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Demystifying Determinism

There are no possible alternatives at any point during the evolution of the system. Your own definition of determinism stipulates this.

There is the menu. Determinism says the menu was causally necessary. Do you disagree?

Of course it`s causally necessary. That is the very point that negates the notion of free will, that all actions, including brain activity and will as a function is causally necessary.

What happens, must happen. Nobody picks and chooses, ''well, maybe this, maybe that.''

There are the people, picking and choosing what they will order for dinner, thinking to themselves, things like, "Well, maybe the Steak, but wait, I had the bacon and eggs for breakfast and a double cheeseburger for lunch. Hmm. Maybe the Salad instead"

The appearance does not necessarily represent how the system works;

``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.'' https://www.britannica.com/topic/determinism


Determinism says that picking and choosing was causally necessary. Do you disagree?

Picking and choosing are the wrong words to use in relation to determinism...please refer to britannica`s description of the decision making process.

Actions are are, in your own words, causally necessary rather than freely `picked or chosen.`

There can only be one outcome at any point in time, and that outcome is entailed, not chosen.

Determinism says that choosing is entailed. Do you disagree?

Wrong wording, determinism entails, not chooses. it`s not choice because there is only one outcome, that which is entailed by prior conditions in the system.

But it is not fixed by choosing.

Then how do you account for the dinner order? The causal mechanism clearly requires a selection from many items on the menu. Without choosing, there is no explanation as to how the state of the brain gets from (a) uncertainty as to what we will order to (b) certainty as to what we will order.

The dinner order is causally necessitated. Each customer according to their own state and condition, procilivities that are not chosen, yet fix outcomes.

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



Every action is entailed long before it comes to the cognitive process of thought and deliberation, which also has no deviation and thereby leads to the inevitable conclusion: the determined action.

No, that will not do. That is like answering the question, "why did the child die" with "every action is entailed long before it happens", while pretending that she never caught Covid-19 and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it. You see, had her parents chosen to vaccinate their child, she would have lived.

Nothing of the sort. You yourself gave a definition of determinism that expresses this very principle. Your objection does not relate to what i said, nor your given definition.

If the parents get their children vaccinated, that is entailed by who they are and how they think. Some of course don`t.....perhaps they don`t trust the system, object to how the crisis is handled, or any number of elements that make them who they are, how they think and what they do in any given situation.

”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.
 
first off, you are pulling stuff out of you know where
You really don't know what randomness is in a mathematical sense, do you?

Look it up, actually study it.
First off, the definition DBT applies to randomness is not apt. Steve actually covered that at some point insofar as that randomness is a term referring to the inability to derive a function through statistical tests on it's output

first off, you are pulling stuff out of you know where.

Where exactly is this definition that I supposedly apply to randomness?


Second, deviation, real deviation where someone chooses steak and not salad, but also chooses salad but not steak (and the universe splits in to at the moment of to reject the contradiction from being observable) is nonsensical, unobservable, and an untestable hypothesis, and furthermore is unnecessary. All we have ever seen or contemplated, there is just the one life, the one "play-through" as it were.

There is, after all, a real world we return to when we wake from our simulations inside ourselves. Even these dreams are in their own way real, real enforced relationships between data whose manipulation acts relatively to objects outside. But still... one must dream of deviations for us to make choice of these dreams as to which to realize.

I may not know which dinner I want. It may take some mental exercise to figure it out, put together some choices, and actually choose.

Sometimes it takes putting together a list, enumerating that list upon a rock's face, and letting the rock's form of fixed choice of "how it settles following being provided a moment of force across a surface" be what ends up rendering the decision. In this case alternatives are usually regions of stable potential relative to the center of mass of the material.

This is a different kind of choice function.

I wonder if DBT would dispute that the dice does not have sides? Sides here are alternatives. Alternatives continue to exist, to have existed, because they were made as a potential, not necessarily an actual.

The rock may not have carved itself into a dice, but the shape of the dice as it is, as it continues to be, is essentially to the choices made by it.

If the dice makes "bad" choices, fails to represent a flat distribution across a large number of rolls, the dice may be regulated: cut the dice down or build the dice up somehow to produce flat faces and an evenly distributed mass.

Alternatively, it may be favored by another sort of metaphorical "dice" that tends to make "bad" choices.

The thing is, this second "dice" that makes "bad" choices has available to it the means to sculpt its own selection surface as it were. Metaphorically shave it's faces down.

Responsibility is about seeing that dice roll in a way where all the dice get to participate in all the rolls, as it were.

In this gross oversimplification the "dice" in question are given leave to shape themselves as they see fit, metaphorical arms that may shoot out to cut down or add material as is available.

Self regulation is possible.

It's possible to describe all sorts of systems which self-modify.

So, it seems that you believe words have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words are commonly used and, at the same time you believe the meanings of words are represented by their definitions (statements of common usage).

These two views are contradictory. They can't both be true. You can believe both but that would just mean that you are confused.

You missed the point. Which is that words are just symbols, language, used to convey information in the form of references to objects, events, ideas, concepts, etc. Which doesn't mean that because words have meanings that what they refer exists; God, gods, angels, demons, etcetera.
No, I haven't missed your point. If you recall I already agreed with the point you're making in post #1247 ("If you define God as a supernatural entity, then many reasonable people would agree God doesn't exist").

But if you want to level this criticism at the compatibilist definition of free will then the onus on you is to show that the referent of the definition is nonexistent.

The basic definition of compatibilist free will is: Acting while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

For your argument to hold, you have to be claiming that no one ever acts without coercion or undue influence. Is this what you're claiming?

Or, are you adding 'coercion' and 'undue influence' to 'free', 'freedom' 'choose' and 'choice' as words that have no meaning in a deterministic universe?
He would have to add "here" and "there" to the list of words without meaning then.

Substantively, the idea of "undue influence" is a discussion, spatially, of "did the influence come from here (inside the brain), at the time of the decision, or did it come from there (outside the brain)?"

if when he orders the salad one can observe the immediate chain of decisionmaking in "order salad I've got a gun", the influence came from "there", not "here".

And wherever the decision came from and the nature of it determines who gets the bill, even if the bill is "police, drop the gun!" and payed in blood.

You are making all the same errors, over and over, errors that have been pointed out way too many time, to no evail.

The sad truth is that you still haven`t grasped the implications of your own definition of determinism, and most likely never will.

I don`t have the time to explain it to you again, only to see that you failed to grasp the basics.


``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.''

https://www.britannica.com/topic/determinism
Sorry, but saying "you're wrong because (definition)" doesn't actually establish a fact of wrongness.

Someone else committing the modal fallacy makes it no less a modal fallacy.
 
So, it seems that you believe words have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words are commonly used and, at the same time you believe the meanings of words are represented by their definitions (statements of common usage).

These two views are contradictory. They can't both be true. You can believe both but that would just mean that you are confused.

You missed the point. Which is that words are just symbols, language, used to convey information in the form of references to objects, events, ideas, concepts, etc. Which doesn't mean that because words have meanings that what they refer exists; God, gods, angels, demons, etcetera.
No, I haven't missed your point. If you recall I already agreed with the point you're making in post #1247 ("If you define God as a supernatural entity, then many reasonable people would agree God doesn't exist").

