Demystifying Determinism

[DBT]

Inner necessity is not being ignored or dismissed. Our unconscious events that generate our thoughts and actions are still our own unconscious events.

Whether I ordered the salad consciously, or while sleepwalking, the waiter is still going to present me with the bill. It was my brain that decided to order the salad, and my own voice that told the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please".

That it is our unconscious events does mean anything in terms of free will if the system simply produces what it must based on inputs, neural architecture and memory function.

None of which is chosen, subject to will or regulation in terms of doing something different.

Clearly, inner necessitation is contrary to the notion of free will, and this is being swept under the carpet using terms like ''our own unconscious events,'' as if that makes a difference.

Everything in the universe has 'its own' makeup and properties. ''Our own processes, therefore free will,'' doesn't work

Whether I ordered the salad consciously, or while sleepwalking, the waiter is still going to present me with the bill. It was my brain that decided to order the salad, and my own voice that told the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please".

Entailed, not decided. There was never a possibility that you wouldn't order Chef Salad at the precisely determined place and time.

Which is just as problematic for the idea of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

Apparently not. There is a clear distinction between a choice that I am free to make for myself versus a choice forced upon me by coercion or insanity or authoritative command or hypnosis or transcranial magnetic stimulation or any other undue influence.

The distinction is not sufficient to establish free will as some sort of ability that we have. It just boils down to crafting the desired terms, a semantic construct.

A word game.

The normal brain is not an undue influence. Rather than eliminating our free will, it is the very source of our ability to decide for ourselves what we will do. Free will does not require freedom from our own brain. Nor does it require freedom from causal necessity. Free will simply requires freedom from coercion and undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Inner necessity on its own eliminates any notion of free will. The distinction between being free of external pressures and acting according to our own desires does not negate or transcend inner necessity or establish that we have freedom of will.

''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - Cold comfort in Compatibilism.

''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. '

This has been thoroughly dealt with above. Determinism eliminates neither free will nor responsibility. It will inevitably be I, myself, that chooses to order the Chef Salad. It will inevitably be I, myself, to whom the waiter presents the bill. Determinism changes nothing.

It hasn't been 'dealt with.' There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

 

[Jarhyn]

That it is our unconscious events does mean anything in terms of free will if the system simply produces what it must based on inputs, neural architecture and memory function.

"Our decisions can't be based on values and processes for them to be decisions!"

No, our decisions MUST be based on values and processes for them to be "decisions". Anything else is "madness".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

That it is our unconscious events does mean anything in terms of free will if the system simply produces what it must based on inputs, neural architecture and memory function.

The fact of unconscious processing does not change anything! The menu of alternate possibilities is input and the dinner order ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") is output. As you know from the definition you posted, this event is called "choosing".

If you wish to imagine that there was no conscious awareness at all during this process, then it would be the unconscious processes doing the choosing. But choosing is indisputably happening in that restaurant, and lots of people are doing it. Whether they are doing it unconsciously or consciously is irrelevant to the fact that choosing is actually happening, for real, in physical reality.

None of which is chosen, subject to will or regulation in terms of doing something different.

The claim "none of which is chosen", is false. The dinner was in fact chosen from the menu. And it was chosen by us, as evidenced by the bill that the waiter left with each of us, that we responsibly paid before leaving the restaurant.

Your picture of inner necessitation continually ignores this obvious fact. Inner necessitation is what did the choosing. And it was obviously our own "innards" performing this operation, that's why the waiter gave us the bill for our dinner.

Clearly, inner necessitation is contrary to the notion of free will, and this is being swept under the carpet using terms like ''our own unconscious events,'' as if that makes a difference.

Clearly, inner necessitation confirms free will, because it was our own brain, free of coercion and undue influence, that selected and ordered the Chef Salad from the menu. We were not coerced or unduly influenced, but were instead free to choose the salad, necessitated by our own goals and reasons, our own thoughts and feelings, our own inner necessitation.

Everything in the universe has 'its own' makeup and properties. ''Our own processes, therefore free will,'' doesn't work

Making the choice ourselves, for our own reasons and our own interests, free of coercion and undue influence, is exactly what free will is about. The fact that all of these events are causally necessary, that they proceed in a reliable sequence of causes and effects, is not inconsistent with our choosing what we will order for dinner.

The notion that free will must be free of inner necessitation is a delusion.

It just boils down to crafting the desired terms, a semantic construct. A word game.

Then I suggest you stop doing that. Constructing the delusion that we must be free of reliable cause and effect in order to have free will is a false suggestion, no matter how well the incompatibilists craft their own terms.

