According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Michael S. Pearl]

You want to say

Rather than addressing my previous remark about alternative interpretations, you have just reiterated the very problem noted in my previous posting. Maybe that can get taken up at some other time or, if not some other time, then some other place.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The reality is that I can only point out 'that which is limited to a context' is not inexorably true; truth is quite bound to where the context for it holds,

Do you claim the statement above to be a universal truth, incapable of exception -- even theoretically?

 

[BSilvEsq]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative, and the quoted sentence identifies as an on-line vanity publication created and populated by Daniel Podgorski, who self-identifies as "a Californian author, essayist, researcher, and web developer. On The Gemsbok, he provides art analysis (on literature, games, and films) and philosophy articles. His areas of expertise are literature and philosophy, with most of his academic research (as well as most of his informal research) focusing on intersections between the two. He has had poetry, short stories, and articles published in various academic and literary journals—and his short fiction has placed first in both competition and conference settings."

As best I can tell, your position is akin to that of a religious zealot. You have a belief in something that is neither provable nor falsifiable, you insist that your belief is correct, you place the burden of proof on anyone who challenges your belief (all the while knowing that the belief is neither provable nor falsifiable), and you are unwilling even to engage in a theoretical discussion of a possible alternative reality from the one in which you have placed your faith. By contrast, I am simply seeking to test the bases for your asserted belief, and identify what it would take for the belief to be incorrect -- but you reject all efforts to engage in such a discussion.

I see that this discourse has come to its natural conclusion.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Where we part ways is that I do not understand the self-contradiction you claim to have demonstrated from accepting as a theoretical foundational premise that every activity that has occurred in the past was inexorably necessitated

Do you accept last-thursdayism to be a non-disprovable premise?

Because if you do... It's not necessarily true that events last Thursday were strictly necessary.

If your premise contains an assumption that a not-disprovable premise is false, it seems a contradiction to disprove the disprovable.

I have no idea what last-thirsdayism is. If you were to define it for me, I could attempt to answer your question.

I also have no idea what the final paragraph of your comment means. Perhaps you can expound.

Last Thursdayism is, quite simply, the proposition that the universe was created, as is, "Last Thursday".

Usually it's considered a useless belief, but I've found purposes for it in the past; it's something you cannot disprove, an eminently "possible" set of worlds, of improbable, all metaphysically valid, and none of which were "inexhorably" necessitated by the past, as the past can be divorced from a moment.

Ironically enough, in such worlds the initial event is MUCH closer to directly penning the Bible, but in any case where it does not accidentally do so, the intervening time is seen involving humans doing the writing, so humans seem more necessary in the majority of non-trivial writings of the Bible than the big bang.

Pood provided a second post discussing much more mundane approaches though you seem to have entirely blown past it, specifically accounting for the modal fallacy injected into the sea battle, "ascribing necessity outside of context."

It's a subtle error but it is the error of assigning truth outside the contexts of that truth; metaphysical truth only holds to the context of that provides for it, where the preconditions for it are maintained, where the requirements are met.

The only thing that MUST occur, and must occur everywhere we can see, and is true at all times we experience, is as follows:

View attachment 52900

... And it's not even true of all possible worlds, just this particular one and a family of related worlds.

Based on your explanation of last-thursdayism, I accept it as a theoretical possibility. I would not wager in it being factually correct, I would not act as if it were correct (as best I am able to control my actions), and accepting it as true would not alter the way I live my life (though it might provide relief from any regret or resentment for something that seems to have occurred prior to last Thursday. And, if someone were to ask me if the assumed truth of last-Thursdayism is compatible with the assumed truth that last Wednesday actually occurred, I would readily acknowledge that the lack of compatibility of last-thursdayism (as unlikely as I might believe it to be a true premise) with a belief that last Wednesday actually occurred. That is the point of logic. It validates reasoning, without having anything to say about the truth or the posited foundational premises.

 

[Jarhyn]

Do you claim the statement above to be a universal truth, incapable of exception -- even theoretically

It's literally a restatement of non-contradiction: things are only true in the context which makes them true.

It is at the root of the primitive concept dividing "possible" from "not-possible".

The one universal truth I accept, and it's only universal to the possible, is that there are no contradictions. The impossible and incoherent can contradict, but those contradictions are the "illusions", that evaporate when pressed hard enough with logic.

without having anything to say about the truth or the posited foundational premises

No, it does have to also have non-contradiction among the premises.

Your premises contradict so the premises themselves together are illogical.

