How Would You Disprove Austrian Economics?
Jul 26, 04 | 5:37 am by John T. KennedyIs it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that no Austrian Catallarch has challenged Jonathan Wilde’s application of a standard of falsifiability in How Would You Disprove Morality?
I agree with Wilde that objective morality is unfalsifiable, but there are unfalsifiable truths which one cannot do without. Self, thought, and free will cannot be falsified either - shall we then dismiss them? Shall we disbelieve them?
Say we do.
Now what?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 8:35 am
You can disprove a geometric theorem by showing that the underlying assumptions are wrong, showing an error in the proof, or finding an example that does not fit. Because mathematics is so rigorous in its assumptions and method of proof, your best line is disproving the deductive reasoning. With Austrian economic theory, show that an assumption is bad or that there is a misstep in the logic. If you can devise a valid experiment that demonstrates an error in Austrian economics, I’ll consider that disproof as well. Considering the difficulty in setting up a valid economic experiment, I’d concentrate on finding flaws in the logic.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:29 am
David,
Austrian economics is derived by a priori deduction:
“The a priori knowledge of praxeology is entirely different—categorically different—from the a priori knowledge of mathematics or, more precisely, from mathematical a priori knowledge as interpreted by logical positivism. The starting point of all praxeological thinking is not arbitrarily chosen axioms, but a self-evident proposition, fully, clearly and necessarily present in every human mind. An unbridgeable gulf separates those animals in whose minds this cognition is present from those in whose minds it is not fully and clearly present. Only to the former is the appellation man accorded. The characteristic feature of man is precisely that he consciously acts. Man is Homo agens, the acting animal.” - Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
The axioms from which Austrian economics is derived cannot be falsified by any empirical observation. The argument Jonathan apparently made against objective morality on grounds that it is unfalsifiable applies with equal force to the entire body of theory of the Austrian School. I think he’ll have to admit this, I don’t see how he can do otherwise.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:58 am
Whether the axiom is arbitrarily chosen or a self-evident proposition, disproof of a theorem derived from the axiom(s) is the same. Show that the logic is incorrect. Can the fundemental axiom of Austrian economics - humans act - be falsified? Yes, show that a human does not act. I agree that there is a difference between mathematics and Austrian economics - mathematical axioms are not always falsifiable.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:58 am
“Yet praxeology is not geometry. It is the worst of all superstitions to assume that the epistemological characteristics of one branch of knowledge must necessarily be applicable to any other branch. In dealing with the epistemology of the sciences of human action, one must not take one’s cue from geometry, mechanics, or any other science.” Mises The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:02 am
“Can the fundemental axiom of Austrian economics - humans act - be falsified? Yes, show that a human does not act.”
How would a human go about demonstrating that humans don’t act?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:12 am
Hmmm… I see your point about Jonathon’s requirements for falsification. I can’t believe I missed it at least twice. DOH!
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:21 am
How would a human go about demonstrating that humans don’t act?
Find me a human, any one will do, fully conscious and not acting. How do I disprove the existence of a rock at a given point in space - go to that point in space and show that it is not there. Just because these are impossible because those statements are true does not mean that it is not falsifiable. But that gets back to what I missed about Jonathon’s requirements.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 1:49 pm
The existence of free will is falsifiable. If physicists could demonstrate that the universe was fully deterministic, then empiricists would have to conclude that free will was an illusion.
As it turns out, the universe seems to have a fundamental random component to it, so free will remains a possibility.
“Humans act” is really just a definitional statement. We have a word for humans that don’t act: DEAD. So when Mises puts forth his fundamental axiom, “humans act”, this reduces to: Let’s take the set of all intelligent creatures that take action and talk about them. There may be other intelligent creatures that don’t act out there, but they aren’t very interesting.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 2:44 pm
Several thoughts:
Unfalsifiable hypotheses are not therefore necessarily incorrect. They are simply not scientific. The fact that science is so rigorous in its requirements inevitably means that it will be somewhat limited in its scope, and there are many important issues which we can’t (either can’t yet, or can’t ever) assess scientifically.
