According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Politesse]

That's like saying computation doesn't happen...

Of course computation happens. Agency is the comforting myth (and speech genre, I suppose!)

 

[Jarhyn]

That's like saying computation doesn't happen...

Of course computation happens. Agency is the comforting myth (and speech genre, I suppose!)

Agency in a result is computation towards that result. All computers are agents because all interactive participation is agency, and computation is interactive participation.

I literally create agents all day every day to exercise a specific shape of agency towards some outcome. I am an agent. I have agency of my own. That agency can best be described by the computational structure that is implemented in that location that is "where I am", by "what it will do if..."

 

[Politesse]

That's like saying computation doesn't happen...

Of course computation happens. Agency is the comforting myth (and speech genre, I suppose!)

Agency in a result is computation towards that result. All computers are agents because all interactive participation is agency, and computation is interactive participation.

I literally create agents all day every day to exercise a specific shape of agency towards some outcome. I am an agent. I have agency of my own. That agency can best be described by the computational structure that is implemented in that location that is "where I am", by "what it will do if..."

I would agree with that. Perhaps I should have said "ultimate agency" is the myth. Ours is a universe of contingent agencies. Ask not at whom the buck stops, for every desk anwers to another desk.

 

[Jarhyn]

That's like saying computation doesn't happen...

Of course computation happens. Agency is the comforting myth (and speech genre, I suppose!)

Agency in a result is computation towards that result. All computers are agents because all interactive participation is agency, and computation is interactive participation.

I literally create agents all day every day to exercise a specific shape of agency towards some outcome. I am an agent. I have agency of my own. That agency can best be described by the computational structure that is implemented in that location that is "where I am", by "what it will do if..."

I would agree with that. Perhaps I should have said "ultimate agency" is the myth. Ours is a universe of contingent agencies. Ask not at whom the buck stops, for every desk anwers to another desk.

I wouldn't say the "answers to" is a sensible concept.

I don't answer to my past, even if the things of the past made me as I am.

We are incapable of being absolutely inviolate in our agency? So what? We are capable of maintaining agency to a fairly high degree, far more so than the rock, to be certain.

This lack of absolute agency is exactly why we discuss the extent of freedoms of our wills as compatibilists, why freedom of will is a spectrum rather than the binary seen by either the hard determinist or the libertarian, why we must ask not "do I have free will" in some grand sense, but "did I decide to do that? Was I responsible for 'not at least trying to find an alternative course of action'? What, exactly, was I responsible for in that moment, and what does this mean for what I am responsible for being now? What is my will, and is that will 'free'? And should my will to do so be 'free'?"

 

[Politesse]

I don't answer to my past, even if the things of the past made me as I am.

What is this "I" of which you speak, that is not informed by the past? You say, "where is my will, and is it free?" as though it were a rhetorical question, but there's no reason why it would be. There is no reason at all to believe that this concept is valid, and trying to make it compatible with the observed uses is just sending you in circles.

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't answer to my past, even if the things of the past made me as I am.

What is this "I" of which you speak, that is not informed by the past? You say, "where is my will, and is it free?" as though it were a rhetorical question, but there's no reason why it would be. There is no reason at all to believe that this concept is valid, and trying to make it compatible with the observed uses is just sending you in circles.

The relatively local group that is at a location.

Are you forgetting that locality is still a thing?

The border being arbitrarily declared makes it no less a real thing at a real place defined by a real declaration.

This border is defined, specifically, by a particular will.

Again back to the programming analogy, "this" is a defined address. As I point out in my discussion about "subjective experience" every possible selectable subject has a describable experience, and it just so happens that in any moment there's a real algorithm making a real selection, by virtue of what it arbitrarily declares "inside".

 

[Politesse]

The border being arbitrarily declared makes it no less a real thing at a real place defined by a real declaration.

A social reality is certainly a reality within that social context. The saguaros on this side of that boundary do not, however, become ontologically any more "Mexican" than the saguaros on the other side of that boundary. We might all agree that this is now a Mexican Saguaro and that is now an American saguaro, but nothing about the saguaros themselves has changed.

A social boundary is, in short, a contingent reality. Not evidence of a free will in any meaningful sense of either word.

 

[Jarhyn]

The border being arbitrarily declared makes it no less a real thing at a real place defined by a real declaration.

A social reality is certainly a reality within that social context. The saguaros on this side of that boundary do not, however, become ontologically any more "Mexican" than the saguaros on the other side of that boundary. We might all agree that this is now a Mexican Saguaro and that is now an American saguaro, but nothing about the saguaros themselves has changed.

This isn't a "social" reality.

The point is that regardless of where you draw the line, "those are over there"; "these are over here". Relativity is as real a property of nature as locality.

 

[Politesse]

The border being arbitrarily declared makes it no less a real thing at a real place defined by a real declaration.

A social reality is certainly a reality within that social context. The saguaros on this side of that boundary do not, however, become ontologically any more "Mexican" than the saguaros on the other side of that boundary. We might all agree that this is now a Mexican Saguaro and that is now an American saguaro, but nothing about the saguaros themselves has changed.

This isn't a "social" reality.

The point is that regardless of where you draw the line, "those are over there"; "these are over here". Relativity is as real a property of nature as locality.

Relativity is a quality of perception. I do not consider perception "unnatural", so I suppose you are right about that, but there is no room for a "free will" in all of this that is any way distinguishable from a "bound will".

