According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects.

To a very close approximation, a planet interacts only with the Sun. A two body system is entirely predictable.

A human is a hugely complex system with many internal interactions. Predictability breaks down when you have three or more bodies in your system.

A complex system can exhibit a "will of its own", doing things that an observer could never have anticipated. The (pointless but interminable) argument seems to be whether "will of its own" can ever be a factual claim about the complex system, or is always just a metaphor for a lack of knowledge on the part of the observer.

The combatibilist position is that it can be both. The incompatibilist position seems to be 'but God is all knowing, so from God's perspective, nothing has a "will of its own", God can always anticipate its next move'.

As an atheist, I am massively unconvinced by the practice of replacing God with a hypothetical philosophical God-zombie who can view the universe from an omnicognisant external perspective, and/or calculate the motions and interactions of every quantum of mass/energy faster than those interactions can occur.

Free will means that the complex system I call I, contains within it (and indeed, simply is) the only possible system that can predict its own future state; And it can only do so by stepping forward to that future.

I am completely unpredictable, and I am bounded by my skin, outside of which is a far more predictable universe, studded with other self-contained instances of unpredictability (some of whom I consider my friends). The short term decision making process is, to a very close approximation, based entirely on what happens within me; I have "a will of my own". Not even I can predict with perfect confidence what I will do next.

In the absence of a God, free will is entirely compatible with the physically deterministic nature of the universe.

The objections of the incompatibilists are religious in nature, even when they strip down their God to a mere p-zombie who does nothing but know the future.

If I agreed with your explanation of Determinism as used in Incompatibilism, I may well agree with much of the balance of your post. I disagree, however, that you have described Determinism -- at least as I understand it.

Predictability (even theoretically) is not an aspect of Determinism. Indeed, perfect predictability is as impossible in Determinism as it is in Indeterminism.

Nor is Determinism correlate with an omniscient God. That is an argument some folks have developed to explain a religious equivalency to Determinism that misunderstands and distorts Derterminism. Thus, I reject the following statement and suspect that there is no person who properly understands Determinism who would agree with the statement:

The incompatibilist position seems to be 'but God is all knowing, so from God's perspective, nothing has a "will of its own", God can always anticipate its next move'.

You net state:

As an atheist, I am massively unconvinced by the practice of replacing God with a hypothetical philosophical God-zombie who can view the universe from an omnicognisant external perspective, and/or calculate the motions and interactions of every quantum of mass/energy faster than those interactions can occur.

I, too, am an atheist, and I also would be "unconvinced by the practice of replacing God with a hypothetical philosophical God-zombie who can view the universe from an omnicognisant external perspective, and/or calculate the motions and interactions of every quantum of mass/energy faster than those interactions can." There was a time in the history of the Determinism debate that LaPlace posited such a God-zombie-like entity, which he called a "demon," but LaPlace's predictability hypothesis is not a part of mainstream or even classical Determinism except for a period of time in which LaPlace's demon was in vogue. I would be pleased to explain further why Determinism does not posit predictability, much less perfect or certain predictability, and that acceptance of the Determinism paradigm actually precludes such predictability -- even by LaPlace's foolish demon.

I similarly reject the following statement:

In the absence of a God, free will is entirely compatible with the physically deterministic nature of the universe.

Specifically, I reject that the predicate "n the absence of God" has anything to do with the issue. Indeed, as bet I understand the debate, the theoretical / hypothetical existence of God is not incompatible with the existence of Free Will. It is not a non-existent God that makes Determinism incompatible with Free Will. Rather, it is the definition of Determinism -- which, again, has nothing to do with predictability (even theoretically).

Plainly, I also reject the final statement:

The objections of the incompatibilists are religious in nature, even when they strip down their God to a mere p-zombie who does nothing but know the future.

Again, there not only is no omniscient God in Determinism, there is no p-zombie, there is no demon, and there is no predictability.

What there is in Determinism, if Determinism were true (and I am not advocating that it is), is simply the fact that all activity, including human cognition, is the inexorable and fixed effect of antecedent causes. Of course, the universe is an incredibly complex system, comprised or near-infinite smaller complex systems, which include human beings. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. Indeed, it is that incredible complexity that precludes predictability -- especially from within the system, which is the point of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, among other things.