But if you want to level this criticism at the compatibilist definition of free will then the onus on you is to show that the referent of the definition is nonexistent.

The basic definition of compatibilist free will is: Acting while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

For your argument to hold, you have to be claiming that no one ever acts without coercion or undue influence. Is this what you're claiming?

Or, are you adding 'coercion' and 'undue influence' to 'free', 'freedom' 'choose' and 'choice' as words that have no meaning in a deterministic universe?

I have already explained that words are symbols. Symbols that refer to objects, events, ideas, concepts, etc.


The word `Tree` does not mean a body of water, `mountain` does not refer to a cloud, and so on.

Now as the issue here is `free will` something that we call `free` has specific references, as does the word `will` - so what we call `will` must be `free` as the word is defined

To reiterate, if it is claimed that free will exists, will needs to be free.

But of course, that is not what compabilists do, where unforced or uncoersed is declared to be `free will,` disregarding inner necessity, etc, and makes compatibilism `a quagmire of evasion.`

This has been explained countless times over a period of decades, quotes, citations given....
Once again, given a question which you're uncomfortable answering, you ignore it and revert to a standard response.

If I've learned nothing else from this latest exchange, it's that you obviously believe that certain words (free, will, choice etc.) have uniquely correct meanings and that any other interpretations are simply wrong. I've persistently attempted to discover on what basis you justify your claim to know the correct meanings of the disputed words/phrases but to no avail - you simply deflect/obfuscate when questioned.

As I've said before, this is predominately a semantic dispute.
 
There are no possible alternatives at any point during the evolution of the system. Your own definition of determinism stipulates this.
There is the menu. Determinism says the menu was causally necessary. Do you disagree?

Of course it`s causally necessary. That is the very point that negates the notion of free will, that all actions, including brain activity and will as a function is causally necessary.

So, we agree that the restaurant menu was causally necessary.

What happens, must happen. Nobody picks and chooses, ''well, maybe this, maybe that.''
There are the people, picking and choosing what they will order for dinner, thinking to themselves, things like, "Well, maybe the Steak, but wait, I had the bacon and eggs for breakfast and a double cheeseburger for lunch. Hmm. Maybe the Salad instead"
The appearance does not necessarily represent how the system works;

That's okay. We can pretend that the person is a black box. We feed in the restaurant menu and it outputs a dinner order. What shall we call the operation that selects one dinner order from a list of many possible dinner orders? How about "choosing"?

It would appear, to any objective observer, that choosing is undeniably happening in the restaurant, and that the customers are all doing it.

And that appears to us to be exactly how the system actually works.

But what about the claim that every choice is causally necessary from any prior point in time? Hey, that's fine too! Both the choosing and the choice are causally necessary from any prior point in time.

Both facts are equally supported, and neither fact contradicts the other.

``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 would have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could would have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.'' https://www.britannica.com/topic/determinism

I'm sorry, but we still cannot say that it is "impossible" for anyone to have made another choice, because it also remains a fact that every customer "could have" ordered anything on the menu, even if they would only order what they did order.

Choosing logically requires at least two real possibilities. If there is only one possibility then choosing never begins.

Consider the menu. If there were only one possibility on the menu, then the waiter would bring that meal to everyone, and no one would have to choose anything.

But that is not how the system works. The menu has multiple possibilities and our customers must somehow condense that list to a single dinner order. Everything on the menu is something that the customer can order, even if the customer orders something else instead. Although the customer would order only one dinner, every other item on the menu remains something that he could have ordered instead.

Ironically, the Britannica authors seem to have lost their command of the English language. But that is what happens when people think figuratively rather than literally. With determinism, it is AS IF the customer "could not have" ordered differently and it is AS IF all the other items on the menu were "impossible". But, of course, neither of those figurative statements are literally true, because "could" and "would" are not the same notion, and choosing not to do something never makes it "impossible" to do.

Actions are are, in your own words, causally necessary rather than freely `picked or chosen.`

All deliberate actions are both causally necessary and chosen. Those are my own words. Stop pretending that your words are mine. It is dishonest.

There can only be one outcome at any point in time, and that outcome is entailed, not chosen.
Determinism says that choosing is entailed. Do you disagree?
Wrong wording, determinism entails, not chooses. it`s not choice because there is only one outcome, that which is entailed by prior conditions in the system.

So, you're going to continue to insist that choosing is not happening, even when we see it happening with our own eyes in the restaurant?

Choosing is obviously entailed to happen, or we wouldn't be seeing it happen so often.

Your claim is based in figurative thinking. We say to ourselves that "if it is entailed then it is AS IF choosing isn't happening". But, nevertheless, it is happening, and thus we must concluded that it is entailed to happen, exactly as it does.

The causal mechanism clearly requires a selection from many items on the menu. Without choosing, there is no explanation as to how the state of the brain gets from (a) uncertainty as to what we will order to (b) certainty as to what we will order.

The dinner order is causally necessitated. Each customer according to their own state and condition, proclivities that are not chosen, yet fix outcomes.

My unchosen proclivity was to order the juicy Steak for dinner, but the bacon and eggs I had for breakfast and the double cheeseburger I had for lunch led me to resist that proclivity, and to order the Salad instead. It was not my proclivity, but my choosing that fixed the outcome.

But, if you continue to ignore choosing as a valid causal mechanism that fixes outcomes, then you will never understand determinism correctly.

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

Note the correction. And, the statement, as corrected, is correct. Given the menu at time t, choosing will happen at time t+1, and a choice will be output at time t+2.

If the parents get their children vaccinated, that is entailed by who they are and how they think. Some of course don`t.....perhaps they don`t trust the system, object to how the crisis is handled, or any number of elements that make them who they are, how they think and what they do in any given situation.

It is either entailed that they will choose to get their children vaccinated, or, it is entailed that they will choose not to get them vaccinated. You cannot claim that they have no choice when, regardless of what they choose, they actually do choose.

And the reason we try to educate parents about the vaccines is to help them to make the right choice.

”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.

This quote does not improve with age. Choosing is a mental operation performed by the central nervous system. We don't merely "feel" that we are able to choose, we actually observe ourselves choosing what we will order from the restaurant menu. These are not subjective experiences, but objective observations. And they are confirmed by the waiter, who brings us our dinner and the bill.
 
first off, you are pulling stuff out of you know where
You really don't know what randomness is in a mathematical sense, do you?

Look it up, actually study it.


That confirms it, you don`t have a clue about the terms of this debate.

I`ll try again; the argument is related to the compatibility of `free will` in relation to determinism.

Determinism just as you and other compatibilists define it, minus the word `choosing.`

Once again: randomness is irrelevant to the debate, the issue here is whether free will exists within a deterministic system

Once more for luck, whether or not there are random events in the world has no bearing on the issue of compatibility of free will and determinism.

Whether the notion of free will is compatible with randomness is a different debate.

Are you at least able to grasp that much?
 
