Determinism, causality, chaos theory & quantum mechanics

@Zugzwang69
If what you say is correct. And if you do what you describe. Then i must say, being smart or not, we are all in a zugzwang .... And probably in zeitnot, depending on the date of your alarm.

A few scattered comments.

1) The universe might not be deterministic. There's quantum something blah Schrodinger smoke I don't understand mirrors.

2) If it is deterministic, then we don't have choices. In that respect, we are not at fault for anything, since we did nothing, and could not have done anything.

3) The universe is too complex for us to know our future. This results in the perception of choice, i.e. to us, it is as if we have free will.

3b) Hence, if we can't distinguish the free will model from the deterministic model, as far as we are concerned, it is safe to think of us having free choice, and believe in the existence of responsibility.

3random analogy) It's like the existence of undetecterium in our universe, a proposed substance that does not interact with any part of our universe in any way. We clearly cannot decide whether it exists in our universe. So as far as we are concerned, it is equally valid to assume that it exists as to assume that it doesn't.

#9 : yes, I'll stay in school and I won't use drugs, nor I'd use the laws of physics as an excuse xD
#12 (2, 3, 3b): yeah, that makes sense, thanks :)

Btw if ur wondering why I started to think about this, it was because my physics & chemistry teacher said that the motion of particles is random (maybe he was trying to keep it simple for the 8th grade??? but still...) and I completely disagreed on that and started thinking about determinism without even knowing it already existed, so I searched the internet, because I was sure someone thought about that first, and I was right :) / :(

@meeeep

1) Yeah really the discussion was if it is deterministic then what. But even quantum mechanics is quite deterministic (i mean the math behind it - but there is really nothing else but the math). I mean transitions between quantum states follows completely deterministic rules and is reversible, etc. Only when that state is finally measured, stuff start to get strange, but this is kind of open to interpretations really.

2) The common meaning of "choices" requires free will. So if no free will - no such thing as choices. OK. But still there are actions. And consequences. And rules (which are usually defined in a quite deterministic way) . So we do stuff, it is not like we don't. If a faulty toaster starts a fire, then according to the rules of the fire alarm something "bad" happened and it will start alarming and showering water or whatever. Both the fire alarm and the toaster do not have free will, but still in a certain context one behaved badly, did something wrong, and the other one reacted to those actions. You can extend the example with a toasts loving robot which would then bring the bad toaster to a toaster repairing robot so it is fixed and start behaving according to the perfectly deterministic rules of the perfectly deterministic universe of toasters and fire alarms. So the bad toaster had ultimately been held responsible for his actions. Responsible to the toasts loving robot.

3) i agree

3b) Yeah but again responsibility can exist in a purely deterministic world as well. It doesn't require free will.

3random analogy) OK but as long as responsibility is a man made concept and the fact we are talking about it and it actually works - it does exist... in a way

You keep talking about responsibility as if there is some super-natural entity to which to be responsible. For example your free-will soul or god or whatever. But keep talking about "I" and "me" and "mine" as they are somehow different than the "I" which performed the actions. On one hand the first "I" is not responsible for the actions of the second "I". But if you accept a deterministic world, then both "I"-s are exactly the same thing - the toaster. And if the toaster has some programmed self-adjusting mechanisms then it could take responsibility to itself as well as to the fire alarm and the toast loving robot.

OK for the record there are also some people who think that free will and determinism can exist together. Compatibalists or something, but somehow i could never buy that. In any case not relevant to the responsibility discussion.

@xadrez_pt

When someone says something behaves randomly, sometimes it's just a well-made approximation. A sizeable container of particles contains sufficient complexity to discourage us from extracting meaningful information from discarding the assumption of randomness, so it was just assumed. It's not just 8th graders.

@blunderman1

Thanks for the post. = )

1) I'm not really sure how the quantumness observation thing works (hence the blahblahness), but I believe I've seen it touted as a possible argument for free will. It's probably also a subject of debate in itself.

2) It seems that you think of responsibility (for an event) as playing a part in causing it. However, that would heavily distort the intuition of responsibility, since in a deterministic universe, practically every atom of the initial state (constrained by the light cone, doesn't change argument) would have played a part in causing the event. So it's not just me who's responsible for this post. African swallows are responsible for this post as well.

You *could* define responsibility this way, but I don't believe this is a very convincing way to do it.

3RA) I... don't quite understand your 2nd paragraph. But I'm guessing that you're questioning the existence of absolute responsibility.

I guess that it's almost forced to accept the existence of subjective responsibility -- you might think I am responsible for this post, even if the universe is deterministic, and that stems from your interpretation of responsibility. I don't see any reasonable objections to that, but that is why I believe it makes sense to talk about an "absolute" (moral) responsibility (if it exists).

