According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Politesse]

I am making no argument for or against free will (a concept which I have always found to be too nebulous and ill defined to reasonably discuss at all). I do think you are wrong about describing human behavior as intrinsically different from that of a boulder or any other natural phenomena due to this thing you are calling "choice", whether or not you consider that an exercise of "free will". Choice is a way to frame human behavior, but it is a question of perception and interpretation, ultimately a cultural production, and not descriptively useful.

 

[DBT]

I will provisonally assume that the boulder is incapable of volition or choice.

Entirely reasonable.

When I see a human walking down a hill, I see a person who meanders all over the place, or at least is capable of doing so if he or she chooses, based on the repeated performances of other humans.

This is not as reasonable, How did you "see a person who ... is capable of meandering all over the place"? You can only observe what the person did, not what you believe they might have done instead. If we're going to instead compare different humans to determine whether there are consistent patterns of behavior that might act as accurate predictors of their "choices", that would be quite reasonable. If, deep down, you believe that human behavior is consistent enough for the principles of uniformitarianism and inference to apply to us. I do. Ergo I reject the notion of "free" will. We are very much like boulders, except that it upsets us to have it pointed out that we are confined by natural laws, whereas boulders lack an amygdala and cannot feel anything of the sort.

I wonder how “natural laws” “confine us.” Are these “laws” handed down by God, or a supreme cosmic legislature, or ….? There are no “natural laws.” There are, rather descriptions of how the world goes — Newton’s “laws” are really descriptions of reality. Some descriptions hold universally, others do not. So neither we nor a boulder are “confined” by “natural laws.” Rather, a boulder is observed to travel the path of least resistance (Newton) while humans are observed to meander all over the place. The difference is stark, because human behavior is volitional.

Obviously 'natural laws' just refers to physics, the way the world works, cause and effect. Natural law is not imposed. It's not decreed by God. It's not the world forcing its will or ways upon us, but matter of the properties of matter/energy, physics, gravity, cause and effect.

Causal determinism being the foundation of compatibilism. The assertion that free will is compatible with determinism.

The compatibilist definition claims that decisions and actions which are not forced or coerced are examples of free will.

That definition fails because it ignores the nature of cognition, that it is the non chosen state and condition of a brain that determines what is felt, thought, decided and done in any given instance, not 'free will'


''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. ''

 

[pood]

For heaven's sake, saying ''determinism does not restrict our actions'' demonstrates that despite everything that has been explained, you still don't understand determinism.

I think it is you who misunderstands. Determinism makes our actions possible in the first place. That’s not a restriction, that’s a sine qua non.

A hint, actions that are determined are performed without hinderance or restriction, quite freely,

Right. That’s conpatibilism!

it's just that nothing else could have happened, no alternate actions possible.

And that’s where I say you go wrong.

As I mentioned upthread, we are discussing states of affairs that are unempirical. That is, while I can observe someone ordering a cup of coffee, I cannot replay the event with all the same antecedents stretching back to the Big Bang and then see if he orders coffee again. You say his ordering coffee was “necessitated,” but I simply point out you have no way of knowing this because you can’t run a scientific test on the proposition. However, it’s more than that, and I’ve explained this previously many times as well. As I stated upthread, if you could run the above experiment, indeed run it many times again and again, and the person always orders coffee, that would not trouble the compatibilist at all. The compatibilist would continue to deny, with the force of logic on his/her side, that the person’s ordering coffee was necessary. Yet your whole argument turns on this mythical necessity, which, as I also explained in the other threads, is a standard modal fallacy. Since I can conceive the person not ordering coffee and I can do so without producing a logical contradiction, it follows that the person’s ordering coffee was a contingent act — and that just means, per definition, it could have been otherwise.

 

[pood]

To amplify on the above point, every time I turn on a beam of light, and measure its velocity, it is always c in a vacuum, and this is true regardless of relative motion.

It would nevertheless be a mistake to conclude that c is necessary, no matter how many times it manifests itself.