So, it seems that you believe words have intrinsic meaning regardless of how those words are commonly used and, at the same time you believe the meanings of words are represented by their definitions (statements of common usage).

These two views are contradictory. They can't both be true. You can believe both but that would just mean that you are confused.

You missed the point. Which is that words are just symbols, language, used to convey information in the form of references to objects, events, ideas, concepts, etc. Which doesn't mean that because words have meanings that what they refer exists; God, gods, angels, demons, etcetera.
No, I haven't missed your point. If you recall I already agreed with the point you're making in post #1247 ("If you define God as a supernatural entity, then many reasonable people would agree God doesn't exist").

But if you want to level this criticism at the compatibilist definition of free will then the onus on you is to show that the referent of the definition is nonexistent.

The basic definition of compatibilist free will is: Acting while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

For your argument to hold, you have to be claiming that no one ever acts without coercion or undue influence. Is this what you're claiming?

Or, are you adding 'coercion' and 'undue influence' to 'free', 'freedom' 'choose' and 'choice' as words that have no meaning in a deterministic universe?

I have already explained that words are symbols. Symbols that refer to objects, events, ideas, concepts, etc.


The word `Tree` does not mean a body of water, `mountain` does not refer to a cloud, and so on.

Now as the issue here is `free will` something that we call `free` has specific references, as does the word `will` - so what we call `will` must be `free` as the word is defined

To reiterate, if it is claimed that free will exists, will needs to be free.

But of course, that is not what compabilists do, where unforced or uncoersed is declared to be `free will,` disregarding inner necessity, etc, and makes compatibilism `a quagmire of evasion.`

This has been explained countless times over a period of decades, quotes, citations given....
Once again, given a question which you're uncomfortable answering, you ignore it and revert to a standard response.

The response I have given numerous times addresses your question.


If I've learned nothing else from this latest exchange, it's that you obviously believe that certain words (free, will, choice etc.) have uniquely correct meanings and that any other interpretations are simply wrong. I've persistently attempted to discover on what basis you justify your claim to know the correct meanings of the disputed words/phrases but to no avail - you simply deflect/obfuscate when questioned.

As I've said before, this is predominately a semantic dispute.

It`s not even controversial. The word is not the thing, the word `tree` is not a tree, the word `moon` is not the moon...words are symbols used in reference to objects, events, ideas, beliefs, etc...the words are not the ideas or beliefs, they refer to them for the purpose of communication.

The term `free will` is not free will. It`s just a set of words, a term, used in reference to several different concepts, lIbertarian free will being different to compatibilism, which differs from common perception, `the ability to choose any option at any given moment in time,` which of course contradicts the terms of determinism.

That is the answer. You evade the answer. If you cannot accept or understand it, that is not my problem.
 
There are no possible alternatives at any point during the evolution of the system. Your own definition of determinism stipulates this.
There is the menu. Determinism says the menu was causally necessary. Do you disagree?

Of course it`s causally necessary. That is the very point that negates the notion of free will, that all actions, including brain activity and will as a function is causally necessary.

So, we agree that the restaurant menu was causally necessary.

What happens, must happen. Nobody picks and chooses, ''well, maybe this, maybe that.''
There are the people, picking and choosing what they will order for dinner, thinking to themselves, things like, "Well, maybe the Steak, but wait, I had the bacon and eggs for breakfast and a double cheeseburger for lunch. Hmm. Maybe the Salad instead"
The appearance does not necessarily represent how the system works;

That's okay. We can pretend that the person is a black box. We feed in the restaurant menu and it outputs a dinner order. What shall we call the operation that selects one dinner order from a list of many possible dinner orders? How about "choosing"?

It would appear, to any objective observer, that choosing is undeniably happening in the restaurant, and that the customers are all doing it.

And that appears to us to be exactly how the system actually works.

But what about the claim that every choice is causally necessary from any prior point in time? Hey, that's fine too! Both the choosing and the choice are causally necessary from any prior point in time.

Both facts are equally supported, and neither fact contradicts the other.

``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 would have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could would have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.'' https://www.britannica.com/topic/determinism

I'm sorry, but we still cannot say that it is "impossible" for anyone to have made another choice, because it also remains a fact that every customer "could have" ordered anything on the menu, even if they would only order what they did order.

Choosing logically requires at least two real possibilities. If there is only one possibility then choosing never begins.

Consider the menu. If there were only one possibility on the menu, then the waiter would bring that meal to everyone, and no one would have to choose anything.

But that is not how the system works. The menu has multiple possibilities and our customers must somehow condense that list to a single dinner order. Everything on the menu is something that the customer can order, even if the customer orders something else instead. Although the customer would order only one dinner, every other item on the menu remains something that he could have ordered instead.

Ironically, the Britannica authors seem to have lost their command of the English language. But that is what happens when people think figuratively rather than literally. With determinism, it is AS IF the customer "could not have" ordered differently and it is AS IF all the other items on the menu were "impossible". But, of course, neither of those figurative statements are literally true, because "could" and "would" are not the same notion, and choosing not to do something never makes it "impossible" to do.


The britannica authors are correct in what they say about the nature and implications of determinism.

It is precisely what you yourself say in your definition of determinism, except for one detail, your inclusion of `choosing,` which, for the given reasons, is false.
Actions are are, in your own words, causally necessary rather than freely `picked or chosen.`

All deliberate actions are both causally necessary and chosen. Those are my own words. Stop pretending that your words are mine. It is dishonest.

Entailment is not choice. If events proceed as they must, what must happen is not a matter of choice, and to label it as choice is false.


There can only be one outcome at any point in time, and that outcome is entailed, not chosen.
Determinism says that choosing is entailed. Do you disagree?
Wrong wording, determinism entails, not chooses. it`s not choice because there is only one outcome, that which is entailed by prior conditions in the system.

So, you're going to continue to insist that choosing is not happening, even when we see it happening with our own eyes in the restaurant?

Choosing is obviously entailed to happen, or we wouldn't be seeing it happen so often.

Your claim is based in figurative thinking. We say to ourselves that "if it is entailed then it is AS IF choosing isn't happening". But, nevertheless, it is happening, and thus we must concluded that it is entailed to happen, exactly as it does.

The causal mechanism clearly requires a selection from many items on the menu. Without choosing, there is no explanation as to how the state of the brain gets from (a) uncertainty as to what we will order to (b) certainty as to what we will order.

The causal mechanisms entail, they fix, they do not choose.


The dinner order is causally necessitated. Each customer according to their own state and condition, proclivities that are not chosen, yet fix outcomes.

My unchosen proclivity was to order the juicy Steak for dinner, but the bacon and eggs I had for breakfast and the double cheeseburger I had for lunch led me to resist that proclivity, and to order the Salad instead. It was not my proclivity, but my choosing that fixed the outcome.

But, if you continue to ignore choosing as a valid causal mechanism that fixes outcomes, then you will never understand determinism correctly.

I ignore nothing. I am abiding by the terms and references of determinism as you define it, minus the inclusion of `choosing,` which of course does not relate to a system where everything proceeds as determined, not chosen.
Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can will be at the next moment.

