According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

I appreciate the debate that rages on this board. Although I believe that the participants (including me) often write past one another, and could be more formal in their analysis, I now understand the following:

1. The term "Determinism" has different meanings to different people -- with the most significant difference appearing to stem from whether the term is being tackled from the perspective of philosophy or metaphysics, on the one hand, or science, math and/or physics, on the other hand. Those who approach the term from a philosophical perspective utilize a definition that those who approach the term from a scientific perspective equate to Fatalism (with the adjective "Radical" thrown in for emphasis). Those who approach the term from a scientific perspective utilize a definition that those who approach the term from a philosophical perspective view to be watered down and qualified. There is nothing right or wrong about people with different perspectives ascribing a different meaning to the same term. All that matters is that any discussion of the logical consequences of Determinism include a statement of the definition being used. To my mind, it seems that it might be helpful to have two different terms, one called "Scientific Determinism" and the other called "Philosophical Determinism."

2. The term "Free Will" has different meanings to different people -- again with the most significant difference appearing to stem from whether the term is being tackled from the perspective of philosophy or metaphysics, on the one hand, or science, math and/or physics, on the other hand. Those who approach the term from a philosophical perspective tend to utilize the Libertarian formulation in which human choices and decisions are driven by processes internal to the brain, which are free from external constraints -- even if the activity a person might choose or decide to pursue may be physically constrained from coming to fruition (e.g., the door that is locked unbeknownst to the person given a choice to choose between two doors). Those who approach the term from a scientific perspective utilize a definition that is akin to Indeterminism and posit that a choice or decision to be freely made so long as the result of the choice or decision is not known or knowable in advance and feels like a free decision. Again, there is nothing right or wrong about people with different perspectives ascribing a different meaning to the same term. Again, all that matters is that any discussion of the concept include a statement of the definition being used -- perhaps "Libertarian Free Will" and "Indeterministic Free Will."

3. The concept of "Compatibilism" means something different to different people -- once again with the most significant difference appearing to stem from whether the concept is being tackled from the perspective of philosophy or metaphysics, on the one hand, or science, math and/or physics, on the other hand. When discussing Compatibilism, those who approach the concept from a philosophical perspective tend to view the concept to involve the relationship between Philosophical Determinism and Libertarian Free Will, while those who approach the concept from a scientific perspective tend to view the concept to involve the relationship between Scientific Determinism and Indeterministic Free Will. Once again, there is nothing right or wrong about people with different perspectives ascribing a different meaning to the same term. Once again, all that matters is that any discussion of the concept include a statement of the definition being used -- perhaps "Philosophical Compatibilism" and "Scientific Compatibilism."

Once those three key terms / concepts are defined, it is possible to have a conversation about the logical consequences of the paradigms in which the participants in the conversation are on the same page. There still may be disagreement about the logical validity of the argument being presented, but it will not stem from the fact that the participants in the conversation are using different definitions of the foundational terms of the conversation.

Based on the foregoing, I believe that Philosophical Compatibilism (as defined above) is not logically coherent -- which is the point, and only point, I have been trying to make. It now seems that some others on this board agree with that conclusion, and I welcome a logical explanation, which does not reject the definitions of the foundational terms, from anyone who may hold a contrary view.

Based on the foregoing, I also accept that Scientific Compatibilism is not illogical. I do, however, also believe that Scientific Compatibilism is not a very meaningful concept.

The other thing that it plain to me, but with respect to which I sense possible resistance from some others, is that the truth of Philosophical Determinism, Scientific Determinism, Libertarian Free Will and/or Indeterministic Free Will is neither provable nor falsifiable, and that the acceptance of the truth of any of these concepts depends wholly upon taking a leap (possibly a quantum leap) of faith. Although many a scientist will reject the notion out of hand, the fact is that a belief that science, math, physics or any other human construct or paradigm is no more or less sound than a religious belief in God. There is nothing wrong with that, either, so long as the proponent of a given belief recognizes and understands the ultimate foundation of faith upon which it rests.

 

[pood]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

Rather than continue to argue with my statements, can you please answer the question posed in the penultimate sentence of the post you are criticizing?