Now something else: the Schrödinger equation tells us that when we measure a quantum spin state, we get — both outcomes.

In real life we ignore this because when we run the experiment, we never get both outcomes, only one or the other — spin Up, or spin Down. And the probability of getting one or the other is indeterministically 50/50, as opposed to a coin toss, which is deterministically 50/50.

But MWI tells us we really do get both outcomes, and that the whole world is like this.

We don’t know if MWI is true or false. But if it’s true, then our coffee drinker mooted above, given the exact same set of antecedents stretching back to the big bang, both orders coffee, and does not order coffee. With the identical history!

Out of curiosity, if MWI is true — and it might be, we don’t know — what does that do to hard determinism?

 

[pood]

I will provisonally assume that the boulder is incapable of volition or choice.

Entirely reasonable.

When I see a human walking down a hill, I see a person who meanders all over the place, or at least is capable of doing so if he or she chooses, based on the repeated performances of other humans.

This is not as reasonable, How did you "see a person who ... is capable of meandering all over the place"? You can only observe what the person did, not what you believe they might have done instead. If we're going to instead compare different humans to determine whether there are consistent patterns of behavior that might act as accurate predictors of their "choices", that would be quite reasonable. If, deep down, you believe that human behavior is consistent enough for the principles of uniformitarianism and inference to apply to us. I do. Ergo I reject the notion of "free" will. We are very much like boulders, except that it upsets us to have it pointed out that we are confined by natural laws, whereas boulders lack an amygdala and cannot feel anything of the sort.

I wonder how “natural laws” “confine us.” Are these “laws” handed down by God, or a supreme cosmic legislature, or ….? There are no “natural laws.” There are, rather descriptions of how the world goes — Newton’s “laws” are really descriptions of reality. Some descriptions hold universally, others do not. So neither we nor a boulder are “confined” by “natural laws.” Rather, a boulder is observed to travel the path of least resistance (Newton) while humans are observed to meander all over the place. The difference is stark, because human behavior is volitional.

Obviously 'natural laws' just refers to physics, the way the world works, cause and effect. Natural law is not imposed. It's not decreed by God. It's not the world forcing its will or ways upon us, but matter of the properties of matter/energy, physics, gravity, cause and effect.

Causal determinism being the foundation of compatibilism. The assertion that free will is compatible with determinism.

The compatibilist definition claims that decisions and actions which are not forced or coerced are examples of free will.

That definition fails because it ignores the nature of cognition, that it is the non chosen state and condition of a brain that determines what is felt, thought, decided and done in any given instance, not 'free will'


''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. ''

I agree basic desert is problematic for compatibilists. I’m no fan of retributivie justice.

 

[Jarhyn]

per definition, it could have been otherwise.

I think this is the big thing here, the fact that the compatibilist acknowledges the existence of the artifact that is the "possibility" as presented to a choice function.

Possibility is always contingent on some "if". Of course, I can make an "if" exist as a concrete machine. I can and have made many material instantiations of "if".

"If" is one of the first things a computer scientist learns about and none of our technology would work without it being possible to generate a system that operates "contingently", as an "if".

An "if" continues to be what it is even when the initial contingent is "false".

 

[pood]

That’s right. “If” holds at all times, via principle of modal fixity. Any contingent truth can be otherwise before it is instantiated, and could have been otherwise, always, after it occurred.

 

[DBT]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

 

[pood]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

 

[DBT]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

Depends on what you say, sure. The subject matter is not new, the nature of determinism in relation to the compatibilist definition of free will, as that relates to the means and mechanisms of decision making, thought and action, etc.

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

I didn't invoke anything that isn't the standard definition of determinism. He got that right. He gave a good account of determinism, and that's why I quoted it. That he doesn't understand compatibilism doesn't negate his description of determinism, which is spot on.

Plus, I have used any number of sources in the past;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

determinism
English
Noun
(ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.
(computing) The property of having behavior determined only by initial state and input. - Dictionary.

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.''

