Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

Before we can talk of determinism properly we need to resolve the distinction between reality and perception.

Again, one freedom is an imagining of, a precursor to a will calculated for it's likelihood to remain free, for the maintainability of the potential for freedom.

This subtle difference between "what we imagine" and "what is and shall be" is easy to get lost in. Both FDI and DBT get lost in it, the former in their discussions of subjective/objective, and the latter in his discussion of "regulatory control".

There is a reality as to which wills are "free", nonetheless, as to their requirements being satisfied.

If you were actually reading the discussion, you might have noticed we have already considered this distinction and found it does no injury to compatibilism.

One is the basis for the decision, and a provisional freedom, a model and an imagining.

Nonetheless this imagining yields a list of actions, a prescription to accomplish the result. The result itself is "an object must do some specific thing", usually an object deep inside the brain.

That's objective. Marvin and I both already understood that I think long before page 51. I've certainly been discussing it for some time now.

Just search "provisional freedom".

There are a bunch of references about it.

"Provisional freedom" is an arbitrary score attached to some imagined series of events as part of the absurd process by which wills are designed.

They tell us how likely a will is to succeed and that is a variable of whatever choice function is the agency of the decision.

This is not what compatibilists are discussing when they discuss "free will".

When compatibilists discuss "free will" they are discussing whether the objective requirements, the real "plate on the bear trap" trigger requirement is met.

It happens that the mechanical "plate on the bear trap" trigger requirement of a specific system with an active set of very loose requirements says "decide for yourself what you will do don't let anybody else tell you what to do".

Or at least some of us have that. Or something like that

When that will is not constantly having it's requirement met, we say "that person lacks free will" because the will we are referring to, is that one specific will. See all references of "free will**". We are not referencing whether it is "provisionally free", we are referencing whether it is objectively, actually free to the requirement. No imagination necessary.

There are a specific set of neurological processes that can, in their action, cause that will to be identifiable as "not free". This is not subjective any more than it is subjective that Urist losing his crutch caused his will to objectively switch tracks, his prior job to be cancelled, and a new job of seeking his crutch to exist.

Do catch up.

I don't have to. Math isn't material. Its a man made construct used in science as a convenient operator with which one can explain material processes. Your problem is you want to take the math and apply it to your schemes for manipulating subjective notions as an experiment The essential elements in science are experiments using direct (material) observation presented with material measurable reference.

Put in teaching form: https://explorable.com/scientific-elements

the elements are:
Observation and Review
Hypothesis
Predictions
Experiment and Measurement (This is a material, not mental, exercise)
Variations.

The computer is absolutely material, and the word you use "determinism" is a concept of math.

You don't seem to see that, or understand it, for all your bloviation.

Math is not something humans made, it is something that the universe adheres to that people just discovered and described. It may perhaps be the foundation of all ideas of description in general.

When YOU say "the universe is deterministic" you are taking a structure of math "determinism" with requirements produced by what determinism is in math, and saying the universe itself satisfies all those properties.

When you say "the universe is deterministic" you are saying "the universe is a mathematically perfect machination of particle behaviors" whether you want to or not.

When you say "determinism rules out free will**" you are speaking not of one thing, but an entire class of things in math.

All I have to do is find ONE thing in that class, just one, and show that your statement is false of that ONE thing in that class to disprove your silliness.

Moreover, in doing so, I also objectively prove free will exists specifically in this universe because it will be proven of a mathematically deterministic system that exists in this universe.

You are the one who says "deterministic systems do not allow free will**"

Secondly, while this is in one aspect a solid, hard math, it is also a material deterministic object existing in a universe which you claim is deterministic... And those objects, which statistically are bound as mathematical constructs of a deterministic universe still have observable, objective wills, and some of those observable extant wills are objectively "free".

Just not that one will to open that one door. That will is freely held** but is not free*.

Again, we are talking about what "determinism" means and your contention is that "this cannot exist in determinsm."

I fairly well know determinism because I study the behavior of deterministic systems. In fact I commonly reverse engineer them.

If you wish to weaken your claim to "the free will you describe can exist in deterministic systems but we are incapable of that because (hand-waves neurology)" then we can move to that argument, but it would require you to drop this silly notion of yours about determinism and what it "allows".

If you wish to step into that argument, you abandon hard determinism.

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Before we can talk of determinism properly we need to resolve the distinction between reality and perception.

Again, one freedom is an imagining of, a precursor to a will calculated for it's likelihood to remain free, for the maintainability of the potential for freedom.

This subtle difference between "what we imagine" and "what is and shall be" is easy to get lost in. Both FDI and DBT get lost in it, the former in their discussions of subjective/objective, and the latter in his discussion of "regulatory control".

There is a reality as to which wills are "free", nonetheless, as to their requirements being satisfied.

If you were actually reading the discussion, you might have noticed we have already considered this distinction and found it does no injury to compatibilism.

One is the basis for the decision, and a provisional freedom, a model and an imagining.

Nonetheless this imagining yields a list of actions, a prescription to accomplish the result. The result itself is "an object must do some specific thing", usually an object deep inside the brain.

That's objective. Marvin and I both already understood that I think long before page 51. I've certainly been discussing it for some time now.

Just search "provisional freedom".

There are a bunch of references about it.

"Provisional freedom" is an arbitrary score attached to some imagined series of events as part of the absurd process by which wills are designed.

They tell us how likely a will is to succeed and that is a variable of whatever choice function is the agency of the decision.

This is not what compatibilists are discussing when they discuss "free will".

When compatibilists discuss "free will" they are discussing whether the objective requirements, the real "plate on the bear trap" trigger requirement is met.

It happens that the mechanical "plate on the bear trap" trigger requirement of a specific system with an active set of very loose requirements says "decide for yourself what you will do don't let anybody else tell you what to do".

Or at least some of us have that. Or something like that

When that will is not constantly having it's requirement met, we say "that person lacks free will" because the will we are referring to, is that one specific will. See all references of "free will**". We are not referencing whether it is "provisionally free", we are referencing whether it is objectively, actually free to the requirement. No imagination necessary.

There are a specific set of neurological processes that can, in their action, cause that will to be identifiable as "not free". This is not subjective any more than it is subjective that Urist losing his crutch caused his will to objectively switch tracks, his prior job to be cancelled, and a new job of seeking his crutch to exist.

Do catch up.

I don't have to. Math isn't material. Its a man made construct used in science as a convenient operator with which one can explain material processes. Your problem is you want to take the math and apply it to your schemes for manipulating subjective notions as an experiment The essential elements in science are experiments using direct (material) observation presented with material measurable reference.

Put in teaching form: https://explorable.com/scientific-elements

the elements are:
Observation and Review
Hypothesis
Predictions
Experiment and Measurement (This is a material, not mental, exercise)
Variations.

The computer is absolutely material, and the word you use "determinism" is a concept of math.