 

[pood]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

Rather than continue to argue with my statements, can you please answer the question posed in the penultimate sentence of the post you are criticizing?

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

Rather than continue to argue with my statements, can you please answer the question posed in the penultimate sentence of the post you are criticizing?

I am not arguing with anythihg. I am pointing out that you are illicitly conflating determinism with pre-determinism or fatalism.

But to answer your question, let’s look at the Greek idle argument. It is fatalism. It is idle to do anything because the future is fated to be just as it will be. Now if I accept this argument I might decide to just sit on my ass and do nothing because what’s the point? And in so doing I have made a choice to make the future be just what it will be. So indeed free will and fatalism itself are compatible.

There is am old song lyric. “What will be, will be.” Quite true. Note that the lyric does not go, “What will be, MUST be.”

That would be another modal fallacy. Maybe the lyricist was a philosopher,

 

[pood]

Free will is the ability to do what I want and not under duress or coercion, and without external impediments blocking my way. Since determinism is not a coercive force, or a force of any kind, I am free.

 

[pood]

Throwing around terms like radical fatalism, predeterminism, determinism, and free will simply misses the point IMO. There is only one history, disregarding the possibility of a quantum multiverse, to which we have no access anyway.

If it were possible to rise above the universe and look down at the whole history of it from the bird’s view, as Tegmark has it, all our choices are laid out from start to finish. Is there any reason to think they were not free?

Sure. If at time t I am seen to hand over my wallet at gunpoint then my choice was not free,

But if at some other time I were seen to deliberate whether to choose eggs or pancakes for breakfast, and I chose eggs, and no one was holding a gun to my head or staying my hand from pancakes, my choice was free.

I really don’t think there’s much else to say about it.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

Rather than continue to argue with my statements, can you please answer the question posed in the penultimate sentence of the post you are criticizing?

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

It is not a quibble over nomenclature. You are claiming that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, but you are defining determinism as pre-determinism or fatalism. But it isn’t either of those.

Rather than continue to argue with my statements, can you please answer the question posed in the penultimate sentence of the post you are criticizing?

I am not arguing with anythihg. I am pointing out that you are illicitly conflating determinism with pre-determinism or fatalism.

But to answer your question, let’s look at the Greek idle argument. It is fatalism. It is idle to do anything because the future is fated to be just as it will be. Now if I accept this argument I might decide to just sit on my ass and do nothing because what’s the point? And in so doing I have made a choice to make the future be just what it will be. So indeed free will and fatalism itself are compatible.

There is am old song lyric. “What will be, will be.” Quite true. Note that the lyric does not go, “What will be, MUST be.”

That would be another modal fallacy. Maybe the lyricist was a philosopher,

There is nothing implicit (or, as you say, illicit) in my question, which you either refuse to answer or are incapable of answering. Moreover, there is so much wrong with the balance of your latest non-answer that it is not worth my time seeking to respond on point. Accordingly, and as I stated in the initial post that began this particular colloquy, to the extent I am able, I shall reply no further to your comments.

 

[pood]

If you want to sling terms like fatalism, radical fatalism, pre-determinism, superdeterminism and determinism into a great big shit pile of co-mingled meanings, be my guest.

The issue comes down to:

What will be, MUST be.

Vs.

What will be, WILL be.

The former is a modal fallacy.

The latter is a tautology.

So what are we really wasting pixels on?

 

[pood]

There is nothing implicit (or, as you say, illicit) in my question, which you either refuse to answer or are incapable of answering. Moreover, there is so much wrong with the balance of your latest non-answer that it is not worth my time seeking to respond on point. Accordingly, and as I stated in the initial post that began this particular colloquy, to the extent I am able, I shall reply no further to your comments.

I did reply to your question,

But yes, I get that your ego can’t abide being out argued, so take your ball and go home.

Let me restate in bold for you: free will and fatalism are compatible.

 

[pood]

But this is largely because fatalism is logically impossible, IF we define it as, what will be, MUST be. That is a modal fallacy,

It’s perfectly OK if we define it as what will be, WILL be. But that is just a tautology.

