According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[bilby]

the question is; is our will really free?

The question is: is our will really ours?

Freedom is ill-defined, probably contradictory and ultimately irrelevant.

If our will is our own, then it is free, in the sense that if my time is my own, it is my free time.

Libertarian "freedom" isn't sufficiently coherent as to be worthy of a moment's consideration.

If it is I who makes a decision, with no other person coercing or demanding that I decide in a way contrary to my will, then it is my will; To describe it as un-free would be perverse. Yet to describe it as 'free' seems to break peoples' ability to reason - 'free' implies 'without coercion', and might (at a stretch) imply 'unpredictable', but it cannot imply 'random' without also implying 'insane'.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

to say “could not have done otherwise” is a modal fallacy. Given certain antecedents, I WILL, but not MUST, do a certain thing.

Incompatibilist-determinists can acknowledge the must/will distinction and assert the "WILL not have done otherwise", and their viewpoint remains viable. Frankly, I think it remains essentially unchanged, but that is for them to say.

In (let's call it) a world of modal logic, in a reality for which modal logic is the most apt way of describing (at least aspects of) the actual world, there are actual (meaning concurrently available alternative) possibilities, and there might be necessities. Actual possibilities are matters of indeterminateness. If the modal logic world were only a world of determinateness, then there would not be the non-determinateness, the not-determined-ness, i.e., the indeterminateness which provides for, and is expressible in terms of, possibilities - such as those which (maybe just some) humans think they discern at the macrophysical level.

Now, the incompatibilist-determinists who hold to physicalism (those appearing to be the sort of determinists who have been involved in this discussion) seem to assert that physics is somehow sufficient to preclude the indeterminateness and the possibilities that are to be found in the modal logic world. These incompatibilist-determinists can even acknowledge that there is quantum indeterminateness and dismiss that sort of indeterminateness as irrelevant with regards to the relatively macrophysical occurrences discussed, for instance, in terms of human acts. After all, humans do not resort to quantum-level details when describing human acts.

For these determinists, there is no indeterminateness subject to human action for a human-controlled conversion to determinateness. These determinists agree with the notion that no "imaginary indeterminateness ... is needed" in order to explain the world or what humans do. These determinists deny the actuality of the indeterminateness and possibilities which can be found in the modal logic world. In essence, these determinists hold that the modal logic world is imaginary, not actual.

In that case, the logic found in physics (or, more specifically, macrophysics) is held to be the only apt logic with regards to human matters, and that is a logic without possibilities (assuming, of course, that there is logic if there are no possibilities). As a logic without possibilities, it is also a logic of inexorability without modal necessity. What will be will be, and it is never not determined what humans do to effect what will be - even though humans do not perceive (and, therefore, feel free from) the inexorability of the logical process that is physicalist (or scientistic) physics.

If the foregoing well enough captures the incompatibilist-determinist position, with what do the compatibilist-determinists disagree?

 

[Jarhyn]

Actual possibilities are matters of indeterminatenes

No, they aren't. They are not this on the least.

There is nothing "indeterminate" about a possibility.

Rather, they are a matter of decidability: the decision of which must be resolved by a deterministic process.

A real decision, and choices happen, that produce a result from a tableau.

I have specifically demonstrated that there is nothing "indeterminate" of this. Possibilities are still features of causal chains.

If you really want to understand this, I'm going to say maybe try watching that video by Carrier.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

There is nothing "indeterminate" about a possibility.

It was not said that there is anything indeterminate about a possibility.

Rather, they are a matter of decidability: the decision of which must be resolved by a deterministic process.

Incoherent non-sense. You can go ahead and describe "decidability" to possibly effect some extent of coherence, but, if you think that there can be deciding or decision without there being multiple concurrent possibilities, then you will have to account for the process of deliberation, and you will suffer from irremediable incoherence if you think that deliberation occurs without taking account of multiple concurrent alternative possibilities.

Possibilities are still features of causal chains.

