According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Jarhyn]

The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false.

This is the fallacy of an excluded option:

Both are wrong, and a third party may be right.

In this case, both are wrong.

Please go read the wiki page on Russel's Paradox at least, and try to understand what an unrestricted comprehension principle is.

Then please try to understand why an unrestricted comprehension, an idea of unrestricted knowledge or necessity, ultimately leads to the expression of a contradiction.

The entire article after that is comprised of discussions of how to restrict a comprehension principle so as to prevent contradictions, but this exercise leads to "incompleteness", and the fact that any system of axioms can express true things that cannot be proven true under the present axioms.

Likewise, without assumptions about sets or types, fewer things that can be expressed may be proven as true or false and fewer things can even be expressed in the first place.

they refuse to evaluate the logic of the argument that flows from the foundational hypothetical premises and definitions of Determinism

None of us have been objecting to the conclusions you reach, other than in the clear failure of your premises.

You built your house on mud and now you're sunk into the mud no matter what you try to do with it.

Once you have that flaw in your premise logic dictates your ability to reach any conclusion you please. As such, it's pointless to step past your premises when they're rotten shit. That's always the first place to try to kick an argument to see if it falls apart.

That might impress a lawyer, but a mathematician will just laugh, point at your premises and tell you to get back to work.

 

[BSilvEsq]

It's not that I fail to understand randomness, but that you fail to understand that randomness is not a part of determinism.

No, this just means you do not understand randomness, or the senses I was using it in on the discussion all those years ago.

At this point, I think you're just Sayed or Learner but with Fatalism instead of Islam or Christianity.

For heaven's sake, are you not able to understand that randomness is irrelevant to Compatibilism?

Do you not understand that Compatibilism is the position that free will is compatible with determinism, as it is defined, and not randomness?

Compatibilism
''Compatibilists argue that determinism is compatible with human freedom, and that indeterminism is not compatible or at best incoherent. They feel (correctly) that there must be a deterministic or causal connection between our will and our actions.''

The only question being, is it a sound argument or a valid definition of free will? For the given reasons, it is not.

Please stop trotting out your randomness defense. It has no merit.

Jarhyn's projection of religious influence onto Incompatibilism reflects the underlying religious dogma of his faith in the existence of Free Will. Determinism and Incompatibilism are entirely consistent with the absence of God. Determinism and Incompatibilism are closely related, if not based on the same foundational concepts, as physicalism and materialism, which do not include any notion of a God or any deliberative or intelligent designer, controller, or overseer. Free Will, by contrast, is a fantastical and miraculous notion that sets human beings apart and above the physical and material world, and imbues them with the ability to think, if not act, in a manner that is akin to a ghost in the machine. I that is not a religious belief, or at least a semi-religious belief, I don't know what is.

I suppose that human beings with Free Will could have evolved (randomly or deterministically) without the aid of a God (or God-like) force. Any rational person who believes in that possibility, however, also would need to accept the possibility that the same Godless mechanism of evolution produced human beings that lack Free Will -- as neither alternative possibility is any more or less probable, much less provable (or falsifiable), than the other.

Finally, Randomness cannot exist in the absence of possibility. If everything is eternally fixed and inexorable (as Determinism posits), then there is an absence of possibility. The fact that some things are inexplicable or uncertain (even theoretically) does not establish that they are random (unless you define Randomness based on human facility to predict of understand, in which case Randomness is a human-limited concepts and not necessarily reflective of the true state of the universe). Rather, the fact that something is inexplicable or uncertain can be the result of hidden variables. Because there is no way (even theoretically) for human beings to rule out all hidden variables, there is no way (even theoretically) for human beings to prove the truth of Randomness. Any educated and honest person of even moderate intelligence will agree with the foregoing.

To return to the theistic accusation, the fact is that any person who insists that human beings have Free Will and/or that Randomness exists is a quasi-religious belief that can be founded only on faith because the existence of Free Will and Randomness are inherently unprovable. The same is true of any person who insists that human beings lack Free Will and/or that Randomness does not exist. Significantly, neither I, Michael nor DBT has even claimed to know whether human beings do or do not have Free Will or whether Randomness does or does not exist. Indeed, Michael has even declared his belief (but not his knowledge) that Free Will of some sort does exist. Nor does the philosophy of Incompatibilism make any such claim.

