According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[pood]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

 

[DBT]

Sure, and you didn't orchestrate your own genetic makeup, where you were born, your family, culture, formative experiences....you know, all the things that make you who you are.

I know we’ve probably exhausted our exchanges, but I still remain curious why you stuff straw like this. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the compatibilist denies none of the above. The only modification I would add is that those aren’t the ONLY things that make you who you are — stuff that is happening right now can also contribute. The idea that we can proceed from this to the conclusion that I didn’t actually choose to have eggs for breakfast this morning is the big elephant of a non sequitur in the room.

Compatibalists deny the consequences that these things have for the notion of free will, where the compatibalist carefully crafts a definition of free will in order to circumnavigate the role that these things play in forming decisions and actions (determinism), where decisions are determined by the information state of the system in any given instance, and - despite the carefully crafted definition being presented by the compatibalist - has abolutely nothing to do with free will.

 

[DBT]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

Nah, understanding that adaptive or maladaptive behaviours are not a matter of free will but biology and life experiences can lead to better treatment for those who need it. I have quoted the studies numerous times.

 

[pood]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

Nah, understanding that adaptive or maladaptive behaviours are not a matter of free will but biology and life experiences can lead to better treatment for those who need it. I have quoted the studies numerous times.

Well, if someone tells me I didn’t actually choose what to have breakfast this morning, but a train of mindless circumstances dating to the Big Bang did, I am inclined to think that is very much a secular version of Calvinistic predestination.

 

[Jarhyn]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

Nah, understanding that adaptive or maladaptive behaviours are not a matter of free will but biology and life experiences can lead to better treatment for those who need it. I have quoted the studies numerous times.

Well, if someone tells me I didn’t actually choose what to have breakfast this morning, but a train of mindless circumstances dating to the Big Bang did, I am inclined to think that is very much a secular version of Calvinistic predestination.

Not to mention it looks away from this very specific and important fact: we can determine from the state of what they are and have been what they shall do given some eventually true precondition and change that thing from what it is into something that doesn't do that.

 

[DBT]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

Nah, understanding that adaptive or maladaptive behaviours are not a matter of free will but biology and life experiences can lead to better treatment for those who need it. I have quoted the studies numerous times.

Well, if someone tells me I didn’t actually choose what to have breakfast this morning, but a train of mindless circumstances dating to the Big Bang did, I am inclined to think that is very much a secular version of Calvinistic predestination.

To repeat the basics.

Our brains constantly makes decisions.

Decision making is not carried out on the basis of free will.

Neural architecture and life experience (memory function) is the agency of decision making.

Decisions and actions are presented in conscious form, feelings, thoughts and conscious will ( the drive or impulse to act) milliseconds after the initial inputs, memory integration and processing, Libet, Haynes, Haggard, Hallett, et al.

The behavioural output, be it adaptive or maladaptive is determined by the state of the system in any given moment of processing information, and not free will.

We do not get to choose the state of our brain or how it functions, yet we as conscious entities are the result of state of the brain.

Can't accept the reality of that? The evidence is against you.


Free Will as a Matter of Law

''This chapter confronts the issue of free will in neurolaw, rejecting one of the leading views of the relationship between free will and legal responsibility on the ground that the current system of legal responsibility likely emerged from outdated views about the mind, mental states, and free will. It challenges the compatibilist approach to law (in which free will and causal determinism can coexist). The chapter argues that those who initially developed the criminal law endorsed or presupposed views about mind and free will that modern neuroscience will aid in revealing as false. It then argues for the relevance of false presuppositions embedded in the original development of the criminal law in judging whether to revise or maintain the current system. In doing so, the chapter shares the view that neuroscientific developments will change the way we think about criminal responsibility.''


On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.

Free will?

Hardly.

 

[Jarhyn]

Decision making is not carried out on the basis of free will.

The calculation of the degrees of freedom of particular wills is very clearly how decision making is made.

If I could not calculate the relative degrees of freedom of my body, I could not calculate that I can jump over the lazy dog, but not the candle stick, cleanly, and thus I would attempt the candle stick and fail.