You don't seem to see that, or understand it, for all your bloviation.

Math is not something humans made, it is something that the universe adheres to that people just discovered and described. It may perhaps be the foundation of all ideas of description in general.

When YOU say "the universe is deterministic" you are taking a structure of math "determinism" with requirements produced by what determinism is in math, and saying the universe itself satisfies all those properties.

When you say "the universe is deterministic" you are saying "the universe is a mathematically perfect machination of particle behaviors" whether you want to or not.

When you say "determinism rules out free will**" you are speaking not of one thing, but an entire class of things in math.

All I have to do is find ONE thing in that class, just one, and show that your statement is false of that ONE thing in that class to disprove your silliness.

Moreover, in doing so, I also objectively prove free will exists specifically in this universe because it will be proven of a mathematically deterministic system that exists in this universe.

You are the one who says "deterministic systems do not allow free will**"

Secondly, while this is in one aspect a solid, hard math, it is also a material deterministic object existing in a universe which you claim is deterministic... And those objects, which statistically are bound as mathematical constructs of a deterministic universe still have observable, objective wills, and some of those observable extant wills are objectively "free".

Just not that one will to open that one door. That will is freely held** but is not free*.

Again, we are talking about what "determinism" means and your contention is that "this cannot exist in determinsm."

I fairly well know determinism because I study the behavior of deterministic systems. In fact I commonly reverse engineer them.

If you wish to weaken your claim to "the free will you describe can exist in deterministic systems but we are incapable of that because (hand-waves neurology)" then we can move to that argument, but it would require you to drop this silly notion of yours about determinism and what it "allows".

If you wish to step into that argument, you abandon hard determinism.

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

 

[DBT]

The brain is the system, and as a conscious entity, it is not ''your'' brain to control as if you are the controller of 'your' brain. The brain generates you, your existence, your experience of self, thought and action through its information processing activity.

The answer to your riddle is this: If my brain generates me, my existence, my experience of self, my thoughts and actions, through its information processing activity, then it logically follows that, in all matters of my conscious awareness, my brain is identical to me.

It wasn't a riddle. Just how the brain works according to physical principles: neural networks acquiring and processing information and representing some of that information in conscious form. Input precedes processing which precedes conscious experience...

Ergo, you are identical to the state of the non chosen state of the brain. Because brain state is not chosen or willed, brain state does not equate to free will.

To claim it does is a declaration of belief, not a logical conclusion based on the available information.

I am my brain, or, at the very least, my brain's narrator function. When my brain decides something, and then informs me what it has decided, then I have decided it. Any actions that my brain consciously controls, I control.

My brain is controlling my choice, therefore I am controlling my choice. And the waiter will bring me the bill for my dinner.

When you say 'my narrator function' or 'my brain,' it implies that these are something that you as a conscious entity have or use. When the brain represents information in conscious form, it is not to inform you, but to construct a conscious representation of the external world and self in order to navigate and respond.

You, the conscious entity, the brain's Avatar, are the conscious representation.

The state of the brain equals the condition of you, which does not equate to free will.

Depends. Are you talking about libertarian free will or compatibilist free will?

Neither are possible within a determined system. Both are flawed concepts. Libertarian more so than Compatibilism.

Compatibilist free will only requires that, while the brain is choosing what I will have for dinner, it will not be subject to coercion or other undue influences.

The brain as a deterministic system is itself subject to necessitation. Something that is necessitated is not freely willed or chosen. Necessitation, therefore free will does not work.


''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents.'' - Oxford university press scholarship

Libertarian free will requires that the self must exist separate from the brain. And that seems to be the free will that you're constantly interjecting into this discussion. And it is also the free will that your favorite neuroscientists constantly speak of.

If will is to be deemed free, will must have agency.

If will is unable to make a difference, there being no possible alternative, will has no freedom, ergo: no free will.

Compatibilism tries to get around this through careful selection of terms and references, to act without external force or coercion, thereby ignoring inner necessitation: the mechanisms and means of decision making and action - which excludes freedom of will.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitably consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen


Definition of freedom
1: the quality or state of being free: such as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action - Merriam Webster

If you wish to discuss libertarian free will, then please start your own thread. This thread is about compatibilism.

It's relevant to the issue of free will in general.

And again, nobody is denying the brain the ability to respond to its inputs, menus, driving, writing, walking, etc....all performed by the brain's information processing activity.

Rather odd that you would leave the brain's decision-making ability off your list. After all, that is what free will is about, choosing for ourselves what we will do. Decision-making is kind of the single essential function of compatibilist free will.

I don't leave the brains decision-making ability off my list. I have repeatedly described the nature and sequence of decision making, inputs, distribution of information, processing, conscious representation and motor action, etc, and explained by this does not equate to free will.

''If free will does not generate movement, what does? Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex.

'The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior.

For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.'' Mark Hallett.

A computer can select options from a menu based on a set of criteria, but has no means of consuming its choice.

Right. A computer can make logical decisions based upon its programming. But the motivation and direction that created the computer was caused by human will. The computer has no will of its own.

The brain is being programmed as it acquires information. The information being acquired is essentially the 'software' that informs the brain what is needed in life, water, food, housing, what is desirable, pleasurable, rewarding, what is to be avoided, what may be undesirable in the short term but reaps greater reward in the future, etc.

The brain is a self-programming information processor, but does not choose what goes into the system, which is determined by your environment and circumstances.

It's your brain that acquired and processed the information that determined the choice that was made in that instance, milliseconds before you the conscious Marvin Edwards was aware of it. Processing precedes conscious representation in the form of conscious thought; I'll take the Spanish Mackerel was decided before the thought came to mind.

Good, then we agree that (1) my own brain is choosing the Spanish Mackerel, and (2) that I was consciously aware of that choice before I told the waiter, "I'll have the Spanish Mackerel, please", and therefore, (3) I am responsible for the order and thus the waiter will bring me the bill.

You were consciously aware after the brain acquired the information on the menu, distributed and processed the information and made the selected option conscious. The actual selection happened milliseconds prior to you experiencing your thoughts and actions.

There was no free will involved. Nothing was willed till the point where you felt the desire and prompt consciously.

It's information processing, not free will.

Nothing at all is changed by any of the Libet styled experiments.

We can shorten your description, Marvin's brain "acquired and processed the information that determined the choice that was made in that instance, milliseconds before you the conscious Marvin Edwards was aware of it", into its simpler and more common form, "I decided to".

When you say ''I decided to,' it gives the impression that you, Marvin Edwards, the compatibilist, the conscious entity have regulative control of the decision-making process. Which is not the case.

Without regulative control, will has no freedom.

For example, when I say, "We decided to go out for dinner after work", what I mean is that "each of our brains acquired and processed the information that determined the choice that was made in that instance, milliseconds before we were consciously aware of it".

Which is a fair statement, if you understand that what the brain is doing without trying to shoehorn the notion of free will into the means and mechanisms of decision making.

