Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Copernicus]

Causation is a bit tricky to define. It refers to a temporal (antecedent-consequent) relationship between two events in which the consequent would not occur if the antecedent did not occur, other things being equal. Other than that, there seems always to be some kind of force implicit the relationship. So "X forced Y" implies that a force favoring "Y" overcame a force favoring "not Y". "X permitted Y" implies a force favoring Y added to another force that caused Y to come about. Causal verbs may or may not express force relationships, so one very good way to learn about the nature of causation is to study and analyze causative and causal verbs in natural languages. Having once written a PhD dissertation on the expression of causation in English, I came across a number of such very detailed and interesting studies. Needless to say, causation is important to human beings, so we have a lot of different ways to express causal relationships. Its expression is hardwired into the phrase structure of simple clauses in all natural languages.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Causation is a bit tricky to define. It refers to a temporal (antecedent-consequent) relationship between two events in which the consequent would not occur if the antecedent did not occur, other things being equal. Other than that, there seems always to be some kind of force implicit the relationship. So "X forced Y" implies that a force favoring "Y" overcame a force favoring "not Y". "X permitted Y" implies a force favoring Y added to another force that caused Y to come about. Causal verbs may or may not express force relationships, so one very good way to learn about the nature of causation is to study and analyze causative and causal verbs in natural languages. Having once written a PhD dissertation on the expression of causation in English, I came across a number of such very detailed and interesting studies. Needless to say, causation is important to human beings, so we have a lot of different ways to express causal relationships. Its expression is hardwired into the phrase structure of simple clauses in all natural languages.

Right. Causation is pretty much at the center of the issue. We care about causes because they explain what happened and why it happened. Knowing the cause gives us some control of an event and even if we cannot control an event such as a hurricane or tornado, knowing how they are caused helps us to predict them, giving us early warning to escape the path or to find an underground shelter.

The determinism "versus" free will debate is about who or what is causing our choices and our actions. The obvious answer is that the cause is us, because that's what we empirically observe to be happening. And, if a person is the cause of some criminal harm, then it is the person that we seek to correct.

But determinism sends us off on a wild goose chase, trying to pin the responsibility on everything other than us. But most of the things determinism would label as the "true" cause are things we can do nothing about. There's nothing we can do about the Big Bang, or causal necessity, or determinism, or the past, or the laws of nature. But we can do something about the criminal offender. And we can even do something about the social conditions that breed criminal behavior.

Causal necessity simply means that every event is reliably caused by prior events, which are in their turn each caused by their own prior events, ad infinitum. But, in the infinite chain of prior causes, it is usually only the ones nearest to and most directly involved in the event that are meaningful and relevant causes.

Aristotle or someone had a classification of causes that included something like "ultimate" causes, "effective" causes, and a few others. Ironically, the ultimate cause was not the first cause in the chain, but rather the driving rationale behind causing the event, that is, more about it's end point than its beginning.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes, but to understand why specific things happen you need to know which causal mechanisms were involved.
(1) Inanimate matter reacts passively to physical forces. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill. It's behavior is governed by the force of gravity.
(2) A living organism behaves purposefully, according to biological drives to survive, thrive and reproduce. Place a worm on that slope and it will crawl uphill as easily as downhill, defying gravity, as it pursues the food it needs to survive. Its behavior is affected by gravity, but is not governed by it.
(3) An intelligent species behaves deliberately. It has an evolved neurology capable of modeling external reality internally. With that model it can imagine possibilities and alternatives. It can run mental simulations to estimate how different options are likely to play out. While it is still affected by gravity and biological drives, it is governed by its own choices. It can decide when, where, and how it will go about satisfying its biological needs.

To understand the distinction between biology and intelligence, consider this from neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga:

Are we just a fancier and more ingenious animal snorting around for our dinner? Sure, we are vastly more complicated than a bee. Although we both have automatic responses, we humans have cognition and beliefs of all kinds, and the possession of a belief trumps all the automatic biological process and hardware, honed by evolution, that got us to this place. Possession of a belief, though a false one, drove Othello to kill his beloved wife, and Sidney Carton to declare, as he voluntarily took his friend’s place at the guillotine, that it was a far, far better thing he did than he had ever done.
Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (pp. 2-3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Do you want subjective? Look at your setup of Gazzaniga and in his example. I highlighted a few subjective bits just to illuminate how you and your acolyte mix the subjective with the objective.

Let's see if you're right:
Biological drives, FDI refer to the needs that motivate a living organism to acquire food and other things that it needs to provide the energy to reproduce.
Thrive, FDI refers to the condition of the living organism, whether it is in fact acquiring what it needs to survive and reproduce, or more like on the verge of dying.
Deliberately, FDI refers to whether the action was motivated and directed by a decision (as opposed to, say, an accident).
Imagination, FDI refers to our ability to symbolically model reality in our brains, to run mental simulations to assess possible outcomes of our deliberate actions.
Mental, FDI refers to the subjective experience of our thoughts and feelings, etc.
Intelligence, FDI refers to a person's ability to recall and process information, especially in order to decide what to do.
Cognition, FDI, is the ability to store and process information. For objective confirmation of cognition, watch one episode of the TV show "Jeopardy".
Beliefs, FDI, can be objectively confirmed by asking yourself "Why do I believe all of these notions are subjective?"
Possession of a belief trumps all the automatic biological process, is FDI when someone spits out their food after being told it has been infected with e coli.

So, all of those notions are used to describe what happens in objective reality.

FDI works just as well as your repetitions of objectivity. As for belief you sure have a bunch of ..it.

Why does the car stop at a red light?
and
How does a car stop at a red light?

To the why we first operationalize the processes of learning and traffic control. The how comes through the operations the person who learned the law of traffic control as a condition of being permitted to drive executes his tasks.

In other words, in order to explain why a car stops at a red light, you must first evolve a human being with the biological need to survive, thrive, and reproduce (biological causation) and with the intelligence to understand that the best way to do that is by following the traffic laws rather than plowing through the intersection (rational causation).

It cannot be explained without all three causal mechanisms: physical, biological, and rational.

We do have cars that stop at red lights without human drivers yano.

A human is a complex biological object. Complexity cannot be the hand wave that permits us to introduce subjective statements to objective analysis.

Again, you're assuming subjective statements when I'm using objective statements.

Your problem is that you introduce a bunch of subjective unproven and justified placeholders as objects to which you attribute much without explaining how they make the complex biological object that way through deterministic material processes.

