Kane's Lucky Self

 Kane attempts to construct a naturalistic account of freewill compatible with indeterminacy by positing what he calls Self-Forming Actions, but Kane's theory is undermined by a lack of a natural self that can act freely and responsibly. The goal of Kane's theory is to refute of the Luck Principle (LP) which is: “If an action is undetermined at a time t, then its happening rather than not happening is a matter of chance or luck, and so it could not be a free and responsible action” (Kane 415). In order to refute LP, Kane argues that the self has control over the outcome of a personal indeterminacy. The resolution of a personal indeterminacy is what Kane calls self-forming actions (SFAs). Despite Kane's convictions, his narrative about the nature of human indeterminacy and self-forming actions undermine freewill and responsibility because the inability of the natural self to resolve a quantum indeterminacy in the brain.

Kane attempts to give a naturalistic narrative about human indeterminacy which takes place in the brain. By indeterminacy, Kane does not mean constant transcendence like in dualism but rather a supervening natural self resolves an indeterminacy when it occurs. There are times during humans' lives in which they become conflicted between two or more choices. Kane argues that there is legitimate indeterminacy when brain is in this state of conflict. According to Kane, the conflict between two or more neural pathways, each representing one desire or choice, creates chaos in which the self has an opportunity to exercise freewill.

Kane uses the Assassin trying to kill the prime minister in order to demonstrate that indeterminacy does not undermine freewill and responsibility (420). The assassin tries to kill the prime minister but an indeterminacy in his nervous system causes his arm to waver. If he does hit the prime minister, Kane believes that the assassin is to be held responsible despite indeterminacy in his arm because he “succeeded in doing what he was trying to do” (420). In other words, the assassin is not “lucky” in the irresponsible sense, but Kane does admit that indeterminacy does act as an obstacle. In the case in which the indeterminacy is in the brain, the individual overcomes the obstacle of indeterminacy “nevertheless by [his or her] own effort” (420). Because Kane posits that this effort is involved in the resolution of the indeterminacy, Kane believes that SFAs are “genuine exercises of freewill” (421).

Kane characterizes self-forming actions with mixture of folk psychological concepts and neurobiology. Kane believes that there is a robust self that resolves indeterminacy through an act of will. Kane identifies the self with the brain and identifies each side of a conflicting neural battle in the brain with a neural pathway. Take Jane who could choose a vacation in Hawaii or Colorado. In other words, she has a conscious neural conflict. Since the self does not determined path corresponding to its form, the self must choose. Kane believes that Jane chooses the vacation spot that she wills or wants more (426). When Jane's self chooses, it forms her self, changing her dispositions and desires for the future. This is what Kane means by self-forming.

Kane demonstrates that he identifies the self with the brain when refutes the criticism that his theory of indeterminacy divides the self. The objection goes: 1) Each self has one will. 2) Kane posits two conflicting wills in brain fighting to direct the body towards their respective goals. 3) Since Kane posits two wills at times of conflict, he implies that there are two selves in the brain during that conflict. This is to suggest that Kane's theory is counter-intuitive, since it undermines individuality, so Kane appeals to parallel processing to show that his theory is neither radical nor implies two selves. Just like a single computer can have two processes running simultaneously, a single self can have internal conflict without becoming two separate beings. Since Kane does not identify the self with specific parts of the brain, he must identify it with the whole. This notion of the self, however, is incompatible, as I will discuss further later, robust freewill because the brain lacks the ability to resolve a quantum indeterminacy.

Kane revises LP, but by doing so, he presents the main problem with his theory. The LP argues indeterminacy implies that what one does is involuntary and unintentional. Kane's theory, however, makes the indeterminacy between two things one could voluntarily and intentionally do. Kane revises the LP for the incompatibilists, calling it LP*, which argues that since one could do A voluntarily and intentionally and do B voluntarily and intentionally, what one ultimately voluntarily and intentionally does is a matter of luck or chance (422). In order to refute this new version, Kane posits a robust kind of control.

