According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Jarhyn]

internal conditions also place constraints on free will, that you must necessarily 'will' what is willed and do what is determined by elements beyond your access or control in your brain.

Yes. We are talking about will, not randomness. I make decisions based on stuff happening in my brain, and on inputs from my senses.

To label this process as 'free will' is absurd compatiblism.

FTFY.

We already know that you (incorrectly) consider compatiblism to be absurd; But you might want to note that shreiking "It's absurd! It's absurd", does not, even when dressed up in flowery prose, constitute an argument, nor evidence, for your position.

Humans are absurd. They make decisions, in accordance with their experiences, senses, and memories. It matters not one whit whether this will of theirs is deterministic, as long as it is both unpredictable and entirely their own, it is their own free will.

It justifies their punishment for bad decisions, and their reward for good ones. People are the decisions they make.

Even if the will is predictable, it doesn't matter, because a prediction is ONLY prediction and the prediction itself can influence the result as long as it's visible: you couldn't predict the future to me where I kill my father and fuck my mother because I would die before I killed and fucked anyone, fates be damned. Perhaps spitting in the eye of fate costs me my life but so be it to free the world from nonsense! The only true future that the oracle could possibly predict is the one which I would choose for myself anyway, even knowing it.

 

[DBT]

internal conditions also place constraints on free will, that you must necessarily 'will' what is willed and do what is determined by elements beyond your access or control in your brain.

Yes. We are talking about will, not randomness. I make decisions based on stuff happening in my brain, and on inputs from my senses.

To label this process as 'free will' is absurd compatiblism.

FTFY.

We already know that you (incorrectly) consider compatiblism to be absurd; But you might want to note that shreiking "It's absurd! It's absurd", does not, even when dressed up in flowery prose, constitute an argument, nor evidence, for your position.

Humans are absurd. They make decisions, in accordance with their experiences, senses, and memories. It matters not one whit whether this will of theirs is deterministic, as long as it is both unpredictable and entirely their own, it is their own free will.

It justifies their punishment for bad decisions, and their reward for good ones. People are the decisions they make.

Even if the will is predictable, it doesn't matter, because a prediction is ONLY prediction and the prediction itself can influence the result as long as it's visible: you couldn't predict the future to me where I kill my father and fuck my mother because I would die before I killed and fucked anyone, fates be damned. Perhaps spitting in the eye of fate costs me my life but so be it to free the world from nonsense! The only true future that the oracle could possibly predict is the one which I would choose for myself anyway, even knowing it.

It's not that it's predicable, but that it is fixed. Will is fixed, set, determined by antecedents. Which means that all the events of the past bring you to the point where in any given instance of action you inevitably make that decision and that decision alone. To claim that an action’s production by a deterministic process is an example of free will is patently absurd

Definition of freedom
1: the quality or state of being free: such as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action - Merriam Webster

 

[DBT]

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.

That's great. Nobody here disagrees that that could well be true of all events in our universe.

It's a matter of the consequences for the notion of free will. Given that each and every action, including what happens within the brain is fixed at every point as the system evolves without deviation or the possibility of an alternate choice, the consequences for the notion of free will do not look good.

The problem for hard determinists is that it's not useful to know that A always leads to B, unless we know what A is with sufficient precision to determine what B is.

Compatibilists are determinists. Nor do you need to know that A always leads to be for that to be the way the system works. It happens regardless. It happens if we are unaware or unconscious of what brought us to the point where we inevitably do whatever must necessarily happen. We are not aware that what we do is inevitable, we just think about things and do them under the illusion that we could have done something differently.

A human brain makes decisions; The ONLY way to predict those decisions is to wait for them to happen.

As they must.

*I will go out on a limb, here, and suggest that, although I don't have any idea how many neurons (or atoms, or sub-atomic particles), you have in your brain, the number in all cases is likely greater than three.

Wow, nice. I am glad of that.

 

[Jarhyn]

Will is fixed, set, determined by antecedents.

Will is not "affixed" until it has been (note the present tense) determined by the antecedents.

The program is not written until I write it, and when it is written, it has been written by me.

It is not "patently absurd" to note "it came in that moment from me".

