According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[southernhybrid]

Gift link to NYT article.

This was an interesting read, but I disagree completely with his reasoning. If this was actually the case, humans would be no different from animals which live on instinct. I firmly believe that we have something within us that makes us separate from typical animals; call it a “soul” or whatever you want.

There are statements of his views in one paragraph that I absolutely reject:

There are major implications, he notes: Absent free will, no one should be held responsible for their behavior, good or bad. Dr. Sapolsky sees this as “liberating” for most people, for whom “life has been about being blamed and punished and deprived and ignored for things they have no control over.”

If this is the case, we have no basis for punishment of criminal behavior. I suspect that when it comes to his personal life, he would expect anyone who harmed him to be punished for that behavior.

Ruth

I didn't realize that you started this thread, Ruth. I don't believe in absolute free will myself, and oddly enough, I'm currently reading a book by the same author in the article, called, "Behave".

Animals have well developed social skills, intelligence etc. so they have a lot more in common with us, then most people think. I wouldn't say that they or we act strictly on instinct. I'd say that we are all the products of both genetics and environmental influences, regardless if we are humans or dogs. If a dog or a human child is abused, as well as having certain genetic traits, it's likely that the human or dog will have certain behavioral issues. An abused dog might bite. An abused child might become a violent adult or an abusive parent. But, sometimes with the right environmental influences, both the dog and the person might be rehabilitated.

I don't think that crime should be punished necessarily. If there is no other option, prisons should be for rehab, but some people are natural psychopaths. I've read at least one book on psychopathy. It's actually a brain disorder, but it's not safe to allow a violent psychopath to live freely among the rest of society, so we do need facilities for such people. I just wish we would have prison reform, as well as better mental health care, because I believe that prisons should be humane places, where those who have a chance to be influenced positively will have the opportunity to do so. But then again, it's my nature to be compassionate, so not everyone sees it that way.

If we did have free will, then the other animals do too. We are after all, animals that evolved big brains that sometimes get us into a lot of trouble. I don't see humans as above other animals. Animals simply have some different traits than we do. Birds, for example, have amazing navigational skills. Dogs have amazing senses of smell. We have big brains that allow us to make up all kinds of fantasies. I just never have the will to get involved in discussions about free will. So, I'll just leave it at that, and let those who feel the need to discuss this topic endlessly, enjoy themselves.

 

[DBT]

Hard determinism cannot exist for well-understood physics reasons.

I think there might be a misunderstanding here.

In philosophy, Wiki describes hard determinism as:

Hard determinism (or metaphysical determinism) is a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist.

DBT is a 'hard determinist'.

Also a believer in super-determinism, a well known exception to the bell inequality.

Regardless, compatibilists, the only people who have been able to present a sensible understanding of free will determinism or not, present the idea of consciousness and free will in terms of determinism; determinism is broadly required in the framework of free will that actually has useful properties and it allows modeling decision making processes in those terms.

The major disagreement here happens around DBT's inability to recognize they are arguing past us and trying overmuch to claim that we have no part in the continuing authorship of self. It recurses upon itself.

You appear to be living in La La land, where you make up your own stories regardless of what is said or explained. It's childish.

Once again, the definition of determinism is the same as quoted by compatibilists, the same as quoted from multiple sources, Stanford, etc, the same as you gave....the difference lies purely in the refutation of the compatibilist definition of free will, which fails because it ignores the implications of determinism in relation to the means and mechanisms of response.

To repeat;

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



''The compatibilist might say because those are influences that are “outside” of the person, but this misses the entire point brought up by the free will skeptic, which is that ALL environmental conditions that help lead to a person’s brain state at any given moment are “outside of the person”, and the genes a person has was provided rather than decided.''

Your quoting of Scripture does not become you.

Your denial of simple logic and reason does not become you.

It is no more true now than it was the last time you professed your faith.

It's a simple thing that even you should be able to grasp without difficulty: compatibilism fails because it ignores the implications of determinism in relation to the means and mechanisms of decision making.

It is your faith and dogma that prevents you from seeing that decisions are set - as determinism is defined - by antecedents, not free will.

Even in your quote of your preferred scripture of irrational belief, there is a very weak qualifier added to "conditions": "environmental". Not all conditions are "environmental", as there are brain state conditions that also lead to brain state conditions.

Some of those brain state conditions that lead to brain state conditions are choices by the person which they are responsible for choosing.