I don't end up sitting on the candle stick as it were. Therefore free will.

I didn't decide to not want to sit on candle sticks. I didn't decide to be shitty at jumping over them. But I did decide to not try on account of those facts.

 

[pood]

Re, GenesisNemsis, it spills out into ideology and religion, 'our God given free will' to choose or reject God, to choose good or evil. In law, how we treat what may be damaged people, those who literally cannot feel empathy or understand the consequences of their actions, and so on.....with some, the very idea of free will takes on the tone of a religion, an emotional attachment to an ideal.

Same for hard determinism.

Nah, understanding that adaptive or maladaptive behaviours are not a matter of free will but biology and life experiences can lead to better treatment for those who need it. I have quoted the studies numerous times.

Well, if someone tells me I didn’t actually choose what to have breakfast this morning, but a train of mindless circumstances dating to the Big Bang did, I am inclined to think that is very much a secular version of Calvinistic predestination.

To repeat the basics.

Our brains constantly makes decisions.

Right. And we are our brains. Do you disagree with that? If not, what you are saying is, “We constantly make decisions.” I agree.

Decision making is not carried out on the basis of free will.

So you say.

Neural architecture and life experience (memory function) is the agency of decision making.

Yes. Compatibilists are fine with that.

Decisions and actions are presented in conscious form, feelings, thoughts and conscious will ( the drive or impulse to act) milliseconds after the initial inputs, memory integration and processing, Libet, Haynes, Haggard, Hallett, et al.

And here you go again. It’s why discussing this with you is largely a waste of time, though perhaps others derive information from the exchanges. You have once again misrepresented Libet’s study, and you continue to do so no matter how many times you have been corrected on this. Moreover, you continue to misrepresent Libet’s own conclusions about his study, despite being corrected on that many times as well. Finally, you completely ignored a LATER replication of Libet’s study, a discussion of which I posted upthread, which disagreed with Libet’s results and found that decisions were in fact made by the brain at the time respondents reported themselves conscious. If you want to continue to ignore data that refutes your claims, you are not discussing in good faith. But finally, as also repeatedly noted, that some decisions may be processed and made subconsciously poses no problem for compatibilism, though it is problematic for libertarians. But again as you have been repeatedly reminded, no one here, that I know of, is espousing contra-causal free will — though there may be in fact some effective defenses of it.

The behavioural output, be it adaptive or maladaptive is determined by the state of the system in any given moment of processing information, and not free will.

The state of the system is our brain making decisions, and since our brain is us, then we are making decisions.

We do not get to choose the state of our brain or how it functions, yet we as conscious entities are the result of state of the brain.

“We do not get to choose the state of our brain” is true to some extent, untrue in other respects. If I choose to get an education, I am choosing to rewire the state of my brain to learn and know more things.

Can't accept the reality of that? The evidence is against you.

On the contrary, you are the one failing to accept, or ignore, reality. The reality is against you.

Free Will as a Matter of Law

''This chapter confronts the issue of free will in neurolaw, rejecting one of the leading views of the relationship between free will and legal responsibility on the ground that the current system of legal responsibility likely emerged from outdated views about the mind, mental states, and free will. It challenges the compatibilist approach to law (in which free will and causal determinism can coexist). The chapter argues that those who initially developed the criminal law endorsed or presupposed views about mind and free will that modern neuroscience will aid in revealing as false. It then argues for the relevance of false presuppositions embedded in the original development of the criminal law in judging whether to revise or maintain the current system. In doing so, the chapter shares the view that neuroscientific developments will change the way we think about criminal responsibility.''


On the neurology of morals
Patients with medial prefrontal lesions often display irresponsible behavior, despite being intellectually unimpaired. But similar lesions occurring in early childhood can also prevent the acquisition of factual knowledge about accepted standards of moral behavior.

Free will?

Hardly.

Quoting stuff you glommed off t he web is never persuasive, because I can find another set of wholly competent experts who will disagree with the above. As to the lesions bit, damaged brains will behave differently from undamaged ones, because the brain is the person and so the person him or herself is damaged. A brain that is so damaged it is dead can’t make any decisions at all, can it?

