Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

Where in the causal chain of inputs does the human flip from responding to causing

"Response" is a variety of cause. It is an effect in fact, as well, caused by stimulus to the matter of the brain.

OK. So the human doesn't flip from responding to causing. We agree.

No, we don't agree. Present here is that your post was not-even-wrong. You presented a false dichotomy to try to invalidate a hierarchy.

There is no "flip" because both are the same, every time: humans respond, and when humans respond by choosing, humans cause, because the human response is to make a choice and to cause an effect.

No. Its cause and consequence most of what humans do is consequence. We mentally reconstruct making ourselves the center of the play. Our main brain function is producing rationales.

Yep, the brains narrator function. The storyteller.

 

[DBT]

Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

That is figuratively correct, but literally false. To make it literally correct, replace the "can" with "will", as in "there is only one way it will be at the next moment".

But it is literally correct.

It cannot be literally correct because that would create the paradox of "having to choose between a single possibility".

The point being, given determinism, there is no choice, the outcome of what we call the decision making process is entailed, not chosen. Determinism is a process of entailment with fixed outcomes. Multiple apparent options can only ever result in one outcome: the determined action.

When speaking of the single actuality, use "will", but whenever speaking of multiple possibilities, use "can".

Given determinism, multiple possibilities are an illusion. Our perspective is too limited. There are too many elements at work.

What is Determinism?
''How much say do you really have over your actions? Have you ever had that feeling that no matter what you do, the situation was always gonna end up the way it did?

Determinism is the idea that everything that happens in the world is determined completely by previously existing causes. We all know that the world runs on cause-and-effect. Imagine a shot in snooker (or “pool” for you Americans). You hit the cue ball which then strikes another, and the movement of the balls is determined by the laws of physics.

But once you’ve hit the ball, neither you or the balls have any say in which way things turn out! Once the initial cause (you hitting the cue ball) is set in place, everything just follows along through the laws of physics.''

And as in this example, us hitting the ball is also determined by the prior events that brought us to the point of playing pool and hitting the ball. A system where all events are subject to entailment.

What "can" happen is never constrained by what "will" happen, because only one thing will happen but many things can happen.

The only way that "can" gets to be constrained by "will" is by figurative thinking: "If only one thing will happen, it is AS IF only one thing can happen."

The figurative statement is literally false because the relationship between "can" and "will" is many to one.

There is only what must necessarily happen. The rest is illusion. What we think 'might have been' if only conditions were different is a work of imagination, the stuff of impossible daydreams.

As all events proceed without deviation, fixed by antecedents, this condition negates the possibility of alternate actions.

Obviously it doesn't. All of the events in the restaurant are fixed by antecedents, including the literal menu of literal alternate actions.

There is no getting around this.

That's equivocation. That there are a number of options on the menu doesn't mean that any customer can take any option at any time. If that's what you are suggesting, you are contradicting the terms of your own definition of determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

But, me (I can't write this because it reads sexist in current context) ..etty, we fallen over that piece of language with 'response'. So quit complaining with long dead pigs drawn across logical pathways

No pedí la ensalada, tráeme el bistec, por favor

and we don't make predictions we guess and express

"And we don't make informed guesses, we make guesses"

Nice contradiction there, as if information about the system cannot be known despite you making discussions about knowing things about the system through science.

Clarification needed. Are your 'predictions' about present reality or our impressions of reality based on our reacting to past sensed events

... I've explained this a few times. All predictions are about making the logical inference that information about the past implies relationships of cause and effect, and simulating the output of a decision with various different inputs to find the best input, and then when the best hypothetical input is known, selecting that input in particular.

Your not-even-wrong framing is telling.

behavior is designed

Your Christianity is showing.

We aren't sensing reality

Ah, so if the sensor in my eye is not really generating output proportional to the energy level of photons?

Is my ear not generating output proportional to the time/frequency transform of patterned deflections in the air?