So, I return to my original statement that began the post to which I am replying -- namely:

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects.

While criticizing the notion that "human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects," the post to which I am replying does not offer an explanation of what Free Will would mean in a hypothetical universe in which it is the case that "human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects." Yet another post that avoids the question by criticizing and rejecting Determinism without offering any defense of Free Will if Determinism is accepted (arguendo) as true.


Post-script: I have no idea where the italics came from. I have tried multiple times to get rid of them, but the website insists upon keeping them -- as if it were determined to be that way.

 

[Jarhyn]

1. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

This is your problem right here.

Perhaps we have radically different definitions of 'logical soundness' given that the definition of 'logical soundness' for me requires the axioms of the system to not express syntax errors or contradictions or type structure violations as a result of a valid logic.

When that happens, it disproves whatever you added to the axiomatic system.

It is well understood that certain kinds of errors among the premises of an argument allow this, and as a result, certain types of premises end up as "identifiably rejectable"

Incompatibilism is not 'logically sound if you accept it's definitions', it is 'logically unsound BECAUSE you accept it's definitions'.

 

[BSilvEsq]

1. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

This is your problem right here.

Perhaps we have radically different definitions of 'logical soundness' given that the definition of 'logical soundness' for me requires the axioms of the system to not express syntax errors or contradictions or type structure violations as a result of a valid logic.

When that happens, it disproves whatever you added to the axiomatic system.

It is well understood that certain kinds of errors among the premises of an argument allow this, and as a result, certain types of premises end up as "identifiably rejectable"

Incompatibilism is not 'logically sound if you accept it's definitions', it is 'logically unsound BECAUSE you accept it's definitions'.

Ok. You have now said that over and over and over again. We disagree, but that is ok.

Are you willing to provide the requested explanation of how a person could have had Free Will if the person's thoughts and actions were fixed by anteceeenta activity before the thoughts and actions occurred? If your answer is simply that a person's thoughts and actions have never been and cannot be (even theoretically) fixed by anteceeenta activity before the thoughts and actions occurred, then our further communications are pointless, as AntiChris has said.

 

[Jarhyn]

Are you willing to provide the requested explanation of how a person could have had Free Will if the person's thoughts and actions were fixed by anteceeenta activity before the thoughts and actions occurred

I believe Pood, Antichris, I, Bilby, Elixir and Richard Carrier have already discussed the problems with saying that the activity is fixed before the activity is fixed by the exact thing that fixes it (namely the happening of the activity).

The fixation of the thoughts and actions occurring... Is the thoughts and actions occurring.

How could the thoughts and actions occur before they occur?

And if the actual occurrence hasn't happened before the actual occurrence, then it is not "literally" pre-determined, it is only "as imagined from" or "as occurs from this in due course", and all the actions in between must be considered as important to the conclusion, because the conclusion happens happens due to those members acting as they do.

As such, free will happens specifically in the moment where you are there, an autonomous part of things, making decisions.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Are you willing to provide the requested explanation of how a person could have had Free Will if the person's thoughts and actions were fixed by anteceeenta activity before the thoughts and actions occurred

I believe Pood, Antichris, I, Bilby, Elixir and Richard Carrier have already discussed the problems with saying that the activity is fixed before the activity is fixed by the exact thing that fixes it (namely the happening of the activity).

The fixation of the thoughts and actions occurring... Is the thoughts and actions occurring.

How could the thoughts and actions occur before they occur?

And if the actual occurrence hasn't happened before the actual occurrence, then it is not "literally" pre-determined, it is only "as imagined from" or "as occurs from this in due course", and all the actions in between must be considered as important to the conclusion, because the conclusion happens happens due to those members acting as they do.

As such, free will happens specifically in the moment where you are there, an autonomous part of things, making decisions.

The reply is flawed, and still evades the question. In essence, the answer given is that Free Will exists -- full stop. It is an outright rejection of Determinism (without expressly stating as much), and it is not the least of an effort to explain how Free Will can be harmonious with the truth of Determinism.

The first sentence of the reply uses the word "fixed" in two different ways, but does so as if it is the same word with the same meaning in each instance. The first and third use of the word fixed / fixes in the sentence means "set(s) in motion such that the future occurrence is inexorable." The second use of the word fixed in the sentence means "has occurred" and/or "is occurring."