Note the correction. And, the statement, as corrected, is correct. Given the menu at time t, choosing will happen at time t+1, and a choice will be output at time t+2.

It`s not a correction. It is a rationale. Choice doesn`t come into it because all actions are fixed. Fixed is the antithesis of choice....which requires the ability to take any one of a number of alternatives.

But of course, according to your definition, alternate actions cannot happen within a deterministic system.


If the parents get their children vaccinated, that is entailed by who they are and how they think. Some of course don`t.....perhaps they don`t trust the system, object to how the crisis is handled, or any number of elements that make them who they are, how they think and what they do in any given situation.

It is either entailed that they will choose to get their children vaccinated, or, it is entailed that they will choose not to get them vaccinated. You cannot claim that they have no choice when, regardless of what they choose, they actually do choose.

And the reason we try to educate parents about the vaccines is to help them to make the right choice.

As I said, each act is fixed according to their own state and condition, their own set of proclivites.

Keep in mind that your definition of determinism stipulates `fixed by antecedents.`


”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.

This quote does not improve with age. Choosing is a mental operation performed by the central nervous system. We don't merely "feel" that we are able to choose, we actually observe ourselves choosing what we will order from the restaurant menu. These are not subjective experiences, but objective observations. And they are confirmed by the waiter, who brings us our dinner and the bill.

It`s a simple fact. If outcomes are set prior to consciousness and `will` has no regulative ability when it comes to response, will has no freedom. There is no `choosing` because all outcomes are fixed, therefore no choosing between options, just entailment.

That`s all I have time for today.
 
The term `free will` is not free will. It`s just a set of words, a term, used in reference to several different concepts,

That's a good start. You apparently acknowledge that the term 'free will' can refer to more than one concept.

The problem is that you refuse to accept any usage which refers to a concept of free will which is not your preferred usage - you dismiss alternatives as incorrect usage.


You simply don't understand how language usage works. When a word/term has more than one meaning in common usage then no single usage is 'correct'.

I suppose you may be implying (though you don't explicitly make the claim) that the compatibilist usage is in some sense wrong because it's really not what people mean by the term. However, bearing in mind that 60% of professional philosophers "accept or lean towards" compatibilism (20202 PhilPapers Survey ) this would be a tough position to support.
 
Entailment is not choice. If events proceed as they must, what must happen is not a matter of choice, and to label it as choice is false.

The determinism you're using is merely a skeleton, a series of abstract notions that conflict with the empirical evidence of how the world, and the people in it, actually work. It is unscientific.

The determinism I'm using is fleshed out with all the causal mechanisms in play. It can be safely embraced by science without becoming entrapped by all of the nonsensical statements that result from figurative thinking. Scientists are empiricists.

The causal mechanisms entail, they fix, they do not choose.

Without choosing, there is no dinner order. The restaurant menu becomes a meaningless object. And the restaurant itself is rendered useless. That's how things work out with the incompatibilist definition of determinism.

With a compatibilist definition of determinism, everyone gets to choose for themselves what they will order for dinner, even if their choice was always going to happen, because it was always going to be them making that choice.

Choosing is a deterministic causal mechanism performed by the central nervous system. We don't merely "feel" that we are able to choose, we actually observe ourselves choosing what we will order from the restaurant menu. And our objective observations are confirmed by the waiter, who brings us our dinner and the bill.
 
That confirms it, you don`t have a clue about the terms of this debate
You realize that one of the things I study is cryptology, yes?

Randomness is not an easy thing to talk about.

At any rate, I keep inviting you to find where I actually demand there must be randomness (I don't, beyond pointing out that there are events in the universe whose resolution has no correlation to other events which happen).

As it is, I've discussed this again and again, because YOU are the one who keeps bringing it up!

I've presented a compatibilist choice, an event wherein an agent with many alternatives presented to it, based on proclivity, reduces the set of alternatives to a subset. Really we're just naming the objects in the set "alternatives", because we are discussing a selection of the set, a "choice".

In a software example, an example that produces a machine language rendition of such a structure:
Code:
int proclivity;
int A = 5;
Int B = -5;
.
.
.
int Fn(int var)
{
static int A = 5;
static int B = -5;
if ((A+1)< A)
 A=5;

if ((B-1) > B)
 B=-5;

if (var < proclivity)
 return A++;
else if (var >= proclivity)
 return B--;

}

This is a function. A human mind could contain this function. My human mind does contain a slowly functioning version of this function.

This creates a structure that, for argument sake, does not get to decide upon its own proclivity on whether to return A or B (whether it returns a positive or negative number). It does, however, self-regulate the A and B it returns when it does.

It creates a private A and B inaccessible to other functions (an aspect of "itself"). It regulates those aspects of "self", even if it does not regulate proclivity (which from the perspective of the function may even be accessed as a constant).

Would you disagree that this function CAN return a positive or negative number?

Would you disagree that this function cannot possibly return 0?

This function is not even restricted to a single possible return for a given var.

At best the reader can say, dependent on the state and number of calls, what it would return if called with a value.

It did not need to write its own machine code to have the function it does. It does not need to decide it's own proclivities to be structure which decides based on those proclivities.

It is a choice function, because it is a function that takes an input (var), and uses that to render a subset (the return value) from a set ({A, B}).

Now, the compatibilist would say "well, given this model (the text) of this system (the machine code), I can design a function that will, with a single execution, render 5,-5."

Assuming 16 bit integers in two's compliment...

Assuming that an unknown and unknowable number of calls to Fn have occurred, what is the greatest number of calls required to produce this output?

What is the greatest number of calls to reach N,-N?

N,M?

From a previous solution what is the function that will produce an accurate count of the number of calls to transition from N,M to J,K?

What can be said about the unknown and unknowable number of calls made to Fn previously, as a function of the return values?

How do these change when the proclivity is not accessible to read?

Does being unable to read the proclivity but being able to write blindly to it change this in any way?

How about for n-bit integers in two's compliment?for n*b width signed modulo counters?

To answer any one of these questions which describe objective facts about all things which implement this function one must accept the idea of "may" and "if". One must accept that certain entailments can be calculated on without actually doing a direct entailment, accept that representation may occur.

I can make an object in the universe that behaves this way, and know how it will behave before it ever does any behaving.

I can have a function which is set up to call Fn some number of times, sleep on that thread, release the user of Fn, and have the thread wake just in time to observe the log output of the system hitting an overflow and going to 5,-5 on the other thread, and then go to sleep again without actually checking whether it "caught" the event.

I could have a function that observes memory for that event of the overflow to locate the addresses of A and B and violate the privacy of Fn's static values, and so violate the "free will" of Fn". Depending on security of architecture, the memory may have additional fields which protect the address of A and B from writes off of a program counter other than the writes done by Fn, and forbids writes at all to Fn's code segment. In this way I can make undue influence on Fn's will possible or impossible, depending on implementation.

But I can only even think about these things when I accept that wills can be free or constrained, that choices can be made, and that functions can be represented.

