Q&A: Intuitive Preferences
Intuitive Preferences
Question
Hello Honorable Rabbi,
Regarding free will, why is there a preference for applying the lex pacific principle דווקא by restricting the principle of causality, rather than by accepting the explanation that choice is an illusion? After all, in the phenomenon of a “fata morgana,” for example, I do accept the fact that my eyes are deceiving me, and that I am faced with an illusion of an oasis, let us say. And I do not try to argue that since visual intuition shows that there is an oasis, then it really is there, and it merely disappears the moment I get closer, involving some sort of leap over the laws of physics.
So here you have an application of the lex pacific principle. True, the laws of physics do not allow an oasis to “jump” from place to place, but since I have a visual intuition regarding its location, let us assume there is an exception in the laws of physics that allows such a “jump.”
How is that different from your argument about restricting the principle of causality in order to make room for free choice?
And another point: isn’t it much easier to accept intuitively (at least for me) that there is an illusion of the ability to choose, just as many other cognitive illusions have been observed (and proven), than to restrict the principle of causality, for which no exception has ever yet been found other than the one being proposed?
Answer
Indeed, causality is a much stronger illusion. So because of that it is not an illusion? I didn’t understand this strange argument.
A fata morgana is actually an example in favor of my claim. We do not give up our trust in sight; we only qualify it.
And with respect to free will, in libertarianism nothing is defined as an illusion. The intuition of causality is qualified because of the intuition of free will. Someone who chooses causality and gives up free will will decide that free will is entirely an illusion, and that is a less plausible option.
By the way, an exception to the principle of causality has definitely been found: free will. And if you want, one could also say that no exception to free will has ever been found either.
And in general, as David Hume showed, not a shred of evidence has ever been found for the principle of causality. So what is there to talk about regarding finding exceptions? First show me that there is such a principle at all, and afterward we can talk about exceptions.
Discussion on Answer
I already answered, and I’ll answer again. The fata morgana example is proof for my argument. You qualify only what you must, and no more.
On the intuitive level too, that is the called-for solution. If your intuition is different, then apparently you are a determinist. To me that is simply absurd, but I don’t see what there is to argue about here. Just remember that now you have to throw out all your intuitions, including morality and values, and causality itself of course (since you decided that there is causality, and if you are a deterministic machine your decisions do not carry much meaning). The whole discussion loses its meaning here.
Obviously you qualify only what you must. The question is how to choose what to qualify. And if the tool used for that is intuition, then one should choose what is more intuitively plausible, and in my humble opinion an illusion in the sensory perception of choice is easier to digest, since similar cases of perceptual illusion have already been found, whereas no exceptions have been found to the principle of causality, which makes it intuitively harder to accept an exception.
And if all this means I am a deterministic machine, I have no problem with that, so long as it is the truth.
True, this outlook undermines the very foundations of the whole social, religious, legal, etc. worldview, but that should not affect the need to understand reality as it is.
And why did you decide that if I am a deterministic machine, the discussion is not relevant? Can a machine that operates through deterministic processes understand reality less well than a libertarian being?
A deterministic machine cannot understand reality at all. Neither better nor worse. Understanding involves judgment and deciding what is correct and what is not. When that is forced upon you, you have no judgment, and therefore your conclusions in any field are worth nothing.
I was not talking about the moral price of losing values or about my own wishes. I am talking about our intuition, which says that there are values and that they are valid and binding. That too stands against the intuition of causality.
But since we are repeating ourselves, I’ll stop here.
Well then, if you are not prepared to accept the conclusions of a deterministic machine, then you also do not recognize any result or conclusion reached by means of a computer.
My conclusions are a weighing of data and drawing conclusions, and in that a deterministic machine is at least as good as a libertarian.
And regarding your claim that the intuition about the validity of moral values in our lives also stands against the idea that choice is an illusion—I do not understand why, since the feeling that morality is valid and binding is just like choice itself, and indeed it stems from the fact that there is an ability to choose.
Therefore, if choice really is an illusion, then morality is simply its continuation (if there is choice, it ought to be moral), and it too is an illusion. Therefore you cannot use it as a value separate from the intuition of choice in order to attack the idea of illusion and the intuition behind it.
I apologize if I am repeating myself; it is due to the narrowness of my grasp and the depth of the concept, and the Rabbi is the only address I know for deep and complex questions. More power to you.
Haim, are you sure you’re with us? Sometimes it seems to me that you’re not.
What does the Sabbatical year have to do with an omelet? A computer indeed does not think. When the computer performs a calculation and arrives at a result, I, as the computer’s owner, understand and accept it. The computer in itself does not think and cannot reach any conclusions. It also cannot know in any way whether the person who programmed it did so in a way that makes its conclusions correct, or whether he is just talking nonsense.
As for the rest, I have nothing to add. The points are as plain as day, and there is no point repeating them again and again.
Well, true, there is no proof for the principle of causality, but you, as far as I know, support accepting ideas also on the basis of good intuition. So one can speak of a “principle” when speaking of causality, so long as no exceptions to this principle have been found. (According to Hume’s view, apparently no principle can be proven at all—at least no physical one.)
The question is specifically about the level of intuition and not about proofs, which are irrelevant here, both regarding causality and regarding free will.
What I want to argue is that there is a stronger intuition to give up free will and classify it as just another cognitive illusion, of which we already have many, than to accept free will as a kind of exception to causality.
And that is because, just as with a fata morgana, when there is a satisfying explanation for how to reconcile sight with physics, the explanation itself gets intuitive preference and becomes the dominant understanding, so too here, in the contradiction between free will and causality, one should not weigh only the two sides—causality versus choice—but also the explanations proposed to resolve the contradiction. And the explanation of a cognitive illusion, even though it denies choice, sounds to me more plausible and intuitive than an exception to causality.