Your problem is that you introduce a bunch of subjective unproven and justified placeholders as objects to which you attribute much without explaining how they make the complex biological object that way through deterministic material processes.

The problem is how to explain why the car stops at the red light using just the laws of physics. It cannot (or, at least it will not) be done.

It comes down to what is meant by the terms applied to the discipline being examined. Let's start at the simple.

Objective Rues and their Evaluation: https://www.oreilly.com/library/vie...l-analysis/9780470008744/xhtml/Chapter01.html

Technical analysis (TA) divides into two broad categories: objective and subjective. Subjective TA is comprised of analysis methods and patterns that are not precisely defined. As a consequence, a conclusion derived from a subjective method reflects the private interpretations of the analyst applying the method. This creates the possibility that two analysts applying the same method to the same set of market data may arrive at entirely different conclusions. Therefore, subjective methods are untestable, and claims that they are effective are exempt from empirical challenge. This is fertile ground for myths to flourish.

In contrast, objective methods are clearly defined. When an objective analysis method is applied to market data, its signals or predictions are unambiguous. This makes it possible to simulate the method on historical data and determine its precise level of performance. This is called back testing. The back testing of an objective method is, therefore, a repeatable experiment which allows claims of profitability ...

Now let's press on to the more directly related.

 Objectivity (science)​

The scientific method was argued for by Enlightenment philosopher Francis Bacon, rose to popularity with the discoveries of Isaac Newton and his followers, and continued into later eras. In the early eighteenth century, there existed an epistemic virtue in science which has been called truth-to-nature.[1]: 55–58 

This ideal was practiced by Enlightenment naturalists and scientific atlas-makers, and involved active attempts to eliminate any idiosyncrasies in their representations of nature in order to create images thought best to represent "what truly is."[1]: 59–60 [2]: 84–85  Judgment and skill were deemed necessary in order to determine the "typical", "characteristic", "ideal", or "average."[2]: 87  In practicing, truth-to-nature naturalists did not seek to depict exactly what was seen; rather, they sought a reasoned image.[1]: 98 

In the latter half of the nineteenth-century objectivity in science was born when a new practice of mechanical objectivity appeared.[1]: 121  "'Let nature speak for itself' became the watchword of a new brand of scientific objectivity."[2]: 81  It was at this time that idealized representations of nature, which were previously seen as a virtue, were now seen as a vice.[1]: 120  Scientists began to see it as their duty to actively restrain themselves from imposing their own projections onto nature.[2]: 81  The aim was to liberate representations of nature from subjective, human interference and in order to achieve this scientists began using self-registering instruments, cameras, wax molds, and other technological devices.[1]: 121 

In the twentieth century trained judgment[1]: 309  supplemented mechanical objectivity as scientists began to recognize that, in order for images or data to be of any use, scientists needed to be able to see scientifically; that is, to interpret images or data and identify and group them according to particular professional training, rather than to simply depict them mechanically.[1]: 311–314  Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, objectivity has come to involve a combination of trained judgment and mechanical objectivity.

 Subjectivity

Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.[1] However, it is related to ideas of consciousness, agency, personhood, philosophy of mind, reality, and truth. Three common definitions include that subjectivity is the quality or condition of:

• Something being a subject, narrowly meaning an individual who possesses conscious experiences, such as perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires.[2]
  
  Something being a subject, broadly meaning an entity that has agency, meaning that it acts upon or wields power over some other entity (an object).[3]
  
  Some information, idea, situation, or physical thing considered true only from the perspective of a subject or subjects.[4]

You only focus on the last bullet of subjectivity as being subjective. The very ideas of consciousness, experience, feeling, beliefs, and desires are not objective beyond control experimenters apply to individual experiments. There is nothing that physically exists that can be called the mind unless it is the brain nervous system with associated hormonal and endocrinal systems which have never been cataloged even as completely as a nearby galaxy.

Biological drives take me back to Hull and Skinner with their bullae counting and bar presses relating to the counting of food pellets. Now if that isn't subjective I don't know what might be such. Oops. Pavlov just gave me a Lamarckian.

 

[DBT]

Unfortunately for 'free will' the system response in any given moment in time does not allow an alternate action.

You keep saying this, and it keeps being an unsupported assertion. You have a dogma. Hard determinism is a dogma. It is every bit as much of a dogma as “goddidit,” only your dogma is “hard determinism did it.”

Rather than being my assertion, that is the very definition of determinism. If alternate options can be taken whenever one pleases, it is not determinism: ''given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.''

Compatibilism is based on determinism. That events proceed deterministically.

The brain works deterministically, neural networks acquire and process information, integrating with memory in order to form a coherent mental representation of the world and self. This is not according to me, but the available evidence.

Which I have quoted and cited in abundance.

If quantum probability or random events, firings of neurons, etc, do disrupt deterministic information processing, the results are not chosen, they are disruptions of the process, they are not willed.

The notion of 'free will' fails any way you look at it. Compatibilism fails for the reasons given and repeated over many pages of posts.

 

[DBT]

...
Just that a brain does not work on the principle of free will, or even will, neural architecture and information exchange being the agency of response.

Assuming we have a working brain, that brain will be making decisions. Free will is not about how the brain works, but about the empirical conditions that affect the decision making process. For example:

If someone is holding a gun to our head, then they will control the decision making process. What the victim does is not under their own control, but under the control of the guy with the gun. The victim is not held responsible for what he is forced to do against his will.

There are other empirical conditions that exert an extraordinary influence upon our decision making process. For example, a significant mental illness that distorts our perception of reality by hallucinations and delusions, or that impair the ability to reason, or that subject the patient to an irresistible impulse. In these empirical cases the patient's illness is held responsible for his actions, and the illness is treated medically and psychiatrically.

The function of a working brain is to acquire and process information in order to respond to the events of the world in manner that aids survival.

A functional brain processes information and produces results according to its own architecture and information exchange, not will.

The output of a functional, deterministic brain, the actions taken, do not allow alternate actions.

Nothing is willed. Nothing is freely willed. Actions are necessitated by information exchange.

''Think of someone that you dislike. Let’s call this person X. Now, imagine that you were born with X’s “genetic material.” That is, imagine that you had X’s looks, body odor, inherent tastes, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. Imagine, further, that you had X’s upbringing and life experiences as well; so, imagine that you had X’s parents growing up, and that you grew up in the same country, city, and neighborhood in which X grew up, etc.