Ooh, I guess my tongue is not really detecting the precise binding and unbinding energies of nearby ions and sugars and so on being expressed against their structure?

Indirect detection in the presence of reliable cause and effect is valid.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Normally It's some one in place to encourages fast runners notices that a running individual ran pretty fast. What the runner did was choose to accept the advice and run with a team or as a sponsored individual. Most of the time races implicitly choose runners who qualify or meet criteria and agree to participate. Sometimes runners choose to run.

Not only did I become a specialist I also participated in track in school and college.

We choose and think a lot less than you seem to advocate. Mostly it's bump in to this then bump in to that.

Sure. It can be that way as well.

 

[Jarhyn]

That there are a number of options on the menu doesn't mean that any customer can take any option at any time.

They can take any option at any time if they chose that option at that time.

To wit, they consider the option, simulate the future as if they did choose it, see the outcome of that process being unfortunate, and then freely decide to let that opportunity pass.

Or they cease predicting the outcomes of such trivialities altogether because after the first few times they discovered paying attention to such options literally makes them nauseous (as an evolved mechanism to prevent worse regret).

Normally It's some one in place to encourages fast runners notices that a running individual ran pretty fast. What the runner did was choose to accept the advice and run with a team or as a sponsored individual. Most of the time races implicitly choose runners who qualify or meet criteria and agree to participate. Sometimes runners choose to run.

Not only did I become a specialist I also participated in track in school and college.

We choose and think a lot less than you seem to advocate. Mostly it's bump in to this then bump in to that.

Sure. It can be that way as well.

In all cases except the one where the runner has no choice but "to run or to be killed" the runner chooses to run.

In the (perhaps not so rare) decision to run to save ones life, the decision is not to run but to live, and have more decisions ahead of oneself. The body, after deciding "live", something few people have personal control over, makes that decision without allowing the forebrain any leverage in the transaction.

Thus "we" generally are not the ones doing that choosing (to live through an encounter), and so "we" are not the ones held responsible for making the choice.

We even have, as a result of the pursuit of psychology, various models for both imposed and automatic behavior modification.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The point being, given determinism, there is no choice, the outcome of what we call the decision making process is entailed, not chosen.

Given determinism, it is entailed that choosing will happen! How do we know this? We see ourselves and others making choices every day.

To claim that the people in the restaurant are not choosing what they will order, when we see them doing exactly that, is false, if not delusional.

Determinism is a process of entailment with fixed outcomes. Multiple apparent options can only ever result in one outcome: the determined action.

The deterministic process by which the multiple options on the menu become a single dinner order is called "choosing". It is useless to pretend that choosing is not happening.

Given determinism, multiple possibilities are an illusion.

Everyone in the restaurant can see the multiple possibilities on the menu. They are not having an illusion. The menu and all of its options are quite real.

Our perspective is too limited. There are too many elements at work.

Well, if you cannot make up your mind, then perhaps you shouldn't be going to a restaurant. If you don't choose something from the menu, the waiter is going to ask us to leave. Try just focusing your perspective on the menu and what you might like to eat for dinner, and make a choice already.

What is Determinism?
''How much say do you really have over your actions? Have you ever had that feeling that no matter what you do, the situation was always gonna end up the way it did?

Determinism is the idea that everything that happens in the world is determined completely by previously existing causes. We all know that the world runs on cause-and-effect. Imagine a shot in snooker (or “pool” for you Americans). You hit the cue ball which then strikes another, and the movement of the balls is determined by the laws of physics.

But once you’ve hit the ball, neither you or the balls have any say in which way things turn out! Once the initial cause (you hitting the cue ball) is set in place, everything just follows along through the laws of physics.''

And as in this example, us hitting the ball is also determined by the prior events that brought us to the point of playing pool and hitting the ball. A system where all events are subject to entailment.

