According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[pood]

''The increments of a normal brain state is not as obvious as direct coercion, a microchip, or a tumor, but the “obviousness” is irrelevant here. Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state. Depending on that state, this will cause you to behave in a specific way within an environment (decide in a specific way), in which all of those things that are outside of a person constantly bombard your senses changing your very brain state. The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over.''

I guess I inadvertently “liked” this by hitting the wrong button, instead of reply, Hopefully I‘ve eradicated that miscreant “like.”

Ho-hum, Trick Slattery again. Another empty appeal to authority,

The last sentence in the above quote betrays his confusion and, it would seem, your own.

The last sentence presupposes that in order to have “control,” some kind of libertarian dualism must be true — that there is a little homonculus in my brain that makes executive decisions, with the power to override the deterministic working out of brain states.

There is no homunculus, but we don’t need one to have free will, as Slattery seems to suppose we do. The internal dialogue in my mind is me. That dialogue is me, evaluating options and naking decisions.

What if I did have a homunculus that would provide “real control” over my internal dialogue? So — what, my internal brain states (i.e., me) work out a set of options and arrive at a decision, only to have this homonculus override my decision? That wold be the opposite of free will! It would also raise the knotty question of how this homunculus dictator arrives at its own decisions. Through — what — determinism? So, it would be no different from my brain states, and thus superfluous.

 

[pood]

Also, you aren’t going to answer my question about Jerry Coyne’s jazz musician, are you? How do you think you disinclination to deal with this question reflects on the arguments you are making here?

 

[pood]

The illusion of free will
When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realisation that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.

Michel Desmurget and a team of French neuroscientists arrived at this conclusion by stimulating the brains of seven people with electrodes, while they underwent brain surgery under local anaesthetic. When Desmurget stimulated the parietal cortex, the patients felt a strong desire to move their arms, hands, feet or lips, although they never actually did. Stronger currents cast a powerful illusion, convincing the patients that they had actually moved, even though recordings of electrical activity in their muscles said otherwise.''

OK. And? Something follows from this?

 

[DBT]

The illusion of free will
When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realisation that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.

Michel Desmurget and a team of French neuroscientists arrived at this conclusion by stimulating the brains of seven people with electrodes, while they underwent brain surgery under local anaesthetic. When Desmurget stimulated the parietal cortex, the patients felt a strong desire to move their arms, hands, feet or lips, although they never actually did. Stronger currents cast a powerful illusion, convincing the patients that they had actually moved, even though recordings of electrical activity in their muscles said otherwise.''

OK. And? Something follows from this?

Sure, just what it implies. That what we consciously think, feel and do is shaped and formed prior to our conscious experience of it.

That we don't choose what we feel or think about events of the world, where our response is formed unconsciously milliseconds before it's brought to conscious attention.

That is cognition. That is decision making, but free will it is not.

 

[DBT]

Also, you aren’t going to answer my question about Jerry Coyne’s jazz musician, are you? How do you think you disinclination to deal with this question reflects on the arguments you are making here?

Have you not read my replies and explanations, quotes and references?

The issue is not that we can't think, imagine, compose, play music, design, build or act, but that it's a question of the source and nature of our abilities. Which, as already explained, is not a matter of 'free will' but the ability of the brain to recognize and rearrange patterns, be it to compose music or build skyscrapers.

Pattern recognition
Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes,and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.

Huettel et al. point out that their study identifies the role various regions of prefrontal cortex play in moment-to-moment processing of mental events in order to make predictions about future events. Thus implicit predictive models are formed which need to be continuously updated, the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes. As a third possible explanation, Ivry and Knight propose that activation of the prefrontal cortex may reflect the generation of hypotheses, since the formulation of an hypothesis is an essential feature of higher-level cognition.
A monitoring of participants awareness during pattern recognition could provide a test of the PFC’s ability to formulate hypotheses concerning future outcomes.''


That is the answer to your question. If you don't understand it, don't like it, or refuse to accept it, there is nothing I can do about that.

 

[pood]

Also, you aren’t going to answer my question about Jerry Coyne’s jazz musician, are you? How do you think you disinclination to deal with this question reflects on the arguments you are making here?

Have you not read my replies and explanations, quotes and references?