The reply next asks: "How could the thoughts and actions occur before they occur?" The answer is that nothing occurs before it occurs, by the very definition of the word occur. Nor does Determinism posit that anything occurs before it occurs. So, the questions is a non-sequitur that lacks a proper foundation. It is in the nature of "When did you stop beating your wife?"

The reply next asserts:

And if the actual occurrence hasn't happened before the actual occurrence, then it is not "literally" pre-determined, it is only "as imagined from" or "as occurs from this in due course", and all the actions in between must be considered as important to the conclusion, because the conclusion happens happens due to those members acting as they do.

As such, free will happens specifically in the moment where you are there, an autonomous part of things, making decisions.

Again, nobody says that something occurs before it occurs. Nor, however, do the words "And if the actual occurrence hasn't happened before the actual occurrence" provide a logical predicate for the balance of the statement, which does not follow from the predicate and is simply a separate assertion of fact.

The words "As such," in the final sentence are similarly misused, because the balance of the final sentence does not logically flow from the prior paragraph (or anything else in the post). Rather, the statement "free will happens specifically in the moment where you are there, an autonomous part of things, making decision" is the factual assertion upon which the entirety of the Compatibilism argument in the reply rests. The assertion is oddly stated as a conclusion, but it does not follow from the putative refutation of Determinism, and it is, in fact, the predicate premise of the argument being advanced in the reply.

In essence, the reply argues that it is impossible for a specific human thought to be set in motion by antecedent activity, such that the future occurrence of that specific human thought is inexorable. So be it. That is a respectable belief. It also is a belief that is incompatible with the truth of Determinism, and does not seek to harmonize Free Will with Determinism. As Micheal Pearl aptly observed:

If compatibilists deny that there is any macrophysical indeterminateness, then there is this obvious sense in which compatibilists are incompatibilists.

and

If compatibilists do not deny that there is any macrophysical indeterminateness, then there is a sense in which compatibilists are not determinists.

And before anyone takes issue with Micahel's terminology, just substitute the words "human thought that is set in motion by antecedent activity such that the future occurrence of the thought is inexorable" for "macrophysical indeterminism"

In the final analysis, the reply is a great argument in support of Incompatibilism -- albeit one advanced by someone who identifies as a Compatibilist. The reply provides a definition / explanation of Free Will that cannot be harmonized with Determinism, and goes the further step of asserting that Free Will does, in fact, exist, which makes the author a Libertarian (which is defined as combining Incompatibilism with the belief that Free Will does exist -- which logically necessitates that Determinism is false). It is good to have this out in the open.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The first sentence of the reply uses the word "fixed" in two different ways, but does so as if it is the same word with the same meaning in each instance. The first and third use of the word fixed / fixes in the sentence means "set(s) in motion such that the future occurrence is inexorable." The second use of the word fixed in the sentence means "has occurred" and/or "is occurring."

Correction, the first sentence uses the word "fixed" (or "fixes") in three different ways -- not two, as I mistakenly wrote.

The first use of the word fixed in the sentence means "set(s) in motion such that the future occurrence is inexorable."

The second use of the word fixed in the sentence means "has occurred" and/or "is occurring."

The third use of the word "fixes" on the sentence means "unalterable following occurrence"

It is trifecta of use.

 

[bilby]

If I agreed with your explanation of Determinism as used in Incompatibilism, I may well agree with much of the balance of your post. I disagree, however, that you have described Determinism -- at least as I understand it.

I don't disagree with your definition of determinism, and my post wasn't about determinism.

It was about free will.

Maybe you will understand my point better if you read it again with that in mind.

You asked

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects.

... so I have attempted to articulate what Free Will [capitalisation in the original] means in a universe that is entirely deterministic.

I see no disagreement between us with regards to what "deterministic" means. Just what it implies for free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

The reply is flawed, and still evades the question. In essence, the answer given is that Free Will exists -- full stop

Seriously, fuck you at this point?

I answered the fucking question specifically about the way free will exists, because frankly you keep trying to pose silly contradictory ideas, like "determined before it was determined" or just in regular parlance "pre-determination".