Would behave any differently from how X behaves?

Most people realize, perhaps after a moment of startled pause, that the answer to the question is “No.”

The question helps people realize that their thoughts and actions are determined entirely by their genetic and social conditioning. In other words, it helps people intuitively grasp the idea that free will is an illusion.''

''So, overall, contrary to what one may initially think, realizing that free will is an illusion should lead to greater maturity, compassion, and emotional stability. Hopefully, the ideas in this article serve as the external inputs that steer you in this positive direction.'' -

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Yes, but to understand why specific things happen you need to know which causal mechanisms were involved.
(1) Inanimate matter reacts passively to physical forces. A bowling ball placed on a slope will always roll downhill. It's behavior is governed by the force of gravity.
(2) A living organism behaves purposefully, according to biological drives to survive, thrive and reproduce. Place a worm on that slope and it will crawl uphill as easily as downhill, defying gravity, as it pursues the food it needs to survive. Its behavior is affected by gravity, but is not governed by it.
(3) An intelligent species behaves deliberately. It has an evolved neurology capable of modeling external reality internally. With that model it can imagine possibilities and alternatives. It can run mental simulations to estimate how different options are likely to play out. While it is still affected by gravity and biological drives, it is governed by its own choices. It can decide when, where, and how it will go about satisfying its biological needs.

To understand the distinction between biology and intelligence, consider this from neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga:

Are we just a fancier and more ingenious animal snorting around for our dinner? Sure, we are vastly more complicated than a bee. Although we both have automatic responses, we humans have cognition and beliefs of all kinds, and the possession of a belief trumps all the automatic biological process and hardware, honed by evolution, that got us to this place. Possession of a belief, though a false one, drove Othello to kill his beloved wife, and Sidney Carton to declare, as he voluntarily took his friend’s place at the guillotine, that it was a far, far better thing he did than he had ever done.
Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (pp. 2-3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Biological drives, objectively refer to the needs that motivate a living organism to acquire food and other things that it needs to provide the energy to reproduce.
Thrive, objectively refers to the condition of the living organism, whether it is in fact acquiring what it needs to survive and reproduce, or more like on the verge of dying.
Deliberately, objectively refers to whether the action was motivated and directed by a decision (as opposed to, say, an accident).
Imagination, objectively refers to our ability to symbolically model reality in our brains, to run mental simulations to assess possible outcomes of our deliberate actions.
Mental, objectively refers to the subjective experience of our thoughts and feelings, etc.
Intelligence, objectively refers to a person's ability to recall and process information, especially in order to decide what to do.
Cognition, objectively, is the ability to store and process information. For objective confirmation of cognition, watch one episode of the TV show "Jeopardy".
Beliefs, can be objectively confirmed by asking yourself "Why do I believe all of these notions are subjective?"
"Possession of a belief trumps all the automatic biological process", is objectively when someone spits out their food after being told it has been infected with e coli.

So, all of those notions are used to describe what happens in objective reality.

FDI works just as well as your repetitions of objectivity. As for belief you sure have a bunch of ..it.

I'm pretty sure that the Fédération Dentaire Internationale has nothing to do with any of this. If you're going to use an abbreviation, you'll have to spell it out, at least once, in the context of your comment. Otherwise we won't know what.. you're talking about.

In other words, in order to explain why a car stops at a red light, you must first evolve a human being with the biological need to survive, thrive, and reproduce (biological causation) and with the intelligence to understand that the best way to do that is by following the traffic laws rather than plowing through the intersection (rational causation).

It cannot be explained without all three causal mechanisms: physical, biological, and rational.

We do have cars that stop at red lights without human drivers yano.

Yes, we do have cars driven by computers. Computers are machines that we create to do our will, they have no will of their own. That's why their intelligence is called "artificial".

A human is a complex biological object. Complexity cannot be the hand wave that permits us to introduce subjective statements to objective analysis.

Again, you're assuming subjective statements when I'm using objective statements.

Your problem is that you introduce a bunch of subjective unproven and justified placeholders as objects to which you attribute much without explaining how they make the complex biological object that way through deterministic material processes.

Explaining how we get experience from physical processes is beyond my expertise. Explaining free will, on the other hand, is fairly easy. A person walks into a restaurant, chooses what they want from the menu, and places an order as in "I will have the Chef Salad, please". The waiter brings them their salad and later brings their bill. The bill is how they are held responsible for the meal that they deliberately order, of their own free will.

As to objectivity, I usually am referring to scientific objectivity. Scientific objectivity is a description of experience that can be confirmed by multiple, unbiased observers. Ironically, we have a built-in set of objective observers in our multiple senses, sight, touch, sound, taste, etc. We see a bowl of apples on the table, but when we pick one up it is too light to be a real apple, and when we tap on it with a knuckle, it sounds hollow. So we know it is just a fake apple used to decorate the table.

But for more significant matters of fact, we need multiple unbiased observers, with no vested interest in the outcome.

There's a nice article on Scientific Objectivity in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

 

[pood]

DBT, Let’s analyze this.

Rather than being my assertion, that is the very definition of determinism.

No, it is the definition of hard determinism, not determinism. Note that an alternative name for compatibilism is soft determinism.

If alternate options can be taken whenever one pleases, it is not determinism:

It is not hard determinism. Big difference.

''given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.''

This, again, commits the error of supposing that “natural law” is prescriptive rather than descriptive, and more, that “natural law” is coercive. But as Marvin and I have argued, and Norman Swartz argued in a long paper I linked sometime back either in this thread or the other, what we call the “laws” of nature are simply descriptions of the way things go in the world. (If you have not read the Swartz paper I linked, I invite you to do so, as I’d like to get your take on it.) Some things go in a way that they can be described (not prescribed) with rigorous mathematical precision. Others, like human behavior, don’t.

Compatibilism is based on determinism. That events proceed deterministically.

Correct.

The brain works deterministically, neural networks acquire and process information, integrating with memory in order to form a coherent mental representation of the world and self. This is not according to me, but the available evidence.

But I agree with you! What you have not done is address the question I put to you previously: WHY did we evolve brains that give us, as you would have it, the ILLUSION of having a free choice, when in fact we don’t? Where is the selection pressure for such an illusion? Or are you arguing that such brains are evolutionary spandrels or products of random genetic drift? If so I think that’s a very tough argument to make. In a hard deterministic world, as I noted, philosophical zombies are much more evolutionarily parsimonious than thinking brains equipped with self-awareness.