It is odd that you keep making this claim, when free will happens to be a decision we make for ourselves through information processing, while free of coercion and undue influence.

That is the declaration of compatibilism.

Information processing itself is the necessitation that negates freedom of will. Determinism, allowing no alternative, is the necessitation.


''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitably consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

The vital information that compatibilism neglects to include is inner necessitation;

Nope. Free will is information processing and free will is specifically the inner necessitation by the decision-making function that chooses what we will do.

Compatibilism neglects nothing that is meaningful or relevant to this issue.

You don't choose what you do. What you do is determined by the interaction of information of the system. No deviations. What is done is done necessarily;

''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.

Oh, but I do understand the role of will quite well, which I have described numerous times. The point being that it is not will that regulates brain activity or makes 'freely willed decisions,' and that it is precisely what you say "a cog in the system.'' A cog in the system that has no agency in terms of what decisions are made or which actions are taken.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, it is the decision-making function that controls the will, not the other way around. The function of will is to sustain conscious intent until a given task is complete.

But that's not correct. It is the physical state of neural architecture, information input and processing that precedes and determines all 'decisions' and all actions, including will. Will has no regulative control, if the system fails, mind, consciousness, will fail accordingly;


Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans;
''Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.''

 

[DBT]

Again; Without realizable alternatives, not permitted by determinism, where is freedom of choice? Without the ability to regulate decision making or choose alternate options through the power of will, where is freedom of will?



''Compatibilists are unable to present a rational argument that supports their belief in the existence of free will in a deterministic universe, except by defining Determinism and/or Free Will in a way that is a watered down version of one or both of the two concepts.

As I understand it, Determinism (which I take to be Causal Determinism) posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] prior activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the prior activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.

As I understand the notion of Free Will, it posits that a human being, when presented with more than one course of action, has the freedom or agency to choose between or among the alternatives, and that the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior to the putative exercise of that freedom of choice does not eliminate all but one option and compel the selection of only one of the available options.

Based on the foregoing, if Determinism is true, human beings lack the ability to think in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, and thereby lack Free Will. By the same token, if human beings have Free-Will, they are capable of thinking in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, which rules out Determinism.

As I understand the two concepts, Determinism and Free Will are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

When all is said and done, all arguments for Compatibilism suffer from a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' -

Bruce Silverstein B.A. Philosophy - Quora.

 

[Jarhyn]

DBT keeps inventing freedoms he doesn't have, as an excuse to look away from the freedoms he does have.

And to look away from the freedoms the dwarf does have.

The dwarf clearly has a choice process which determines what he will do.

His choice process does not need to be "free" of his deterministic laws to have been the one whose properties determined the choice. Or in other words, HE made the choice to fight.

As I can demonstrate, very easily, I could slay Urist, just arbitrarily end him. It's less fun doing it that way rather than a slightly more "mysterious" way, but I could.

The result? Well, I already played both scenarios forward. In one scenario, the one where Urist did not get struck down in a suspicious manner, and the door did not lock in a suspicious manner, five dwarves and an elf died.

In the situations where Urist got confined or struck down? Only Urist died.

In either situation, when the captain of the watch does his interviews and the administrator looks at the evidence and sentences for the crime, the hammerer's hammering of Urist is the observable path upon which zero more dwarves get killed by him.

Determinism creates, rather than absolves responsibility.

In a game of snakes and ladders where it is all "stochastic action", and unpredictable laws of cause and effect, there is no responsibility. The person who "wins" plays no role in it other than standing there rolling dice: it would as soon be just as meaningful to merely roll dice 10 times each and the "highest score" wins.

Determinism, though, that allows identifying intermediate causes to an effect: responsible agents.

 

[Jarhyn]

Speaking of long running background wills:

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If my brain generates me, my existence, my experience of self, my thoughts and actions, through its information processing activity, then it logically follows that, in all matters of my conscious awareness, my brain is identical to me.

Just how the brain works according to physical principles: neural networks acquiring and processing information and representing some of that information in conscious form. Input precedes processing which precedes conscious experience...

Ergo, you are identical to the state of the non chosen state of the brain. Because brain state is not chosen or willed, brain state does not equate to free will.

The brain is doing a lot of things. One of these things is called "making decisions". You will not get away with attempting to hide specific functions in the broad general function of "acquiring and processing information". We've played that word game enough. So, knock it off.

In the restaurant, the brain chooses, from among the many possibilities on the menu, what we will have for dinner tonight.

The state of the brain that is necessary for us to tell the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please", is chosen, and it is chosen by the brain itself. Since that brain happens to be sitting in my skull, the waiter will bring me that salad and the bill.

To claim it does is a declaration of belief, not a logical conclusion based on the available information.

Explain what you mean by a "belief", and please account for its affects upon human behavior. (Hint: it is part of the rational causal mechanism).

When you say 'my narrator function' or 'my brain,' it implies that these are something that you as a conscious entity have or use.

No. It simply distinguishes my brain from yours. That's why the waiter brings me the bill for the Chef Salad and brings you the bill for the Spanish Mackerel.

When the brain represents information in conscious form, it is not to inform you, but to construct a conscious representation of the external world and self in order to navigate and respond.

Mostly correct, except for the notion of "not to inform you". After all, what is being informed by one area of the brain is just another area of the same brain!

Compatibilist free will only requires that, while the brain is choosing what I will have for dinner, it will not be subject to coercion or other undue influences.

The brain as a deterministic system is itself subject to necessitation. Something that is necessitated is not freely willed or chosen. Necessitation, therefore free will does not work.

Another riddle. Necessitation has no agency. It is the context of having dinner in a restaurant, and having to choose something from the menu, that makes it necessary that we perform decision making. If we do not make a decision, we will have no dinner. That is the nature of the actual necessitation.

So, the brain will certainly make a decision. It will consider the many things it can order for dinner, and by a series of deterministic thoughts and feelings it will arrive at its choice.

The choice will be of the form "I will have X for dinner". And that specific intent will motivate us to tell the waiter, "I will have X, please". The waiter will bring us X and the bill for X.

If will is to be deemed free,

But will is not deemed free! You have created a third definition of free will, neither libertarian nor compatibilist, by simply taking the term "free will" literally!

Free will does not mean that the will itself is literally free. It means that the will was freely chosen. Consider the dictionary definitions:

Merriam-Webster on-line:
1: voluntary choice or decision 'I do this of my own free will'
2: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

Oxford English Dictionary:
1.a. Spontaneous or unconstrained will; unforced choice; (also) inclination to act without suggestion from others. Esp. in of one's (own) free will and similar expressions.
2. The power of an individual to make free choices, not determined by divine predestination, the laws of physical causality, fate, etc.

Wiktionary:
1. A person's natural inclination; unforced choice.
2. (philosophy) The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions, without predestination, fate etc.

It is all about the choosing of the will.