Which means that there can be indeterminateness within causal chains.

 

[Jarhyn]

You can go ahead and describe "decidability" to possibly effect some extent of coherence

Look up what "decidability" means.

It is, effectively, a concept about how choice has to resolve, and for problems which there is no offering on which to make that choice present otherwise, the problem is "undecidable".

The decision has to be rendered by some process and without the process, nothing happens.

It's not "indeterminate"

Possibilities do not yield indeterminateness, they just yield...well, possibilities which must be selected against to get a result.

Unless you just want to invoke the idea that some outcome of the future is "undetermined" until the moment and time and position it is determined in? But that's just saying that "different positions contain different results" again.

At any rate, you can try to twist yourself in tighter and tighter knots until nobody can uncover the way in which you fooled yourself; but the moment you say "it could not be otherwise at the same place in time", as soon as you try to say that there is only one possible future, you have invoked the set of all sets, and there's a contradiction there.

The fact of the matter is, at this point, it's your own damn exercise to go find where it crept in.

 

[DBT]

but the question is; is our will really free?

Unfortunately, given your interpretation of the Definition of freedom you provide on this thread (post #1,620), it follows that absolutely nothing can be free in a deterministic universe. I've always wondered why you've always fixated on just this one particular
claim of freedom?

Determined actions progress without impediment, as they must. In that sense, we are able to act freely (relatively) without being forced or impeded, but only as determined by the system as it evolves from past to present and future states.

Freedom of action, if determined, does not equate to freedom of will. Neither will or related action is a matter of choice. So it's a relative freedom.

Someone may say that also applies to will, but that is a mistake;

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

Given the implications of determinism (just as defined by compatibilists), neither will or 'acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced' is a matter of free will.

 

[DBT]

Function is not necessarily will. Computer have programmed function and purpose, while a brain generates thought and response according to its inherent makeup and condition, life experience and memory....which is not a matter of free will.

Where memory failure alone results in an inability to recognize, understand or respond rationally. Free will? Nah, just a conscious interactive form of response determined by unconscious means, the work of neural network.

There lies the inadequacy of compatibilism and defining free will as 'acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced.'

The failure being;

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '

"Basic-desert responsibility" is not a core element of compatibilism.

Some compatibilists may subscribe to 'basic-desert' but many (most?) do not and, like me, find the concept incoherent.

But it is an element of the idea of free will. That is the point.

It may well be an element of your particular take on free will but as you must have noticed, there's more than one notion of free will at play here.

Sure, there are several takes on the notion of free will, Compatibilism, Libertarian, Common usage of the term, Law, etc.

Some of which contradict each other.

Even worse, there are compatibilists who argue like libertarians regardless of the contradictions between the two positions.

It's a mess. Hardly rational at the best of times. The term used casually, who cares.....but the question is; is our will really free?

Given the nature of cognition and the role of will, the answer can only be, of course not.

Carrier explains very well why compatibilism succeeds and draws a clear distinction between it and libertarianism.

What does Carrier say? I haven't read his work. Given the nature of the argument for free will, I see no means of saving compatibilism,

Just reality that it is the non chosen state of a brain that determines thought and action falsifies any notion of free will.

Compatibilism, carefully circumventing that inconvenient fact, fails for that reason.

How does Carrier's argument make a difference?

 

[DBT]

the question is; is our will really free?

The question is: is our will really ours?

We don't think or act in isolation. We are inseparable from the system at large.

There is no choice in what happens. No choice in where we were born, our genetics, abilities, family, culture, language, socio economic circumstances, etc, etc.

So what is this 'us' that may qualify as freedom of will?

Us?

A bundle of functional memories used by a brain to interact with its environment.

Freedom is ill-defined, probably contradictory and ultimately irrelevant.

Yet compatibilists use the idea in relation to their definition of free will. That there is freedom of will, free will.

If our will is our own, then it is free, in the sense that if my time is my own, it is my free time.

