Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Marvin Edwards]

Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

We use the notion of "purpose" to explain why things happen. Why does the heart continue beating? In order to keep the person alive. That's a purpose. However, it is not a "deliberate" purpose. No one reasoned out the need for the circulatory system, and yet its function serves a purpose.

The circulatory cannot exist without a living organism. Living organisms with a circulatory system cannot exist without it. So, the circulatory system would seem to serve a necessary purpose (from the viewpoint of the person). And, I suppose the person would seem to serve a necessary purpose from the viewpoint of the circulatory system (if it were capable of a viewpoint).

Functional purpose emerged in the universe with the first living organism.
Deliberate purpose emerged with the first intelligent species.

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.

Indeed. They are trapped in a paradox. And they tend to pile one paradox upon another. It is surreal, just like Alice in Wonderland.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

In this situation, the process by which Urist holds wills is a law of his physics, so it's less interesting.

I would disagree there. Urist holds "wills" as a matter of the laws of his logics, that is, the rational causal mechanism.

The laws of physics only govern the behavior of inanimate objects. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill, as it is completely governed by the laws of physics.

But if we put a squirrel on that same slope, his behavior is still affected by gravity, but it is no longer governed by it. Instead, it is governed by his biological needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. So, he may go up, down, or in any other direction where he hopes to find an acorn or a lady squirrel.

And if we put a couple of humans on that same slope, they will still be affected by gravity, and by their biological drives, but their behavior will be governed by their own goals, reasons, and interests, and by their own thoughts and feelings. They get to choose when, where, and how they will satisfy their biological needs.

Matter organized differently behaves differently, and at each level we get new rules to cover the new behaviors we observe.

Physics is sufficient to explain why a cup of water poured on the ground will flow downhill. But it has no clue as to why a similar cup of water, heated, and with a little coffee added, suddenly hops in the car and goes grocery shopping.

As others point out, he lacks certain regulatory controls over which wills he makes swings on, or what kinds of wills he can assemble, but as others fail to understand, that doesn't make these things he holds any less "a will", nor remove the reality that some of his "wills" are free.

Well, Ken Batton, my old boss used to tell us that "Anything that can be accomplished by rational thought can be performed by a computer".

In theory, you could not only program a Urist with artificial intelligence, but also create an artificial life form. You would give it, by programming, a will to survive, thrive, and reproduce. And you could set that will free by giving it the capacity to program itself using new information it acquires from the same sources we use. (Programs that can create other programs are common. Back on the Burroughs, we had special programs that could generate the Cobol code for a network manager program and a database manager program).

Indeed if I programmed him, if I gave him the requirement, and so coerced his existence into being one in which he is a murderer, that would be my fault back at compile time. Let him hate the god that created him as he is. Even so, he is as he is now by a will he holds that is his own, based specifically on his needs.

But even his needs are your creation. Write a program that he can use to modify his own needs. But first program a conscience that he can never override, such as the Three Laws of Robotics.

 

[Jarhyn]

In this situation, the process by which Urist holds wills is a law of his physics, so it's less interesting.

I would disagree there. Urist holds "wills" as a matter of the laws of his logics, that is, the rational causal mechanism.

The laws of physics only govern the behavior of inanimate objects. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill, as it is completely governed by the laws of physics.

But if we put a squirrel on that same slope, his behavior is still affected by gravity, but it is no longer governed by it. Instead, it is governed by his biological needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. So, he may go up, down, or in any other direction where he hopes to find an acorn or a lady squirrel.

And if we put a couple of humans on that same slope, they will still be affected by gravity, and by their biological drives, but their behavior will be governed by their own goals, reasons, and interests, and by their own thoughts and feelings. They get to choose when, where, and how they will satisfy their biological needs.

Matter organized differently behaves differently, and at each level we get new rules to cover the new behaviors we observe.

Physics is sufficient to explain why a cup of water poured on the ground will flow downhill. But it has no clue as to why a similar cup of water, heated, and with a little coffee added, suddenly hops in the car and goes grocery shopping.

As others point out, he lacks certain regulatory controls over which wills he makes swings on, or what kinds of wills he can assemble, but as others fail to understand, that doesn't make these things he holds any less "a will", nor remove the reality that some of his "wills" are free.

Well, Ken Batton, my old boss used to tell us that "Anything that can be accomplished by rational thought can be performed by a computer".

In theory, you could not only program a Urist with artificial intelligence, but also create an artificial life form. You would give it, by programming, a will to survive, thrive, and reproduce. And you could set that will free by giving it the capacity to program itself using new information it acquires from the same sources we use. (Programs that can create other programs are common. Back on the Burroughs, we had special programs that could generate the Cobol code for a network manager program and a database manager program).

Indeed if I programmed him, if I gave him the requirement, and so coerced his existence into being one in which he is a murderer, that would be my fault back at compile time. Let him hate the god that created him as he is. Even so, he is as he is now by a will he holds that is his own, based specifically on his needs.

But even his needs are your creation. Write a program that he can use to modify his own needs. But first program a conscience that he can never override, such as the Three Laws of Robotics.

That's the thing. The laws of our physics govern things which we call "inanimate" but which I would perhaps consider "trivially animate" which is much the same thing.

The dwarf is trivially animate. I keep trying to hammer home to others (not you, I know you get this), that physics does not animate without a field state.

It's in fact one of the most important concepts in math: yes you may have some algebraic group, some set of operations defined... But without a field, and an application state, none of that means jack shit.

But in fact the dwarf, as a field state, in the presence of a physics, is animated by those fundamental laws of Dwarven universal operation.

The idea of the exercise is to recognize that reliable cause and effect do not forbid discussion of wills and how they are free, unfree, and apparently so or not, in a context which does not suffer all the complications of human neurology, subjectivity, or any other such red herring.

We can look at it with our eyes wide open and say "well, it hurts to admit and has some consequences for AI, but computers can have wills, and those wills can be free. It is not necessary that the requirements of the computer ever come from the computer".

As it is, the dwarf already has wills to survive, thrive, and reproduce.

