According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[DBT]

The issue here is the validity of the Compatibilist argument for free will. That free will - as they define it - is indeed compatible with determinism, just as they themselves define determinism.

See, @BSilvEsq, right here he is claiming (in his own very DBT way) that compatibilist definitions of determinism do not support compatibilist definitions of free will, when the whole thing I've been trying to show you is that YES, people ARE conflating radical fatalism and determinism and YES it is a problem.

PLEASE help us disabuse him of that notion.

I think that you are introducing the term 'radical fatalism' as a means of dismissal. Like it's something undesirable.

Compatibilists call it ''determinism'' and they give their definition of it.

It is a standard definition of determinism.

Basically: 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 for whatever reason you want to call that ''radical fatalism,'' that is your claim, but it doesn't alter how compatibilists define determinism or how they define free will, and that is the point here.

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

 

[DBT]

This whole debate is rather silly.

One can look at the same data — a whole time line laid out from the point of view of a putative God — and conclude: I had to do what I did (a modal fallacy), or, what was, was (a tautology).

So what’s the point?

The point is simple, as compatibilists claim that determinism is a necessary condition for thought and decision making, and that free will (as they define it) is compatible with determinism, the question is, based on the given definition, is the compatibilist argument sound?

Incompatibilists argue that it is not sound. That it fails to account for the inner, unconscious processes of brain and mind, antecedents that set both will and action. That will and its related action, being determined by antecedents, set without regulatory control, cannot be defined as being free.

 

[Jarhyn]

@BSilvEsq

I think that you are introducing the term 'radical fatalism' as a means of dismissal. Like it's something undesirable.

Compatibilists call it ''determinism'' and they give their definition of it.

And here again. Please disabuse him of this foolish notion.

No DBT, we keep saying and you keep ignoring or pretending that we don't, that what YOU call determinism, is actually "radical fatalism" and not determinism, and that nothing about what we call/define as determinism actually implies the jump into it.

I repeat, Bruce, that he is an incompatibilist who maintains that radical fatalism is proven under the mechanical/mathematical definition of determinism, that determinism Imploes radical fatalism.

I really REALLY hope that one of his authority figures with whom he agrees can be enough to tell him that we are right about the philosophical difference between radical fatalism and determinism.

He even repeatedly denies the clear regulatory control created in an automatic event of behavioral modification.

This is why I keepaintaoning your responsibility as a writer on the topic to separate your language from "determinism," so that these conflations do not happen.

LOOK at the mess you have created along with others in not distinguishing these two concepts clearly!

 

[pood]

This whole debate is rather silly.

One can look at the same data — a whole time line laid out from the point of view of a putative God — and conclude: I had to do what I did (a modal fallacy), or, what was, was (a tautology).

So what’s the point?

The point is simple, as compatibilists claim that determinism is a necessary condition for thought and decision making, and that free will (as they define it) is compatible with determinism, the question is, based on the given definition, is the compatibilist argument sound?

Incompatibilists argue that it is not sound. That it fails to account for the inner, unconscious processes of brain and mind, antecedents that set both will and action. That will and its related action, being determined by antecedents, set without regulatory control, cannot be defined as being free.

It does account for them. Inner unconscious processes are part of who we are, though not the totality.

 

[Politesse]

It seems like an apples and oranges situation to me, to conflate a scientific observation with an unfalsifiable metaphysical claim. "Determinism" isn't an ideology, it's just an observation: the universe is predictable by nature. You don't need to "believe" anything to see that this is so, nor know anything about Christian history or Western philosophy, etc. If it's untrue, no logical or rhetorical argument need establish that, it can be disproven the way any theory is disproven, by presenting observational data or experimental results that it would fail to predict. "Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them. You cannot defeat "free will" with data of any sort, because it is not a claim based on data, but rather on the positive feelings that the terms prompt in the listener.

 

[Jarhyn]

"Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them

Again, I will strongly disagree here.

What the Bible mentioned is something like the theory of atomic matter as existed in that same time frame: it was posed crudely, without any evidence of function or correctness, and without strong math around it.

Similarly, free will: centuries before any sort of "formal" sort of will (algorithm) was presented, centuries before any regular switch was proposed (a materially observable freedom) and long before anyone would be able to connect the dots between freedoms/switches and wills in a satisfying way, people still wanted to talk about these ideas.

