Thread: A Clockwork Orange-esque debate.

For those of you who have seen the movie or have suffered through the book (fantastic read, but you must admit that all the slang became a headache quickly), it raises a few interesting questions but there is only one I want to focus on.

Is it better to be forced to be good, or to be yourself and accept that you might do evil?

Now I've debated this several times in person and I was quite shocked to find that most agreed it was best to be forced to do good instead of risk evil. In my personal opinion if one was forced to be good, it would violate their free agency and strip them of their own will and therefore make them less of a human being.

Sorry for this being short and hopefully to the point, but what do you fine folks think?

Okay, so what does it mean to be "forced to do good"? Associating "the bad" with displeasure? Don't we do this anyway since a lot or most of our actions are in line with the social code even when they don't have to be due to feelings of shame if we don't act in accordance with our code of behavior?

Also, what makes you think that humans have free will anyway?

Forced to good, as in you are unable to perform a bad act. In the book A Clockwork Orange, the main character is conditioned so that he is unable to perform any act of violence, even if it is in self-defense or suffer incapacitating physical illness. So what has me curious is the person who is forced to behave through immediate means (like the character in the book so not like the police catching you or something to that effect), a better person then someone who has the potential to do good or ill?

I prefer Coke over Pepsi. I enjoy zombie movies so I watch them. I can go outside or I can stay inside. I can grab a gun and go rob someone or I can work for pay. These are all examples of the free will I have. There is no divine force, or conditioning that controls my immediate actions or my preferences. Sure, there are plenty of factors that might influence my choices, but when it comes down to it, I and only I can make the decision.

I'm not seeing how you define free will. Yes, personality, past experiences, and current situations provide the options that you find yourself with, but you're the one who decides which choice you'll take. If there are five doors, I have several options. However I have the freedom of will to go with whichever option I determine is fit. Sure, the universe may have put the doors there and given me my options, but in the end I choose, not the universe.

Also pressing the matter just a tad, do you believe that conditioning people in such a manner would be a good thing? Everyone in the world gets conditioned through drastic measures not to act violent, or steal, or rape, etc, etc. Would creating a utopia through force really be a utopia?

And my personality is an entity beyond my control? No, my personality is apart of me and therefore it is still my choice. Secondly I believe it is impossible for anyone to be identical. Sure, you may have similar interests and ideas and experiences but even the closest twins make different choices.

Ok that's what I wanted to know. I'm not sure how I'd feel about a place where everyone was forced to agree with something without any choice or say in the matter.

The thing you call your "personality" is nothing but a series of learned behaviours and thinking patterns that have been caused by a combination of your experiences and your genetics. Is your "personality" English? No, you can see that it's quite evident that you're an English speaker because it's the language of your parents and community, it was decided by external factors and then BECAME part of you. If you were born in China, you'd speak Chinese.
Why do you not believe in Islam, why do you value democracy? You'd probably believe in Islam if you were raised in a strongly Islamic country, you'd probably have hated the idea of democracy had you been born in the 1600s. Why? Because that's what you'd be brought up with, what you'd be taught to know and to think and to feel.
Why do you like the things you like? Again, because of the associations you make between them and earlier experiences. Because of the interactions that shaped you. All of the things that make you you originated in your EXPERIENCES, making you a composite of things imposed on you EXTERNALLY, not originating with some "soul" or other inherent thing.
THAT IS CONDITIONING IN A NUTSHELL, rendering this argument a little futile. Sure, your current personality may see a purely good personality imposed on it as an intrusion, a threat to itself, but it can't claim it came about by anything other than the same means.

Now your personality exists, sure you have the "free will" to choose whichever door you like.
But your personality was made, not born, so the factors that led to you choosing THAT door were not your own.

Okay so everyone here as explained to me why I don't have free will, which I see you're point but my definition is much more narrow. Of course I don't have any choice in where I born, raised, or taught as a child, but I do have the freedom to make immediate choices about my current situation. I was conditioned not to behave violently, but if I wanted to, I could grab a gun go out and shoot a bunch of people just because I felt like it. Does the universe have an immediate say in whether I do or do not act on that? I don't see how.