Which I have quoted and cited in abundance.

Yes, but this is not the issue. Let me press the point again, as I do not believe you have addressed this (I could be wrong, I may have missed it).

This morning I had to make up my mind whether to have eggs or pancakes for breakfast. I chose eggs.

Your claim is that I could not have chosen pancakes, even though I believe that I could have done so. My claim, and Marvin’s claim, is that if you rewound the tape of history up to the precise moment of this morning when I am considering what to have for breakfast, and then checked to see what happens, then, sure enough, I would choose eggs again. Our point, however, is that I did not HAVE to do this, only that, given identical antecedent conditions, I WOULD do this.

Every single time that you make the opposite claim — that I COULD NOT have chosen pancakes, as opposed to WOULD NOT have chosen pancakes, you are committing the modal scope fallacy, a plain fallacy of logic in which one fails to distinguish between contingent acts and events (could have gone otherwise) and necessary acts and events (could not have gone otherwise).

There is no possible world at which triangles have four sides. There are many possible worlds at which I chose pancakes this morning instead of eggs.

Your hard determinism posits modal collapse in which all true propositions are necessarily true propositions. The claim is false on the face of it because clearly we can distinguish between four-sided triangles (impossible) and choosing pancakes instead of eggs for breakfast (possible).

I’d conclude by saying that no one denies that we, as individuals, are products of genes and memes, of nature and nurture, over which we had no control. But the fact that we are genetically and memetically predisposed to behave in certain ways does not FORCE us to behave in fixed ways in particular situations. Compatibilists don’t claim we can overcome our past or our biological “programming” and simply become from moment to moment sui generis. That would be a libertarian claim, not a compatibilist claim.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The function of a working brain is to acquire and process information in order to respond to the events of the world in manner that aids survival.

Correct.

A functional brain processes information and produces results according to its own architecture and information exchange, not will.

I do not understand your tacking on the "not will" at the end. The whole point of an intelligent brain is to provide a living organism with options. Prior to intelligence, there were no options, because every behavior was instinctual, hardwired. With intelligence we gain the ability to respond creatively "to the events of the world in a manner that aids survival".

The output of a functional, deterministic brain, the actions taken, do not allow alternate actions.

That's only true of a non-intelligent organism. With intelligence, the brain continues to operate deterministically, but with an additional causal mechanism: rationality (you may recall that from Dr. Martha Farah's quote that you included earlier).

We assume that the rational causal mechanism also operates deterministically (otherwise it would be ineffectual). So, when stepping into a new causal mechanism we are not stepping outside of determinism.

For example, addition is a deterministic rational operation: 2 plus 2 equals 4. There is no alternative within that operation.

However, choosing is also a deterministic rational operation: A or B? If A is better than B, then I will choose A, but if B is better than A, then I will choose B. With the choosing operation we always get at least two alternatives. Then we evaluate each alternative and choose the one that seems best to us. That's how it works.

Given the same identical us, facing the same issue, under the same circumstances, our choice will always be the same. That's what being a deterministic operation naturally implies. And that does not change with the rational causal mechanism. Just like 2 + 2 = 4, one choice will always be judged better than the other after evaluation.

Nothing is willed.

That would be an absurdity. Every deliberate action is willed, because the output of deliberation is an intention to do something, as in, "I will fix eggs for breakfast".

What about the brain's internal processing? Well, I don't know how that works, and I could not describe for you which neurons happen to fire in what sequence in order to result in the brain centering its intention upon fixing eggs for breakfast. But I assume that, just like in the rational causal mechanism, corresponding deterministic events are taking place at the neural level, which our brain then explains to us through its model of reality: "I woke up hungry. I wondered what I should fix for breakfast. After some thought, I decided I would set my intention upon fixing eggs."

We experience that intention (will) as a coordinated effort of the body and mind to achieve the desired result, by the subsequent steps we take: getting the eggs from the fridge, cooking them, and eating them. That is the operational function of "will".

Nothing is freely willed. Actions are necessitated by information exchange.

You continue to insist that freedom must include the absence from reliable cause and effect. This notion that determinist's carry around with them is called "freedom from causal necessity". It is an irrational notion, due to the fact that reliable causation is always required by every freedom that we have to do anything at all (including the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do). FREEDOM REQUIRES RELIABLE CAUSE AND EFFECT.

There is nothing that anyone is ever free to do without reliable cause and effect.

So, the notion that free will is not "truly" free unless it is also free of reliable causation is an absurdity. Determinism must drop it or confess to being absurd.

''Think of someone that you dislike. Let’s call this person X. Now, imagine that you were born with X’s “genetic material.” That is, imagine that you had X’s looks, body odor, inherent tastes, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. Imagine, further, that you had X’s upbringing and life experiences as well; so, imagine that you had X’s parents growing up, and that you grew up in the same country, city, and neighborhood in which X grew up, etc.

Would behave any differently from how X behaves?

Most people realize, perhaps after a moment of startled pause, that the answer to the question is “No.”

The question helps people realize that their thoughts and actions are determined entirely by their genetic and social conditioning. In other words, it helps people intuitively grasp the idea that free will is an illusion.''

''So, overall, contrary to what one may initially think, realizing that free will is an illusion should lead to greater maturity, compassion, and emotional stability. Hopefully, the ideas in this article serve as the external inputs that steer you in this positive direction.'' -

Yes, most people would realize that if they were someone else, then they would be someone else. This is why we have folk sayings like "walk a mile in my shoes". And this wisdom, if you haven't already picked it up as a child, is acquired by taking college courses in psychology and sociology.

But the benefits of this wisdom can be destroyed by the philosophical debate over free will. Because if you lack free will, then you have no ability to make wise choices, since you can never make any choices at all. Or so the hard determinist would have you believe.

 

[fromderinside]

But for more significant matters of fact, we need multiple unbiased observers, with no vested interest in the outcome.

There's a nice article on Scientific Objectivity in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Wow. You pop up that little chestnut after I've provided three articles.

Just for verification purposes scientists who depend on objectivity did not write your article, it is written by philosophers, so bias just might be a problem.

I repeat citations and text on objectivity and subjectivity posted in the comments to which you are responding, omitted for some reason by you here, for viewers to compare with your citation.