Of course it looks like the answer is "free will exists", although you're just full of shit now on claiming that it's "full stop".

Again, nobody says that something occurs before it occurs

Pre-determined. It's either determined before (pre-), or it's not actually determined before, merely "in an imaginary sense"... But if the sense by which you imagine the determination is identical to the sense in which time passes... The determination is not before... It's purely as a result of time passing. Because that's how it is determined.

So it's tautological and quite simply so that things are determined by the course of things happening, among which are such things as "you" making "choices" that you are "responsible" or "irresponsible" for in varying ways, and which we can observably show as such, especially when you reject the contradictory necessitation bits.

Whine and waffle all you want?

If you want to pose a thing with infinite comprehension of the future from the past without the interim time passing for the system, and not detached from the exact location, the I'm going to laugh at you and say "Russel says No."

 

[BSilvEsq]

If I agreed with your explanation of Determinism as used in Incompatibilism, I may well agree with much of the balance of your post. I disagree, however, that you have described Determinism -- at least as I understand it.

I don't disagree with your definition of determinism, and my post wasn't about determinism.

It was about free will.

Maybe you will understand my point better if you read it again with that in mind.

You asked

I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects.

... so I have attempted to articulate what Free Will [capitalisation in the original] means in a universe that is entirely deterministic.

I see no disagreement between us with regards to what "deterministic" means. Just what it implies for free will.

I have read your post multiple times. There are multiple criticisms / rejections of Determinism based on lack of predictability, which is not an aspect of Determinism. There also is a criticism / rejection of Determinism based on a mistaken view that it is a religious and based on a God or godlike predictor.

There does appear to be an effort to articulate what free will means, but I am unable to follow it, and it seems to turn on the existence of a complexity that is beyond predictability, which tells me nothing, as action based on a lack of free will also is sufficient complex to elude predictability. It also is not an effort to articulate how free will is compatible with Determism.

Without criticizing or rejecting Determinism, which you say you are not doing, can you simply define Free Will and explain how it works if, in fact, the forces of nature are such that they dictate human thoughts and activities in the same way that they dictate the movement of celestial bodies (albeit with greater complexity such that we lack the ability to discern the causal activity).

 

[Jarhyn]

  [QUOTE="BSilvEsq, post: 1325680, member: 23177"] [QUOTE="bilby, post: 1325674, member: 37"] [QUOTE="BSilvEsq, post: 1325634, member: 23177"] If I agreed with your explanation of Determinism as used in Incompatibilism, I may well agree with much of the balance of your post. I disagree, however, that you have described Determinism -- at least as I understand it. [/QUOTE] I don't disagree with your definition of determinism, and my post wasn't about determinism. It was about free will. Maybe you will understand my point better if you read it again with that in mind. You asked [QUOTE] I have yet to read an articulation of what Free Will means in a universe that is entirely deterministic in the sense that human cognition is as controlled by antecedent forces as is the orbit of celestial objects. [/QUOTE] ... so I have attempted to articulate what Free Will [capitalisation in the original] means in a universe that is entirely deterministic. I see no disagreement between us with regards to what "deterministic" means. Just what it implies for free will. [/QUOTE] I have read your post multiple times. There are multiple criticisms / rejections of Determinism based on lack of predictability, which is not an aspect of Determinism. There also is a criticism / rejection of Determinism based on a mistaken view that it is a religious and based on a God or godlike predictor. There does appear to be an effort to articulate what free will means, but I am unable to follow it, and it seems to turn on the existence of a complexity that is beyond predictability, which tells me nothing, as action based on a lack of free will also is sufficient complex to elude predictability. It also is not an effort to articulate how free will is compatible with Determism. Without criticizing or rejecting Determinism, which you say you are not doing, can you simply define Free Will and explain how it works if, in fact, the forces of nature are such that they dictate human thoughts and activities in the same way that they dictate the movement of celestial bodies (albeit with greater complexity such that we lack the ability to discern the causal activity). [/QUOTE] Ok, so we end the year with you proving, once again, that you are a blithering idiot, and an asshat to boot. Thankfully, I need not further engage with you as the New Year begins, and I can devote my time to dealing with endeavors that have greater value than wasting my time with your nonsense -- which is just about any endeavor at this point. Gooduck with your life. You are going to need it.