But the point is, this requires deterministic function to be, well... Deterministic! It is exactly determinism that makes simulation and thus prediction using simulations of futures which "may" happen* "if prerequisites to that future are met."

One must accept that fantasy is useful in this way before they can even think about a function that can fantasize about the time it takes another function to run, and be right about it's predictions, for example.
 
The term `free will` is not free will. It`s just a set of words, a term, used in reference to several different concepts,

That's a good start. You apparently acknowledge that the term 'free will' can refer to more than one concept.

Give it a break. We have been through this countless times. Stop acting like every post is the first time. it`s more than a little ridiculous.

The problem is that you refuse to accept any usage which refers to a concept of free will which is not your preferred usage - you dismiss alternatives as incorrect usage.

For heaven`s sake, the topic of these theads happens to be the compatibilist definition of free will, where compatibilists argue for the affirmative and incompatibilists argue why it`s not sufficient to prove the proposition.

You simply don't understand how language usage works. When a word/term has more than one meaning in common usage then no single usage is 'correct'.

The problem is that you fail to grasp the simple fact that the word is not the thing, that the word `tree` is no more a tree than the compatibilist definition of free will is free will.

Or more to the point, why it fails as a definition.

I suppose you may be implying (though you don't explicitly make the claim) that the compatibilist usage is in some sense wrong because it's really not what people mean by the term. However, bearing in mind that 60% of professional philosophers "accept or lean towards" compatibilism (20202 PhilPapers Survey ) this would be a tough position to support.

You are way off the mark. I could try to explain again, but as it has been explained too many times and I feel it would be a waste of my time.

Maybe I will when I get back home.
 
That confirms it, you don`t have a clue about the terms of this debate
You realize that one of the things I study is cryptology, yes?

Randomness is not an easy thing to talk about.

At any rate, I keep inviting you to find where I actually demand there must be randomness (I don't, beyond pointing out that there are events in the universe whose resolution has no correlation to other events which happen).

As it is, I've discussed this again and again, because YOU are the one who keeps bringing it up!

I've presented a compatibilist choice, an event wherein an agent with many alternatives presented to it, based on proclivity, reduces the set of alternatives to a subset. Really we're just naming the objects in the set "alternatives", because we are discussing a selection of the set, a "choice".

In a software example, an example that produces a machine language rendition of such a structure:
Code:
int proclivity;
int A = 5;
Int B = -5;
.
.
.
int Fn(int var)
{
static int A = 5;
static int B = -5;
if ((A+1)< A)
 A=5;

if ((B-1) > B)
 B=-5;

if (var < proclivity)
 return A++;
else if (var >= proclivity)
 return B--;

}

This is a function. A human mind could contain this function. My human mind does contain a slowly functioning version of this function.

This creates a structure that, for argument sake, does not get to decide upon its own proclivity on whether to return A or B (whether it returns a positive or negative number). It does, however, self-regulate the A and B it returns when it does.

It creates a private A and B inaccessible to other functions (an aspect of "itself"). It regulates those aspects of "self", even if it does not regulate proclivity (which from the perspective of the function may even be accessed as a constant).

Would you disagree that this function CAN return a positive or negative number?

Would you disagree that this function cannot possibly return 0?

This function is not even restricted to a single possible return for a given var.

At best the reader can say, dependent on the state and number of calls, what it would return if called with a value.

It did not need to write its own machine code to have the function it does. It does not need to decide it's own proclivities to be structure which decides based on those proclivities.

It is a choice function, because it is a function that takes an input (var), and uses that to render a subset (the return value) from a set ({A, B}).

Now, the compatibilist would say "well, given this model (the text) of this system (the machine code), I can design a function that will, with a single execution, render 5,-5."

Assuming 16 bit integers in two's compliment...

Assuming that an unknown and unknowable number of calls to Fn have occurred, what is the greatest number of calls required to produce this output?

What is the greatest number of calls to reach N,-N?

N,M?

From a previous solution what is the function that will produce an accurate count of the number of calls to transition from N,M to J,K?

What can be said about the unknown and unknowable number of calls made to Fn previously, as a function of the return values?

How do these change when the proclivity is not accessible to read?

Does being unable to read the proclivity but being able to write blindly to it change this in any way?

How about for n-bit integers in two's compliment?for n*b width signed modulo counters?

To answer any one of these questions which describe objective facts about all things which implement this function one must accept the idea of "may" and "if". One must accept that certain entailments can be calculated on without actually doing a direct entailment, accept that representation may occur.

I can make an object in the universe that behaves this way, and know how it will behave before it ever does any behaving.

I can have a function which is set up to call Fn some number of times, sleep on that thread, release the user of Fn, and have the thread wake just in time to observe the log output of the system hitting an overflow and going to 5,-5 on the other thread, and then go to sleep again without actually checking whether it "caught" the event.

I could have a function that observes memory for that event of the overflow to locate the addresses of A and B and violate the privacy of Fn's static values, and so violate the "free will" of Fn". Depending on security of architecture, the memory may have additional fields which protect the address of A and B from writes off of a program counter other than the writes done by Fn, and forbids writes at all to Fn's code segment. In this way I can make undue influence on Fn's will possible or impossible, depending on implementation.

But I can only even think about these things when I accept that wills can be free or constrained, that choices can be made, and that functions can be represented.

But the point is, this requires deterministic function to be, well... Deterministic! It is exactly determinism that makes simulation and thus prediction using simulations of futures which "may" happen* "if prerequisites to that future are met."

One must accept that fantasy is useful in this way before they can even think about a function that can fantasize about the time it takes another function to run, and be right about it's predictions, for example.

Poor Jarhyn, you missed the point entirely and now you are running naked through the briars and brambles of complete irrelevancy.

Get back on track, the issue is whether the notion of free will is compatible with determinism, just as you define it to be, no randomness....which means the system develops with no deviations or alternate action, just as you define it.

Try to keep focused.
 
Entailment is not choice. If events proceed as they must, what must happen is not a matter of choice, and to label it as choice is false.

The determinism you're using is merely a skeleton, a series of abstract notions that conflict with the empirical evidence of how the world, and the people in it, actually work. It is unscientific.

The determinism I am using is precisely the same determinism that you use, minus the inclusion of `choosing,` because all actions are fixed by prior states of the system, with no deviations - just as you defined - therefore events within the system, including the brain activity that fixes the following action, are not chosen, they are determined, entailed, fixed, set, an immutable progression of events that involve no randomness or deviation.


Now that certainly is a problem for both choice and the idea of free will.


Determined actions of course proceed freely, without impediment and restriction just as determined, as they must.

The determinism I'm using is fleshed out with all the causal mechanisms in play. It can be safely embraced by science without becoming entrapped by all of the nonsensical statements that result from figurative thinking. Scientists are empiricists.

The only difference is the assertion of choosing. Choosing by definition requires the possibility of taking any one of a number of options at any time.

Yet your own definition does not allow alternate actions.


The causal mechanisms entail, they fix, they do not choose.

Without choosing, there is no dinner order.