They only start to contradict when you inject the fatalistic proposals or language, so we can infer that the source of the contradiction is the injection. Ergo your premises are faulty.

 

[bilby]

That is not free will. If determinism is true, that mental process proceeds as determined, not freely willed.

Unless compatibilism is true, in which case that mental process proceeds as determined, and freely willed.

Nobody here is arguing that that mental process does not proceed as determined, if determinism is true.

Nobody.

 

[The AntiChris]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative,

Ok. Perhaps you can help me. Can you supply any quote that contradicts the above. Can you provide anything that supports your view that compatibilist free will does depend on metaphysics (i.e. support for your belief that any formulation of compatibilist free will must include a definition of the specific determinism it claims to be compatible with).

Since you're the one making the positive claim I think this is a reasonable request.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Do you claim the statement above to be a universal truth, incapable of exception -- even theoretically

It's literally a restatement of non-contradiction: things are only true in the context which makes them true.

It is at the root of the primitive concept dividing "possible" from "not-possible".

The one universal truth I accept, and it's only universal to the possible, is that there are no contradictions. The impossible and incoherent can contradict, but those contradictions are the "illusions", that evaporate when pressed hard enough with logic.

without having anything to say about the truth or the posited foundational premises

No, it does have to also have non-contradiction among the premises.

Your premises contradict so the premises themselves together are illogical.

They only start to contradict when you inject the fatalistic proposals or language, so we can infer that the source of the contradiction is the injection. Ergo your premises are faulty.

Since I view you to be an intelligent person, I am assuming there is some logic underlying the statements in your last post (quoted above). I am, however, unable to understand what you are saying to even begin to assess whether it makes sense to me. I tend to believe I am a relatively intelligent person, so I suppose either (i) your brilliance is so far beyond me that I am simply unable to understand your otherwise intelligible and obviously logical post, or (ii) there are hidden assumptions in your language that require further explication for someone less versed in whatever it is you are talking about to understand it.

You say that my "premises contradict, and yet I have volunteered only one premise (and it is not a truth statement, but simply a theoretical beginning place for a conversation). What are the two or more premises you discern from my repeated assertion as a foundational premise that the universe operates in a fatalistic manner (or, to us Michael Pearl's terminology, lacks any microphysical indeterminism)?

Taking my premise to be that the universe operates as I have stated, what is the inherent contradiction in the premise? Perhaps you will elucidate me, but I understand an inherent contradiction or a self-contradiction to be self-contained in a statement and not, in any, dependent upon any other statement. So, the statement "A car is a vehicle and not a vehicle" is self-contradictory, but the statement "A car is not a vehicle" is not self-contradictory even though it is factually incorrect in a culture and language in which a car is a vehicle.

Again, I do not offer the concept of fatalism (without a God, spirit, or other conscious, deliberate or purposeful decider) as a truth statement. I offer it merely as a predicate to asking the question of whether there can be free will if the universe were fatalistic. And, if you have a problem with asking any question about the future, the question can be whether there ever has been free will "if" the universe historically always has been fatalistic?

If your answer is that it is impossible for the past to have been fatalistic, that sidesteps the question unless, perhaps, you are able to explain how the hypothetical assumption that the universe historically has been fatalistic is self-contradictory, in which case I have been unable to follow any explanation you may have attempted to support that assertion -- including the sea battle, the idle argument, and the invocation of a modal fallacy, all of which, at best, deal with the future and not the past.

For my purposes I am perfectly content to understand haw free will could have existed in the past in a hypothetical universe that is fatalistic. I believe the answer to that question requires an explanation of what is meant by free will and how it could have existed in a universe in which all human activity and cognition was predetermined by antecedent activity if the universe (which is the hypothetical foundational premise against which the existence of free will is being tested).

 

[Jarhyn]

Do you claim the statement above to be a universal truth, incapable of exception -- even theoretically

It's literally a restatement of non-contradiction: things are only true in the context which makes them true.

It is at the root of the primitive concept dividing "possible" from "not-possible".

The one universal truth I accept, and it's only universal to the possible, is that there are no contradictions. The impossible and incoherent can contradict, but those contradictions are the "illusions", that evaporate when pressed hard enough with logic.

without having anything to say about the truth or the posited foundational premises

No, it does have to also have non-contradiction among the premises.

Your premises contradict so the premises themselves together are illogical.

They only start to contradict when you inject the fatalistic proposals or language, so we can infer that the source of the contradiction is the injection. Ergo your premises are faulty.