As a result, the simple concepts that grew up around this grew up in a cosm that was not as rigorous with math as it needed to be to actually start formalizing and creating that theory.

In fact I even broadly speculate that ancient concepts of the soul and body are no more than the attempt to square away concepts of "type vs instance", but because they lacked formal language, they lacked the ability to describe the concepts and handle them satisfyingly.

Somewhere in the middle of that, people started committing easily missed modal fallacies and as a result, people confused themselves on the subject for over a thousand years.

What I can tell you is that if I didn't believe things could be otherwise, I would have a hard time planning software execution. It's a discipline which requires expecting both "if" and "else".

 

[pood]

It seems like an apples and oranges situation to me, to conflate a scientific observation with an unfalsifiable metaphysical claim. "Determinism" isn't an ideology, it's just an observation: the universe is predictable by nature. You don't need to "believe" anything to see that this is so, nor know anything about Christian history or Western philosophy, etc. If it's untrue, no logical or rhetorical argument need establish that, it can be disproven the way any theory is disproven, by presenting observational data or experimental results that it would fail to predict. "Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them. You cannot defeat "free will" with data of any sort, because it is not a claim based on data, but rather on the positive feelings that the terms prompt in the listener.

The debate on free will and determinism goes back to the ancient Greeks at least, though I don’t think they used the exact term “free will.”

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

 

[Jarhyn]

It seems like an apples and oranges situation to me, to conflate a scientific observation with an unfalsifiable metaphysical claim. "Determinism" isn't an ideology, it's just an observation: the universe is predictable by nature. You don't need to "believe" anything to see that this is so, nor know anything about Christian history or Western philosophy, etc. If it's untrue, no logical or rhetorical argument need establish that, it can be disproven the way any theory is disproven, by presenting observational data or experimental results that it would fail to predict. "Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them. You cannot defeat "free will" with data of any sort, because it is not a claim based on data, but rather on the positive feelings that the terms prompt in the listener.

The debate on free will and determinism goes back to the ancient Greeks at least, though I don’t think they used the exact term “free will.”

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

(Or to translate to my more formal language: his goal was pushed out of view from his trajectory, specifically his goal to carry his money all the way home with him, and the push came specifically from the guy with the gun.)

In some senses, such pushes such that our goals "slide out of view" are the very most basic form of harm that occurs.

 

[Bronzeage]

When I see a post in this thread, my first thought is to respond with, "You didn't have to say that," but then I decide to not do it.

 

[Politesse]

It seems like an apples and oranges situation to me, to conflate a scientific observation with an unfalsifiable metaphysical claim. "Determinism" isn't an ideology, it's just an observation: the universe is predictable by nature. You don't need to "believe" anything to see that this is so, nor know anything about Christian history or Western philosophy, etc. If it's untrue, no logical or rhetorical argument need establish that, it can be disproven the way any theory is disproven, by presenting observational data or experimental results that it would fail to predict. "Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them. You cannot defeat "free will" with data of any sort, because it is not a claim based on data, but rather on the positive feelings that the terms prompt in the listener.

The debate on free will and determinism goes back to the ancient Greeks at least, though I don’t think they used the exact term “free will.”

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

No, they did not. Neither "freedom" nor "will" have any direct equivalent in Attic Greek, lexically or semantically. Some overlapping ideas, perhaps, but to call the pre-Christian conversation on the self equivalent to that of the debate over free will in modern philosophy? That is taking things into the realm of ever increasing obfuscation, not clarity.

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

This hardly seems worth addressing again, but just to be clear, humans are not subatomic particles, nor does quantum indeterminacy introduce any measurable inconcistency in how our bodies or minds function.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

So when you meet someone who is described as a "determinist", what you think they mean is that all physical phenomenon are "forced" to happen by literal or metaphorical muggers? Which mugger makes the principles of gravity consistent, in your proposed formulation of determinism?

 

[pood]

It seems like an apples and oranges situation to me, to conflate a scientific observation with an unfalsifiable metaphysical claim. "Determinism" isn't an ideology, it's just an observation: the universe is predictable by nature. You don't need to "believe" anything to see that this is so, nor know anything about Christian history or Western philosophy, etc. If it's untrue, no logical or rhetorical argument need establish that, it can be disproven the way any theory is disproven, by presenting observational data or experimental results that it would fail to predict. "Free will" is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, it's a theological argument based very loosely on the Christian Scriptures, composed of two terms, "freedom" and "the will", that are difficult to translate out of Western cultures and used inconsistently within them. You cannot defeat "free will" with data of any sort, because it is not a claim based on data, but rather on the positive feelings that the terms prompt in the listener.