By contrast, many posters on this thread who claim to be Compatibilists claim to know that human beings have Free Will and/or that Randomness exists. As such, they are the folks who have the hidden belief in God (of a God-like entity) that they do not recognize, but feel so strongly that they project it on those who plainly do not have that belief. In fact, I would argue that the folks who have faith in their Free Will, and do not simply recognize it to be a possibility, unconsciously believe themselves to be God (or God-like). Either way, those folks are not only in the wrong place posting on a thread in a Philosophy forum, but they also are in the wring place posting on this website.

 

[Jarhyn]

Jarhyn's projection of religious influence onto Incompatibilism reflects the underlying religious dogma of his faith in the existence of Free Will.

Or, you might just ask yourself whether you have anything in common, in your arguments, with the religious people we have regular experience interacting with and refuting.

Fatalism is not a consistent viewpoint, and regardless of whether you call your basis for argument from necessity God, or "necessity free of assumptions", or "the set of all sets" or "unrestricted comprehension", it's all the same error.

The fact that you then go on to discuss "randomness" without any basic understanding of what that term means (for this one, you want a cryptography course) is just icing on the cake.

Bilby has shown a MUCH better understanding of the idea than you have (I think it was Bilby, could have been Elixir...).

This is yet again why I point you to Spectre and the "problem of 'where am I?'"

It is also why I pointed you and Michael to the role of the activation curve in non-binary inference processes, and how "flat" activation curves open systems up to outside influence of noise rather than preserving "internal" control.

That's not "sane" or "responsible" action. "Jesus taking the wheel" is quite pointedly the inverse of that, and we hold people responsible at that point for acting irresponsibly despite their education.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false.

This is the fallacy of an excluded option:

Both are wrong, and a third party may be right.

In this case, both are wrong.

Please go read the wiki page on Russel's Paradox at least, and try to understand what an unrestricted comprehension principle is.

Then please try to understand why an unrestricted comprehension, an idea of unrestricted knowledge or necessity, ultimately leads to the expression of a contradiction.

The entire article after that is comprised of discussions of how to restrict a comprehension principle so as to prevent contradictions, but this exercise leads to "incompleteness", and the fact that any system of axioms can express true things that cannot be proven true under the present axioms.

Likewise, without assumptions about sets or types, fewer things that can be expressed may be proven as true or false and fewer things can even be expressed in the first place.

they refuse to evaluate the logic of the argument that flows from the foundational hypothetical premises and definitions of Determinism

None of us have been objecting to the conclusions you reach, other than in the clear failure of your premises.

You built your house on mud and now you're sunk into the mud no matter what you try to do with it.

Once you have that flaw in your premise logic dictates your ability to reach any conclusion you please. As such, it's pointless to step past your premises when they're rotten shit. That's always the first place to try to kick an argument to see if it falls apart.

That might impress a lawyer, but a mathematician will just laugh, point at your premises and tell you to get back to work.

The only premises I have articulated are hypothetical "if" statements. Any expert in logic or computer science understands that a conditional rule statement expressed with an "if" is, itself, never true nor false -- even if the hypothetical fact underlying the rule statement is counter-factual.

You state that "None of us have been objecting to the conclusions you reach." That is not how I have read past posts, but I accept that as a true assertion. If so, I have no issue with your objection to the truth of the premise if the "if" aspect were removed. I do not profess, and have not professed, to know that hypothetical premise is true or false, and I am not attempting to defend its truth.

As explained in my full post from which you selectively culled one sentence and a portion of another sentence, it seems to me that your position is of the following sort: "That is an interesting syllogism, but what is its value to us given that we know for a fact that the first premise is false." Perhaps, you do not even find the syllogism to be interesting, and would simply say "What is the value of the syllogism of Incompatibilism if we know for a fact that the first premise is false." As I stated in my full post, my response is "Well, it is just an exercise to show how logic operates, and it is not intended to make any statement about the tru[th]."

 

[BSilvEsq]

Jarhyn's projection of religious influence onto Incompatibilism reflects the underlying religious dogma of his faith in the existence of Free Will.

Or, you might just ask yourself whether you have anything in common, in your arguments, with the religious people we have regular experience interacting with and refuting.