 

[pood]

delete double post

 

[pood]

Hard determinism holds that determinism is true, and free will is incompatible with it. The idea is that we don’t really have the freedom to choose anything at all, because every chain of events has exactly ONE possible outcome.

The compatibilist says that while determinism is true, free will is compatible with it. This is the gist of this discussion.

However, putting free will to one side, we should focus on the question: Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

So the determinist — again, putting free will to one side — needs to explain how determinism squares with the Born Rule, which shows that for every chain of events, there is more than once possible outcome. The probabilities of one outcome or another can be calculated, but the fact that there is more than one possible outcome for every chain of events is wholly incompatible with determinism itself, never mind hard determinism.

Perhaps DBT can discuss this.

 

[The AntiChris]

Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

Where are you going with this? Are you suggesting that indeterminism justifies a belief in free will?

Compatibilist free will (as exemplified by Marvin Edwards in his thread "Compatibilism: What's that About?") actually requires Adequate Determinism.

 

[DBT]

Hard determinism holds that determinism is true, and free will is incompatible with it. The idea is that we don’t really have the freedom to choose anything at all, because every chain of events has exactly ONE possible outcome.

Compatibilists hold determinism to be true, where they carefully construct a definition of free to make the idea of free appear compatible with their given definition of free will

The compatibilist says that while determinism is true, free will is compatible with it. This is the gist of this discussion.

Yes, giving a carefully worded definition of free will while dismissing the obvious flaws.

However, putting free will to one side, we should focus on the question: Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

So the determinist — again, putting free will to one side — needs to explain how determinism squares with the Born Rule, which shows that for every chain of events, there is more than once possible outcome. The probabilities of one outcome or another can be calculated, but the fact that there is more than one possible outcome for every chain of events is wholly incompatible with determinism itself, never mind hard determinism.

Perhaps DBT can discuss this.

Been done to death. Determinism, as the compatibilist defines it, does not permit any alternate action to be taken in any given instance because if any option can be taken at any old time, it's not determinism as the compatibilist defines it to be....and you are invoking Libertarian free will and trying to pass it off as compatibilism.

It's not only flawed, it's dishonest.

 

[Jarhyn]

if any option can be taken at any old time, it's not determinism as the compatibilist defines it to be....

No, it's determinism, you just fail to understand what "can" means.

Can means "can, if I were to choose". "Can" in fact requires some unstated (if(condition)). Even if you don't see it, you can assume it's implied.

Again, contingency statements do not need the (condition) of (if(condition)) to be true for the IF statement to indeed encode facts about the shape of stuff.

"Can" as a fact exists irrespective of the state of (condition).

Let's look at a physical instantion of "can blow your foot off if you step on it"

Do you want any object encoding "can blow your foot off if you step on it" to exist anywhere on "the open floor space of a high traffic zone of your house"?

Does the presence of (condition) matter to you? If you never step on it you never step on it. Why worry about it? Or are you going to respond to the IF part, by removing the "possibility", the actual physical configuration of stuff that is the landmine?

 

[pood]

Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

Where are you going with this? Are you suggesting that indeterminism justifies a belief in free will?

Compatibilist free will (as exemplified by Marvin Edwards in his thread "Compatibilism: What's that About?") actually requires Adequate Determinism.

I’m not talking about free will. I want to focus the discussion for the moment on determinism. If determinism is not true, then neither hard determinism nor soft determinism (compatibilism) is true, because both require determinism to be true. The question of whether free will in some form is compatible with indeterminism is a separate question. And yes, there is a form that is compatible with indeterminism. It’s called libertarianism.

 

[pood]

Hard determinism holds that determinism is true, and free will is incompatible with it. The idea is that we don’t really have the freedom to choose anything at all, because every chain of events has exactly ONE possible outcome.

Compatibilists hold determinism to be true, where they carefully construct a definition of free to make the idea of free appear compatible with their given definition of free will

The compatibilist says that while determinism is true, free will is compatible with it. This is the gist of this discussion.

Yes, giving a carefully worded definition of free will while dismissing the obvious flaws.