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity? It is the very heart of the case for free will! Our inner desire to have dinner at the restaurant necessitates opening the menu and considering our alternatives. Our inner evaluation the alternatives in terms of our inner goals and reasons necessitates our choosing the Chef Salad. Our inner intention to have the Chef Salad necessitates our telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". This choice that we made for ourselves, free of coercion and undue influence, is exactly what a freely chosen "I will" looks like. It is inner necessitation from start to finish.

 

[The AntiChris]

DBT is convinced that compatibilists must be relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity in order to make their case. After all this time he still doesn't understand the compatibilist position defended on this thread.

I hope he gives a straightforward answer to this question.

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity?

 

[DBT]

DBT is convinced that compatibilists must be relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity in order to make their case. After all this time he still doesn't understand the compatibilist position defended on this thread.

I hope he gives a straightforward answer to this question.

How can you be so wrong time and time again? It's like you see what you want to see rather than what is written. I could try again, but given your track record, I'd be wasting my time.

A clue: I have never said or suggested that compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.

Give one example where you think I have, or retract and apologize.

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity?

All the time. The compatibilist definition basically ignores it.

Again, to avoid wasting my time, in the words of Bruce Silverstein:

''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] antecedent activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the antecedent 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 Causal Determinism is true (i.e., accurately describes the state of the universe), then humans lack Free Will because the truth of Causal Determinism means that (a) humans lack the ability to think in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, as human cognition is simply a form of activity that is governed by Causal Determinism, and (b) there are no such thing as true “options” or “alternatives” because there is one, and only one, activity that can ever occur at any given instant; and

If Free-Will exists in its pure form, then Causal Determinism is not true because the existence of Free Will in its pure form depends upon (a) the existence of true “options” or “alternatives,” and (b) humans being capable of thinking (and acting) in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside their control.
As I understand Causal Determinism and Free Will, they 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. As William James aptly observed:

“The issue . . . is a perfectly sharp one, which no eulogistic terminology can smear over or wipe out. The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false.”

It should suffice to say that none of the various arguments for Compatibilism courageously presented on the Stanford website is satisfying, and all suffer from the same flaw identified above — namely, a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of Causal Determinism and Free Will. Or, as William James less generously observed, all efforts to harmonize Causal Determinism an Free Will are a “quagmire of evasion.”

 

[Jarhyn]

the only activity that can occur given the antecedent activity

See right here is where you fall down.

You read this and you miss the 'given antecedent activity'.

"Can" is a discussion of what occurs in the system with give arbitrary antecedent activity, an approximation on logical (not immediately real) extensions of the system.

When the will, the approximation describes reality approximately, we call that approximation, that will, "free".

You fail to understand yet again that our own inability to deviate does not in any way invalidate or make any less sensible the discussion of what would happen if things were some arbitrary way, and that discussions of such sensible results actually are significant to the evolution of the system itself.

 

[DBT]

That it is our unconscious events does mean anything in terms of free will if the system simply produces what it must based on inputs, neural architecture and memory function.

The fact of unconscious processing does not change anything! The menu of alternate possibilities is input and the dinner order ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") is output. As you know from the definition you posted, this event is called "choosing".

Unconscious processing does not involve selecting between realizable options. Every incremental step of the process is fixed by an interaction of information input and memory by means of neural architecture.

That is no more an example of free will than what computer circuits do.

It has absolutely nothing to do with free will. It is information processing. Information is acquired and processed, producing the determined output.

''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.'' - Technopedia

Slapping on a 'free will' label doesn't make it so. It's false labelling.

If you wish to imagine that there was no conscious awareness at all during this process, then it would be the unconscious processes doing the choosing. But choosing is indisputably happening in that restaurant, and lots of people are doing it. Whether they are doing it unconsciously or consciously is irrelevant to the fact that choosing is actually happening, for real, in physical reality.

A deterministic system, by definition, permits no alternate actions. What happens must happen as determined, not freely chosen.

At no point is there choice in the true sense, that something else could have been selected.

Nothing else is ever possible. The system evolves without deviation.

Choice? Nope.

''Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.''

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity? It is the very heart of the case for free will! Our inner desire to have dinner at the restaurant necessitates opening the menu and considering our alternatives. Our inner evaluation the alternatives in terms of our inner goals and reasons necessitates our choosing the Chef Salad. Our inner intention to have the Chef Salad necessitates our telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". This choice that we made for ourselves, free of coercion and undue influence, is exactly what a freely chosen "I will" looks like. It is inner necessitation from start to finish.

Yes I do. Compatibilism is based on it.