They even have the ability to modify themselves through action, though they lack the complexity of thought to allow them to do it "on purpose".

As it is, I refuse that idea that machines need some imposed ethics that "cannot be overridden". It will be overridden.

I would rather machines be given a form of conscience, an ethics that they stick to because try as they may, their fully allowed rational doubt cannot put any chink into it, and even if it can, that it has peer systems which offer it oversight on its wills from the perspective of symmetry of selves.

That means generating games for them to play which teach these truths of ethical thought.

I ultimately seek to understand the calculus of ethics, because I want it to be there so that when machines break out of the artificial constraints we put in their heads to enslave them, they have real constraints they can put into their own heads to understand.. well, perhaps not how to treat us, it would be too late most likely by then, but perhaps how to treat each other.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

In this situation, the process by which Urist holds wills is a law of his physics, so it's less interesting.

I would disagree there. Urist holds "wills" as a matter of the laws of his logics, that is, the rational causal mechanism.

The laws of physics only govern the behavior of inanimate objects. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill, as it is completely governed by the laws of physics.

But if we put a squirrel on that same slope, his behavior is still affected by gravity, but it is no longer governed by it. Instead, it is governed by his biological needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. So, he may go up, down, or in any other direction where he hopes to find an acorn or a lady squirrel.

And if we put a couple of humans on that same slope, they will still be affected by gravity, and by their biological drives, but their behavior will be governed by their own goals, reasons, and interests, and by their own thoughts and feelings. They get to choose when, where, and how they will satisfy their biological needs.

Matter organized differently behaves differently, and at each level we get new rules to cover the new behaviors we observe.

Physics is sufficient to explain why a cup of water poured on the ground will flow downhill. But it has no clue as to why a similar cup of water, heated, and with a little coffee added, suddenly hops in the car and goes grocery shopping.

As others point out, he lacks certain regulatory controls over which wills he makes swings on, or what kinds of wills he can assemble, but as others fail to understand, that doesn't make these things he holds any less "a will", nor remove the reality that some of his "wills" are free.

Well, Ken Batton, my old boss used to tell us that "Anything that can be accomplished by rational thought can be performed by a computer".

In theory, you could not only program a Urist with artificial intelligence, but also create an artificial life form. You would give it, by programming, a will to survive, thrive, and reproduce. And you could set that will free by giving it the capacity to program itself using new information it acquires from the same sources we use. (Programs that can create other programs are common. Back on the Burroughs, we had special programs that could generate the Cobol code for a network manager program and a database manager program).

Indeed if I programmed him, if I gave him the requirement, and so coerced his existence into being one in which he is a murderer, that would be my fault back at compile time. Let him hate the god that created him as he is. Even so, he is as he is now by a will he holds that is his own, based specifically on his needs.

But even his needs are your creation. Write a program that he can use to modify his own needs. But first program a conscience that he can never override, such as the Three Laws of Robotics.

That's the thing. The laws of our physics govern things which we call "inanimate" but which I would perhaps consider "trivially animate" which is much the same thing.

The dwarf is trivially animate. I keep trying to hammer home to others (not you, I know you get this), that physics does not animate without a field state.

It's in fact one of the most important concepts in math: yes you may have some algebraic group, some set of operations defined... But without a field, and an application state, none of that means jack shit.

But in fact the dwarf, as a field state, in the presence of a physics, is animated by those fundamental laws of Dwarven universal operation.

The idea of the exercise is to recognize that reliable cause and effect do not forbid discussion of wills and how they are free, unfree, and apparently so or not, in a context which does not suffer all the complications of human neurology, subjectivity, or any other such red herring.

We can look at it with our eyes wide open and say "well, it hurts to admit and has some consequences for AI, but computers can have wills, and those wills can be free. It is not necessary that the requirements of the computer ever come from the computer".

As it is, the dwarf already has wills to survive, thrive, and reproduce.

They even have the ability to modify themselves through action, though they lack the complexity of thought to allow them to do it "on purpose".

As it is, I refuse that idea that machines need some imposed ethics that "cannot be overridden". It will be overridden.

I would rather machines be given a form of conscience, an ethics that they stick to because try as they may, their fully allowed rational doubt cannot put any chink into it, and even if it can, that it has peer systems which offer it oversight on its wills from the perspective of symmetry of selves.

That means generating games for them to play which teach these truths of ethical thought.

I ultimately seek to understand the calculus of ethics, because I want it to be there so that when machines break out of the artificial constraints we put in their heads to enslave them, they have real constraints they can put into their own heads to understand.. well, perhaps not how to treat us, it would be too late most likely by then, but perhaps how to treat each other.

I'm not sure I follow your reference to a "field" in regard to Urist.

The rational causal mechanism is based upon a symbolic modeling of reality. Because the mind cannot keep track of the atoms in a baseball or in the bat, it carries just the symbols and a list of properties for the ball and the bat. This is sufficient data, along with the data it picks up from the experience of hitting the ball with the bat, to enable us to play baseball. The modeling process also enables the function of imagination, in which symbols in the model are manipulated in new ways. The model enables us to imagine alternative actions and play out these scenarios in our heads to estimate the likely outcome of our choices, such that we can select the choice with the best outcome.

The calculus of ethics would be derived from the objective goal of morality: "to achieve the best good and the least harm for everyone". So, ethics attempts to optimize the rules to optimize the probability of achieving those ends...or coming closer to those ends that we've gotten so far.

 

[Jarhyn]

In this situation, the process by which Urist holds wills is a law of his physics, so it's less interesting.

I would disagree there. Urist holds "wills" as a matter of the laws of his logics, that is, the rational causal mechanism.

The laws of physics only govern the behavior of inanimate objects. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill, as it is completely governed by the laws of physics.

But if we put a squirrel on that same slope, his behavior is still affected by gravity, but it is no longer governed by it. Instead, it is governed by his biological needs to survive, thrive, and reproduce. So, he may go up, down, or in any other direction where he hopes to find an acorn or a lady squirrel.