Objective Rues and their Evaluation: https://www.oreilly.com/library/vie...l-analysis/9780470008744/xhtml/Chapter01.html

Technical analysis (TA) divides into two broad categories: objective and subjective. Subjective TA is comprised of analysis methods and patterns that are not precisely defined. As a consequence, a conclusion derived from a subjective method reflects the private interpretations of the analyst applying the method. This creates the possibility that two analysts applying the same method to the same set of market data may arrive at entirely different conclusions. Therefore, subjective methods are untestable, and claims that they are effective are exempt from empirical challenge. This is fertile ground for myths to flourish.

In contrast, objective methods are clearly defined. When an objective analysis method is applied to market data, its signals or predictions are unambiguous. This makes it possible to simulate the method on historical data and determine its precise level of performance. This is called back testing. The back testing of an objective method is, therefore, a repeatable experiment which allows claims of profitability ...

Now let's press on to the more directly related.

Objectivity (science)​

The scientific method was argued for by Enlightenment philosopher Francis Bacon, rose to popularity with the discoveries of Isaac Newton and his followers, and continued into later eras. In the early eighteenth century, there existed an epistemic virtue in science which has been called truth-to-nature.[1]: 55–58

This ideal was practiced by Enlightenment naturalists and scientific atlas-makers, and involved active attempts to eliminate any idiosyncrasies in their representations of nature in order to create images thought best to represent "what truly is."[1]: 59–60 [2]: 84–85  Judgment and skill were deemed necessary in order to determine the "typical", "characteristic", "ideal", or "average."[2]: 87  In practicing, truth-to-nature naturalists did not seek to depict exactly what was seen; rather, they sought a reasoned image.[1]: 98 

In the latter half of the nineteenth-century objectivity in science was born when a new practice of mechanical objectivity appeared.[1]: 121  "'Let nature speak for itself' became the watchword of a new brand of scientific objectivity."[2]: 81  It was at this time that idealized representations of nature, which were previously seen as a virtue, were now seen as a vice.[1]: 120  Scientists began to see it as their duty to actively restrain themselves from imposing their own projections onto nature.[2]: 81  The aim was to liberate representations of nature from subjective, human interference and in order to achieve this scientists began using self-registering instruments, cameras, wax molds, and other technological devices.[1]: 121 

In the twentieth century trained judgment[1]: 309  supplemented mechanical objectivity as scientists began to recognize that, in order for images or data to be of any use, scientists needed to be able to see scientifically; that is, to interpret images or data and identify and group them according to particular professional training, rather than to simply depict them mechanically.[1]: 311–314  Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, objectivity has come to involve a combination of trained judgment and mechanical objectivity.

Subjectivity

Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.[1] However, it is related to ideas of consciousness, agency, personhood, philosophy of mind, reality, and truth. Three common definitions include that subjectivity is the quality or condition of:

• Something being a subject, narrowly meaning an individual who possesses conscious experiences, such as perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires.[2]
  
  Something being a subject, broadly meaning an entity that has agency, meaning that it acts upon or wields power over some other entity (an object).[3]
  
  Some information, idea, situation, or physical thing considered true only from the perspective of a subject or subjects.[4]

I've read your citation and chose to not include it in my presentation because it appeared to be a weak justification for including Laws of Nature, not Scientific Law, as a basis for Determinism. That results in a more or less useless set of laws crammed into a system based on presumption and generalization without material structure support. You will find the same contortions in their scientific objectivity presentation.

You only focus on the last bullet of subjectivity as being subjective. The very ideas of consciousness, experience, feeling, beliefs, and desires are not objective beyond control experimenters apply to individual experiments. There is nothing that physically exists that can be called the mind unless it is the brain nervous system with associated hormonal and endocrinal systems which have never been cataloged even as completely as a nearby galaxy.

Sucking from the bones of bygone species we've learned that large brains alone are not enough to establish originality in thought. Cro-Magnon man is demonstrably more original than is Neanderthal Man.

There are tools and totems and drawings to demonstrate that as well as changes in the genetic structure of the FOXP2 gene among others that underlie intelligence. Now I don't want you to go all gaga that a gene determines intelligence or language. But I sure do want you to respect that scientific discovery as something other than Erasmus Darwin Evolution.

Biological drives take me back to Hull and Skinner with their bullae counting and bar presses relating to the counting of food pellets. Now if that isn't subjective I don't know what might be such. Oops. Pavlov just gave me a Lamarckian.

 

[DBT]

DBT, Let’s analyze this.

Rather than being my assertion, that is the very definition of determinism.

No, it is the definition of hard determinism, not determinism. Note that an alternative name for compatibilism is soft determinism.

It doesn't help. Compatibilism asserts that free will is acting without coercion, acting in accordance to one's will, not being forced/ therefore, free will is compatible with determinism.

That is precisely what I am addressing.

'Soft' determinism doesn't allow the brain alternate choices. The brain is not in superposition, information condition in each moment determines action in each and every moment.

If alternate options can be taken whenever one pleases, it is not determinism:

It is not hard determinism. Big difference.

No, it is determinism. If determinism is true, actions are determined, not chosen, not open to negotiation.

The brain works deterministically, input/processing/output. Just because it is our brain that processes information and produces actions and we are not being coerced or forced does not equate to free will. The action taken is still determined (soft determinism doesn't help) and will still plays no part in processing of information/decision making.

No matter what, we are constrained by the events that precede us, that shape and form our physical and mental makeup and actions.

 

[DBT]

The function of a working brain is to acquire and process information in order to respond to the events of the world in manner that aids survival.

Correct.

A functional brain processes information and produces results according to its own architecture and information exchange, not will.

I do not understand your tacking on the "not will" at the end. The whole point of an intelligent brain is to provide a living organism with options. Prior to intelligence, there were no options, because every behavior was instinctual, hardwired. With intelligence we gain the ability to respond creatively "to the events of the world in a manner that aids survival".

I say 'not will' because the brain does not function according to 'will' - intelligence is not willed, neural architecture is not willed, the environment that forms our physical makeup is not willed, yet it is these elements that determine who we are, how we think and act....in accordance with inner necessity, not freedom of will. Will changes nothing. Will is a part of action, action is determined by processing,

The output of a functional, deterministic brain, the actions taken, do not allow alternate actions.

That's only true of a non-intelligent organism. With intelligence, the brain continues to operate deterministically, but with an additional causal mechanism: rationality (you may recall that from Dr. Martha Farah's quote that you included earlier).

Rationality is not equivalent to free will, which is why Martha Farah said what she said. She was not supporting the notion of free will, just the opposite. It is neural architecture that enables intelligence, not free will. Artificial intelligence, for instance, is a matter processing power and function, not will.