You are pointedly ignoring and in the straight up La-La land of faith and religion to say there is no outside when we can clearly observe the momentary distinction of current outside-ness or inside-ness of an influence.

The problem is that you have your knickers in a twist and now sing a sad lament over your failure to make a case for compatibilism. Get over it. Compatibilism is a failed argument.

 

[DBT]

The composer didn't just pop fully formed out of a vacuum.

Correct.

The composer is no more exempt from deterministic antecedents than the music he composes, a mind suited for composing (not everyone can) drawing from the past, tradition and development of music, instruments, culture, style.

Correct.

The world as a deterministic system doesn't exclude complexity or creative thought.

Correct.

Nobody is arguing that we can't think, compose, build or act …

Good.

Free will doesn't create a brain capable of composing music or sending rockets into space.

Correct. Free will doesn’t create brains.

So, here is where we are at. You agree that the composer composed the music, not the big bang. We agree that it processed deterministic inputs to do this.

I would assume you would agree that the composer *is* his brain.

Threfore: The composer composed the music.

I’m glad we agree.

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Animals have well developed social skills, intelligence etc. so they have a lot more in common with us, then most people think.

If we did have free will, then the other animals do too.

I liked the correction. As others have stated, defining "free will" is like defining "god." Have at it. Behaviorally we're all the same, even the plants and fungi. Rousseau said it best on page one of the thread that we pretty much don't change our stance and that's largely due to the fact that it's like defining any of those nebulous others in our experiences, gods being the best example. We all have a will and we all have a degree of freedom. Definitions matter.

 

[Jarhyn]

Your denial of simple logic and reason does not become you.

Your logical fallacies which you commit repeatedly and which have been pointed out to you repeatedly put the untruth and religiosity to your religion.

The composer didn't just pop fully formed out of a vacuum.

Correct.

The composer is no more exempt from deterministic antecedents than the music he composes, a mind suited for composing (not everyone can) drawing from the past, tradition and development of music, instruments, culture, style.

Correct.

The world as a deterministic system doesn't exclude complexity or creative thought.

Correct.

Nobody is arguing that we can't think, compose, build or act …

Good.

Free will doesn't create a brain capable of composing music or sending rockets into space.

Correct. Free will doesn’t create brains.

So, here is where we are at. You agree that the composer composed the music, not the big bang. We agree that it processed deterministic inputs to do this.

I would assume you would agree that the composer *is* his brain.

Threfore: The composer composed the music.

I’m glad we agree.

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

No matter how the universe unfolded there would be architects, artists, and builders, because these are a product of the universe having the laws that it does, and are not merely a product of it's initial conditions.

The initial conditions are not a matter of "physics". They never are in any system.

Depending on whether the initial condition is "normal" all initial conditions could very well be represented such that everything that can physically happen may happen somewhere which would make it even funnier insofar as it would still not be a matter of physics, but of math; if this were the case, your declaration about there being no alternalities would not be true.

It's my expectation that either all things permitted by physics must happen somehow somewhere, or that it is not a matter of "physics", but I don't think you ever thought it through that far.

Humans, perhaps not. The rest of it? They are all guaranteed by the nature of time and space and the rule of large numbers. Perhaps not the same compositions, but the idea of art and composition and choice would all still exist. Choice is an inevitability.

 

[pood]

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

It’s not I who is banging on about this, but you. Your entire hard determinism entails that our choices are decided BEFORE we make them — stretching like fallen dominoes all the way back to the Big Bang. Now it seems you are backtracking from that.

But how about Jerry Coyne and his jazz musician? Coyne wrote: “A very large jazz musician accosted me afterward and asked me if he thought the extemporaneous jazz solos he played were actually determined in advance. When I said ‘yes,’ he got really mad and I was afraid he was going to hit me.” Coyne then takes the opportunity to name-drop Richard Dawkins stepping in to defuse the situation, but I guess he couldn’t help doing that since the Big Bang gave him no choice.

Now which is it? Do you agree, or disagree, with your fellow hard determinist, Jerry Coyne, that the jazz player’s solos were determined in advance? Jerry Coyne IS making the claim that the Big Bang composed the extemporaneous (even though it was extemporaneous!) jazz solo. Now you disagree?

You, and Coyne, continually mix up determinism with pre-determinism. They are not the same thing. However, if you are now willing to disavow Coyne’s claim, that would be progress.

 

[pood]

life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' ….

OK. So as of now you disagree with Coyne.

Now let’s look at this evolution business. Yes, microbes evolved. So did humans, including those humans who compose music.