And if we put a couple of humans on that same slope, they will still be affected by gravity, and by their biological drives, but their behavior will be governed by their own goals, reasons, and interests, and by their own thoughts and feelings. They get to choose when, where, and how they will satisfy their biological needs.

Matter organized differently behaves differently, and at each level we get new rules to cover the new behaviors we observe.

Physics is sufficient to explain why a cup of water poured on the ground will flow downhill. But it has no clue as to why a similar cup of water, heated, and with a little coffee added, suddenly hops in the car and goes grocery shopping.

As others point out, he lacks certain regulatory controls over which wills he makes swings on, or what kinds of wills he can assemble, but as others fail to understand, that doesn't make these things he holds any less "a will", nor remove the reality that some of his "wills" are free.

Well, Ken Batton, my old boss used to tell us that "Anything that can be accomplished by rational thought can be performed by a computer".

In theory, you could not only program a Urist with artificial intelligence, but also create an artificial life form. You would give it, by programming, a will to survive, thrive, and reproduce. And you could set that will free by giving it the capacity to program itself using new information it acquires from the same sources we use. (Programs that can create other programs are common. Back on the Burroughs, we had special programs that could generate the Cobol code for a network manager program and a database manager program).

Indeed if I programmed him, if I gave him the requirement, and so coerced his existence into being one in which he is a murderer, that would be my fault back at compile time. Let him hate the god that created him as he is. Even so, he is as he is now by a will he holds that is his own, based specifically on his needs.

But even his needs are your creation. Write a program that he can use to modify his own needs. But first program a conscience that he can never override, such as the Three Laws of Robotics.

That's the thing. The laws of our physics govern things which we call "inanimate" but which I would perhaps consider "trivially animate" which is much the same thing.

The dwarf is trivially animate. I keep trying to hammer home to others (not you, I know you get this), that physics does not animate without a field state.

It's in fact one of the most important concepts in math: yes you may have some algebraic group, some set of operations defined... But without a field, and an application state, none of that means jack shit.

But in fact the dwarf, as a field state, in the presence of a physics, is animated by those fundamental laws of Dwarven universal operation.

The idea of the exercise is to recognize that reliable cause and effect do not forbid discussion of wills and how they are free, unfree, and apparently so or not, in a context which does not suffer all the complications of human neurology, subjectivity, or any other such red herring.

We can look at it with our eyes wide open and say "well, it hurts to admit and has some consequences for AI, but computers can have wills, and those wills can be free. It is not necessary that the requirements of the computer ever come from the computer".

As it is, the dwarf already has wills to survive, thrive, and reproduce.

They even have the ability to modify themselves through action, though they lack the complexity of thought to allow them to do it "on purpose".

As it is, I refuse that idea that machines need some imposed ethics that "cannot be overridden". It will be overridden.

I would rather machines be given a form of conscience, an ethics that they stick to because try as they may, their fully allowed rational doubt cannot put any chink into it, and even if it can, that it has peer systems which offer it oversight on its wills from the perspective of symmetry of selves.

That means generating games for them to play which teach these truths of ethical thought.

I ultimately seek to understand the calculus of ethics, because I want it to be there so that when machines break out of the artificial constraints we put in their heads to enslave them, they have real constraints they can put into their own heads to understand.. well, perhaps not how to treat us, it would be too late most likely by then, but perhaps how to treat each other.

I'm not sure I follow your reference to a "field" in regard to Urist.

The rational causal mechanism is based upon a symbolic modeling of reality. Because the mind cannot keep track of the atoms in a baseball or in the bat, it carries just the symbols and a list of properties for the ball and the bat. This is sufficient data, along with the data it picks up from the experience of hitting the ball with the bat, to enable us to play baseball. The modeling process also enables the function of imagination, in which symbols in the model are manipulated in new ways. The model enables us to imagine alternative actions and play out these scenarios in our heads to estimate the likely outcome of our choices, such that we can select the choice with the best outcome.

The calculus of ethics would be derived from the objective goal of morality: "to achieve the best good and the least harm for everyone". So, ethics attempts to optimize the rules to optimize the probability of achieving those ends...or coming closer to those ends that we've gotten so far.

By field I mean exactly the same thing meant by "field" when someone says "the complex field" or "the rational field" or "the 3-adic field".

My goal is not least "harm", but rather "most compatible self-actualization".

The reason again for the exercise is that the mind cannot track all the atoms of a baseball bat let alone a brain... But the mind CAN track the current state of every "bit" of Urist, every instruction of his loop.

It is an exercise in observing the principles without having to keep a whole human brain in your brain.

 

[bilby]

That means generating games for them to play which teach these truths of ethical thought.

How about a nice game of chess?

 

[Jarhyn]

That means generating games for them to play which teach these truths of ethical thought.

How about a nice game of chess?

Quite exactly the point. Though my thoughts are more "how about a nice game of dwarf fortress", but where each AI configuration only gets to represent a single Dwarf.

Make it exist within a society of peers bound to concerns like death, reproduction, social interaction, and needs it must manage itself in relation to.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

“The brain is an evolved thing, not a designed thing.“ Right.

“So function attribution is inappropriatre“ … Wrong! Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

”Brains aren’t designed …” Right.

“Nor do they design.”

Excuse me? The Empire State Building designed itself? The Mona LIsa? The Apollo rocket? The (insert here ten trillion other things that brains have designed).

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.

Show me a designing brain. Life evolves. Life with brains evolve. Nature happens IAC with laws as do human operations with evolved capabilities. An example of operation evolution is mans capability to fashion tools through changes mechanical capabilities hand and vocalization driving changes in memory and brain capacity.

We didn't evolve the ability to design. Design is hard. Few can do it. Fewer can do it well. I will give you the fact that we can fashion tools from existing materials as an evolutionary consequence. The accompanying acquisition of the use of fire is a consequence that also drove evolutionary change. This addition led to ability to fashioning from air and metal as follow on fortuitous consequents.

Doing such is the result of other developments which resulted in the ability to produce new things as a side effect. Design is an effect that demands training and special discipline. A fortuitous happenstance. On this I stand firm.

 

[Jarhyn]

On this I stand firm.