Kane's theory of control is in response to the claim that indeterminacy is a hindrance to the will. Since in his model there are two efforts which create a struggle within the self, each side makes it harder to will the other side of the conflict. This means that this indeterminacy hinders, but as Kane argues, the hindrance exists when each effort is considered separately. As an extension of Kane's theory of identity and parallel processing, Kane believes the humans have plural voluntary control (426). The self has power to bring about whichever option it wills or wants most (426). This means that the self still has robust control even when there is indeterminacy. Where is this control, though? This seems impossible given the nature of the brain which lacks what Dennett calls a single decision maker (443).

In Dennett's strongest criticism of Kane's theory, he demonstrates the flaws of his concept of SFAs. Dennett uses a thought experiment of how Kane's indeterminacy actually undermines human freedom and autonomy. There is no single decision maker in the brain, no button which the self can push to solve quantum fluctuations in the brain. Another factor must be the cause for the resolution of an indeterminacy (Dennett 443). To provide a possibility, Dennett uses a needle quivering up and down, to represent the chaos between two decisions (442).

If this accurately reflects how the conflict works in human brains, the resolution has everything to do with when it occurs. Since humans are in environments that often force them to act immediately, the environment is what stops the needle on one decision or the other. While danger very obviously forces humans to act, Kane might argue that this is a form of coercion; however, Dennett's argument does not only undermine freewill during times of duress but also during calm. The environment can subtly influence the needle. This is obvious to advertisers who put ideas in people's heads all the time, so that when they think they chose to have a soft drink, a poster during the time of indeterminacy formed the will to that direction. In other words, there is no robust control given Kane's naturalistic narrative of human indeterminacy. Without this control, Kane cannot refute LP*; therefore, it is a matter of luck what humans intend. This leads to deep consequences to freewill and responsibility.

Apathy the Postmodern Condition .

Why do people value nonsense, waste, and stupidity? When did life become a joke? This is the question I am attemption to answer, and in order to do that, some history is necessary.

In the nineteenth century, European philosophers, now called modernists, saw the industrial revolution, the power of their mighty nations, and the progress that these nations have achieved and created a story about the future. The communists told of a nation in which everyone gets along and there is no government and no property.

Universality of these grand narratives drove these nations to attempt to 'spread civilization' which increased local development of some of these Western nations' colonies. This universalism and rapid progress from the industrial revolution led to a manifest destiny over the world. This can be seen in Nazism, Soviet communism, and Japanese Imperialism.

Modernism and its belief in Utopia derives a morality from those in power. In Western terms, morality was a reflection of white heterosexual adult males. Theologically speaking, it is the white man that was made in God's (aka perfection's) image. Women and all other races are less in God's image, and early justifications for heirarchy stem from this morality.
While there was a lot of debate about the nature of morality during this period, the ideas came from this theological humanism and Enlightment ideas of autonomous individuals.

The next generation faced the world wars and the contradictions it posed to stories of progress and greater peace. The devastation of lives many people feel like humanity had failed. For instance, many Japanese hated surrender and living under a flag that was not their freedom (the occupation of the US). They blamed society for cowardice for not dying for their ideals. The philosophy that grew out of this disillusionment were absurdism and existentialism which in part tried to understand humanity in an indifferent world, a world without a guiding narrative or god leading humanity to its bright deserve future.

Though only a bit later, the postmodernists came, and existentialism became known as the shortest lived philosophical periods. Postmodernists were not merely skeptical but pessimistic about the power of modernists narratives like that of communism. They saw Stalinism, sexism, racism, and colonialism and argued that Utopia is impossible and that these narratives only make things worse. The common critique of Communism is that it does not take in account for human nature, which is summarized by John Acton's famous quote: "power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

While postmodernism displaced the narratives, morality, and ideals of modernism, this philosophy slowly fed into culture. The rise of a new age of satire and parody, both of which seek to deconstruct all ideals. Around the nineties, the truely postmodern culture arose around entertaining nonsense. Because the need for a narrative was thrown out, nonsense became acceptable. This is most obvious in internet culture, especially in regards of internet memes and 4chan.