Did musical compositions also evolve? Cathredrals? Novels? Computer programs?

No, those things did not evolve. Microbes and humans evolved by a well-undertstood process of descent with modification in conjunction with other factors like genetic drift and netural evolution. No such processes produce music, cathrdrals, novlels, computer programs.

These things, unlike life, require design, and design can only be made by choices — untold numbers of choices, as the design becomes more complicated.

You mentioned ChatGPT. I know Jarhyn may disagree, but ChatGPT is not conscious. It is mimicking what humans do, and humans do, what they do, through introspection, foresight, planning, and choice — and, moroever, ChatGPT still sucks.

 

[Jarhyn]

life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' ….

OK. So as of now you disagree with Coyne.

Now let’s look at this evolution business. Yes, microbes evolved. So did humans, including those humans who compose music.

Did musical compositions also evolve? Cathredrals? Novels? Computer programs?

No, those things did not evolve. Microbes and humans evolved by a well-undertstood process of descent with modification in conjunction with other factors like genetic drift and netural evolution. No such processes produce music, cathrdrals, novlels, computer programs.

These things, unlike life, require design, and design can only be made by choices — untold numbers of choices, as the design becomes more complicated.

You mentioned ChatGPT. I know Jarhyn may disagree, but ChatGPT is not conscious. It is mimicking what humans do, and humans do, what they do, through introspection, foresight, planning, and choice — and, moroever, ChatGPT still sucks.

I disagree only on the claim it is not "conscious". Again, you should be expected to answer what it is, or what it is not, conscious OF. The same rules apply as for freedoms, of discussing which goal is free or constrained by which element, insofar as you must indicate exactly what thing you think it is that is lacking.

Certainly ChatGPT-4 still sucks, but it still manages to be smarter and more self-actualized than your average Trump voter or hard determinist.

I would like to see how well you did 8 months after being born.

 

[DBT]

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

It’s not I who is banging on about this, but you.

I quoted you saying it. It is right there in the quote. And you have said as much in the past.

Your entire hard determinism entails that our choices are decided BEFORE we make them — stretching like fallen dominoes all the way back to the Big Bang. Now it seems you are backtracking from that.

That is what determinism entails. Where decisions are made necessarily, therefore are decisions but are not choices.

It is not just I who define determinism as events evolving or unfolding without deviation, but compatibilists, including yourself.

''Just what I said it means, and what Hume said it means: “Constant conjunction.” - Pood.

Constant conjunction means that ''one event is invariably followed by the other''
.

But how about Jerry Coyne and his jazz musician? Coyne wrote: “A very large jazz musician accosted me afterward and asked me if he thought the extemporaneous jazz solos he played were actually determined in advance. When I said ‘yes,’ he got really mad and I was afraid he was going to hit me.” Coyne then takes the opportunity to name-drop Richard Dawkins stepping in to defuse the situation, but I guess he couldn’t help doing that since the Big Bang gave him no choice.

Oh, boy, musicians are able to write music because their brain, aptitude and skill enables them to write music. Neural architecture, not free will, is the means of their ability.

And of course, not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training.

Now which is it? Do you agree, or disagree, with your fellow hard determinist, Jerry Coyne, that the jazz player’s solos were determined in advance? Jerry Coyne IS making the claim that the Big Bang composed the extemporaneous (even though it was extemporaneous!) jazz solo. Now you disagree?

You, and Coyne, continually mix up determinism with pre-determinism. They are not the same thing. However, if you are now willing to disavow Coyne’s claim, that would be progress.

You went in the wrong direction, insisting on things that are not relevant to the issue.

 

[Jarhyn]

not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training

Well, you may find yourself at a dearth of altitude, skill, or training, but it's really that "inclination" part that you step in there that shows you don't understand what the conversation is even about.

Lack the skill? It's a choice to not practice. Lack the inclination? So because you choose not to, yet again. If there is some gap of necessary training, this is a different situation than whether there is a lack of inclination.


So in attempting to say it's not about freedom and wills, but then to say it is about things that amount to the constraints discussed of compatibilism and the organization of contingent elements, you reveal your understanding to be insufficient to the problem.

Please quit dragging your religious beliefs into the discussion and instead make an attempt to understand the framework of compatibilism even if you don't agree with its use. It is clear you have never really even made that attempt, instead apologizing for your fatalism.

 

[pood]

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

It’s not I who is banging on about this, but you.

I quoted you saying it. It is right there in the quote. And you have said as much in the past.