In America, the straight game of pool involves "calling the shot" (e.g., "The 3 ball in the side pocket"). You are faced with the current positions of the cue ball and all of the other balls still on the table. And it is deterministically entailed that you must choose which ball you are going attempt to hit into which pocket of the table, and state your intention for all to hear.

You have a figurative "menu" of options, and you must make a choice before the game can proceed. If you're really good at pool, you may not choose the easiest shot, but may take into account where the cue ball is likely to end up after your shot, and whether it will result in an easy or hard shot for your opponent.

That's how deterministic entailment works. Prior causes (choosing to play pool instead of poker) result in you standing at the pool table, chalking the tip of your cue stick, and trying to choose the shot that will best improve your odds of winning.

And now you, and your choosing, have become the prior cause of saying, "The 3 ball in the side pocket", and you act upon that chosen intent.

Those who would suggest that choosing doesn't happen in a deterministically entailed series of events are having some kind of an illusion.

There is only what must necessarily happen. The rest is illusion. ...

Oh crap! The 3 ball bounced off the corner of the pocket. I should have tried the easier 5 ball in the corner. I could have easily made that shot, but instead decided to try the harder shot.

Hey! What do you mean by saying I "could not" have tried the easier 5 ball in the corner shot?! It was right there on the table and I could have chosen it, if I didn't choose the 3 ball instead. Given my overconfidence about the 3 ball, I "would not" choose the easier shot. But I certainly "could have" chosen it.

That's not an "illusion", dude, it is the English language.

That there are a number of options on the menu doesn't mean that any customer can take any option at any time.

That's exactly what many options on the menu means. It means that any customer can take any option at any time. However, it definitely does not mean that any customer will take any specific option. What the customer will do is up to the customer, and no one else. And that is what was deterministically entailed.

 

[bilby]

The point being, given determinism, there is no choice, the outcome of what we call the decision making process is entailed, not chosen.

On the contrary, it's both, because they're the same thing.

The question that determines whether an action is freely willed isn't "Was it entailed or chosen?"; It's "Was it mainly caused by internal or external influences?"

If the influences that led to the action were external - a gun to your head, a wife giving you a hard stare, a locked door preventing you from access - then your actions aren't free, and your will cannot be exercised.

If the influences were internal - thoughts, memories, emotions - then as these "inner necessities" are the only things that constrained your choice, and as they are YOU, your will is being exercised, free of external threats or constraints.

 

[DBT]

The point being, given determinism, there is no choice, the outcome of what we call the decision making process is entailed, not chosen.

On the contrary, it's both, because they're the same thing.

No, not the same... choice requires two or more realizable options, that you could have equally chosen any of the options being presented.

Yet as we know, according to the definition of determinism given by compatibilists, no such thing is possible.

Which is why compatibilists define free will as acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced.

Which of course is flawed because it ignores an element that is just as restrictive: inner necessitation.

The question that determines whether an action is freely willed isn't "Was it entailed or chosen?"; It's "Was it mainly caused by internal or external influences?"

If the influences that led to the action were external - a gun to your head, a wife giving you a hard stare, a locked door preventing you from access - then your actions aren't free, and your will cannot be exercised.

If the influences were internal - thoughts, memories, emotions - then as these "inner necessities" are the only things that constrained your choice, and as they are YOU, your will is being exercised, free of external threats or constraints.

Doesn't make any difference to the issue of free will to say 'this is all you.' You have no access to the underlying mechanisms and means of your existence, how you think, what you think or how you act. The state of the system is the state of you, there is no choice in that.

It isn't a matter of free will. The agency is neural networks acquiring and processing information and responding to it according to architecture and memory function.

Free will plays no part, yet it is being invoked like some sort of deity.

 

[DBT]

There is only what must necessarily happen. The rest is illusion. ...

Oh crap! The 3 ball bounced off the corner of the pocket. I should have tried the easier 5 ball in the corner. I could have easily made that shot, but instead decided to try the harder shot.