That being said, both specific models of objective morality and specific models of austrian economics can be dismantled, assessed and improved upon to a limited degree. The fact that we (most of us) know that these models are limited approximations of reality does not mean we throw them away, but that they are refined over time while being used where we see no superior alternatives.
And TJ Madison:
Fundamental contingency does not actually open the door to free will. If the random factor really is random (rather than just appearing random because we don’t understand the causes) then we have no control over it, and so it can’t be considered will.
If the apparent indeterminacy were actually determined somehow by ourselves, that would come under free will, but that’s a tricky one to build a coherant case for.
This isn’t to say I dispute free will, I just look at it from a slightly different angle.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 2:50 pm
> How would a human go about demonstrating that humans don’t act?
Anomie. Anesthesia. Coma.
FWIW, I agree with Billy’s take this morning, but I think the reliance of Rand and Mises on so-called “axioms” is absurd. An axiom is the base premise of a formal system, fundamentally perfect but imaginary. No objective argument can refer to a formal system except analogically, and therefore deceptively. The imaginary may be interesting, but it is not real. By using the word “axiom”, I think the mid-century neo-libertarians were simply trying to forestall debate. It’s called hand-waving.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 3:39 pm
“The a priori knowledge of praxeology is entirely different—categorically different—from the a priori knowledge of mathematics or, more precisely, from mathematical a priori knowledge as interpreted by logical positivism. The starting point of all praxeological thinking is not arbitrarily chosen axioms, but a self-evident proposition, fully, clearly and necessarily present in every human mind.”
I hardly see how this is a categorical difference; the deductive methodology is, at least in theory, identical. If anything, praxeology is simply an application of mathematical logic to a particular axiom set (where we establish the metacontextual requirement that those axioms be self-evidently true). That being said, I think Swann’s critique is pertinent, especially given that, so far as I can tell, the self-evident “axioms” of praxeology resist translation into formal language. That’s not to say that praxeology is wrong, but rather that I think the whole program is misguided.
As Kennedy correctly points out, both objective morality and Austrian economics are essentially unfalsifiable, but this fact does not give us sufficient reason to discard either. 1+1=2 is also unfalsifiable, but that’s not a good reason for believing 1+1=3 (I say 1+1=2 is unfalsifiable because whenever we see examples that falsify this statement, we conclude that we’re interpreting the example naďvely or that we’re somehow misunderstanding what’s going on; for example, when I use an eyedropper to put one drop of water on a glass slide, then another drop of water on the slide, I end up with one big drop of water, but this certainly doesn’t disprove that 1+1=2).
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 4:27 pm
“Find me a human, any one will do, fully conscious and not acting.”
You’re misunderstanding the axiom. It’s not that humans never fail to act for a finite period, rather it relies on the insight that one cannot hold one does not act without acting.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 4:29 pm
“If physicists could demonstrate that the universe was fully deterministic, then empiricists would have to conclude that free will was an illusion.”