Ok, stepping away from the hilarious "blithering idiocy" of format failure here,

"that they dictate"

The antecedents don't dictate it. The whole process does, including right though the present. It's descriptive, not prescriptive, and when you offer the mechanism by which prescription happens, I'll point to it and say "unbounded comprehension!" And say "Russel says no".

 

[BSilvEsq]

The reply is flawed, and still evades the question. In essence, the answer given is that Free Will exists -- full stop

Seriously, fuck you at this point?

I answered the fucking question specifically about the way free will exists, because frankly you keep trying to pose silly contradictory ideas, like "determined before it was determined" or just in regular parlance "pre-determination".

Of course it looks like the answer is "free will exists", although you're just full of shit now on claiming that it's "full stop".

Again, nobody says that something occurs before it occurs

Pre-determined. It's either determined before (pre-), or it's not actually determined before, merely "in an imaginary sense"... But if the sense by which you imagine the determination is identical to the sense in which time passes... The determination is not before... It's purely as a result of time passing. Because that's how it is determined.

So it's tautological and quite simply so that things are determined by the course of things happening, among which are such things as "you" making "choices" that you are "responsible" or "irresponsible" for in varying ways, and which we can observably show as such, especially when you reject the contradictory necessitation bits.

Whine and waffle all you want?

If you want to pose a thing with infinite comprehension of the future from the past without the interim time passing for the system, and not detached from the exact location, the I'm going to laugh at you and say "Russel says No."

Ok, so we end the year with you proving, once again, that you are a blithering idiot, and an asshat to boot.

Thankfully, I need not further engage with you as the New Year begins, and I can devote my time to dealing with endeavors that have greater value than wasting my time with your nonsense -- which is just about any endeavor at this point.

Good luck with your life. You are going to need it.

 

[The AntiChris]

No matter how they frame it, it seems to me they're basically saying the same thing - determined actions cannot be free actions.

For once we seemingly agree -- although it is possible that we do not mean the same thing by the word "determined."

Notwithstanding our seeming agreement, I do not understand the proponents of Compatibilism on this thread (or at least some of them) to be arguing that determined acts can be free. Rather, I understand them to argue repeatedly that human cognition is not determined...

You're mistaken. Anyone who who made this claim would not be a compatibilist by definition.

 

[The AntiChris]

The positions I have been advocating are the following:

1. Incompatibilism is logically sound if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

Of course it is! It would be remarkable if it weren't!

However, the whole point is that the compatibilist does not use the incompatibilist definition of free will!

2. Compatibilism is logically fallacious if the Incompatibilist's definitions of Determinism and Free Will are used.

Of course it is! It would be remarkable if it weren't!

However, the whole point is that the compatibilist does not use the incompatibilist definition of free will!

You don't seem to have grasped the fact that all compatibilists agree that the incompatibilist definition of free will is incompatible with determinism

If someone believes I have simply missed the articulation and explanation [of compatibilist free will], it would be much appreciated if someone could identify such post(s) in response to this post. Then, a discussion can ensue that is not pointless.

I'm sure others have done this but here's one I posted earlier:

Compatibilist free will is defined simply as the ability to act on one's own desires, motives, or will without external coercion or impediment and that on this view free will and determinism can co-exist.

As far as I can see you didn't respond to this specifically so I have no idea what your objection might be.

 

[bilby]

I have read your post multiple times. There are multiple criticisms / rejections of Determinism based on lack of predictability, which is not an aspect of Determinism.

There really aren't.

There are multiple explanations of how a sufficiently complex deterministic system is free to act as it wills; Unpredictability is the esssence of will, as in the well known phrase "this bloody machine has a will of its own".

Of course, that's just a saying with regards to a machine that is insufficiently complex to actually have a will of its own. But a human is a VERY complex machine, and somewhere on the spectrum from two-body systems to systems as complex as brains, it becomes true, for any given value of "will".

Even though every single component continues to act in an entirely deterministic way, like planets in their orbits.

 

[DBT]

Compatibilism is

Your insistence on what other people mean by compatibilism, determinism, and randomness are entirely the problem here because these things do not mean what you think they mean.

I don't insist on a single thing. It is in fact the compatibilist who gives their definition free will in relation to their definition of determinism. That is not what I insist, but just what is true.

