But they also seem to undermine the idea of agent causation. These causal influences fall short of determining our behavior. On the other hand, research in social science, psychology, neuroscience, and so on, has identified many things that influence our behavior. For more on this perspective, I recommend Angela Potochnik's Idealization and the Aims of Science. Given the very limited success of determinism as an approach to scientific inquiry, from an empiricist perspective there doesn't seem to be any reason to conclude that the world is deterministic. Even in physics, we have very few accurate, deterministic models of complex physical systems. Research on human behavior often finds important connections to physiology and biochemistry but we have nothing close to a set of deterministic laws of human behavior, much less an understanding of how human behavior might be reduced to fundamental physics. The idea that physics provides a comprehensive description of the world has been promoted for hundreds of years, but has always fallen short. Determinism comes from the medieval Christian idea of God as a divine lawmaker. However, from my perspective as an empiricist philosopher of science, both determinism and agent causation are metaphysical postulates, and I am suspicious of both ideas.
WORDOR A COMMON SENSE IDEA FREE
Much of the free will debate in academic philosophy assumes determinism, and then considers whether there are other ways of thinking about "free will" that are more compatible with determinism. So agent causation is incompatible with determinism. Specifically, all of our actions are determined by the state of our bodies - including our brains - which is determined by our environment and the prior state of our bodies, and so on, all the way back to the Big Bang.Īgent causation is the idea that beings like us are capable of initiating actions that are causally independent of our prior history we can act as "uncaused causes." This means that some of our actions are not determined by the state of our bodies, and so on, all the way back to the Big Bang. Determinism is the idea that the world is governed by a set of physical laws that completely fix the history of the universe.
The free will problem is generally seen as a conflict between the assumptions of determinism and agent causation. But I have an answer that might fit what you're asking. I agree that the question needs some development.
Many believe we're just like cockroaches, but kid ourselves into imagining 'free will'.
and not directly linked to the physical brain. The 'big problem' is whether this constant thought and ability to make arbitrary decisions means that our free will is somehow etherial. Intelligence as we know it seems to be based on this infinitely extended cognition. Humans can seem to make decisions and act. humans can react to stimulii from years gone by. Humans have infinitely extended cognition. When there are no immediate stimuli, a cockroach will do nothing. But again this choice is likely to be automatic in some way.
They can however 'decide' which direction to go in. Their mental processes are a simple product of evolution. if the see something their hardwired brain tells tem is a predator, they flee.Ĭockroaches cannot really learn to identify new threats. Lower animals such as cockroaches are driven almost exclusively by immediate reaction to stimulus. I'm going to answer, but i agree you need to do more work on the question.
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