Since I view you to be an intelligent person, I am assuming there is some logic underlying the statements in your last post (quoted above). I am, however, unable to understand what you are saying to even begin to assess whether it makes sense to me. I tend to believe I am a relatively intelligent person, so I suppose either (i) your brilliance is so far beyond me that I am simply unable to understand your otherwise intelligible and obviously logical post, or (ii) there are hidden assumptions in your language that require further explication for someone less versed in whatever it is you are talking about to understand it.

You say that my "premises contradict, and yet I have volunteered only one premise (and it is not a truth statement, but simply a theoretical beginning place for a conversation). What are the two or more premises you discern from my repeated assertion as a foundational premise that the universe operates in a fatalistic manner (or, to us Michael Pearl's terminology, lacks any microphysical indeterminism)?

Taking my premise to be that the universe operates as I have stated, what is the inherent contradiction in the premise? Perhaps you will elucidate me, but I understand an inherent contradiction or a self-contradiction to be self-contained in a statement and not, in any, dependent upon any other statement. So, the statement "A car is a vehicle and not a vehicle" is self-contradictory, but the statement "A car is not a vehicle" is not self-contradictory even though it is factually incorrect in a culture and language in which a car is a vehicle.

Again, I do not offer the concept of fatalism (without a God, spirit, or other conscious, deliberate or purposeful decider) as a truth statement. I offer it merely as a predicate to asking the question of whether there can be free will if the universe were fatalistic. And, if you have a problem with asking any question about the future, the question can be whether there ever has been free will "if" the universe historically always has been fatalistic?

If your answer is that it is impossible for the past to have been fatalistic, that sidesteps the question unless, perhaps, you are able to explain how the hypothetical assumption that the universe historically has been fatalistic is self-contradictory, in which case I have been unable to follow any explanation you may have attempted to support that assertion -- including the sea battle, the idle argument, and the invocation of a modal fallacy, all of which, at best, deal with the future and not the past.

For my purposes I am perfectly content to understand haw free will could have existed in the past in a hypothetical universe that is fatalistic. I believe the answer to that question requires an explanation of what is meant by free will and how it could have existed in a universe in which all human activity and cognition was predetermined by antecedent activity if the universe (which is the hypothetical foundational premise against which the existence of free will is being tested).

Part of this comes down to abstract algebra and the ways mathematicians find axioms in the first place.

It's not that I'm 'brilliant', but I have read more about the foundations of math, I think.

My problem principally lay with this: "For my purposes I am perfectly content to understand haw free will could have existed in the past 'in a hypothetical universe that is fatalistic'"

There. Is. No. Such. Possible. Universe.

In asserting your hypothetical "fatalism", from my perspective, you insert a new hidden axiom, and I can only assume it is hidden from you because to this date you do not see it:

When you say that, you say "a universe that must be as it is", I hear "a singleton that is the only possible member in the sets that contain it".

I invite you to think about what testable sets can't contain any other members than the ones they contain, because the one that immediately jumps to mind would be some sort of set that already contains any other possible member you could suggest, and as we have discussed, attempting to define that set runs you into Russel's Paradox.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Do you claim the statement above to be a universal truth, incapable of exception -- even theoretically

It's literally a restatement of non-contradiction: things are only true in the context which makes them true.

It is at the root of the primitive concept dividing "possible" from "not-possible".

The one universal truth I accept, and it's only universal to the possible, is that there are no contradictions. The impossible and incoherent can contradict, but those contradictions are the "illusions", that evaporate when pressed hard enough with logic.

without having anything to say about the truth or the posited foundational premises

No, it does have to also have non-contradiction among the premises.

Your premises contradict so the premises themselves together are illogical.

They only start to contradict when you inject the fatalistic proposals or language, so we can infer that the source of the contradiction is the injection. Ergo your premises are faulty.

Since I view you to be an intelligent person, I am assuming there is some logic underlying the statements in your last post (quoted above). I am, however, unable to understand what you are saying to even begin to assess whether it makes sense to me. I tend to believe I am a relatively intelligent person, so I suppose either (i) your brilliance is so far beyond me that I am simply unable to understand your otherwise intelligible and obviously logical post, or (ii) there are hidden assumptions in your language that require further explication for someone less versed in whatever it is you are talking about to understand it.

You say that my "premises contradict, and yet I have volunteered only one premise (and it is not a truth statement, but simply a theoretical beginning place for a conversation). What are the two or more premises you discern from my repeated assertion as a foundational premise that the universe operates in a fatalistic manner (or, to us Michael Pearl's terminology, lacks any microphysical indeterminism)?