The issue is not that we can't think, imagine, compose, play music, design, build or act, but that it's a question of the source and nature of our abilities. Which, as already explained, is not a matter of 'free will' but the ability of the brain to recognize and rearrange patterns, be it to compose music or build skyscrapers.

Pattern recognition
Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes,and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.

Huettel et al. point out that their study identifies the role various regions of prefrontal cortex play in moment-to-moment processing of mental events in order to make predictions about future events. Thus implicit predictive models are formed which need to be continuously updated, the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes. As a third possible explanation, Ivry and Knight propose that activation of the prefrontal cortex may reflect the generation of hypotheses, since the formulation of an hypothesis is an essential feature of higher-level cognition.
A monitoring of participants awareness during pattern recognition could provide a test of the PFC’s ability to formulate hypotheses concerning future outcomes.''


That is the answer to your question. If you don't understand it, don't like it, or refuse to accept it, there is nothing I can do about that.

You see, I am asking you a simple question, to go on record as to whether you agree, or disagree, with fellow hard determinist Jerry Coyne that the jazz composer did not compose his own composition, but that it was composed IN ADVANCE — and, if it was composed IN ADVANCE, I’d like you to identify WHAT composed it, because Coyne certainly did not, though he plainly IMPLIED that determinism composed the piece — an amazingly unjustified and even stupid claim, IMO.

Now, it appears from the above, since you still won’t answer the question, that you DISAGREE with Coyne about the “in advance“ stuff. Is that correct? It’s a really simple question to answer directly, so why don’t you do so instead of cutting and pasting stuff from other web sites that are not your own words?

 

[pood]

Also, you aren’t going to answer my question about Jerry Coyne’s jazz musician, are you? How do you think you disinclination to deal with this question reflects on the arguments you are making here?

Have you not read my replies and explanations, quotes and references?

The issue is not that we can't think, imagine, compose, play music, design, build or act, but that it's a question of the source and nature of our abilities. Which, as already explained, is not a matter of 'free will' but the ability of the brain to recognize and rearrange patterns, be it to compose music or build skyscrapers.

While waiting for you to directly answer te Coyne question for the first time, I would like to say that I am utterly bewildered why you think the above “pattern recognition“ is somehow at odds with “free will.” They’re not. They go hand in hand.

 

[Jarhyn]

That what we consciously think, feel and do is shaped and formed prior to our conscious experience of it

No, the best that gets you is "prior to our META-conscious awareness of it". Your definitions are not same because you think that some part of the brain has consciousness and some part of the brain somehow lacks it!

All parts of the brain have consciousness, but different parts are conscious of different stuff.

The part of you that decides based on what it is conscious of cannot be conscious of the fact that it made a decision until after that fact. It's just a requirement of time and information systems, that this is true. So of course you get notified of the decision you made AFTER you make it. You were, assuredly, aware of what you needed to be aware of to make the decision.

It just happens that systems need awareness of things like last-pass-decisions to make good decisions... A PID loop needs to know the previous value, for instance, to render the next value. It needs to be "conscious of" past decisions in addition to the current state, and so that is designed right in.

@pood I think you will find that neither the libertarian nor the hard determinists reasoned themselves into their beliefs. It's quite reminiscent of going to Apology seminars as a child/young adult: it's all learned talking points rather than any sort of professional knowledge. In short, it's a religion that exists all too commonly among atheists and assumedly intelligent people... And as atheism grows more popular, such non-theistic religions are bound to grow.

 

[DBT]

Also, you aren’t going to answer my question about Jerry Coyne’s jazz musician, are you? How do you think you disinclination to deal with this question reflects on the arguments you are making here?

Have you not read my replies and explanations, quotes and references?

The issue is not that we can't think, imagine, compose, play music, design, build or act, but that it's a question of the source and nature of our abilities. Which, as already explained, is not a matter of 'free will' but the ability of the brain to recognize and rearrange patterns, be it to compose music or build skyscrapers.

Pattern recognition
Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes,and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.

Huettel et al. point out that their study identifies the role various regions of prefrontal cortex play in moment-to-moment processing of mental events in order to make predictions about future events. Thus implicit predictive models are formed which need to be continuously updated, the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes. As a third possible explanation, Ivry and Knight propose that activation of the prefrontal cortex may reflect the generation of hypotheses, since the formulation of an hypothesis is an essential feature of higher-level cognition.
A monitoring of participants awareness during pattern recognition could provide a test of the PFC’s ability to formulate hypotheses concerning future outcomes.''