Fatalism is not a consistent viewpoint, and regardless of whether you call your basis for argument from necessity God, or "necessity free of assumptions", or "the set of all sets" or "unrestricted comprehension", it's all the same error.

The fact that you then go on to discuss "randomness" without any basic understanding of what that term means (for this one, you want a cryptography course) is just icing on the cake.

Bilby has shown a MUCH better understanding of the idea than you have (I think it was Bilby, could have been Elixir...).

This is yet again why I point you to Spectre and the "problem of 'where am I?'"

It is also why I pointed you and Michael to the role of the activation curve in non-binary inference processes, and how "flat" activation curves open systems up to outside influence of noise rather than preserving "internal" control.

That's not "sane" or "responsible" action. "Jesus taking the wheel" is quite pointedly the inverse of that, and we hold people responsible at that point for acting irresponsibly despite their education.

I am going to violate my own rule of civility this one time and assert that you are a blithering idiot.

You repeatedly assert that a description of Determinism that you repeatedly characterize as Fatalism is contradictory and not consistent. You do not, however, claim Determinism to be self-contradictory or internally inconsistent. Yet, you never set forth a categorical imperative to which Determinism is contradictory or with which Determinism is inconsistent.

You claim that people who describe the concept of Determinism in a manner you characterize as Fatalism do so under a hidden belief in God. That is poppycock. Leaving aside the that Determinism and God are not the same, the fact is that a person who describes the concept of God can do so without believing in God's existence. Indeed, they can do so with a belief that God does not exist. That is the nature of being tolerant to and interested in what others believe. It is an open-minded and inquisitive approach to life.

By contrast, people who claim to know the truth of matters that are impervious to proof and the falsehood of matters that are impervious to falsification do so pursuant to an unacknowledged "faith" in the unknown to which they cling as an anchor to their subjective choice of reality.

As for the meaning of randomness, I reject your repeated assertion that neither I, Michael, nor DBT understand the concept and I suspect that your understanding (which you do not articulate) is superficial at best, if not flat out incorrect. But, that does not seem to stop you from arrogantly spewing your ignorant nonsense, and doing so in an insulting manner at that.

As for your reference to "Jesus taking the wheel" (which is a great song by Carrie Underwood), I do not drive that way. Nor do I live my life "as if" I lack Free Will. I do, however, respect folks who believe that Jesus is driving their lives, folks who believe they have Free Will, folks who believe they do not have Free Will, and folks who have all sorts of other beliefs. I have no respect for those who insist that such beliefs are demonstrably wrong and that their own contrary beliefs are demonstrably right. Such folks are the worst sort, and I count you among them unless and until you show yourself otherwise, which you have been given every opportunity to do and have failed miserably.

 

[Jarhyn]

The only premises I have articulated are hypothetical "if" statements

Hypothetically, if there were a contradiction and... (Then you can claim literally anything).

Yes, hypothetical IF statements.

I and anyone else can see that you have to present an argument without assertion fallacies, let alone assertions that require fundamentally contradictory definitions to assert.

You absolutely must get past Russel's Paradox before your idea of necessitation is to be accepted.

 

[Jarhyn]

You absolutely must get past Russel's Paradox before your idea of necessitation is to be accepted.

And I will note, the result of wrestling with that led some of the smartest logicians ever to live to reject the unbounded comprehension principle entirely, rather than keep trying to "get past it".

 

[The AntiChris]

The only way a defender of Compatibilism is capable of advancing a logically sound argument that supports the compatibility of Free Will and Determinism n the face of the syllogism of Incompatibilism is by altering the definition(s) of Determinism and/or Free Will used in the syllogism of Incompatibilism

It seems you're still struggling with this.

To recap:

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

The only way a defender of Compatibilism is capable of advancing a logically sound argument that supports the compatibility of Free Will and Determinism n the face of the syllogism of Incompatibilism is by altering the definition(s) of Determinism and/or Free Will used in the syllogism of Incompatibilism

It seems you're still struggling with this.

To recap:

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Technically it's about both, because hard determinists have "options" on where to force their error in premises.

They can either tuck it away in "determinism", by declaring contingent truths as necessary truths (which is "always" a mistake) rather than using the declaration as a way of testing a statement's truth; they can tuck it away in "freedom" by inserting a modal fallacy into the requirement; they can tuck it away in the idea of Omniscience and a third party observer with a contradictory quality. For all I know there might be a few more places to hide it

Each of these is an entirely different location for the contradiction and what you often see is the fatalist hopping their contradiction from place to place so that you don't catch it.