There is no issue with will. We have will. But is it free will, that is the issue.

Given the nature of will, conflicting drives, etc, the answer must be, we have will, but it is not free will.

Libertarian "freedom" isn't sufficiently coherent as to be worthy of a moment's consideration.

If it is I who makes a decision, with no other person coercing or demanding that I decide in a way contrary to my will, then it is my will; To describe it as un-free would be perverse. Yet to describe it as 'free' seems to break peoples' ability to reason - 'free' implies 'without coercion', and might (at a stretch) imply 'unpredictable', but it cannot imply 'random' without also implying 'insane'.

It is the brain that makes decisions. The decisions that are made are determined by unconscious processes, some rational, others a matter of habit, addiction, desires, needs, wants, fears, where there may be an internal battle of wills... adaptive and maladaptive sets of behaviours wrapped up in what we call 'self.'

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Possibilities do not yield indeterminateness, they just yield...well, possibilities

If there are concurrent multiple alternative possibilities, there is indeterminateness. If there are not concurrent alternative multiple possibilities, there is no indeterminateness. That is a better way of expressing the fact. Your "yield" is wholly unnecessary and an inferior manner of expression.

possibilities which must be selected against to get a result.

Absent the above noted possibilities, there is no selecting to be done; there is just doing that is done.

Unless you just want to invoke the idea that some outcome of the future is "undetermined" until the moment and time and position it is determined in? But that's just saying that "different positions contain different results" again.

And if "the future is NOT 'undetermined' until the moment and time and position it is determined in", then the future is determined before that "moment and time and position", and that would be the very same as saying that the future is pre-determined which simply means the future is determined and not at any point undetermined before the future becomes the present.

However, as I recall, you deny that the future is pre-determined, which is why your determinism is not pre-determinism. So, let's see: you insist that the future is currently not undetermined, and that means the future is currently determined, but the future is also currently not pre-determined. Currently determined and currently not determined.

At any rate, you can try to twist yourself in tighter and tighter knots

Uh, is there possibly a tighter knot than that of you holding the future to be currently determined but not pre-determined, currently determined and currently not determined? The answer to that question is a resounding NO! You contradict yourself, and I believe it is by your own reckoning that there cannot be any knot tighter than a contradiction.

Then again, maybe you do think the future is pre-determined.

But none of that is all that important.

You like to toss out accusations of "modal fallacy" without having bothered with any substantial analysis. Try realizing how the modal fallacy notion can serve as impetus for developing your own philosophical charity. Of course, if you do not already have an idea about what value there is in philosophical charity, well, that is an entirely different problem.

 

[Jarhyn]

If there are concurrent multiple alternative possibilities, there is indeterminateness. If there are not concurrent alternative multiple possibilities, there is no indeterminateness. That is a better way of expressing the fact. Your "yield" is wholly unnecessary and an inferior manner of expression

Nope.

This is complete bullshit.

We have shown you, repeatedly, how the future is not Indeterminate or "probabilistic".

Uh, is there possibly a tighter knot than that of you holding the future to be currently determined but not pre-determined, currently determined and currently not determined

Read that once more.

The future is not currently "already determined", it is deterministic. The future is determined in the future.

That doesn't mean there is indeterminateness.

At best there is the fact that decision is a timely process.

Rather, perhaps, it is not that it is undecidable within the system, but rather just that it just takes time to execute decisions, and the alternatives are key to the decision.

You like to toss out accusations of "modal fallacy" without having bothered with any substantial analysis

Says the person who keeps committing the modal fallacy.

You just really do not want to stop believing in your Calvinistic God named Necessity.

"The future is determined in the future by physics upon the present" is not saying that the universe is indeterministic. It just acknowledges that cause requires time and "here is not there and there is not here" and getting between them requires a transformation.

So then yet again, I will say that your choice of words to describe it may be where this error is coming from, and giving you a conflation to work with.

You can keep trying to tie yourself in knots, I suppose?