Hey! What do you mean by saying I "could not" have tried the easier 5 ball in the corner shot?! It was right there on the table and I could have chosen it, if I didn't choose the 3 ball instead. Given my overconfidence about the 3 ball, I "would not" choose the easier shot. But I certainly "could have" chosen it.

That's not an "illusion", dude, it is the English language.

There is no possibility of having taken the alternative shot, not because the action is impossible per se, but because your mental state in that moment in time did not permit the action to happen. X then Y.

Your own definition of determinism tells you that actions are fixed, that no alternate actions may happen. If your brain state had been different, you could have taken the shot....but of course, given determinism, your brain was not different, it cannot be different, hence what you imagine you 'could have done' had things been different is merely a construct of imagination.

“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 state of the system, including your brain/mind, determines what does and doesn't happen in any given instance.

And of course, being a fixed progression of events.

It didn't happen because the state of the system did not permit it to happen in the instance you imagine you could have done otherwise.

There is no 'could have done otherwise' in determinism.

''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.''


That's the gist of it.

That there are a number of options on the menu doesn't mean that any customer can take any option at any time.

That's exactly what many options on the menu means. It means that any customer can take any option at any time. However, it definitely does not mean that any customer will take any specific option. What the customer will do is up to the customer, and no one else. And that is what was deterministically entailed.

No single customer can take any option at a single point in time. Each customer represents a unique set of proclivities, so each customer orders accordingly. Hence a list of options to cater to different proclivities and tastes.

John 'will place his order for roast Duck for dinner at eight' in determinism equates to John 'must necessary' place his order for roast Duck for dinner at eight. No alternate order will happen because there is no possibility of it happening.

 

[Jarhyn]

realizable options

Realizable is always "realizable IF".

I really urge you to write a simple hello world program, just a console program that takes an argument, switches on it, and outputs text according to the argument. We can discuss it after you have done something that SHOULD take less time than the 20-30 minutes I spent responding to your bullshit this morning.

In fact:

void main (int argc, char args[])
{
  if (argc >= 2)
  {
    switch(args[1][0])
    {
    case 'a':
     printf("arg started with \"a\""); break;
    default:
     printf("arg started with something else"); break;
    }
  } else {
    printf("not enough arguments supplied");
  }
}

This is most of the way there. You just need to declare the header for printf, which is far less work than the above. The above was 8 minutes of typing. Looking up what to include to make printf work is trivial, especially when I just gave you the search terms in bolded italics.

When is the eighth line free to execute, in general?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

There is no possibility of having taken the alternative shot, not because the action is impossible per se, but because your mental state in that moment in time did not permit the action to happen. X then Y.

What happens in the restaurant also holds true in the pool room. Instead of reading a "menu", I will be "reading the table". Given the current position of the balls on the table, I see several shots that are physically possible. Impossible shots are excluded from consideration, because we don't want to waste time or energy considering the impossible. So, before we spend any time considering our options, it must be the case that we believe these options to be possible to choose and possible to carry out.

I see that the 5 ball in the corner pocket as not only possible, but very easy. Unfortunately, it leaves the cue ball in a position that gives my opponent an equally easy shot. So, I consider the 3 ball in the side pocket. This shot is harder, but it is not impossible. And, even if I miss, the cue ball will be in a bad position for my opponent, leaving her without any easy shots.

I could have chosen the 5 ball in the corner pocket. But I chose the 3 ball in the side pocket. Both were real possibilities.

The series of mental events were X then Y, all the way through. And each mental event was "fixed" by the prior events. And this included reading the table, to find the several shots that I could take, then considering the consequences of each shot, and deciding that the 3 ball in the side pocket would be the shot I would take, even though I could take the 5 ball in the corner pocket.

All of these events, that took place solely within my imagination, constitute the inner necessity that made my choice inevitable.

Your own definition of determinism tells you that actions are fixed, that no alternate actions may happen.