Where did that come from? Of course there are orders placed. Each customer acts and orders according to their own proclivities....which nobody gets to choose, yet determine how and what you think and do in any given instance in time.

Each and every customer places their order accordingly, not as matter of free will but inner necessity.

Something that compatibilists tend to brush under the carpet.


The restaurant menu becomes a meaningless object. And the restaurant itself is rendered useless. That's how things work out with the incompatibilist definition of determinism.

Nothing of the sort. Nobody is the same. The menu caters for a range of tastes.

With a compatibilist definition of determinism, everyone gets to choose for themselves what they will order for dinner, even if their choice was always going to happen, because it was always going to be them making that choice.

Choosing is a deterministic causal mechanism performed by the central nervous system. We don't merely "feel" that we are able to choose, we actually observe ourselves choosing what we will order from the restaurant menu. And our objective observations are confirmed by the waiter, who brings us our dinner and the bill.

Prior states of the system setting current state of the system setting future states of the system is the causal mechanism of determinism. Choice doesn`t come into it.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''
 
That confirms it, you don`t have a clue about the terms of this debate
You realize that one of the things I study is cryptology, yes?

Randomness is not an easy thing to talk about.

At any rate, I keep inviting you to find where I actually demand there must be randomness (I don't, beyond pointing out that there are events in the universe whose resolution has no correlation to other events which happen).

As it is, I've discussed this again and again, because YOU are the one who keeps bringing it up!

I've presented a compatibilist choice, an event wherein an agent with many alternatives presented to it, based on proclivity, reduces the set of alternatives to a subset. Really we're just naming the objects in the set "alternatives", because we are discussing a selection of the set, a "choice".

In a software example, an example that produces a machine language rendition of such a structure:
Code:
int proclivity;
int A = 5;
Int B = -5;
.
.
.
int Fn(int var)
{
static int A = 5;
static int B = -5;
if ((A+1)< A)
 A=5;

if ((B-1) > B)
 B=-5;

if (var < proclivity)
 return A++;
else if (var >= proclivity)
 return B--;

}

This is a function. A human mind could contain this function. My human mind does contain a slowly functioning version of this function.

This creates a structure that, for argument sake, does not get to decide upon its own proclivity on whether to return A or B (whether it returns a positive or negative number). It does, however, self-regulate the A and B it returns when it does.

It creates a private A and B inaccessible to other functions (an aspect of "itself"). It regulates those aspects of "self", even if it does not regulate proclivity (which from the perspective of the function may even be accessed as a constant).

Would you disagree that this function CAN return a positive or negative number?

Would you disagree that this function cannot possibly return 0?

This function is not even restricted to a single possible return for a given var.

At best the reader can say, dependent on the state and number of calls, what it would return if called with a value.

It did not need to write its own machine code to have the function it does. It does not need to decide it's own proclivities to be structure which decides based on those proclivities.

It is a choice function, because it is a function that takes an input (var), and uses that to render a subset (the return value) from a set ({A, B}).

Now, the compatibilist would say "well, given this model (the text) of this system (the machine code), I can design a function that will, with a single execution, render 5,-5."

Assuming 16 bit integers in two's compliment...

Assuming that an unknown and unknowable number of calls to Fn have occurred, what is the greatest number of calls required to produce this output?

What is the greatest number of calls to reach N,-N?

N,M?

From a previous solution what is the function that will produce an accurate count of the number of calls to transition from N,M to J,K?

What can be said about the unknown and unknowable number of calls made to Fn previously, as a function of the return values?

How do these change when the proclivity is not accessible to read?

Does being unable to read the proclivity but being able to write blindly to it change this in any way?

How about for n-bit integers in two's compliment?for n*b width signed modulo counters?

To answer any one of these questions which describe objective facts about all things which implement this function one must accept the idea of "may" and "if". One must accept that certain entailments can be calculated on without actually doing a direct entailment, accept that representation may occur.

I can make an object in the universe that behaves this way, and know how it will behave before it ever does any behaving.

I can have a function which is set up to call Fn some number of times, sleep on that thread, release the user of Fn, and have the thread wake just in time to observe the log output of the system hitting an overflow and going to 5,-5 on the other thread, and then go to sleep again without actually checking whether it "caught" the event.

I could have a function that observes memory for that event of the overflow to locate the addresses of A and B and violate the privacy of Fn's static values, and so violate the "free will" of Fn". Depending on security of architecture, the memory may have additional fields which protect the address of A and B from writes off of a program counter other than the writes done by Fn, and forbids writes at all to Fn's code segment. In this way I can make undue influence on Fn's will possible or impossible, depending on implementation.

But I can only even think about these things when I accept that wills can be free or constrained, that choices can be made, and that functions can be represented.

But the point is, this requires deterministic function to be, well... Deterministic! It is exactly determinism that makes simulation and thus prediction using simulations of futures which "may" happen* "if prerequisites to that future are met."

One must accept that fantasy is useful in this way before they can even think about a function that can fantasize about the time it takes another function to run, and be right about it's predictions, for example.

Poor Jarhyn, you missed the point entirely and now you are running naked through the briars and brambles of complete irrelevancy.

Get back on track, the issue is whether the notion of free will is compatible with determinism, just as you define it to be, no randomness....which means the system develops with no deviations or alternate action, just as you define it.

Try to keep focused.
The point is that you use language in a way that prevents you from answering any of those questions without violating your declaration that the words "if, could, may" are nonsensical. Would you LIKE me dogging and quoting you on all the rest of the forums where you casually slip so that everyone can see how silly you have been?

"if, could, may" allow calculating: knowing a system "shall, if" in turns allows "want && can" to be the deciding momentary factor to "inevitably shall" and then finally "did".

It's not about the system developing deviations. It's about the system being one which allows representation of its own general rules.

The operation of forward planning, decision making, it's all just that, using a representation of your target, but one that operates the same way.

In the above questions, if I were to move to say, int_64, you would grow old and die before it managed to reach the target value. If you put your target M,N out of range, say 0,0, then it would never terminate itself without undue influence.

That doesn't require randomness except in the statistical relational sense, the sense of correlation, and the only place that kind of randomness, ie, "an event impacting to but whose origin is uncorrelated or only chaotically correlated with the local state", and only that because such is necessary for mutations.

The capability which I am asking you to display, and which I am sure @Marvin Edwards could accomplish, is the display of showing that you can predict the behavior of a system without operating the system.

In fact you can predict all possible behaviors of a system, such that this representation of possible behaviors can be used to properly select a behavior from that set or even do some cheeky shit with memory access.

Only after reading the menu can an order at the restaurant take place. If reality is entailed, and for the sake of this discussion we all accept it can be such, then the menu describes freedoms in a vast infinity of constraints. Then when that list of freedoms meets internal necessitation, it further gets reduced. "What you can order" gets translated into a "single option you will order", and then as Marvin says the element whose internals rendered that process of isolating menu to selection gets the bill, because that's what it means to make a choice and to be responsible for it.
 
You simply don't understand how language usage works. When a word/term has more than one meaning in common usage then no single usage is 'correct'.