 

[Jarhyn]

The border being arbitrarily declared makes it no less a real thing at a real place defined by a real declaration.

A social reality is certainly a reality within that social context. The saguaros on this side of that boundary do not, however, become ontologically any more "Mexican" than the saguaros on the other side of that boundary. We might all agree that this is now a Mexican Saguaro and that is now an American saguaro, but nothing about the saguaros themselves has changed.

This isn't a "social" reality.

The point is that regardless of where you draw the line, "those are over there"; "these are over here". Relativity is as real a property of nature as locality.

Relativity is a quality of perception. I do not consider perception "unnatural", so I suppose you are right about that, but there is no room for a "free will" in all of this that is any way distinguishable from a "bound will".

Let me ask a question: let's assume you have a conveyer belt. This belt has a "left side" and a "right side". Perhaps if you have played Factorio, this will be more apparent, but this is not necessary.

Let's say there is a wall, a physical insulator between the sides.

Things push onto the belt from one side or the other, and then eventually reach a sorter that determines whether to allow the objects on or send them to the reject pipe.

The objects on the left are held to different standards than the objects to the right.

The things on the left come from machines within the location of "the factory". The things on the right come from "outside".

The locality of the objects has a real property of "rightness" and "leftness", of "from inside" and "from outside" created by the physical geometry of the belts and the sorter itself.

Let's look at this from a different perspective: the sorter uses the token "self" rather than "left". The sorter uses "outside" for objects of the right side of the belt. Are these real properties? I assert they are as real as locality and relativity, which are well understood properties of the universe.

 

[pood]

In regular life, the practical art of politesse demands nothing from me but such half-truths and generous abstractions as my students and colleagues are prepared to entertain. In forumland, I indulge in the temporary luxury of being uncouth, but blessedly correct.

On this topic, you haven’t said a correct thing yet.

ETA: Well, that’s not true. You’ve said a couple of correct things.

At least I read books.

So do I. And I actually grasp what I read.

 

[pood]

BTW, since you “read books,” did you get a chance to read the linked article and foreknowledge and free will? Because, you know, you so condescendingly lectured me on the roots of the free will debate. but it turns out you were not even right about that, since the debate goes back to at least Aristotle, thereby pre-dating Christianity.

 

[Politesse]

BTW, since you “read books,” did you get a chance to read the linked article and foreknowledge and free will? Because, you know, you so condescendingly lectured me on the roots of the free will debate. but it turns out you were not even right about that, since the debate goes back to at least Aristotle, thereby pre-dating Christianity.

That might explain why I mentioned Aristotle, and for that matter, "the gods", in my post. Was wondering about that.

As for not reading books, the jab was intended at the fact that the "philosopher" in the thread apparently sees no need to read the book that we are discussing, making detailed discussion of Robert Sapolsky's main points rather difficult. I note that compatibilists really aren't the target of the work in question at all.

 

[DBT]

compatibilists do acknowledge that necessity is a problem for the notion of free will, so they carefully craft a definition that takes external necessity into account, yet ignores or dismisses internal necessity

Internal necessity IS US.

Of course it is. Nobody denies it, or has said otherwise.

Good. That's the end of this daft thread, and the dozens like it.

You missed the point.

Which is 'internal necessity is us' does not equate to free will. ''It is us, therefore free will'' is not a valid argument for the reality of free will.

Internal necessity has nothing to do with will, yet alone free will.

The claim has no merit.

...but it's not the full picture or entirely true - external inputs, etc.

Oh.

So you DO deny it, and you DO say otherwise.

Shit.

You seem to be getting agitated, bilby.

You missed the point, that internal necessity, regardless of it being 'us' does not equate to free will.

Internal necessity is no more an example of free will than external necessity, which is considered by compatibilists to be a restriction on free will. Where the latter is acknowledged but the former is dismissed.
Neural function is neither willed or subject to will

Intelligence is neither willed or subject to will .

Decision making (determined) is not willed or subject to will.

Response, determined by the state and condition of the system as it evolves is not willed, chosen or regulated through will.

Given the above, to claim free will is a false. Function, determined by the architecture, function and state of the system (not chosen or regulated by will) does not equate to free will.

The issue is that compatibilists acknowledge that necessity is a constraint on the notion of free will, yet not only fail to account for internal necessity, which is not only 'us' but all events, both external and internal that shape and form our makeup and how we think and act.

WTF is "us", if not "all events, both external and internal that shape and form our makeup and how we think and act"?

That's what we are. We are the sum of our experiences.

That it is 'us' doesn't automatically equate to free will.

For instance;

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


''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.''



I won't bother with the rest because it's already repetitive enough..

 

[DBT]

"I cannot have free will, because I am unavoidably compelled to do what I choose" is a truly crazy position; Are you sure that you want to take that position?

But I can decide whether to have them for dinner.

That is simply not true, though. Your brain "decides" what to have for dinner, and your conscious mind generates an explanation for it post facto.

Good thing your brain is you, then.

This is an example of assuming that “true” free will must be libertarian; i.e. there must be some kind of homunculus, or “ghost in the machine,” or some such, that makes “real” decisions. Compatibilists, of course, reject such magic.

It's a shame that ''the brain is you, therefore free will'' is an assertion, not an argument.