So again, what are we all talking about?

 

[pood]

P1 The whole history of the universe is fixed and unalterable

P2 We have free will, defined as the ability to do what I want to do, and not under coercion or blocked by external impediments

P3 Free will does not require changing anything (as explained earlier)

P4 With our free will we do our minuscule bit to make things be just as they are and will be to the end of time

C WTF are we talking about?

 

[pood]

I think BSilv is having his little tantrum over my use of the word “illicit.”

In this context it means a fallacious mix of concepts, not a deliberate ploy.

But he has a fragile ego it appears, and is quick to take offense.

 

[Jarhyn]

I suppose it is not my burden to carry DBT's water for him

Well, it would be nice if you DID do your burden to him and explain that there is a difference.

In fact there's been a turnstile of folks who have been through here through the years who claim that you and Popper and all the rest discussing "determinism" is actually what any of us math folks would call determinism, but is rather "pre-determinism" and you are under some burden to establish that your idea can be expressed sensibly according to logic without engaging in syntax errors.

Out of curiosity, however, I do ask that you please identify the statement(s) made by DBT that you read to be asserting that that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true, because I do not read DBT's posts to make that assertion

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined, as a system where there are no loopholes, exceptions or special privileges. No matter how complex or chaotic it appears, the system evolves as determined. There is no choosing to do otherwise, not in any given moment of decision making.

Right here you read and even upvote this, in a post where he claims compatibilists define determinism this way, and then collapsing it into radical fatalism, equating evolution as physics of the system determines to a lack of compatibilist choice.

We are talking about some of the physical equation free of any given location, when we discuss freedoms.

I'll even note the modal fallacy right at the end there. There are events of physics driving a choice otherwise to the left and right, top and bottom, front and back, and even before and after. Physics chooses fairly observably otherwise everywhere already.

When I choose to be otherwise than some other place I know can exist, I find myself not existing in that place. When I choose to be as some place otherwise that I know may exist given some action, by performing that action, I find myself existing in that place or one suitably like it so as to suffice for my needs.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact is, compatibilism is a philosophical view of free will, a metaphysical stance, based on mathematically sound models of determinism distinct from some radically fatalistic

It is not that compatibilists approach the radical fatalist/radical anti-fatalist views, not when approaching from philosophy or math. They look at those views, recognize the modal fallacy, and then they look for what else could be going on other than whatever nonsense they just saw.

Eventually, they either recognize from a philosophical direction that the menu is right there, the choices can be actual and before you as in Marvin's Cafe, and that the constraints are real and experienced and if we feel something that waxes and wanes and even resolves with specific sentences of responsibilities as specific situations happen and we call this our sense of freedom, AND the universe is deterministic in some sense that cannot accord to that other nonsense but still sequential and based perfectly on physical law and physical state together, then the two must somehow be compatible.

This results in rejection of the adjective "radical" and of the "pre-" and assumption of the more mathematical concept of determinism, not fatalism.

Frankly if you can just say "DBT, What they are talking about with respect to 'determinism' and 'radical fatalism' are distinctly independent, where determinism as these folks define it and understand it DOES NOT imply the radical fatalism or that something somewhere could not do otherwise", I would appreciate even just that.

I discuss this on the free will subreddit, and this is a TINY microcosm of the waves and waves and waves of people who see the world working in a mathematically deterministic way somehow, whether it's the reliability and repeatability of neural events as Sapolski writes about, or the rigidity and universality of our rules of physics Einstein saw, and then people make this mistake as dependably as the tide rolling in.

For the mathematical approach, it comes from just seeing all different kinds of deterministic systems operating, and maybe debugging one to explore systems "adjacent in operation", and then make this system transform or rotate to become the adjacent system.

It's way simpler to see 'this operating system boots deterministically AND it could have done so otherwise and will do so next time it boots' when your job for a year and change was a searching for exactly how and why it would do otherwise and what would need to happen to make it happen in a specific way meeting specific requirements.