It doesn't matter who says it, the given definition of determinism is standard.

 

[Jarhyn]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

Depends on what you say, sure. The subject matter is not new, the nature of determinism in relation to the compatibilist definition of free will, as that relates to the means and mechanisms of decision making, thought and action, etc.

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

I didn't invoke anything that isn't the standard definition of determinism. He got that right. He gave a good account of determinism, and that's why I quoted it. That he doesn't understand compatibilism doesn't negate his description of determinism, which is spot on.

Plus, I have used any number of sources in the past;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

determinism
English
Noun
(ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.
(computing) The property of having behavior determined only by initial state and input. - Dictionary.

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.''

It doesn't matter who says it, the given definition of determinism is standard.

The problem here is that you don't understand the nature of counterfactuals, of contingent mechanisms.

Do you deny an AND gate exists? Do you deny the structure of the truth table that describes it's behavior as a "decisive mechanism which chooses state TRUE or FALSE contingent on the input states".

AND gates exist. They are concrete things. I could send you a handful of them. No matter what utterance you attach to this thing, they will still have this concrete contingent behavioral model that I have attached the word "AND" to.

Your "standard" definition is NOT standard. Determinism doesn't mean "no choice", determinism means "fixed choice functions". A choice function being fixed (the function, not the output) does not make it less of a "choice". The fact that the "true" or "false" is entirely depends on the input makes the "IF" of the thing no less real.

The compatibilist only makes the mere observation that a fixed choice function is still a choice function, and that the material of the choice function can be responded to by other fixed choice functions to rebuild the choice function into a new one. As a consequence, responsibility is a thing, and the choice function itself is also in the class of things we have named "wills" and we can develop a language about what agents with wills will accomplish using this term "freedom" and further doing so with contingent functions of the form "If A then B, else C" such that you can deconstruct A and prevent a necessary precondition to A if you do not want C therefore abrogating the freedom of the system towards B...

...And suddenly we have all the utility of responsibility and wills even in determinism.

 

[DBT]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

Depends on what you say, sure. The subject matter is not new, the nature of determinism in relation to the compatibilist definition of free will, as that relates to the means and mechanisms of decision making, thought and action, etc.

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

I didn't invoke anything that isn't the standard definition of determinism. He got that right. He gave a good account of determinism, and that's why I quoted it. That he doesn't understand compatibilism doesn't negate his description of determinism, which is spot on.

Plus, I have used any number of sources in the past;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

determinism
English
Noun
(ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.
(computing) The property of having behavior determined only by initial state and input. - Dictionary.

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.''

It doesn't matter who says it, the given definition of determinism is standard.

The problem here is that you don't understand the nature of counterfactuals, of contingent mechanisms.

Do you deny an AND gate exists? Do you deny the structure of the truth table that describes it's behavior as a "decisive mechanism which chooses state TRUE or FALSE contingent on the input states".

AND gates exist. They are concrete things. I could send you a handful of them. No matter what utterance you attach to this thing, they will still have this concrete contingent behavioral model that I have attached the word "AND" to.

Your "standard" definition is NOT standard. Determinism doesn't mean "no choice", determinism means "fixed choice functions". A choice function being fixed (the function, not the output) does not make it less of a "choice". The fact that the "true" or "false" is entirely depends on the input makes the "IF" of the thing no less real.

The compatibilist only makes the mere observation that a fixed choice function is still a choice function, and that the material of the choice function can be responded to by other fixed choice functions to rebuild the choice function into a new one. As a consequence, responsibility is a thing, and the choice function itself is also in the class of things we have named "wills" and we can develop a language about what agents with wills will accomplish using this term "freedom" and further doing so with contingent functions of the form "If A then B, else C" such that you can deconstruct A and prevent a necessary precondition to A if you do not want C therefore abrogating the freedom of the system towards B...

...And suddenly we have all the utility of responsibility and wills

You are wrong.

If a decision is inevitable, fixed by antecedents (you are probably not even aware of), there is no possibility of an alternate option being taken, consequently the decision you inevitably take is not a choice.

