According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Jarhyn]

Robert Sopolsky is wrong — and, as the article concludes, he’s to blame for being wrong.

But there is no neuron that experiences pain; there is no neuron that experiences anything

This is not true. Really, let's explore a different, very long name for pain of one particular sort: "nervous activation in the presence of some form of physical state to be called 'ostensible damage'".

From here, just one neuron can experience it, even if that experience is *hallucinatory*, the result of non-pain-like activities that accidentally activate it.

The tendency of the activation to occur in the presence of a positive signal creates a certainty on the experience of pain determined by how much over-expression beyond a threshold activation the neuron allows.

Once this neuron joins its neighbors, more certainty comes into association between probable stimulus and converging on information about the presence of some phenomena. Down the line, there is no longer any individual experiences of neurons, and instead there are experiences of absurdly certain reports of something going on somewhere, and the various qualities of that. Eventually these sum to experiences of things which we have developed translational linguistic embeddings for, such as our names ifq

I think rather it makes more sense to ask "what is it experiencing, in terms of some dimension of causal interest" rather than "does it experience?".

But it must be neurons (plural); basically all of the neurons in a person’s brain taken together, and only taken together.

Again, this is a naive statement by the author. Language is bad at handling this, so please forgive me: I have parts of my mind that are aware of me and of themselves and they are not "the thing talking to you". Experience is constructive and regional within a system and always "of" the available inferential context within that region.

In fact, this is where my interest in and framework of Free Will actually makes contact with my interest in and framework of Consciousness, which I've discovered is an intellectual sibling to Integrated Information Theory, though I'm critical of their interest in "extent" rather than in specifics of microstructure, the truth of the system.

I think a lot of these things can and should be approached the way we approach evolution: it's not all or nothing bang flash from a fish to a man, but rather a progressive accumulation of small mutations over long time frames.

Every time we discover the reality of nature as pertains to some thing, it's not broad binaries we find but disgustingly complex models which all construct from very small things, even if the smallest of things may have rather simple and fixed rules.

 

[The AntiChris]

Robert Sopolsky is wrong — and, as the article concludes, he’s to blame for being wrong.

From the article:

Arguably, human behavior is undecidable, not just chaotic. And that would mean that human choice is free in exactly the way we’d want it to be

I don't think this would satisfy Marvin Edwards', or my, notion of compatibilist free will (Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and undue influence) and I doubt that it will impress DBT.

This looks suspiciously, to me, as though he's suggesting determinism is Arguably (his argument) not truly deterministic.

 

[Jarhyn]

Robert Sopolsky is wrong — and, as the article concludes, he’s to blame for being wrong.

From the article:

Arguably, human behavior is undecidable, not just chaotic. And that would mean that human choice is free in exactly the way we’d want it to be

I don't think this would satisfy Marvin Edwards', or my, notion of compatibilist free will (Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and undue influence) and I doubt that it will impress DBT.

This looks suspiciously, to me, as though he's suggesting determinism is Arguably (his argument) not truly deterministic.

Indeed, the whole point of compatibilism is to fully recognize mechanisms which link decision making and information processing systems to philosophical concepts so as to close the loops and formalize understandings.

Only with a formal model can someone apply knowledge to build systems that plan heuristic "wills" and establish freedom towards goals.

 

[DBT]

Robert Sopolsky is wrong — and, as the article concludes, he’s to blame for being wrong.

That article doesn't negate incompatibilism. Not even close.

 

[DBT]

Unlike you - as you have demonstrated time and again - I know what it means, how it's defined and what the implications of it are.

No, all you've done is repeatedly assert your unfounded beliefs on the matter.

What I have done is explain why compatibilism fails to make a case, providing abundant material to show why it fails as an argument for free will.

That you are unable or unwilling to understand why the notion of free will is incompatible with determinism is your failing.

Complexity of the initial state doesn't alter the nature of the system or its terms and conditions as they are defined.

Are you seriously failing to understand that the complexity of the initial condition is the "set-up"?

I don't deny it. Given what you have just said shows that you haven't understood a word that's been said.

What part of the definition ''initial conditions and the way things go being fixed as a matter of natural law' have you not grasped.


If initial conditions is stipulated in the definition I use, in what wild fit of imagination would you think that I don't acknowledge initial conditions as the starting point that determines the evolution of the system?

Frankly, it's god damn bizarre. As with your fantasy, computers are conscious with a will of their own.


Stop playing your strawman games.

Like, you said this: "A deterministic world is not 'set up."

You need to cite what I said and the context in which I said it.