Your entire hard determinism entails that our choices are decided BEFORE we make them — stretching like fallen dominoes all the way back to the Big Bang. Now it seems you are backtracking from that.

That is what determinism entails. Where decisions are made necessarily, therefore are decisions but are not choices.

It is not just I who define determinism as events evolving or unfolding without deviation, but compatibilists, including yourself.

''Just what I said it means, and what Hume said it means: “Constant conjunction.” - Pood.

Constant conjunction means that ''one event is invariably followed by the other''
.

But how about Jerry Coyne and his jazz musician? Coyne wrote: “A very large jazz musician accosted me afterward and asked me if he thought the extemporaneous jazz solos he played were actually determined in advance. When I said ‘yes,’ he got really mad and I was afraid he was going to hit me.” Coyne then takes the opportunity to name-drop Richard Dawkins stepping in to defuse the situation, but I guess he couldn’t help doing that since the Big Bang gave him no choice.

Oh, boy, musicians are able to write music because their brain, aptitude and skill enables them to write music. Neural architecture, not free will, is the means of their ability.

And of course, not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training.

Now which is it? Do you agree, or disagree, with your fellow hard determinist, Jerry Coyne, that the jazz player’s solos were determined in advance? Jerry Coyne IS making the claim that the Big Bang composed the extemporaneous (even though it was extemporaneous!) jazz solo. Now you disagree?

You, and Coyne, continually mix up determinism with pre-determinism. They are not the same thing. However, if you are now willing to disavow Coyne’s claim, that would be progress.

You went in the wrong direction, insisting on things that are not relevant to the issue.

Not surprisingly, you didn’t answer any of my questions, and also gave a false definition of “constant conjunction.” It means, “effects reliably follow their causes,” and not that one effect INEVITABLY follows from a cause, as you would have it. OF course, SOME effect inevitably follows from a cause, but your own hard deterministic glass, unsupported by constant conjuction, is that any effect that follows a casue is INEVITABLBLE (necessarily true) and, of course, that is the same old modal fallacy you can’t get enough of.

So you are not going to tell us whether you agree with Jerry Coyne that the jazz musician’s output was decided IN ADVANCE OF the jazz musician actually composing/performing? If you answer ”no, it is not decided in advance,” you disagree with fellow hard detrminist Coyne; and if you answer, “Yes, it is decided in advance,“ you disagree with what you just said upthread; and moreover, in that case, you and Coyne owe an answer to the question, “How can a mindless process like determinism, which describes but does not prescribe reality, compose a complex jazz piece even before the musician begins to think about it?”

 

[DBT]

not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training

Well, you may find yourself at a dearth of altitude, skill, or training, but it's really that "inclination" part that you step in there that shows you don't understand what the conversation is even about.

Lack the skill? It's a choice to not practice. Lack the inclination? So because you choose not to, yet again. If there is some gap of necessary training, this is a different situation than whether there is a lack of inclination.


So in attempting to say it's not about freedom and wills, but then to say it is about things that amount to the constraints discussed of compatibilism and the organization of contingent elements, you reveal your understanding to be insufficient to the problem.

Please quit dragging your religious beliefs into the discussion and instead make an attempt to understand the framework of compatibilism even if you don't agree with its use. It is clear you have never really even made that attempt, instead apologizing for your fatalism.

You are getting more desperate with every reply you post.

The issue is not that difficult to grasp.

Once again, compatibilists give a definition of determinism and argue that free will is compatible with determinism when we make decisions that are free from external force or coercion (some invoke could have done differently if conditions were different, but of course that contradicts their given terms).

The compatibilist definition fails to make a case because it ignores a critical element, that rather than will, or free will iit is non-chosen, internal mechanisms (the brain) that fix decisions, hence it is not a case of free will.

Antecedents and proclivities;

Proclivities:

''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

 

[DBT]

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

It’s not I who is banging on about this, but you.

I quoted you saying it. It is right there in the quote. And you have said as much in the past.

You add your own twist to what is being said. At no time have I said or implied that the 'big bang composed music.'

That is your twist, your rationale, your means of dismissal regardless of all that has happened between the big bang and the evolution of humans capable of composing music.

A poor attempt at that.

Your entire hard determinism entails that our choices are decided BEFORE we make them — stretching like fallen dominoes all the way back to the Big Bang. Now it seems you are backtracking from that.

That is what determinism entails. Where decisions are made necessarily, therefore are decisions but are not choices.