That is the answer to your question. If you don't understand it, don't like it, or refuse to accept it, there is nothing I can do about that.

You see, I am asking you a simple question, to go on record as to whether you agree, or disagree, with fellow hard determinist Jerry Coyne that the jazz composer did not compose his own composition, but that it was composed IN ADVANCE — and, if it was composed IN ADVANCE, I’d like you to identify WHAT composed it, because Coyne certainly did not, though he plainly IMPLIED that determinism composed the piece — an amazingly unjustified and even stupid claim, IMO.

Now, it appears from the above, since you still won’t answer the question, that you DISAGREE with Coyne about the “in advance“ stuff. Is that correct? It’s a really simple question to answer directly, so why don’t you do so instead of cutting and pasting stuff from other web sites that are not your own words?

The answer lies in your own definition of determinism, you must understand that?

The composition does not compose itself. Events inevitably evolve to where there is a culture of music, and there are composers of jazz who have the ability to compose jazz music.

As you, yourself define determinism, that time and place where music is composed, cities are built, where there is art and music is inevitable.

There is no composition without the composer, given determinism, both the composer and the composition are inevitable as the system evolves.

That's how determinism works. That is how you define it.

If you believe in free will but don't accept determinism, you are not a compatibilist, you are a Libertarian.


''Notice that a true compatibilist, who has gone on record saying that determinism is a fact of nature, must believe that the events of experiencing a desire, foreseeing the consequences of action, and forming an intention to act on the desire, are all determined. The causal chain leading a human to lift a finger is longer than the chain leading a squirrel to lift an acorn, but it is no less deterministic (he who says that it is less deterministic is not a compatibilist but a closet libertarian).'' - Cold comfort in Compatibilism

 

[pood]

So, it is still not entirely clear whether you agree or disagree with Coyne that the jazz musician’s creation was composed “in advance” of him even thinking about it, to quote Coyne’s own words. Do you agree with Coyne? Yes? No?

 

[Jarhyn]

The composition does not compose itself

Plenty of human compositions compose themselves.

I've written things with a compositional process baked right in, albeit it was a rather trivial process that baked it.

Something does not need to be uncaused to be causal to its own.

As we have discussed music is not "inevitable", seeing as how the outcome cannot be known without the outcome already having happened completely and finally, and seeing as that won't happen until it does It is not "pre" determined, it's just "determined".

DBT, you are not a determinist; rather you are a fatalist.

Something being determined by the course of actions in the universe does not change the effects those elements and locations have within the course. "Did" or "did not" do not change the reality of the contingent mechanism, the IF, participating in the reaction.

 

[pood]

The composition does not compose itself

Plenty of human compositions compose themselves.

I've written things with a compositional process baked right in, albeit it was a rather trivial process that baked it.

Something does not need to be uncaused to be causal to its own.

As we have discussed music is not "inevitable", seeing as how the outcome cannot be known without the outcome already having happened completely and finally, and seeing as that won't happen until it does It is not "pre" determined, it's just "determined".

DBT, you are not a determinist; rather you are a fatalist.

Something being determined by the course of actions in the universe does not change the effects those elements and locations have within the course. "Did" or "did not" do not change the reality of the contingent mechanism, the IF, participating in the reaction.

I agree that both DBT and Coyne seem to be proposing fatalism or pre-determinism, which is not the same as determinism. In determinism, the composer is fully responsible for the composition, based on deterministic antecedents. He is of course an indispensible part of the deterministic process.

 

[DBT]

The composition does not compose itself

Plenty of human compositions compose themselves.

I've written things with a compositional process baked right in, albeit it was a rather trivial process that baked it.

Something does not need to be uncaused to be causal to its own.

As we have discussed music is not "inevitable", seeing as how the outcome cannot be known without the outcome already having happened completely and finally, and seeing as that won't happen until it does It is not "pre" determined, it's just "determined".

DBT, you are not a determinist; rather you are a fatalist.

Something being determined by the course of actions in the universe does not change the effects those elements and locations have within the course. "Did" or "did not" do not change the reality of the contingent mechanism, the IF, participating in the reaction.