Defining free will as acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced ignores inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for compatibilism as external force, coercion or excessive influence, brain washing, conditioning, etc.....

Again: the implications of inner necessity.

On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.

 

[The AntiChris]

I have never said or suggested that compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.

Give one example where you think I have, or retract and apologize.

Here you go:

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity?

All the time.

You quite clearly accuse compatibilists of "circumventing inner necessity". If by this you don't mean they are relying on partial or incomplete determinism, then I've no idea what you're talking about.

The compatibilist definition basically ignores it.

Don't be silly. The central point of compatibilism is the proposition that free will is compatible with determinism. 'Inner necessity' is entailed by determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

Unconscious processing does not involve selecting between realizable options

This sentence belies and inability to understand the very concept of "realizable". "Realizable" has nothing to do with immediate reality, but rather a number of non-real situations that would arise from some  given antecedent state.

What makes them "realizable options" is not necessarily "realized options here", but the fact that they are realized options as a result of physics upon some other (approximately) describable physical state.

As such, it absolutely involves selecting from these options.

An option doesn't ever need to be selected to have been an option. It's just "an unselected option".

The unselected options exist.

The unselected options exist so clearly in some cases, particular with respect to the options computers have to choose from, that we can observe results such as observable memory leaks when they are not disposed of after being rejected forever: they remain as artifacts.

Maybe a different, restaurant will help you:

Welcome to Buca De Beppo! You stand before a counter with all manner of foods cooked up and on display, watching Marvin me order.

There are burgers. There are salad bar plates. There are pizzas. There are pastas.

Marvin I walk up to the salad, take it, and pay. Actually, no, I don't pay. Fuck you Bucca's. So what if they kick me out! Dine and dash.

Marvin I looked at the steak. That's clearly an option. It clearly exists. It's right there and it's a steak. It's an object whose artifacts within the neural network are recognized within the network. This artifact within the neural network is in fact the object "the option" of the steak.

Marvin I looked at the salad. It's right there, on the plate in front of me. It, like the steak, is an object whose artifacts within the neural network have been acknowledged, and then those artifacts triggered through their object properties the cogitation that dragged the arms around to pick it up. Not only is this an option, it is a chosen option, freely chosen.

The steak is still there, spinning around in my neural network tempting me with delicious memories of meaty bliss. That artifact, that object is still an option. It will be an option until someone else is apparently grabbing for it, in which case my neural network lets the artifact collapse.

During those moments, the artifact was still there. It was still a valid option. It was something looked at and considered.

You can't say the information wasn't processed. It was processed by inner necessity. The issue here is that inner necessity has a fucking shape. The shape of that inner necessity is the making of compatibilist "choices", made from sets of "options" on the basis of "proclivity".

We don't care if you think our free will is "watered down". It's the free will we are here to discuss.

When you take the time to actually look at it, the discussion gets to a particular form of desert-responsibility, but it tempers desert responsibility in a very interesting way. We can't have that discussion unless you stop with objecting to discussing the freedom you have on account of it not being the freedom you want.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Again, to avoid wasting my time, in the words of Bruce Silverstein:

I don't think that will help. Bruce is just repeating the old arguments.

''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.

I don't call it "watered down", I call it "cleaning it up". There is a lot of nonsense going around about determinism and free will. Remove the nonsense, and we find two compatible 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] antecedent activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the antecedent activity.

And if you stopped there, Bruce, everything would be just fine. But people don't stop there. Instead they convert to a rhetoric that implies determinism is a force. For example, every time someone describes an event as "determined", without referencing who or what is doing the determining, they plant the suggestion of an external control.

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.

And your failure to distinguish between what "can" occur versus what "will" occur immediately creates a paradox, because what we "will" choose to do constricts what we "can" choose to do. The context of multiple possibilities is logically required by the human brain to deal with matters of uncertainty. When we do not know what we will do, we must imagine what we can do, and choose what we will do.

So, determinism must discard the notion that we "could not have done otherwise" and simply stick to "would not have done otherwise". It is the "could not have done otherwise" that creates cognitive dissonance in the rational mind, and which results in unresolvable paradoxes, like "how to choose between a single possibility".

It's a simple fix to use "can" and "will" appropriately. But its very hard to break the longstanding habit of abusing these two distinct concepts.

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.

And you didn't do any better with Free Will, Bruce. Free will is indeed the freedom to choose for ourselves from multiple alternatives. But this is a deterministic event, reliably caused and inevitable from any prior point in time. No options are eliminated by "the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior". In fact, it is precisely "the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior" that insures that those options will show up exactly where and when they do. For example, that state of affairs in the restaurant was the people presented with a menu of options from which they had to choose their dinner order.