It is not just I who define determinism as events evolving or unfolding without deviation, but compatibilists, including yourself.

''Just what I said it means, and what Hume said it means: “Constant conjunction.” - Pood.

Constant conjunction means that ''one event is invariably followed by the other''
.

But how about Jerry Coyne and his jazz musician? Coyne wrote: “A very large jazz musician accosted me afterward and asked me if he thought the extemporaneous jazz solos he played were actually determined in advance. When I said ‘yes,’ he got really mad and I was afraid he was going to hit me.” Coyne then takes the opportunity to name-drop Richard Dawkins stepping in to defuse the situation, but I guess he couldn’t help doing that since the Big Bang gave him no choice.

Oh, boy, musicians are able to write music because their brain, aptitude and skill enables them to write music. Neural architecture, not free will, is the means of their ability.

And of course, not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training.

Now which is it? Do you agree, or disagree, with your fellow hard determinist, Jerry Coyne, that the jazz player’s solos were determined in advance? Jerry Coyne IS making the claim that the Big Bang composed the extemporaneous (even though it was extemporaneous!) jazz solo. Now you disagree?

You, and Coyne, continually mix up determinism with pre-determinism. They are not the same thing. However, if you are now willing to disavow Coyne’s claim, that would be progress.

You went in the wrong direction, insisting on things that are not relevant to the issue.

Not surprisingly, you didn’t answer any of my questions, and also gave a false definition of “constant conjunction.” It means, “effects reliably follow their causes,” and not that one effect INEVITABLY follows from a cause, as you would have it. OF course, SOME effect inevitably follows from a cause, but your own hard deterministic glass, unsupported by constant conjuction, is that any effect that follows a casue is INEVITABLBLE (necessarily true) and, of course, that is the same old modal fallacy you can’t get enough of.

All of your questions have been addressed over and over, only to have them repeated time and again as if nothing has been said.

Nor is the definition of constant conjunction something I came up with;

constant conjunction

''Two events A and B are constantly conjoined if whenever one occurs the other does. The constant conjunction theory of causation, often attributed to Hume, is that this relationship is what is meant by saying that the one causes the other,

''In philosophy, constant conjunction is a relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined'' - Wikipedia

So you are not going to tell us whether you agree with Jerry Coyne that the jazz musician’s output was decided IN ADVANCE OF the jazz musician actually composing/performing? If you answer ”no, it is not decided in advance,” you disagree with fellow hard detrminist Coyne; and if you answer, “Yes, it is decided in advance,“ you disagree with what you just said upthread; and moreover, in that case, you and Coyne owe an answer to the question, “How can a mindless process like determinism, which describes but does not prescribe reality, compose a complex jazz piece even before the musician begins to think about it?”

What does the definition of determinism tell you? What does the compatibilist definition of determinism tell you?

It is not what I say or claim, but the terms and conditions of determinism as it is defined by compatibilists and philosophers.

If we have a deterministic world, whatever happens must happen as determined by the events of the system as they evolve without deviation.

If you dismiss determinism, that is another issue and another argument.

If you are arguing for compatibilism, you must accept determinism as compatibilists define it, Which means that the events of the world are on a set course.

''Determinism is an example: it alleges that all the seeming irregularities and spontaneities in the world are haunted by an omnipresent system of strict necessitation.'' - J. W. N. Watkins, "Between Analytic and Empirical," Philosophy, vol. 32, no. 121, p. 114:

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''

 

[Jarhyn]

non-chosen, internal mechanisms (the brain) that fix decisions, hence it is not a case of free will.

And yet again you fail to understand ANY of the compatibilist syntax.

The internal mechanisms of the brain are doing what is called "choosing", as in selecting one of many concrete objects, each of which is an "alternative", not because it "shall" be selected but rather it is so because of the simple presentation to the choice function, the presentation of which is part of what makes the determinant up.

The decision was literally an activation of a contingent mechanism.

Looking at the single choice of true/false by the gate on the agent of A AND B, it CAN return two distinct values, "True" and "false", contingent on the values of A and B. It is a singular choice made by determinants. It is responsible, not for "having become as it is", but for "being what it is where it is doing what it does". When it sees TRUE, TRUE of A and B, a decision is made to output TRUE, and there is freedom to TRUE; if B is false, B is a constraint o the system's freedom to yield TRUE, and there is freedom to FALSE, even if the charge has not yet reached the point where false is rendered.

These are literally discussions of the freedom of electrons, their liability to be pushed some direction and not another.