Just as you yourself gave your definition of determinism when asked, a definition that is not controversial and in fact relates to the compatibilist definition. This is not what I insist, but precisely what you did.

The given terms are clear, and they mean precisely what they say.

It is you who seeks to transform the terms, trying alter their meaning into something that suits your needs.

Please stop trotting out your ignorance as if it's knowledge.

I tried explaining this to you with the discussion of aperiodic systems and the undecidability of location and context, but it seems to entirely escape you.

You have explained nothing. You try to alter the given terms, not my terms, but how determinism and free will are defined by compatibilists, and that, Jarhyn, is both dishonest and ignorant.

That is the nature of the game you play.

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

 

[BSilvEsq]

No matter how they frame it, it seems to me they're basically saying the same thing - determined actions cannot be free actions.

For once we seemingly agree -- although it is possible that we do not mean the same thing by the word "determined."

Notwithstanding our seeming agreement, I do not understand the proponents of Compatibilism on this thread (or at least some of them) to be arguing that determined acts can be free. Rather, I understand them to argue repeatedly that human cognition is not determined...

You're mistaken. Anyone who who made this claim would not be a compatibilist by definition.

I agree 100% with your statement that "Anyone who who made this claim would not be a compatibilist by definition."

 

[BSilvEsq]

I have read your post multiple times. There are multiple criticisms / rejections of Determinism based on lack of predictability, which is not an aspect of Determinism.

There really aren't.

There are multiple explanations of how a sufficiently complex deterministic system is free to act as it wills; Unpredictability is the esssence of will, as in the well known phrase "this bloody machine has a will of its own".

Of course, that's just a saying with regards to a machine that is insufficiently complex to actually have a will of its own. But a human is a VERY complex machine, and somewhere on the spectrum from two-body systems to systems as complex as brains, it becomes true, for any given value of "will".

Even though every single component continues to act in an entirely deterministic way, like planets in their orbits.

Thanks for making the effort to explain further.

I both understand and appreciate your further explanation. It is a sensible explanation of what you call free will, which I take you to believe to exist.

Where we come apart is in the belief that the form of free will you have described (assuming it does, in fact, exist) can truly arise in an entirely deterministic way, as opposed to simply having the appearance of arising in a lock-step manner from what appears to be a chaotically and/or indeterminately complex system.

As I have written in prior posts, I believe our respective views divide by what we mean by Determinism -- as I am fine with accepting your explanation of Free Will. As I see it, you are using Determinism in the sense of describing the deterministic system that is described by quantum physics, which accepts the occurrence of indeterminate activity at the quantum level and has been used to suggest the possibility that neural activity can be free from deterministic forces of the universe. I have no issue with the logic of that position, and I don't understand Incompatibilism to reject the logic of the belief that the existence of Free Will is compatible with Newtonian Determinism, as supplanted by Quantum Physics -- which might be described as deterministic indeterminacy.

By contrast, I am using Determinism in the sense it has been posited in classical philosophy, and as articulated by Karl Popper when he wrote:

“The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means. But it asserts that the future is as little changeable as is the past. Everybody knows what we mean when we say that the past cannot be changed. It is in precisely the same sense that the future cannot be changed, according to metaphysical determinism."

Notably, Popper did not believe Determinism was true. He was, however, a rigorous philosopher with a keen interest in the philosophy of science. Because Popper properly understood the logical consequences of accepting the truth of Determinism, and he believed in the existence of Free Will not unlike the Free Will you have articulated, Popper had no hesitancy to embrace Incompatibilism and denounce Compatibilism.

The same was true of William James, who fervently believed in the existence of Free Will, and readily acknowledged the incompatibility of his belief with Determinism, writing that "“The issue . . . is a perfectly sharp one, which no eulogistic terminology can smear over or wipe out. The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false" and arguing that all efforts to harmonize Determinism and Free Will are a “quagmire of evasion.”

To me, the logic underlying the Incompatibilism of Popper and James is impeccable, and I am at a loss to understand the almost fanatical resistance of some folks on this board who embrace Free Will to accept that their belief is incompatible with Determinism, as opposed to repeatedly seeking to redefine Determinism in a manner that is compatible with Free Will. It is like believing in the existence of God and insisting that God's existence is compatible with the truth of Atheism by defining Atheism as false construct created by God to test the faith of people, as opposed to a construct in which God does not, in fact, exist.