Then with approaching philosophical compatibilism from the mathematical direction, it's just a matter of using the plain English language in syntax structures the same way, and solving "word problems" instead of solving more confusing presentations as pure logic.

Finding responsibilities and making moral judgements ends up comporting to debugging; Shaping a will, programming; freedoms being about the program itself being designed in such a way to keep exit conditions from happening except on a "success" condition, and so on, the actual conditional statements of the program.

Freedoms are arguably the one of the most important parts because these conditional statements, the preparations themselves for the conditions, determine what the program will do, and you can see how they will determine things in advance of when the program will do it, regardless of which way the statement breaks.

Unit testing actually happens in much of programming and this unit testing itself is designed to exercise each of these conditional pathways and "cover" all "code".

We validate that the freedoms (the conditionals) are really free (reachable) through an execution event on the system type) in the way we expect, with regards to formal programming.

And if you might, this is all tangential to me to the more important question NOT of whether humans have free will, but whether there is some "ought" to which may tumble out of all this talk.

Because I sure as shit didn't spend my life trying to formalize a concept of "compatible determinism" just to get mucked about trying to teach people Psych 210 but with grounding lectures in machine learning concepts.

I'm laying a framework for understanding free will and responsibility here so that I can maybe some day have discussions with people about goals and goal oriented operations and what goals in such logic are inappropriate, because I have the hubris to claim to know how to derive a general ought not from AN is but from "general" concepts about goals and what they are and how they drive our generations of wills, formation of freedoms, and the responsibilities we have.

I just knew that to discuss concepts of how morality works with rigor and meaning, I needed a rigor and meaning behind the language I used to discuss it.

In short, I'm making a linguistic foundation for a different discussion here, and one of the reasons I get so tetchy about it is that when people reject even the linguistic foundations under the premise that determinism implies pre-determinism however they might want to define it, it details any attempt to actually apply that language to discuss responsibilities.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Out of curiosity, however, I do ask that you please identify the statement(s) made by DBT that you read to be asserting that that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true, because I do not read DBT's posts to make that assertion

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined, as a system where there are no loopholes, exceptions or special privileges. No matter how complex or chaotic it appears, the system evolves as determined. There is no choosing to do otherwise, not in any given moment of decision making.

Right here you read and even upvote this, in a post where he claims compatibilists define determinism this way, and then collapsing it into radical fatalism, equating evolution as physics of the system determines to a lack of compatibilist choice.

We are talking about some of the physical equation free of any given location, when we discuss freedoms.

I'll even note the modal fallacy right at the end there. There are events of physics driving a choice otherwise to the left and right, top and bottom, front and back, and even before and after. Physics chooses fairly observably otherwise everywhere already.

When I choose to be otherwise than some other place I know can exist, I find myself not existing in that place. When I choose to be as some place otherwise that I know may exist give some action, by performing that action, I find myself existing in that place or one suitably like it so as to suffice for my needs.

I do not read the words you quoted to assert that the metaphysical paradigm of determinism is true. Rather, and as I previously had stated about DBT's position in general, I read the quoted words to set forth DBT's understanding of the operation of the paradigm of Determinism and the concept of Free Will -- or, as I have written in another post, "Philosophical Determinism" and "Libertarian Free Will."

The fact that DBT assigns different properties to Determinism than you do does not transform his statement of operation into an assertion of truth any more than a debate between two atheists about the contours of God transforms either of their conceptualizations into an assertion that God exists. While it is your prerogative to disagree with DBT's statement of the operation of Philosophical Determinism, I don't believe you are doing that, because I understand your posts to be about "Scientific Determinism" and not "Philosophical Determinism" (as laid out by Popper and James).

Even within science, there is debate about whether the universe is perfectly deterministic or probabilistic, as well as debate about the ramifications for Free Will (both Libertarian and Indeterministic). I am not wading into that debate, nor am I staking a position about matters of math and physics that are admittedly beyond my limited understanding to intelligently evaluate. I do not read DBT's posts to stake out a position on these questions, either.