Anyway, HOW DO YOU FOLKS DEFINE FREE WILL? From the sounds of it, its almost like you guys want free will from the very beginning. You want to choose where you're from, what you believe in, what you have been taught, conditioned, etc, etc and hell, let's through in the ability to control the very fabric of the universe. That's not free will. That's playing god in my opinion. We are all conditioned; but to honestly believe that every single choice you have ever made or ever will make is due to some grand design or plot or even mathematical equation sounds almost like a complete fear of responsibility.

Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries

Okay so everyone here as explained to me why I don't have free will, which I see you're point but my definition is much more narrow. Of course I don't have any choice in where I born, raised, or taught as a child, but I do have the freedom to make immediate choices about my current situation. I was conditioned not to behave violently, but if I wanted to, I could grab a gun go out and shoot a bunch of people just because I felt like it. Does the universe have an immediate say in whether I do or do not act on that? I don't see how.

No, no, no. It's not just about your upbringing, it's much deeper than that. Yes, the universe has "an immediate say" in whether you go on a shooting spree or do anything else. Your actions are causally determined (or probabilistically determined) by the prior interactions of all the matter and energy in the universe that is causally connected to the atoms making up your brain and body. Your brain is just another chunk of matter, responding in predictable ways to interactions with the rest of the universe. The fact that those interactions are tremendously complex doesn't mean that the outcome is any less pre-determined.

Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries

Anyway, HOW DO YOU FOLKS DEFINE FREE WILL? From the sounds of it, its almost like you guys want free will from the very beginning. You want to choose where you're from, what you believe in, what you have been taught, conditioned, etc, etc and hell, let's through in the ability to control the very fabric of the universe. That's not free will. That's playing god in my opinion. We are all conditioned; but to honestly believe that every single choice you have ever made or ever will make is due to some grand design or plot or even mathematical equation sounds almost like a complete fear of responsibility.

Mathematical equation would be most like it; a mathematical equation describing the interactions of all the matter and energy in the universe from the Big Bang up until right this second (and going on into the future, until the Big Crunch or what-have-you). Yes, I know it can seem like a fear or abdication of responsibility. I don't really know what to say to that. For better or for worse, the concept of "free will" is pretty dubious from a scientific perspective. It basically amounts to believing in magic, because it means you believe that there is something inside each person--in their brain, or in their "soul" or whatever--that is unaffected by causality, that is utterly divorced from the causal chain that determines everything else in the universe. And causality is pretty much one of the most ironclad principles that exists in science. All human understanding of the universe rests of causality.

I'm going to handle this post from a more psychological/philosophical vantage point than syme, because that's my bag.

Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries

Okay so everyone here as explained to me why I don't have free will, which I see you're point but my definition is much more narrow. Of course I don't have any choice in where I born, raised, or taught as a child, but I do have the freedom to make immediate choices about my current situation. I was conditioned not to behave violently, but if I wanted to, I could grab a gun go out and shoot a bunch of people just because I felt like it. Does the universe have an immediate say in whether I do or do not act on that? I don't see how.

Yes, but you have to analyse WHY you would do that. You have nothing left to lose? It was the external cause of losing everything else that set you off, and maybe the classic film archetype of the disenfranchised bad guy that made you choose that role. Because you can't stand the idea of being wholly determined and you think that that behaviour is unpredictable? Then you think it's unpredictable because of your upbringing (based on the behaviour you think is "predictable", based on what you've learned), and you're acting that way because we told you everything is determined and you didn't like that because of the way you think because of your upbringing. Everything you are is necessarily because of what you've learned and been, and therefore everything you do is totally inevitable. I don't see what's so hard to grasp about this. Anything else has to be wholly religious and metaphysical. You talk as though there's a difference between all the stuff you learned, what happened to you in the past, and what you would do RIGHT NOW. But tell me, could you start talking fluent chinese right now? Could you suddenly believe in Islam? Could you get angry at your dad without it being because of something he did (an EXTERNAL FACTOR) and if you could then do you really think it wouldn't be hormonal (i.e another determined, preprogrammed thing)

Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries

Anyway, HOW DO YOU FOLKS DEFINE FREE WILL? From the sounds of it, its almost like you guys want free will from the very beginning. You want to choose where you're from, what you believe in, what you have been taught, conditioned, etc, etc and hell, let's through in the ability to control the very fabric of the universe. That's not free will. That's playing god in my opinion. We are all conditioned; but to honestly believe that every single choice you have ever made or ever will make is due to some grand design or plot or even mathematical equation sounds almost like a complete fear of responsibility.