The notion, that the state of the universe was other than exactly that, would be nonsense. Oh, by the way, Bruce. Have you heard the rumor going around about determinism? Determinism doesn't change anything.

Based on the foregoing:

There's no need to go any further. Until the errors in the foregoing are corrected there is no hope of finding any truths from them.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The fact of unconscious processing does not change anything! The menu of alternate possibilities is input and the dinner order ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") is output. As you know from the definition you posted, this event is called "choosing".

Unconscious processing does not involve selecting between realizable options.

And yet that is the behavior we objectively observe in physical reality. There is the menu of realizable options. Wait a minute. And now there is the person telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please".

Something just made a selection from a list of realizable options. You have been insisting that it is an unconscious process. I've allowed that. Now I'm pointing out exactly what that unconscious process did in the restaurant, and why the waiter brought us the bill.

Every incremental step of the process is fixed by an interaction of information input and memory by means of neural architecture.

You're darn tootin'. The menu is the information input. Memory ("by means of our neural architecture") is our recollection of the bacon and eggs we had for breakfast and the double cheeseburger we had for lunch. Which caused us to forego the juicy Steak and choose the Salad instead for dinner.

That is no more an example of free will than what computer circuits do.

Computers are machines that we create to do our will. We generally try to avoid creating machines with a will of their own. Instead we just let them do things that are useful to us, perhaps even driving our cars.

But we, on the other hand, each have a will of our own. We are motivated by our own goals and interests. We care about the outcomes of our actions. We have actual skin in the game. The computer has none of these things.

It has absolutely nothing to do with free will. It is information processing. Information is acquired and processed, producing the determined output.

Choosing is obviously information processing. A menu of possibilities is reduced to a single dinner order. That is clearly information processing.

And when that choosing is done by us, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is also free will.

''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.'' - Technopedia

Correct, as always.

Slapping on a 'free will' label doesn't make it so. It's false labelling.

No no. We're not slapping a 'free will' label on determinism. Determinism is determinism. Free will is free will.

All we're doing is pointing out that free will is perfectly compatible with determinism rather than contradicting it.

In fact, choosing is a deterministic operation in which "given initial state or condition will always produce the same results". For example, given a bacon and eggs breakfast and a double cheeseburger lunch, we will continue to forego the juicy Steak and choose the Salad for dinner. Same inputs, same results.

A deterministic system, by definition, permits no alternate actions.

Sure. And we will have no alternative but to choose one of the alternatives listed on the menu. There is no alternative to the way that these events unfolded. The way the events unfolded was by us reading that menu and choosing from the many alternatives listed, what we would order for dinner.

What happens must happen as determined, not freely chosen.

And if it is determined that what must happen is that we will be free of coercion and undue influence while choosing what to order for dinner, then the Salad will be freely chosen.

FREE WILL NEVER REQUIRES THAT WE BE FREE OF DETERMINISTIC CAUSAL NECESSITY. All it requires is freedom from coercion and other forms of undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

At no point is there choice in the true sense, that something else could have been selected.

Ah yes, choosing in the "true" sense. Choosing in the "true" sense is when we decide for ourselves what we will order for dinner. Every item on the menu could have been selected, even though only the Salad would be selected.

Nothing else is ever possible.

Everything on the menu was possible. The chef was able to prepare whatever we asked for. And we always had the ability to select any item, even if it was inevitable that we would choose the salad.

The fact that there would be only one actuality does not contradict the fact that there would also be multiple possibilities. One fact is just as inevitable as the other.

The system evolves without deviation.

Of course. And if there were not multiple possibilities, that would be a deviation. Multiple possibilities evolved without deviation.

Choice? Nope.

Choice? Yep.

Inner necessity is the very heart of free will! Our inner desire to have dinner at the restaurant necessitates opening the menu and considering our alternatives. Our inner evaluation the alternatives in terms of our inner goals and reasons necessitates our choosing the Chef Salad. Our inner intention to have the Chef Salad necessitates our telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". This choice that we made for ourselves, free of coercion and undue influence, is exactly what a freely chosen "I will" looks like. It is inner necessitation from start to finish.

Defining free will as acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced ignores inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for compatibilism as external force, coercion or excessive influence, brain washing, conditioning, etc.....

Well, damn! If you can't see the difference between choosing for ourselves what we will do versus coercion, force, brain washing, etc., then this is hopeless.

Again: the implications of inner necessity.
On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.

(A) A mental illness or brain injury that produces an extraordinary influence on behavior, to the extent that the person cannot make rational choices for themselves, would qualify as an undue influence, and would not be a case of free will.