So, please, constrain your comments to speaking of the conditions of choosing, rather than fantasizing some kind of "free-floating" will.

will must have agency.

Will is the antecedent cause of deliberate behavior. Choosing is the antecedent cause of the will. Choosing what we will do is our brain's agency (which is our agency).

If will is unable to make a difference, ...

Will is the antecedent cause of the actions that make a difference. You continue to quibble around these obvious facts.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitably consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

And, you're repeating the same old paradoxes over and over, never having figured them out for yourself.

DBT, choosing is happening every day in empirical reality. Van Inwagen has nothing solid to stand on, just word games!

The brain is being programmed as it acquires information. The information being acquired is essentially the 'software' that informs the brain what is needed in life, water, food, housing, what is desirable, pleasurable, rewarding, what is to be avoided, what may be undesirable in the short term but reaps greater reward in the future, etc.

Sure. That's the whole point. The brain performs essential work, including choosing what we will have for dinner tonight.

The brain is a self-programming information processor, but does not choose what goes into the system, which is determined by your environment and circumstances.

If that were the case, then you would be agreeing with me by now . But part of your brain's self-programming is to screen out ideas that are inconsistent with its present conceptual framework. So, you are actually choosing what you will let in and what you will keep out.

Some things you either refuse to hear or refuse to understand. But that's true of everyone.

You were consciously aware after the brain acquired the information on the menu, distributed and processed the information and made the selected option conscious. The actual selection happened milliseconds prior to you experiencing your thoughts and actions.

But that's all common knowledge. And it is summarized by the phrase, "I have decided that I will have the Chef Salad".

There was no free will involved.

Was anyone holding a gun to my head? No? Then I made the choice of my own free will.

A choice was made. Correct?
It was made by my own brain. Correct?
I was not coerced or unduly influenced. Correct?
Then obviously it was a choice of my own free will, literally a freely chosen "I will".

When you say ''I decided to,' it gives the impression that you, Marvin Edwards, the compatibilist, the conscious entity have regulative control of the decision-making process. Which is not the case.

I thought we agreed that "I, Marvin Edwards, the compatibilist, the conscious entity" was part of the same brain that executed regulative control by its decision-making process.

Are you suggesting that the conscious person and the brain are not part of the same entity?

Haven't we been through that dualism before?

For example, when I say, "We decided to go out for dinner after work", what I mean is that "each of our brains acquired and processed the information that determined the choice that was made in that instance, milliseconds before we were consciously aware of it".

Which is a fair statement, if you understand that what the brain is doing without trying to shoehorn the notion of free will into the means and mechanisms of decision making.

Right. Choosing is part of the mechanism. Will is a separate part of the mechanism that runs the show after the choice is made.

But free will refers specifically to the absence of certain special factors that might unduly influence the choosing operation. These factors alter the brain's calculation of its choice. And these factors are taken into account when assigning responsibility for the ultimate actions taken.

While some of these factors may be external, like the guy with the gun, other factors may be internal, such as a significant mental illness or injury. The mechanism itself may be damaged, and that would be taken into account.

You don't choose what you do.

Obviously we do. Walk into any restaurant and see it happening before your eyes. And, as always, 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.

It is the physical state of neural architecture, information input and processing that precedes and determines all 'decisions' and all actions, including will.

That's right. Wouldn't have it any other way. Please note though, that the "physical neural architecture" you refer to happens to be my own brain. And it is my own brain that determines all my decisions, which in turn fixes my will upon a specific goal, which in turn produces my specific actions.

It's me, all the way down.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Again; Without realizable alternatives, not permitted by determinism, where is freedom of choice? Without the ability to regulate decision making or choose alternate options through the power of will, where is freedom of will?

Hmm. Another puzzle.

On one hand I have a restaurant menu filled with realizable alternatives.

On the other hand I have DBT telling me that realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism.

I cannot say that any of the items on the menu are not realizable alternatives, because every time I order one, the waiter brings it to me, and it is real. Once it was just a picture and some words on a page. Now it is sitting there on the table in front of me. A while ago it was a realizable alternative, and now it is a fully realized actuality.

So, what the fork is DBT talking about? I would venture to say that DBT does not know. But I think I can explain how he got there.

Assuming a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect, it will always be the case that every event is the causally necessary result of specific prior events. This logically implies that everything that ever happens will happen in exactly one way, precisely as it does happen.

Okay, so what does this have to do with things that might happen, with possibilities, with realizable alternatives, with things that can happen but then again might never happen?

Nothing. Determinism has nothing at all that it can say about such things. Determinism only speaks of events that certainly will happen. That is the whole context of determinism (also the context of reality). And, since these include every actual event that will ever actually happen within our universe, it would seem to be quite sufficient.

What then about things that only might happen, but then again might never happen? Speaking of these things requires a different context, the context of possibility. A possibility exists solely within the imagination. It never exists in empirical reality. As soon as a possibility is actualized, it ceases to be a "possibility" and is now referred to as an "actuality".

For example, the Chef Salad in the menu was a "possibility". But the Chef Salad that the waiter sets in front of me on the table is an "actuality". I cannot eat the possible salad. But I can eat the actual salad.

So, how did DBT (and many others) get these two contexts mixed up?

Figurative thinking. Humans speak figuratively quite often. For example, the "laws of nature" is a figure of speech. There are no legal textbooks that natural objects consult to figure out what they should be doing. The Earth does not behave as it does in order to avoid breaking the law of gravity. And Mother Nature is not a "cop on the beat" pulling up beside the Earth and giving it a ticket if it wanders out of orbit. The "laws of nature" is a metaphor that refers to the reliable patterns of behavior that science has observed in natural objects and the forces between them.

But the "laws of nature" are metaphorical, just like the metaphor of the Sun "rising in the East and setting in the West". While not literally true, knowing the that Sun appears in the East in the morning can help if you're lost in the forest without a compass.

So, metaphors can be useful. But they can also be misleading.

DBT, knowing that determinism means that events will only happen in exactly one way, makes the figurative jump to the conclusion that "if they will only happen one way, then it is AS IF they can only happen one way".

What happened? We just shifted from the context of deterministic reality to the context of possibilities. And what was true about what will happen is false about what can happen.

For example, in the context of deterministic reality, only one thing will happen, but, in the context of possibilities, many things can happen.

Why do we even have a separate context for possibilities? To deal with our everyday uncertainties. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen, to prepare for what does happen. For example, there's a red light up ahead. Will it remain red or will it change to green when we arrive? We don't know what will happen, but we know for certain what can happen: it can remain red and it can change to green. So, we slow down.

But just as we arrive the light turns to green, so we speed up again. "Why did you slow down back there?" our passenger asks. "Because it could have remained red", we reply. And everyone understands what we mean by "it could have remained red".

In the context of deterministic reality, it would not have remained red. But in the context of possibilities, it could have remained red, even though it didn't.

