Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Marvin Edwards]

There is nothing that prevents a person from being determined by antecedents and at the same time being free from the coercion and undue influence.

... Because nobody can be free from inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for free will as coercion or undue influence.

But it is not the same problem at all. Inner necessity includes our mental processes that weigh our options and choose what we will do. And that is the essence of free will. But coercion and other forms of undue influence actually rob us of the ability to make that choice for ourselves.

So, the claim that inner necessity is the same as coercion or undue influence is both wrong and misguided.

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 significant mental illness, such as one that creates hallucinations and delusions, or impairs a person's ability to reason, or subjects them to an irresistible impulse, is an undue influence and not free will. The illness, rather than the person, is held responsible for their behavior. I suspect that a prefrontal lesion may have various impacts depending upon its size and scope, and the patient's control of their behavior will also vary. Some may require hospitalization, while others are still functional and in sufficient control to make rational choices for themselves. So, the analysis of the offender's condition will require expert examination of the offender.

”If the neurobiology level is causally sufficient to determine your behavior, then the fact that you had the experience of freedom at the higher level is really irrelevant.” - John Searle.

It is not a question of the "experience of freedom". Whether one is free of coercion and undue influence is a matter of objective evidence, not subjective feelings.

We can experience a constraint, such as being handcuffed, and we can experience the freedom of being released from them.

But nobody experiences causation itself as a constraint, unless they are having some kind of delusion, perhaps induced by hard determinists trying to convince them that causation is a boogeyman that robs us of our control and freedoms. Reliable cause and effect is a requirement of every freedom we have to do anything at all.

What you both ignore is that the present state and behaviour of a person, or for that matter, anything within the system is the result of antecedents. Antecedents being all the elements and events that bring a person to this point in time, including their thoughts and actions.

Nope. It has been repeatedly stated that all events are the reliable result of prior events (antecedent events). And it has been repeatedly demonstrated that, within this chain of events, there are events called "choosing", where a person is free of coercion and undue influence as they choose what they will do. It is a "freely chosen will". Not free of causation, because nothing is. But only free of coercion and undue influence, which is all that free will requires.

''Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion. (Read this and this, but for a contrarian view, also read this.) Of course, most people can’t relate to the idea that free will is an illusion, and there’s a good reason why. It feels as if we exercise free will all the time. For instance, it seems that you are exercising free will in choosing to read this article. Similarly, it seems that you exercise free will when you deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food, or when you overcome laziness to work out at the gym.

But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will. To understand why, consider why you sometimes deny yourself an unhealthy-but-tasty snack. It’s because you were, at some point in your life, made to recognize the long-term negative effects of eating such food. Perhaps you noticed that consuming unhealthy food makes you feel heavy, or that regularly consuming such food makes your blood pressure shoot up. Or perhaps your doctor told you that you need to stop eating unhealthy food; or maybe you read about the negative effects of consuming unhealthy food in a magazine. In other words, you deny yourself the pleasure of consuming unhealthy food because of exposure to external inputs—feedback from your body or from others—over which you had no control. Had you been exposed to a different set of inputs—e.g., despite consuming unhealthy food, your health did not suffer, or your doctor never dissuaded you from eating unhealthy food—you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food.

If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did. For instance, you had no choice in where, to whom, and in what period of time, you were born. You also had no choice in the kind of neighbors and friends to whom you were exposed during early childhood. You therefore had no choice in how you made your decisions during that time.''

In other words, free will is being defined as freedom from prior causes. There is no such thing! Because every freedom we have, including the freedom to choose for ourselves what we will do (free will), requires reliable cause and effect. Thus, if we choose to define free will as freedom from causation, it disappears. So, anyone choosing to use that irrational definition should be treated with skepticism.

Free will, as commonly understood, is nothing more than a person deciding for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

[bilby]

...nobody can be free from inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for free will as coercion or undue influence.

No, it's not. Because "inner necessity" is me. It's not a problem for free will that I can only do the things I choose to do.

If I could somehow override "inner necessity", that wouldn't be freedom, it would be insanity.

"Inner necessity" just means "doing what I want to do", because 'what I want to do' in any given situation is a necessary result of all the inevitable causal chains that led to my existence.