In any event, and as I began this post, I very much appreciate your willingness to remain engaged in this discussion, and I understand and appreciate your explanation of Free Will and how it operates in a system you consider to be deterministic.

Stay Safe & Stay Well

 

[steve_bank]

Fo0r any and all. Some simple applied philosophy.

What does luck have to do with anything? Can someone be lucky?

Do any of you have the free will to post or not pot here?

Or is it inevitable when and what you post?

After 1917 posts what do you believe?

It seems like free will vs determinism is the greatest philosophical mind fuck of all time ;et loose upon us.

Hard determinism seems like a hard way to go. It can rationalize anything.

I was destined to be a slave owner and you to be one one of my slaves.

The original Law And Order TV series touched on it. If we are genetically predisposed to our behavior then the criminal justice system as we have it goes out the widow.

 

[Jarhyn]

Where we come apart is in the belief that the form of free will you have described (assuming it does, in fact, exist) can truly arise in an entirely deterministic way

I showed this, repeatedly, in demonstrating that the description of "the will of its own that it has" is demonstrated in its relative autonomy.

He described relative autonomy, and relative autonomy has no problems existing in a deterministic system.

If you do not understand what momentary autonomy is, then you're going to have an issue.

You and Mike keep insisting that "the freedom of autonomous action" is insufficient, without actually arguing some reason for its insufficiency that does not literally insist on needing a contradiction to exist in one way or another.

Either way, I can easily point to concrete, immediate examples of relative autonomy out there in the wild right now. You ask 'how can this exist among deterministic systems, and to the ability of it to arise in a system.

We can see and observe the development of cellular automata existing in simple deterministic systems such as Conway's Game of Life.

It is trivially easy to present "relatively free" as the state of "being relatively unconstrained by forces external to the construct in some class of autonomous action", even in a periodic system (such as a "tiled" Game of Life).

That's really easy to demonstrate, is ubiquitous all over and is, in 100% of cases, the only useful "sort" of freedom anyone might seek to have; unpredictability can easily arise in an aperiodic structure that transforms over time according to rules and how this happens is largely well understood under the problems of "decidability".

I even presented an idea of how humans can improve their freedoms: by forming sensible reactions that prevent moment forces from actually constraining the system in its motion through learning processes, processes which apply some manner of gradient descent on an error function.

How can things avoid moment forces? By forming effective wills! How are the wills formed? Through gradient descent on an error function over time. This means anything that reproduces and dies according to natural selection is going to start forming a set of wills over tome to maintain the freedom of motion of such instances as relates to what we needs the thing has.

It's not, however, as Bilby imagines entirely; you can have wills without complexity, even very simple motions can have these principles applied. It works even though it seems a little silly when we do, such as interpreting the structure of a trebuchet as momentarily encoding the "will to 'fire if the pin is pulled'" in that "if five pounds of force are expressed in this direction on that rope then the pin frees the trebuchet to fire".

Still, that's not so complex as be incomprehensible in its motion or structure, whole still recognizing the "will of its own". It's rather easy to understand how and when and what the "will of its own" shall be. It's a 'predictable' result, but if you will notice, that prediction comes with an uncertainty of whether it will arise.

If we save the state of our world, and step it forward and then restore to the earlier state, it is pointedly NOT inevitable in a real sense: we can reach down, tweak the action of the system, and something different now happens, because it's not really happening in the same time or place as the "prediction run", and it wasn't determined by the "prediction run", it was determined by "the passage of simulation time" twice, separately.

All you end up doing with that is destroying the instance where it happened the first time and pretending it didn't happen.

You can even lay out every frame of the system side by side in a block relative to some starting position and view the whole thing, but again that doesn't change the spatial offset of the calculation from the actual occurrence in the block.

For anything else to happen, you would need a contradiction like "comprehending without process of any kind", where "comprehending" is a process by definition.

And this "comprehension" of events SHOULD put the sane philosopher onto some of the rules or restrictions in logic surrounding comprehension principles and the problems of leaving them unrestricted.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Fo0r any and all. Some simple applied philosophy.