I agree that both DBT and Coyne seem to be proposing fatalism or pre-determinism, which is not the same as determinism. In determinism, the composer is fully responsible for the composition, based on deterministic antecedents. He is of course an indispensible part of the deterministic process.

It's not a difficult thing. It is the implications of determinism precisely as it is defined, as compatibilists define it and as you have defined it to be.

What do you expect? Determinism that is not deterministic? Determinism where anything you want to happen can happen?

That is not determinism, that is Libertarianism.

You want it both ways, but you can't have it both ways.

Determinism as it is defined, as you define it, does not permit deviations or alternate actions in any given instance.

That is not according to me, it is according to your definition, the compatibilist definition and just how it is defined.

If you don't like that, too bad, because that is how you have defined it;

You said that determinism is “constant conjunction.” and constant conjunction means ''a relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined.''

Which means occurrence A cannot be followed by C, D, E or anything else, it must be B.

 

[DBT]

So, it is still not entirely clear whether you agree or disagree with Coyne that the jazz musician’s creation was composed “in advance” of him even thinking about it, to quote Coyne’s own words. Do you agree with Coyne? Yes? No?

I pointed out that you invoked the excluded middle fallacy. You conveniently overlooked countless steps and events that bring the world to the point where there are artists, designers, composers, etc, that a jazz score is not composed 'in advance' yet it is inevitable as conditions and events evolve to the point where a composer writes the score.

If determinism is true, it is inevitable because that is how determinism works; the system evolves without deviation.....and of course, compatibilists are determinists.

You do not appear to be. You seem to argue for compatibilism, yet do not accept determinism as compatibilists define it.

You are, it appears, a Libertarian.

That is what you should be arguing for.

 

[pood]

So, it is still not entirely clear whether you agree or disagree with Coyne that the jazz musician’s creation was composed “in advance” of him even thinking about it, to quote Coyne’s own words. Do you agree with Coyne? Yes? No?

I pointed out that you invoked the excluded middle fallacy. You conveniently overlooked countless steps and events that bring the world to the point where there are artists, designers, composers, etc, that a jazz score is not composed 'in advance' yet it is inevitable as conditions and events evolve to the point where a composer writes the score.

If determinism is true, it is inevitable because that is how determinism works; the system evolves without deviation.....and of course, compatibilists are determinists.

You do not appear to be. You seem to argue for compatibilism, yet do not accept determinism as compatibilists define it.

You are, it appears, a Libertarian.

That is what you should be arguing for.

So, you disagree with Coyne. Hard Determinism is schismatic!

And no, I’m not a libertarian, and your saying that I am leads me to believe that you really don’t understand the compatibilist position. Last I looked, 57 perdent of academic philosophers identify as compatibilists. Do you think they are all lying, or don‘t even understand their own position and are actually libertarians without knowing it?

 

[Jarhyn]

Determinism where anything you want to happen can happen

Determinism where anything you want that is supported by the laws of physics agnostic *to the location* can happen, IF you decide to, AND where only one thing will happen be cause there is only one location that happens to be happening at...

That's perfectly fine. There's nothing libertarian about since only one thing happens at any location and it is determined by what is at that location.

It just happens that there is also a decision being rendered by the stuff at that place according to the confluence of contingent mechanisms and immediate conditions to those mechanisms. These are not mutually exclusive; they are compatible:

"can IF I want to" does not go away just for not wanting to, because it is a concrete structure no less real than the mechanism and material of a mouse trap. Even if the trap is never discharged it is still true that IF the trap is discharged, it would swing the arm at the fulcrum over the pressure plate.

 

[pood]

If determinism is true, it is inevitable …

Now you are using the word “inevitable,” so let’s talk about that, at the risk of laboring a point you refuse to grasp, though you are perfectly able to do so. Your whole argument to inevitability rests again on a modal fallacy.

Let’s say that all true propositions are true at all times, even before the event that they describe happens. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If someone uttered in the distant past, say in the year 1308, the sentence, “Joe Biden will be elected president of the United States in the year 2020,” it seems to me that he spoke truly.

Does it follow from this, however, that Biden’s election was inevitable?

Take something more mundane: today it is true that tomorrow, I will stay at home.