This implicitly requires that the physicists and empricists in question be free to do so.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 4:41 pm
“An axiom is the base premise of a formal system, fundamentally perfect but imaginary. “
The axioms in question are ones you cannot do without for any human purpose. That’s something rationally observed, not imagined.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 4:54 pm
find me a concept and I’ll find you a philosophy which denies its existence
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 4:55 pm
“I hardly see how this is a categorical difference;”
His point was that, unlike say the axioms euclidiean geometry, praxeological axioms are a metaphysical givens for all men. You can proceed coherently without the parallel postulate but you can’t proceed coherently without a praxeological axiom.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 5:06 pm
“find me a concept and I’ll find you a philosophy which denies its existence”
One can of course make assertions denying self, thought, and choice, but one cannot coherently deny self, thought, and choice because any argument which denies them necessarily implies them.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 5:09 pm
I agree with you on self and thought, but I’m not sure about choice and objective morality. I need to think about those
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 5:22 pm
John, not so. You can coherantly deny choice provided you also believe that you had no choice in arriving at that conclusion. The denial of thought is clearly an oxymoron, but the coherance with which self can be denied depends on how the concept is defined.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 5:34 pm
Bernard, If you are not free to choose to deny then what does it mean to deny?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 5:43 pm
John. Simply that we deny. There need be no wider meaning.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 7:03 pm
Absent choice you’re not free to deny or believe or argue.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 7:21 pm
Absent choice, you do what you were predestined to do. You deny, believe or argue because you are not free to do anything else. A computer program runs deterministically, which means it does that which it is programmed to do. I believe there’s more to us than that, but the fact that we deny, believe and argue does not prove it.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 7:35 pm
” Absent choice, you do what you were predestined to do. You deny, believe or argue because you are not free to do anything else…”
Making argument incoherent. When you offer me your argument you are inviting me to choose recognize it’s validity.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 7:37 pm
Absent choice you’re not free to deny or believe or argue.
We might not be “free” to deny, but Bernard is correct, humans deny; it’s something in fact that we do, whether we have free will or not.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 7:48 pm
John, if I present you with an argument, absent free will, your recognition of its validity is not a matter of choice but a deterministic consequence of the way you perceive it.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 8:41 pm
The problem of “free will vs. determinism” is that arguments generally take place on completely opposite ends of the scale. Determinists argue that at the fundamental sub-atomic level, all events are antecedents of previous events. Free-willers operate on the scale of human action–the most complex sequence of events in the universe. Words which apply on one scale have no meaning in another. It’s the difference between “why” and “how”.
If human action, like all other events, has a “cause” at the atomic level, what does that mean at the human level? Does it eliminate choice? Atoms don’t choose therefore humans don’t choose is a vacuous assertion. If you were omniscient you might be able to create perfect Feynman diagrams for a human life, but what would it mean? The minute you assert something like, “it proves there’s no choice, no free will,” you’ve left the realm of physics. Proving the robustness of the physical universe is irreleveant. Human choice is not predicated on breaking the laws of physics.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 8:50 pm
>>Unfalsifiable hypotheses are not therefore necessarily incorrect. They are simply not scientific.
This means they are NOT USEFUL. All non-disprovable theories have the same logical validity. In many ways, they are WORSE THAN FALSE. They take up space in our heads, and don’t yield any predictive power. (If they had predictive power, they would be disprovable.)
We can see that Austrian economics has at least some predictive power and thus some empirical validity. I suspect that close examination of the “axioms” will reveal that they can be empirically justified.
I’m always embarassed whenever Austrians start talking about a priori knowledge. This is because they then invariably bring up ideas like “common sense”, leading them to give all kinds of “obvious to everybody” statements about physics, which are invariably wrong. Hoppe is the worst offender.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:00 pm
“This means they are NOT USEFUL. All non-disprovable theories have the same logical validity. In many ways, they are WORSE THAN FALSE.
So the theory that you exist, think and choose is worse than false since it is unfalsifiable?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:03 pm
Rod,
“We might not be “free” to deny, but Bernard is correct, humans deny…
Humans do deny, but how could they without choice? Is it meaningful to say that a determined system denies something? What does that mean?
Don’t you see anything a tad problematic with offering to any audience an argument that implies they are not free to evaluate the argument? Doesn’t such an implcation render the argument incoherent? There can be no argument without choice.
In the sense that you say humans deny would you also say humans choose?
Would it make sense to say the following?
“We might not be ‘free’ to choose, but humans choose.”
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:19 pm
Goldst, you’re close to what I was saying earlier. The correct comparison is with determinism vs indeterminism. Indeterminism does not necessarily infer free will. However, if determinism is taken far enough then it does negate the possibility of free will in the sense that it’s being discussed here.