Taking my premise to be that the universe operates as I have stated, what is the inherent contradiction in the premise? Perhaps you will elucidate me, but I understand an inherent contradiction or a self-contradiction to be self-contained in a statement and not, in any, dependent upon any other statement. So, the statement "A car is a vehicle and not a vehicle" is self-contradictory, but the statement "A car is not a vehicle" is not self-contradictory even though it is factually incorrect in a culture and language in which a car is a vehicle.

Again, I do not offer the concept of fatalism (without a God, spirit, or other conscious, deliberate or purposeful decider) as a truth statement. I offer it merely as a predicate to asking the question of whether there can be free will if the universe were fatalistic. And, if you have a problem with asking any question about the future, the question can be whether there ever has been free will "if" the universe historically always has been fatalistic?

If your answer is that it is impossible for the past to have been fatalistic, that sidesteps the question unless, perhaps, you are able to explain how the hypothetical assumption that the universe historically has been fatalistic is self-contradictory, in which case I have been unable to follow any explanation you may have attempted to support that assertion -- including the sea battle, the idle argument, and the invocation of a modal fallacy, all of which, at best, deal with the future and not the past.

For my purposes I am perfectly content to understand haw free will could have existed in the past in a hypothetical universe that is fatalistic. I believe the answer to that question requires an explanation of what is meant by free will and how it could have existed in a universe in which all human activity and cognition was predetermined by antecedent activity if the universe (which is the hypothetical foundational premise against which the existence of free will is being tested).

Part of this comes down to abstract algebra and the ways mathematicians find axioms in the first place.

It's not that I'm 'brilliant', but I have read more about the foundations of math, I think.

My problem principally lay with this: "For my purposes I am perfectly content to understand haw free will could have existed in the past 'in a hypothetical universe that is fatalistic'"

There. Is. No. Such. Possible. Universe.

In asserting your hypothetical "fatalism", from my perspective, you insert a new hidden axiom, and I can only assume it is hidden from you because to this date you do not see it:

When you say that, you say "a universe that must be as it is", I hear "a singleton that is the only possible member in the sets that contain it".

I invite you to think about what testable sets can't contain any other members than the ones they contain, because the one that immediately jumps to mind would be some sort of set that already contains any other possible member you could suggest, and as we have discussed, attempting to define that set runs you into Russel's Paradox.

Science and Physics are based on all sorts of paradoxes and/or premises that are unprovable and non-falsifiable.

Is the universe infinite or finite? If finite, what is beyond its limits? If infinite, how can that be?

Did the universe always exist or was it caused by something? If it was caused by something, what caused that? If it always existed, how could that be?

Did the universe spontaneously occur? If so, how could something arise out of nothing?

I know that scientists and physicists have a plethora of complicated answers to these questions, but I also am confident that they all boil down to accepting something that is intuitively impossible as possible and/or accepting as true something that is unprovable and unfalsifiable on faith.

Religion is similarly based on the existence of God, which is unprovable and unfalsifiable. Yet, billions of people, including many brilliant people and also including many scientists, physicists, mathematicians and logicians, swear by it.

None of the foregoing is any more or less probable than the hypothetical possibility of either a fatalist unfolding of the universe or a solid state block that has no activity of any sort (including human cognition) and is simply eternally as it is. Accepting (arguendo) that the probability that such a state of affairs accurately describes the universe is infinitesimally small, it is still a possibility. And, frankly, I have no idea how one places greater or lesser probability upon the truth of any one of multiple hypotheticals that are neither provable nor falsifiable -- including last-thursdayism (which does seem as close to impossible as one could get, and does not "feel" correct).

I do not understand what is so difficult about acknowledging that there would be no free will in a universe that unfolds in a fatalistic manner or exists in a solid state that has no activity of any sort. In my view, anyone who is incapable of that acknowledgment has demonstrated that they are so wedded to some conceptualization of the universe on faith that they are incapable of engaging in the most casual discourse about the possibility they could be wrong.

Like you, I do not reject as impossible anything that is not self-contradictory. Last-Thursdayism is not internally contradictory as silly as it may sound. Nor is solipsism. Nor is a belief in any one of the numerous gods of the multiple religions in which different people have placed their faith (although a belief in more than one god that is all powerful may be a self-contradiction). Nor is the non-existence of such a god self-contradictory. There are no answers to these ultimate questions, and to presume that any one answer is superior to another simply because it feels that way is not a basis for a discussion -- unless, perhaps, the proposition is that whatever feels to be the case is the case (which I suspect you would not agree to be true, but which could possibly be true as strange as it sounds).