The result is that whenever you see the expression "couldn't do otherwise in the same context" you should really say "HMMM...." And get digging for the contradiction.

That it can be shifted around to hide it is part of the reason intelligent people get suckered into swallowing the contradiction.

 

[The AntiChris]

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Technically it's about both...

We'll have to agree to disagree.

The way I see it is that both compatibilists and incompatibilists agree that, given determinism, the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Compatibilists say that this does not negate freedom. In contrast, incompatibilists say that freedom is not possible if we will never do otherwise.

The disagreement is about the nature of 'freedom'.

 

[Jarhyn]

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Technically it's about both...

We'll have to agree to disagree.

The way I see it is that both compatibilists and incompatibilists agree that, given determinism, the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Compatibilists say that this does not negate freedom. In contrast, incompatibilists say that freedom is not possible if we will never do otherwise.

The disagreement is about the nature of 'freedom'.

... When the incompatibilist frames it that way, but there are a few different ways to frame it, as evidenced by the thread here.

Bruce and Mike are both pretty persistent with trying to push the issue into another segment of the discussion, and DBT folds it right into his definition of Determinism, putting it in both places.

This is evidenced by the fact that once "The Big Bang" is observed as no different from a "prime mover" or "Omniscient Creator", that language gets abandoned for some other tactic.

There's a contradiction there, but like any good cup-scam, the real trick is in "flicking the stone into the loser cup" even when the person guesses right.

 

[The AntiChris]

The way I see it is that both compatibilists and incompatibilists agree that, given determinism, the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Compatibilists say that this does not negate freedom. In contrast, incompatibilists say that freedom is not possible if we will never do otherwise.

The disagreement is about the nature of 'freedom'.

... When the incompatibilist frames it that way, but there are a few different ways to frame it, as evidenced by the thread here.

No matter how they frame it, it seems to me they're basically saying the same thing - determined actions cannot be free actions.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The only premises I have articulated are hypothetical "if" statements

Hypothetically, if there were a contradiction and... (Then you can claim literally anything).

Yes, hypothetical IF statements.

I and anyone else can see that you have to present an argument without assertion fallacies, let alone assertions that require fundamentally contradictory definitions to assert.

You absolutely must get past Russel's Paradox before your idea of necessitation is to be accepted.

Without expressly referencing Russell's Paradox, I addressed the paradoxical nature of Determinism in Post No. 856, which is the first post I ever made on this website. That post includes the following:

Despite its robust nature, the hole in Causal Determinism is that is does not, and cannot, account for the initial commencement of activity. Nor does Causal Determinism posit whether an intelligent being established the path on which all activity of the universe inexorably travels, or whether that inflexible path was randomly generated. Causal Determinism simply posits that this path has been fixed from the beginning of time (whatever that might be), and that it is impossible to stray from that path.

It seems to me that Causal Determinism must accept that either (i) something without a prior cause commenced the inexorable chain of causation that followed, or (ii) activity of the universe has always existed without a beginning. Either option sets up a paradox, because both options defy the fundamental premise of Causal Determinism that all activity is the effect of prior activity.

The paradox can be avoided by saying that Causal Determinism accounts only for the way the universe operates after its creation, and that the mechanism of creation, which is not governed by Causal Determinism, is unknown and possibly unknowable. Accepting that solution, however, sets up the possibility that whatever caused the activity of the universe to commence could, one day, consciously or randomly act to interfere with the chain of causation that previously was set in motion — thereby allowing for the potential of two different futures at any given time.

Notwithstanding the paradoxical nature of Causal Determinism, I still accept it as a workable paradigm. Moreover, I have found that every paradigm that purports to describe the operation of the universe tends to have an inherent contradiction and/or an unsolvable gap that requires a leap of faith when carried to its logical extreme. I choose to put my faith in Causal Determinism, but I can understand if others put their faith elsewhere. After all, within Causal Determinism, nobody has any choice in what they believe anyway.