 

[fromderinside]

...nobody can be free from inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for free will as coercion or undue influence.

No, it's not. Because "inner necessity" is me. It's not a problem for free will that I can only do the things I choose to do.

If I could somehow override "inner necessity", that wouldn't be freedom, it would be insanity.

"Inner necessity" just means "doing what I want to do", because 'what I want to do' in any given situation is a necessary result of all the inevitable causal chains that led to my existence.

Finally someone who admits freedom loving goggle-de-gook is self generated.

Now back to regular determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

...nobody can be free from inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for free will as coercion or undue influence.

No, it's not. Because "inner necessity" is me. It's not a problem for free will that I can only do the things I choose to do.

If I could somehow override "inner necessity", that wouldn't be freedom, it would be insanity.

"Inner necessity" just means "doing what I want to do", because 'what I want to do' in any given situation is a necessary result of all the inevitable causal chains that led to my existence.

Finally someone who admits freedom loving goggle-de-gook is self generated.

Now back to regular determinism.

Seeing as the "self" is just an object, however, the choice is really, objectively happening.

 

[fromderinside]

Uh huh. It's objective relative to 'self'. No markup in determination column. Just a markup in the pee brain taking scores relative to one's self awareness. Now that's referral for ya.

Still. Great objective fiction. It's got you convinced.

 

[Jarhyn]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

 

[DBT]

...nobody can be free from inner necessity, which is just as much a problem for free will as coercion or undue influence.

No, it's not. Because "inner necessity" is me. It's not a problem for free will that I can only do the things I choose to do.

What you choose to do is as much a matter of inner necessity as what you do. There are no exemptions or exceptions.

“It might be true that you would have done otherwise if you had wanted, though it is determined that you did not, in fact, want otherwise.” - Robert Kane

The choices (no alternative) you make are an expression of how you think.

How you think is an expression of who you are.

Who you are depends on your genetic makeup, social circumstances, family, nation, culture, life experiences, et-cetera.

”If the neurobiology level is causally sufficient to determine your behavior, then the fact that you had the experience of freedom at the higher level is really irrelevant.” - John Searle.

If I could somehow override "inner necessity", that wouldn't be freedom, it would be insanity.

Yes, indeed. The notion of free will is incoherent any way you look at it.

"Inner necessity" just means "doing what I want to do", because 'what I want to do' in any given situation is a necessary result of all the inevitable causal chains that led to my existence.

What you want to do is fixed before it is even experienced. That is not 'freedom of will.'

''Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion. Of course, most people can’t relate to the idea that free will is an illusion, and there’s a good reason why. It feels as if we exercise free will all the time. For instance, it seems that you are exercising free will in choosing to read this article. Similarly, it seems that you exercise free will when you deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food, or when you overcome laziness to work out at the gym.

But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will. To understand why, consider why you sometimes deny yourself an unhealthy-but-tasty snack. It’s because you were, at some point in your life, made to recognize the long-term negative effects of eating such food. Perhaps you noticed that consuming unhealthy food makes you feel heavy, or that regularly consuming such food makes your blood pressure shoot up. Or perhaps your doctor told you that you need to stop eating unhealthy food; or maybe you read about the negative effects of consuming unhealthy food in a magazine. In other words, you deny yourself the pleasure of consuming unhealthy food because of exposure to external inputs—feedback from your body or from others—over which you had no control. Had you been exposed to a different set of inputs—e.g., despite consuming unhealthy food, your health did not suffer, or your doctor never dissuaded you from eating unhealthy food—you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food.

If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did. For instance, you had no choice in where, to whom, and in what period of time, you were born. You also had no choice in the kind of neighbors and friends to whom you were exposed during early childhood. You therefore had no choice in how you made your decisions during that time.''

 

[fromderinside]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

 

[Jarhyn]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

 

[fromderinside]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Since neurons are respondent mechanisms the correct action potential description is "responding."

 

[Jarhyn]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Since neurons are respondent mechanisms the correct action potential description is "responding."

And because of the way they respond they are responsible for that response...

And the response itself is a part of a much larger series of responses which together of their form satisfy the description of 'choice'.