We assume that the rational causal mechanism also operates deterministically (otherwise it would be ineffectual). So, when stepping into a new causal mechanism we are not stepping outside of determinism.

For example, addition is a deterministic rational operation: 2 plus 2 equals 4. There is no alternative within that operation.

However, choosing is also a deterministic rational operation: A or B? If A is better than B, then I will choose A, but if B is better than A, then I will choose B. With the choosing operation we always get at least two alternatives. Then we evaluate each alternative and choose the one that seems best to us. That's how it works.

Given the same identical us, facing the same issue, under the same circumstances, our choice will always be the same. That's what being a deterministic operation naturally implies. And that does not change with the rational causal mechanism. Just like 2 + 2 = 4, one choice will always be judged better than the other after evaluation.

Options are realized on the basis of criteria. Criteria is determined by needs and wants. The option taken is the one that best meets the criteria. The other options were not in the running. It may prove that option A was wrong, which changes the dynamic.

Nothing is willed.

That would be an absurdity. Every deliberate action is willed, because the output of deliberation is an intention to do something, as in, "I will fix eggs for breakfast".

As I've pointed out a number of times, timing is the key; inputs are acquired (the senses, not will), information is transmitted, propagated and processed (by neural networks, not will), then represented in conscious form, thought, will, action (a sequence of milliseconds). Will emerges as a result of input, architecture, processing, will is not the master or director of the brain.....which, having said it a number of times, is clearly what I meant.

You continue to insist that freedom must include the absence from reliable cause and effect. This notion that determinist's carry around with them is called "freedom from causal necessity". It is an irrational notion, due to the fact that reliable causation is always required by every freedom that we have to do anything at all (including the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do). FREEDOM REQUIRES RELIABLE CAUSE AND EFFECT.

What I have said is freedom requires regulative control, realizable, possible, alternate actions.

Determinism, by definition (forget about soft determinism) does not allow regulative control or realizable, possible, alternate actions.

Assuming responsibility requires control, and determinism does not allow regulative control or realizable, possible, alternate actions, ultimately, we are not responsible for what we do or think.

Consequently:
Quote:
If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... The very ideas of consciousness, experience, feeling, beliefs, and desires are not objective beyond control experimenters apply to individual experiments. ...

Since those are the words and concepts that are relevant to this discussion this conversation appears to be done.

 

[fromderinside]

... The very ideas of consciousness, experience, feeling, beliefs, and desires are not objective beyond control experimenters apply to individual experiments. ...

Since those are the words and concepts that are relevant to this discussion this conversation appears to be done.

My very best friend was a classical Philosopher still studying at the time of Angela Davis at UCLA. He never quit even though he knew philosophy needed to change to remain relevant.

Given we've learned more than the totality of what we knew before the seventies it seems philosophers could at least delve into the realms where there is uncertainty about the value of rationalism. Perhaps philosophers can contribute, as statistics have contributed, to bridging the barrier between number and measure.

But, No. Marvin Edwards has declared Philosophy dead. I'm still confident methods and chains of an argument are available to pierce the boundary between what we think the mind is now and means whereby we can determine means to actually construct a sound deterministic basis for such a concept. perhaps a little statistical thought needs to be applied.

I do favor formality.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... The very ideas of consciousness, experience, feeling, beliefs, and desires are not objective beyond control experimenters apply to individual experiments. ...

Since those are the words and concepts that are relevant to this discussion this conversation appears to be done.

My very best friend was a classical Philosopher still studying at the time of Angela Davis at UCLA. He never quit even though he knew philosophy needed to change to remain relevant.

Given we've learned more than the totality of what we knew before the seventies it seems philosophers could at least delve into the realms where there is uncertainty about the value of rationalism. Perhaps philosophers can contribute, as statistics have contributed, to bridging the barrier between number and measure.

But, No. Marvin Edwards has declared Philosophy dead. I'm still confident methods and chains of an argument are available to pierce the boundary between what we think the mind is now and means whereby we can determine means to actually construct a sound deterministic basis for such a concept. perhaps a little statistical thought needs to be applied.

I do favor formality.

What is a belief?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The function of a working brain is to acquire and process information in order to respond to the events of the world in manner that aids survival.

Correct.

A functional brain processes information and produces results according to its own architecture and information exchange, not will.

I do not understand your tacking on the "not will" at the end. The whole point of an intelligent brain is to provide a living organism with options. Prior to intelligence, there were no options, because every behavior was instinctual, hardwired. With intelligence we gain the ability to respond creatively "to the events of the world in a manner that aids survival".

I say 'not will' because the brain does not function according to 'will' - intelligence is not willed, neural architecture is not willed, the environment that forms our physical makeup is not willed, yet it is these elements that determine who we are, how we think and act....in accordance with inner necessity, not freedom of will. Will changes nothing. Will is a part of action, action is determined by processing,

The brain attends to different things according to a competition of stimuli from different sources. Right now I have CNN on the TV in the living room, which I can still hear through the door. But while I'm concentrating on what I'm trying to explain here, I'm unaware of the sounds from the TV.

Driving down a familiar road, thinking to ourselves or listening to music, we don't think about driving, unless something unexpected appears in the road ahead. If that happens then we're alert once more to the road and our other thoughts take a back seat.

The concept I'm trying to explain here is "intention". Our intention, whether to write a comment or drive safely to our destination, is what motivates and directs our internal thinking, as well as our external behavior.

Hmm. Why don't I just look up "intent" in the dictionary? Here it is in the Oxford English Dictionary (highlights mine):

intent, n. 1.a. The act or fact of intending or purposing; intention, purpose (formed in the mind). Formerly also, in more general sense, Will, inclination; that which is willed, pleasure, desire (cf. 4). Now chiefly in legal phraseology, and in the expressions with intent to (hurt, etc.), with good or malicious intent, etc.

You may remember the example of the coed who declined the party to study for tomorrow's chemistry exam. Her chosen intent caused her brain to attend to her textbook and lecture notes, to rehearse remembering things, so she would be prepared for the test.

So, I would strongly disagree with the notion that the brain operates in the absence of will. Will is both a product of the brain and a driver of the brain's activity. The brain is providing both input to itself and output from itself while engaged in the process of thinking. And what the brain is will be thinking about next, is often deliberately chosen.

That's all part of the information processing naturally performed by our brains.

The output of a functional, deterministic brain, the actions taken, do not allow alternate actions.

