I actually don’t remember the next several minutes of discussion because I was too busy digging back through 13 years of memory to the college philosophy course in which we spent weeks studying questions of free will. After a bit of web research, I decided to sketch out the rough explanation below of what materialism has to do with free will. What follows is oversimplified, probably in ways that matter. But one has to start somewhere.

Materialism and the Mind

Stephanie described materialism, in the context of neuroscience, as the view that the mind and the brain (or perhaps the mind and the nervous system) are the same thing. That may be overstating the point, though not by much. So let’s start by reducing that to:

P: The mind does not exist apart from the nervous system.

That allows for the possibility that there are aspects of the nervous system that don’t count as “mind” (though the more I learn about my own mind, the more I doubt that there is much of the nervous system it doesn’t relate to.)

Why would one believe P? Well, one might believe P if one also believes:

Every real, concrete[4] phenomenon[5] in the universe is physical.

[4] By ‘concrete’ I simply mean ‘not abstract’. It is natural to think that any really existing thing is ipso facto concrete, non-abstract, in which case ‘concrete’ is redundant. But some philosophers like to say that numbers (for example) are real things—objects that really exist, but are abstract.

[5] I use ‘phenomenon’as a completely general word for any sort of existent that carries no implication as to ontological category (the trouble with the perfectly general word ‘entity’ is that it is now standardly understood to refer specifically to things or substances); and suppress its meaning of appearance.

Note that someone who agrees that physical phenomena are all there are but finds no logical incoherence in the idea that physical things could be put together in such a way as to give rise to non-physical things can define materialism as the view that every real, concrete phenomenon that there is or could be in the universe is physical.

Strawson, G. Real Materialism, in Chomsky and his Critics, ed. L. Antony & N. Hornstein (Blackwell 2003) pp 49-88; available at http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ld/Philos/gjs/rmchomsky.htm (last viewed June 7, 2009).

But that only entails P if one also assumes that the nervous system contains all the physical “stuff” that we experience as the mind. That may or may not be true, but for now let’s just observe that such an assumption would be a convenient one among neuroscientists, and would appear to be consistent with the external observations they make of neurological activity and reported experiences. As Galen Strawson, the author of the quote above, wrote in the same article:

A real (realistic) materialist cannot think that there is something still left to say about Experiential phenomena, once everything that there is to say about the physical brain has been said.

Id. Of course, the notion of being able to say everything that there is to say about the physical brain is hugely problematic, not least because our physics (and our neuroscience) does not have terms with which to characterize our experiences in the way that we experience them. The neuroscience of, say, sleep, does not have words with which to express the what-it’s-like-ness of sleep. As Strawson remarks later in the same article, “[C]urrent physics, considered as a general account of the general nature of the physical, is like Othello without Desdemona: it contains only predicates for non-Experiential being, so it cannot characterize Experiential being at all … . It cannot characterize a fundamental feature of reality at all.” Id. But Strawson does not think that the inability to describe the what-it’s-like-ness of experience from a scientific perspective necessarily means that consciousness is not a form of matter.

Materialism and Free Will

Free will is generally understood as a special capacity of humans to make reasoned choices from among alternative courses of action — that is, the ability to meaningfully choose one’s own actions. The idea of free will is not only an important element of one’s sense of self; it also underpins our ideas of moral responsibility. We would be loath to blame people for bad decisions if they did not have the capacity to choose differently.

What makes materialism apparently hostile to free will is the fact that everything in the physical world appears to behave according to causal relationships. Upon close examination, what will happen next appears to depend entirely on what is happening now. Because materialism holds that all real, concrete phenomena are physical, it does not admit of any other “stuff” that is not subject to causation by physical “stuff.” The general view that the state of affairs at time t determines what the state of affairs will be at time t+1 (where by “state of affairs” I mean all facts about the universe) is called determinism. Here is one account of determinism:

Determinism requires a world that (a) has a well-defined state or description, at any given time, and (b) laws of nature that are true at all places and times. If we have all these, then if (a) and (b) together logically entail the state of the world at all other times (or, at least, all times later than that given in (b)), the world is deterministic. Logical entailment, in a sense broad enough to encompass mathematical consequence, is the modality behind the determination in “determinism.”

Hoefer, C. Causal Determinism, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008)

There appears to be some question among scientists whether determinism breaks down at certain margins — see the article just cited for a discussion of some of those. Do those breakdowns in theories that otherwise appear to be deterministic make a difference when it comes to arguments about free will? A few people seem to think so (like this fellow). I haven’t surveyed what’s been written on that point. However, it is worth noting that a universe where our choices depend upon chance may be as unfriendly to free will as a universe in which our choices are illusory, at least depending on how that chance is introduced.