I can see why you wouldn't want to believe freedoms and wills apply to computational systems since computational systems reveal that you are wrong about what determinism is and you fail to understand that.

You are never going to "win". At best you can more deeply convince us of how irrationally religious you are about terms that you have never before in your life actually attempted to apply.

I can make, and prove of something that I make, what wills it holds, which of those wills are provisionally free which are constrained, which are environmentally constrained (not possible at all) and which are internally constrained (possible, should the choice be made). It's clearly language that allows discussion of freedom and wills in deterministic systems.

Despite having discussed this with you for years, plural at this point, you have yet to even recognize that the "free" will being discussed here is actually a state of a discrete process, and perhaps in fact the exact will people call as "consciousness" inappropriately: the will to generate and act on wills manufactured by "self" rather than "other". When that is satisfied we have "free will" and when it is violated we lack it. As such saying 'its not a case of Free Will' just reveals how lost you are: not-even-wrong.

Imagine a factory with three belts. One belt comes from a machine deep in the factory that creates and fills water bottles.

Another belt leads to a loading dock that where workers place water bottles from outside on the belt.

Each of these origination points belts feed to one or the other side of the third belt, which has a divider on it in the middle.

Further down this third belt is a bottle marking device, that marks the bottles as "from the factory" or "from outside".

Tell me, is the fact of "from outside" an illusion? Because this would mean that "free" and "not free" of a will sorting machine that takes into account the directionality of the interaction that presented the will are not in fact illusory, but real.

 

[pood]

Why are you still banging on about the 'big bang did not compose the music or design the cathedral' despite no-one making that claim?

You must understand that given the definition of determinism including your own, that all events evolve/unfold from initial conditions, star and galaxy formation, life on earth evolving from microbes to composers of music and architects grand structures over billions of years, and not that the 'big bang composed music,' and that had conditions (physics) been different at the beginning or events deviated at any point during the evolution of the universe, the world and life, there would be no humans, no composers, architects, artists or builders....?

It’s not I who is banging on about this, but you.

I quoted you saying it. It is right there in the quote. And you have said as much in the past.

You add your own twist to what is being said. At no time have I said or implied that the 'big bang composed music.'

That is your twist, your rationale, your means of dismissal regardless of all that has happened between the big bang and the evolution of humans capable of composing music.

A poor attempt at that.

Your entire hard determinism entails that our choices are decided BEFORE we make them — stretching like fallen dominoes all the way back to the Big Bang. Now it seems you are backtracking from that.

That is what determinism entails. Where decisions are made necessarily, therefore are decisions but are not choices.

It is not just I who define determinism as events evolving or unfolding without deviation, but compatibilists, including yourself.

''Just what I said it means, and what Hume said it means: “Constant conjunction.” - Pood.

Constant conjunction means that ''one event is invariably followed by the other''
.

But how about Jerry Coyne and his jazz musician? Coyne wrote: “A very large jazz musician accosted me afterward and asked me if he thought the extemporaneous jazz solos he played were actually determined in advance. When I said ‘yes,’ he got really mad and I was afraid he was going to hit me.” Coyne then takes the opportunity to name-drop Richard Dawkins stepping in to defuse the situation, but I guess he couldn’t help doing that since the Big Bang gave him no choice.

Oh, boy, musicians are able to write music because their brain, aptitude and skill enables them to write music. Neural architecture, not free will, is the means of their ability.

And of course, not everyone can do it, not because they lack 'free will' but that they may not have the inclination, aptitude, skill or training.

Now which is it? Do you agree, or disagree, with your fellow hard determinist, Jerry Coyne, that the jazz player’s solos were determined in advance? Jerry Coyne IS making the claim that the Big Bang composed the extemporaneous (even though it was extemporaneous!) jazz solo. Now you disagree?

You, and Coyne, continually mix up determinism with pre-determinism. They are not the same thing. However, if you are now willing to disavow Coyne’s claim, that would be progress.

You went in the wrong direction, insisting on things that are not relevant to the issue.

Not surprisingly, you didn’t answer any of my questions, and also gave a false definition of “constant conjunction.” It means, “effects reliably follow their causes,” and not that one effect INEVITABLY follows from a cause, as you would have it. OF course, SOME effect inevitably follows from a cause, but your own hard deterministic glass, unsupported by constant conjuction, is that any effect that follows a casue is INEVITABLBLE (necessarily true) and, of course, that is the same old modal fallacy you can’t get enough of.

All of your questions have been addressed over and over, only to have them repeated time and again as if nothing has been said.

