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In a deterministic universe, the future is logically implied by the present - but you're in the present. The future isn't fated - if, counterfactually, you did something else, then the laws of physics would imply very different events as a consequence - and it isn't predictable - even ignoring computational limits, if you make any error, even on an unmeasurable level, in guessing the current state, your prediction will quickly diverge from reality - it's just logically consistent.
if, counterfactually, you did something else, ...
How could it happen? Each component of the system is programmed to react in a predetermined way to the inputs it receives from the rest of the system. The the inputs are predetermined as is the processing algorithm. How can you or I do anything that we have not been preprogrammed to do?
Consdier an isolated system with no biological agents involved. It may contain preprogrammed computers. Would you or would you not expect the future evolution of the system to be completely determined. If you would expect its future to be completely determined, why would things change when the system, such as ours, contains biological agents? If you do not expect the future of the system to be completely determined, why not?
Not sure what kind of cognitive capacity the dinosaurs held, but that they roamed around for millions of years and then became extinct seems to indicate that evolution itself doesn't care much about cognitive capacity beyond a point (that you already mentioned)
Huh? Presumably if the dinosaurs had the cognitive capacity and the opposable thumbs to develop rocket ships and divert incoming asteroids they would have survived. They died out because they weren't smart enough.
Are you claiming that the human species will last a million years or more and not become extinct before then? What are the grounds for such a claim?
And dinosaurs stayed around much longer than us anyway.
Dinosaurs weren't a single species, though. Maybe better compare dinosaurs to mammals than to humans.
Or we could pick a partciular species of dinaosaur that survived for a few million years and compare to humans.
Do you expect any changes to the analysis if we did that?
Not sure what kind of cognitive capacity the dinosaurs held...
At least they probably hadn't a deceptive cognitive capacity. That is, they had few beliefs, but that few were more or less correct. I am not saying that an intelligent species is universally better at survival than a dumb species. I said that of two almost identical species with same quantity of cognition (measured by brain size or better its energy consumption or number of distinct beliefs held) which differ only in quality of cognition (i.e. correspondence of beliefs and reality), the one which is easy deluded is in a clear disadvantage.
How do you expect to recognise the former, those whose consciousness is not biologically determined?
Well, what I know about nature indicates that any physical system evolves in time respecting rigid deterministic physical laws. There is no strong evidence that living creatures form an exception. Therefore I conclude that consciousness must be physically and therefore bilogically determined. I don't expect to recognise "deterministic creatures" from "non-determinist creatures", I simply expect the latter can't exist in this world. Or maybe I even can't imagine what could it possibly mean for consciousness to be not biologically determined. From my point of view, it could mean either a very bizarre form of dualism (consciousness is separated from the material world, but by chance it reflects correctly what happens in the material world), or it could mean that the natural laws aren't entirely deterministic. But I don't call the latter possibility "free will", I call it "randomness".
Your line of thought reminds me of a class of apologetics which claim that if we have evolved by random chance, then there is no guarantee that our cognition is correct, and if our cognition is flawed, we are not able to recognise that we have evolved by random chance; therefore, holding a position that we have evolved by random chance is incoherent and God must have been involved in the process. I think this class of arguments is called "presuppositionalist", but I may be wrong.
Whatever is the name, the argument is a fallacy. That our cognition is correct is an assumption we must take, otherwise we may better not argue about anything. Although a carefully designed cognitive algorithm may have better chances to work correctly than by chance evolved cognitive algorithm, i.e. it is acceptable that p(correct|evolved)<p(correct|designed), it doesn't necessarily mean that p(evolved|correct)<p(designed|correct), which is the conclusion the presuppositionalists essentially make.
Back to your argument, you seem to implicitly hold about cognition that p(correct|deterministic)<p(correct|indeterministic), for which I can't see any reason, but even if that is valid, it isn't automatically a strong argument for indeterminism.
I said that of two almost identical species with same quantity of cognition (measured by brain size or better its energy consumption or number of distinct beliefs held) which differ only in quality of cognition (i.e. correspondence of beliefs and reality), the one which is easy deluded is in a clear disadvantage.
Unless the delusions are related to survival and procreation, don't see how they would present any evolutionary disadvantage.
Well, what I know about nature indicates that any physical system evolves in time respecting rigid deterministic physical laws. There is no strong evidence that living creatures form an exception.
Actually there is plenty of evidence to show that living creatures require additional laws to be predicted. Darwinian evolution itself is not required to describe the physical world. However what you probably meant was that there is no evidence that living creatures violate any physical laws, meaning laws governing the living are potentially reducible to physical laws. Someone else looking at the exact same evidence, can come to an entirely different conclusion, that we are actually on the verge of demonstrating what we always felt, that the living are more than physics. Both the positions are based on something that has not yet been demonstrated, the only "evidence" for either lying with the individual, a case of generalisation from one example.
Back to your argument, you seem to implicitly hold about cognition that p(correct|deterministic)<p(correct|indeterministic),...
Not at all. I was only questioning the logical consistency of an approach called 'determinist consequentialism'. Determinism implies a future that is predetermined and potentially predictable. Consequentialism would require a future that is not predetermined and dependent on choices that we make now either because of a 'free will' or 'randomness'.
Not in one day you didn't.
I didn't read them in one day and not all of them either.
I 'stubled upon' this article on the night of June 1 (GMT + 5.30) and did a bit of research on the site looking to check if my question had been previously raised and answered. In the process I did end up reading a few articles and sequences.
... the apparent choice is simply the inability, at current level of knowledge, of being able to predict exactly what choice will be made.
That's true. And there is no problem within it.
Evolutionary survival can say nothing about emergence of sentient species, let alone some capacity for correct cognition in that species.