As with most other philosophical concepts, people can talk at cross-purposes for hours if they don’t check one anothers’ definitions of free will.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 9:53 pm
Humans do deny, but how could they without choice?
Sans choice, think of denial like digestion; humans digest, but we don’t freely choose to digest.
Is it meaningful to say that a determined system denies something?
It’s a semantic issue for sure, but yeah, one can certainly say that a computer chess program (for instance) can deny a particular move, and I would understand what the speaker of that sentence meant. The usual objection to this is, “Wait!, it’s the programmer who’s doing the denying, not the computer program.” Whlie that’s true, the statement nevertheless conveys a meaning.
What does that mean?
I’m sure it would mean something really frickin’ weird, that’s for sure. Tho I don’t put it past nature to be really frickin’ weird.
If strict physical determinism were in fact true, if there were in fact an unbreakable chain of cause and effect from the quantum all the way up to whole human beings, then logically, free will would have to be an illusion because if every cause yields a unique effect, then everything every human being does — everything — would be (in principle) 100% predictable. Even tho I believe it would still **seem** to us like we were free to choose (or deny) future A or B.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:11 pm
Rod, in the sense that you say humans deny would you also say humans choose, whether we’re free to choose or not?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:13 pm
Freedom of choice involves 2 or more possible paths of which one is selected, closing off the others. Determinism involves a single path. The error John appears to be making is in seeing determinism as involving no path at all. If a particular effect follows precisely from a particular cause or set of causes then that effect still occurs.
Thus if my belief about, to pluck an example out of the air, God, is a deterministic product of my experiences and genetic programming to the present, it still follows that it’s my belief.
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:22 pm
Bernard the mistake you’re making is in thinking that I’ve argued that determinism is false. I’ve simply pointed out that it is impossible for man to coherently argue for determinism.
What is it you expect me to do with an argument which implies I am not free to evaluate arguments?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 10:54 pm
Again, you’ve missed the point. Evaluation does not require free will. Without free will your evaluation simply ends up in a particular place as a matter of necessity (wheras if you have free choice more than one outcome is possible).
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 11:29 pm
“Again, you’ve missed the point.”
Surely you’re not implying I’m free to do otherwise?
July 26th, 2004 at Jul 26, 04 | 11:43 pm
When a computer program crashes it does not follow that it was free to do otherwise. Simply that it has crashed.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 12:22 am
Do you argue with computer programs?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 12:33 am
I often attempt to understand their programming and make them work.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 12:40 am
Rod, in the sense that you say humans deny would you also say humans choose, whether we’re free to choose or not?
Yes, but, iff strict physical determinism, then only in the sense of the meaning as in “the computer chose a move.” Like it or not, the word “choice” usually carries a strong connotation of indeterminism.
FWIW, I happen to think free will is real, but at the same time I realize I don’t have thoroughly irrefutable arguments to defend that belief. Like most of my beliefs. ;-)
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 3:10 am
What makes determined behavior a choice? Assuming the behavior of a flipped coin is determined, would you say the coin chooses whether to land heads or tails? If not, what is the computer choosing?
“FWIW, I happen to think free will is real, but at the same time I realize I don’t have thoroughly irrefutable arguments to defend that belief. “
Can you proceed coherently from the assumption that you are no more free to evaluate my arguments than a coin is free to land heads or tails?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 4:46 am
What makes determined behavior a choice? Assuming the behavior of a flipped coin is determined, would you say the coin chooses whether to land heads or tails? If not, what is the computer choosing?
John, I have argued elsewhere that I think it would better to refer to what a computer chess game does when it implements a move as “making a selection” vs. “making a choice,” simply because as I said before the word “choice” carries such a heavy connotation of indeterminism, and often teleology as well. Whereas selection is more easily understood to mean, simply, “an alternative was exercised.” This is all really just semantics, I realize that, but I think it helps us talk about the difference between what conscious, volitional beings do, versus what unconscious, non-volitional things do. So, the computer isn’t “choosing” in the sense we usually understand choice; ultimately it’s the programmer who has really made the choice (based on the state of the game and a complicated rule set). But I wouldn’t object to someone saying the computer has *implemented* a selection. Wall thermostats implement selections too.
