Comments on: Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate – Part II http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:28:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: NaiveScientist http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-30494 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:29:31 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-30494 Reblogged this on Naive Scientist and commented:
Give it to psychologists to be the best philosophers.

]]> By: Doly http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-29060 Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:24:05 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-29060 This whole debate assumes that “causality” has a simple meaning. As soon as you think about it, it becomes clear that it isn’t that simple. In its basic, deterministic meaning, it means “every time that A happens, B happens after that”. Nondeterministic causality is “when A happens, outcomes B1, B2, etc. happen with probabilities P1, P2, etc.” That’s all well and good when the chain of causation is short. When you have a long chain of causation, with a few nondeterministic causes thrown in, it all becomes “When A happens, it’s impossible to tell if or how the outcome after this long chain will be affected.” I see very little difference between that, and saying that the outcome is uncaused. Knowing that the brain is an incredibly complex system and the chains of causation must be really long and complex, the surprising thing is that sometimes, we can still say something useful and valid about the possible outcomes of A.

]]> By: Dan Dennett at Harvard Law on “Free Will, Responsibility, and the Brain” « The Situationist http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-20195 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 04:03:11 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-20195 [...] Dennett on our Interior Situation,” “Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate,” “Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate – Part II,” “The Death of Free Will and the Rise of Cheating,” “Clarence Darrow on the Situation of [...]

]]> By: The Person-Situation Debate in Philosophy « The Situationist http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-17707 Sun, 23 May 2010 04:02:32 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-17707 [...] here.  To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Your Brain and Morality,” “Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate – Part II,” “Person X Situation X System Dynamics,” “Situation” Trumps “Disposition” – [...]

]]> By: The Situation of Metaphors « The Situationist http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-15614 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:03:18 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-15614 [...] Situationist posts, see “Bargh and Baumeister and the Free Will Debate — Part I & Part II” “The Situation of Body Temperature,” “Social Psychology and the Unconscious: The [...]

]]> By: Carl Shulman http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-15503 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:28:31 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-15503 “If we accept the discoveries of quantum mechanics, I don’t see how we can consider the world deterministic.”

Easily?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

Here’s a nice blog explanation:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/r5/the_quantum_physics_sequence/

Also, Baumeister and Vohs are wrong about counterfactual reasoning being incompatible with determinism. See Judea Pearl’s work:

http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/IJCAI99/ijcai-99.pdf

]]> By: NP http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-15499 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:55:47 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-15499 A, I think this discussion has more to do with social justice than you realize.

]]> By: A http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-15498 Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:40:33 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-15498 Who are these people? Go back to the 1800′s when people actually had “wills” that could or could not be “free”… You might as well be debating about the salvation of christian souls. Common people! Why don’t you spend some time thinking about how we can achieve social justice…

]]> By: NP http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/bargh-and-baumeister-and-the-free-will-debate-part-ii/#comment-15496 Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:07:35 +0000 http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/?p=8262#comment-15496 I can’t help but find Bargh and Earp’s account more convincing. If we accept the discoveries of quantum mechanics, I don’t see how we can consider the world deterministic. But at the same time, I don’t think that means there is such a thing as free will. So I guess I would consider myself a causalist non-determinist, which I believe is Bargh and Earp’s position as well. That being said, I don’t see any evidence for randomness or chance outside of quantum uncertainty.

Thus, I’m not sure I get the importance of Baumeister and Vohs’ point that scientists are wrong in talking about the “chances” that some event happens. At least when I learned statistics at Stanford, it was always understood that the “error” term represented hidden or unknown variables, not some mystical “chance” or “probability” force. True, language may not always represent it this way, even in highly technical journals, but I’m pretty sure the theory behind it is largely understood by everyone involved to involve hidden variables.

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