The debate on free will and determinism goes back to the ancient Greeks at least, though I don’t think they used the exact term “free will.”

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

No, they did not. Neither "freedom" nor "will" have any direct equivalent in Attic Greek, lexically or semantically. Some overlapping ideas, perhaps, but to call the pre-Christian conversation on the self equivalent to that of the debate over free will in modern philosophy? That is taking things into the realm of ever increasing obfuscation, not clarity.

Ancient theories of freedom and determinism. As the article notes, Aristotle’s main concern was logical determinism. As I have discussed before, this worry can be resolved by modal logic, to which the ancient Greeks did not have access.

The atheist argument that theological determinism — the idea that God’s omniscient foreknowledge precludes human free will and thus absolves humans of moral responsibility — is disconfirmed by modal logic.

Determinism is not an observation. The world at bottom appears to be quantum indeterministic.

This hardly seems worth addressing again, but just to be clear, humans are not subatomic particles, nor does quantum indeterminacy introduce any measurable inconcistency in how our bodies or minds function.

I absolutely agree, but I am simply pointing out that determinism as an “observation” is limited owing to the fact that at bottom the world appears to be quantum indeterministic.

We can certainly observe that we have free will, if we define it in the compatibilist sense: The ability to do what I want free of impediment or coercion. I can readily observe that someone being robbed at gunpoint has been robbed not just of his money but of his free will in that instance.

So when you meet someone who is described as a "determinist", what you think they mean is that all physical phenomenon are "forced" to happen by literal or metaphorical muggers? Which mugger makes the principles of gravity consistent, in your proposed formulation of determinism?

Go ask the hard determinists here. That appears to be what they believe. I don’t believe it.

As to gravity, it is a contingent but not necessary fact of reality, and it is not a law, but a description of the way things go that can be mathematically formulated.

 

[Politesse]

As to gravity, it is a contingent but not necessary fact of reality, and it is not a law, but a description of the way things go that can be mathematically formulated.

So do falling bodies have free will?

 

[pood]

As to gravity, it is a contingent but not necessary fact of reality, and it is not a law, but a description of the way things go that can be mathematically formulated.

So do falling bodies have free will?

No one has argued for unlimited free will. If I am falling off a building all the will in the world will not stay my fall.

Humans are free to do the things we are free to do. I am free to pick Pepsi or Coke, if I want to fuck up my body with horrible sugar drinks. I am not free to save myself if I am falling from an airplane without a parachute.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The issue here is the validity of the Compatibilist argument for free will. That free will - as they define it - is indeed compatible with determinism, just as they themselves define determinism.

See, @BSilvEsq, right here he is claiming (in his own very DBT way) that compatibilist definitions of determinism do not support compatibilist definitions of free will, when the whole thing I've been trying to show you is that YES, people ARE conflating radical fatalism and determinism and YES it is a problem.

PLEASE help us disabuse him of that notion.

As I read all of the posts, as well as the historical philosophical record on this issue, I understand DBT to be saying that (i) traditional Philosophical Compatibilists (as contrasted with those of the 20th and 21st Centuries who I will call Scientific Compatibilists) accept the definitions of Determinism that some posters here are labelling Radical Fatalism (and which I am calling Philosophical Determinism) and Libertarian Free Will, and (ii) accepting those definitions renders traditional Philosophical Compatibilism logically incoherent. I agree with that observation and conclusion.

Both DBT and I also have said (as has James and others) that Compatibilism can be sustained as a logically coherent paradigm only by altering the traditional philosophical definitions / conceptualizations of Determinism (i.e., Philosophical Determinism) and Free Will (i.e., Libertarian Free Will). As I see things (and I believe DBT agrees), that is precisely what is accomplished by modern scientific Compatibilism, which posits the compatibility of a modern scientific view of Determinism that is informed by quantum theory (and which differs from the historical philosophical view that presumes a certain future and leaves no room for mere probability) and Free Will that is defined as brain activity that is not predictable by the actor (or others) to any degree of certainty and feels as if it is free.