Choice, by definition, requires the ability to select any option in any given instance.

Determinism permits only one action at any given instance.

Again;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

even in determinism.

Nah, you need to think about the nature of determinism in relation to decision making, and the relationship between decision making and choice.


Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

Determinism doesn't enable choosing because all present and future actions are fixed by the prior states of the system, consequently permit no alternatives to choose from.

 

[Jarhyn]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

Depends on what you say, sure. The subject matter is not new, the nature of determinism in relation to the compatibilist definition of free will, as that relates to the means and mechanisms of decision making, thought and action, etc.

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

I didn't invoke anything that isn't the standard definition of determinism. He got that right. He gave a good account of determinism, and that's why I quoted it. That he doesn't understand compatibilism doesn't negate his description of determinism, which is spot on.

Plus, I have used any number of sources in the past;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

determinism
English
Noun
(ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.
(computing) The property of having behavior determined only by initial state and input. - Dictionary.

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.''

It doesn't matter who says it, the given definition of determinism is standard.

The problem here is that you don't understand the nature of counterfactuals, of contingent mechanisms.

Do you deny an AND gate exists? Do you deny the structure of the truth table that describes it's behavior as a "decisive mechanism which chooses state TRUE or FALSE contingent on the input states".

AND gates exist. They are concrete things. I could send you a handful of them. No matter what utterance you attach to this thing, they will still have this concrete contingent behavioral model that I have attached the word "AND" to.

Your "standard" definition is NOT standard. Determinism doesn't mean "no choice", determinism means "fixed choice functions". A choice function being fixed (the function, not the output) does not make it less of a "choice". The fact that the "true" or "false" is entirely depends on the input makes the "IF" of the thing no less real.

The compatibilist only makes the mere observation that a fixed choice function is still a choice function, and that the material of the choice function can be responded to by other fixed choice functions to rebuild the choice function into a new one. As a consequence, responsibility is a thing, and the choice function itself is also in the class of things we have named "wills" and we can develop a language about what agents with wills will accomplish using this term "freedom" and further doing so with contingent functions of the form "If A then B, else C" such that you can deconstruct A and prevent a necessary precondition to A if you do not want C therefore abrogating the freedom of the system towards B...

...And suddenly we have all the utility of responsibility and wills

You are wrong.

If a decision is inevitable, fixed by antecedents (you are probably not even aware of), there is no possibility of an alternate option being taken, consequently the decision you inevitably take is not a choice.

Choice, by definition, requires the ability to select any option in any given instance.

Determinism permits only one action at any given instance.

Again;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

even in determinism.

Nah, you need to think about the nature of determinism in relation to decision making, and the relationship between decision making and choice.


Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

Determinism doesn't enable choosing because all present and future actions are fixed by the prior states of the system, consequently permit no alternatives to choose from.

All of this rests on the modal fallacy, the inability to properly parse "possibility" which is always only ever "possibility IF".

You are yet again stepping away from sensible definitions of choice, essentially amounting to a straw-man.

 

[Jarhyn]

I will of many things what I will, for the will to will wills into existence is a will itself, and I myself am the author of that will.

That I author that will by some fixed process does not eliminate the contingent mechanisms of physics. I am who I am in this moment, holding the will, and fully aware of it's provenance in my head. The fact that I look at it and say "yes, I claim this" makes it my own. There are many wills I ultimately reject and some of them I bootstrap through manual construction such as the will to lick my forearm. Some of them, like "wipe the spit off my forearm" "I" am not the author of, but some other important and insistent part of me, and I claim this will as well.

Physical law constrains effects to have been caused by the things that cause them. This means that we can look back and discern responsibility, and look at the presence to identify mechanisms of repetition which IF they are allowed to continue as they are without agential or improbable interference (which abstracts to agency of nature and blossoms later in ethics as the concept of "natural evil"), causality will yield a similar outcome. This forms the basis of the very idea of agential responsibility. This is a consequence of cause and effect happening in consistent, deterministic ways.