Given determinism, the main argument against free will unfolds something like this (with a lots of nuance omitted): If every physical thing is subject to causation and the mind is a physical thing, then my mind — including both its inner workings and its outward expressions — is just as subject to the laws of causation as the chair I am sitting on. But if my mind and the choices it makes are caused (entirely) by other things, then I do not have any meaningful capacity to choose my actions, because when presented with different possible actions now, I will make a choice determined entirely by events that have already happened.

Another more nuanced way of expressing this kind of argument can be found here.

A plethora of arguments try to address various features of this problem. They fall into two main categories:

Compatibilism: Free will and determinism are compatible in meaningful ways (and, in fact, some kind of determinism is necessary to free will). See also.

Incompatibilism: Free will and determinism are not compatible. One major subcategory of arguments, “free will pessimist” arguments, contend that determinism rules out the existence of free will. Another, “libertarian” arguments, contend that free will exists, so determinism is false. See also.

If you made it this far, you might enjoy exploring some of those links.

I liked Pico Iyer’s observation in yesterday’s LA Times that “a new year is a time to reflect on change and to see what endures beyond the flash and grab of the moment.” Iyer, who has apparently written a book on New Year celebrations around the world, describes his own new year ritual:

Wherever I am, whether Egypt or Ethiopia, I observe my own makeshift rites on New Year’s Day, as if superstition might be the first step toward sacrament. I wake up early and compile lists of the cultural highlights of the year just past. Then I begin writing out a swelling catalog of all the moments that moved and astonished me, annual proof that even the emptiest-seeming year is rich.

Which seems like a good idea, but it’s so late in the day that I’m not going to attempt it, at least not this year. But I can say that for me, the last year has been defined predominantly by the first year of my daughter’s life, which becomes all the more adventurous as her walking improves and she accumulates a vocabulary with which to express her usually-happy thoughts and feelings. Today I drained about six months’ worth of video clips —- some 55 minutes —- from the video camera into iMovie. Watching the moments slip by on the screen again reminded me of how much changes so quickly.

While being able to affect one’s own disposition is indeed a valuable ability, we assign far too little weight to the effect of circumstances totally beyond the control of any one individual in shaping individual lives. We give credit to disposition where we should be giving credit to situation. We discount the complex dynamics of our circumstances because they seem like too much to think about. Maybe also because we’re used to spending 99% of our time thinking about ourselves, and most of our circumstances seem to be about things other than ourselves, if they’re “about” anything.

From the “About The Situationist” page at The Situationist blog:

There is a dominant conception of the human animal as a rational, or at least reasonable, preference-driven chooser, whose behavior reflects preferences, moderated by information processing and will, but little else. Laws, policies, and the most influential legal theories are premised on that same conception. Social psychology and related fields have discovered countless ways in which that conception is wrong. “The situation” refers to causally significant features around us and within us that we do not notice or believe are irrelevant in explaining human behavior.

(This is not meant to be a political post — I first drafted it way back in January — but you can see both U.S. presidential campaigns crafting storylines around this notion.)

A friend of mine passed on a link to this great little primer that explains how the subprime mortgage crisis got started, in stick-figure cartoon format. (Some strong language.) The only thing it’s missing is a few more panels where the borrower is told he’s in at least as bad a situation as the investor. If you’re looking for more a more formal and detailed review of the situation, there’s an article at Wikipedia.

Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

We hear from time to time that there are drawbacks to the kind of meat production industry that has developed in the United States and elsewhere, but this article follows the relationships between those drawbacks clearly and succinctly. Bonus points to Bittman for quoting Tyler Cowen, one of the authors of the illuminating blog Marginal Revolution:

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he [Cowen] said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

I wonder if we’ll see follow-up comments from Cowen on his blog, as sometimes happens after he has been quoted in the press.

Bittman is the author of the very useful cookbook How to Cook Everything, among other things. His byline on the NYT article indicates that although he’s written a vegetarian cookbook, he’s not a vegetarian, in an apparent effort to fend off any allegations of anti-meat bias.

*Update — 1/29/08: And here is Tyler Cowen’s follow-up. He wonders whether, if one considers the environment and animal cruelty, is it better to eat cows or pigs, if one is going to eat one or the other.

But I’m guessing that anyone else who has run into this problem already knows how to fix it because they post more often than I do. (It wouldn’t take much.)

This decline, [author Richard] Florida argued, is rooted in a broader shift in definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars. Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago.

"There used to be this idea of having a separate work self and home self," he said. "Now they just want to be themselves. It's almost as if they're interviewing places to see if they fit them."