Note)
People have talked about this before. One of the key phrases I remember is 'deep responsibility'.

Veering off track)
(Yes I don't buy compatibilism either)

If we have free will, then we can cause things to happen. But if we could not predict what we caused, do we have (moral) responsibility for those consequences? If I unwittingly leant on a secret switch that caused an explosion, would I be morally responsible for it, even though I had a choice in the matter.

...And then going full throttle)
Suppose we had 10 people in a room. Each person chooses, with full knowledge of earlier actions and consequences of actions, an integer from 0 to 100. If the sum is greater than 100, then Bad Things (TM) happen. Naturally, the first person to decide chooses the number 100. Technically, Bad Things do not have to happen based on this choice, but does it make sense to blame only the next person who chose a number greater than 0 for the Bad Things, when the first person was "responsible for most of the damage"?

1) I am not a physicist myself but, have the feeling quantum mechanics is the usual suspect whenever some metaphysical thing needs justification. Probably because nobody understands it (i think i am quoting someone on this). Some of the people who argue the consciousness is not an illusion also look there for "answers". There was also some Theorem (yes as in mathematics) by John Conway (the guy who created game of life) that "IF free will exists THEN all particles in the universe have some amount of free will". But anyway, it is blahblahness from me as well.

2) IMHO we can ONLY talk about "responsibility" in some framework of rules (optionally having a concept of right and wrong - then we can add the word moral to the responsibility). And these rules don't need to be universal and absolute (but might as well be - in fact aren't they all). Also don't need to be constructed by somebody with free will. If the African swallow (regardless of its average speed) had been accepted as an agent in this framework of rules, by whoever created the framework, then it is responsible (inside that framework) for whatever. Lets say in the framework of rules of a chess game, if you and i play a game, we would not accept the swallow as a part of the game, so we will not burden it with any responsibility for somebody's bad moves. But we could, for the sake of argument do it. It is just going to be an idiotic framework and will not last long after the end of the game and will soon be forgotten. Because our human (unwritten) rules will not accept something as a swallow as a reason for anybody's wrong actions.

> You *could* define responsibility this way, but I don't believe this is a very convincing way to do it.

Yes i can, and will convince you right now. It is a responsibility in one of the infinite many possible frameworks of rules (and the one with sort of metaphysical origin :) ) - the laws of physics.

Again, my main point is you need some context with rules in order to define a certain kind of responsibility. If those rules are the laws of physics, then the following sentence still makes sense: "The sun, is (partly) responsible for the life on earth, according to the rules of physics". Of course in another framework of rules, lets say, human common sense, we are not going to start thanking the sun, and praying to it not to stop shining (oh wait... :) )

> 3RA) I... don't quite understand your 2nd paragraph. But I'm guessing that you're questioning the existence of absolute responsibility.

Well my initial claim was that you cannot talk about responsibility without at least having 2 parties - one doing the action, and the other is the one the first is being responsible to. You cannot be just responsible, you have to be responsible to someone (at least to your fellow robots). But i think i kind of started to extend it so that the second party can be just some set/framework of rules and not necessary a physical being.

What I was trying to say is that you guys say: "I am not responsible for MY actions". But this (and this is valid in any possible framework of rules, including physics) this makes no logical sense. As if the first I (as in "am not responsible") is a different entity, than the second MY (as in "my actions"). Whatever rules you pick (even the most absurd one, or the ones you call absolute and objective etc.) it still is not a valid logical statement.

...And I am going full throttle)
I don't entirely see the point of your example, but if i have to play along, who is the responsible party, depends on the rules agreed upon by those guys, or the subjects to the bad thing that happened. In my framework of rules, the responsible party is the sick guy that set up the whole perverted thing in the first place. It is not clear if those 10 guys volunteer, but if yes then they as well.

Now my example:
Lets say I define the following framework of rules: If a person doesn't jump 20 times a day while singing Gangnam Style his entire life, then he or she is a koko, otherwise a tutu.

So there it is, a universal, absolute framework. And all persons in the universe are subjected to it (by my definition). And are responsible for them being either koko or tutu. They are responsible to me. Technically speaking i see no reason why this is not absolute, universal, real-deal responsibility. Tell me, how is your idea of such absoluteness different? Purely on technical level, I frankly see no difference between subjective or objective, absolute or not absolute responsibility. So what that no one cares about their responsibility to me and my framework for being koko or tutu. It is still there, and most probably all of them are koko-s.

OK i am way out there now, so enough

I'll spew some of my bullshit opinions I've been forming for years:

I don't think everything happens for a reason. Random stuff happens. Yes, you can reverse engineer physical science and explain how x caused y caused z.

On the other hand, I also think that the universe is probably determined.

On the lighter side...Steven Hawking was intrigued about Homer Simpson"s theory about a "doughnut shaped" universe :]