Personally, I am an atheist -- not even an agnostic. By saying that, I express the caveat that I do not believe that humans can know anything with certainty. Subject to that caveat, however, I live my life as if God does not exist, and I do not hedge my bets by doing any of the various things religion teaches me to do to be within God's grace. I may still act in many of the same ways as I would act if I did believe in god, but I do so for different reasons that having a belief in God. Notwithstanding the foregoing, many people I know have faith in god, and I am capable of opening my mind to understanding what they mean by that and to ask questions to explore the ramifications of the existence of god and explore the contours of that belief. And, plainly, I agree without hesitation that the existence of God (however silly it seems to me that there is such a thing) would mean that atheism is a false construct. That does not mean that I view a belief in God to be rationale. It simply means that I agree that logic would dictate the falsehood of my own belief in the absence of god if there were, in fact, a god of the sort others believe in.

As I have now said too many times, I am not advocating that the universe is fatalistic. Nor do I accept that the universe necessarily is not fatalistic. I have simply been advocating that such a universe (if it were to exist) would foreclose the existence of free will. If you are unable to acknowledge that simple truism or provide a definition of free will would be logically coherent in such a hypothetical universe, then I am at a loss to understand what brought you to this forum, which exists under the heading of Philosophy and not science, physics, computer science or other empirical discipline.

 

[Jarhyn]

Science and Physics are based on all sorts of paradoxes and/or premises that are unprovable and non-falsifiable

No, science is quite pointedly the exclusive domain of the disprovable. If it isn't disprovable it is not science.

You will encounter a number of people.who have done a lot of science work, and that's one of the first rules of the "test" phase.

The apparent paradoxes are ALL treated as puzzles where, when understanding is reached, the apparent contradiction is revealed to be caused by bad initial assumptions.

Whether the universe is strictly infinite or finite is an unobservable thing, something that won't be knowable, but for which the simplest systems would be ones where it is theoretically infinite.

I have thought about each of those questions you ask deeply over decades, with all the time I probably should have spent doing more productive shit.

Many of them have nothing to do with science and more to do with wider philosophy, and with math, and if you really wanted to discuss them with someone who has what they think are actually the best answers we have to those questions, I would entertain you in private conversation (I'll still be just as irreverent) but they are a derail here.

Religion is similarly based on the existence of God, which is unprovable and unfalsifiable

No, it's quite falsifiable depending on the God. See also Russel's Paradox, and Noncontradiction, and 'the set of all sets'.

In fact God is the one thing I think is universally falsified, satisfyingly, in the acceptance of non-contradiction.

If you accept non-contradiction, you reject God... But not all religion is about EinSof, and not all religion assumes contradictions. Some are focused only on specific (and only occasionally even possible) candidates proposed as god of this world. Still others present worship of wholely mundane things.

Getting into a derail about the various things religions are based on that don't assume anything about the existence of EinSof, however, would be silly. I have another thread I posted a while ago that gets into the distinctions. Again, happy to go on and on ad nauseum, but not here.in this thread.

Last-Thursdayism is not internally contradictory as silly as it may sound.

Correct, which is why it is a valid premise to use in arguing about possible worlds, with respect to contexts where it even makes sense (although it roughly comports to bounded and composite functions in math, which is a very "wide" context).

None of the foregoing is any more or less probable than the hypothetical possibility of either a fatalist unfolding of the universe

This is where we part ways.

This is because it is not just improbable but impossible owing to contradiction because this:

a solid state block

Does not imply this:

no activity* of any sort

The solid state block still has distinct positions. In fact seeing the time as a position like a another exposes my reason for saying "if it is otherwise anywhere else, 'it can be otherwise' is true with respect to the moment in question"

Furthermore between each layer of the block is a transform symbol implying the operation phase that happened to transform the frame.

The position of the big bang is not the position of the other stuff, and does not "contain" the other stuff. Quite pointedly, only the part of the block that actually contains that stuff contains that stuff, and the part that contains the Bible being written contains it being written, at least the first time, by human authors far removed from the "front" of the big bang.

*The stuff you are calling "activity" is still there in the block, in the variance and separation between the locations.

This is why I am instead calling it "context" or "position" rather than using a word that assumes it t have this temporal quality, or that the block somehow lacks it just because it is seen as a block.

In all that intervening time, the big bang became a human first before writing the Bible, and we as responsible only for generalized (insert standard model equation here), and then only later as a human became responsible for writing the Bible.