The attraction of this nonsense is all in the affect, which is a technical term for a subjective response. For instance, a girl running to school with a piee of toast in her mouth. This is in the last episode of the Japanese anime Neon Genesis Evagelion (literally, the Gospel of the New Genesis) and is sometimes refered to as the beginning of the turn to nonsense. The idea is that this is completely non-deconstructable. In other words, one cannot critize what it is saying about humanity if it says nothing. (An earlier example that is more global is Dada in art.)

This leads to a culture that values something that in the past would seem to be without value or actually gross. While postmodernism has rejected the evil of modernism, it has left the world without a future to tell itself. Though there are still politicians who claim things that fall under the modernist tradition, the old ideals compete in contemporary consumerism with the ever enticing nonsense. The deepest questions is what kind of people are we now, when we breadth nonsense everyday. Will we not ourselves become nonsense?
The manifestation of the postmodern Zeitgeist is not simple or the same in each place. The important thing is that it will be hard to create a new spirit with hope for progress. I am a Nietzschean in that I believe a great person is required to create new values. This position is dangerous, for value creators can easily become dictators. I suggest a wise person, a philosopher president of sorts to lead society on a nuanced path. The values created from knowing what is worth dying for, what is worth fighting for, and what is worth protecting

Moral responsibility and Freewill for Moore and Chisholm

The Western tradition has tied moral responsibility and freewill together. Contrary to popular opinion, I would like to divide these two concepts from each other because the truth conditions for both are different. For moral responsibility, the truth conditions for morality do not exist in the world since being cannot justify an ought; as a result, the methodology for creating a moral theory is not as clear as in an empirically informed metaphysics. A philosopher can in this vagueness define moral responsibility without necessarily appealing to a fact about freewill. Freewill on the other hand is an metaphysical issue which has all the same requirements for proof that comes with that field. With this distinction in mind, Moore and Chisholm both successfully create a means of thinking about moral responsibility but fail to provide a convincing case for their respective account of freewill. Moore's freewill lacks the actual ability to do otherwise which is necessary for freewill, and Chisholm freewill lacks facts.

Moore argues for compatibility by making a distinction between to senses of could. Could₁ is the strict metaphysical sense (Moore 397). Could₂ is a vague sense which Moore defends as allowing for both a sense of freedom and moral responsibility compatible with determinism (397). In other words, one could₁ not do otherwise, but one could₂ do otherwise.

Could₂ depends on a division of a subjects abilities from their expressions. Moore sees an agent as having many logically possible actions for any given situation. These logical possibilities depend on the abilities of the subject. While an agent could₁ only express itself one way, the agent had the power to act differently. For instance, a murderer was causally determined to pull the trigger, but his or her body has the capacity not to pull the trigger. This commonsense language formulation of the word could allows Moore to bring in moral responsibility into his theory.

While this provides a commonsense way of assigning blame in a society which recognizes determinism, Chisholm is justified in critiquing Moore's more radical argument for calling this could₂ freedom. Morality is a pragmatic construct that helps keep society stable and self-justified, but freedom is an issue of fact. Chisholm demonstrates that one of Moore's formulations of freedom reveals its self-defeating nature. Moore's goal with the two senses of could is in order to reach a commonsense reformulation of the following premise: One could₂ do otherwise (Moore 397). Moore claims in that this formulation is equivalent to: If one had chosen, one would have done otherwise (Moore 399). As Chisholm argues, the second formulation has no bearing on the first because the second can be true while the first false. Since this is true, Moore unsuccessfully reformulated the first statement. Chisholm further demonstrates this point by providing another reformulation: One could₂ have chosen to do otherwise. If determinism is true, this third formulation also deserves to be rejected because one does not have the ability to choose. If the third is rejected, what Moore cannot achieve any meaningful notion of freewill in the first formulation. Since formulation two is separable from any meaningful definition of freewill, one can accept a principle of blame and reject freewill.