No alternate actions will happen. I will perceive, by simply reading the table, that the 5 ball in the corner is a real possibility. And I will also see that the 3 ball in the side pocket is a real possibility too. Both can be chosen, and both are physically possible to carry out. Each is a realizable alternative. Once I have established two or more real possibilities, I will consider the likely consequences of each choice, and I decide to attempt the 3 ball in the side pocket.

If there were only one shot that was physically possible, then I would have no choice but to take that shot. But there were two possibilities, not just one. There were two shots that I might choose, even though there was only one shot that I would choose.

All of that is X then Y, with no deviation or alternative to that specific series of events. Within those "fixed" events we have two possibilities that were seriously considered, two pool shots that I could take. One of them, the 5 ball in the corner pocket, became the thing that I would not choose, even though I could have. The other, the 3 ball in the side pocket, became the thing that I inevitably would choose.

It's just the English language.

If your brain state had been different, you could have taken the shot....but of course, given determinism, your brain was not different, it cannot be different, hence what you imagine you 'could have done' had things been different is merely a construct of imagination.

The imagination is the "room where it happens". It is where choosing happens and it is where all possibilities reside and are explored. My opponent will not allow me to take practice shots on the pool table during the game. I have to imagine the likely outcome of my shots and then select the shot most likely to produce the best outcome.

It is the key component of that inner necessity that you keep referencing, while you continue to deny its causal role in the chain of events.

“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

I love that quote. It pithily explains why causal determinism is never experienced as a meaningful or relevant constraint. You are never being forced to do anything that you don't want to do. Thus, it is neither coercion nor an undue influence. It presents no challenge to free will. It is just you being you, doing what you wanted to do. It is basically "what you would have done anyway".

Or, as I like to say, determinism doesn't actually change anything.

 

[steve_bank]

I wonder if Marvin has trouble figuring out what to eat at a restaurant

One can always flip a coin or roll a die. Chinese menus with multiple choices in multiple columns are particularly problematic.

Mustard or ketchup on a hot dog always gives me trouble.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I wonder if Marvin has trouble figuring out what to eat at a restaurant

One can always flip a coin or roll a die. Chinese menus with multiple choices in multiple columns are particularly problematic.

Mustard or ketchup on a hot dog always gives me trouble.

Geez, you decide to pick on me, and all of a sudden you can spell!

 

[steve_bank]

I wonder if Marvin has trouble figuring out what to eat at a restaurant

One can always flip a coin or roll a die. Chinese menus with multiple choices in multiple columns are particularly problematic.

Mustard or ketchup on a hot dog always gives me trouble.

Geez, you decide to pick on me, and all of a sudden you can spell!

Ouch.

 

[bilby]

Doesn't make any difference to the issue of free will to say 'this is all you.' You have no access to the underlying mechanisms and means of your existence, how you think, what you think or how you act. The state of the system is the state of you, there is no choice in that.

Indeed. The underlying mechanisms are inaccessible, so it's impossible to determine from outside what the system (the inner necessity, the person, YOU) will do.

An outside observer can determine what you could do; What you can do, given the circumstances. The menu lists steak and salad, but not lobster. You can order steak, or salad; You cannot order lobster.

But nobody, not even you yourself, can work out what you will do, until you do it.

That's the only freedom that's available - freedom from predictability.

Nobody here is arguing for freedom from deterministic necessity. There is only one possible action you will take; That's trivially true, and completely irrelevant to anything.

But which you will take, out of the many that an observer would predict that you can take, is unknown until you choose one. Even if that observer is you.

And responsibility for that choice falls on you, as the most relevant agent. Of course you didn't have a choice about the things that made you who you are; But those things are diffuse and numerous, and it's impossible to tell which ones were the cause of your actions. What, or who, else should we blame if your choices lead to bad outcomes?

