July 5: 222.1. Down 1.7 pounds since yesterday. On track for July 18.
Sure, I'll talk about what I ate and exercise in the comments. But, here?
I want to talk about free will.
Since undergrad, I've been a compatibilist: One who believes that free will and determinism are not contradictory concepts. To quote wiki: Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.[2] They define free will as freedom to act according to one's motives without arbitrary hindrance from other individuals or institutions.
Over the years since grad school, my recollection of why I believe things has often diminished. In short: I did that calculation and got the answer. I keep the work for a while, but it dims. Like all memories.
Well, this manipulation has forced me to remember. I had this delightful crises: If we respond to incentives, then to what extent am I free to do as I wilt?
That is, if my actions are so driven from a bet, do what extent can my will be said to be free?
Or: Is it really free will if I'm doing it to not lose a bet?
And I realized three fundamentals truths at the exact same time:
1. I was under no such imperative when I made the bet. My will then was freeer, and that unalterable decision has reduced my freedom from consequences now.
2. I'm the one who made the bet. I made a change to my actions and incentive structure, and in that regard was free to do so. Or not to do so.
3. Hamilton is ridiculously quotable.
So, compatibility stands. Free Will just means the ability to do as you want without hindrance, and the bet has modified what I want. It has changed my desires by changing the incentives.
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Breakfast: half a peach, yogurt.
ReplyDeleteLunch: Soylent
Snack: a bunch of pistachios.
Dinner: Quinoa and Ratatouille, with fresh ricotta
Desert: cup of hot chocolate.
Exercise: A little walking, and I ran a 5k. Twice.
Assume as much water and coffee as makes you happy. Probably more coffee than that, maybe enough to make you uncomfortable.
Hey William, you want me to really bake your noodle on the question of free will? I don't assume that you have time or inclination for brain-teasers, but I have one on the subject I really enjoy.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Sure, toss away. I'm happy to spend time thinking on free will. It is (maybe) really important.
ReplyDeleteOkay: How do you define the boundary between "internal to me" and "external to me," without assuming a supernatural "me" that can at some point set up a siege wall and say "Within this domain, the straightforward (though insanely complicated) rules of reality do not apply ... within here there is only Me, Prime Mover of Myself"?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Ahh.
ReplyDeleteThat's the crux of why I'm a compatibalist; the metaphysics become immaterial. The concise statement is: Yea, all my actions are determined from the laws of physics. Of course they are; otherwise wouldn't be free will, it'd be chaos. By saying that I have free will, all I'm saying is that there is nothing preventing me from doing as I wilt.
To bring that back around: Metaphysically, there may or may not be anything that is "me". I make no claim to it. I don't need it.
So: I don't. I evade the question entirely. :-)
The destruction of the self is the destruction of most of Western philosophy.
ReplyDeleteJosh Roby Whose destroying the self? I am merely staking no claim on the metaphysical existence of a thing that is outside physical causation.
ReplyDeleteBesides, Hume's mostdef a western philosopher and didn't precisely destroy philosophy.
William Nichols: Cool! The whole question gave my perception quite a twist the first time I really considered it. Realizing how our tendency to create levels of abstraction upon reality inherently informs our perception of reality can get very like watching Inception.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch That's basically right.
ReplyDeleteThis is why its so easy to go from Hume (and others) to having no metaphysics at all. In my experience, going too far down that road isn't actually helpful. I need a few things to anchor to -- but that I posses soulstuff, which is different from matter stuff, simply isn't one of them.
The notion, though, that we believe things not because they are true (or, truths cousin, because I have reasons), but because they are expedient is startlingly important. Dropping for a moment the notion that we are rational creatures (we're probably not), even the idea that we have beliefs becomes harder to hold onto.
I am not at all convinced that we do have beliefs in any coherent sense of the word; we have actions, and we have rationalizations.
This is a bit afield from where we started. My brain is free ranging largely due to the Bad Bet; being hungry has ruined my attention span.