Neither wishing to playing God nor a fear of responsibility. Just accepting that empiricism is valid. That means that we know because of cause and effect that every time we drop a pen it will fall to the ground, and if it doesn't it was another factor that stopped it. Therefore the universe is predictable (i.e gravity was the cause of the pen falling to the ground, if it didn't it was because of another cause. The pen has no "Free Will" to "Choose" to be in the air). Therefore, unless there's a contradiction in science, we, however complex, are also predictable.
You hear drug dealers and violent men excused every day for "falling in with a bad crowd" or "being brought up wrong"; determinism says that we are ALL the way we are because of the crowd we fell into, the way we are brought up. This means that EVERYONE needs to take responsibility for who they are because EVERYONE is just a collaboration of the events and people that shaped them. That's egalitarian, not responsibility-shirking. Sure, it's merciful. No one can be blamed by those sensible to how fatal it all was for what they did, but by the same token, we don't have any excuse because we're all equally determined, and we can't say that it was only causality that made us that way, because we are WHOLLY JUST that causality.

Free will and predictability is one and the same to you? Since the universe/powers at be give us the scenarios and options that we must choose from, therefore we aren't truly free? Am I understanding that right? Sorry, this is just such a drastic idea of freewill then what I'm use to hearing about.

Originally Posted by Think

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that every choice you make, including coming back to this website, looking at this post, making decisions on whether you agree or not, all of that was predetermined. I don't see how I left any leeway for misinterpretation.

Ok now I get it.

I'd like to point out that I've talked to people who share this same exact point of view, but it isn't the universe and science that predetermined everything, but a divine power. For some reason, that cracks me up.

Originally Posted by Think

Yeah, it's called predestination, and given that the Christian God is meant to be both omnipotent and omniscient, it's probably the most logically sound interpretation.
Never mind free will, if you can see everything that someone is going to do from the moment they are created (as omniscience says God can), and you are all powerful, then you can make versions of them that would behave differently.
According to these premises, any man God created must have already been condemned by Him to either Heaven or Hell.

The problem I'm having with this discussion is the assumption that everything is pre-determined from the very beginning, and that probability is seen as negating choice. Using Think's post here, it's pretty clear that the idea itslef seems derived from the idea of God (or some other omnipotent/omniscient being/presence).

I also find your logic of God problematic in and of itself; if He (capitalized to keep with the common tradition of Christians) already determined that you would go to Heaven or Hell, then why have us exist? Why then implant the idea that free will exists, from the beginning (as the Bible would have you believe)?

Also, if everything (as you say) is already pre-determined by either some mathematical equation or some god (in this case, the christian version), then why does probability exist at all? Further, why should we condemn a criminal for committing a crime if he was predestined to commit it from the very moment of his conception or-as some have stated-from the big bang itself?

To my knowledge, this entire "predetermination" theory depends on the idea that something has already decided that--which would force one to believe that God/s or some underlying magic that exists within everything to keep it in line with the previous determinations.

From a psychological perspective, yes, I agree that personality is composed of experience and environmental factors. However, this is an area where input by the individual is required; the individual also can and sometimes will shape his/her environment in meaningful ways.

In a famous scientific study (the Milgram experiment), subjects were asked to deliver higher and higher amounts of electrical shocks to another person (perceived real volts) as part of a supposed "teaching" experience to the 'learning' confederate. Most people went up to the highest voltage. Note the usage of the word "most"; not all of them did, despite the idea that people will act predictably when given these scenarios. The psychologist who described the method for Operant Conditioning theorized that if he put a child in a box, and only allowed the child to know what he taught him/her, then he could control every single behavior that child had... is this something that you agree with?

Again, the entire argument for predetermination hinges on the idea of God's existence or that of a mathematical formula deciding every single speck of dust's future--and neither of these work within the grounds of logical reasoning.

