Chaos and free will
Innate creativity may have an underlying chaotic process that selectively amplifies small fluctuations and molds them into macroscopic coherent mental states that are experienced as thoughts. In some cases the thoughts may be decisions, or what are perceived to be the exercise of will. In this light, chaos provides a mechanism that allows for free will within a world governed by deterministic laws.
James Crutchfield
What makes the motion of the atmosphere so much harder to anticipate than the motion of the solar system? Both are made up of many parts, and both are governed by Newton's second law, F = m a, which can be viewed as a simple prescription for predicting the future. If the forces F acting on a given mass m are known, then so is the acceleration a. It then follows from the rules of calculus that if the position and velocity of an object can be measured at a given instant, they are determined forever.
This is such a powerful idea that the 18th-century French mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace once boasted that given the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, he could predict the future for the rest of time. Although there are several obvious practical difficulties to achieving Laplace's goal, for more than 100 years there seemed to be no reason for his not being right, at least in principle.
The literal application of Laplace's dictum to human behavior led to the philosophical conclusion that human behavior as completely predetermined: free will did not exist.
In a similar vein, Doyne Farmer, a scientist then working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, observed that chaos theory might provide "an operational way to define free will," a way to reconcile free will and determinism. "The system is deterministic, but you can't say [exactly] what it is going to do next."21
However attractive those suggestions might initially appear to be, further reflection reveals them to be seriously problematic. The basic problem is that these suggestions are essentially reductionistic, in that they attempt to explain a human and personal reality (freedom) in terms of entities that are impersonal and sub-personal. As such, this approach makes a fundamental category mistake: physical realities can be explained by appealing to physical substances and laws, but personal realities refer to a higher dimension of reality‹the personal‹that subsists within the natural order, but at the same time transcends it.
Such a standpoint is indicated by the biblical conception of man as being both "dust"‹and so part of the natural order ‹and "image of God"‹and so transcending the natural order. The biblical doctrine of the imago Dei places a fundamental barrier (from a Christian viewpoint) against all attempts to explain the human person completely or exclusively in terms of scientific laws. The suggestions noted above, while well intended, have the irremediable defect of reducing a human and spiritual reality to a phenomena explainable by the behavior of material objects and forces.
Innate creativity may have an underlying chaotic process that selectively amplifies small fluctuations and molds them into macroscopic coherent mental states that are experienced as thoughts. In some cases the thoughts may be decisions, or what are perceived to be the exercise of will. In this light, chaos provides a mechanism that allows for free will within a world governed by deterministic laws.
James Crutchfield
What makes the motion of the atmosphere so much harder to anticipate than the motion of the solar system? Both are made up of many parts, and both are governed by Newton's second law, F = m a, which can be viewed as a simple prescription for predicting the future. If the forces F acting on a given mass m are known, then so is the acceleration a. It then follows from the rules of calculus that if the position and velocity of an object can be measured at a given instant, they are determined forever.
This is such a powerful idea that the 18th-century French mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace once boasted that given the position and velocity of every particle in the universe, he could predict the future for the rest of time. Although there are several obvious practical difficulties to achieving Laplace's goal, for more than 100 years there seemed to be no reason for his not being right, at least in principle.
The literal application of Laplace's dictum to human behavior led to the philosophical conclusion that human behavior as completely predetermined: free will did not exist.
In a similar vein, Doyne Farmer, a scientist then working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, observed that chaos theory might provide "an operational way to define free will," a way to reconcile free will and determinism. "The system is deterministic, but you can't say [exactly] what it is going to do next."21
However attractive those suggestions might initially appear to be, further reflection reveals them to be seriously problematic. The basic problem is that these suggestions are essentially reductionistic, in that they attempt to explain a human and personal reality (freedom) in terms of entities that are impersonal and sub-personal. As such, this approach makes a fundamental category mistake: physical realities can be explained by appealing to physical substances and laws, but personal realities refer to a higher dimension of reality‹the personal‹that subsists within the natural order, but at the same time transcends it.
Such a standpoint is indicated by the biblical conception of man as being both "dust"‹and so part of the natural order ‹and "image of God"‹and so transcending the natural order. The biblical doctrine of the imago Dei places a fundamental barrier (from a Christian viewpoint) against all attempts to explain the human person completely or exclusively in terms of scientific laws. The suggestions noted above, while well intended, have the irremediable defect of reducing a human and spiritual reality to a phenomena explainable by the behavior of material objects and forces.
posted by larssc | 8:46 AM
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