Or in other words: your false dichotomy is showing.

 

[fromderinside]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Since neurons are respondent mechanisms the correct action potential description is "responding."

And because of the way they respond they are responsible for that response...

And the response itself is a part of a much larger series of responses which together of their form satisfy the description of 'choice'.

Or in other words: your false dichotomy is showing.

I don't think your attribution of choice works in my respondent description of neural function.

The only falsehood here is your assertion of responsibility. Determinism doesn't switch horses in the middle of a push. For that you need push to come to shove. It doesn't.

 

[Jarhyn]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Since neurons are respondent mechanisms the correct action potential description is "responding."

And because of the way they respond they are responsible for that response...

And the response itself is a part of a much larger series of responses which together of their form satisfy the description of 'choice'.

Or in other words: your false dichotomy is showing.

I don't think your attribution of choice works in my respondent description of neural function.

The only falsehood here is your assertion.

So "you don't think" is now sufficient to falsify things.

Must be like certain declassification powers belonging to the president.

When did they issue this superpower to you exactly? The power to not think, and somehow know... Anything...

I have shown quite pointedly how all manner of choice are executed by computing machines, objects.

It would take about a month or two to fully and verifiably construct a choice process in neural media, but all it takes is a properly weighted neural graph. As it is, we have plenty of examples of hardware mechanisms that select connection to one of a series of presented and evaluated inputs on the basis of whatever it is these inputs are producing to the routing system.

The "response" generated can very well be the large scale choice of a switching system to "attend" to a specific input.

I have designed such things in transistor media before as satisfy the definition of choice, and neurons can accomplish emulation of any behavior available to a Turing machine or of transistors.

There is NOTHING about neurons which makes them somehow too "weak" in aggregate to form switching structures satisfying the definition of "choice function".

 

[fromderinside]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Since neurons are respondent mechanisms the correct action potential description is "responding."

And because of the way they respond they are responsible for that response...

And the response itself is a part of a much larger series of responses which together of their form satisfy the description of 'choice'.

Or in other words: your false dichotomy is showing.

I don't think your attribution of choice works in my respondent description of neural function.

The only falsehood here is your assertion.

So "you don't think" is now sufficient to falsify things.

Must be like certain declassification powers belonging to the president.

When did they issue this superpower to you exactly? The power to not think, and somehow know... Anything...

I have shown quite pointedly how all manner of choice are executed by computing machines, objects.

It would take about a month or two to fully and verifiably construct a choice process in neural media, but all it takes is a properly weighted neural graph. As it is, we have plenty of examples of hardware mechanisms that select connection to one of a series of presented and evaluated inputs on the basis of whatever it is these inputs are producing to the routing system.

The "response" generated can very well be the large scale choice of a switching system to "attend" to a specific input.

I have designed such things in transistor media before as satisfy the definition of choice, and neurons can accomplish emulation of any behavior available to a Turing machine or of transistors.

There is NOTHING about neurons which makes them somehow too "weak" in aggregate to form switching structures satisfying the definition of "choice function".

Wow. Gorging your self on don't think while empowering neurons with choice. Obviously you didn't think when you made the claim that neurons choose. That one from a cognitive view attribute choice to mindless reactive activity is proof enough you don't think.

Now the design of a neuron in isolation might imply to the naive that decisions via them are made but checks of energy flow suggest otherwise. Decisions are made through arbitration among many neurons after experience and much reorganization driven by information flow through them. Obviously neurons aren't deciders.

To actually understand this one would need to actually work with actual neurons and systems of neurons in living systems. One doesn't understand ion participation in neurons by working with some model developed by Hodgkin et. al. in the late fifties. By the seventies he and the team had made many amendments to the Hodgkin-Huxley model such as there are at least four metabolic processes ongoing within neurons for instance of which Hodgkin et. al. were aware by the seventies. I know this because W.A. H. Rushton was at FSU in the seventies when I was doing graduate work there and neurons are an important part in the study of sensation.

Form what I've read of your posts you make claims without connecting to what are the actual sources. You models you connect are switch models to which are associated to ancient biological sources. These biological functions have been consistently updated over time. So when you point fingers you are talking 70s-80s knowledge. Knowledge to which you have you have failed correctly or even remotely update.