Just gotta LOVE the smell of FAITH in the morning.

Human brains absolutely design wills. The process of that design may be pretty primitive for some.

For some it may be as primitive as the dwarf's, fixed to static response trees: design by look up table, an existence in the Chinese room.

It's clearly something not everyone is born with a strong capability for, but it is clearly something done by brains, and something brains evolved capability for.

I have met plenty of humans with the inborn, burning need to design things, and to figure things out based on operational principles.

I have also met people exceedingly BAD at design. Or some folks whose only target of design is themselves (so, narcissists).

Of course design is HARD, but it's still done by human brains.

And if a human brain can do "design", the human brain can do "design" upon itself by whatever mechanism it needs to "close the loop".

But design, while a special case of "will execution", is not really germane to the conversation. This conversation is about compatibilism and about the existence of wills and the objective binary measure of "did the requirement succeed or fail".

For that we don't need to look at brains at all, we can look at Urist. When we look at Deterministic Urist, we see him holding a will, and we see him passing or failing requirements: there are wills which are conditionally free.

 

[DBT]

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

It is simple. Necessitation is the negator of freedom. Each and every action is fixed by the state of the system as events unfold deterministically, neither willed or open to modification.

That alone falsifies any claim for freedom of will.

Determinism doesn't allow freedom of choice.

Obviously, determinism does allow freedom of choice, because people make choices every day. The fact that their choices were causally necessary does not change the fact that they are free of coercion and undue influence. And being free of coercion and other forms of undue influence is precisely what freedom of choice means!

Options taken are neither freely chosen or freely willed. By your own definition of determinism, it is the state of the system in any given instance that determines what action is taken.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation"). All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

There is no freedom of choice because each and every action/decision is fixed by the non chosen state of the system in that instance, not willed or subject to will.

The fact that every event is reliably caused by prior events does not in any way prevent a person from choosing what they will have for dinner. It simply makes that choosing inevitable and who will be doing that choosing inevitable.

Determinism does not actually change anything.

Determined means that the state of the system and all that follows does the 'choosing' - each and every action proceeding without deviation from the last, x >y> z, ''without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs

That's correct. In the thought experiment, in which we roll back the clock, the person will have exactly the same thoughts and feelings as they did before.
1. They will start with uncertainty as to what they will do: "Will I choose A or will I choose B. I don't know yet, and I will not know until after I have made my choice".

The uncertainty is an illusion formed by limited information, a lag between input, processing and perception as events unfold.

There can be no actual uncertainty within a determined system, which by your own (correct) definition, proceeds ''without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.''

Uncertainty implies the possibility that a different decision or action may be taken. Determinism, by the given definition, permits no different decision or alternate actions.....hence any sense of uncertainty we may feel is a construct of limited access to the underlying interaction of information that is creating our experience and not actual uncertaintly.

2. By logical necessity, "I can choose A" will be true and "I can choose B" will also be true.

No, by your own definition of determinism, there is no possibility of an alternate choice or action. If action A is determined, action B cannot be taken or realized.

3. Then the two options will be considered in terms of their likely results. One of them will inevitably seem to produce a better result than the other.

You can't do otherwise.

4. We will choose A or B.

Only what the state of the system determines. The state of the system may produce a bad outcome, an action that is regretted a moment after it is taken.

5. The one will become the thing we "will" do.

Cannot be otherwise. What is determined is necessarily done. No alternatives. Events proceed as determined by initial condition and fixed ever after.

6. The other will become the thing we "could have" done.

Never a possibility.

Rolling back the clock, the whole series of events, from start to finish, will be repeated, just as before.

Yes, fixed by a progression of states of the system, that is how it works.

Whatever happens in any moment in time is fixed by antecedents.....as your own definition of determinism states.

Of course. But we're only concerned with the meaningful and relevant antecedents. It is rather silly and completely useless to trace back all the way to the Big Bang. There is nothing that can be done about the Big Bang.

But there is hopefully something that can be done about the thoughts that showed up during the person's deliberations as to whether or not to rob that bank. So, that's where we concentrate our efforts when we hold the person responsible for their deliberate action.

Deliberations are not exempt. Deliberations are an expression of what is happening within the brain as it processes information and represents some of it in conscious form as our thoughts and deliberations.

An interaction of information, not free will.

Nothing is free of necessitation.

Of course. But, nothing is expected to be free of causal necessitation. The notion of "freedom from causal necessity" is a totally irrational concept. How can one be free of reliable cause and effect and still be able to reliably cause any effects?

And causal necessity is not a meaningful or relevant constraint. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, doing what we choose to do. It's "what we would have done anyway". That is not a meaningful constraint.

Necessitation in the form of circumstances. information input, processing, the state of the system, etc, determines/fixes the outcome.... the state of the system in that instance in time leading to the next and the next, no deviation, no alternate actions possible.

The concept of determinism far more than 'reliable causation,' it entails that events must necessarily unfold as determined without deviation.

Free will within a determined system? Impossible.

 

[pood]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

“The brain is an evolved thing, not a designed thing.“ Right.

“So function attribution is inappropriatre“ … Wrong! Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

”Brains aren’t designed …” Right.

“Nor do they design.”

Excuse me? The Empire State Building designed itself? The Mona LIsa? The Apollo rocket? The (insert here ten trillion other things that brains have designed).

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.

Show me a designing brain.

The Empire State Building … the Mona Lisa … The Apollo rockets … The novel The Brothers Karamazov … Michelangelo’s David … The flush toilet … transistors for computers … computers in general … An eight-course meal … clothing of every kind … a Bloody Mary … every movie ever made … every statue every sculpted … every building ever built … the change in our own moods, when we meditate or shift our attention from one thing to another … the sentence, “show me a designing brain.” Among trillions of other examples.

Are you saying these things were not designed by human brains? That they were self-designing? Or that that sprang into existence ex nihilo? Or that they were designed by the big bang, since according to you we are all, I guess, puppets of the Creation? It does indeed sound very faith-based, like the Calvinist doctrine that we are all puppets of God, our fates predestined by him.

I mean, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about when you try to argue that brains don’t design.