The problem is that you fail to grasp the simple fact that the word is not the thing, that the word `tree` is no more a tree than the compatibilist definition of free will is free will.

This response bears absolutely no relationship to the text you quoted.

It's clear that you're totally convinced that the term 'free will' can only refer (legitimately) to a single concept (libertarian/contra causal free will)- any alternative usages in your dogmatic way of reasoning are somehow wrong. This isn't how language works.

Or more to the point, why it fails as a definition.

The only reason a dictionary definition could possibly fail is if it doesn't accurately reflect common usage.
 
Last edited:
The determinism I am using is precisely the same determinism that you use, minus the inclusion of `choosing,` because all actions are fixed by prior states of the system, with no deviations - just as you defined - therefore events within the system, including the brain activity that fixes the following action, are not chosen, they are determined, entailed, fixed, set, an immutable progression of events that involve no randomness or deviation.

No, the denial of choosing as a real event makes your determinism invalid. Choosing is just as real as walking, adding numbers, or brushing your teeth. These are all real events that actually happen in the real world. And every one of these events is as deterministically entailed as any other.

Every one of these events is a causal mechanism that alters the state of things. Choosing something from the menu causes the waiter to bring you that meal. Walking is how you got from the restaurant door to your table. The waiter adding the cost of the main course, the dessert, and the drinks produces the bill you must pay on the way out. Brushing your teeth helps prevent cavities and improves your smile.

Now that certainly is a problem for both choice and the idea of free will.

No, the problem is that the incompatibilist is denying that real events, events that we all can see, are actually happening, leaving us to conclude that the incompatibilist's claims are delusional.

Determined actions of course proceed freely, without impediment and restriction just as determined, as they must.

Choosing, just like walking, adding, or brushing your teeth must happen. If we claim that all events are determined to happen in exactly the way that they do happen, then all events must necessarily be included.

The determinism I'm using is fleshed out with all the causal mechanisms in play. It can be safely embraced by science without becoming entrapped by all of the nonsensical statements that result from figurative thinking. Scientists are empiricists.

The only difference is the assertion of choosing. Choosing by definition requires the possibility of taking any one of a number of options at any time.

Another problem with the incompatibilist's notion of determinism is that it conflates the notion of possibility with the notion of actuality. It figuratively assumes that if there is only one actuality, then it is AS IF there is only one possibility, and that if there is only one thing that will happen, then it is AS IF there is only one thing that can happen.

The flaw in that theory is that the notion of possibility is the logical token by which we deal with matters of uncertainty. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen, to prepare for what does happen. Will the traffic light be red or green when we arrive? We don't know. But we do know that it COULD be red and it also COULD be green when we arrive.

The notion of possibility is used in choosing, inventing, planning, and other human activities that utilize our imagination. The notion of multiple possibilities cannot be corrupted by conflating it with the single actuality without destroying these human abilities.

The figurative thinking that conflates multiple possibilities, the many things that we can do or the many things that can happen, with the single thing that we will do or the single thing that will happen, is only okay when we do not take it literally.

Literally, multiple things can happen but only one thing will happen.
Literally, there are multiple possibilities on the menu, but only one of them will become the actual meal.

Yet your own definition does not allow alternate actions.

My definition does not fork things up by confusing the many things we can choose with the single thing that we will choose.

The items on the menu are called "possibilities". They are "real" possibilities because any one of them can actually be realized.
The meal on the table is called an "actuality". It is the single thing that was ordered, prepared, and set on the table in front of me.

Unlike the incompatibilists, I can tell the difference between a possibility and an actuality.

Each item on the menu is an alternate action, a real possibility that can become an actual meal if I choose to order it. That's an empirical fact. Only one of those items was always going to be chosen by me tonight. That is another empirical fact. These two facts are both true, and neither fact contradicts the other.

Without choosing, there is no dinner order.

Where did that come from?

If I fail to order something from the menu, then obviously the waiter will bring me no dinner.

Of course there are orders placed.

Indeed there are orders placed, because everyone knows that they must decide what they will order, and they all go about considering the many possibilities on the menu, choosing what they would like, and telling the waiter what they will have for dinner.

Each customer acts and orders according to their own proclivities...

And those proclivities may be satisfied by any number of items on the menu, that is why choosing is required.

Each and every customer places their order accordingly, not as matter of free will but inner necessity.

The inner causal mechanism that necessitates the choice is called "choosing".
When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is called "free will".

Something that compatibilists tend to brush under the carpet.

The only things brushed under the carpet are the incompatibilist claims that what we observe happening is somehow not really happening.

... The menu caters for a range of tastes.

More than that, the menu allows for one person's tastes tonight to be different tomorrow night. Each person gets to choose from multiple possibilities what they will have for dinner each night.

Prior states of the system setting current state of the system setting future states of the system is the causal mechanism of determinism. Choice doesn`t come into it.

Sorry, but your premise does not justify your conclusion. Choosing is a real causal mechanism that must be included if your determinism is to be valid. Currently, your determinism is not valid.

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

Correct. All of the possibilities on the menu will present themselves to us without randomness or variation. And we will consider these alternate possibilities exactly as we do consider them, and choose from them the single dinner order that we were always going to choose, without randomness or variation. Everything happens just so, exactly as it does happen. You see the choosing? Each person deciding for themselves what they would order, free of coercion and undue influence? It was always going to happen just so. It was always inevitable that it would be a choice of their own free will.

When viewed objectively, determinism doesn't actually change anything, ever.
 
That confirms it, you don`t have a clue about the terms of this debate
You realize that one of the things I study is cryptology, yes?

Randomness is not an easy thing to talk about.

At any rate, I keep inviting you to find where I actually demand there must be randomness (I don't, beyond pointing out that there are events in the universe whose resolution has no correlation to other events which happen).

As it is, I've discussed this again and again, because YOU are the one who keeps bringing it up!

I've presented a compatibilist choice, an event wherein an agent with many alternatives presented to it, based on proclivity, reduces the set of alternatives to a subset. Really we're just naming the objects in the set "alternatives", because we are discussing a selection of the set, a "choice".

In a software example, an example that produces a machine language rendition of such a structure:
Code:
int proclivity;
int A = 5;
Int B = -5;
.
.
.
int Fn(int var)
{
static int A = 5;
static int B = -5;
if ((A+1)< A)
 A=5;

if ((B-1) > B)
 B=-5;

if (var < proclivity)
 return A++;
else if (var >= proclivity)
 return B--;

}

This is a function. A human mind could contain this function. My human mind does contain a slowly functioning version of this function.

This creates a structure that, for argument sake, does not get to decide upon its own proclivity on whether to return A or B (whether it returns a positive or negative number). It does, however, self-regulate the A and B it returns when it does.

It creates a private A and B inaccessible to other functions (an aspect of "itself"). It regulates those aspects of "self", even if it does not regulate proclivity (which from the perspective of the function may even be accessed as a constant).

Would you disagree that this function CAN return a positive or negative number?

Would you disagree that this function cannot possibly return 0?

This function is not even restricted to a single possible return for a given var.

At best the reader can say, dependent on the state and number of calls, what it would return if called with a value.