 

[DBT]

FDI what I would like to know is why you think it's any less a choice neurons choosing between neural artifacts as to which artifact will be fed to an action system.

These are all just objects doing mechanical things, one of which is a mechanism executing a compatibilist choice.

Neurons don't choose. Neurons react according to potentials gathered at their synapses.

Such hubris;

When one neuron reacts according to a potential gathered at it's synapse such that it's activation tips the weights of a wide array of neurons, selectively, towards the activation of a wide scale pattern, preferential to other such patterns presented to the selector, neurons do in fact together accomplish "choosing".

Neurons don't think or decide.

Information input in relation to neuron state determines output. There is no set of alternatives being presented and thought about where the neuron goes 'uuuhm, think I'll take this option over that option.....''

It can't happen.

Determinism: fixed, no randomness/no deviation equates to no alternative.

 

[Jarhyn]

Neurons don't think or decide.

...

...

...



Neurons, together, do in fact accomplish an operation called "thought" and "decision"

I bet next you're going to say what? That transistors don't accomplish switching?

Oh, I know, that cars (plural, containing drivers) don't generate traffic.

 

[fromderinside]

Neurons don't think or decide.

...

...

...



Neurons, together, do in fact accomplish an operation called "thought" and "decision"

I bet next you're going to say what? That transistors don't accomplish switching?

Oh, I know, that cars (plural, containing drivers) don't generate traffic.

The proof of the pudding is whether neurons can get together to do something. No relevant research on collective neuronal processing yet. Seems the feedback loops are independently established without that thinking thing. Sorry.

 

[Jarhyn]

Neurons don't think or decide.

...

...

...



Neurons, together, do in fact accomplish an operation called "thought" and "decision"

I bet next you're going to say what? That transistors don't accomplish switching?

Oh, I know, that cars (plural, containing drivers) don't generate traffic.

The proof of the pudding is whether neurons can get together to do something.

You're kidding right?

Just Google "perception and gate". You'll find lots of examples of neurons doing something "together" that conforms logically to the behavior described by AND.

No relevant research on collective neuronal processing yet.

@Swammerdami where you at? School this "Cool Dude"

Seems the feedback loops are independently established without that thinking thing. Sorry.

... So first you claim "we don't have any research" which at best says "we don't know" and not "is not", and then you say "so is not."

You should be sorry for making a claim and then immediately standing on a position counter to that claim.

Though sadly, that's not what you are sorry for.

At any rate, this statement of yours reads much like DBT's "how can X Y something if X didn't Y itself".

 

[DBT]

Neurons don't think or decide.

...

...

...



Neurons, together, do in fact accomplish an operation called "thought" and "decision"

I bet next you're going to say what? That transistors don't accomplish switching?

Oh, I know, that cars (plural, containing drivers) don't generate traffic.

The proof of the pudding is whether neurons can get together to do something.

You're kidding right?

Just Google "perception and gate". You'll find lots of examples of neurons doing something "together" that conforms logically to the behavior described by AND.

No relevant research on collective neuronal processing yet.

@Swammerdami where you at? School this "Cool Dude"

Seems the feedback loops are independently established without that thinking thing. Sorry.

... So first you claim "we don't have any research" which at best says "we don't know" and not "is not", and then you say "so is not."

You should be sorry for making a claim and then immediately standing on a position counter to that claim.

Though sadly, that's not what you are sorry for.

At any rate, this statement of yours reads much like DBT's "how can X Y something if X didn't Y itself".

You are jumping to conclusions, as usual.

Doing something 'together' does mean a neuronal roundtable discussion on what to do in any given circumstance. The brain is a modular system where not only neurons but structures and regions determine output, reflex actions overiding reasoning when there is a threat, each with their own input contributing to the whole, etc.

I was not suggesting that neurons are not connected or that they act in isolation.

You are making simplistic assumptions in your vain attempt to make a point.

 

[Jarhyn]

reflex actions overiding

Yes, so think about those reflex actions, and what they are "overriding", "constraining", "making unfree"...