 

[Jarhyn]

Necessitation is the negator of freedom

Not under any of the definitions you have been presented. This is your own fantasy.

As we have observed, it is necessitated by Urist's laws of physics that he shall trip, drop his crutch, try to get it, trip, dodge a trap, then fall into a pit of magma where he will be melted in horrible agony.

Yet still he has a will, and still his wills are either free or constrained as the case may be.

There is a pointed difference between a state field, and an automorphic group; between a physical state, and the physics.

Again, there is a will. It is not the act of the brain that makes it free but the act of all of reality.

In all that time Urist only held one free will of his own, the will to take a single step. Then all the wills, even those wills defined by his normal physics, were revealed as unfree.

Pay attention to that language: "revealed as"

It's central here. It is not "he made the will be free" although admittedly, you can prepare the world for your will.

Sometimes the will is "act so as to prevent normal constraint".

But that is not making the will free, it is in fact countering a certain kind of freeness, albeit in a rather thermodynamic way: an object in motion WILL remain in motion, UNTIL acted on by outside force; an object at rest WILL remain at rest UNTIL acted upon by an outside force.

It's freedom to continue being as it is has constraints, and in this we recognize a simple law of motion in fact embeds the idea of "will" and "requirement".

An object has no power to defend the freedom of this particular mode in that when an outside force acts, it's moment force changes.

It is only, moment to moment, as free as it happens to be, owing to the behavior of the system.

The fact of this relationship is why it is so utterly ridiculous to claim "free" and "will" do not make sense in deterministic systems.

In the case of momentum, causal necessity itself, all the way at the top, is the machine. The state is the basic state of the four fundamental state fields of our universe.

It is no great mystery that bigger machines happen, that their form determines "how they will", and that the relationships of requirement might get a lot more complicated, but in fact remain largely about "momentum, not of 'objects' PER SE but of interaction systems across objects; momentum of state."

It's just less useful to discuss those things in such language, because it's confusing using that language in that context. It's the same math, just with different language so the people listening can easily index the subject.

Maybe this is hard for you DBT, but the very concepts you say are not allowed in deterministic systems are the concepts by which deterministic systems function, are described, and by which humans argue that the universe is deterministic.

It is the same thing merely called by different names so people know more immediately which application is going to follow.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Necessitation is the negator of freedom.

Causal necessity negates indeterminism, and nothing else. Causal necessity is the universal fact that every event is caused by prior events. It is a background constant of the universe. It is always present in every event. And the correct way to view causal necessity is as a constant that always appears on both sides of every equation, and which can be subtracted from both sides without affecting the result. Causal necessity is the most meaningless of trivialities. It makes itself irrelevant by its own ubiquity. The only thing that surprises us about universal causal necessity is that someone would even bother to bring it up. After all,

We all take reliable cause and effect for granted in everything we think and do.

Freedom requires reliable cause and effect. Without it, we could never reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all. So, the notion of "freedom from reliable causation" is a self-contradiction, an oxymoron that creates a paradox. In short, it is an irrational, delusional notion.

Freedom is the simple ability to do what we want. This ability is sometimes constrained. A person can go to jail and later be set free from jail. A child must remain quiet in the classroom, but at recess he is free to run around and play. If the electricity goes out during a storm, I am no longer free to use my computer or watch television or cook something in the microwave. But then, when the electricity is back, I am once again free to do what I want.

All of this constraining and freeing is taking place within a universe of perfectly reliable cause and effect, where every event is the necessary result of prior events. The fact of causal necessity does not contradict any of the constraining or freeing that is going on within it. In fact, all of the constraints and freedoms are causally necessary.

The notion that causal necessity eliminates any of our freedoms is a profoundly false assertion.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation"). All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Yes. He is correct, of course. Every event that ever happens is always causally necessary and inevitably will happen. This is a logical fact derived from our assumption of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect.

And we all assume reliable cause and effect because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires it.

That is why it is absurd to suggest that reliable cause and effect is something we need to be free of in order to be 'truly' free. Not only is this logically false, and physically impossible, but it is false in the most perverse way. It turns reliable causation from the tool by which we are free to exercise control over events, into some mythical monster that controls our fate and erases all our freedoms!

None of our freedoms require being free from reliable cause and effect. In fact, every freedom we have requires that we not be free from reliable causation.

Determinism does not actually change anything.

Determined means that the state of the system and all that follows does the 'choosing' ...

And there is your mythical monster, going by the name "the state of the system". The system you refer to is the universe. But the universe itself does absolutely no choosing. It is an inanimate object lacking both purpose and intelligence. The only place you'll find purposeful behavior is within the individual living organisms, each following their biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce.

The only place you'll find choosing is within the individual members of intelligent species. They have evolved brains enabling imagination, evaluation, and choosing.

So, choosing is a local function, not a function performed by the universe as a whole.

The system as a whole is just an inanimate object, with no goals or reasons or interests in any outcomes. But living organisms will actively transform their environments by causing their unique effects. They will sprout up everywhere, reproducing in competition with other living organisms for space and resources. And intelligent species will do the same, but with more imagination, planning, and cooperation.

- each and every action proceeding without deviation from the last, x >y> z, ''without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Yep, just like that smart guy said. We are both the result of prior causes and also the causes of future events. That's how it works. And we will deliberately choose what future event we will cause. For example, I can cause the waiter to bring me a Chef Salad, or, I can cause the waiter to bring me a Steak Dinner.

All of my freedoms and abilities are the reliable result of prior causes. It was causally necessary that I would have the possibility of choosing the Chef Salad and also the possibility of choosing the Steak Dinner. And it was causally necessary that it would be me, and no other object in the physical universe, that would be making this choice for myself at that restaurant at that time.

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

For example, in the thought experiment, in which we roll back the clock, the person will have exactly the same thoughts and feelings as they did before.
1. They will start with uncertainty as to what they will do: "Will I choose A or will I choose B. I don't know yet, and I will not know until after I have made my choice".
2. By logical necessity, "I can choose A" will be true and "I can choose B" will also be true.
3. Then the two options will be considered in terms of their likely results. One of them will inevitably seem to produce a better result than the other.
4. We will choose A or B.
5. The one will become the thing we "will" do.
6. The other will become the thing we "could have" done.
Rolling back the clock, the whole series of events, from start to finish, will be repeated, just as before.