Can you proceed coherently from the assumption that you are no more free to evaluate my arguments than a coin is free to land heads or tails?
Someone once asked me, “If tomorrow physicists proved incontrovertibly that strict physical determinism were true, would you just sit on your hands for the rest of your life and do nothing?” My answer had to be, well, if I did, that too would have been determined! Seriously, I don’t how I would meet that reality, if I would be coherent or not, but it would be weird for sure. However, simply because that’s impossible to comprehend, it doesn’t help the argument for free will as far as I can tell.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 3:00 pm
Since our comment system is working at the moment, I’ll respond to some of the comments made by JTK in the above mentioned Catallarchy thread.
How would you disprove free will? That would entail an argument from evidence that would persuade you that you had no free will. But you cannot coherently hold that such persuasion is possible. Thus free will is unfalsifiable.
This is a faulty argument. We could disprove free will if we had a complete understanding of how the mind works, and were able to predict, using some theory of hard determinism, what a person’s next action/decision would be based on the contents of his brain. Assuming such evidence existed, we could be “persuaded” that we have no free will. But this “persuation” would not be the result of any free choice on the part of the individual; rather, it would be an inevitable, preordained consequence of introducing new facts to past knowledge gained from experience.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. Free will is falsifiable.
You can coherently proceed without the assuming God, but can you coherently proceed without assuming self, thought and choice?
Now the question arises: Can one coherently proceed without objective oughts?
One has at least some amount of evidence justifying the assumption of self, thought and choice: introspection. However, introspection does not provide evidence for objective oughts, for all we can observe from introspection is preferences and emotions with regard to oughts. We cannot observe any objective moral order.
I’ll first point out that those in these threads who claim that one can do so do not themselves do so. Micha for instance is always explicitly or implicitly prescribing what people ought to do. Isn’t it a fundamental purpose of Catallarchy to argue for what people ought to do? That purpose is incoherent in the absence of objective oughts.
If Catallarchy decided to switch from being a political blog to being an ice cream recommendation blog, would we first need to posit an objective order for absolute ice cream rankings (i.e. chocolate is always better than vanilla, in all times, places, etc.) before we recommend that people ought to choose chocolate over vanilla?
Also note that I am the only explicit moral relativist at Catallarchy; I do not speak for my colleages, some of whom are objectivists like yourself.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 3:10 pm
>>Unfalsifiable hypotheses are not therefore necessarily incorrect. They are simply not scientific.
This means they are NOT USEFUL. All non-disprovable theories have the same logical validity. In many ways, they are WORSE THAN FALSE. They take up space in our heads, and don’t yield any predictive power. (If they had predictive power, they would be disprovable.)
Non-falsifiable does not mean not useful, nor does it even mean non-predictive. Ancient mystical theories about weather may have been non-falsifiable, but useful and predictive. And many religious theories are non-falsifiable and non-predictive, but useful in the sense that they are emotionally comforting.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 3:58 pm
In principle, everything a human being does would never be 100% predictable. Determinism isn’t the issue in that case, it’s practicallity. It’s theoretically impossible to construct a model of something like a human being and his environment and have it execute faster than the real thing. You can only *predict* if you reduce the data, and then you don’t get 100% accuracy. So I could predict that “Bob will be at work tomorrow” and it will be true perhaps 99% of the time and it only gives me a tiny bit of knowledge anyway because I’ve reduced the data (using language in this case.)
To get an accurate prediction, you’d have to be one step “above” the universe itself and watch it execute–assuming that the universe is really just a sub-system of something else. Unless it goes on ad infinitum, eventually you’d reach the “real” universe above which there existed no other layers and *that* universe would not be predictable.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 4:09 pm
‘To get an accurate prediction, you’d have to be one step “above” the universe itself and watch it execute–assuming that the universe is really just a sub-system of something else. Unless it goes on ad infinitum, eventually you’d reach the “real” universe above which there existed no other layers and *that* universe would not be predictable.’