  

Chisholm also defends a radical notion of freedom, which he believes does not have the faults of the indeterminist and determinist position. Chisholm's issue with both determinist and indeterminist positions is that both assume that there is only transuent causation (from one state of affairs to another) (404). The indeterminist believes that one could₁ do otherwise, but this does not mean an agent actually chooses, rather from a purely transeunt perspective this means that the actions are random. Since Hume demolished any chance of ever knowing something actually causes another, Chisholm feels as if he can provide a solution to the freewill debate by positing a rehashed medieval concept of immanent causation (404). Instead of only positing God as a primemover, human agents become primemovers as well for Chisholm (404). This simultaneously explains where transeunt causation comes from since a transeunt cause always requires another cause before it and how to place blame upon human subjects.

There are two objections against transeunt causation which Chisholm addresses, and the first he dismisses far too quickly. The first objection is that the self doing something to the brain is just another transeunt cause. Chisholm's response is to say that immanent causation is not about doing but about making something happen (405). This is unsatisfying. My intuitions tell me that while I may indirectly make something happen by doing something, I cannot make something happen without doing something. In other words, the brain event that supposedly I make happen requires something to directly cause it to happen. Chisholm might mean however that this make something happen that the self controls physics. This again baffles the determinist mindset, for how does willing bring about changes in physics (I avoid “laws of” to be charitable to a Humean critique)? Because Chisholm's notions of causation are so counter-intuitive, his early dismissal of the first objection is unjustified.

Another reason why the first objection cannot be easily dismissed is that the solution implies the second objection. In order to answer why this is not only transeunt causation, Chisholm introduced a distinction between making A happen and doing A (404). Objection two is attack on the conceivability of this seemingly indirect form of causation, which I already applied in the criticism of his answer to objection one.

Despite this, Chisholm's opinion about how causation should be thought about in the vacuum left by Hume is conceivable. It is an opinion because since causation and the self have become free to be reinterpreted, there are several equally counter-intuitive ways to salvage moral responsibility, which many value more than the truth. It is conceivable because if one shares in the Humean skepticism, causation could work radically differently than that of the regular naturalistic notion. One can still believe emotively in Chisholm's answer in order to salvage morality, but until freewill is verified, one ought to remain skeptical in regards to his or her metaphysical position.  

Philosophy is a Joke

Introduction:

From my title, most can already tell that I am being extremely provocative, especially as someone who thinks itself a philosopher. I admit it too.

Contrary to popular opinion, philosophy is not simply serious. It is a joke, which most philosophers do not even realize. There is a barrier to their understanding, which prevents them from seeing the joke they themselves perform.

The View of the Over-human: 

The over-human is a pretend role philosophers perform in which they envision the human and its condition from outside it. In other words, the over-human is the meta-level which underlies philosophy. This is not to be confused with Nietzsche's overman, though I do draw inspiration from that.

The joke is that a philosopher has to do the impossible (be something other than human) in order to pretend to be a philosopher. It does what is in principle what it cannot do, or rather it has to pretend to do the impossible to do philosophy.

There are three levels of philosophers. Level one maintains the paradox of being human and over-human in its game of philosophy without knowing it. Level two pretends to be merely over-human in a dehumanizing philosophy. Level three is the cynical recognition of the paradox and the even more cynical continuing to play at philosophy.

Take meta-ethics. The level one philosopher will unconsciously do the ethics of meta-ethics, in which it appeals to a normative criteria in the game of selecting or creating a ethical system. Of course, this is a joke because there can be no criteria, especially normative criteria, at the meta-level.

The level two philosopher will do meta-ethics without bringing in an ethics. It is essentially unhuman. This philosopher looks at those ants called humans. It looks down on social immune system or social program called morality, and this philosopher begins to describe it. This is the science of the over-human.