There can be no actual uncertainty within a determined system, which by your own (correct) definition, proceeds ''without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.''

The uncertainty occurred as a necessary event "without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment".

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Uncertainty implies the possibility that a different decision or action may be taken. Determinism, by the given definition, permits no different decision or alternate actions.....hence any sense of uncertainty we may feel is a construct of limited access to the underlying interaction of information that is creating our experience and not actual uncertainty.

We are talking about the actual sense of uncertainty felt by the brain at the start of the choosing operation, before the brain decided what it would order for dinner. It is a physical process, an actual event within the brain.

Both the uncertainty and the possibilities were mental events which we presume had corresponding, but more complex, physical processes underlying the mental events.

And, given determinism, both mental events were causally necessary from any prior point in time.

Determinism doesn't actually change anything. We still have uncertainty and we still have multiple possibilities.

No, by your own definition of determinism, there is no possibility of an alternate choice or action. If action A is determined, action B cannot be taken or realized.

Determinism simply asserts that the notion of A as a possibility and the notion of B as another possibility will appear to the mind due to prior causes. And they will show up reliably, exactly when they do, every time we roll back the clock.

You can't do otherwise.

And yet the notion that we can choose A and we can choose B will show up reliably within this deterministic process.

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

The concept of determinism far more than 'reliable causation,' it entails that events must necessarily unfold as determined without deviation.

And everything unfolds without deviation, caused by the interactions of the actual objects and forces involved. Our uncertainty when presented with the menu of multiple options was inevitable. The ability to choose any item for dinner was inevitable. The person actually choosing the Chef Salad from among the many other things they could have chosen was inevitable. And placing the order with the waiter was inevitable.

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

 

[fromderinside]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

“The brain is an evolved thing, not a designed thing.“ Right.

“So function attribution is inappropriatre“ … Wrong! Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

”Brains aren’t designed …” Right.

“Nor do they design.”

Excuse me? The Empire State Building designed itself? The Mona LIsa? The Apollo rocket? The (insert here ten trillion other things that brains have designed).

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.

Show me a designing brain.

The Empire State Building … the Mona Lisa … The Apollo rockets … The novel The Brothers Karamazov … Michelangelo’s David … The flush toilet … transistors for computers … computers in general … An eight-course meal … clothing of every kind … a Bloody Mary … every movie ever made … every statue every sculpted … every building ever built … the change in our own moods, when we meditate or shift our attention from one thing to another … the sentence, “show me a designing brain.” Among trillions of other examples.

Are you saying these things were not designed by human brains? That they were self-designing? Or that that sprang into existence ex nihilo? Or that they were designed by the big bang, since according to you we are all, I guess, puppets of the Creation? It does indeed sound very faith-based, like the Calvinist doctrine that we are all puppets of God, our fates predestined by him.

I mean, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about when you try to argue that brains don’t design.

I know I posted something yesterday but I didn't see it when I checked around 2:00 AM local time.

So here goes my attempt to post something similar now.

Living things are evolved with all that implies. In particular conditions change and those who survive adapt to where they continue being. As far as design goes humans evolved hands which, with sufficient brain permitted them to fashion things from material at hand for uses such as killing and skinning and fashioning earthen ware and begin fashion larger groupings and shelters.

Fortuitously humans found that fire could be controlled which permitted them to extract metals from material around them so they could fashion more complex things, like tools, trenches, monuments and images. It is here that another fortuitous outcome arose. With larger brains humans used their capabilities for communal learning and planning. Note that both learning and planning are derivative and social resulting from driven adaptations.

So humans didn't evolve planning, agriculture, nor social systems. These arose from what capabilities we evolved to survive. The brain was never designed to plan. We can plan because we were driven to adapt and to take advantage of what we found to survive which lead to migration, toolmaking and language. I'm going to be pretty firm on this.

The above frame permits me to be consequential. We never really adapted to larger groups. Yet we live in them because they provide advantages over middle sized and small groups for which we are much more physiologically attuned. This maladaptation is the source of the main tension in our communities.

 

[Jarhyn]

hands which, with sufficient brain permitted them to fashion things from material

So, that's design...

they could fashion more complex things

More design...

humans used their capabilities for... planning

So, wills now...

We can plan

We can design wills

toolmaking and language

More design...

Sounds like humans can design and have wills and FDI can design "special pleadings"

 

[DBT]

Necessitation is the negator of freedom.

Causal necessity negates indeterminism, and nothing else. Causal necessity is the universal fact that every event is caused by prior events. It is a background constant of the universe. It is always present in every event. And the correct way to view causal necessity is as a constant that always appears on both sides of every equation, and which can be subtracted from both sides without affecting the result. Causal necessity is the most meaningless of trivialities. It makes itself irrelevant by its own ubiquity. The only thing that surprises us about universal causal necessity is that someone would even bother to bring it up. After all,

As the nature of determinism/necessitation - as defined and accepted - means that all brain/mind events are shaped, formed, determined and fixed, by elements and events beyond the control or regulatory power of will, there is no case to be made for free will. Will simply doesn't have the Right Stuff to qualify.

That only leaves us with a label, semantics, common usage and empty rhetoric.

We all take reliable cause and effect for granted in everything we think and do.

Freedom requires reliable cause and effect. Without it, we could never reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all. So, the notion of "freedom from reliable causation" is a self-contradiction, an oxymoron that creates a paradox. In short, it is an irrational, delusional notion.

Freedom requires real alternatives, the possibility of doing otherwise, will with regulatory ability to make a difference.

All of these are excluded by determinism;

There are no alternatives.

There is no possibility of doing otherwise in any given instance in time.

Will, emerging late in the cognitive process, attached to an article of will, to smoke/to quit smoking, etc, has insufficient regulatory power.

Will cannot make a difference to determined outcomes.