Originally Posted by gwahir

It doesn't, strictly speaking... probability is in fact just a method we have by which to predict what is definite. When we say there's a fifty-fifty chance of something happening, that's incorrect: there's either 100% chance of it or no chance at all.

By what logic? The fact that it may come up heads or tails does not mean that there was a 100% chance of this happening from the very beginning; it simply means that it happened.

Originally Posted by mutton

Sure they do. Show a contradiction.

God: In the christian description (the one I was talking about), there's many. Do I need to quote verses?

Mathematical: Show me the formula. ;P

Here's some logic (and lets be clear: I'm saying that the christian god cannot exist as defined by common christian belief within the bounds of logic).

Problem of Omnipotence: If God is omnipotent, he could create something even He couldn't solve or do. But if he couldn't, he was never omnipotent in the first place.

Problem from Free Will: God is a personal being, and personal beings are said to have free will. But if God knows everything, he already knows his decisions, so he doesn't have free will. So, he can't be all-knowing if he is to be a personal being, and therefore cannot exist.

A benevolent all-knowing being only has one option in any situation, and that is the option that causes most good. Therefore a perfectly good all-knowing God has no free will. An all-knowing god instantly knows all of its future actions and therefore has no free will to change them. A god with no free will is not moral. If an all-powerful and all-knowing God exists then this (by a long chain of cause and effect) denies any free will of any living being. If God has free will, but never chooses evil, it is immoral because it could have created life in the same way: With free will, but also never choosing evil. Therefore God must be immoral, not all-powerful or not all-knowing.

Existence is a relatively simple concept -- it is defined as that which consists of either matter or energy. Therefore if a god exists, it must be composed of either matter or energy. If I argue that something exists, but then claim there is no way to detect it, my argument contradicts itself. Let's say I tell a deaf man that I hear a deep, loud sound coming from a speaker. If he lays his hand on it and feels no vibrations, he has every right to be skeptical. If I say that this loud sound does not have vibrations, he may then pull out his trusty microphone or other sound wave detector. If this instrument detects no sound in the vicinity, can I still tell him that this loud sound is occurring? At some point, if my definition of "loud sound" basically boils down to "that which is the opposite of any evidence that a loud sound is occurring," then clearly my approach to truth needs a little work.

Originally Posted by gwahir

Nobody ITT is claiming that God exists, StonedOne. Think was merely pointing out how, IF a God existed, we still would not have free will.

However, your omnipotence problem misses the point of omnipotence. Omnipotent doesn't mean capable of doing logically impossible things (like creating a circle with corners). An omnipotent being would be able to create an object infinitely heavy, and be able to lift it.

'Kay.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

The problem I'm having with this discussion is the assumption that everything is pre-determined from the very beginning, and that probability is seen as negating choice. Using Think's post here, it's pretty clear that the idea itself seems derived from the idea of God (or some other omnipotent/omniscient being/presence).

No, you said that you knew of deterministically-inclined Christians. I was describing the religious frame in which their analogous concept of "predestination" functions. Determinism or fatalism absolutely do not require an omniscient being (although positing their existence can aid understanding, as in the thought experiment of Laplace's demon)

Originally Posted by StonedOne

I also find your logic of God problematic in and of itself; if He (capitalized to keep with the common tradition of Christians) already determined that you would go to Heaven or Hell, then why have us exist? Why then implant the idea that free will exists, from the beginning (as the Bible would have you believe)?

Once again, not my beliefs, just some common Christian ideas and how they back the notion of predestination.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

Also, if everything (as you say) is already pre-determined by either some mathematical equation or some god (in this case, the christian version), then why does probability exist at all? Further, why should we condemn a criminal for committing a crime if he was predestined to commit it from the very moment of his conception or-as some have stated-from the big bang itself?

