According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Politesse]

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

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

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

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

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

 

[Politesse]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Politesse]

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

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

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

The relatively local group that is at a location.

Are you forgetting that locality is still a thing?

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

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

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

 

[Politesse]

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

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

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

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

This isn't a "social" reality.

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

 

[Politesse]

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

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

This isn't a "social" reality.

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

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

 

[Jarhyn]

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

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

This isn't a "social" reality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[pood]

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

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

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

At least I read books.

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

 

[pood]

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

 

[Politesse]

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

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

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

 

[DBT]

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

Internal necessity IS US.

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

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

You missed the point.

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

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

The claim has no merit.

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

Oh.

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

Shit.

You seem to be getting agitated, bilby.

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

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

Intelligence is neither willed or subject to will .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For instance;

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


''The increments of a normal brain state is not as obvious as direct coercion, a microchip, or a tumor, but the “obviousness” is irrelevant here. Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state. Depending on that state, this will cause you to behave in a specific way within an environment (decide in a specific way), in which all of those things that are outside of a person constantly bombard your senses changing your very brain state. The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over.''



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

 

[DBT]

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

But I can decide whether to have them for dinner.

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

Good thing your brain is you, then.

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

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

 

[BSilvEsq]

...
The need for a link wasn't to learn who the author was. I managed to Google that much. It was to check your source for accuracy and context. In any case, I made my point based on what you quoted. I still find it hard to believe that you scrounged up a poorly written essay by someone with such weak credentials.

You focus on the author, yet fail to address what is being said. If something is true, it is true regardless of who points it out, or how it is written.
Perhaps the article could have been better written, but neither that or who wrote it has much bearing on the validity of what was explained.
BA in philosophy is a qualification, but even if it isn't, what was said made valid points against compatibalism.

If you are quoting someone as an authority on free will and compatibilism, then their qualifications do matter. Nevertheless, I also focused on what he said, contrary to what you claim here. Nothing he wrote changed or helped to explain anything you've already said over and over, but it would have made more sense to quote someone with more background in the subject matter. There is nothing wrong with a BA in philosophy from Beaver College (now called Arcadia University), but there are a lot of published philosophers out there with better defenses of hard determinism.

Rather than 'someone in authority,' it's more about what is said

It's not about Silverstein or his qualifications at all, but his criticism of compatibilism. He's not the only one to point out the reasons for failure of compatibalism.

I've quoted any number of sources saying the same things. It's not that difficult to grasp, you don't need formal qualifications in Philosophy to understand.

It's just a matter of an inadequate definition of free will. One that carefully avoids the inconvenient fact of non chosen brain states determining what we think and do.

...It was a brief outline of free will as a concept, not just compatibilism, and what it may look like. It's not only compatibalism that fails, but the whole notion of free will ( ''which is not a sensible concept'' - Martha Farah).

It was hardly an outline of anything, just some of his opinions on how to describe the problem he saw with compatibilism. Not much different from your opinions. As for Martha Farah, I've already explained my problem with her. She focused on the usefulness of the expression "free will" to neuroscientists, although she seemed to think that it had no usefulness in other contexts.

Again;

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

There goes any notion of free will regardless of determinism or indeterminism, compatibilist or Libertarian.

(1) fails, because it describes free will in the past tense, and you can't change the past. There may also be some ambiguity in the use of the modal, as well. Free will is about the imagined future from the perspective of an agent, not a past action. So "could have" only refers to what was in the mind of the agent at the time, not what transpired subsequently. From that perspective, agents choose to act according to how they imagine the future.

It's not free will in the past tense, not at all. As explained, and as determinism is defined, prior states of the system determine current states of the system which in turn determine future states of the system as it evolves.

What you experience in terms of conscious will is now, but the form it takes was determined by everything that has happened to bring you to this point in time and place and the thoughts you have and the actions you take

That is how determinism is defined.

(2) refers to "indeterminate actions", and I have no idea what those are. Random actions? There is nothing random about free will. The agent faces an indeterminate imaginary future and an array of actions to choose from. I suspect this is where you mix up compatibilist free will with libertarian free will, which has to do with indeterminism.

Some use indeterminism to support their version of free will, that any option can be taken at any point in time, etc.

That of course is not Compatibilism.

(3) is probably misstated, because you were fixated on the words "indeterminate actions" from (2). You seem to have forgotten that compatibilism is about determinism and free will, not "indeterminism" (whatever that is) and free will.

The syllogism is dealing with the notion of 'free will' in general, not just compatibalism

(4) is a tautology and not under dispute. Free will is defined in a way that is compatible with determinate actions. Agents will explain their actions in terms of the factors that caused them to do what they did.

It just reiterates the terms and conditions of determinism.

(5) does not follow logically because of the flaws in your premises. You apparently confuse the "free" in "free will" to refer to freedom from determinacy rather than freedom to choose an action that leads to the most desirable outcome.

It follows if you take the notion of free will to mean the ability to have regulative control and make choices.