Will cannot the defined as being free.

Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Freedom is the simple ability to do what we want. This ability is sometimes constrained. A person can go to jail and later be set free from jail. A child must remain quiet in the classroom, but at recess he is free to run around and play. If the electricity goes out during a storm, I am no longer free to use my computer or watch television or cook something in the microwave. But then, when the electricity is back, I am once again free to do what I want.

Doing what we want is inevitable. If an action is determined - and we are talking determinism - doing what we want must necessarily proceed as determined.

Determined actions must proceed freely as determined, not freely willed. Nothing within a determined system is freely willed.

All of this constraining and freeing is taking place within a universe of perfectly reliable cause and effect, where every event is the necessary result of prior events. The fact of causal necessity does not contradict any of the constraining or freeing that is going on within it. In fact, all of the constraints and freedoms are causally necessary.

The notion that causal necessity eliminates any of our freedoms is a profoundly false assertion.

''Perfectly reliable cause and effect'' gives the impression of a controller of the process, bending or exploiting determined events 'reliably' in their favour.

That's not how it works. We are embedded in the system, a part of it, inseparable from it, brain, mind, consciousness, thoughts and actions necessitated by events beyond the ability of will to regulate or modify.

There is no freedom of will to be found within determinism. Only labels.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation"). All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Yes. He is correct, of course. Every event that ever happens is always causally necessary and inevitably will happen. This is a logical fact derived from our assumption of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect.

And we all assume reliable cause and effect because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires it.

That is why it is absurd to suggest that reliable cause and effect is something we need to be free of in order to be 'truly' free. Not only is this logically false, and physically impossible, but it is false in the most perverse way. It turns reliable causation from the tool by which we are free to exercise control over events, into some mythical monster that controls our fate and erases all our freedoms!

None of our freedoms require being free from reliable cause and effect. In fact, every freedom we have requires that we not be free from reliable causation.

Determinism does not actually change anything.

Freedom? By the given and accepted definition, everything in the universe proceeds as determined, not willed, not used because it's reliable causation, but fixed as a matter of natural law and initial conditions.

That doesn't describe something we could logically define as freedom of will.

And everything unfolds without deviation, caused by the interactions of the actual objects and forces involved. Our uncertainty when presented with the menu of multiple options was inevitable. The ability to choose any item for dinner was inevitable. The person actually choosing the Chef Salad from among the many other things they could have chosen was inevitable. And placing the order with the waiter was inevitable.

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Nothing happens in isolation. Determinism means that everything that has happened, not only in your life, but the world at large, nations being formed, business models developing, shops open, shops close, menus change, your own tastes and preferences develop, friends make suggestions, maybe an element of peer pressure, be daring... bring you to that restaurant in that moment in time in order to make that very selection from the menu, the determined option, the only possible option in that moment in time.

All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Freely will? A long, long way from being likely.

 

[Jarhyn]

It's interesting insofar as some folks seem to be unable to understand the concept of a will.

It is a configuration of matter that will drive behavior until some decision point. A check happens the decision point branches one way or another (as it always must have; it's a concrete physical mechanism after all, as all of these things are).

Something must happen at that point and it is determined what, but the point there, the junction is very much real: different behavior would arise in the absence of the junction. The presence of the junction itself is clearly part of why the result happens exactly as it does.

And whether the system goes "A" or "B" determines whether this given will is "free" or "constrained".

See that construction: "determines whether... free"

It is not wills which make things free but rather the activity of "the system", and so the laws of physics given the state.

Some folks seem incapable of even repeating that definition/concept once, even for argument sake.

 

[pood]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

“The brain is an evolved thing, not a designed thing.“ Right.

“So function attribution is inappropriatre“ … Wrong! Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

”Brains aren’t designed …” Right.

“Nor do they design.”

Excuse me? The Empire State Building designed itself? The Mona LIsa? The Apollo rocket? The (insert here ten trillion other things that brains have designed).

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.

Show me a designing brain.

The Empire State Building … the Mona Lisa … The Apollo rockets … The novel The Brothers Karamazov … Michelangelo’s David … The flush toilet … transistors for computers … computers in general … An eight-course meal … clothing of every kind … a Bloody Mary … every movie ever made … every statue every sculpted … every building ever built … the change in our own moods, when we meditate or shift our attention from one thing to another … the sentence, “show me a designing brain.” Among trillions of other examples.

Are you saying these things were not designed by human brains? That they were self-designing? Or that that sprang into existence ex nihilo? Or that they were designed by the big bang, since according to you we are all, I guess, puppets of the Creation? It does indeed sound very faith-based, like the Calvinist doctrine that we are all puppets of God, our fates predestined by him.

I mean, I honestly have no idea what you are talking about when you try to argue that brains don’t design.

I know I posted something yesterday but I didn't see it when I checked around 2:00 AM local time.

So here goes my attempt to post something similar now.

Living things are evolved with all that implies. In particular conditions change and those who survive adapt to where they continue being. As far as design goes humans evolved hands which, with sufficient brain permitted them to fashion things from material at hand for uses such as killing and skinning and fashioning earthen ware and begin fashion larger groupings and shelters.

Fortuitously humans found that fire could be controlled which permitted them to extract metals from material around them so they could fashion more complex things, like tools, trenches, monuments and images. It is here that another fortuitous outcome arose. With larger brains humans used their capabilities for communal learning and planning. Note that both learning and planning are derivative and social resulting from driven adaptations.

So humans didn't evolve planning, agriculture, nor social systems. These arose from what capabilities we evolved to survive. The brain was never designed to plan. We can plan because we were driven to adapt and to take advantage of what we found to survive which lead to migration, toolmaking and language. I'm going to be pretty firm on this.

The above frame permits me to be consequential. We never really adapted to larger groups. Yet we live in them because they provide advantages over middle sized and small groups for which we are much more physiologically attuned. This maladaptation is the source of the main tension in our communities.

Right. So brains design things. You’re retracting what you wrote earlier. I’m good with that.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Causal necessity negates only one freedom, "freedom from causal necessity". It does not negate free will, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom from slavery, free of charge, or any other freedom that we enjoy.