What does luck have to do with anything? Can someone be lucky?

Do any of you have the free will to post or not pot here?

Or is it inevitable when and what you post?

After 1917 posts what do you believe?

It seems like free will vs determinism is the greatest philosophical mind fuck of all time ;et loose upon us.

Hard determinism seems like a hard way to go. It can rationalize anything.

I was destined to be a slave owner and you to be one one of my slaves.

The original Law And Order TV series touched on it. If we are genetically predisposed to our behavior then the criminal justice system as we have it goes out the widow.

Good questions / observations. Here is my stab at a response:

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"If" Determinism is true:

"What does luck have to do with anything? Can someone be lucky?" No luck. Just is.

"Do any of you have the free will to post or not pot here?" No free will to post here or refrain from doing so.

"Or is it inevitable when and what you post?" What is posted is inevitable

"After 1917 posts what do you believe?" The paradigm of Determinism is robust, unprovable and unfalsifiable. We feel as tough we have Free Will, and may well have it. Whether Determinism is true or Free Will exists, Compatibilism is logically incoherent.

"It seems like free will vs determinism is the greatest philosophical mind fuck of all time ;et loose upon us." Not a mind fuck at all. Free Will versus Determinism is no different than Atheism versus Theism. One is right and one is wrong. Neither is provable or disprovable. Just pick one and move on, but stop trying to reconcile them.

"Hard determinism seems like a hard way to go. It can rationalize anything." Yes it can. So what? That is the point of an effective paradigm.

"I was destined to be a slave owner and you to be one one of my slaves." Yes. That is the point of a relatively famous parable about Zeno of Citium, the founder of Greek Stoicism. According to legend:

"Zeno built his philosophy of apatheia on a determinism which a later Stoic, Chrysippus, found it hard to distinguish from Oriental iatalism. When Zeno, who did not believe in slavery, was beating his slave for some offense, his slave pleaded, in mitigation, that by his master’s own philosophy he had been destined from all eternity to commit this fault; to which Zeno replied, with the calm of a sage, that on the same philosophy he, Zeno, had been destined to beat him for it."

Will Durant, “The History of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Great Philosophersof the Western World,” at 76 (1926) (First Simon & Schuster Paperback Ed. 2005).

"The original Law And Order TV series touched on it. If we are genetically predisposed to our behavior then the criminal justice system as we have it goes out the widow." Yes -- except that within Determinism, the criminal justice system is as it is and could not be any different without regard to the actual existence or lack of existence of free will. See post No. 1221 (https://iidb.org/threads/according-...ill-does-not-exist.27739/page-62#post-1316668)

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"If" Free Will exists:

"What does luck have to do with anything? Can someone be lucky?" The concept of luck is coherent and implies an unpredictable good result that randomly occurred

"Do any of you have the free will to post or not pot here?" Yes -- unless someone is impaired by a brain disorder that impairs the exercise of free will and/or is being held at gunpoint or subject to some other compulsion that interferes with the exercise of free will.

"Or is it inevitable when and what you post?" Not at all.

"After 1917 posts what do you believe?" The paradigm of Determinism is robust, unprovable and unfalsifiable. We feel as tough we have Free Will, and may well have it. Whether Determinism is true or Free Will exists, Compatibilism is logically incoherent.

"It seems like free will vs determinism is the greatest philosophical mind fuck of all time ;et loose upon us." Not a mind fuck at all. Free Will versus Determinism is no different than Atheism versus Theism. One is right and one is wrong. Neither is provable or disprovable. Just pick one and move on, but stop trying to reconcile them.

"Hard determinism seems like a hard way to go. It can rationalize anything." Yes it can. So what? That is the point of an effective paradigm.

"I was destined to be a slave owner and you to be one one of my slaves." Not at all, because destiny does not exist if there is Free Will.

"The original Law And Order TV series touched on it. If we are genetically predisposed to our behavior then the criminal justice system as we have it goes out the widow." Yes -- except that within Determinism, the criminal justice system is as it is and could not be any different without regard to the actual existence or lack of existence of free will. See post No. 1221 (https://iidb.org/threads/according-...ill-does-not-exist.27739/page-62#post-1316668)

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Have a Happy New Year