As a result, determinism does no injury to wills and freedom and responsibility, but rather is the author of such things; we would not be able to intercept causes if effects did not have consistent causes! One of those things creating such consistency is in fact the act of forming wills and thinking about what you do before you do it according to consistent models of the way in which what is determines what will be. It just happens that this universe thusly allows behavior to be set up against a contingent condition.

 

[DBT]

.And a reminder, compatibilism is related not to indeterminacy, but determinism.

But you know that.

Thanks, I didn’t need the reminder. Never once have I bought up “indeterminacy” in this thread. I’ll get to the rest later.

I didn't say you did. You brought up Baumeister's denial of determinism, saying that the author shows that determinism is wrong (which he didn't do), so he was the one invoking indeterminism, with you by default, even though it's irrelevant to compatibilism which is directly related to determinism just as he defined it, quite well as a matter of fact, which is why I quoted it regardless of his belief that the world is not deterministic.

​

Were you planning to respond to my subsequent posts?

Depends on what you say, sure. The subject matter is not new, the nature of determinism in relation to the compatibilist definition of free will, as that relates to the means and mechanisms of decision making, thought and action, etc.

He was invoking indeterninism to rebut the deterministic argument, but like so many others, I don’t think the author understands the subject that well. Compatibiism, as exemplified by its very name, holds that free will and determinism are compatible. My only point was that you were again invoking a definition of determinism from an article that didn’t agree with the positions that you espouse. But that’s a trivial matter. I await your responses to my later posts.

I didn't invoke anything that isn't the standard definition of determinism. He got that right. He gave a good account of determinism, and that's why I quoted it. That he doesn't understand compatibilism doesn't negate his description of determinism, which is spot on.

Plus, I have used any number of sources in the past;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

determinism
English
Noun
(ethics) The doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.
(computing) The property of having behavior determined only by initial state and input. - Dictionary.

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.''

It doesn't matter who says it, the given definition of determinism is standard.

The problem here is that you don't understand the nature of counterfactuals, of contingent mechanisms.

Do you deny an AND gate exists? Do you deny the structure of the truth table that describes it's behavior as a "decisive mechanism which chooses state TRUE or FALSE contingent on the input states".

AND gates exist. They are concrete things. I could send you a handful of them. No matter what utterance you attach to this thing, they will still have this concrete contingent behavioral model that I have attached the word "AND" to.

Your "standard" definition is NOT standard. Determinism doesn't mean "no choice", determinism means "fixed choice functions". A choice function being fixed (the function, not the output) does not make it less of a "choice". The fact that the "true" or "false" is entirely depends on the input makes the "IF" of the thing no less real.

The compatibilist only makes the mere observation that a fixed choice function is still a choice function, and that the material of the choice function can be responded to by other fixed choice functions to rebuild the choice function into a new one. As a consequence, responsibility is a thing, and the choice function itself is also in the class of things we have named "wills" and we can develop a language about what agents with wills will accomplish using this term "freedom" and further doing so with contingent functions of the form "If A then B, else C" such that you can deconstruct A and prevent a necessary precondition to A if you do not want C therefore abrogating the freedom of the system towards B...

...And suddenly we have all the utility of responsibility and wills

You are wrong.

If a decision is inevitable, fixed by antecedents (you are probably not even aware of), there is no possibility of an alternate option being taken, consequently the decision you inevitably take is not a choice.

Choice, by definition, requires the ability to select any option in any given instance.

Determinism permits only one action at any given instance.

Again;

''As nouns the difference between choice and determinism is that choice is an option; a decision; an opportunity to choose or select something while determinism is (ethics) the doctrine that all actions are determined by the current state and immutable laws of the universe, with no possibility of choice.''

even in determinism.

Nah, you need to think about the nature of determinism in relation to decision making, and the relationship between decision making and choice.


Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

Determinism doesn't enable choosing because all present and future actions are fixed by the prior states of the system, consequently permit no alternatives to choose from.