As I see it, the concept of Free Will is equally paradoxical because there is no explanation for how Free Will emerged ex nihilo, how bodily activity directed by the supposedly free will is accomplished free from the deterministic constraints that operate outside the quantum level of the physical / material world, and how even the supposed will exists free from the constraints of the physical / material world in the first instance.

No matter the foregoing, and no matter the sophisticated arguments advanced in this thread to avoid directly confronting the logic of Incompatibilism and fallacy of Compatibilism, let's redefine Determinism in a manner that eliminates application of Russell's Paradox. For purposes of further discussion, let's use the following refined definition of Determinism, which I will call "Non-Paradoxical Determinism" for purposes of the continued thought experiment:

Non-Paradoxical Determinism is a philosophical paradigm that posits that all activity, including human cognition, has been fixed inexorably by antecedent activity of the universe since human beings came into existence through a nanosecond ago. Non-Paradoxical Determinism does not include any effort to explain how this paradigmatic operation of the universe came to occur. Nor does Non-Paradoxical Determinism posit that this paradigmatic operation of the universe will, by necessity, continue to occur into the future, and acknowledges the possibility of a quantum shift in the operation of the universe that can, at any time going forward, result in an operation of the universe that is not deterministic in the manner described in the first sentence of this paragraph. Rather, without attempting to explain the origin of the Non-Paradoxical Deterministic operation of the universe and without positing anything about the future, Non-Paradoxical Determinism posits only that the universe has, in fact, operated in the manner described in the first sentence of this paragraph since human beings came into existence through a nanosecond ago.

Now, let's define Incompatibilism as the view that the truth of Non-Paradoxical Determinism (if it were true) logically necessitates the truth of the contention that human beings have not [yet] had Free Will at any time since they came into existence. The question for the Compatibilists is whether they can refute the logic of Incompatibilism when Non-Paradoxical Determinism is substituted for a view of Determinism that arguably includes an inference that the deterministic operation of the universe is infinitely regressive and a necessary condition of the universe in the future. Stated differently, can the paradigm of Non-Paradoxical Determinism be harmonized with a paradigm in which humans have had Free Will at some point since they came into being and prior to such time (if it ever were to occur) when the universe might cease to operate in the manner described by Non-Paradoxical Determinism? If someone is able to harmonize the asserted historical exercise of Free Will by humans with the acceptance (arguendo) of Non-Paradoxical Determinism, I am most interested in the explanation of what Free Will means in the context of its coexisting historically with the assumed truth of Non-Paradoxical Determinism.

I know that some posters on this thread believe I do not know what I am talking about and that I need further education in multiple fields. Whether or not those assertions are correct (and I dispute them), they are not a refutation of anything I have posted. Rather, they are a weak form of ad hominem fallacy. It would be great if we could all take the high road and discuss the concepts without directing comments at or about the posters. As can be seen from reading my post, I cast no aspersions at anyone, I do not judge anyone's intelligence or education (which I actually presume to be quite high based on certain aspects of what has been written by others), and I do not even profess to be right. To me, that is the nature of the best philosophical inquiry -- it is a joint effort to explore the unknown, with a common goal of attempting to reach common ground (if possible) and with an understanding and acceptance that the common goal may not be achieved.

Lastly, I do not view the object of philosophical inquiry as being empirical. As a quotation attributed Albert Einstein says: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”

 

[BSilvEsq]

The way I see it is that both compatibilists and incompatibilists agree that, given determinism, the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Compatibilists say that this does not negate freedom. In contrast, incompatibilists say that freedom is not possible if we will never do otherwise.

The disagreement is about the nature of 'freedom'.

... When the incompatibilist frames it that way, but there are a few different ways to frame it, as evidenced by the thread here.

No matter how they frame it, it seems to me they're basically saying the same thing - determined actions cannot be free actions.

For once we seemingly agree -- although it is possible that we do not mean the same thing by the word "determined."

Notwithstanding our seeming agreement, I do not understand the proponents of Compatibilism on this thread (or at least some of them) to be arguing that determined acts can be free. Rather, I understand them to argue repeatedly that human cognition is not determined in the same sense that the orbit of celestial objects is determined.

As Einstein said: “Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.” Significantly, Einstein believed that statement to be true. Unlike Einstein and contrary to what some posters repeatedly assert, I am not arguing that human cognition is, in fact, determined in the same sense that the orbit of celestial objects is determined. I am simply advocating that the existence of Free Will is incompatible with that possible reality.