If the cognition was totally incorrect, leading to beliefs unrelated to the outside world, it would be only a waste of energy to maintain such cognitive capacity. Correct beliefs about certain things (like locations of food and predators) are without doubt great evolutionary advantage.
If the popular beliefs and models of the universe until a few centuries ago are incorrect, that seems to point in the exact opposite direction of your claim.
Yes, but it is a very weak evidence (more so, if current models are correct). The claim stated that there was at least some capacity for correct cognition, not that the cognition is perfect.
There exist beings with a consciousness that is not biologically determined and there exist those whose consciousness is completely biologically detemined.
Can you explain the meaning? What are the former and what are the latter beings?
If the cognition was totally incorrect, leading to beliefs unrelated to the outside world, it would be only a waste of energy to maintain such cognitive capacity. Correct beliefs about certain things (like locations of food and predators) are without doubt great evolutionary advantage.
Not sure what kind of cognitive capacity the dinosaurs held, but that they roamed around for millions of years and then became extinct seems to indicate that evolution itself doesn't care much about cognitive capacity beyond a point (that you already mentioned)
Can you explain the meaning? What are the former and what are the latter beings?
You are already familiar with the latter, those whose consciousness is biologically determined. How do you expect to recognise the former, those whose consciousness is not biologically determined?
Yep, kind of. But your view of determinism is too depressing :-)
My program didn't know in advance what options it would be presented with, but it was programmed to select the option that makes the most sense, e.g. the determinist worldview rather than the mystical one. Like a program that receives an array as input and finds the maximum element in it, the output is "predetermined", but it's still useful. Likewise, the worldview I chose was "predetermined", but that doesn't mean my choice is somehow "wrong" or "invalid", as long as my inner program actually implements valid common sense.
My program didn't know in advance what options it would be presented with, but it was programmed to select the option that makes the most sense, e.g. the determinist worldview rather than the mystical one.
You couldn't possibly know that! Someone programmed to pick the mystical worldview would feel exactly the same and would have been programmed not to recognise his/her own programming too :-)
Like a program that receives an array as input and finds the maximum element in it, the output is "predetermined", but it's still useful.
Of course the output is useful, for the programmer, if any :-)
Likewise, the worldview I chose was "predetermined", but that doesn't mean my choice is somehow "wrong" or "invalid", as long as my inner program actually implements valid common sense.
It doesn't appear that regardless of what someone has been programmed to pick, the 'feelings' don't seem to be any different.
the 'choices' you make are not really choices, but already predetermined
The only way that choices can be made is by being predetermined (by your decision-making algorithm). Paraphrasing the familiar wordplay, choices that are not predetermined refer to decisions that cannot be made, while the real choices, that can actually be made, are predetermined.
Of course! Since all the choices of all the actors are predetermined, so is the future. So what exactly would be the "purpose" of acting as if the future were not already determined and we can choose an optimising function based the possible consequences of different actions?
Do your choices have causes? Do those causes have causes?
Determinism doesn't have to mean epiphenomenalism. Metaphysically, epiphenomenalism - the belief that consciousness has no causal power - is a lot like belief in true free will - consciousness as an uncaused cause - in that it places consciousness half outside the chain of cause and effect, rather than wholly within it. (But subjectively they can be very different.)
Increase in consciousness increases the extent to which the causes of one's choices and actions are themselves conscious in origin rather than unconscious. This may be experienced as liberation from cause and effect, but really it's just liberation from unconscious causes. Choices do have causes, whether or not you're aware of them.
Whether someone is a determinist or not should itself have been determined biologically including all discussions of this nature!
This is a point which throws many people, but again, it comes from an insufficiently broad concept of causality. Reason itself has causes and operates as a cause. We can agree, surely, that absurdly wrong beliefs have a cause; we can understand why a person raised in a cult may believe its dogmas. Correct beliefs also have a cause. Simple Darwinian survival ensures that any conscious species that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years must have at least some capacity for correct cognition, however that is achieved.
Nonetheless, despite this limited evolutionary gift, it may be true that we are deterministically doomed to fundamental error or ignorance in certain matters. Since the relationship of consciousness, knowledge, and reality is not exactly clear, it's hard to be sure.
Do your choices have causes? Do those causes have causes?
Determinism doesn't have to mean epiphenomenalism. Metaphysically, epiphenomenalism - the belief that consciousness has no causal power - is a lot like belief in true free will - consciousness as an uncaused cause - in that it places consciousness half outside the chain of cause and effect, rather than wholly within it. (But subjectively they can be very different.)
I don't equate determinism with epiphenomenalism, but that even when it acts as a cause, it is completely determined meaning the apparent choice is simply the inability, at current level of knowledge, of being able to predict exactly what choice will be made.
Simple Darwinian survival ensures that any conscious species that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years must have at least some capacity for correct cognition, however that is achieved.
Not sure how that follows. Evolutionary survival can say nothing about emergence of sentient species, let alone some capacity for correct cognition in that species. If the popular beliefs and models of the universe until a few centuries ago are incorrect, that seems to point in the exact opposite direction of your claim.
It appears that the problem seems to be one of 'generalisation from one example'. There exist beings with a consciousness that is not biologically determined and there exist those whose consciousness is completely biologically detemined. The former may choose determinism as a 'belief in belief' while the latter will see it as a fact, much like a self-aware AI.
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Since the consequences are determined by your algorithm, whatever your algorithm will do, will actually happen. Thus, the algorithm can contemplate what would be the consequences of alternative choices and make the choice it likes most. The consideration of alternatives is part of the decision-making algorithm, which gives it the property of consistently picking goal-optimizing decisions. Only these goal-optimizing decisions actually get made, but the process of considering alternatives is how they get computed.
Sure. So consequentialism is the name for the process that happens in every programmed entity, making it useless to distinguish between two different approaches.