That watching from above wouldn’t work anyway, I don’t think, for the reason you gave just above it:
‘It’s theoretically impossible to construct a model of something like a human being and his environment and have it execute faster than the real thing.’
Watching the universe would allow you to see what happened during and after the fact, but not would would happen before.
This isn’t actually relevant to the free will issue anyway, because a deterministic universe would negate the possibility of free will (as defined so far) regardless of whether we had the means to predict behaviour. The task has not been to prove that will is not free (or I’d be on the other side of the debate) but simply to demonstrate that it is a logical possibility.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 4:10 pm
It’s theoretically impossible to construct a model of something like a human being and his environment and have it execute faster than the real thing.
Is this so? I’m no so sure. Is there some scientific law which states that a computer could never be fast enough or complex enough to analyze in real time every process that takes place in a human brain?
Given current technology, it is impossible to observe what is in the center of the sun. We assume that the center of the sun consists of the same material as the outer, observable portions, but we have no tools that we can send close enough to the center to observe conclusively. But this doesn’t mean that the statement “the center of the sun consists of such and such gasses, and does not contain a purple elephant dancing on a tea cup” is not falsifiable. If we had the proper equipment, we could theoretically observe and either confirm or falsify that statement. I assume the same is true with regard to the human mind and determinism.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 4:36 pm
‘Is there some scientific law which states that a computer could never be fast enough or complex enough to analyze in real time every process that takes place in a human brain?’
Nope, but modelling in real-time wouldn’t get you there faster than the brain itself, so you wouldn’t know for sure what would happen before it did.
The other problem is that computers only model according to a specified set of paramaters for a given set of data. If either the initial conditions or the variables are not precisely known then the output will not be precisely accurate.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 5:45 pm
But why won’t modelling in real-time get you there faster than the brain itself? What law of physics mandates that this is so? I’m not denying the possibility of such a law; I’m just not familiar with one.
And while it is true that computers can only model according to a specified set of paramaters, who is to say that the paramaters necessary for modeling the human brain aren’t potentially observable and implementable?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 6:24 pm
Micha,
“We could disprove free will if we had a complete understanding of how the mind works..”
How would a determined system acquire such? Can a coinflip acquire understanding? What would that mean?
“Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. Free will is falsifiable.”
To whom? To a coinflip?
Your argument is incoherent Micha; at the end of it most of your words don’t mean what they meant at the beginning. You attempt to argue yourself out of existence.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 6:33 pm
“If Catallarchy decided to switch from being a political blog to being an ice cream recommendation blog, would we first need to posit an objective order for absolute ice cream rankings (i.e. chocolate is always better than vanilla, in all times, places, etc.) before we recommend that people ought to choose chocolate over vanilla?”
Well what would you mean when you said people ought to choose chocolate over vanilla? What would possess you to say such a thing?
Do you mean to say you enjoy telling people what they ought to do but there’s really no reason why they ought to do it?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 6:40 pm
John:
Do you argue with computer programs?
Do you know any programmer/developer that doesn’t?
(grin)
All this raises an interesting side-thought;
Is life then, to be considered a series of if-then choices, with the scope of those choices to be limited to what we were pre-programmed to handle? Like StarTrek’s “Data”, the question in that case becomes, can we rise above the sum of our programming?
And I would submit, that the very reason that a computer model of the human brain does go faster at a particular task than the brain it’s modeling, is that it does *that task alone*… and does not have all the other stimuli with which to contend as does the real brain. It ’suffers’ (Is that the word I’m looking for?) with a wider “if…then” list to fall through for each decision made.. for each choice process. Put another way, the reason it’s faster is instruction reduction.