If this moment is not the future, exactly, then the future is not "pre-determined"; it's NOT just sitting there handily tucked away as-is somehow folded in the moment of the now. It's physically separated by some time-distance.

So if at some point you get a statement that says it is... You should rather take a look at that to find the contradiction or, what I am suspecting at this rate, is a conflation from a bad word choice in this instance, of trying to replace some concept of decisions being timely with indeterminateness.

 

[Jarhyn]

We don't think or act in isolation. We are inseparable from the system at large.

Yes we do; yes we are.

Our brains do, absolutely, think in almost complete isolation from most other stuff around them. That's the whole point of a skull, and mylin, and the short-range effects of neuro-transmitters that seem quite highly evolved to the purposes of isolating what goes on inside your head from what goes on outside it.

Just stop allowing the outside to twiddle those switches of the skin and eyes and so on, and now you separate what goes on inside from what is going on outside even more!

The thinking and acting is CLEARLY isolated from the majority of the system.

In fact, it looks like this pretense of non-isolation due to inconsequentially weak influence is one of those things you use to pretend, instead, to be significant enough to eliminate responsibility?

Dark matter passing through you is not going to be consequential to the decision of whether to have a ham or turkey sandwich. The gravitational pull of Alpha Centauri is not influencing your decision on whether to wear the green shirt or blue more than the configuration of your own neurons as resulted from taking a color theory class last week.

In fact, part of the discussion about simulation is to show exactly how isolated humans really are and how they may be isolated in total.

In fact, studying, creating, designing, and leveraging that isolation in specific ways is how computers are engineered, and simulation itself is the act of isolating systems' functions in particular ways, and binary circuitry is used to drive that isolation to Boolean precision.

Yes, people think and act in isolation, unless, say, they have wires planted in their skull bridging it to the contents of another, somehow connecting the circuit.

 

[pood]

One of the things @DBT keeps erroneously saying is that determinism “does not permit alternate outcomes.” As I have pointed out time and again, this is to mistakenly claim that a descriptive process is a prescriptive one.

But the problem goes deeper. If you run an experiment twice, or any number of times, with the exact same initial conditions in the experimental setup, you will NOT, in fact, always get the same outcome. This is because at any given time there are innumerable variables you cannot control for — difference in air pressure, temperature, random quantum fluctuations, and so on. So in addition to being a descriptive process without any coercive power, determinism is also an idealization.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Nope.

This is complete bullshit.

We have shown you, repeatedly, how the future is not Indeterminate or "probabilistic".

As time goes by, you get continually more non-sensical. Let's review. I said, "If there are concurrent multiple alternative possibilities, there is indeterminateness. If there are not concurrent alternative multiple possibilities, there is no indeterminateness."

And your reply to that is "the future is not Indeterminate or 'probabilistic'"? Question: How is that even the least bit responsive? Answer: It's not.

But maybe your intent was to deny that there are alternatives. Yet, that cannot be what you intended, because, as discussed below, you say there are alternatives. So, your above reply is most charitably regarded as unresponsive.

On top of that, you are deluded with regards to what you think you have shown about the future.

Read that once more.

The future is not currently "already determined", it is deterministic. The future is determined in the future.

Yeah, YOU need to read what YOU wrote once more.

If the future is not currently already determined, then: the future is not currently determined; the future is not at present determined; the future is not determined at present; the future is not yet determined; the future is (present tense) not determined; the state referred to as the future is not a condition of determinateness akin to that of the state referred to as the past, and, still the future is deterministic.

From the foregoing it follows that deterministic can only mean not currently determined, at present not determined, not yet determined, not determined in the same sense as the past is determined.

Anything that is not determined is undetermined or indeterminate or presents as a condition of or imbued with indeterminateness. No one who thinks that possibilities are actual doubts that the future will be determined. And, as previously noted, if there are actual possibilities, then there is actual indeterminateness.

That doesn't mean there is indeterminateness.