That's only true of a non-intelligent organism. With intelligence, the brain continues to operate deterministically, but with an additional causal mechanism: rationality (you may recall that from Dr. Martha Farah's quote that you included earlier).

Rationality is not equivalent to free will, which is why Martha Farah said what she said. She was not supporting the notion of free will, just the opposite. It is neural architecture that enables intelligence, not free will. Artificial intelligence, for instance, is a matter processing power and function, not will.

Oh yeah, Martha Farah also suffers from the delusion that causal necessity prevents free will. Anyone using the paradoxical definition, "freedom from causal necessity", rather than the operational definition, "freedom from coercion and undue influence", of free will finds free will not to exist, because they view causal necessity as a meaningful and relevant constraint. Odd, though, that they do not require freedom from causal necessity for any other freedom.

We assume that the rational causal mechanism also operates deterministically (otherwise it would be ineffectual). So, when stepping into a new causal mechanism we are not stepping outside of determinism.

For example, addition is a deterministic rational operation: 2 plus 2 equals 4. There is no alternative within that operation.

However, choosing is also a deterministic rational operation: A or B? If A is better than B, then I will choose A, but if B is better than A, then I will choose B. With the choosing operation we always get at least two alternatives. Then we evaluate each alternative and choose the one that seems best to us. That's how it works.

Given the same identical us, facing the same issue, under the same circumstances, our choice will always be the same. That's what being a deterministic operation naturally implies. And that does not change with the rational causal mechanism. Just like 2 + 2 = 4, one choice will always be judged better than the other after evaluation.

Options are realized on the basis of criteria. Criteria is determined by needs and wants. The option taken is the one that best meets the criteria. The other options were not in the running. It may prove that option A was wrong, which changes the dynamic.

Yes. The rational causal mechanism is deterministic. But then again, every event is always deterministically caused by prior events. So, why bring it up?

Because causal necessity is always true, all the time, it makes itself irrelevant by its own ubiquity.

The only causes worth caring about, are the specific causes of specific effects. Knowing these causes give us control over most of the significant events that affect our lives. Even though we cannot control a hurricane, we can predict their path, and take steps to protect ourselves from harm.

As I've pointed out a number of times, timing is the key; inputs are acquired (the senses, not will), information is transmitted, propagated and processed (by neural networks, not will), then represented in conscious form, thought, will, action (a sequence of milliseconds). Will emerges as a result of input, architecture, processing, will is not the master or director of the brain.....which, having said it a number of times, is clearly what I meant.

I don't think that one can say "timing is the key" and then say the timing is "a sequence of milliseconds". As neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga said of Libet's experiments:

"What difference does it make if brain activity goes on before we are consciously aware of something? Consciousness is its own abstraction on its own time scale and that time scale is current with respect to it. Thus, Libet’s thinking is not correct. That is not where the action is, any more than a transistor is where the software action is."

Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (p. 141). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The "decisions" in the Libet experiments were along the lines of pressing a button or squeezing your fist 40 times at random intervals for 2 minutes. The more significant decision would be the subject's choice to volunteer.

And the suggestion that we are unconscious of our actions until after we have performed them leads to absurdities.

You continue to insist that freedom must include the absence from reliable cause and effect. This notion that determinist's carry around with them is called "freedom from causal necessity". It is an irrational notion, due to the fact that reliable causation is always required by every freedom that we have to do anything at all (including the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do). FREEDOM REQUIRES RELIABLE CAUSE AND EFFECT.

What I have said is freedom requires regulative control, realizable, possible, alternate actions.

Determinism, by definition (forget about soft determinism) does not allow regulative control or realizable, possible, alternate actions.

Assuming responsibility requires control, and determinism does not allow regulative control or realizable, possible, alternate actions, ultimately, we are not responsible for what we do or think.

Yes. Regulative control. Whoever or whatever "gets to choose what happens next" has regulative control. My thermostat regulates the heat in the room. However, I regulate the thermostat. So, I have regulative control.

Yes. Alternate, realizable, possibilities. A realizable possibility is something that we could make happen if we chose to. The fact that we didn't choose to make it happen did not make it unrealizable, but only unrealized. And, whenever we are faced with a choice, there will be at least two alternate, realizable possibilities to choose from and we will be able to choose either one.

No. Determinism does mean we are not responsible for what we do. It simply means that when we are held responsible, it will have been inevitable that we would be held responsible! Causal necessity, something that is always true of every event, cannot be used to excuse one thing without excusing everything. If it excuses the thief who stole your wallet, then it also excuses the judge who cuts off the thief's hand.

Consequently:

Quote:
If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

(DBT, I'm getting an "Not secure" alert on that link to http://www.princetonphilosophy.com/background/freewillprimer.pdf And when I tried to paste the address I got a page with Chinese or Japanese characters. Not sure what is going on, but thought you'd want to know).

"1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise" - Check, we have the ability to do otherwise, even in a deterministic system.

"2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control" - Irrelevant to this discussion. We are assuming perfectly reliable cause and effect, where "random" is a problem of prediction, not of causation.

"3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible" - Nope. There is no incompatibility between the correct definitions of determinism and free will.

"4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable" - And there is no reason to "unfix" or change the fact that my choice was inevitable result of it being I, myself, that inevitably chose it! Why would I want that?

"5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will" - Nope. Determinism means that either I will inevitably make the choice for myself (free will) or that I will inevitably be coerced or unduly influenced (unfree will).

 

[pood]

Well, DBT, you’ve got a dogma, every bit as impenetrable as the dogma of Christian theism.

The problem is that now you are just repeating your claims like a mantra, without addressing salient points raised. I asked: why do you not see a distinction between would not have done otherwise, and could not have done otherwise? No answer. I asked: how is it that the brain evolved to give us the illusion of choice, as you would have it, rather than no choice at all? Of what use would such a brain be, and why would evolution favor something useless? No answer. I asked if you had read and would wish to comment on the Swartz paper. No answer. I asked why you see no distinction between a rock rolling down a hill and someone deciding what to have for breakfast. No answer.

You did address the distinction I made between determinism and hard determinism but your answer is inapposite. You simply deny that there is a distinction without giving any reason why this should be so. You don’t get to redefine terms to suit your argument.