All of this rests on the modal fallacy, the inability to properly parse "possibility" which is always only ever "possibility IF".

You are yet again stepping away from sensible definitions of choice, essentially amounting to a straw-man.

Modal fallacy? Wow, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The given definition of determinism is straightforward. It's not controversial. The conditions within such a system in relation to how the system evolves, no deviation, no alternate action, no choice, is irrefutable.

Your objections have no merit.

You, yourself said as much; Jarhyn - ''a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

 

[DBT]

I will of many things what I will, for the will to will wills into existence is a will itself, and I myself am the author of that will.

You conveniently ignore the nature of cognition and the means of your experience.


Again: ''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

That I author that will by some fixed process does not eliminate the contingent mechanisms of physics. I am who I am in this moment, holding the will, and fully aware of it's provenance in my head. The fact that I look at it and say "yes, I claim this" makes it my own. There are many wills I ultimately reject and some of them I bootstrap through manual construction such as the will to lick my forearm. Some of them, like "wipe the spit off my forearm" "I" am not the author of, but some other important and insistent part of me, and I claim this will as well.

Yet again;



''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. '

Physical law constrains effects to have been caused by the things that cause them. This means that we can look back and discern responsibility, and look at the presence to identify mechanisms of repetition which IF they are allowed to continue as they are without agential or improbable interference (which abstracts to agency of nature and blossoms later in ethics as the concept of "natural evil"), causality will yield a similar outcome. This forms the basis of the very idea of agential responsibility. This is a consequence of cause and effect happening in consistent, deterministic ways.

Once more;

”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.

Some experiments;
''Over and over, the participants made up just-so stories to account for their nonchoices. Instead of pondering their picks first and then acting on them, the study subjects appeared to act first and think later. Their improbable justifications indicate that we can use hindsight to determine our own motives—just as we might speculate about what drives someone else's behavior after the fact. In their now classic paper, Hall and Johansson dubbed this new illusion “choice blindness.”

Choice blindness' reveals that not only are our choices often more constrained than we think, but our sense of agency in decision making can be a farce in which we are the first to deceive ourselves.''

As a result, determinism does no injury to wills and freedom and responsibility, but rather is the author of such things; we would not be able to intercept causes if effects did not have consistent causes! One of those things creating such consistency is in fact the act of forming wills and thinking about what you do before you do it according to consistent models of the way in which what is determines what will be. It just happens that this universe thusly allows behavior to be set up against a contingent condition.

Yet again:
''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]

Modal fallacy? Wow, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The given definition of determinism is straightforward. It's not controversial

Yes, apparently it is, because you keep bringing in different definitions in than the one being discussed here in your straw-manning of compatibilist choice.

Compatibilist REJECT your flawed *loaded* definition of determinism.

That's the whole point. You have not yet rendered a version of choice that is mutually accepted here and every information scientist and computational in this thread, and you are not a information scientist in the least, has indicated that you are dead wrong about what a contingent truth is and why contingent mechanisms are a thing.

No amount of hand-waving will change the fact that a choice function, even where the final choice is inevitable, has been made inevitable only by the very existence, creation, and presentation of the set of artifacts presented to the choice function. In the presentation as a group, they are called "possibilities" and the fact only one of them is an actuality does not change that. They will always be "possible if" for some if regardless of whether the consequences is true.

You are making a logical error and you continue making that logical error. It only is it a fallacy, it is a formal fallacy rather than an informal one. The fact that you open up your post hand waving the fact your argument rests on a formal fallacy and then scoff at it means you are not being logical about this in the least, that you lack even the logical basis to be participating in this conversation AT ALL.

 

[pood]

Again: ''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

Yes, the compatibilist denies the “no choice ‘principle,’” because determinism does not say we have no choices. Only HARD determism (falsely) claims that.

 

[pood]

Modal fallacy? Wow, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

No, it’s actually the cream of the crop. Your constant employment of a logical fallacy is the root of your misunderstanding.