This is yet again why I beg everyone who really wants to consider systems like this to get a solid education in software engineering and behavioral modification, through the point where they can take and pass Machine Learning: so that you can get away from some singular dependence on this idea that time is something you can wave away just because you can see it as an array of frames connected by transform rules rather than as a fleeting parade of shadows.

We can change it to a block, but that just changes what was language about "time" into language about "distance", without removing what ultimately comes down to the separation of context between the times that I keep demanding you recognize.

 

[DBT]

That is not free will. If determinism is true, that mental process proceeds as determined, not freely willed.

Unless compatibilism is true, in which case that mental process proceeds as determined, and freely willed.

How is it freely willed when one's will is set by an unconscious process that permits no alternatives? Without the possibility of doing otherwise, it is no more a matter of freedom of will than any other determined thought or action. Given determinism will is not free, but set or fixed by antecedents.

Nobody here is arguing that that mental process does not proceed as determined, if determinism is true.

Nobody.

I know. Yet that is the point at which compatibilism - free will being carefully defined as acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced - fails. Compatibilism fails because it does not consider the nature of will within a deterministic system.

Where even acting according to one's will, if determined, is inevitable. Inevitable will formation followed by inevitably acting according to one's fully determined will.

Free will? Not likely.

 

[DBT]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative,

Ok. Perhaps you can help me. Can you supply any quote that contradicts the above. Can you provide anything that supports your view that compatibilist free will does depend on metaphysics (i.e. support for your belief that any formulation of compatibilist free will must include a definition of the specific determinism it claims to be compatible with).

Since you're the one making the positive claim I think this is a reasonable request.

Given determinism, all events and actions are freely performed or carried out as determined as the system evolves. If determined, there are no impediments. You get up in the morning and go about your daily activities, as determined, feeling free and unimpeded in your activity.

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must necessarily do.

 

[The AntiChris]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative,

Ok. Perhaps you can help me. Can you supply any quote that contradicts the above. Can you provide anything that supports your view that compatibilist free will does depend on metaphysics (i.e. support for your belief that any formulation of compatibilist free will must include a definition of the specific determinism it claims to be compatible with).

Since you're the one making the positive claim I think this is a reasonable request.

Given determinism, all events and actions are freely performed or carried out as determined as the system evolves. If determined, there are no impediments. You get up in the morning and go about your daily activities, as determined, feeling free and unimpeded in your activity.

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must necessarily do.

I've no idea why you posted this. Your comment doesn't address/contradict anything in the post you're responding to.

 

[bilby]

How is it freely willed when one's will is set by an unconscious process that permits no alternatives?

When that process is me.

 

[bilby]

Compatibilism fails because it does not consider the nature of will within a deterministic system.

Will is what I want. If I am the system, or the majority of the system, making the decision, then the decision is mine, whether the system is deterministic or not.

Indeed, if it is not, then you could argue that the decision is not mine, but is instead just random.

 

[bilby]

Where even acting according to one's will, if determined, is inevitable. Inevitable will formation followed by inevitably acting according to one's fully determined will.

Free will?

Obviously. Where's the coercion? Your argument seems to be that it's not free will if I am forcing myself to do it. Which us just bizarre.

 

[bilby]

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must will necessarily do.

FTFY.

Suddenly, no problem. I will what I will; The only alternative would be insanity.

 

[Jarhyn]

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must will necessarily do.

FTFY.

Suddenly, no problem. I will what I will; The only alternative would be insanity.

I would say the "necessarily" part also needs struck.

 

[DBT]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative,

Ok. Perhaps you can help me. Can you supply any quote that contradicts the above. Can you provide anything that supports your view that compatibilist free will does depend on metaphysics (i.e. support for your belief that any formulation of compatibilist free will must include a definition of the specific determinism it claims to be compatible with).

Since you're the one making the positive claim I think this is a reasonable request.

Given determinism, all events and actions are freely performed or carried out as determined as the system evolves. If determined, there are no impediments. You get up in the morning and go about your daily activities, as determined, feeling free and unimpeded in your activity.

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must necessarily do.

I've no idea why you posted this. Your comment doesn't address/contradict anything in the post you're responding to.

It relates to how the compatibilist definition of free will relates to how determinism is defined, and why compatibilism fails to make a case for free will.

A mere label is not enough. Asserting free will establishes nothing. It is insufficient because within a deterministic without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced (as Compatibilists define free will) is neither a matter of will, or free will, but how the system evolves, determined actions freely carried out, just as determined.

That is essentially the failure of compatibilism.