The opening remark being; ''If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:''

I think that you just do not understand the compatibilist concept of free will.

I think I do. I have described its definition of free will countless times and understood what it means and how it relates to determinism as compatibilism defines it to be (which is standard)

Responsibility is something of a litmus test for free will--a deliberate, unimpeded action by an agent. If an agent thinks his or her action was not unduly impeded--that it was the result of free will--then the agent takes responsibility for that action. If it was felt to be impeded by circumstance, forces beyond the agent's control, or psychological compulsion, then that throws the agent's responsibility for the outcome of the action into question. That is what makes the concept of free will psychologically and socially useful. That is why the expression exists. It in no way conflicts with the fact that we live in a deterministic reality and that every aspect of our character is the result of physical causality. Agents are, after all, physical beings. Mental events supervene on physical events. Nobody but perhaps those who support libertarian free will disputes that.

If an action is determined, it must happen as determined. Not only is it not impeded, it is necessarily performed without restriction or hinderance.

''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X.'' - Cold Comfort in Compatibilism.

If determined, not only are there no constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, there is no option but to do what he wants.

DBT, this is Bruce Silverstein. I appreciate that you have used my Quora post to support your position -- with which I fully agree. I have read many posts, articles, and scholarly treatments of Causal Determinism, and your posts reflect a purist understanding of the paradigm. Of course, if the universe is truly and completely deterministic, then the posts attributed to you by the universe simply state what they state without any personal credit, as they could not say anything else.

The most significant difficulty about pure Causal Determinism is that there is no language that can be used to discuss the paradigm that is fully internally consistent with the paradigm, because the truth or validity of the paradigm, itself, denies the truth or validity of truth and validity, the notions of belief or fact, and the individuality, if not the very existence, of the author and the reader, among other things. In a sense, we are prisoners of our language and logic, with no way to communicate or evaluate anything (including the validity or even utility of language and logic) without using them to perform or communicate the evaluation. As Swami Vivekananda astutely wrote: “Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time, and space would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three.” Plainly, logic cannot pull itself up or tie itself down by its own bootstraps. So, too, is Causal Determinism limited to being a robust and internally consistent paradigm lacking any falsification or validation -- either of which would be self-contradictory to the paradigm, itself.

Despite its robust nature, the hole in Causal Determinism is that is does not, and cannot, account for the initial commencement of activity. Nor does Causal Determinism posit whether an intelligent being established the path on which all activity of the universe inexorably travels, or whether that inflexible path was randomly generated. Causal Determinism simply posits that this path has been fixed from the beginning of time (whatever that might be), and that it is impossible to stray from that path.

It seems to me that Causal Determinism must accept that either (i) something without a prior cause commenced the inexorable chain of causation that followed, or (ii) activity of the universe has always existed without a beginning. Either option sets up a paradox, because both options defy the fundamental premise of Causal Determinism that all activity is the effect of prior activity.

The paradox can be avoided by saying that Causal Determinism accounts only for the way the universe operates after its creation, and that the mechanism of creation, which is not governed by Causal Determinism, is unknown and possibly unknowable. Accepting that solution, however, sets up the possibility that whatever caused the activity of the universe to commence could, one day, consciously or randomly act to interfere with the chain of causation that previously was set in motion — thereby allowing for the potential of two different futures at any given time.

Notwithstanding the paradoxical nature of Causal Determinism, I still accept it as a workable paradigm. Moreover, I have found that every paradigm that purports to describe the operation of the universe tends to have an inherent contradiction and/or an unsolvable gap that requires a leap of faith when carried to its logical extreme. I choose to put my faith in Causal Determinism, but I can understand if others put their faith elsewhere. After all, within Causal Determinism, nobody has any choice in what they believe anyway.

 

[Copernicus]

Hi, Bruce. Welcome to Internet Infidels! This has been a very long thread, and I had that exchange with DBT back in 2024. There was a lot of discussion after that post. Basically, my position is that participants in debates such as this often equivocate on more than one sense of the meaning of the expressions "free will" and "determinism". That is basically the position of compatibilism--that free will is fully compatible with determinism when a common sense understanding of its usage in English is acknowledged. Free agents always have more than one option to consider when making a decision. When there are no options, there can be no free will.

From a Godlike view of an action, there can be no free will, because God is imagined to be a being who knows the future outcome of any decision. Those who argue for incompatibilism, in my opinion, frame the debate in terms of an implicit Godlike perspective, pointing out correctly that there never was any freedom of choice from that perspective. There always are causal factors that determine the action of an agent at any given point of time, and God (or a philosopher looking askance at common sense) would know all those factors. In reality, of course, agents are beings with imperfect knowledge of all those factors and who must make choices in the face of such uncertainty about future outcomes. Hence, agents have free will, but our imaginary God does not. Future outcomes are always imaginary to the agent. Hence, compatibilism makes more sense to us mere mortals.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Hi, Bruce. Welcome to Internet Infidels! This has been a very long thread, and I had that exchange with DBT back in 2024. There was a lot of discussion after that post. Basically, my position is that participants in debates such as this often equivocate on more than one sense of the meaning of the expressions "free will" and "determinism". That is basically the position of compatibilism--that free will is fully compatible with determinism when a common sense understanding of its usage in English is acknowledged. Free agents always have more than one option to consider when making a decision. When there are no options, there can be no free will.