As I see things, you and I are addressing the logical ramifications of two different paradigms that have the same name. I do not claim either paradigm is true (i.e., perfectly representative of reality). Nor do I claim that Scientific Determinism is false (i.e., not representative of reality). It seems to me that you and some others on this board have sufficient confidence to stake out a claim that Philosophical Determinism is a false construct and that Scientific Determinism (as modified by quantum theory) is true. I disagree that anyone can say with confidence, much less certainty, that either paradigm is true or false, because I view all assertions about the nature of the universe to be metaphysical paradigms that are inherently unprovable and unfalsifiable.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The fact is, compatibilism is a philosophical view of free will, a metaphysical stance, based on mathematically sound models of determinism distinct from some radically fatalistic

It is not that compatibilists approach the radical fatalist/radical anti-fatalist views, not when approaching from philosophy or math. They look at those views, recognize the modal fallacy, and then they look for what else could be going on other than whatever nonsense they just saw.

Eventually, they either recognize from a philosophical direction that the menu is right there, the choices can be actual and before you as in Marvin's Cafe, and that the constraints are real and experienced and if we feel something that waxes and wanes and even resolves with specific sentences of responsibilities as specific situations happen and we call this our sense of freedom, AND the universe is deterministic in some sense that cannot accord to that other nonsense but still sequential and based perfectly on physical law and physical state together, then the two must somehow be compatible.

This results in rejection of the adjective "radical" and of the "pre-" and assumption of the more mathematical concept of determinism, not fatalism.

Frankly if you can just say "DBT, What they are talking about with respect to 'determinism' and 'radical fatalism' are distinctly independent, where determinism as these folks define it and understand it DOES NOT imply the radical fatalism or that something somewhere could not do otherwise", I would appreciate even just that.

I discuss this on the free will subreddit, and this is a TINY microcosm of the waves and waves and waves of people who see the world working in a mathematically deterministic way somehow, whether it's the reliability and repeatability of neural events as Sapolski writes about, or the rigidity and universality of our rules of physics Einstein saw, and then people make this mistake as dependably as the tide rolling in.

For the mathematical approach, it comes from just seeing all different kinds of deterministic systems operating, and maybe debugging one to explore systems "adjacent in operation", and then make this system transform or rotate to become the adjacent system.

It's way simpler to see 'this operating system boots deterministically AND it could have done so otherwise and will do so next time it boots' when your job for a year and change was a searching for exactly how and why it would do otherwise and what would need to happen to make it happen in a specific way meeting specific requirements.

Then with approaching philosophical compatibilism from the mathematical direction, it's just a matter of using the plain English language in syntax structures the same way, and solving "word problems" instead of solving more confusing presentations as pure logic.

Finding responsibilities and making moral judgements ends up comporting to debugging; Shaping a will, programming; freedoms being about the program itself being designed in such a way to keep exit conditions from happening except on a "success" condition, and so on, the actual conditional statements of the program.

Freedoms are arguably the one of the most important parts because these conditional statements, the preparations themselves for the conditions, determine what the program will do, and you can see how they will determine things in advance of when the program will do it, regardless of which way the statement breaks.

Unit testing actually happens in much of programming and this unit testing itself is designed to exercise each of these conditional pathways and "cover" all "code".

We validate that the freedoms (the conditionals) are really free (reachable) through an execution event on the system type) in the way we expect, with regards to formal programming.

And if you might, this is all tangential to me to the more important question NOT of whether humans have free will, but whether there is some "ought" to which may tumble out of all this talk.

Because I sure as shit didn't spend my life trying to formalize a concept of "compatible determinism" just to get mucked about trying to teach people Psych 210 but with grounding lectures in machine learning concepts.

I'm laying a framework for understanding free will and responsibility here so that I can maybe some day have discussions with people about goals and goal oriented operations and what goals in such logic are inappropriate, because I have the hubris to claim to know how to derive a general ought not from AN is but from "general" concepts about goals and what they are and how they drive our generations of wills, formation of freedoms, and the responsibilities we have.

I just knew that to discuss concepts of how morality works with rigor and meaning, I needed a rigor and meaning behind the language I used to discuss it.