I concur with DBT's assessment that Philosophical Compatibilism (based on accepting the definitions of traditional Philosophical Determinism and Libertarian Free Will) is logically incoherent. I also concur with the assertion of some posters on this board that Scientific Compatibilism (based on Scientific Determinism informed by quantum theory and Indeterministic Free Will) is not necessarily logically incoherent.

For the foregoing reasons, I see no contradiction between DBT's asserted view and yours. The difference is that you are speaking two different languages (Philosophy and Science) that utilize polysemic words.

Separate and apart from the foregoing is the more important question of how the universe actually operates -- i.e., is the proper paradigm Philosophical Dererminism (hard and fatalistic), Scientific Determinism (soft and probabilistic), or something else altogether. As I have written many times, the answer to that question is beyond the capacity of humans to ascertain for multiple reasons -- some of which are recognized by science, and some of which turn on the fact that science, itself, is an unprovable and unfalsifiable paradigm. Like a belief in God (and, there are many different such beliefs), a belief in science requires a leap of faith in the presumption that the universe is objectively real and observable by humans (directly or through instrumentality). There is nothing necessarily true about that presumption.

A belief in science also depends upon a presumption of the existence of Free Will (indeed, it seems to depend upon Libertarian Free Will). As I wrote in a prior post:

Gisin [] has written:

"[F]or me, the situation is very clear : not only does free will exist, but it is a prerequisite for science, philosophy, and our very ability to think rationally in a meaningful way. Without free will, there could be no rational thought. As a consequence, it is quite simply impossible for science and philosophy to deny free will."

In other words, Gisin is [] unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples the empirical paradigm of science.

Anton Zeilenger has similarly stated:

"The second important property of the world that we always implicitly assume is the freedom of the individual experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will. . . . This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.”

As I read these quotes, they reflect that Gisin and Zeilinger (who are relatively representative of other storied physicists) . . . are intellectually unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples their own empirical paradigm of science. Within science, itself, however, neither feelings nor fear can serve as valid basis for scientific conclusions.

 

[pood]

However, since you raise the point — and I have discussed this before, too — a rock rolling down a hill can be broadly described by Newtonian mechanics and cannot alter its course (which will be affected by numerous variables) because it has no mind and hence no free will.

A human pushed down a hill can struggle to right herself because she has a mind and free will. Unlike a rock, she can try to break her fall.

 

[pood]

The difference between a rock and a human should be rather self-evident.

 

[Politesse]

Humans are free to do the things we are free to do. I am free to pick Pepsi or Coke, if I want to fuck up my body with horrible sugar drinks

How is your behavior any more or less predictable than the direction of a falling body?

 

[pood]

Gisin [] has written:

"[F]or me, the situation is very clear : not only does free will exist, but it is a prerequisite for science, philosophy, and our very ability to think rationally in a meaningful way. Without free will, there could be no rational thought. As a consequence, it is quite simply impossible for science and philosophy to deny free will."

In other words, Gisin is [] unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples the empirical paradigm of science.

Anton Zeilenger has similarly stated:

"The second important property of the world that we always implicitly assume is the freedom of the individual experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will. . . . This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.”

As I read these quotes, they reflect that Gisin and Zeilinger (who are relatively representative of other storied physicists) . . . are intellectually unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples their own empirical paradigm of science. Within science, itself, however, neither feelings nor fear can serve as valid basis for scientific conclusions.

Sure, this is superdeterminism, the idea that statistical independence does not hold, But since science works, superdeterminism fails. QED.

 

[pood]

Humans are free to do the things we are free to do. I am free to pick Pepsi or Coke, if I want to fuck up my body with horrible sugar drinks

How is your behavior any more or less predictable than the direction of a falling body?

Since I am already planning what I will do tomorrow — have some nice New England clam chowder on what looks to be a very cold day, and then visit a friend — it’s quite predictable. However, I might change my mind. A falling body can’t change its mind cuz it has no mind.

 

[pood]

Or, if you mean a human body falling out of an airplane without a parachute, then what he wants or tries to will is irrelevant. He is SOL. Again, no one has claimed unlimited agency. I might like to sprout wings and fly like my numerous bird friends but alas, I can’t. Though my pigeon friend Brownie and I used to eat out of the same plate in the park. I imagine he is dead now.