(B) On the other hand, everyone will have issues with normalcy due to naturally occurring deviations. These deviations will not necessarily affect their ability to make rational choices for themselves. In which case the deviation would fail to qualify as an undue influence, and the person would still be held responsible for their deliberate behavior.

Making the distinction between (A) and (B) can either be obvious or subtle. Making this distinction will usually require expert testimony and a careful review of the circumstances, the nature of the deviation, and its role in the behavior.

 

[DBT]

I have never said or suggested that compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.

Give one example where you think I have, or retract and apologize.

Here you go:

There have been many attempts at circumventing inner necessity as a major problem for compatibilism.

Do you see anyone circumventing inner necessity?

All the time.

You quite clearly accuse compatibilists of "circumventing inner necessity". If by this you don't mean they are relying on partial or incomplete determinism, then I've no idea what you're talking about.

What I'm pointing out is that compatibilism ignores or brushes aside the reality of inner necessity.

That is not the same as saying ''compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.''

Not even close.

If you are unable or unwilling to grasp the distinction, there is no hope.

Or perhaps you misrepresent the issue of inner necessity as a means of defense?

It doesn't work.

The compatibilist definition basically ignores it.

Don't be silly. The central point of compatibilism is the proposition that free will is compatible with determinism. 'Inner necessity' is entailed by determinism.

Wake up, compatibilism defines free will as acting without external force, coercion or undue influence, yet inner necessity is just as much a problem for the idea of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

Once again, please read carefully:

''At this point certain questions need to be asked: Why does the coercion of a person by another, or the conditions of a brain microchip, or the conditions of a tumor, – nullify the “free will” ability? What part of the “ability” is being obstructed? This almost always comes down to a certain point of “control” that is being minimized, and where that minimized control is coming from (the arbitrary part).

The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

''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. '

 

[Jarhyn]

What I'm pointing out is that compatibilism ignores or brushes aside the reality of inner necessity

No, it doesn't. Incompatibilist hard determinism does though, by treating it like a black box.

That choices have a heuristic does not make them any less choices. In fact, you couldn't make a choice if you didn't have proclivities.

Again, any belief that the origin of those proclivities has any impact as to whether a choice is being made is spurious.

It doesn't matter what made you, you still make the choice.

 

[DBT]

The fact of unconscious processing does not change anything! The menu of alternate possibilities is input and the dinner order ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") is output. As you know from the definition you posted, this event is called "choosing".

Unconscious processing does not involve selecting between realizable options.

And yet that is the behavior we objectively observe in physical reality. There is the menu of realizable options. Wait a minute. And now there is the person telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please".

Something just made a selection from a list of realizable options. You have been insisting that it is an unconscious process. I've allowed that. Now I'm pointing out exactly what that unconscious process did in the restaurant, and why the waiter brought us the bill.

Every incremental step of the process is fixed by an interaction of information input and memory by means of neural architecture.

You're darn tootin'. The menu is the information input. Memory ("by means of our neural architecture") is our recollection of the bacon and eggs we had for breakfast and the double cheeseburger we had for lunch. Which caused us to forego the juicy Steak and choose the Salad instead for dinner.

That is no more an example of free will than what computer circuits do.

Computers are machines that we create to do our will. We generally try to avoid creating machines with a will of their own. Instead we just let them do things that are useful to us, perhaps even driving our cars.

But we, on the other hand, each have a will of our own. We are motivated by our own goals and interests. We care about the outcomes of our actions. We have actual skin in the game. The computer has none of these things.

It has absolutely nothing to do with free will. It is information processing. Information is acquired and processed, producing the determined output.

Choosing is obviously information processing. A menu of possibilities is reduced to a single dinner order. That is clearly information processing.

And when that choosing is done by us, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is also free will.

''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.'' - Technopedia

Correct, as always.

Slapping on a 'free will' label doesn't make it so. It's false labelling.

No no. We're not slapping a 'free will' label on determinism. Determinism is determinism. Free will is free will.

All we're doing is pointing out that free will is perfectly compatible with determinism rather than contradicting it.

In fact, choosing is a deterministic operation in which "given initial state or condition will always produce the same results". For example, given a bacon and eggs breakfast and a double cheeseburger lunch, we will continue to forego the juicy Steak and choose the Salad for dinner. Same inputs, same results.

A deterministic system, by definition, permits no alternate actions.

Sure. And we will have no alternative but to choose one of the alternatives listed on the menu. There is no alternative to the way that these events unfolded. The way the events unfolded was by us reading that menu and choosing from the many alternatives listed, what we would order for dinner.