So, let's see: the future is not determined and (or but) there is not indeterminateness with regards to the to-be-determined future. The future is not determined and it is not not-determined. Yours is not the first sect to resort to apophasis in an attempt at clarification. For instance, the Athanasian Creed holds:

... the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.

However, as we will see, your attempt at apophasis is at least less successful if it is not, in fact, self-defeating.

Rather, perhaps, it is not that it is undecidable within the system, but rather just that it just takes time to execute decisions, and the alternatives are key to the decision.

"The future is determined in the future by physics upon the present" is not saying that the universe is indeterministic.

It is not necessary to introduce the word indeterministic. Especially since I have not used that word, and your use of that word adds nothing to the discussion.

Indeterminate and, hence, indeterminateness indicate a state of being not definitely determined or fixed. If there are "alternatives" - which is to say a non-fixedness, an indeterminateness - with these "alternatives [being] key to ... decision", and if this is a physically actual indeterminateness subject to human action for a human-controlled conversion to determinateness, then the "future is determined ... by physics" only if it is physics that makes decisions.

However, physics does not make decisions; physics describes; physics is a description, for instance of regularities - even physical invariances. If physics decides, then physics controls, and if physics controls, then the incompatibilist-determinists are right and are vindicated in their trashing of compatibilist free will.

You just really do not want to stop believing in your Calvinistic God named Necessity.

That remark would be hilarious were it not so very sadly ridiculous. You have a serious reading comprehension problem. I said, "there are actual (meaning concurrently available alternative) possibilities, and there might be necessities." There is a difference between are and might be. Add to that the fact that you have never seen me seek or claim necessity (in the modal logic sense).

The Jarhyn case is closed.

 

[The AntiChris]

But the problem goes deeper. If you run an experiment twice, or any number of times, with the exact same initial conditions in the experimental setup, you will NOT, in fact, always get the same outcome. This is because at any given time there are innumerable variables you cannot control for — difference in air pressure, temperature, random quantum fluctuations, and so on. So in addition to being a descriptive process without any coercive power, determinism is also an idealization.

I'm not sure why you mention this. Neither "variables you cannot control for" nor "random quantum fluctuations" are required for compatibilist free will. No need to feed DBT's suspicions that compatibilists don't really accept 'true' determinism.

 

[pood]

But the problem goes deeper. If you run an experiment twice, or any number of times, with the exact same initial conditions in the experimental setup, you will NOT, in fact, always get the same outcome. This is because at any given time there are innumerable variables you cannot control for — difference in air pressure, temperature, random quantum fluctuations, and so on. So in addition to being a descriptive process without any coercive power, determinism is also an idealization.

I'm not sure why you mention this. Neither "variables you cannot control for" nor "random quantum fluctuations" are required for compatibilist free will. No need to feed DBT's suspicions that compatibilists don't really accept 'true' determinism.

I agree, they are not. I mention it simply to rebut his claim that determinism “permits no alternatives.” That is wrong. It’s wrong not just that determinism is the kind of process that can permit or not permit anything, but wrong as a matter of fact that starting with the same initial conditions always produces the same result.

 

[steve_bank]

Pood, pood, pood whatever am I going to do with you?

Science reduces to quantifiable measurements, mathematical theories, and tests of theories.

Philosophy does not, the boundary between areas of philosophy and science.

That someone with science credentials philosophizes does not add credence to the philosophizing.

AI among other issues is a moral issue.

There was mention in the news about a conference on AI in part discussion rights for AI. To me utterly bizarre.

Free will versus determinism is not decidable by science, it is relegated to a never ending debate in philosophy generation after generation.

I recall in the intro to Durant's overview of philosophy he says that which is quantifiable is science, the rest is religion and philosophy.

One of my favorite quotes is from Kelvin.

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”

And 'In god we trust, all else bring data'

Morality regarding AI and deciding if an AI is a person, I dread the day, is subjective philosophy not science.

You can arbitrarily say science is philosophy, but in actual practice they are two different things.