After all, the best we could ever hope to program a computer with is a subset of the brain’s functions with a subset of it’s programming… however large that subset may be. This is not a slight of technology, but rather of our understanding of our own brain and how it works. To call a computer model an *accurate* model one must assume a falisty; that we have a complete list of what the brain is doing at any given moment.
At least today, that’s not the case. Now, the day may come when that may change… and I can say we’re closer today than we’ve ever been…but that day’s not just yet.
And no, Misha, I don’t know of such a law, either.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 7:16 pm
John:
‘Your argument is incoherent Micha; at the end of it most of your words don’t mean what they meant at the beginning. You attempt to argue yourself out of existence.’
Looks coherant to me. It ties in with all i’ve said. Your argument appears to be ‘I choose, therefore I am’, but I see no basis for it in what you’ve said.
bithead:
‘Is life then, to be considered a series of if-then choices, with the scope of those choices to be limited to what we were pre-programmed to handle? Like StarTrek’s “Data”, the question in that case becomes, can we rise above the sum of our programming?’
Life is only to be considered that way if we have free will. If we don’t, then the if-then choices don’t exist either. When you say ‘can we rise above the sum of our programming’, how can we be anything beyond the sum of our programming and experience?
and Micha:
‘But why won’t modelling in real-time get you there faster than the brain itself? What law of physics mandates that this is so? I’m not denying the possibility of such a law; I’m just not familiar with one.’
It’s not a matter of laws, it’s a matter of terms. Modelling in real-time means modelling at the rate something goes. You cannot, by watching a tennis tournament in real-time, discover the outcome before it has happened. Neither can you model the activities of the brain in real-time and get somewhere before the brain does. I think you’re asking why it isn’t possible to model at an accelerated rate (a la, for example, tectonic plate modelling). I’d say that the limitation is one of complexity and initial conditions. Modelling requires you to work out which variables are relevant and how they impact on one another and, as such, becomes increasingly imprecise as more variables are added and over longer time periods (because minor errors in the first cycle are transmitted to create larger ones in the second, and so on). Modelling is necessarily a matter of simplification until or unless we understand precisely the entire universe and its initial conditions (which I’m going to go out on a limb and claim to be impossible).
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 7:27 pm
It’s not a matter of laws, it’s a matter of terms. Modelling in real-time means modelling at the rate something goes. You cannot, by watching a tennis tournament in real-time, discover the outcome before it has happened. Neither can you model the activities of the brain in real-time and get somewhere before the brain does. I think you’re asking why it isn’t possible to model at an accelerated rate (a la, for example, tectonic plate modelling). I’d say that the limitation is one of complexity and initial conditions. Modelling requires you to work out which variables are relevant and how they impact on one another and, as such, becomes increasingly imprecise as more variables are added and over longer time periods (because minor errors in the first cycle are transmitted to create larger ones in the second, and so on). Modelling is necessarily a matter of simplification until or unless we understand precisely the entire universe and its initial conditions (which I’m going to go out on a limb and claim to be impossible).
I worked briefly as a senior software engineer for a complexity science startup which had ambtions to go public. The enterprise was the brainchild of Stuart Kauffman. He’s written a number of pretty interesting books about complexity and self-organization and such. Anyway, in one of his books he talked about irreducibly complex systems, i.e. systems which can only be modeled so far. Beyond that point the only way to fully understand the behavior of the system is (I’m paraphrasing) “to watch it unfold.” That kind of sounds like what you’re talking about here.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 7:47 pm
“Looks coherant to me. It ties in with all i’ve said. Your argument appears to be ‘I choose, therefore I am’, but I see no basis for it in what you’ve said.”
You being what? Why are you looking for a basis?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 8:04 pm
” They are not supposed to be any more than ciphers, and the way in which they seem to be human driftwood reflects not only the incapacity to form their own destinies away from the manipulation of their gods, but also away from the framework of the dream in which they appear.”
- From a review of Mario Bava’s HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD.