That's your words right there. There are lots of deterministic systems, and some of them are "worlds" satisfying the definition "deterministic system".

The complexity of initial state enters into it because there's no way to declare that much complexity *necessary*. You just HIDE the unnecessary complexity and the dice rolls somewhere.

Plenty of deterministic systems halt, and plenty of them are "set up".

Like, the more I interact with you, the more I encounter your apparent inability to abstractly use language in general.

Then, most people I meet who bring this debate up with seem quite similar to the Christian apologists I encountered at the various Jesus Camps my parents sent me to: high on passion and low on logic, with a thirst for intellectual validation that is probably undeserved.

You tend to misconstrue what I said (initial state as an example). You need to quote and cite what you think I said. It may not be what you think.

In fact, it's clear that you are running in the wrong direction.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact is there are a lot of idiotic beliefs that exist all mashed up between hard determinists, and the majority of them amount to a belief in God... Or something like it.

Let's take the idiotic belief that the infinite complexity of an infinitely varying universe that has no preferred reference frame that has a maximum interactive distance at every point in it.

There are infinite different universes, not separated by some thin dimensional veil that we could poke a hole through, but instead separated by vast physical distances. We can observe that "over there" has a different initial condition to "over here".

We can even observe of deterministic systems that we create subordinate to this system which allow complex starting conditions to be presented that the starting conditions are NOT necessarily fixed as a matter of the laws of the system.

The only "natural law" that could actually fix those starting conditions is "supersystemic". You are literally proposing "supernatural law", DBT, despite having no physical access or basis for declaring it.

Even when we can see a system with its own "natural laws" from the perspective of inside it, with the initial conditions of the system being fixed as a matter of OUR universe being determined, we can observe that the initial conditions of any given simulation were, in fact, completely independent of the laws of the simulation.

I yet again reiterate most people I meet who bring this debate up with seem quite similar to the Christian apologists I encountered at the various Jesus Camps my parents sent me to: high on passion and low on logic, with a thirst for intellectual validation that is probably undeserved.

 

[DBT]

The fact is there are a lot of idiotic beliefs that exist all mashed up between hard determinists, and the majority of them amount to a belief in God... Or something like it.

Let's take the idiotic belief that the infinite complexity of an infinitely varying universe that has no preferred reference frame that has a maximum interactive distance at every point in it.

You are still barking up the wrong tree, making up your own false narrative and arguing from it.

Try to focus on the issue of free will in relation to determinism, just as you defined it.

There are infinite different universes, not separated by some thin dimensional veil that we could poke a hole through, but instead separated by vast physical distances. We can observe that "over there" has a different initial condition to "over here".

There you go again. An infinite number of universes, even if that is true, has nothing to do with the argument for or against compatibilism. The issue is the compatibility of free will with determinism as it it defined....not other universes or alternate initial conditions.


I won't bother with the rest because it's just more of the same fallacies.

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. '

Because action production by a deterministic process is a problem for compatibilism, to define free will as acting without external force, coercion or undue influence (or had conditions been different) is not sufficient to establish the reality of free will. Trying to redefine free will into existence, word play, does not make a case, or establish its reality.

 

[Jarhyn]

Try to focus on the issue of free will in relation to determinism, just as you defined it.

'how people define it' has no impact on the underlying principle of a complete system with fixed rules.

Complete systems with fixed rules do have a common set of properties, but nowhere in those properties include "the setup of the system is a rule of the system". Even the rules themselves are a part of the setup, and those are arbitrary too; we can propose a different set of physics, a different starting condition, and calculate on those all the same. We don't all the time every time we invent a new game.

You are proposing a system whose rules and setup are defined as fixed by the rules. Godel might wish to have a word with you.

You are yet again NOT an information scientist who has NOT actually studied deterministic systems to understand their mathematical properties, but here you are trying to declare their mathematical properties without even knowing how to describe them.

 

[pood]

Determinism permits only one action at any given instance.

I suppose I’ll have to read back through some posts I missed — I’d like to focus on Jerry Coyne’s improv jazz musician, whom he feels did not actually produce anything — but for now, just to respond to the above.

This is the crux of why you (not us) keep getting it wrong. Determinism does not permit, or rule out, anything. Whether you intend to or not, you (and Coyne and other hard determinists) keep reifying determinism as some kind of agent, like a god or something. It’s not. It’s just a description of how things (approximately) go at the macro-level: causes reliably follow effects. That’s it. Determinism did not permit, or allow, Coyne’s jazz musician to write anything. He did that all by himself.

 

[DBT]

Determinism permits only one action at any given instance.