So, unless you decide to address these larger points, the conversation, such as it is, does seem to be at a dead end. You are simply repeating over and over again claims that have been rebutted, without addressing the rebuttals. It’s exactly like talking with a theist, at this point. So be it. *shrug*

 

[Jarhyn]

Causation is a bit tricky to define. It refers to a temporal (antecedent-consequent) relationship between two events in which the consequent would not occur if the antecedent did not occur, other things being equal. Other than that, there seems always to be some kind of force implicit the relationship. So "X forced Y" implies that a force favoring "Y" overcame a force favoring "not Y". "X permitted Y" implies a force favoring Y added to another force that caused Y to come about. Causal verbs may or may not express force relationships, so one very good way to learn about the nature of causation is to study and analyze causative and causal verbs in natural languages. Having once written a PhD dissertation on the expression of causation in English, I came across a number of such very detailed and interesting studies. Needless to say, causation is important to human beings, so we have a lot of different ways to express causal relationships. Its expression is hardwired into the phrase structure of simple clauses in all natural languages.

This is why, as a systems engineer who has created not just a language but a whole object of magic, a whole and living decision engine complete with instructions and data for it to decide upon, I think it's important to realize that there are two abstract elements to every event:

The function.

The input.

X permits Y is a description of "X acting as input to function Y's operation"

"X causes Y" is when one has supplied a "whole instruction", the full causality. But that can be dissected.

But moreover one may make reference to an operation.

It is kind of like a spreadsheet I was forced to write this week.

I think the more important thing is that the hard determinists sees a movie played on the surface of causality, one frame inevitably ticking on to the next.

The issue is that there is so much beneath that: It is not a play on a screen of just so frames, but rather the output process of a functional engine with a set and fixed architecture but arbitrary input from the get-go. It is being rendered according to rules that are visible as rules from within the system by the beings that abstract out of the chemical layer of it's available abstractions.

We know that there is LOCALITY in our universe, or at least strongly assume so for our models to work out: internal states can be the basis for decision, or the decision engine can be built of internal states acting as a virtualized machine.

All of the above can be true and many or all likely are.

Events are decided on the basis of the local state. The local state "decides" the outcome. Decisions happen. I am an abstraction of a local state. As that local state, I decide.

I can recognize when my decisions do not get fulfilled as envisioned and modeled. I can recognize when that is because of an opposed will, and when it is oppressing my will, and thus when my will is not free in the event to determine and decide.

 

[WAB]

Marvin has things well in hand. And Copernicus is here as well.

FDI and DBT have futile arguments, and as Pood has aptly pointed out, discussing things with a hard determinist is essentially like discussing things with a theist.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Marvin has things well in hand. And Copernicus is here as well.

FDI and DBT have futile arguments, and as Pood has aptly pointed out, discussing things with a hard determinist is essentially like discussing things with a theist.

DBT is just presenting the standard historical argument with its neuroscience upgrades. It is very popular these days. The incompatibilists, both the hard determinists and the libertarians, imagine causal necessity to be a constraint, something that we must somehow be "free of" if we are to be truly free.

But causal necessity is just good ol' reliable cause and effect, something that we're all familiar with, something we all take for granted, and something we all put to good use every day in everything we do. Walking, talking, thinking, chewing gum, fixing breakfast, deciding what to wear, what car to buy, etc., all require reliable cause and effect.

Every freedom that we have, to do anything at all, requires a world where the effects of our actions, whether hitting a baseball or tossing a salad, are predictable and reliable.

Nobody ever experiences reliable causation itself as a constraint. Only specific causes can constrain us, like a pair of handcuffs, or a guy pointing a gun at our head, or our own physical limits if we work or play too hard. And it is only in regard to specific constraints, that we experience freedom when the constraint is lifted.

But reliable causation itself is never lifted. It is not something that we could be free of, event if we wanted. As to whether the opposite of determinism, indeterminism is somehow better than determinism, see the original post in this thread.

No, we really want a deterministic universe. One where things work as reliably as possible. Because, after all, we happen to be one of those things that work reliably. We are each a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts and feeling flowing. Every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires reliable cause and effect.

The "necessity" in causal necessity, suggests a constraint. After all, if it is "necessary", then we must do it whether we want to or not. But that's not how universal or deterministic causal necessity works. Universal causal necessity includes both us and our own wants, so, we end up doing what we wanted to do, of our own free will.

The irony is that causal necessity necessitates nothing. Everything simply proceeds from event to event, just as it looks to us. Nothing changes. We observe ourselves choosing what we will do, and that is what is really happening in the real world.

Causation causes nothing. Determinism determines nothing. Causal necessity necessitates nothing. These are concepts used to describe what we, and all of the other objects in the universe, are causing to happen from moment to moment. They are not about some boogeyman robbing us of our control and our freedom. They are about us, and what we are doing.

The incompatibilists would have us see causal necessity as a boogeyman. And that would qualify as a "delusion".

 

[fromderinside]

Marvin has things well in hand. And Copernicus is here as well.

FDI and DBT have futile arguments, and as Pood has aptly pointed out, discussing things with a hard determinist is essentially like discussing things with a theist.

WAB is back from voluntary exclusion. Whoop Whoop Who.

What is a judgment based on nothing burgers? See WAB comments above.

Theists cannot do anything beyond naming Commandments Laws. Determinists do pretty well specifying and testing scientific laws. By the way, what are the Laws of Nature?

Well, DBT, you’ve got a dogma, every bit as impenetrable as the dogma of Christian theism.

The problem is that now you are just repeating your claims like a mantra, without addressing salient points raised. I asked: why do you not see a distinction between would not have done otherwise, and could not have done otherwise? No answer. I asked: how is it that the brain evolved to give us the illusion of choice, as you would have it, rather than no choice at all? Of what use would such a brain be, and why would evolution favor something useless? No answer. I asked if you had read and would wish to comment on the Swartz paper. No answer. I asked why you see no distinction between a rock rolling down a hill and someone deciding what to have for breakfast. No answer.

You did address the distinction I made between determinism and hard determinism but your answer is inapposite. You simply deny that there is a distinction without giving any reason why this should be so. You don’t get to redefine terms to suit your argument.

So, unless you decide to address these larger points, the conversation, such as it is, does seem to be at a dead end. You are simply repeating over and over again claims that have been rebutted, without addressing the rebuttals. It’s exactly like talking with a theist, at this point. So be it. *shrug*

From the peanut gallery.

What you hold out as larger questions are irrelevant. Would and could refer from self. The so-called 'decision'-maker is deciding nothing. What one does is determined. The day you specify a neural construction that decides will be the day you understand determinism.