John Randolph Lucas (18 June 1929 – 5 April 2020) was a British philosopher.

Biography

Lucas was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

and then, as a pupil of R.M. Hare, among others, at

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

. He studied first mathematics, then Greats (Greek, Latin, Philosophy and Ancient History), obtaining first class honours in both. He sat for Finals in 1951, and took his MA in 1954. He spent the 1957–58 academic year at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, studying mathematics and logic. For 36 years, until his 1996 retirement, he was a Fellow and Tutor of

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

, and he remained an emeritus member of the University Faculty of Philosophy. He was a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

. Lucas is perhaps best known for his paper " Minds, Machines and Gödel," arguing that an

automaton An automaton (; : automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers i ...

cannot represent a human mathematician, attempting to refute

computationalism In philosophy of mind, the computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that hold that the human mind is an information processing system and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of comp ...

. An author with diverse teaching and research interests, Lucas wrote on the

philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of mathematics and its relationship to other areas of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Central questions posed include whether or not mathem ...

, especially the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, the

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...

, free will and determinism, the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

including one book on physics co-authored with Peter E. Hodgson, causality,

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

, ethics and

business ethics Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics, that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business c ...

, and the

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known Text (literary theo ...

. The son of a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

clergyman, and an Anglican himself, Lucas described himself as "a dyed-in-the-wool traditional Englishman." He had four children
EdwardHelenRichard
and Deborah) with Morar Portal, among them Edward Lucas, a former journalist at ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

''. In addition to his philosophical career, Lucas had a practical interest in

. He helped found the Oxford Consumers' Group, and was its first chairman in 1961–3, serving again in 1965.

Philosophical contributions

Free will

Lucas (1961) began a lengthy and heated

debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...

over the implications of

Gödel's incompleteness theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that are concerned with the limits of in formal axiomatic theories. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the phi ...

for the anthropic mechanism thesis, by arguing that: #

Determinism Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes ov ...

↔ For any human ''h'' there exists at least one (deterministic)

logical system A formal system is an abstract structure and formalization of an axiomatic system used for deducing, using rules of inference, theorems from axioms. In 1921, David Hilbert proposed to use formal systems as the foundation of knowledge in math ...

''L''(''h'') which reliably predicts ''hs actions in all circumstances. # For any logical system ''L'' a sufficiently skilled

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

ian (equipped with a sufficiently powerful computer if necessary) can construct some statements ''T''(''L'') which are true but unprovable in ''L''. (This follows from Gödel's first theorem.) # If a human ''m'' is a sufficiently skillful mathematical logician (equipped with a sufficiently powerful computer if necessary) then if ''m'' is given ''L''(''m''), he or she can construct ''T''(''L''(''m'')) and determine that they are true—which ''L''(''m'') cannot do. # Hence ''L''(''m'') does not reliably predict ''ms actions in all circumstances. # Hence ''m'' has

free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...

. # It is implausible that the qualitative difference between mathematical logicians and the rest of the population is such that the former have free will and the latter do not. His argument was strengthened by the discovery by Hava Siegelmann in the 1990s that sufficiently complex analogue recurrent neural networks are more powerful than

Turing Machine A Turing machine is a mathematical model of computation describing an abstract machine that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite the model's simplicity, it is capable of implementing any computer algori ...

Space, time and causality

Lucas wrote several books on the philosophy of science and space-time (see below). In ''A treatise on time and space'' he introduced a transcendental derivation of the Lorenz Transformations based on Red and Blue exchanging messages (in Russian and Greek respectively) from their respective frames of reference which demonstrates how these can be derived from a minimal set of philosophical assumptions. In ''The Future'' Lucas gives a detailed analysis of tenses and time, arguing that "the Block universe gives a deeply inadequate view of time. It fails to account for the passage of time, the pre-eminence of the present, the directedness of time and the difference between the future and the past" and in favour of a tree structure in which there is only one past or present (at any given point in spacetime) but a large number of possible futures. "We are by our own decisions in the face of other men's actions and chance circumstances weaving the web of history on the loom of natural necessity"''The Future'' (1989), p. 4.

Timeline

*1942-7. Scholar of

*1947–51. Attended

on a scholarship. *1951. BA with 1st Class Honours, Greats. *1951-3. Harmsworth Senior Scholar,

. *1952. John Locke Scholarship,

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. *1953-6. Junior Research Fellow,

. *1956-9. Fellow and Assistant Tutor,

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus") is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th c ...

. *1957-8. Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow,

. *1959–60. Leverhulme Research Fellow, the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. *1960–96. Fellow and Tutor of

. *1988. Elected a Fellow of the

. *1990-6. Reader in Philosophy,

. *1991-3. President, British Society for the Philosophy of Science.

Books

*1966. ''Principles of Politics''. *1970. '' The Concept of Probability''. *1970. ''The Freedom of the Will''. *1972
''The Nature of Mind''
(with A. J. P. Kenny, H. C. Longuet-Higgins, and

C. H. Waddington Conrad Hal Waddington (8 November 1905 – 26 September 1975) was a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary develop ...

; 1972

Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford at the four ancient universities of Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Their purpose is to "pro ...

) *1973
''The Development of Mind''
(with A. J. P. Kenny, H.C.Longet-Higgins, and C.H.Waddington; 1973

) *1973. '' A Treatise on Time and Space''. *1976. '' Freedom and Grace''. *1976. ''Democracy and Participation''. *1978. ''Butler's Philosophy of Religion Vindicated''. *1980. ''

On Justice ''On Justice'' (; ) is a Socratic dialogue that was once thought to be the work of Plato. The attribution to Plato is now considered spurious In the short dialogue, Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, ...

''. *1985. ''Space, Time and Causality: an essay in natural philosophy''. *1989. '' The Future: an essay on God, temporality, and truth'' *1990. ''Spacetime and Electromagnetism'' (with Peter E. Hodgson) . *1993. '' Responsibility''. *1997. ''Ethical Economics'' (with M. R. Griffiths). *2000. ''Conceptual Roots of Mathematics''. *2003. ''An Engagement with Plato's Republic'' (with B.G. Mitchell). *2006. ''Reason and Reality'', freely available as a series of .pdf files on Lucas's website (below). Also available as ''Reason and Reality: An Essay in Metaphysics'' by J. R. Lucas (494 pages, December 2009): Hardback is and Softback is *2016. ''Value Economics: The Ethical Implications of Value for New Economic Thinking'' (with M.R. Griffiths). *2021. ''L’economia del valore'' (Italian translation, also with M.R. Griffiths).