I suppose I’ll have to read back through some posts I missed — I’d like to focus on Jerry Coyne’s improv jazz musician, whom he feels did not actually produce anything — but for now, just to respond to the above.

What has that got to do with anything apart from demonstrating that you haven't understood determinism as it is defined?

You must know that it doesn't exclude thought, imagination or creativity?

This is the crux of why you (not us) keep getting it wrong. Determinism does not permit, or rule out, anything. Whether you intend to or not, you (and Coyne and other hard determinists) keep reifying determinism as some kind of agent, like a god or something. It’s not. It’s just a description of how things (approximately) go at the macro-level: causes reliably follow effects. That’s it. Determinism did not permit, or allow, Coyne’s jazz musician to write anything. He did that all by himself.

It is not I who got it wrong. Determinism simply means that there no alternatives to how the system evolves from past to present and future states of the system......which does not exclude complexity, creativity, design, art, literature, etc, etc...just how things must necessarily proceed.

Just think about the implications of your ''Constant Conjunction.'


''Just what I said it means, and what Hume said it means: “Constant conjunction.” - Pood.

 

[DBT]

Try to focus on the issue of free will in relation to determinism, just as you defined it.

'how people define it' has no impact on the underlying principle of a complete system with fixed rules.

Determinism is defined not only by its 'underlying principles,' but how it works in practice.

Complete systems with fixed rules do have a common set of properties, but nowhere in those properties include "the setup of the system is a rule of the system". Even the rules themselves are a part of the setup, and those are arbitrary too; we can propose a different set of physics, a different starting condition, and calculate on those all the same. We don't all the time every time we invent a new game.

The defining principle of determinism is that effect is fixed by cause, where effect is itself becomes cause as the system evolves as it must, with no deviation.

Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

''Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation"). Marvin Edwards.

You are proposing a system whose rules and setup are defined as fixed by the rules. Godel might wish to have a word with you.

I didn't say the system is 'fixed by the rules.' That is your twist. Another of your strawman remarks.

You are yet again NOT an information scientist who has NOT actually studied deterministic systems to understand their mathematical properties, but here you are trying to declare their mathematical properties without even knowing how to describe them.

There you go again.

 

[Jarhyn]

Determinism is defined not only by its 'underlying principles,' but how it works in practice

No, nothing about the "in practice" of determinism defines it.

In fact the very phrase "in practice" is only ever used to denote some trend that excludes some technically true element due to uncommonness.

Determinism is ONLY defined by the underlying principles of the phenomena.

I didn't say the system is 'fixed by the rules.'

Yes, you did, the same way trump commits crimes: you just do it and then pretend you didn't, possibly because you are also incapable of observing when you are wrong.

You absolutely did say the system was fixed in its initial state as a matter of "natural law" which here is implying that the initial state being as it is is also a law.

If you can conceive of a different initial condition in the presence of the same laws (which you can just by looking a few light-years in any direction), the initial condition is not "necessary" to the laws. Laws imply invariant and homogenous behavior and the universe is anything but spatially invariant and is dreadfully inhomogeneous.

The initial condition is not a matter of "natural law", and proclaiming it is is no different than believing in special creation.

 

[DBT]

Determinism is defined not only by its 'underlying principles,' but how it works in practice

No, nothing about the "in practice" of determinism defines it.

Crock. Just like nothing about how the world works, its attributes and principles, physics, gravity, chemistry, defines it?

In fact the very phrase "in practice" is only ever used to denote some trend that excludes some technically true element due to uncommonness.

Determinism is ONLY defined by the underlying principles of the phenomena.

That's what I said.

I didn't say the system is 'fixed by the rules.'

Yes, you did, the same way trump commits crimes: you just do it and then pretend you didn't, possibly because you are also incapable of observing when you are wrong.

The rules, principles, attributes, features of the world is the world. You are taking a brief remark and imposing your interpretation on it.

You absolutely did say the system was fixed in its initial state as a matter of "natural law" which here is implying that the initial state being as it is is also a law.

It's not that I say that. That's how determinism is defined. I have quoted multiple sources to that effect, including your own.

The definition, to be exact is;

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

If you can conceive of a different initial condition in the presence of the same laws (which you can just by looking a few light-years in any direction), the initial condition is not "necessary" to the laws. Laws imply invariant and homogenous behavior and the universe is anything but spatially invariant and is dreadfully inhomogeneous.

The initial condition is not a matter of "natural law", and proclaiming it is is no different than believing in special creation.