From a Godlike view of an action, there can be no free will, because God is imagined to be a being who knows the future outcome of any decision. Those who argue for incompatibilism, in my opinion, frame the debate in terms of an implicit Godlike perspective, pointing out correctly that there never was any freedom of choice from that perspective. There always are causal factors that determine the action of an agent at any given point of time, and God (or a philosopher looking askance at common sense) would know all those factors. In reality, of course, agents are beings with imperfect knowledge of all those factors and who must make choices in the face of such uncertainty about future outcomes. Hence, agents have free will, but our imaginary God does not. Future outcomes are always imaginary to the agent. Hence, compatibilism makes more sense to us mere mortals.

I appreciate your input.

The trouble I have with the view you espouse is that it equates the illusion of making a choice between two illusory alternatives with the exercise of Free Will. I fully agree that it "feels" like we make choices, and do so in the exercise of Free Will. It may even "seem" like that is occurring. If, however, what looks like a free choice is, in fact, an action inexorably dictated by prior events, then there is no choice and there is no exercise if Free Will -- just the illusion of doing so. If Compatibilism simply means that humans feel as if they are exercising Free Will, even if they are, in fact, not doing so, then I would agree that seems to be the case. It also does not further the discussion of Free Will versus Determinism one iota. It would be like three surveyors disagreeing over the length of a road -- with one using an old measuring tool, another using a new measuring tool, and the third using his naked eyes. They cannot all be right (at least not according to conventional thought), and they may all be wrong, but the fact that any one of them or all three of them might "feel" or "believe" they are right does not make them so. Feelings and beliefs are not facts -- unless, of course, we live in an entirely subjective universe in which reality is what we make of it, and not the other way around.

 

[Copernicus]

Hi, Bruce. Welcome to Internet Infidels! This has been a very long thread, and I had that exchange with DBT back in 2024. There was a lot of discussion after that post. Basically, my position is that participants in debates such as this often equivocate on more than one sense of the meaning of the expressions "free will" and "determinism". That is basically the position of compatibilism--that free will is fully compatible with determinism when a common sense understanding of its usage in English is acknowledged. Free agents always have more than one option to consider when making a decision. When there are no options, there can be no free will.

From a Godlike view of an action, there can be no free will, because God is imagined to be a being who knows the future outcome of any decision. Those who argue for incompatibilism, in my opinion, frame the debate in terms of an implicit Godlike perspective, pointing out correctly that there never was any freedom of choice from that perspective. There always are causal factors that determine the action of an agent at any given point of time, and God (or a philosopher looking askance at common sense) would know all those factors. In reality, of course, agents are beings with imperfect knowledge of all those factors and who must make choices in the face of such uncertainty about future outcomes. Hence, agents have free will, but our imaginary God does not. Future outcomes are always imaginary to the agent. Hence, compatibilism makes more sense to us mere mortals.

I appreciate your input.

The trouble I have with the view you espouse is that it equates the illusion of making a choice between two illusory alternatives with the exercise of Free Will. I fully agree that it "feels" like we make choices, and do so in the exercise of Free Will. It may even "seem" like that is occurring. If, however, what looks like a free choice is, in fact, an action inexorably dictated by prior events, then there is no choice and there is no exercise if Free Will -- just the illusion of doing so. If Compatibilism simply means that humans feel as if they are exercising Free Will, even if they are, in fact, not doing so, then I would agree that seems to be the case. It also does not further the discussion of Free Will versus Determinism one iota. It would be like three surveyors disagreeing over the length of a road -- with one using an old measuring tool, another using a new measuring tool, and the third using his naked eyes. They cannot all be right (at least not according to conventional thought), and they may all be wrong, but the fact that any one of them or all three of them might "feel" or "believe" they are right does not make them so. Feelings and beliefs are not facts -- unless, of course, we live in an entirely subjective universe in which reality is what we make of it, and not the other way around.

But you are agreeing with me up to a point. See the bolded sentence above. I would only say that you ought to replace the underlined portion--"seems to be"--with "is" and that you accept a concept of "free will" in which ignorance and uncertainly are critical components of its meaning. We are, in fact, not omniscient. Given that fact about the human condition, free will is compatible with determinism. Determinism never actually had anything to do with free will. The debate itself only started with people debating over whether God was justified in sending people to hell for doing things he knew they would do before he ever actually created them. Philosophers may have removed God from the discussion, but they kept the debate itself going. It is the way they define "free will" that is the problem. They find ways of assuming a Godlike perspective in the concept so that it becomes incompatible with determinism.

 

[pood]

If we are actually going to take up this subject again, maybe we could confine it to a single thread?