1. Today it is true that tomorrow I will stay at home. Call that truth S.
2. S is true, and permanently true (true at all times).
3. Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.
4. It is not possible that I render S false by some action of my own (follows from 2 and 3).
5. I can’t render S false through my actions; therefore, inevitablism is true and tomorrow I must stay at home (I have no choice in the matter).

The above argument is unsound. It commits the modal fallacy at Step 4.

Step 4, when derived from Step 3, looks like this:

I am at home; it is not possible that (I am at home and not at home); therefore, it is not possible that I am not at home.

Perhaps you will see the problem. Of course it’s possible that I’m not at home; it’s just that I AM at home. Nothing about permanent truth (true at all times) entails that I be at home, or that Biden be elected, or anything else. What IS necessary is that no proposition can be both TRUE, and FALSE, at the same time (Law of Noncontradiction).

Put another way, the fallacy occurs thus:

If today it is true that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I MUST (necessarily) be at home.

The modal fallacy lies in ascribing the modal necessity operator to the consequent of the antecedent, thereby illicitly rendering a contingent (could have been otherwise) truth as necessary. The repair goes as follows:

Necessarily (if it is true today that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I WILL BE [not MUST be!] at home).

When you speak, as you so often do, of causal necessity, or physical necessity, or deterministic necessity, or deterministic inevitability, you are committing every single time a modal fallacy because you are confusing absolute necessity with relative necessity. The relative necessity lies in the conjunction of the antecedent and the consequent, rendered just above. But all the above is saying is that necessarily, if a proposition is true, then it is true; not that it MUST be true. If I DON’T stay at home, then the proposition “tomorrow I will be at home” remains truth-valued, only it now returns the value FALSE instead of TRUE.

Moreover, there is no modal category called “causal necessity” or “deterministic inevitability,” or anything of the kind. There is only logical necessity, which deals with true propositions that can’t be false on pain of logical contradiction, like married bachelors or four-sided triangles.

Hence there is no physical or causal or deterministic necessity. We perceive that gravity operates everywhere and in the same way and at all times; yet this is not a necessary truth, because I can easily conceive a possible (though non-actual) world in which gravity does not exist, and I can do so without bringing about a logical contradiction.

Turning to causal determinism, let S stand for “chooses Pepsi” at some time T when I have a choice between Pepsi and Coke.

Your argument until now has been that, given deterministic antecedents x, y, and z, then necessarily S.

But S isn’t necessary, as I have just demonstrated! What you can say is,

Necessarily (given x, y, z, then S), where S is, was, and always will be, contingent (could have been otherwise).

This means that at Time T, not-S was within my power; and more, it is, was, and always will be, true, that not-S is possible. Sure enough, I WILL choose S, given x, y, and z, but I don’t have to.

If I don’t choose S, then different antecedents would be in play.

But, you will object, the antecedents x, y, and z, were inevitable, given determinism, and therefore S is inevitable, too, but that’s wrong — they were not inevitable — for all the reasons given above!

Even IF I always choose S, it follows that it was always within my power to choose not-S.

So when Jerry Coyne, for example, always states “you could not have done, other than what you did,” he is talking logical nonsense. And so are you, if you keep sticking to that line.

A final point about inevitability. One should not confuse “inevitability” with “fixity.” The past is fixed, but it was never inevitable, for reasons outlined above. It’s true that I cannot change the past. But no one I know argues, “Because I can’t change the past, I have no free will.”

Now suppose the future is as fixed as the past, which it is under the block universe model of Minkowski/Einstein. In that case I can’t change the future either, because of Step 3 in the initial argument offered above: Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.

But, compatibilist free will (or libertarian, for that matter) does not require changing the past, or the future, or even the present — to do so would entail the following absurdity, that I AM both at home, and not at home, at the same time.

Free will entails only the ability to make, in some small measure, the past, present, and future, be what it was, what it is, and what it will be. This just means that if the future is as fixed as the past, then some of the future is fixed by my actions, just like the present and the past.

 

[DBT]

If determinism is true, it is inevitable …

Now you are using the word “inevitable,” so let’s talk about that, at the risk of laboring a point you refuse to grasp, though you are perfectly able to do so. Your whole argument to inevitability rests again on a modal fallacy.

I've used the word inevitable quite often. I use it because it applies to the terms and conditions of determinism as you define it.

Where 'constant conjunction' means ''a relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined'' - and B being conjoined to A, inevitably follows A.