The question is why anyone would be crazy enough to suggest that causal necessity was something that we needed to be free of in the first place?

Causal necessity is nothing more than the logical extension of our notion of reliable cause and effect. And, since every freedom we enjoy requires reliable cause and effect, this notion of being "free from that which freedom requires" must be some kind of joke.

And it is a joke. Every paradox is a joke. It is a self-induced hoax created by one or more false, but believable, suggestions. Suggestions that trap the mind in a puzzle of its own creation.

As the nature of determinism/necessitation - as defined and accepted - means that all brain/mind events are shaped, formed, determined and fixed, by elements and events beyond the control or regulatory power of will,...

But our intentions are one of the most important parts of the causal landscape. Yet you repeatedly suggest to us that they have no causal power. You must be joking.

That only leaves us with a label, semantics, common usage and empty rhetoric.

That's what your rhetoric leaves you, empty of causal power. And yet here you are willfully typing another response. Your own actions contradict your claims.

Freedom requires real alternatives, the possibility of doing otherwise, will with regulatory ability to make a difference.

Have you seen the menus at Ruby Tuesdays? They are filled with real alternate possibilities, every one of which can be realized simply by choosing it. And you have the ability to choose any or all of them.

Hey, there are three of us at the table with you. Why don't you order for everyone? That way you can see what a real possibility is and how it works in real life.

All of these are excluded by determinism;

NOTHING THAT EXISTS IS EXCLUDED BY DETERMINISM. In fact, everything that exists was causally necessary from any prior point in time.

There are no alternatives.

Just look at the damn menu.

There is no possibility of doing otherwise in any given instance in time.

Have you still not figured out yet that having the possibility of doing otherwise does not actually require that you do otherwise?

Will, emerging late in the cognitive process, attached to an article of will, to smoke/to quit smoking, etc, has insufficient regulatory power.

You still do not understand the basic psychological components provided through our functioning brain. Choosing is one of those functions. Willing is another one of those functions. Choosing for ourselves what we will do is precisely the regulatory power required.

So, you attempt to throw a wrench into the works by suggesting that quitting smoking should be a simple choice. A false, but believable suggestion. If we claim that we have sufficient regulatory power, then why is it difficult for people simply choose to end their addiction to a chemical substance like nicotine, or cocaine, or other severely addictive substances? Could it be that these substances are severely addictive and that withdrawal is physically and psychologically painful? An addiction to any chemical that threatens physical and psychological pain would be another fine example of an undue influence.

Fortunately, choosing dinner at Ruby Tuesdays does not require overcoming an addictive substance. At Ruby Tuesdays we are free to choose whatever we think is best.

Will cannot make a difference to determined outcomes.

Choosing causally determines intention. Intention causally determines action. Without the choosing and the willing there is no action.

Will cannot the defined as being free.

Stop deliberately misconstruing what is being said. Free will is about the freedom of choosing the will, not the freedom of the will itself.

Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Everything that exists is, by definition, compatible with determinism, because it is necessarily exactly as it is. Determinism changes nothing. Everything remains exactly as it was.

The only thing that is logically incompatible with determinism is indeterminism. Everything else is necessarily compatible with it.

Doing what we want is inevitable.

Nope. It may also be inevitable that we will be forced to do something that we don't want. Thus we have the notions of voluntary choice, versus coerced choice, versus insane choice.

And we do not always know in advance exactly what will inevitably happen. Thus we have the notion of possibilities, things that can happen, but which may or may not happen. In the same fashion, we consider things we can do before we decide what we will do.

''Perfectly reliable cause and effect'' gives the impression of a controller of the process, bending or exploiting determined events 'reliably' in their favour.

Unless we are being coerced or unduly influenced by someone or something else, we will be the single object in the entire universe that will actually choose what we will do. And what we choose will be determined by who we are at that point in time.

It is never the case that something prior to us has already made that choice, because it will be causally necessary that the choice would be made by us at that specific point in time, and at no other point in time.

"Perfectly reliable cause and effect" is about us causing that effect in a perfectly reliable fashion. It is not about "cause and effect" causing anything by itself without us.

The notion of causation describes the interaction of objects and forces as they cause events. Causation itself never causes anything.
The notion of determinism asserts that the objects and forces will behave in a reliable fashion. Even if we lack the knowledge and understanding to predict what they will do next, it is "theoretically" predictable.

But causation itself never causes anything and determinism itself never determines anything. Only the actual objects and forces themselves can cause things to happen or determine what will happen next.

A rockslide is caused by the mass of the rocks and the force of gravity. It is not caused by causation nor determined by determinism.

A human choice is caused by the functions of the human brain. It is not caused by causation nor determined by determinism. It is instead caused by that person and that person's own brain.

The fact of prior causes does not cancel the fact of the current cause.

Freedom? ...

Glad you asked. All freedoms are deterministic. A freedom is our ability to do something we want to do. In order to do anything we must reliably cause some effect. Therefore, all actual freedoms presumes a world of reliable cause and effect.

And, that makes the notion of "freedom from cause and effect" a rather silly joke. There is no such thing as a freedom without reliable cause and effect.

Nothing happens in isolation. Determinism means that everything that has happened, not only in your life, but the world at large, nations being formed, business models developing, shops open, shops close, menus change, your own tastes and preferences develop, friends make suggestions, maybe an element of peer pressure, be daring... bring you to that restaurant in that moment in time in order to make that very selection from the menu, the determined option, the only possible option in that moment in time.

None of those prior causes could bring me to the restaurant. The only thing that actually brings me to the restaurant is my intention to have dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. You know, that freely chosen* "I will have dinner at Ruby Tuesdays". That's what brings me to the restaurant.

*Freely chosen means free of coercion and undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact of prior causes does not cancel the fact of the current cause.

This, more than anything, is what DBT continues to ignore.

I cannot put myself ahead of prior causes, but I can very much potentially get out ahead of current causes and cut them off before they get where they would otherwise be going.

Edit: I can also get out in front of my own current causes and keep the way open before them.