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects. And, I am hoping that the answer will be something more than the assertion that determined actions can be free actions, without any explanation of what Free Will means in that context and how that can be the case.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The only way a defender of Compatibilism is capable of advancing a logically sound argument that supports the compatibility of Free Will and Determinism n the face of the syllogism of Incompatibilism is by altering the definition(s) of Determinism and/or Free Will used in the syllogism of Incompatibilism

It seems you're still struggling with this.

To recap:

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

What you have posted is, in no way, inconsistent with my statement to which you state I am "struggling."

I repeat my statement -- "The only way a defender of Compatibilism is capable of advancing a logically sound argument that supports the compatibility of Free Will and Determinism in the face of the syllogism of Incompatibilism is by altering the definition(s) of Determinism and/or Free Will used in the syllogism of Incompatibilism."

You state that "the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism." Ok. That is entirely consistent with my statement, which uses the word "or" and you are further refining my more general statement with a more specific assertion that it is the definition of Free Will that separates Incompatibilism and Compatibilism.

Notwithstanding our agreement, the fact is that some posters on this board vehemently reject the definition of Determinism that has been offered by the defenders of Incompatibilism. As you write, "If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless." I disagree with the discussion is pointless, so long as the compatibilist and the incompatibilist are willing to state their respective definitions of Determinism and Free WIll. Then, the two sides can discuss whether they agree or disagree about the following 6 propositions:

1. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

2. Compatibilism is logically sound if the Compatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

3. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definition of Determinism and the Compatibilists' definition of Free Will are used.

4. Compatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definition of Determinism and the Compatibilists' definition of Free Will are used.

5. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definition of Free Will and the Compatibilists' definition of Determinism are used.

6. Compatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definition of Free Will and the Compatibilists' definition of Determinism are used.

The positions I have been advocating are the following:

1. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

2. Compatibilism is logically fallacious if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

Additionally, I repeatedly have asked the defenders of Compatibilism to articulate a definition of Free Will that is logically harmonious with the Incompatibilist definition of Determinism, and I have been unable to discern an answer to that inquiry that does anything but avoid the Incompatibilist's definition of Determinism. In that regard, I do agree with you that the discussion is pointless without, at least, an articulation of the Compatibilist's definition of Free Will and explanation of how it is compatible with the Incompatibilist's definition of Determinism.

I readily acknowledged that some posters may have articulated a definition of Free Will they claim to be logically harmonious with the Incompatibilist definition of Determinism, along with an explanation of how that can be so, and that I simply missed the post(s) that did so. If someone believes I have simply missed the articulation and explanation, it would be much appreciated if someone could identify such post(s) in response to this post. Then, a discussion can ensue that is not pointless.

 

[BSilvEsq]

...the disagreement is about the nature of free will, not about determinism.

If the compatibilist and the incompatibilist cannot agree on what they mean by determinism then any discussion about the compatibility, or otherwise, of free will is entirely pointless.

and:

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Technically it's about both...

We'll have to agree to disagree.

The way I see it is that both compatibilists and incompatibilists agree that, given determinism, the same set of circumstances will always result in the same outcome. Compatibilists say that this does not negate freedom. In contrast, incompatibilists say that freedom is not possible if we will never do otherwise.

The disagreement is about the nature of 'freedom'.

... When the incompatibilist frames it that way, but there are a few different ways to frame it, as evidenced by the thread here.

Bruce and Mike are both pretty persistent with trying to push the issue into another segment of the discussion, and DBT folds it right into his definition of Determinism, putting it in both places.

This is evidenced by the fact that once "The Big Bang" is observed as no different from a "prime mover" or "Omniscient Creator", that language gets abandoned for some other tactic.

There's a contradiction there, but like any good cup-scam, the real trick is in "flicking the stone into the loser cup" even when the person guesses right.

It would be helpful to everyone if we could all get past accusing others of deliberately seeking to obfuscate, being unintelligent, or lacking an adequate education -- all of which are a weak form of ad hominem argument that avoids the merits of the argument being rejected by criticizing the advocate of the argument.

You have stated repeatedly that Determinism is contradictory, and your latest few posts articulate the reason for that assertion. If you explained it in prior posts, I suppose I was too thick to see it.