The given definition of determinism is straightforward. It's not controversial. The conditions within such a system in relation to how the system evolves, no deviation, no alternate action, no choice, is irrefutable.

Your objections have no merit.

You, yourself said as much; Jarhyn - ''a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

Right, no randomness, etc … and, so?

Anyway, you’re in good company in your mistakes, I guess, if you’d call Jerry Coyne good company. He’s a hard determinist like you, and over at his blog, he’s braying about Sopolsky’s book.

It’s funny about Coyne, he‘s always talking about how important free speech is, how vital it is that we support it. It’s funny for two reasons: one is that he bans, at the drop of a hat, anyone who displeases him in the comments section of his blog; and two, and more important, how the hell does he think we have free speech, if we don’t have free will? According to his metaphysics, we’re just ventriloquist’s dummies of the Big Bang!

But that’s your position too, right? We’re just Big Bang meat puppets? Perhaps you recall that I asked you how it is, when a great work of architecture is produced, that architect had nothing to do with it, according to you? Who did, then? The Big Bang? Does the Big Bang build buildings, write symphonies and novels, produce great paintings, etc.? I guess you think it does — but how? Magic?

Making us meat puppets of the Big Bang is exactly like making us meat puppets of God. It’s a religious stance, unsupported by evidence.

But don’t worry, Coyne is quick to make the same mistake. In his blog post he tells a little anecdote about a how an improv jazz musican got pissed at Coyne for telling him his notes were decided “in advance.” I’d get pissed, too, at such an asinine comment. Decided HOW, Jerry, HOW?

Obviously, the musician produced the notes, the architect the building, etc. They were PART OF the deterministic process. They determined, based on antecedent events, what to do next. The musician, at any juncture, was confronted by a choice between note A and note B. Two different choices, two different patheways equally open to him. Given his genes, upbringing, personality, training, and lot of other things, some of which (but not all) were admittedly beyond his control, let’s say he chose A, and with it, the start of a great improv. A lesser musician with a different background might have chosen B and made a clunker. The upshot, though, is that given his antecedents, we can perhaps guess that the musician WILL choose A, but this is not the same thing as MUST choose A, and your constant claim that it is the same is THE MODAL FALLACY.

 

[DBT]

Modal fallacy? Wow, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The given definition of determinism is straightforward. It's not controversial

Yes, apparently it is, because you keep bringing in different definitions in than the one being discussed here in your straw-manning of compatibilist choice.

Compatibilist REJECT your flawed *loaded* definition of determinism.

That's the whole point. You have not yet rendered a version of choice that is mutually accepted here and every information scientist and computational in this thread, and you are not a information scientist in the least, has indicated that you are dead wrong about what a contingent truth is and why contingent mechanisms are a thing.

No amount of hand-waving will change the fact that a choice function, even where the final choice is inevitable, has been made inevitable only by the very existence, creation, and presentation of the set of artifacts presented to the choice function. In the presentation as a group, they are called "possibilities" and the fact only one of them is an actuality does not change that. They will always be "possible if" for some if regardless of whether the consequences is true.

You are making a logical error and you continue making that logical error. It only is it a fallacy, it is a formal fallacy rather than an informal one. The fact that you open up your post hand waving the fact your argument rests on a formal fallacy and then scoff at it means you are not being logical about this in the least, that you lack even the logical basis to be participating in this conversation AT ALL.

It has nothing to do with me. The compatibilist argument stands or fall on its own merit. In this instance, a lack of merit. What compatibilists reject does not alter the fallacy of their argument.

Compatibilism fails, once again, because it carefully selects the terms of their argument while ignoring the conditions that negate their position.

It is not enough to argue that decisions made without coercion or pressure because the underlying process of decision making is not open to conscious choice or will. Simply declaring free will because a decision was free of interference by others does not mean you have 'free will.'

Compatibilism is based on flawed premises. If the premises are flawed, the conclusion is unsound. Unimpeded actions based on necessitated processes/will does not equate to free will.