In short, I'm making a linguistic foundation for a different discussion here, and one of the reasons I get so tetchy about it is that when people reject even the linguistic foundations under the premise that determinism implies pre-determinism however they might want to define it, it details any attempt to actually apply that language to discuss responsibilities.

That is a lot of words to unpack, and a lot of thought to ponder.

Nonetheless, I do generally understand what you are saying, and I do not denigrate or reject it on a human plane (or what Buddhists call the mundane). I even applaud you for what appears to be an effort to develop a methodology for discovering moral categorical imperatives.

Based on my upbringing and experiences, I have sufficient confidence in my mundane moral compass to make what seem to be proper moral decisions. Although I do not spend a lot of time writing about those seeming decisions, I do spend a good deal of time thinking about them. In my writing, however, I am more interested in exploring the super-mundane, which I do not understand (within my way of thinking) to provide a basis for any moral categorical imperatives, and I do not waste my time trying to discern them, much less develop a method for doing so. Instead, I devote my time exploring the potential contours of a metaphysical construct that denies the truth of all paradigms -- including, but not limited to math, physics, and logic. It is, however, seemingly impossible to get beneath the surface of that construct, because doing so requires a mindset and language that we seem to lack. In the end, it is a spiritual journey (which is not be confused with a religious one). And, who knows, the spiritual journey might actually lead to the same place as the mathematical path upon which you trudge.

If this makes no sense to you, so be it.

 

[DBT]

I suppose it is not my burden to carry DBT's water for him

Well, it would be nice if you DID do your burden to him and explain that there is a difference.

In fact there's been a turnstile of folks who have been through here through the years who claim that you and Popper and all the rest discussing "determinism" is actually what any of us math folks would call determinism, but is rather "pre-determinism" and you are under some burden to establish that your idea can be expressed sensibly according to logic without engaging in syntax errors.

Out of curiosity, however, I do ask that you please identify the statement(s) made by DBT that you read to be asserting that that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true, because I do not read DBT's posts to make that assertion

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined, as a system where there are no loopholes, exceptions or special privileges. No matter how complex or chaotic it appears, the system evolves as determined. There is no choosing to do otherwise, not in any given moment of decision making.

Right here you read and even upvote this, in a post where he claims compatibilists define determinism this way, and then collapsing it into radical fatalism, equating evolution as physics of the system determines to a lack of compatibilist choice.

We are talking about some of the physical equation free of any given location, when we discuss freedoms.

I'll even note the modal fallacy right at the end there. There are events of physics driving a choice otherwise to the left and right, top and bottom, front and back, and even before and after. Physics chooses fairly observably otherwise everywhere already.

When I choose to be otherwise than some other place I know can exist, I find myself not existing in that place. When I choose to be as some place otherwise that I know may exist given some action, by performing that action, I find myself existing in that place or one suitably like it so as to suffice for my needs.

Calling determinism 'radical fatalism' doesn't help resolve the issue.

The issue here is the validity of the Compatibilist argument for free will. That free will - as they define it - is indeed compatible with determinism, just as they themselves define determinism.

If you have a problem with how compatibilists define determinism, you have a problem with compatibilism.

 

[Jarhyn]

The issue here is the validity of the Compatibilist argument for free will. That free will - as they define it - is indeed compatible with determinism, just as they themselves define determinism.

See, @BSilvEsq, right here he is claiming (in his own very DBT way) that compatibilist definitions of determinism do not support compatibilist definitions of free will, when the whole thing I've been trying to show you is that YES, people ARE conflating radical fatalism and determinism and YES it is a problem.

PLEASE help us disabuse him of that notion.

 

[pood]

This whole debate is rather silly.

One can look at the same data — a whole time line laid out from the point of view of a putative God — and conclude: I had to do what I did (a modal fallacy), or, what was, was (a tautology).

So what’s the point?

 

[bilby]

This whole debate is rather silly.

One can look at the same data — a whole time line laid out from the point of view of a putative God — and conclude: I had to do what I did (a modal fallacy), or, what was, was (a tautology).

So what’s the point?

I assume it's to justify the statement: "I didn't sleep with your wife, the starting conditions of the universe did it!"