So, how about DBT's puzzle?

As soon as DBT used the term "realizable" we knew we were not in the context of deterministic reality, but rather in the context of possibilities. So, his claim that "realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism" is false. Whenever we encounter a statement of "ability" rather than "actuality", we know we are in the context of possibilities and not in the context of deterministic reality.

So, DBT (and others) are overlapping the context of deterministic reality with the context of possibilities, and they must remain separate in order to each fulfill their rational function.

 

[Jarhyn]

Again; Without realizable alternatives, not permitted by determinism, where is freedom of choice? Without the ability to regulate decision making or choose alternate options through the power of will, where is freedom of will?

Hmm. Another puzzle.

On one hand I have a restaurant menu filled with realizable alternatives.

On the other hand I have DBT telling me that realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism.

I cannot say that any of the items on the menu are not realizable alternatives, because every time I order one, the waiter brings it to me, and it is real. Once it was just a picture and some words on a page. Now it is sitting there on the table in front of me. A while ago it was a realizable alternative, and now it is a fully realized actuality.

So, what the fork is DBT talking about? I would venture to say that DBT does not know. But I think I can explain how he got there.

Assuming a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect, it will always be the case that every event is the causally necessary result of specific prior events. This logically implies that everything that ever happens will happen in exactly one way, precisely as it does happen.

Okay, so what does this have to do with things that might happen, with possibilities, with realizable alternatives, with things that can happen but then again might never happen?

Nothing. Determinism has nothing at all that it can say about such things. Determinism only speaks of events that certainly will happen. That is the whole context of determinism (also the context of reality). And, since these include every actual event that will ever actually happen within our universe, it would seem to be quite sufficient.

What then about things that only might happen, but then again might never happen? Speaking of these things requires a different context, the context of possibility. A possibility exists solely within the imagination. It never exists in empirical reality. As soon as a possibility is actualized, it ceases to be a "possibility" and is now referred to as an "actuality".

For example, the Chef Salad in the menu was a "possibility". But the Chef Salad that the waiter sets in front of me on the table is an "actuality". I cannot eat the possible salad. But I can eat the actual salad.

So, how did DBT (and many others) get these two contexts mixed up?

Figurative thinking. Humans speak figuratively quite often. For example, the "laws of nature" is a figure of speech. There are no legal textbooks that natural objects consult to figure out what they should be doing. The Earth does not behave as it does in order to avoid breaking the law of gravity. And Mother Nature is not a "cop on the beat" pulling up beside the Earth and giving it a ticket if it wanders out of orbit. The "laws of nature" is a metaphor that refers to the reliable patterns of behavior that science has observed in natural objects and the forces between them.

But the "laws of nature" are metaphorical, just like the metaphor of the Sun "rising in the East and setting in the West". While not literally true, knowing the that Sun appears in the East in the morning can help if you're lost in the forest without a compass.

So, metaphors can be useful. But they can also be misleading.

DBT, knowing that determinism means that events will only happen in exactly one way, makes the figurative jump to the conclusion that "if they will only happen one way, then it is AS IF they can only happen one way".

What happened? We just shifted from the context of deterministic reality to the context of possibilities. And what was true about what will happen is false about what can happen.

For example, in the context of deterministic reality, only one thing will happen, but, in the context of possibilities, many things can happen.

Why do we even have a separate context for possibilities? To deal with our everyday uncertainties. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen, to prepare for what does happen. For example, there's a red light up ahead. Will it remain red or will it change to green when we arrive? We don't know what will happen, but we know for certain what can happen: it can remain red and it can change to green. So, we slow down.

But just as we arrive the light turns to green, so we speed up again. "Why did you slow down back there?" our passenger asks. "Because it could have remained red", we reply. And everyone understands what we mean by "it could have remained red".

In the context of deterministic reality, it would not have remained red. But in the context of possibilities, it could have remained red, even though it didn't.

So, how about DBT's puzzle?

As soon as DBT used the term "realizable" we knew we were not in the context of deterministic reality, but rather in the context of possibilities. So, his claim that "realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism" is false. Whenever we encounter a statement of "ability" rather than "actuality", we know we are in the context of possibilities and not in the context of deterministic reality.

So, DBT (and others) are overlapping the context of deterministic reality with the context of possibilities, and they must remain separate in order to each fulfill their rational function.

And I would note, FDI's mistake lives in that same ballpark in stepping into "possibilities", when they say "subjective".

 

[fromderinside]

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

Bottom line. Objective is material humans measure. It's not something humans make that humans program to then use to execute subjective brain pfarts. In the sense that a scientist uses a computer to execute equipment that present material experiments it is a tools of science. It is programmed to provide material inputs to humans from which it records and performs designed analyses that output to humans. I was doing such in the sixties.

 

[Jarhyn]

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

Bottom line. Objective is material humans measure. It's not something humans make that humans program to then use to execute subjective brain pfarts. In the sense that a scientist uses a computer to execute equipment that present material experiments it is a tools of science. It is programmed to provide material inputs to humans from which it records and performs designed analyses that output to humans. I was doing such in the sixties.

And then FDI claimed that a physical computing machine is not a piece of material that humans measure.

There you have it folks.

FDI, a computer is an object and not only is it an object, it is an object made very easy to measure. It is an object which is objectively capable of measuring itself (re:debuggers).

As I have said, I have produced an object, inside this object. That it is made of an orientation of charge potentials, and operates as a cogitation of a machine makes no difference to it's object properties.

You can wave your hand claiming it is "subjective" but it is an object no less objectively than a human brain.

The fact that you don't understand this means that it is to me unlikely that you will ever understand how or that you have been proven wrong.

Not just demonstrated or evidenced as wrong but proven, in the same way that any other Computer assisted proof functions.

The difference, the conflation, the failure of FDI's understanding is the confusion of "subjective" with "arbitrarily configurable".

Arbitrary configurability does no damage to using an object like a computer to prove that "objects may be configured in some given way" because it is trivially true a computer is an object so if it can be configured to hold some thing that satisfied the definition of a will, operate a behaviorally closed system in a manner observably meeting the definition of "deterministic", and be shown to contain events in which the "will" is observably going to have it's requirements met, and in which it is possible for that "will" to NOT have it's requirements met, you have proven something of "deterministic system": that deterministic systems may contain free wills.

 

[DBT]

Again; Without realizable alternatives, not permitted by determinism, where is freedom of choice? Without the ability to regulate decision making or choose alternate options through the power of will, where is freedom of will?

Hmm. Another puzzle.

On one hand I have a restaurant menu filled with realizable alternatives.

On the other hand I have DBT telling me that realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism.

This has been dealt with numerous times.

There is no puzzle.

You know very well that determinism - By your own definition - allows no alternate actions.