If I have a city on the border of a secure country, and a messenger comes in through the gate from the capital, this presents a different notion than a messenger coming in from the foreign gate.

There is nothing patently absurd about that. It's a matter of determinism, in fact.

The argument of the compatibilist is that "which gate the messenger comes in through is a real and recognizable difference".

The language that handles this, when this metaphor would be applied to the mind, is "free will", the will to maintain internal autonomy: clearly it's not absurd to recognize where the messenger (and where the message) came from.

When it's coming as a result of what the "inside" necessitates we say this is "by free will" because we need a general shorthand for when that's happening.

It's the locality of the thing that's being discussed, and deterministic physics has no problem with locality and relativity and multiple reference frames existing simultaneously.

 

[bilby]

It's not that it's predicable, but that it is fixed. Will is fixed, set, determined by antecedents.

What does that even mean, when it is unknown? What does it mean, when many of those antecedents are internal states of the decider?

Even crude mechanical systems make decisions. An eroding cliff decides when to eject a particular rock, based on a huge range of factors that are unpredictable in advance. All sufficiently complex systems make decisions. If the system exceeds a certain degree of feedback, or self-reference, we call those decisions "will".

Just as there is no hard line between "life" and "non-life", so there is no hard line between "intelligent" and "non-intelligent"; But one defining trait of intelligence is willful (ie internally driven) decision making.

 

[bilby]

It's a matter of the consequences for the notion of free will. Given that each and every action, including what happens within the brain is fixed at every point as the system evolves without deviation or the possibility of an alternate choice, the consequences for the notion of free will do not look good.

Only if you define free will as a libertarian does.

From a compatibilist perspective, you haven't said anything worrisome or controversial at all.

Will is free if the agent making decisions is not under duress. And a decision is made when a system, that cannot be beaten to a final result, outputs that decision.

If the fastest possible way to calculate the result is to have the decider move forward in time to the point where the result is made apparent, then we say that the result is "the will" of the decider.

 

[DBT]

It's not that it's predicable, but that it is fixed. Will is fixed, set, determined by antecedents.

What does that even mean, when it is unknown? What does it mean, when many of those antecedents are internal states of the decider?

As long as the world is deterministic, the antecedents don't have to be known, they happen as determined regardless of whether we are aware or unconscious. Most of the brains activity is unconscious.

Even crude mechanical systems make decisions. An eroding cliff decides when to eject a particular rock, based on a huge range of factors that are unpredictable in advance. All sufficiently complex systems make decisions. If the system exceeds a certain degree of feedback, or self-reference, we call those decisions "will".

Sure, we call it will, and that's fair enough. We have will, but can it be defined as 'free will?'

Considering the terms and conditions of determinism, I would say it is not. The brain is an information processor, a rational system, we possess will, but it is not free will. Given determinism, it is inevitable will.


''Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.'' - Schopenhauer

In other words: inevitable will.

Just as there is no hard line between "life" and "non-life", so there is no hard line between "intelligent" and "non-intelligent"; But one defining trait of intelligence is willful (ie internally driven) decision making.

Sure, inevitably.

 

[DBT]

It's a matter of the consequences for the notion of free will. Given that each and every action, including what happens within the brain is fixed at every point as the system evolves without deviation or the possibility of an alternate choice, the consequences for the notion of free will do not look good.

Only if you define free will as a libertarian does.

That's another issue. Both libertarian free will and Compatibilism fail for different reasons. Compatibilism fails because its definition of free will doesn't fully account for determinism, where selected external elements are used, absence of force or coercion, yet that all actions, brain states, thoughts, deliberation, etc, are fixed by antecedents (as defined) is ignored or brushed aside.

From a compatibilist perspective, you haven't said anything worrisome or controversial at all.

Ignoring the means and mechanisms thought and action is controversial. Which is why some folks are incompatibilists.
Focussing on external necessity, force, coercion, while ignoring internal necessity, action production by a deterministic process, is the point of contention.

Will is free if the agent making decisions is not under duress. And a decision is made when a system, that cannot be beaten to a final result, outputs that decision.

That still ignores inner necessity, where whatever thought and done is set by a deterministic process. It's hardly something that could be labelled as free will.