You're missing the point of probability. Except in quantum physics, where it at least seems that we can only know things probabilistically, the point of probability in science is not that cause and effect relationships do not exist, it's that we cannot know every factor involved in them. I.E. if we knew (as Gwahir stated,) the force with which we flipped a coin, the wind speeds at the time, air pressure, and all the other tiny conditions, we could absolutely say what way up the coin lands. As it is, we do not measure all of these factors (it's totally impractical!), so probability theory allows us to make simple predictions based on our limited knowledge of factors. It's not that the end result isn't accurate and definite, it's that we don't know the factors to determine what it is.
As Mutton stated, the determinist answer to the criminal problem is that as the criminal is nothing but what's formed him( just like the rest of us), it doesn't excuse him from what he did. In order for society to function, we have to continue to expound the philosophy of personal responsibility, even though people are just the products of the factors that made them.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

To my knowledge, this entire "predetermination" theory depends on the idea that something has already decided that--which would force one to believe that God/s or some underlying magic that exists within everything to keep it in line with the previous determinations.

No, pens don't fall to the floor because someone's decided they will, they fall because of eternal and immutable laws that govern the universe. Like I said, it's easier to make sense of determinism by hypothesising some omniscient being, but that being is totally unnecessary. It's just that the universe works in a mechanical way (no one seems to disagree with this) so that a comet headed towards earth continues to head there, a sparked lighter with gas in it makes fire etc. etc. All predictable causes and effects. All that determinists point out that makes it so difficult for people to accept is that human beings are not exempt from these laws.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

From a psychological perspective, yes, I agree that personality is composed of experience and environmental factors. However, this is an area where input by the individual is required; the individual also can and sometimes will shape his/her environment in meaningful ways.

But if you accept that people are shaped by these laws, then the inputs they give are determined by the factors that made them. See Bandura's Reciprocal Determinism if it makes it clearer. Sure people can make an impact on their environment, but this impact is decided by what they do, which is decided by what they choose to do, which is decided by their personality, which is preprogrammed into them by external factors. In turn, what they do changes others, which makes those others behave in a certain manner. You see?

Originally Posted by StonedOne

In a famous scientific study (the Milgram experiment), subjects were asked to deliver higher and higher amounts of electrical shocks to another person (perceived real volts) as part of a supposed "teaching" experience to the 'learning' confederate. Most people went up to the highest voltage. Note the usage of the word "most"; not all of them did, despite the idea that people will act predictably when given these scenarios. The psychologist who described the method for Operant Conditioning theorized that if he put a child in a box, and only allowed the child to know what he taught him/her, then he could control every single behavior that child had... is this something that you agree with?

The Milgram experiment, like all psychological studies, did not see everyone doing the same thing because of individual differences. If we knew every factor that affected a person from their birth to the experiment, and what all of these factors did to someone, then we would absolutely be able to say what they would do. The fact that most people were affected by the small number of factors the experimenter could control is to me evidence for fatalism, not against it.
Ok, the psychologist you're describing was a behaviourist, which is the most vulgar expression of determinism found in psychological study. Don't get me wrong, I think that behaviourism is right on the money with it's precepts that ultimately everything is about behaviour (i.e. interaction and learning), but the approach itself is limited because it can't know everything a person has ever experienced, making it ineffective on a grand scale, and it's idea that everything is classical or operant conditioning is way too reductionist. To see how behaviourism has been refined to accommodate vicarious learning, reciprocal determinism, and other more nuanced ways humans work, see "Neo-behaviorism", the brainchild of Bandura.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

Again, the entire argument for predetermination hinges on the idea of God's existence or that of a mathematical formula deciding every single speck of dust's future--and neither of these work within the grounds of logical reasoning.

Well, I hope I've shown you that that's not true.

Originally Posted by mutton

Free will isn't unaffected by causality. It fits in the causal chain. The causal chain up to now affects my will, which affects my actions, which affects the further causal chain.

sounds like reciprocal determinism

Originally Posted by mutton

I consciously choose what to do, based on the causal chain. Science hasn't and perhaps can't give a good account for consciousness.

Sure, you decide. However, the thing you call "you" is essentially just a black box with inputs and outputs streaming either way. No disagreement that you're so complex that to all intents and purposes it appears as consciousness and free will, but in the most ultimate scale, science seems to indicate that it'll be determined. It remains to be seen whether science can solve the intricacies of the human mind. Psychology's still a comparatively young science. We don't even really have a paradigm yet, let alone know our limits.