Again, each person reading the menu must necessarily take the option that is determined in that instance in time, no alternate action possible (the rule of determinism), therefore if it is determined (brain state/information input, etc) that you choose Mackerel, that is the only possible action for you in that instance in time.....meanwhile your wife and friends, different brain states, different interaction of information, must necessarily take different option. one takes steak, the other takes Lasagna, etc, each their determined option, no possible alternatives in the moment of selection.

That is how determinism work, as you yourself define it.

By your own definition, you cannot choose Lasagna or anything else if the state of the system in that instance determines Mackerel.

Other people, different brain states, must necessarily take other options, no alternate actions for anyone in any given instance in time.

You can't have it both ways. You can't claim determinism rules, yet we can take any option in any instance in time, which is not determinism.

If so, you are presenting yourself not as a Compatibilist, but a believer in Libertarian Free Will.

I cannot say that any of the items on the menu are not realizable alternatives, because every time I order one, the waiter brings it to me, and it is real. Once it was just a picture and some words on a page. Now it is sitting there on the table in front of me. A while ago it was a realizable alternative, and now it is a fully realized actuality.

That entirely misses the point. Refer to the description above. You appear to be arguing for Libertarian free will.

Well. that drains my quota of patience for tonight. I'll leave it there.

Maybe a quote from a blog to finish.

Compatibalism
''It helps if we are clear on what caused or determined means. An alarm clock is determined to go off at 8 am. If it has free will it can avoid doing so and might do. Determined and caused imply fixed or set. Compatibilism is odd if it is saying you can choose what way you are going to be determined or forced. That is what it is saying! If you are evil if you freely murder then you are off the scale worse if you can freely choose to be programmed to commit it. You end up being a victim of yourself for as soon as you set things in motion there is nothing you can do to change it. Compatibilism fails to evade saying that in some way free will is magic and you can use it to avoid being influenced or programmed.''


So what does compatibilism mean by free will? It actually redefines the feeling of being free as free will but holds that we are actually programmed or determined or fixed or controlled by forces that are not of us. Compatibilism cannot claim that free will as in you creating a choice out of nothing [indeterminism] and determinism [your past and your programming make you what you are and cause you to do what you do] are both true in the same way at the same time. That is like saying a totally planned event is also totally random. If a compatibilist does this he is not a compatibilist but just using the label. In fact he is just trying to believe two diametrically opposed ideas at the one time.

Compatibilism argues that if you feel psychologically pressured to do things that is not free will. But if you try to feel programmed or that your desires and wants force you you can feel it. What then? We all love to pretend we are pressured by others when we have been caught doing something bad. We easily feel then that we were pressured.

Alvin Plantinga regards compatibilism as nonsense. He states "One might as well claim that being in jail doesn't really limit one's freedom on the grounds that if one were not in jail, he'd be free to come and go as he pleased".


Free will is the belief you are responsible for your choices while determinism is the view that you only think you make choices but you are actually determined or programmed. It is plain the two contradict each other but compatibilism tries to hide that.''

 

[Jarhyn]

Again; Without realizable alternatives, not permitted by determinism, where is freedom of choice? Without the ability to regulate decision making or choose alternate options through the power of will, where is freedom of will?

Hmm. Another puzzle.

On one hand I have a restaurant menu filled with realizable alternatives.

On the other hand I have DBT telling me that realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism.

This has been dealt with numerous times.

There is no puzzle.

You know very well that determinism - By your own definition - allows no alternate actions.

Again, each person reading the menu must necessarily take the option that is determined in that instance in time, no alternate action possible (the rule of determinism), therefore if it is determined (brain state/information input, etc) that you choose Mackerel, that is the only possible action for you in that instance in time.....meanwhile your wife and friends, different brain states, different interaction of information, must necessarily take different option. one takes steak, the other takes Lasagna, etc, each their determined option, no possible alternatives in the moment of selection.

That is how determinism work, as you yourself define it.

By your own definition, you cannot choose Lasagna or anything else if the state of the system in that instance determines Mackerel.

Other people, different brain states, must necessarily take other options, no alternate actions for anyone in any given instance in time.

You can't have it both ways. You can't claim determinism rules, yet we can take any option in any instance in time, which is not determinism.

If so, you are presenting yourself not as a Compatibilist, but a believer in Libertarian Free Will.

I cannot say that any of the items on the menu are not realizable alternatives, because every time I order one, the waiter brings it to me, and it is real. Once it was just a picture and some words on a page. Now it is sitting there on the table in front of me. A while ago it was a realizable alternative, and now it is a fully realized actuality.

That entirely misses the point. Refer to the description above. You appear to be arguing for Libertarian free will.

Well. that drains my quota of patience for tonight. I'll leave it there.

Maybe a quote from a blog to finish.

Compatibalism
''It helps if we are clear on what caused or determined means. An alarm clock is determined to go off at 8 am. If it has free will it can avoid doing so and might do. Determined and caused imply fixed or set. Compatibilism is odd if it is saying you can choose what way you are going to be determined or forced. That is what it is saying! If you are evil if you freely murder then you are off the scale worse if you can freely choose to be programmed to commit it. You end up being a victim of yourself for as soon as you set things in motion there is nothing you can do to change it. Compatibilism fails to evade saying that in some way free will is magic and you can use it to avoid being influenced or programmed.''


So what does compatibilism mean by free will? It actually redefines the feeling of being free as free will but holds that we are actually programmed or determined or fixed or controlled by forces that are not of us. Compatibilism cannot claim that free will as in you creating a choice out of nothing [indeterminism] and determinism [your past and your programming make you what you are and cause you to do what you do] are both true in the same way at the same time. That is like saying a totally planned event is also totally random. If a compatibilist does this he is not a compatibilist but just using the label. In fact he is just trying to believe two diametrically opposed ideas at the one time.

Compatibilism argues that if you feel psychologically pressured to do things that is not free will. But if you try to feel programmed or that your desires and wants force you you can feel it. What then? We all love to pretend we are pressured by others when we have been caught doing something bad. We easily feel then that we were pressured.

Alvin Plantinga regards compatibilism as nonsense. He states "One might as well claim that being in jail doesn't really limit one's freedom on the grounds that if one were not in jail, he'd be free to come and go as he pleased".


Free will is the belief you are responsible for your choices while determinism is the view that you only think you make choices but you are actually determined or programmed. It is plain the two contradict each other but compatibilism tries to hide that.''

DBT, I will just refer you back to this post:

As soon as DBT used the term "realizable" we knew we were not in the context of deterministic reality, but rather in the context of possibilities. So, his claim that "realizable alternatives are not permitted by determinism" is false. Whenever we encounter a statement of "ability" rather than "actuality", we know we are in the context of possibilities and not in the context of deterministic reality.

So, DBT (and others) are overlapping the context of deterministic reality with the context of possibilities, and they must remain separate in order to each fulfill their rational function.

@DBT, You are dipping out of "discussions had about deterministic reality" and into "discussions had about subjective games of 'can' and 'cannot'"

These do not mix.