It did not need to write its own machine code to have the function it does. It does not need to decide it's own proclivities to be structure which decides based on those proclivities.

It is a choice function, because it is a function that takes an input (var), and uses that to render a subset (the return value) from a set ({A, B}).

Now, the compatibilist would say "well, given this model (the text) of this system (the machine code), I can design a function that will, with a single execution, render 5,-5."

Assuming 16 bit integers in two's compliment...

Assuming that an unknown and unknowable number of calls to Fn have occurred, what is the greatest number of calls required to produce this output?

What is the greatest number of calls to reach N,-N?

N,M?

From a previous solution what is the function that will produce an accurate count of the number of calls to transition from N,M to J,K?

What can be said about the unknown and unknowable number of calls made to Fn previously, as a function of the return values?

How do these change when the proclivity is not accessible to read?

Does being unable to read the proclivity but being able to write blindly to it change this in any way?

How about for n-bit integers in two's compliment?for n*b width signed modulo counters?

To answer any one of these questions which describe objective facts about all things which implement this function one must accept the idea of "may" and "if". One must accept that certain entailments can be calculated on without actually doing a direct entailment, accept that representation may occur.

I can make an object in the universe that behaves this way, and know how it will behave before it ever does any behaving.

I can have a function which is set up to call Fn some number of times, sleep on that thread, release the user of Fn, and have the thread wake just in time to observe the log output of the system hitting an overflow and going to 5,-5 on the other thread, and then go to sleep again without actually checking whether it "caught" the event.

I could have a function that observes memory for that event of the overflow to locate the addresses of A and B and violate the privacy of Fn's static values, and so violate the "free will" of Fn". Depending on security of architecture, the memory may have additional fields which protect the address of A and B from writes off of a program counter other than the writes done by Fn, and forbids writes at all to Fn's code segment. In this way I can make undue influence on Fn's will possible or impossible, depending on implementation.

But I can only even think about these things when I accept that wills can be free or constrained, that choices can be made, and that functions can be represented.

But the point is, this requires deterministic function to be, well... Deterministic! It is exactly determinism that makes simulation and thus prediction using simulations of futures which "may" happen* "if prerequisites to that future are met."

One must accept that fantasy is useful in this way before they can even think about a function that can fantasize about the time it takes another function to run, and be right about it's predictions, for example.

Poor Jarhyn, you missed the point entirely and now you are running naked through the briars and brambles of complete irrelevancy.

Get back on track, the issue is whether the notion of free will is compatible with determinism, just as you define it to be, no randomness....which means the system develops with no deviations or alternate action, just as you define it.

Try to keep focused.
The point is that you use language in a way that prevents you from answering any of those questions without violating your declaration that the words "if, could, may" are nonsensical. Would you LIKE me dogging and quoting you on all the rest of the forums where you casually slip so that everyone can see how silly you have been?

"if, could, may" allow calculating: knowing a system "shall, if" in turns allows "want && can" to be the deciding momentary factor to "inevitably shall" and then finally "did".

It's not about the system developing deviations. It's about the system being one which allows representation of its own general rules.

The operation of forward planning, decision making, it's all just that, using a representation of your target, but one that operates the same way.

In the above questions, if I were to move to say, int_64, you would grow old and die before it managed to reach the target value. If you put your target M,N out of range, say 0,0, then it would never terminate itself without undue influence.

That doesn't require randomness except in the statistical relational sense, the sense of correlation, and the only place that kind of randomness, ie, "an event impacting to but whose origin is uncorrelated or only chaotically correlated with the local state", and only that because such is necessary for mutations.

The capability which I am asking you to display, and which I am sure @Marvin Edwards could accomplish, is the display of showing that you can predict the behavior of a system without operating the system.

In fact you can predict all possible behaviors of a system, such that this representation of possible behaviors can be used to properly select a behavior from that set or even do some cheeky shit with memory access.

Only after reading the menu can an order at the restaurant take place. If reality is entailed, and for the sake of this discussion we all accept it can be such, then the menu describes freedoms in a vast infinity of constraints. Then when that list of freedoms meets internal necessitation, it further gets reduced. "What you can order" gets translated into a "single option you will order", and then as Marvin says the element whose internals rendered that process of isolating menu to selection gets the bill, because that's what it means to make a choice and to be responsible for it.


So what part of 'compatibilism does not relate to either random or probabilistic events' do you find hard to understand?

There is nothing further that I need to explain. Incompatibilism - the reasons why free will is incompatible with determinism and why the compatibilist definition fails has been thoroughly explained.

The problem is your inability or unwillingness to understand the issue, the implications of your definition of determinism, that randomness is irrelevant in relation to compatibilism, that computers are not conscious as you have claimed, etc.
 
So what part of 'compatibilism does not relate to either random or probabilistic events' do you find hard to understand?
As I said, if you want to make such a claim and sway anyone with the power to do logical reasoning you will find where I invoke either randomness deviation in that post. Just highlight it red*.

Next time you accuse me of trying to bolster an argument with something I do not use to bolster an argument I will make a hyperbolic example of the same caliber just so people see how ridiculous and dishonest you are being here.

*This is a trick question. You cannot because it is not there.
 
You simply don't understand how language usage works. When a word/term has more than one meaning in common usage then no single usage is 'correct'.

The problem is that you fail to grasp the simple fact that the word is not the thing, that the word `tree` is no more a tree than the compatibilist definition of free will is free will.

This response bears absolutely no relationship to the text you quoted

It is relevant to your rationale; 'that's how people use words and terms.'

Don't you think that was the point?
It's clear that you're totally convinced that the term 'free will' can only refer (legitimately) to a single concept (libertarian/contra causal free will)- any alternative usages in your dogmatic way of reasoning are somehow wrong. This isn't how language works.

Not again. Are you even reading what I say?

Do I have to chant "Libertarian free will, Compatibilist free will, common usage/making choices, etc." over and over? Just to get a response like nothing was ever said? This has to be groundhog day every day?


Or more to the point, why it fails as a definition.

The only reason a dictionary definition could possibly fail is if it doesn't accurately reflect common usage.

For heavens sake, common usage alone does not prove the proposition, God, satan, angels, etc, are no more established as actual entities by common usage than does the common usage of the term 'free will' establish that will is indeed free.
 
So what part of 'compatibilism does not relate to either random or probabilistic events' do you find hard to understand?
As I said, if you want to make such a claim and sway anyone with the power to do logical reasoning you will find where I invoke either randomness deviation in that post. Just highlight it red*.

Next time you accuse me of trying to bolster an argument with something I do not use to bolster an argument I will make a hyperbolic example of the same caliber just so people see how ridiculous and dishonest you are being here.

*This is a trick question. You cannot because it is not there.

You have invoked deviations and alternate actions on many occasions, just quickly:

"There is, after all, a real world we return to when we wake from our simulations inside ourselves. Even these dreams are in their own way real, real enforced relationships between data whose manipulation acts relatively to objects outside. But still... one must dream of deviations for us to make choice of these dreams as to which to realize." Jarhyn Post 1302
 
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