However, putting free will to one side, we should focus on the question: Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

So the determinist — again, putting free will to one side — needs to explain how determinism squares with the Born Rule, which shows that for every chain of events, there is more than once possible outcome. The probabilities of one outcome or another can be calculated, but the fact that there is more than one possible outcome for every chain of events is wholly incompatible with determinism itself, never mind hard determinism.

Perhaps DBT can discuss this.

Been done to death. Determinism, as the compatibilist defines it, does not permit any alternate action to be taken in any given instance because if any option can be taken at any old time, it's not determinism as the compatibilist defines it to be....and you are invoking Libertarian free will and trying to pass it off as compatibilism.

It's not only flawed, it's dishonest.

No, please try to read what I write, including my recent post just above. I wrote, putting free will to one side … I would like to focus on whether determinism is true at all. If it’s not, then yes, we move to libertarianism. However, I’m not conflating the two, but rather pointing out that free will can be adduced as compatibilism in the domain of determinism, but if indeterminism is true, we need to consider whether libertarianism is possible. Please stop charging me with dishonesty. Instead, learn to read better.

 

[pood]

And now, after hopefully clearing that up, perhaps DBT can address the Born rule.

 

[pood]

But, to press the point further, DBT is making the claim that if determinism is true, only one outcome is possible in any given chain of events. I and others have taken pains to point out that this is not true — while it’s true that only one outcome WILL happen, that particular outcome nevertheless is, was, and always will be, contingent. His confusing contingency with necessity is his repeated lapse into the modal fallacy. But now I am challenging his claim at the root — challenging his defense of determinism itself, while putting aside his modal fallacy flaw. The difference between determinism and indeterminism in this context is as follows: Given the exact same antecedent chain of events, we would — if we could somehow replay that chain of events — expect an identical outcome. Under indeterminism, we would expect, if we could replay the exact same chain of events, different outcomes, in conformance with the Born rule.

 

[Jarhyn]

Is determinism actually true? For if it is not, the hard determinist position already collapses, because it’s, well, deterministic.

Where are you going with this? Are you suggesting that indeterminism justifies a belief in free will?

Compatibilist free will (as exemplified by Marvin Edwards in his thread "Compatibilism: What's that About?") actually requires Adequate Determinism.

I’m not talking about free will. I want to focus the discussion for the moment on determinism. If determinism is not true, then neither hard determinism nor soft determinism (compatibilism) is true, because both require determinism to be true. The question of whether free will in some form is compatible with indeterminism is a separate question. And yes, there is a form that is compatible with indeterminism. It’s called libertarianism.

Well, compatibilism can still be correct even if the universe has pure probabilistic events: nothing I've discussed in particular is broken by a lack of determinism; relatively deterministic facts about events in aggregate cause the same outcome.

My position is that compatibilism is compatible with either outcome, so long as some manner of deterministic causality can be recognized "across" the dice rolls.

It is the repeatability and the predictability of contingent mechanisms that create responsibility.

In an indeterministic universe, it's indeterminate whether you chose or whether some accident happened. You can blame God or the devil or the luck of the draw, instead of yourself.

The compatibilist accepts that the universe can have indeterministic events, it is just that the indeterministic part, absent some "sufficiently large-numbered coincidence smoother", actually does the opposite of creating "responsible free will".

 

[pood]

I have to add, too, that it’s really ironic for DBT to accuse me of conflating libertarianism with compatibilism, which I did not do for reasons explained above, when in fact he has presented so many arguments from others against compatibilism which, when examined closely, were actually arguments against libertarianism..

 

[pood]

In an indeterministic universe, it's indeterminate whether you chose or whether some accident happened. You can blame God or the devil or the luck of the draw, instead of yourself.

But is that really true? That’s what I’m interested in discussing — whether libertarianism holds in an indeterministic world. I think a strong argument can be made that it does, and an equally strong argument can be made the the world is fundamentally non-determinstic, although this also depends on which interpretation of quantum mechanics you subscribe to, or on whether superdeterminism is true, which Sabine Hossenfelder argues is not an interpretation of QM but rather a replacement theory.