They are not even discussions about free will and determinism.

Stop that.

Fixed choice functions only function the same if they receive the same set of choices. They aren't even necessarily commutative.

If the salad was not on the menu, Marvin would not have ordered it. Nor you the mackerel if the menu lacked for it.

The thought in Marvin's head though of whether he is free to order the salad is not "real freedom". It is "imaginary freedom". He will find out just how wrong he is when the guy interrupts him with the gun in his face and says "naw, you're getting the steak, brah!"

I'm pretty certain Marvin knows this, too.

There is a will that our wills' imaginary freedoms conform to the freedoms produced by reality. This is also in the moment "free" or "constrained", objectively.

And when we discuss when someone has "free will**" in a situation, we are discussing whether that will is objectively free or constrained, and usually in reference to some specific will, such as "to order salad".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

This has been dealt with numerous times.

Yes. It has.

 

[fromderinside]

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

Bottom line. Objective is material humans measure. It's not something humans make that humans program to then use to execute subjective brain pfarts. In the sense that a scientist uses a computer to execute equipment that present material experiments it is a tools of science. It is programmed to provide material inputs to humans from which it records and performs designed analyses that output to humans. I was doing such in the sixties.

And then FDI claimed that a physical computing machine is not a piece of material that humans measure.

There you have it folks.

FDI, a computer is an object and not only is it an object, it is an object made very easy to measure. It is an object which is objectively capable of measuring itself (re:debuggers).

As I have said, I have produced an object, inside this object. That it is made of an orientation of charge potentials, and operates as a cogitation of a machine makes no difference to it's object properties.

You can wave your hand claiming it is "subjective" but it is an object no less objectively than a human brain.

The fact that you don't understand this means that it is to me unlikely that you will ever understand how or that you have been proven wrong.

Not just demonstrated or evidenced as wrong but proven, in the same way that any other Computer assisted proof functions.

The difference, the conflation, the failure of FDI's understanding is the confusion of "subjective" with "arbitrarily configurable".

Arbitrary configurability does no damage to using an object like a computer to prove that "objects may be configured in some given way" because it is trivially true a computer is an object so if it can be configured to hold some thing that satisfied the definition of a will, operate a behaviorally closed system in a manner observably meeting the definition of "deterministic", and be shown to contain events in which the "will" is observably going to have it's requirements met, and in which it is possible for that "will" to NOT have it's requirements met, you have proven something of "deterministic system": that deterministic systems may contain free wills.

There you go. You produced an object within the computer. The object (a self designed object) is not an objective thing. It is a human fashioned thing, something you produced of your design. Hint, hint, hint "arbitrarily configurable" is your design. It is something you (feel the self reference coming on) designed, not objective. BTW I said computer - it is an instrument - is something one uses to measure.

No speedskating my interpretations please. Uh, no it isn't capable of debugging itself since it reacts to cosmic objects causing unforeseeable errors that need external justifications for their occurrences. If you've never worked on something that gets up into the atmosphere you probably aren't going to be among those who are aware these things happen. Redundancy, debuggers both internal and collateral, knowledge of effects like radiation and comsmic activity are necessary for proving and preserving operablility.

 

[DBT]

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

You seem to have a lot of mythical beliefs about compatibilists.

But then, you have a lot of mythical beliefs about determinism also. You seem to think that determinism has causal agency, and that people lack causal agency. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

And you believe that if it is the case that I would not have done otherwise, then it must also be true that I could not have done otherwise.

Oh, and then there's the belief that since neuroscience rules out libertarian free will, it must also rule out operational free will.

And then there's that funny definition you create by taking "free will" literally to mean a will that goes around untethered to the physical world.

Strange stuff. Like you say, "magical thinking".

 

[Jarhyn]

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

Bottom line. Objective is material humans measure. It's not something humans make that humans program to then use to execute subjective brain pfarts. In the sense that a scientist uses a computer to execute equipment that present material experiments it is a tools of science. It is programmed to provide material inputs to humans from which it records and performs designed analyses that output to humans. I was doing such in the sixties.

And then FDI claimed that a physical computing machine is not a piece of material that humans measure.

There you have it folks.

FDI, a computer is an object and not only is it an object, it is an object made very easy to measure. It is an object which is objectively capable of measuring itself (re:debuggers).

As I have said, I have produced an object, inside this object. That it is made of an orientation of charge potentials, and operates as a cogitation of a machine makes no difference to it's object properties.

You can wave your hand claiming it is "subjective" but it is an object no less objectively than a human brain.

The fact that you don't understand this means that it is to me unlikely that you will ever understand how or that you have been proven wrong.

Not just demonstrated or evidenced as wrong but proven, in the same way that any other Computer assisted proof functions.

The difference, the conflation, the failure of FDI's understanding is the confusion of "subjective" with "arbitrarily configurable".

Arbitrary configurability does no damage to using an object like a computer to prove that "objects may be configured in some given way" because it is trivially true a computer is an object so if it can be configured to hold some thing that satisfied the definition of a will, operate a behaviorally closed system in a manner observably meeting the definition of "deterministic", and be shown to contain events in which the "will" is observably going to have it's requirements met, and in which it is possible for that "will" to NOT have it's requirements met, you have proven something of "deterministic system": that deterministic systems may contain free wills.

There you go. You produced an object within the computer. The object (a self designed object) is not an objective thing. It is a human fashioned thing, something you produced of your design. Hint, hint, hint "arbitrarily configurable" is your design. It is something you (feel the self reference coming on) designed, not objective. BTW I said computer - it is an instrument - is something one uses to measure.

No speedskating my interpretations please. Uh, no it isn't capable of debugging itself since it reacts to cosmic objects causing unforeseeable errors that need external justifications for their occurrences. If you've never worked on something that gets up into the atmosphere you probably aren't going to be among those who are aware these things happen. Redundancy, debuggers both internal and collateral, knowledge of effects like radiation and comsmic activity are necessary for proving and preserving operablility.

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

"The object is not an object": the hard determinists.

The two of you don't think HUMANS have this particular will I describe nor do you think that it can be "free" or "constrained" by the definitions offered so why should I give a rats fuck about whatever else you think is incapable of holding it?

I offered definitions and I am not about to shy away from the implications those definitions have for animals and other non-human objects.

"Arbitrarily configurable" is not subjective.

Mutability is not subjectivity, it is only mutability. Subjectivity is looking at the same object and coming to different conclusions about how you relate to it, such as "I think it is beautiful" and "I think it is not beautiful" because each person has a different "subjective definition" of beauty.

Objectively, the object is a 3x3 cube of copper.

I could take a hammer and hammer the object into any shape I wish. It is still going to be an object with objective properties. This is mutability. Some people may consider it more or less beautiful (subjectivity) but objectively, it will have whatever shape it has been given (objective mutability).

It doesn't matter if the computer has whatever design I put over it. It's mutability is not subjectivity.