Nor is the definition of constant conjunction something I came up with;

constant conjunction

''Two events A and B are constantly conjoined if whenever one occurs the other does. The constant conjunction theory of causation, often attributed to Hume, is that this relationship is what is meant by saying that the one causes the other,

''In philosophy, constant conjunction is a relationship between two events, where one event is invariably followed by the other: if the occurrence of A is always followed by B, A and B are said to be constantly conjoined'' - Wikipedia

So you are not going to tell us whether you agree with Jerry Coyne that the jazz musician’s output was decided IN ADVANCE OF the jazz musician actually composing/performing? If you answer ”no, it is not decided in advance,” you disagree with fellow hard detrminist Coyne; and if you answer, “Yes, it is decided in advance,“ you disagree with what you just said upthread; and moreover, in that case, you and Coyne owe an answer to the question, “How can a mindless process like determinism, which describes but does not prescribe reality, compose a complex jazz piece even before the musician begins to think about it?”

What does the definition of determinism tell you? What does the compatibilist definition of determinism tell you?

It is not what I say or claim, but the terms and conditions of determinism as it is defined by compatibilists and philosophers.

If we have a deterministic world, whatever happens must happen as determined by the events of the system as they evolve without deviation.

If you dismiss determinism, that is another issue and another argument.

If you are arguing for compatibilism, you must accept determinism as compatibilists define it, Which means that the events of the world are on a set course.

''Determinism is an example: it alleges that all the seeming irregularities and spontaneities in the world are haunted by an omnipresent system of strict necessitation.'' - J. W. N. Watkins, "Between Analytic and Empirical," Philosophy, vol. 32, no. 121, p. 114:

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''

And yet you STILL don’t answer the question!

Well, you gave a partial answer. The big bang didn’t compose the music. OK. So now I ask you again: Do you agree with your fellow hard determinist Jerry Coyne that the music was composed IN ADVANCE OF (Coyne‘s words) the musician ever even thinking about the music? If you agree with Coyne, then WHEN, and more importantly, HOW, was the music composed, IN ADVANCE of the musician thinking about it? If not the Big Bang, then what?

 

[pood]

The compatibilist definition fails to make a case because it ignores a critical element, that rather than will, or free will iit is non-chosen, internal mechanisms (the brain) that fix decisions, hence it is not a case of free will.

At this point I doubt it will matter much to point out what has been pointed out hundreds of times in the past, in this and the other threads.

The above is correct, the BRAIN fixes decisiions. Given that I am my brain, this means that *I* fix my decisions.

It’s pretty simple.

Antecedents and proclivities;

Proclivities:

''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

Since I am my cognitive states, I have all the control I need.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

Well, as a matter of fact, yes, we do. I can take classes and learn new proclivities, to take one very obvious example.

It’s true I have no control over my genetics or upbringing, but as already explained many times, this has no impact on compatiblism, which has no need of control over those things.

 

[DBT]

The compatibilist definition fails to make a case because it ignores a critical element, that rather than will, or free will iit is non-chosen, internal mechanisms (the brain) that fix decisions, hence it is not a case of free will.

At this point I doubt it will matter much to point out what has been pointed out hundreds of times in the past, in this and the other threads.

The above is correct, the BRAIN fixes decisiions. Given that I am my brain, this means that *I* fix my decisions.

It’s pretty simple.

If you mean that your self awareness and self identity is the work of 'your' brain, that is correct. But you overlook that the state of you and the nature of your decision making is not subject to your will. That your will is shaped, formed and expressed by the non chosen state and condition of the brain in any given instance of decision making.

The consequence of this is that we have will, but our will is not free.....and that the notion of free will is incompatible with a deterministic system.

Antecedents and proclivities;

Proclivities:

''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

Since I am my cognitive states, I have all the control I need.

Your will has no ability to alter decisions that are made prior to being brought to consciousness. The process of decision making is a matter of information exchange, not free will.

If antecedent conditions determine current states. determined actions are, by definition, not freely chosen actions.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

Well, as a matter of fact, yes, we do. I can take classes and learn new proclivities, to take one very obvious example.

You ignore that what you do is not exempt from the given terms and conditions of determinism.

You are trying to bypass the very definition of determinism that you gave.

Whatever new you learn must, as defined, be a part of the deterministic process and not outside of it.

Otherwise, you are trying to play it both ways.

It’s true I have no control over my genetics or upbringing, but as already explained many times, this has no impact on compatiblism, which has no need of control over those things.