”If the neurobiology level is causally sufficient to determine your behavior, then the fact that you had the experience of freedom at the higher level is really irrelevant.” - John Searle.

If the fastest possible way to calculate the result is to have the decider move forward in time to the point where the result is made apparent, then we say that the result is "the will" of the decider.

The 'decider' is the system as a whole. The world and the environment and us, where how events - if deterministic - evolve from past to present and future states of the system.

''Determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.''

 

[The AntiChris]

Compatibilism fails because its definition of free will doesn't fully account for determinism,

It does.

where selected external elements are used, absence of force or coercion,

This is how compatibilist free will is defined.

The reason you find this definition unsatisfactory is because you don't understand compatibilism and appear only to be able to think of free will in terms of libertarian free will

Until you understand that libertarian and compatibilist free will address totally different questions you'll continue to argue against a strawman version of compatibilism.

 

[bilby]

The 'decider' is the system as a whole. The world and the environment and us, where how events - if deterministic - evolve from past to present and future states of the system.

This is just a verbose way of saying "people are part of the universe".

It does not follow that the universe but not the person is the entity making a decision.

 

[pood]

The 'decider' is the system as a whole. The world and the environment and us, where how events - if deterministic - evolve from past to present and future states of the system.

This is just a verbose way of saying "people are part of the universe".

It does not follow that the universe but not the person is the entity making a decision.

That’s the thing, and the question he keeps dodging, though he seems to imagine he answered it. What wrote the jazz score? What designed the great building? What wrote the great novel? The universe? the big bang? How did it do that? At last Jerry Coyne forthrightly said that the jazz score was not written by the jazz musician, and when he told him that, the musician got mad at him. And who can blame him?

 

[bilby]

Jerry Coyne forthrightly said that the jazz score was not written by the jazz musician, and when he told him that, the musician Big Bang got mad at him itself. And who can blame him?

FTFY.

 

[pood]

I just cannot even imagine someone thinking that a musician composing a jazz score or an architect designing a building has no more agency, no more control, then a rock rolling down a hill. “Hard determinism” is just as much magical thinking as god belief.

 

[Politesse]

I just cannot even imagine someone thinking that a musician composing a jazz score or an architect designing a building has no more agency, no more control, then a rock rolling down a hill. “Hard determinism” is just as much magical thinking as god belief.

That's what you get for letting your amygdala drive. Personally I find "and then magic happens" to be a less interesting explanation than the actual intricate architecture of the nervous system, in all cases. How are miracles occurring without any real explanation more "miraculous" than the same ends being accomplished by tangible, explicable means, about which it is always possible to learn more?

I disagree that determinism requires a lack of agency, though. Miracle-working is not a prerequisite to agency, nor is there any reason to suppose it would be.

 

[pood]

Determinism does not require a lack of agency. HARD determinism does. Compatibilists are determinists.

 

[DBT]

The 'decider' is the system as a whole. The world and the environment and us, where how events - if deterministic - evolve from past to present and future states of the system.

This is just a verbose way of saying "people are part of the universe".

It does not follow that the universe but not the person is the entity making a decision.

That’s the thing, and the question he keeps dodging, though he seems to imagine he answered it. What wrote the jazz score? What designed the great building? What wrote the great novel? The universe? the big bang? How did it do that? At last Jerry Coyne forthrightly said that the jazz score was not written by the jazz musician, and when he told him that, the musician got mad at him. And who can blame him?

That's not it at all. Not even close. Being a part of the universe does not equate to free will.

Acting according to one's will does not equate to free will. It does not equate to free will because will is related to action, where you may feel both the urge to indulge in something at the same time as the urge to refrain because it is harmful in some way.

What you guys dodge is that action production by a deterministic process is not a matter of free will.

That if the world is deterministic - and compatibilists are determinists - all actions are produced by deterministic processes, which includes everything that happens within a brain, where every thought decision and action is produced by a deterministic process that is not freely willed, therefore has nothing to do with free will.

That is the point at which compatibilism fails as an argument.

 

[DBT]

Compatibilism fails because its definition of free will doesn't fully account for determinism,

It does.