Originally Posted by mutton

Causality itself is magic. To use Think's example, you drop a pen, and watch it fall. You say the dropping causes the falling, but you can't actually observe the causal relation between the two. There's only dropping and falling, no causing to be seen. It's not in the bar of soap. It's not in the air. It's not physical.

This is interesting. The way theories work is that every time they're confirmed we continue to use them. If they break just once, we have to rework the theory. I think perhaps we can afford to treat causality in this way (obviously it's failed at a quantum level). This is quite odd coming from me, but I guess there is such a thing as vulgar materialism. Just because causality isn't physical doesn't necessarily mean it has no place in science.

Originally Posted by mutton

Even worse, scientists have to take a leap of faith to say that every time you drop some object in such-and-such conditions, it will fall. There's no way to verify that this purported causal relation is universal. If human understanding of the universe rests of causality, then that understanding rests on faith magic.

Again, I think you've got to see it the way that I described above. There's a definite distinction between that and faith as you'll find it in spiritualist circles.

Originally Posted by mutton

Even if everything I am right now is what my past has determined, what I do next is related, but not certain. One would agree with your claim here only if they already reject free will. My personality, beliefs, composition—what I am—aren't the only things that determine what I do. The will is missing.

You're going to have to operationalise the will if you want to continue talking about it. It sounds too metaphysical and vague for me to debate it otherwise.

Originally Posted by mutton

Of course I can't suddenly believe in Islam right now. That fact is irrelevant since saying what I can't do doesn't restrict what I can do. I know that if I start studying Islam, I will then be able to believe in it should I choose.

Ah, but saying what can't be done was the only tool I had at the time to help describe fatalist thinking. If you point out someone can't know something they haven't learned (e.g. Chinese), then extend to the point that they can't change a fundamental part of their character instantaneously (e.g. their religious beliefs), then you can creep up to the point that what they want to do follows just as naturally from every condition that preceded it. It was an explanatory device. And you know that I'm going to say that if you go studying Islam, that's because of the interactions and conditions imposed on you at that point and before.

Originally Posted by mutton

Are these analogous to what you're saying? 1. When I kill myself, I retain my free will. It's just expressed... in one moment. 2. When I inject myself to become a vegetable, I retain my free will. It's just expressed in one moment.

The first, I think, should free will exist, would be it's ultimate expression. The right to stop choosing, to stop being, is the ultimate right and decision. The second, by contrast, is reductio ad absurdum.

Originally Posted by StonedOne

Here's some logic (and lets be clear: I'm saying that the christian god cannot exist as defined by common christian belief within the bounds of logic).

Problem of Omnipotence: If God is omnipotent, he could create something even He couldn't solve or do. But if he couldn't, he was never omnipotent in the first place.

Problem from Free Will: God is a personal being, and personal beings are said to have free will. But if God knows everything, he already knows his decisions, so he doesn't have free will. So, he can't be all-knowing if he is to be a personal being, and therefore cannot exist.

A benevolent all-knowing being only has one option in any situation, and that is the option that causes most good. Therefore a perfectly good all-knowing God has no free will. An all-knowing god instantly knows all of its future actions and therefore has no free will to change them. A god with no free will is not moral. If an all-powerful and all-knowing God exists then this (by a long chain of cause and effect) denies any free will of any living being. If God has free will, but never chooses evil, it is immoral because it could have created life in the same way: With free will, but also never choosing evil. Therefore God must be immoral, not all-powerful or not all-knowing.

Existence is a relatively simple concept -- it is defined as that which consists of either matter or energy. Therefore if a god exists, it must be composed of either matter or energy. If I argue that something exists, but then claim there is no way to detect it, my argument contradicts itself. Let's say I tell a deaf man that I hear a deep, loud sound coming from a speaker. If he lays his hand on it and feels no vibrations, he has every right to be skeptical. If I say that this loud sound does not have vibrations, he may then pull out his trusty microphone or other sound wave detector. If this instrument detects no sound in the vicinity, can I still tell him that this loud sound is occurring? At some point, if my definition of "loud sound" basically boils down to "that which is the opposite of any evidence that a loud sound is occurring," then clearly my approach to truth needs a little work.

Yeah yeah no one here has religious sympathies and even if they did these too tired arguments wouldn't change anything.