You think?

With that in mind, we turn to the more recent article, Who's Cuddly Now? Law Firms, which relates how large law firms are trying to stanch the bleeding of associate turnover by allowing associates to take reduced billable hour requirements in exchange for salary reductions, increasing parental leave, and taking other steps

I tend to agree with Enrico Schaefer when he says,

Let me say it again. As bad as hourly billing is for clients, it's worse for lawyers. To live your life as though each minute spent doing something else besides billing the client was a wasted moment is a waste of life.

As a partner I know in a respected Denver firm recently remarked, "I'd gladly give up 20% of my income not to have to deal with billable hours."

Will my generation finally get law firms to rethink the life-affecting tradeoffs they make in clinging to the billable-hour system? Maybe. I hope so. But I wonder how these seeds of change will be affected by the threat of economic instability. Gerry Riskin has been warning of doom and gloom for the legal profession and warns against thinking of law practice in terms of business as usual. Bruce McEwen sees law firms as having a less cyclical business and suggests that some features of law practice are likely to change but that the upheaval may be less dramatic than one might think.

I think it will be interesting to see how all these dynamics flow together, and I hope that economic instability does not quash efforts to make it easier to practice law and still have a well-rounded life.

Remember bird flu? It seems like a year or so ago much attention was given to the fact that the H5N1 flu virus, which was spreading, well, virulently among bird populations (especially in Asia), might spread to humans, creating the next flu pandemic. And, as predicted, some humans who worked with infected bird species did get sick, and many of the ones who got sick died. I even remember hearing questions about whether some of them had transmitted the virus to their families.

But since then, we seem to have gotten our heads planted comfortably back in the sand. Yet outbreaks continue, and the situation continues to look dire.

Now, we have an outbreak in Pakistan where, from the currently available evidence, it appears that a veterinarian working with infected birds caught the virus and transmitted it to at least one of his brothers. Two men died ten days apart (one of whom may have been the vet, or maybe not — it's not clear from the reports). The ten-day lag tends to indicate that the disease spread from one person, to another, to another. There have also been recent cluster infections in other Asian countries where human to human transmission is suspected.

When it can do that easily is when all hell will break loose.

I've heard of various interagency "drills" promoted as evidence that governments and health providers are getting ready for the outbreak of pandemic. Those drills mainly seem to be exercises in vaccinating a whole lot of people at once, a capability that will be nice to have but which is useless at the forefront of an outbreak because a vaccine won't exist until weeks, maybe months, after an outbreak begins.

What I haven't heard of are the kinds of preparations that will actually help reduce transmission: for example, the stockpiling of masks, gloves, disinfectants, and other simple tools to help reduce public exposure. There will be a run on such supplies the moment an outbreak is confirmed, and there's no reason to think that manufacturing plans have such excess capacity that they will be able to increase production to anything resembling the scale that will be demanded in a crisis. There won't be enough to go around, and yet we will need to count on practical measures like masks and hand-washing, and not Tamiflu or vaccine, to save people in the first wave of a flu pandemic. (Also interesting - Scott McPherson thinks telecommuting won't work in a pandemic.)

The flu is going to kill many more people than terrorism will, but preventive measures against the flu will never get the kind of funding and support antiterrorism measures do. I expect this will prove to be a mistake.

She arrived the evening of December 5, and since then has been keeping everyone up nights with her entertaining (?) antics.

Seriously, she's a pretty cooperative baby so far, as they go. Having to feed her every 3 hours for a while is just part of the drill. We're very happy she's here, and she seems to be okay with it, too.

No one who has actually spent time in Second Life should be surprised. The creations of Second Life's more ordinary users are far more interesting than those of real-world companies.

One of the more intriguing features of Second Life is that it allows users to design, program and trade objects amongst themselves. Everything from avatar accoutrements (clothing, hair, jewelry) to buildings, vehicles, plants — the whole Second Life world is populated with the creations of its users, fueling an entire in-world economy lubricated by a so-called "limited license right to ... participate in the virtual economy" of Second Life called the Linden Dollar (L$).

The creations of Second Life users are meant for use in Second Life. They advance the stories that people play out when they use Second Life. They add to the social context of Second Life. By contrast, real-world companies' presences in Second Life tend to look like nothing more than corporate advertising. And not just any advertising at that, but advertising that has no social role in that context. IBM may buck the trend in that it gets a lot of traffic in its Second Life regions, but that's primarily because the software running those areas runs on high-powered, well-connected servers, features Second Life residents can use to their advantage when designing and creating objects. It doesn't make much sense to venture into an artificial world to advertise products that are useless there.