 

[fromderinside]

But, me (I can't write this because it reads sexist in current context) ..etty, we fallen over that piece of language with 'response'. So quit complaining with long dead pigs drawn across logical pathways

No pedí la ensalada, tráeme el bistec, por favor

and we don't make predictions we guess and express

"And we don't make informed guesses, we make guesses"

Nice contradiction there, as if information about the system cannot be known despite you making discussions about knowing things about the system through science.

Clarification needed. Are your 'predictions' about present reality or our impressions of reality based on our reacting to past sensed events

... I've explained this a few times. All predictions are about making the logical inference that information about the past implies relationships of cause and effect, and simulating the output of a decision with various different inputs to find the best input, and then when the best hypothetical input is known, selecting that input in particular.

Your not-even-wrong framing is telling.

behavior is designed

Your Christianity is showing.

We aren't sensing reality

Ah, so if the sensor in my eye is not really generating output proportional to the energy level of photons?

Is my ear not generating output proportional to the time/frequency transform of patterned deflections in the air?

Ooh, I guess my tongue is not really detecting the precise binding and unbinding energies of nearby ions and sugars and so on being expressed against their structure?

Indirect detection in the presence of reliable cause and effect is valid.

My 'behavior is designed' is the part evolution plays in resulting sensory systems that is driven by survival rather than objectivity. Its more about which photons and what frequencies. But it is also about physics which is limited by what evolution can provide and whether what evolution provides is copacetic with reality.

...and no your tongue and analytic substrates can't really verify their outputs with object structure. It's a dance limited by the relation between what drives evolution and what is reality.

 

[fromderinside]

That there are a number of options on the menu doesn't mean that any customer can take any option at any time.

They can take any option at any time if they chose that option at that time.

To wit, they consider the option, simulate the future as if they did choose it, see the outcome of that process being unfortunate, and then freely decide to let that opportunity pass.

Or they cease predicting the outcomes of such trivialities altogether because after the first few times they discovered paying attention to such options literally makes them nauseous (as an evolved mechanism to prevent worse regret).

Normally It's some one in place to encourages fast runners notices that a running individual ran pretty fast. What the runner did was choose to accept the advice and run with a team or as a sponsored individual. Most of the time races implicitly choose runners who qualify or meet criteria and agree to participate. Sometimes runners choose to run.

Not only did I become a specialist I also participated in track in school and college.

We choose and think a lot less than you seem to advocate. Mostly it's bump in to this then bump in to that.

Sure. It can be that way as well.

In all cases except the one where the runner has no choice but "to run or to be killed" the runner chooses to run.

In the (perhaps not so rare) decision to run to save ones life, the decision is not to run but to live, and have more decisions ahead of oneself. The body, after deciding "live", something few people have personal control over, makes that decision without allowing the forebrain any leverage in the transaction.

Thus "we" generally are not the ones doing that choosing (to live through an encounter), and so "we" are not the ones held responsible for making the choice.

We even have, as a result of the pursuit of psychology, various models for both imposed and automatic behavior modification.

Everything you specify is in reference to the individual rather than in reference to reality.

 

[fromderinside]

But, me (I can't write this because it reads sexist in current context) ..etty, we fallen over that piece of language with 'response'. So quit complaining with long dead pigs drawn across logical pathways

No pedí la ensalada, tráeme el bistec, por favor

and we don't make predictions we guess and express

"And we don't make informed guesses, we make guesses"

Nice contradiction there, as if information about the system cannot be known despite you making discussions about knowing things about the system through science.

Clarification needed. Are your 'predictions' about present reality or our impressions of reality based on our reacting to past sensed events

... I've explained this a few times. All predictions are about making the logical inference that information about the past implies relationships of cause and effect, and simulating the output of a decision with various different inputs to find the best input, and then when the best hypothetical input is known, selecting that input in particular.

Your not-even-wrong framing is telling.

behavior is designed

Your Christianity is showing.

We aren't sensing reality

Ah, so if the sensor in my eye is not really generating output proportional to the energy level of photons?

Is my ear not generating output proportional to the time/frequency transform of patterned deflections in the air?