Given its definition of free will, acting without being forced or coerced, Compatibilism neglects to account for inner necessity; that every action is produced by deterministic processes, which are not subject to will, wish or desire....on the contrary, will is fixed, set, determined by that process. Consequently, compatibilism fails to take into account the inconvenient fact that all actions, including will, are produced by a deterministic, evolving process.

where selected external elements are used, absence of force or coercion,

This is how compatibilist free will is defined.

Sure, it's carefully worded in order to give the impression of a valid definition of free will in relation to determinism ,

The definition is a flawed foundation for an argument for free will, an argument where none exists. The argument fails because all actions within a deterministic system are produced by a process, the evolution of the system from past to present and future states with no deviation or freedom of will, where will and action must happen as determined.


Definition of freedom
1: the quality or state of being free: such as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action - Merriam Webster

Determinism is not the absence of necessity. The opposite is true, it's a system where each and every action that happens, necessarily happens as determined, where there is no choice in action.

The reason you find this definition unsatisfactory is because you don't understand compatibilism and appear only to be able to think of free will in terms of libertarian free will

It's not that I find it unsatisfactory, but that it doesn't relate to the role of will or how is formed.

Again; ''Wanting to do X is fully determined by prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X.''

So, if determined, not only is there nothing to prevent the person from doing what he wants, he in fact cannot do otherwise, the action must proceed as determined.

Where both the wanting and the doing is inevitable.

That is not free will. It is the reason why the compatibilist definition fails.

Until you understand that libertarian and compatibilist free will address totally different questions you'll continue to argue against a strawman version of compatibilism.

Compatibilism is the issue here. Libertarian free will fails for other reasons. The point being, freedom of will is incompatible with determinism, probabilistic systems, or random events.

The brain is rational system that doesn't work according to will, be it labelled as 'free' or not.

An ideology for some, a cherished concept for others, free will is an illusion.

 

[The AntiChris]

That is not free will.

You state this as though it were fact. It's not. It's just your (and others') dogmatic belief.

Word meaning doesn't work like this. Meanings are not determined according to personal preferences. Meanings are determined by usage.

Where a word or phrase has more than one common usage, no single use is either "right" or "wrong".

Surely you understand this?

 

[Jarhyn]

Acting according to one's will does not equate to free will.

Acting specifically according to one's own will is exactly "having free will" in that moment in which the action accords to one's own will.

That's how it's defined under compatibilism. Any more technical definition, within compatibilism, must satisfy that requirement.

That is the first and ONLY requirement and expectation any compatibilist has of the concept: that we have the power to act according to our own will (and as corrolary, to identify and reject actions that do not so accord), and as a result to have been responsible for acting according to that specific will.

Responsibility is about the fact that effective response may be rendered to ongoing situations which produce wills that produce actions that, as above, do not accord to our wills.

And I will return to my earlier statements about wills being algorithms and algorithms having both provisional and true freedoms (and constraints) by pointing out that "acting according to one's will" is equivalent here to "acting according to one's own plans" which is equivalent to "acting according to one's own internal algorithm for action"...

 

[pood]

The 'decider' is the system as a whole. The world and the environment and us, where how events - if deterministic - evolve from past to present and future states of the system.

This is just a verbose way of saying "people are part of the universe".

It does not follow that the universe but not the person is the entity making a decision.

That’s the thing, and the question he keeps dodging, though he seems to imagine he answered it. What wrote the jazz score? What designed the great building? What wrote the great novel? The universe? the big bang? How did it do that? At last Jerry Coyne forthrightly said that the jazz score was not written by the jazz musician, and when he told him that, the musician got mad at him. And who can blame him?

That's not it at all. Not even close. Being a part of the universe does not equate to free will.

Acting according to one's will does not equate to free will. It does not equate to free will because will is related to action, where you may feel both the urge to indulge in something at the same time as the urge to refrain because it is harmful in some way.

What you guys dodge is that action production by a deterministic process is not a matter of free will.

That if the world is deterministic - and compatibilists are determinists - all actions are produced by deterministic processes, which includes everything that happens within a brain, where every thought decision and action is produced by a deterministic process that is not freely willed, therefore has nothing to do with free will.

That is the point at which compatibilism fails as an argument.

And yet you still can’t tell me where the jazz score came from.