While I could be mistaken, I now understand that your claim of contradiction is based on your understanding that the claim of Incompatibilists is that the operation of the universe that Incompatibilists call Determinism is, itself, an operation that arose ex nihilo. If the Determinism were defined an an operation of the universe that has existed without a prior cause, I would agree that the paradigm is self-contradictory -- as I expressly stated in the very first post I made on this website. So, as I wrote in another recent post, let's eliminate the paradox by acknowledging that Incompatibilists make no claim about the origin of the operation of the universe that Incompatibilists call Determinism.

[Before continuing, I pause to note the inherent contradiction of assuming that Determinism, Free WIll, or the universe, itself, materialized ex nihilo and/or has always existed, both of which alternatives are no more or less coherent than assuming that the operation of the universe that Incompatibilists call Determinism materialized ex nihilo and/or has always existed. Indeed, I tend to believe that the possibilities that the universe materialized ex nihilo and/or has always existed are both impossible, that the universe does not truly exist at all, and that our seeming consciousness is a miracle (and by miracle, I do not mean to suggest something that was caused by God or a Godlike entity). Despite the best efforts of the greatest minds, it seems to me that are just children staring into the abyss and guessing what is out there.]

You also repeatedly have made the claim of modal error. While I disagree that there is such an error, I also am willing to accept for the sake of argument that the paradigm of Determinism simply describes the operation of the universe exists as of this moment, and may or may not continue to operate that way in the future. That eliminates all assertions of what must occur going forward, and simply posts that everything that has, in fact, occurred in the past is the only thing that could have occurred given that Determinism accurately describes the operation of the universe when the past occurred.

Lastly, if you are willing to do so, could you please explain what you mean by the statement that "Bruce and Mike are both pretty persistent with trying to push the issue into another segment of the discussion." I do not understand what you are saying, and cannot agree or disagree with your statement without understanding what it means.

 

[bilby]

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects.

To a very close approximation, a planet interacts only with the Sun. A two body system is entirely predictable.

A human is a hugely complex system with many internal interactions. Predictability breaks down when you have three or more bodies in your system.

A complex system can exhibit a "will of its own", doing things that an observer could never have anticipated. The (pointless but interminable) argument seems to be whether "will of its own" can ever be a factual claim about the complex system, or is always just a metaphor for a lack of knowledge on the part of the observer.

The combatibilist position is that it can be both. The incompatibilist position seems to be 'but God is all knowing, so from God's perspective, nothing has a "will of its own", God can always anticipate its next move'.

As an atheist, I am massively unconvinced by the practice of replacing God with a hypothetical philosophical God-zombie who can view the universe from an omnicognisant external perspective, and/or calculate the motions and interactions of every quantum of mass/energy faster than those interactions can occur.

Free will means that the complex system I call I, contains within it (and indeed, simply is) the only possible system that can predict its own future state; And it can only do so by stepping forward to that future.

I am completely unpredictable, and I am bounded by my skin, outside of which is a far more predictable universe, studded with other self-contained instances of unpredictability (some of whom I consider my friends). The short term decision making process is, to a very close approximation, based entirely on what happens within me; I have "a will of my own". Not even I can predict with perfect confidence what I will do next.

In the absence of a God, free will is entirely compatible with the physically deterministic nature of the universe.

The objections of the incompatibilists are religious in nature, even when they strip down their God to a mere p-zombie who does nothing but know the future.

 

[bilby]

It would be helpful to everyone if we could all get past accusing others of deliberately seeking to obfuscate, being unintelligent, or lacking an adequate education

It would also be astonishing, and (I suspect) inhuman.

So we will probably all just have to try to ignore it as far as possible, and tolerate it where it is impossible to ignore.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I wish you all a Joyous, Healthy and Prosperous New Year, ​

and I offer the four thoughts and wishes below.​

Stay Safe & Stay Well,​

Bruce

​

 

[BSilvEsq]

It would be helpful to everyone if we could all get past accusing others of deliberately seeking to obfuscate, being unintelligent, or lacking an adequate education

It would also be astonishing, and (I suspect) inhuman.

So we will probably all just have to try to ignore it as far as possible, and tolerate it where it is impossible to ignore.

Hope springs eternal. We may all learn to get along yet.