Level three realizes the flaws of both level one and two. It does not give any credit to putting the human in the over-human as with level one nor does it believe that the philosopher can actually be the over-human in case of level two. Upon achieving level three, one could abandon the philosophical game in despair that comes when any grand narrative falls from underneath the human. The philosopher could also embrace game playing because there was never anything else to do and perhaps it was a bit bored.

The Ultimate Joke: 

Some may have already realized a major flaw in the analysis of the philosopher. It seems to be a level two analysis or perhaps level one if one thinks the levels are normative. This is intentional because to reject my argument and the paradox that I maintain in order to play at it is to simultaneously reject philosophy. This is the ultimate joke on philosophy. To discover that philosophy is a joke, one must use philosophy, but philosophy is a joke so the conclusion that philosophy is a joke is a joke. Since philosophy depends on the pretending on being a over-human, this joke is a necessary conclusion of any serious philosopher who plays at the over-over-human.  

Looking In Myself at Midnight

I am writing this because I must. I will tell you that it is a reflection, a confession. You may ask me if it is for school, and I will tell you that it is not. I write this because I must, for it will irritate me to no end if I do not. Maybe this does not make sense to you, so I will give an example. Imagine you are at a bar, and you see someone that you just have to meet. Well, if you do not, you felt that you missed an opportunity. You will feel regret. That is what it is like writing this, it is siezing the moment.

The Confession

I have always had a bad habit of touching my wounds and making them worse. That is why my face and back are covered in infections. That is disgusting, is it not? Well, another wound lives within me. This wound drives me to have conversations with Christians. The reason why is because Christianity bothers me, or better put, the Christian in me bothers me. When I confront the Christian, I am trying to confront myself. I want to convince this impassioned part of me to let go of this religious love.

My love lies in the power of my imagination. The love is guilty, the love is shameful, the love is eternal, and without reason. It kills you in the name of being as loving as possible. To become this love is to cease being biological, to cease living for the sake of an ideal. As some die for freedom, this Christian in me dies for love. For me, a Christian does not follow Christ nor depend on him. The CHristian is Christ-like, and strives to take on the same burden as Christ, tries to change the world in the same way, suffering.


While it is true that this is scary, do not worry. I spent a long time learning to handle myself and act "rationally". In other words, there are stronger elements in me than this Christian self, which is this unique personality most of you know so well. I can overcome the Christian self because it is a failure, and it knows that. Christianity is not true, I should not feel guilty for things I have not done, and I do not have to carry the world's burden in suffering. More than that, my Christian is a failure for all that passion is useless. You cannot feel or suffer your way into helping the world. Like the aphorism goes, a pair or working hands is worth more than a thousand clasped in prayer. 

But I should address more on the power of my imagination. You probably have no idea how much I can identify with Macbeth, not in the killing thing but in the imagination. I can found waiting at intersection, and suddenly the passion of the imagination besieges me with the vision of purposefully crashing the car. When the vision ends, I feel guilt for something I never did, and never wanted to do.  This is the thousand scorpions of the mind.

 This imagination created my Christian self, and the disturbing thing about it is that I have so much sympathy for this passion saint of divine love. This self loves everyone without judgment or ambition, cares for everyone’s well-being, and thus cries at the constant suffering and disconnect in the relationship with the world.  This love is suffering and it is crippling and there is no transcendence to its manifestation as a lifelong emotional crucifixion.

I have turned to philosophy to put reason in control, but the passion of the imagination creates everything about me. To be anything, I must see myself as something, whether it be a truth or fiction. The fiction though may through the residual passion make me change into something else and therefore change truth.

The Advice

Many have argued for the power of my mind, seeing it as my great advantage, but here I tell you, the grass may not be as green as it seems. The contemplative life requires much of you; it demands that you care for what much of society takes for granted. The important thing is that contemplation is not a choice nor a practice but rather a necessity create by the forces of the mind. The contemplator scratches at the sensitivities of the mind. Am I a moral person, who I am really, why do I feel this way? Pleeing behind those questions opens a wound sometimes (though the hope is relevation or closure), and this can cause an infection, and infections of the mind like this Christian self become ghosts to haunt you.