For heaven's sake, it doesn't matter what the initial state is. It can be anything, for whatever reason, it is what it is, yet it is the initial state that sets the course of the system into motion, where all events evolve from past to present and future states of the system without alternatives or deviations, where the system evolves as is it must.

As it happens that this is how you, yourself defined determinism, what exactly are you trying to get at?

That alternatives exist after all? That, had the system been different, could you have done things differently? Never mind that the same restrictions apply regardless of what the initial state may be.

 

[Jarhyn]

nothing about how the world works, its attributes and principles, physics, gravity, chemistry, defines it?

None of those things define determinism. None of them. Determinism describes those things but those things do not describe the word "deterministic".

"Deterministic" has a mathematical meaning and describes the function of a system only once it is implemented.

That's what I said

So you admit you used in practice wrongly, trying to make a claim about the universe that does not come from the core idea of determinism, but something you tacked onto it? Or are you going to backpedal away from that now?

That's how determinism is defined

No, determinism only starts as a definition once you have the system. Nothing about determinism includes the creation of the system itself.

Determinism of a system is a description of its function, and has nothing to do with the "set-up".

Determinism can say "when you start with 5 and do (x+1)%6 you SHALL see 0 on every frame (x*6+1)", but it cannot say "you shall start with 5 and do (x+1)%6".

Just like physics is agnostic to how the universe is what it is in terms of initial state, determinism is too.

Of course then proclaiming some uncaused initial first which knows everything about the universe is a religious position, and the same ones of us here tend to reject those.

For heaven's sake, it doesn't matter what the initial state is. It can be anything, for whatever reason, it is what it is, yet it is the initial state that sets the course of the system into motion, where all events evolve from past to present and future states of the system without alternatives or deviations, where the system evolves as is it must

So you admit that the system can be conceived of as having different initial states, so the exercise of considering the events of different current states is sensible even in the presence of a counterfactual.

Counterfactuals are statements agnostic to initial state, statements about the rules and not about particular states.

If the initial state "can be anything" then the current state of a counterfactual can likewise be anything and still make correct statements about the implications of the rules in that hypothetical state because the initial state isn't part of "the rules".

As it is, it isn't even clear if counterfactuals are not actually factual about some other inaccessible but some ostensibly "real" and distant location given the hypothesisthat the universe is spatially, if not observationally, infinite.

 

[DBT]

nothing about how the world works, its attributes and principles, physics, gravity, chemistry, defines it?

None of those things define determinism. None of them. Determinism describes those things but those things do not describe the word "deterministic".

"Deterministic" has a mathematical meaning and describes the function of a system only once it is implemented.

You seem to have no idea. If the world is deterministic, it has not been 'implemented.'

Try to focus. You have probably been playing with computer software for too long and it has effected your perspective on the world.

The basics; compatibilism is the argument that free will is compatible with determinism, as in conditions within the world as deterministic system.

This is not about your software or computers, but the world as it is and as it works - a world which has not been implemented by IT guys writing code.

That's what I said

So you admit you used in practice wrongly, trying to make a claim about the universe that does not come from the core idea of determinism, but something you tacked onto it? Or are you going to backpedal away from that now?

I don't make any claim. The compatibilist argument is the claim that free will is compatible with determinism, where the terms and definitions of both determinism and free will is given by the compatibilist.....including you and yours.

You have yet to give a coherent argument for free will in relation to determinism as you define it.

I won't bother with the rest of your post because it's full of the same fallacies. Time and patience have their limits.

Try to focus on the compatibilist definition of determinism and free will, including your own take on it.

Explain why you think it's valid.

 

[Jarhyn]

You seem to have no idea. If the world is deterministic, it has not been 'implemented.'

These are not actually true. That's in fact the whole reason we are here: there is no fundamental evidence either way. You just made an unrovable statement.

Your belief is not rational. Please quit it.

It's perfectly fine to say "I don't believe it is" but as soon as you say "it isn't" you have stepped away from intellectual honesty into something else.

My 787 simulator is implemented, yet still deterministic. Determinism is agnostic to implemented-ness.

You. Do. Not. Even. Know. What. Deterministic. Means.

 

[DBT]

You seem to have no idea. If the world is deterministic, it has not been 'implemented.'

These are not actually true. That's in fact the whole reason we are here: there is no fundamental evidence either way. You just made an unrovable statement.

What are you trying to say? Are you disputing that the world on a macro scale is deterministic? That its events are not causal? That planets orbit randomly and objects on earth can as easily fall up as down?

You need to explain your position clearly and concisely.

Your belief is not rational. Please quit it.