As it has been explained numerous times why compatibilism fails to make a case.

Basically;
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


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

 

[Jarhyn]

But you overlook that the state of you and the nature of your decision making is not subject to your will.

But it is, such as when it is "my will", something come from a process of 'yes, I agree with this and accept/internalize/flag it as an acceptable will" vs when I come at it from a position of "I stand to reject this and will abandon it and betray those who forced me to do this at the earliest possible convenience."

Both of these are very real positions identifying very real qualities of the wills in question.

When I am practicing piano on my own, the nature of my decision making (which keys I hit, where I sit, whether I hit the keys in this case) is a matter of my will, my decision to do this. It is mine simply for the fact it is marled that way. To take the conveyor belt analogy, it is not an illusion that the bottle is on one physical side or the other on the belt. The marking is arbitrary, but it is also physically real and not illusory.

When I am practicing because my parents tell me I must lest some negative consequences be levelled, the will is marked very differently, as one to subvert and foil, not because it is bad to practice the piano, but because it is bad to let anyone get what they want through coercive means.

Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise...

Yes... Key note "could have acted otherwise if the decided had made a different decision due to having a different decision making process." It is exactly the fact that I am the one who contains the switch that in that moment that constrained the execution of some will that makes that true.

The existence of the contingent mechanism is what is important here. Nothing can change the existence of a real "filter" from filtering. Yet again, you don't seem to want to be

Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable

And it is fixed and unchangeable that if he had decided to do it, X would have occurred, and that the decision to not do it was calculated by he who decided, and not by anyone else.

When launching a trebuchet, all that force of the massive stone is held in stasis merely by a slip pin on the release. Things may be responsible for loading it, but the thing responsible, momentarily, in the release is the absence of the pin, no more or less. No other activities are aligned to participate responsibly in the release of the trebuchet but those which directly contribute to the vector against the pin.

You singing over there are not principally responsible for the pull on that rope. We can examine causality to see, in fact, led to the pulling on that pin. The pin is insulated and insensitive to all but a pull from that one direction.

It is not about the fact of "fixed and unchangeable" from what WILL happen, it's about the fact of "unfixed and changeable from what I originally planned to happen", because simulations of the hippocampus can actually be changed, and that is the arena wherein wills are generated, not "outer" reality.

Nobody here has been asking for multiple pasts, presents, and futures playing out parallel to our own; we already have different, but interrelated pasts, presents, and futures happening in literally every point in any distance at any direction in every moment. Your future is different from my future if only because your future happens at a different place in spacetime, even if we can both observe that these futures happen in a continuous and causally interrelated system.

No point has the same initial conditions as any other point. Reality, at least according to superdeterminism, is locally real, which means that all you need to do to see things happening differently than they do where you are is to look over that horizon at other stuff in other places being different but behaving by the same rules.

If free will is an illusion, so too must local realism be, since the idea of "local difference" itself would have to be an illusion.

I could accept that free will could in fact potentially be illusory only in such a situation as the universe were not locally real, but only to the extent that local realism fails.

 

[DBT]

But you overlook that the state of you and the nature of your decision making is not subject to your will.

But it is, such as when it is "my will", something come from a process of 'yes, I agree with this and accept/internalize/flag it as an acceptable will" vs when I come at it from a position of "I stand to reject this and will abandon it and betray those who forced me to do this at the earliest possible convenience."

You know that will comes into play late in the process of cognition as a prompt or urge to act. Will itself is shaped and formed prior to conscious experience and action.

Both of these are very real positions identifying very real qualities of the wills in question.

Nobody is denying that will plays a role in thought and action, just not as the executive decision maker. If determinism is true, will is, as with all events, fixed by its antecedents.

There are no exemptions., not will, not thought, not decisions, not actions.

By definition, the system must progress without deviation or alternatives.

To deny that is to deny your own definition of determinism.

I couldn't be bothered with the rest, which is just more repeats of the same fallacies.

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

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

You know that will comes into play late in the process of cognition as a prompt or urge to act

No, decoding of the process that creates it happens late in the game. The will itself is present long before actions ever occur, days weeks or even years in the making that plan is active, and the plan always comes before it.

You have never once in your life made a system that cogitates and prompts action, and nor have you spent a single moment of your life studying such systems, yet you claim intimate knowledge of it based on a study author who disagrees with your characterization of their research.

And yet hearing me tell you this you still don't understand why Politesse brings up Dunning-Kruger...