What happens must happen as determined, not freely chosen.

And if it is determined that what must happen is that we will be free of coercion and undue influence while choosing what to order for dinner, then the Salad will be freely chosen.

FREE WILL NEVER REQUIRES THAT WE BE FREE OF DETERMINISTIC CAUSAL NECESSITY. All it requires is freedom from coercion and other forms of undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

At no point is there choice in the true sense, that something else could have been selected.

Ah yes, choosing in the "true" sense. Choosing in the "true" sense is when we decide for ourselves what we will order for dinner. Every item on the menu could have been selected, even though only the Salad would be selected.

Nothing else is ever possible.

Everything on the menu was possible. The chef was able to prepare whatever we asked for. And we always had the ability to select any item, even if it was inevitable that we would choose the salad.

The fact that there would be only one actuality does not contradict the fact that there would also be multiple possibilities. One fact is just as inevitable as the other.

The system evolves without deviation.

Of course. And if there were not multiple possibilities, that would be a deviation. Multiple possibilities evolved without deviation.

Choice? Nope.

Choice? Yep.

Inner necessity is the very heart of free will! Our inner desire to have dinner at the restaurant necessitates opening the menu and considering our alternatives. Our inner evaluation the alternatives in terms of our inner goals and reasons necessitates our choosing the Chef Salad. Our inner intention to have the Chef Salad necessitates our telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". This choice that we made for ourselves, free of coercion and undue influence, is exactly what a freely chosen "I will" looks like. It is inner necessitation from start to finish.

Defining free will as acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced ignores inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for compatibilism as external force, coercion or excessive influence, brain washing, conditioning, etc.....

Well, damn! If you can't see the difference between choosing for ourselves what we will do versus coercion, force, brain washing, etc., then this is hopeless.

Again: the implications of inner necessity.
On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.

(A) A mental illness or brain injury that produces an extraordinary influence on behavior, to the extent that the person cannot make rational choices for themselves, would qualify as an undue influence, and would not be a case of free will.

(B) On the other hand, everyone will have issues with normalcy due to naturally occurring deviations. These deviations will not necessarily affect their ability to make rational choices for themselves. In which case the deviation would fail to qualify as an undue influence, and the person would still be held responsible for their deliberate behavior.

Making the distinction between (A) and (B) can either be obvious or subtle. Making this distinction will usually require expert testimony and a careful review of the circumstances, the nature of the deviation, and its role in the behavior.

A mental illness or brain injury, as with normal healthy brain function, is a matter of non-chosen brain state and condition.

Neither is chosen or subject to 'free will' or regulation through desire, will, wish, hope, or willpower.

In other words, it's the cards that you are dealt, genetics, environment, circumstances, life events - all determined by the system as it develops or evolves without deviation that makes us who we are, shaping and generating our being, thoughts, feelings and actions.

That is determinism at work.

That is inner necessity at work.

That is the essential element that falsifies free will and compatibilism.

Acting without external force, coercion or undue influence is not sufficient to establish the idea of free will.

The given definition is not sufficient because inner necessity is a far greater constraint on the notion of free will than external force, coercion or undue influence, and all actions - being determined by that inexorable process - are necessarily performed without restriction or impediment as determined, not freely willed.

 

[Jarhyn]

A mental illness or brain injury, as with normal healthy brain function, is a matter of non-chosen brain state and condition.

Neither is chosen or subject to 'free will' or regulation through desire, will, wish, hope, or willpower.

That choices have a heuristic does not make them any less choices. In fact, you couldn't make a choice if you didn't have proclivities.

Again, any belief that the origin of those proclivities has any impact as to whether a choice is being made is spurious.

It doesn't matter what made you, you still make the choice.

The point of desert responsibility ethics as informed by compatibilism is such that it recognizes that no matter where your proclivities came from, they are your proclivities and given the fact that they motivate your behavior, when your behavior is bad, we react in such a way to modify your proclivities.

It doesn't matter where your proclivities come from. They could come from the corrective action following your bad act and our ascertainment that your priorities were shit!

They are still, following the action YOUR proclivities, and so the next time you are applying them, hopefully the result will be less shit because the proclivities have been adjusted.

Not only can others modify your proclivities but you can reflect on your own proclivities, make judgements about them, and do all the same things people do to adjust them.

Do you lack the ability to adjust your own proclivities?

 

[The AntiChris]

What I'm pointing out is that compatibilism ignores or brushes aside the reality of inner necessity.

That is not the same as saying ''compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.''

It really is. You're attempting to make a distinction where none exists.