This is not me saying it. It is not something I cooked up;

Determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. 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

That is determinism as it is defined. Including your own definition, where all actions are 'causally inevitable.

Let’s say that all true propositions are true at all times, even before the event that they describe happens. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If someone uttered in the distant past, say in the year 1308, the sentence, “Joe Biden will be elected president of the United States in the year 2020,” it seems to me that he spoke truly.

Does it follow from this, however, that Biden’s election was inevitable?

Given the terms and conditions, including your own, obviously there are no exemptions, everything that happens is causally inevitable. The causally inevitable events of the world and the USA brought about Biden's election.

You seek exemptions within determinism that cannot - by definition - exist within a deterministic system.

Take something more mundane: today it is true that tomorrow, I will stay at home.

1. Today it is true that tomorrow I will stay at home. Call that truth S.
2. S is true, and permanently true (true at all times).
3. Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.
4. It is not possible that I render S false by some action of my own (follows from 2 and 3).
5. I can’t render S false through my actions; therefore, inevitablism is true and tomorrow I must stay at home (I have no choice in the matter).

The above argument is unsound. It commits the modal fallacy at Step 4.

Step 4, when derived from Step 3, looks like this:

I am at home; it is not possible that (I am at home and not at home); therefore, it is not possible that I am not at home.

Perhaps you will see the problem. Of course it’s possible that I’m not at home; it’s just that I AM at home. Nothing about permanent truth (true at all times) entails that I be at home, or that Biden be elected, or anything else. What IS necessary is that no proposition can be both TRUE, and FALSE, at the same time (Law of Noncontradiction).

Put another way, the fallacy occurs thus:

If today it is true that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I MUST (necessarily) be at home.

The modal fallacy lies in ascribing the modal necessity operator to the consequent of the antecedent, thereby illicitly rendering a contingent (could have been otherwise) truth as necessary. The repair goes as follows:

Necessarily (if it is true today that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I WILL BE [not MUST be!] at home).

When you speak, as you so often do, of causal necessity, or physical necessity, or deterministic necessity, or deterministic inevitability, you are committing every single time a modal fallacy because you are confusing absolute necessity with relative necessity. The relative necessity lies in the conjunction of the antecedent and the consequent, rendered just above. But all the above is saying is that necessarily, if a proposition is true, then it is true; not that it MUST be true. If I DON’T stay at home, then the proposition “tomorrow I will be at home” remains truth-valued, only it now returns the value FALSE instead of TRUE.

Moreover, there is no modal category called “causal necessity” or “deterministic inevitability,” or anything of the kind. There is only logical necessity, which deals with true propositions that can’t be false on pain of logical contradiction, like married bachelors or four-sided triangles.

Hence there is no physical or causal or deterministic necessity. We perceive that gravity operates everywhere and in the same way and at all times; yet this is not a necessary truth, because I can easily conceive a possible (though non-actual) world in which gravity does not exist, and I can do so without bringing about a logical contradiction.

Turning to causal determinism, let S stand for “chooses Pepsi” at some time T when I have a choice between Pepsi and Coke.

Your argument until now has been that, given deterministic antecedents x, y, and z, then necessarily S.

But S isn’t necessary, as I have just demonstrated! What you can say is,

Necessarily (given x, y, z, then S), where S is, was, and always will be, contingent (could have been otherwise).

This means that at Time T, not-S was within my power; and more, it is, was, and always will be, true, that not-S is possible. Sure enough, I WILL choose S, given x, y, and z, but I don’t have to.

If I don’t choose S, then different antecedents would be in play.

But, you will object, the antecedents x, y, and z, were inevitable, given determinism, and therefore S is inevitable, too, but that’s wrong — they were not inevitable — for all the reasons given above!

Even IF I always choose S, it follows that it was always within my power to choose not-S.

So when Jerry Coyne, for example, always states “you could not have done, other than what you did,” he is talking logical nonsense. And so are you, if you keep sticking to that line.

A final point about inevitability. One should not confuse “inevitability” with “fixity.” The past is fixed, but it was never inevitable, for reasons outlined above. It’s true that I cannot change the past. But no one I know argues, “Because I can’t change the past, I have no free will.”

Now suppose the future is as fixed as the past, which it is under the block universe model of Minkowski/Einstein. In that case I can’t change the future either, because of Step 3 in the initial argument offered above: Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.