What we call the "dwarf", what we call the "door" what word we use to describe "locked state" THAT is all subjective and in fact has a cohomology with the situation where we rename them "elf", "portal", and "DNE state".

The important point is understanding "this entity holds a list of instructions unto a requirement" and "the requirement shall/shall not be met".

 

[DBT]

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

You seem to have a lot of mythical beliefs about compatibilists.

Jarhyn has made that claim. Hence my comment.

 

[Jarhyn]

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

You seem to have a lot of mythical beliefs about compatibilists.

Jarhyn has made that claim. Hence my comment.

You have made the claim that free will is not possible at all so why should anyone care that you think that suddenly "computers have wills, and the wills can be free" is a invalid statement?

It's not a clear case that they cannot; I have made a clear case in fact that they may.

So, just in case you missed it:

You confuse what we can do with both subjective and objective analysis. Taking what we sense without measurement and calling it computer misses the fact that the computer is not possible without the use of the scientific method to frame it's structure and function. That man does both sense and measure gives us a step up from anything that just senses no matter how close those senses are to what is measured. Your statement computer lacks demonstrated materiality which is measured as well. The rest of your snowstorm fails as well for the same reason. This is a flaw you cannot overcome with just subjective sense, language, and mathematics. The bottom line is that man interpreting determinism with only subjective and subjective based tools is not even up to what man can do nor is that adequate for defining determinism.

I think we've known since the time we first picked up a stone that there was something important beyond our mind. I also think that other species are progressing toward similar understanding of their worlds as they use material to live and succeed in it.

It's interesting insofar as someone who wishes to discuss subjective versus objective measures does not actually pay attention and hand-waves away discussions of what makes something "subjective" or "objective" in the first part.

Your bloviation on such is a hot, sick, confused mess.

The computer is an object, observable in all it's functions, such that it can objectively and observably instantiate a mathematical principle.

This has been used specifically to prove a number of things in math which extend to proving a number of things of physics.

And since we are attempting to treat a structure of math -- "Deterministic systems" -- objectively observing a computer "doing the thing" proves the claims of hard determinism to be spurious.

As much as you dislike it, showing a mathematical structure to positively contain some thing that you FDI claim is impossible of something with that structure proves your claims wrong.

And that something is an object, wholely observable, entirely made of materials, being examined of it's immediate physical properties.

One of it's immediate physical properties is that it clearly and observably contains some thing that has a "will".

One of those immediate physical properties is that that will has an observable "freedom value", which in this moment is "unfree" because the door is locked.

What exactly do you think is not an observable object here?

Do you think because the structure of the dwarf is electrons that it is not a real object?

Do you think that just because that structure is distributed across a large number of transistors that it is not a real object?

The actual physical dwarf looks not a thing like the depiction on the screen, nor do the "doors" or the "levers". The interface is itself a subjective interpretation of the objective behavior of the system.

I'm not talking about the interface though, I'm talking about the real, actual machine, with real parts that have real properties.

one of those parts is a single "bit" of memory that is "locked" as in "will not 'open' for a dwarf"

that single bit in memory is an object.

the several bits in memory that when presented to the processor such that result contains new bits that will direct the dwarf's bits to change such that they objectively create "proximity" to the door, and which will drive the attempt? Those are objects too.

All of this is object properties all the way down.

You are clearly not ready to think about this on "whole human person" level scales yet.

Bottom line. Objective is material humans measure. It's not something humans make that humans program to then use to execute subjective brain pfarts. In the sense that a scientist uses a computer to execute equipment that present material experiments it is a tools of science. It is programmed to provide material inputs to humans from which it records and performs designed analyses that output to humans. I was doing such in the sixties.

And then FDI claimed that a physical computing machine is not a piece of material that humans measure.

There you have it folks.

FDI, a computer is an object and not only is it an object, it is an object made very easy to measure. It is an object which is objectively capable of measuring itself (re:debuggers).

As I have said, I have produced an object, inside this object. That it is made of an orientation of charge potentials, and operates as a cogitation of a machine makes no difference to it's object properties.

You can wave your hand claiming it is "subjective" but it is an object no less objectively than a human brain.

The fact that you don't understand this means that it is to me unlikely that you will ever understand how or that you have been proven wrong.

Not just demonstrated or evidenced as wrong but proven, in the same way that any other Computer assisted proof functions.

The difference, the conflation, the failure of FDI's understanding is the confusion of "subjective" with "arbitrarily configurable".

Arbitrary configurability does no damage to using an object like a computer to prove that "objects may be configured in some given way" because it is trivially true a computer is an object so if it can be configured to hold some thing that satisfied the definition of a will, operate a behaviorally closed system in a manner observably meeting the definition of "deterministic", and be shown to contain events in which the "will" is observably going to have it's requirements met, and in which it is possible for that "will" to NOT have it's requirements met, you have proven something of "deterministic system": that deterministic systems may contain free wills.

There you go. You produced an object within the computer. The object (a self designed object) is not an objective thing. It is a human fashioned thing, something you produced of your design. Hint, hint, hint "arbitrarily configurable" is your design. It is something you (feel the self reference coming on) designed, not objective. BTW I said computer - it is an instrument - is something one uses to measure.

No speedskating my interpretations please. Uh, no it isn't capable of debugging itself since it reacts to cosmic objects causing unforeseeable errors that need external justifications for their occurrences. If you've never worked on something that gets up into the atmosphere you probably aren't going to be among those who are aware these things happen. Redundancy, debuggers both internal and collateral, knowledge of effects like radiation and comsmic activity are necessary for proving and preserving operablility.

Wow, According to Compatibilists, Computers have free will. Magical thinking in the twenty first century.

"The object is not an object": the hard determinists.

The two of you don't think HUMANS have this particular will I describe nor do you think that it can be "free" or "constrained" by the definitions offered so why should I give a rats fuck about whatever else you think is incapable of holding it?

I offered definitions and I am not about to shy away from the implications those definitions have for animals and other non-human objects.

"Arbitrarily configurable" is not subjective.

Mutability is not subjectivity, it is only mutability. Subjectivity is looking at the same object and coming to different conclusions about how you relate to it, such as "I think it is beautiful" and "I think it is not beautiful" because each person has a different "subjective definition" of beauty.

Objectively, the object is a 3x3 cube of copper.

I could take a hammer and hammer the object into any shape I wish. It is still going to be an object with objective properties. This is mutability. Some people may consider it more or less beautiful (subjectivity) but objectively, it will have whatever shape it has been given (objective mutability).

It doesn't matter if the computer has whatever design I put over it. It's mutability is not subjectivity.

What we call the "dwarf", what we call the "door" what word we use to describe "locked state" THAT is all subjective and in fact has a cohomology with the situation where we rename them "elf", "portal", and "DNE state".

The important point is understanding "this entity holds a list of instructions unto a requirement" and "the requirement shall/shall not be met".