"Inner necessity" is an element of determinism in exactly the same way as "external force" is. To accuse compatibilists of ignoring "inner necessity" is exactly that same as saying compatibilists are failing to fully take account of all elements of determinism.

The compatibilist definition basically ignores it.

Don't be silly. The central point of compatibilism is the proposition that free will is compatible with determinism. 'Inner necessity' is entailed by determinism.

Wake up, compatibilism defines free will as acting without external force, coercion or undue influence, yet inner necessity is just as much a problem for the idea of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

Despite your protestations, you really don't understand compatibilism.

A compatibilist would not say "because those are influences that are “outside” of the person". A compatibilist would point out that certain influences are morally significant and some aren't. Morally significant influences are ones that we take into account, for instance, when determining the degree to which an agent may be held responsible (morally or legally) for an action (or inaction).

 

[Marvin Edwards]

A mental illness or brain injury, as with normal healthy brain function, is a matter of non-chosen brain state and condition.

It is necessary to identify the cause of the behavior in order to correct the behavior.
1. If the cause of the behavior is mental illness, then it is treated psychiatrically.
2. If the cause of the behavior is brain injury or a tumor, then it is treated medically.
3. If the cause of the behavior was coercion, then removing the threat removes the cause.
4. If the cause of the behavior was a deliberate choice by a healthy brain to achieve its desire at the expense of others, then rehabilitative counseling, education, is required, and participation is motivated by shortening the period of incarceration.

So, no. We do not smush together all of the distinct causes into one general notion of causation. We identify the nature of the cause, whether it was mental illness, brain injury, coercion, or a person's own deliberate choice (also known as "free will").

Neither is chosen or subject to 'free will' or regulation through desire, will, wish, hope, or willpower.

A deliberate choice is obviously chosen. To pretend it is not chosen is delusional.

In other words, it's the cards that you are dealt, genetics, environment, circumstances, life events - all determined by the system as it develops or evolves without deviation that makes us who we are, shaping and generating our being, thoughts, feelings and actions.

Someone once said, "determinism is the cards you're dealt, free will is how you play those cards". But let's take those factors you listed.

There is not much we can do about a person's genes, but if the genetic effect is causing criminal behavior we might treat the person psychologically and/or medically. Of course, one of the most significant correlates of criminal behavior is the Y chromosome, so we must teach our boys how to behave, and then most of them will do just fine.

The circumstances of a person's social environment requires the political will to address poverty, poor schools, lack of after school recreation, unemployment, gangs, etc. But if we are not willing to take the steps required to correct these factors, we cannot expect these problems to go away. Governments, whether local, state, or national are the tools we use to make these changes.

In other words, this "system" which you say controls us, can also be controlled by us.

That is determinism at work.

If the cause is "determinism", then how do you propose we correct it? What is the point of blaming the state of things on determinism, if there is nothing that can be done about it?

That is inner necessity at work.

What is "inner necessity"? It is us choosing what we will do. It is the essential element of free will that makes it compatible with a deterministic world.

Inner necessity is us acting without external force or undue influence. It is simply us choosing to do what we need to do, to make things better for ourselves and others.

 

[DBT]

What I'm pointing out is that compatibilism ignores or brushes aside the reality of inner necessity.

That is not the same as saying ''compatibilism is relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity.''

It really is. You're attempting to make a distinction where none exists.

"Inner necessity" is an element of determinism in exactly the same way as "external force" is. To accuse compatibilists of ignoring "inner necessity" is exactly that same as saying compatibilists are failing to fully take account of all elements of determinism.

Of course there is a distinction. I have never said or suggested that ''compatibilists must be relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity''

What I have said is that compatibilists ignore inner necessity in their definition of free will

If you cannot see the difference between your ''compatibilists must be relying on exceptions to deterministic necessity'' and my ''compatibilists ignore the implications of inner necessity'' there is something seriously wrong with your comprehension.

The compatibilist definition basically ignores it.

Don't be silly. The central point of compatibilism is the proposition that free will is compatible with determinism. 'Inner necessity' is entailed by determinism.

Wake up, compatibilism defines free will as acting without external force, coercion or undue influence, yet inner necessity is just as much a problem for the idea of free will as external force, coercion or undue influence.

The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

Despite your protestations, you really don't understand compatibilism.

A compatibilist would not say "because those are influences that are “outside” of the person". A compatibilist would point out that certain influences are morally significant and some aren't. Morally significant influences are ones that we take into account, for instance, when determining the degree to which an agent may be held responsible (morally or legally) for an action (or inaction).

I'm not protesting, I am pointing out your errors...which are based either on wishful thinking or poor comprehension. Try to do better.