But, compatibilist free will (or libertarian, for that matter) does not require changing the past, or the future, or even the present — to do so would entail the following absurdity, that I AM both at home, and not at home, at the same time.

Free will entails only the ability to make, in some small measure, the past, present, and future, be what it was, what it is, and what it will be. This just means that if the future is as fixed as the past, then some of the future is fixed by my actions, just like the present and the past.

Too many points to deal with in one sitting....but the idea of compatibilist free will does not entail the ability to alter the course or flow of causally inevitable events.

Which is why compatibilists carefully define free will as decisions made without coercion, force or undue influence.

Which fails to prove the idea of freedom of will within a deterministic system because it ignores the greatest constraint of all, that the means and mechanisms of decision making must necessarily be ''causally inevitable.''

No exemptions. No deviations. No alternatives. No taking an option that was not fixed by antecedents.

That's Determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've used the word inevitable quite often. I use it because it applies to the terms and conditions of determinism as you define it.

No, it doesn't. Inevitability is a term that only has meaning relative to the inside of the system, with respect to an actor inside knowing an unavoidable future. Inevitability is always an illusion though because such would require solving a system against itself recursively in a perfect way.

Compatibilists recognize that inevitability is a hyperbole, and there is no such real thing as "inevitability". It's impossible to know what SHALL happen as knowing what SHALL happen changes from the instance where it did happen without knowing to a different situation: one where something different happened as defined by the difference of knowing... Once that difference is present, something different happens other than exactly what was "inevitable".

The concept of inevitability is nonsense in deterministic systems. It would require some mechanism of self-corrective fatalism against a pre-established plot to produce something even like it.

Even from outside the system, you only get answers about what the system does, not about what the rules do in all other configurations (even configurations not represented as a result of the given initial configuration, or of the consequences of that infinitely large initial condition at distant points).

To arrange a system such as that, it would require a God, and intent, and an author of such fate. It is nothing more than Kalam hiding in plain sight.

 

[pood]

If determinism is true, it is inevitable …

Now you are using the word “inevitable,” so let’s talk about that, at the risk of laboring a point you refuse to grasp, though you are perfectly able to do so. Your whole argument to inevitability rests again on a modal fallacy.

I've used the word inevitable quite often. I use it because it applies to the terms and conditions of determinism as you define it.

Where 'constant conjunction' means ''a relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined'' - and B being conjoined to A, inevitably follows A.

This is not me saying it. It is not something I cooked up;

Determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. 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

That is determinism as it is defined. Including your own definition, where all actions are 'causally inevitable.

Let’s say that all true propositions are true at all times, even before the event that they describe happens. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If someone uttered in the distant past, say in the year 1308, the sentence, “Joe Biden will be elected president of the United States in the year 2020,” it seems to me that he spoke truly.

Does it follow from this, however, that Biden’s election was inevitable?

Given the terms and conditions, including your own, obviously there are no exemptions, everything that happens is causally inevitable. The causally inevitable events of the world and the USA brought about Biden's election.

You seek exemptions within determinism that cannot - by definition - exist within a deterministic system.

Take something more mundane: today it is true that tomorrow, I will stay at home.

1. Today it is true that tomorrow I will stay at home. Call that truth S.
2. S is true, and permanently true (true at all times).
3. Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.
4. It is not possible that I render S false by some action of my own (follows from 2 and 3).
5. I can’t render S false through my actions; therefore, inevitablism is true and tomorrow I must stay at home (I have no choice in the matter).

The above argument is unsound. It commits the modal fallacy at Step 4.

Step 4, when derived from Step 3, looks like this:

I am at home; it is not possible that (I am at home and not at home); therefore, it is not possible that I am not at home.

Perhaps you will see the problem. Of course it’s possible that I’m not at home; it’s just that I AM at home. Nothing about permanent truth (true at all times) entails that I be at home, or that Biden be elected, or anything else. What IS necessary is that no proposition can be both TRUE, and FALSE, at the same time (Law of Noncontradiction).

Put another way, the fallacy occurs thus:

If today it is true that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I MUST (necessarily) be at home.