Belief? That's odd. It is the compatibilist that gives a definition of determinism and argues that free will, as defined by the compatibilist, is compatible with the given definition of determinism.

That is the point of contention, not what I believe.

You, yourself gave a definition of determinism.

You have yet to give a rational argument for free will.

What are you trying to say? Are you saying the world is not deterministic? How does anything you say establish free will?

What is your point? You are floundering. Flip flopping like a fish out of water.

It's perfectly fine to say "I don't believe it is" but as soon as you say "it isn't" you have stepped away from intellectual honesty into something else.

My 787 simulator is implemented, yet still deterministic. Determinism is agnostic to implemented-ness.

You. Do. Not. Even. Know. What. Deterministic. Means.

There's an example of total irrelevance. You are making this up as you go along. What you say has nothing to do with compatibilism, determinism, free will, the nature of mind, cognition, decision making in the brain or motor action.

Get a grip.

 

[Jarhyn]

What are you trying to say

I told you exactly what I was trying to say, and it apparently it went right over your head: you are wrong about what determinism is, or even what 'a system' is.

You're someone who has never even built, designed, debugged, or solved for intermediate state from immediate state before. You don't know any of the processes I talk about or apply them to understand what mechanically happens as a function of a deterministic system and yet you claim to know... Anything about them.

Literally the only way to actually understand determinism is to open up a deterministic system and see what the rules of deterministic systems in general really are.

You've never done that and I doubt you ever could.

Responsibilities are not zero sum, DBT. It's equally true that you are responsible for what you do even if something is responsible for making you. Right now you're responsible for "talking about something ignorantly as if you knew anything about it".

 

[DBT]

What are you trying to say

I told you exactly what I was trying to say, and it apparently it went right over your head: you are wrong about what determinism is, or even what 'a system' is.

What you said was a mess. I was asking for something coherent. An argument for free will based on your given definition of determinism.

You have yet to do that.

You're someone who has never even built, designed, debugged, or solved for intermediate state from immediate state before. You don't know any of the processes I talk about or apply them to understand what mechanically happens as a function of a deterministic system and yet you claim to know... Anything about them.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the nature of the world, if deterministic or the argument for compatibility.

What you say shows that it is you who fails to grasp the given definition of determinism, its implications, or the compatibilist argument for free will.

The systems you design, build or debug do not bypass determinism or the implications it has for free will.

Literally the only way to actually understand determinism is to open up a deterministic system and see what the rules of deterministic systems in general really are.

The rules are precisely as it is defined, including how you define it;


Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''


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.''

You've never done that and I doubt you ever could.

Responsibilities are not zero sum, DBT. It's equally true that you are responsible for what you do even if something is responsible for making you. Right now you're responsible for "talking about something ignorantly as if you knew anything about it".

Perhaps you should invest in a mirror. It may help, you never know, but I doubt it

How many times has the nature of responsibility in relation to determinism (just as you define it) been discussed?

What was said? Can you say? I think it went over your head because you are so fixated on the design and function of software that you cannot relate your work to the terms of the free will debate.

Here - again - is a clue;


Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

So, according to your definition....as there is ''no randomness involved in the development of future states of the system,'' there can be no alternative actions within the system as it develops or evolves based on prior states of the system, and given that brains are an inherent part of the system, in no way separate as the system evolves or develops from prior to current and future states without deviation (randomness), each and every action the brain performs in terms of thought and action must be entailed by the development of the system, and not a matter of 'free will' or ability to choose over and above how the system develops or evolves.


''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

 

[Jarhyn]

I was asking for something coherent

No, I gave you something coherent. Your inability to follow it was your own issue.

Your claim that I lack, as I am, the ability to interact with myself such that I am different after than I was before, and that i lack the power to do this intentionally, is spurious.

I have regulatory control over at least some of my cognitive states, therefore you are wrong that this control is absolutely absent.

It would have to be absolutely untrue that someone could do something that changes themselves through some state transition.

If, due to my cognitive state, I pick up a drill and put it through my brain, my cognitive state will lead to a change in my cognitive state. Therefore regulatory control exists. The very power of a cognitive entity, due to their cognition, to change that cognition, is exactly the thing you deny existence of, despite clear evidence that it is not only possible but ubiquitous that people do so.

People decide, gnostically, to study so as to change their cognitive state, too.

Your attempt to treat responsibility as "zero sum" so as to say "something is responsible for making the agent what they are so the agent cannot also be responsible for making changes to itself" is misplaced. Both are true, the maker of the agent was responsible at time t for creating the agent that would modify itself at t+1 and the agent itself was also responsible at t+1 for modifying itself.