It seems appropriate here.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 8:20 pm
Yes, exactly. The reducto ad absurdum is to imagine a programmer with a supercomputer who wants to make a model of himself with 100% accuracy. His model then requires infinite recursions of himself and his supercomputer all to be modeled on a machine with finite states.
This is why empiricism, or whatever you want to call it (predicting human behavior) is a lousy way to “prove” determinism. In fact “determinism” is a lousy name because it implies the impossible precognition, but we’re stuck with it. All it really means is that all action, even human action, is “caused” by antecedent events, but it’s still not a satisfying “disproof” of free will because we must accept the fact that some events are unknowable, and analogies above likening humans to computer are still false.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 9:45 pm
Tangental thoughts, off the discussion so far;
I’ve always considered that such analogies as Goldstein mentions, exist for the sole purpose of placing all things human into a finite context; IE; that there’s nothing about humans and their existance that is not explainable (and thereby changeable, and/or exploitable) by science.
(insert Monty Python’s “radio exploding sketch”…. “He knows everything…” “Mmm.. I wouldn’t like that… it’d take all the mystery out of life”)
I don’t think that’s true.. I doubt we’ll ever reach that level of omnipotence. But what if we were to do so?
Personally, I should fear such a day, when that were true, because such a day would demean both my existence, and my freedoms within it.
I look at the level of understanding required for the kind of modeling we’ve been chatting about, here, and I wonder if we really want that level of undertanding about ourselves, given man’s ability to exploit just about any undertsandingfor their own gain.
Example: Drezner has today on his site a discussion in which the suggestion is made, that one reason for resisting the cashless society, is because of the grey market’s end in such a society. Good with the bad; All drug trafficking would cease, cerytainly, once it could be tracked so easily. When all purchases are tracked as they would be in such a society, more control can be exerted on the economy, and on the society.
By the same token, then, I wonder what happens when we get to the level of understanding about our brains as is being discussed here. How much control do we subject ourselves to… and not just by governments, but by private firms and by each other, even.. when such understandings beocme possible?
I wonder…
Never mind, just hadda come out… Ill shut up now…pray, continue.
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 10:14 pm
How would a determined system acquire such? Can a coinflip acquire understanding? What would that mean?
People already addressed this objection of yours earlier in the thread, yet you continue making the same false assumptions. Determinism simply means that the actions, thoughts, etc. were pre-ordained by whatever cause-and-effect forces led from the previous state to the current state. A determined system acquires understanding in the same way that a computer acquires data. Rather than ask “Can a coinflip acquire understanding?”, why don’t you ask “Can a computer acquire understanding?”
Let me put it a different way: if you think determinism is so absurd, prove to me that it is false. Show me how anything you say or do was freely chosen by you, rather than being an inevitable consequence of a causal chain that began long before you were born.
Your argument is incoherent Micha
Only because you refuse to acquire a basic understanding of what determinism entails and what it does not. Perhaps you are determined to not understand it, so I can’t really blame you.
Here’s a pretty thorough article on the subject:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 10:22 pm
Well what would you mean when you said people ought to choose chocolate over vanilla? What would possess you to say such a thing?
Do you mean to say you enjoy telling people what they ought to do but there’s really no reason why they ought to do it?
Do you ever read movie reviews? Food reviews? Do you think these reviews are written from an objective standpoint, or from the reviewers’ subjective preferences?
When Ebert writes a movie review–and let’s assume he does so because he enjoys telling people what movie they ought to see–why do people read it? Is he giving them no reason why they ought to see the movie? Or do people share certain preferences and values with Ebert, and believe that they are likely to enjoy a movie based on Ebert’s recommendation?
July 27th, 2004 at Jul 27, 04 | 10:42 pm
Ebert thinks some movies really are better than others. He’d tell you that Citizen Kane really is a better film than Ernest Saves Christmas, even if you prefer the latter. He is not arguing that you should like films because he prefers them.