The modal fallacy lies in ascribing the modal necessity operator to the consequent of the antecedent, thereby illicitly rendering a contingent (could have been otherwise) truth as necessary. The repair goes as follows:

Necessarily (if it is true today that tomorrow I am at home, then tomorrow I WILL BE [not MUST be!] at home).

When you speak, as you so often do, of causal necessity, or physical necessity, or deterministic necessity, or deterministic inevitability, you are committing every single time a modal fallacy because you are confusing absolute necessity with relative necessity. The relative necessity lies in the conjunction of the antecedent and the consequent, rendered just above. But all the above is saying is that necessarily, if a proposition is true, then it is true; not that it MUST be true. If I DON’T stay at home, then the proposition “tomorrow I will be at home” remains truth-valued, only it now returns the value FALSE instead of TRUE.

Moreover, there is no modal category called “causal necessity” or “deterministic inevitability,” or anything of the kind. There is only logical necessity, which deals with true propositions that can’t be false on pain of logical contradiction, like married bachelors or four-sided triangles.

Hence there is no physical or causal or deterministic necessity. We perceive that gravity operates everywhere and in the same way and at all times; yet this is not a necessary truth, because I can easily conceive a possible (though non-actual) world in which gravity does not exist, and I can do so without bringing about a logical contradiction.

Turning to causal determinism, let S stand for “chooses Pepsi” at some time T when I have a choice between Pepsi and Coke.

Your argument until now has been that, given deterministic antecedents x, y, and z, then necessarily S.

But S isn’t necessary, as I have just demonstrated! What you can say is,

Necessarily (given x, y, z, then S), where S is, was, and always will be, contingent (could have been otherwise).

This means that at Time T, not-S was within my power; and more, it is, was, and always will be, true, that not-S is possible. Sure enough, I WILL choose S, given x, y, and z, but I don’t have to.

If I don’t choose S, then different antecedents would be in play.

But, you will object, the antecedents x, y, and z, were inevitable, given determinism, and therefore S is inevitable, too, but that’s wrong — they were not inevitable — for all the reasons given above!

Even IF I always choose S, it follows that it was always within my power to choose not-S.

So when Jerry Coyne, for example, always states “you could not have done, other than what you did,” he is talking logical nonsense. And so are you, if you keep sticking to that line.

A final point about inevitability. One should not confuse “inevitability” with “fixity.” The past is fixed, but it was never inevitable, for reasons outlined above. It’s true that I cannot change the past. But no one I know argues, “Because I can’t change the past, I have no free will.”

Now suppose the future is as fixed as the past, which it is under the block universe model of Minkowski/Einstein. In that case I can’t change the future either, because of Step 3 in the initial argument offered above: Is not possible that both (2) and that I render S false through some action of my own.

But, compatibilist free will (or libertarian, for that matter) does not require changing the past, or the future, or even the present — to do so would entail the following absurdity, that I AM both at home, and not at home, at the same time.

Free will entails only the ability to make, in some small measure, the past, present, and future, be what it was, what it is, and what it will be. This just means that if the future is as fixed as the past, then some of the future is fixed by my actions, just like the present and the past.

Too many points to deal with in one sitting....but the idea of compatibilist free will does not entail the ability to alter the course or flow of causally inevitable events.

Which is why compatibilists carefully define free will as decisions made without coercion, force or undue influence.

Which fails to prove the idea of freedom of will within a deterministic system because it ignores the greatest constraint of all, that the means and mechanisms of decision making must necessarily be ''causally inevitable.''

No exemptions. No deviations. No alternatives. No taking an option that was not fixed by antecedents.

That's Determinism.

You learned nothing from reading my post. No surprise there. In the past I’ve given you link to source material on this subject, but I’m sure you ignored them. At least you never commented on them. Mainly I wrote the post not for you, but for others who might be interested in this subject.

Had you actually bothered to try to understand what I was saying, you would know, for example, that no compatibilist thinks you can “alter’ the course of events — that was my whole point at the end in discussing whether we can change the past, present, or future. Had you made an attempt to understand what I was writing, you’d know that talk of things being ”causally necessary” and the like is indeed a modal fallacy, and you’d know why. You’d also know that the only valid modal category with respect to necessity is logical necessity, and no contingent event can ever be logically necessary. However, you choose to ignore all this and not to educate yourself, which is your right. But given your intransigence, there is no point in discussing this topic with you any further.