Ooh, I guess my tongue is not really detecting the precise binding and unbinding energies of nearby ions and sugars and so on being expressed against their structure?

Indirect detection in the presence of reliable cause and effect is valid.

Last first. Indirect detection can never be valid. It can only be relatively valid if one specifies to what or whom it is objectively relatively valid. All I can say is I know Bayes. Bayes is a friend of mine Bayes it the primary one to whom I refer whenever there are relative statements made. Guess what. A probability statement results.

 

[DBT]

Doesn't make any difference to the issue of free will to say 'this is all you.' You have no access to the underlying mechanisms and means of your existence, how you think, what you think or how you act. The state of the system is the state of you, there is no choice in that.

Indeed. The underlying mechanisms are inaccessible, so it's impossible to determine from outside what the system (the inner necessity, the person, YOU) will do.

Neither can we as conscious beings who are inside the system, being shaped, formed and generated by the brain's information processing activity. Information processing is not a matter of free will. How we think, feel and act is a matter of brain information condition from moment to moment, Given a breakdown in function, memory, connectivity, lesions, etc, we disintegrate as rational conscious beings.

Functionality does not equate to free will

An outside observer can determine what you could do; What you can do, given the circumstances. The menu lists steak and salad, but not lobster. You can order steak, or salad; You cannot order lobster.

Only because human behaviour is to some predictable. The better you know a person, the more accurately you can predict what they are thinking in any given circumstances. In some circumstances, how people react is quite predictable.

Again, nothing to do with free will.

But nobody, not even you yourself, can work out what you will do, until you do it.

That is an essential point against the notion of free will . That response is determined by an interaction of circumstances/environment and brain state in each moment as the system evolves (we are talking determinism).

That's the only freedom that's available - freedom from predictability.

Which does not equate to free will.

Plus, unpredictability within a deterministic system is a matter of not having access to the necessary information to make accurate predictions, and not that determinism is not predictable.

Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

''To a determinist, all choice is illusory. The literal meaning of choice is that there are multiple options, and the person selects one of them. Thus, choice requires multiple possible outcomes, which is a no-no to determinism. To the determinist, the march of causality will make one outcome inevitable, and so it is wrong to believe that anything else was possible. The chooser does not yet know which option he or she is going to choose, hence the subjective experience of choice. Thus, the subjective choosing is simply a matter of one's own ignorance - ignorance that those other outcomes are not really possibilities at all.''

And of course, compatibilists are determinists who define free will in relation to determinism as ''acting in accordance with one's will, without external force, coercion or undue influence.'

 

[DBT]

There is no possibility of having taken the alternative shot, not because the action is impossible per se, but because your mental state in that moment in time did not permit the action to happen. X then Y.

What happens in the restaurant also holds true in the pool room. Instead of reading a "menu", I will be "reading the table". Given the current position of the balls on the table, I see several shots that are physically possible. Impossible shots are excluded from consideration, because we don't want to waste time or energy considering the impossible. So, before we spend any time considering our options, it must be the case that we believe these options to be possible to choose and possible to carry out.

Sure, the brain acquires information from its environment, processes it and generates a response. You learn to play pool and the brain sees the positions and relationships between balls and recognizes opportunities to score.

Brain function and information processing at work. A rational intelligent system (if healthy and functional).

“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

I love that quote. It pithily explains why causal determinism is never experienced as a meaningful or relevant constraint. You are never being forced to do anything that you don't want to do. Thus, it is neither coercion nor an undue influence. It presents no challenge to free will. It is just you being you, doing what you wanted to do. It is basically "what you would have done anyway".

Or, as I like to say, determinism doesn't actually change anything.

It is the ultimate constraint for choice and free will. Choice is defined as the possibility of taking any one of a number of options, whereas determinism only permits one possible outcome.

Hence it is not possible that you could have wanted otherwise.

Your want is just as fixed as the inevitable action that follows.

That is the point of Kane's remark.
.