matter that otherwise constitutes the universe. Like quantum randomness, free agency also demonstrates another mode of existence distinct from, yet compatible with, determinism.

Living beings react differently than inanimate things. Above the quantum level, cause and effect has only one predictable outcome for inanimate objects (like billiard balls). However, cause and effect (stimuli) can have unpredictable outcomes for living beings. Hit a billiard ball on the right side and it will move left, every time. Hit a worm on the right side and it might recoil, or it might move left, right, forward, back or whatever. Did the worm react to stimuli? Of course. Was it's reaction necessarily predictable or predetermined? No.

Life introduces capricious reactions distinctly different from the predictable reactions of inanimate objects. Motility is a feature that enables animals to choose a reaction that is not predetermined in the way the reactions of billiard balls are.

Life is an entirely new mode of response to physical cause and effect -- even if that life is just a worm. That mode of response grows more expansive as we move up the evolutionary ladder from reptiles to mammals to man. With human intelligence, we are able to observe, learn from, and use causality to our own advantage. We use physical laws to power our civilization and probe the solar system. We change the landscape and freely interfere with causality (sometimes to detrimental effect). We can change the course of rivers, history and even meteors.

It is childishly simplistic to suggest that the creations of Boeing, NASA, Rembrandt, Mozart, Robert Frost, etc., are chance occurrences absolutely determined by cause and effect, without benefit of freewill. Take, for instance, the pinnacle of man’s accomplishments: man on the moon. If you believe in absolute determinism -- that everything, from moment to moment, from beginning to end, has been scripted ever since the Big Bang -- then all the effort and resources that went into putting man on the moon describes a mystical, cosmic, script so precise that you might as well say God wrote it (“May the force be with you”). I guess coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

Yes, cause and effect influences us. But not absolutely and not to the exclusion of freewill. The universe will eventually fade out or collapse into the Big Crunch. Any interference we, as free agents, exert on events will not make a real difference in the grand scheme of things.

While we may not be significant, we are nonetheless special.

© Jim Ashby, AtheistExile.com "You may say I'm a dreamer . . ."