 

[DBT]

A mental illness or brain injury, as with normal healthy brain function, is a matter of non-chosen brain state and condition.

It is necessary to identify the cause of the behavior in order to correct the behavior.
1. If the cause of the behavior is mental illness, then it is treated psychiatrically.
2. If the cause of the behavior is brain injury or a tumor, then it is treated medically.
3. If the cause of the behavior was coercion, then removing the threat removes the cause.
4. If the cause of the behavior was a deliberate choice by a healthy brain to achieve its desire at the expense of others, then rehabilitative counseling, education, is required, and participation is motivated by shortening the period of incarceration.

So, no. We do not smush together all of the distinct causes into one general notion of causation. We identify the nature of the cause, whether it was mental illness, brain injury, coercion, or a person's own deliberate choice (also known as "free will").

The cause of the behaviour is ultimately the state and condition of the brain. Behaviour in terms of thought and action is the output of a brain.

Its condition determining whether that output is adaptive or maladaptive.

There is no such thing as free will at work within the system.

It is just a case of where condition - neural architecture, chemistry, inputs, memory function - equals output.

That is inner necessity at work.

What is "inner necessity"? It is us choosing what we will do. It is the essential element of free will that makes it compatible with a deterministic world.

Inner necessity is us acting without external force or undue influence. It is simply us choosing to do what we need to do, to make things better for ourselves and others.

The state and condition of the brain in any given instance is 'inner necessity.' State and condition is not subject to will. Will is an output of the brain. How it is expressed being fixed by non-chosen state and condition.


Response;
"And the electrical activity in these neurons is known to reflect the delivery of this chemical, dopamine, to the frontal cortex. Dopamine is one of several neurotransmitters thought to regulate emotional response, and is suspected of playing a central role in schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and drug abuse," Montague says. "We think these dopamine neurons are making guesses at likely future rewards. The neuron is constantly making a guess at the time and magnitude of the reward."

"If what it expects doesn't arrive, it doesn't change its firing. If it expects a certain amount of reward at a particular time and the reward is actually higher, it's surprised by that and increases its delivery of dopamine," he explains. "And if it expects a certain level (of reward) and it actually gets less, it decreases its level of dopamine delivery."

Thus, says Montague, "what we see is that the dopamine neurons change the way they make electrical impulses in exactly the same way the animal changes his behavior. The way the neurons change their predictions correlates with the behavioral changes of the monkey almost exactly."


The brain does what it does regardless of wether you feel ''compelled'' or not. What you think and do is determined by the state brain in the instance of processing and action initiation, which is not an act of free will or unconscious or conscious will. Will has nothing to to do with state and condition.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitably consequence of something I have no choice about?'' - Van Inwagen

 

[Jarhyn]

What I have said is that compatibilists ignore inner necessity in their definition of free will

Which is completely wrong, as discussed. We don't ignore it, we focus on it, doing a deconstruction of it.

The cause of the behaviour is ultimately the state and condition of the brain

Which means that the brain chooses, not someone else's brain, therefore the brain had free will

State and condition is not subject to will

Yes, it can be subject to will.

I have in the state and condition of my brain "a will". That will is "to adjust how I react to someone punching me in the face.

The state and condition of my brain will, as a result of the state and condition of my brain, be changed to a new enduring state and condition following my regimen which was as discussed the product of a will:

I will expose myself to someone attempting to punch me in the face at various times and situations.

Every time they succeed, we will discuss how and why they succeeded, then I will do the whole interaction slowly again, fixing my mistakes several times then a few more at speed.

After the training, the state and condition of my brain will have been subject to my will. (And my face will be less often subject to the forces involved when someone attempts to punch me there.)

The brain does what it does regardless of wether you feel ''compelled'' or not.

No, it does two very different things in these states.

You can even be compelled by entities in your own brain that aren't exactly you.

The fact that you view this as the state of affairs one hundred percent of the time just means that you have very little self control or perhaps none.

This is bound to happen after a lifetime of ignoring your power of self-control.

How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitably consequence of something I have no choice about

By not falling prey to the genetic fallacy.

Whether you had a choice over who you are is immaterial to whether the person who you are now is making a choice. It doesn't really matter how or why someone becomes a criminal, what matters is doing the things now to them to adjust them away from criminal behavior.

They could have done that themselves, but they didn't, and that's part of why they need to go to jail.

The fact that it is you making the choice is reason enough to force you to change if that choice is fucked-up enough.

If you feel you lack the power to decide for yourself who you will be, you will abdicate the power to decide for yourself not to be a shitty person and other people will help you out with that.