According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

I submit that Determinism (as DBT and I define it -- and as you understand to be Radical Fatalism) necessarily precludes the existence of Free Will (as DBT and I define it -- i.e., Libertarian Free Will in which human cognition is not so constrained by antecedent activity as to be pre-determined)

And I maintain that in your very definition, you have a syntax error, and so your attempt to define anything at all failed.

Therein lies the ultimate cop out and evasion. There is no error in the definition. Rather, you simply reject the definition as being inconsistent with your view of reality. The hubris of that approach is overwhelming.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I disagree with the fatalist implication too.
The universe is big, we are small. The total determinist calculation for the entire universe would probably have to be bigger than the universe. We’re just agents, little focii of information so small that FAPP we might as well be operating in an unbounded universe featuring futures that bend to everyone’s will. The deterministic universe is so vastly complex that it easily accommodates subjective experiences that contradict objective observation. IOW, there is no real contradiction between deterministic and non-deterministic constructs of our understanding of the universe. The “two views” would eventually converge if our understanding was exponentially more vast.

That is an interesting perspective. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe both. I have a belief that differs, but I respect the belief you put forward.

The one notion with which I take issue is that of a calculation being necessary or even a part of a fatalistic form of determinism. The ability of anyone (including an omniscient and omnipotent God) to be able to predict the future is not a component of the paradigm, and is arguably precluded by the paradigm because nobody can ever know what the coalescence of all antecedent activity will produce at any given moment because the totality of that coalescence has never previously occurred, much less occurred with sufficient regularity to form a basis for an informed prediction of the consequence.

 

[Jarhyn]

I disagree with the fatalist implication too.
The universe is big, we are small. The total determinist calculation for the entire universe would probably have to be bigger than the universe. We’re just agents, little focii of information so small that FAPP we might as well be operating in an unbounded universe featuring futures that bend to everyone’s will. The deterministic universe is so vastly complex that it easily accommodates subjective experiences that contradict objective observation. IOW, there is no real contradiction between deterministic and non-deterministic constructs of our understanding of the universe. The “two views” would eventually converge if our understanding was exponentially more vast.

I mean, yes. As I have said, all deterministic systems of rules capable of processing general fields, can be modeled in any finite regard as probabilistic systems. All probabilistic systems likewise can be modeled as deterministic ones in any finite regard, even at scales as vast as our universe, assuming a machine big enough to model it and with enough time to do so, or with features that transform in the correct ways.

This is the admission that probabilistic systems == deterministic systems, however the modeling for one might require a vastly greater complexity to present it in some deterministic ways for very large finite probabilistic systems,and so you are correct that there's no contradiction going on in the first place.

The two views already converge, in that way, and I think this is the reason either view cannot be disproven: they both have to be true, no matter how it's actually being assembled as if by some Spinozan God.

Therein lies the ultimate cop out and evasion. There is no error in the definition.

Well, I explained my issue, specifically that you're violating one of the basic precepts of language as significant as the one that makes "this statement is false" syntactically erroneous and nonsensical.

I find your claim that it is an evasion to be the ultimate cop-out and evasion. It is a refusal to acknowledge the type/instance break in the clause "the ability to do otherwise" as implies the intent to reference an immediate rather than a type as the holder of ability.

It is a syntax error. It will always be a syntax error.

No computer language could be assembled where that construction of words or concepts or nearest equivalents in the software language would ever be allowed, because assembling all the tokens, along with the implicit ones, would result in an attempted assignment of class instance members of a static type, or thereabouts.

Language and definitions can be junk, and wrong.

 

[DBT]

It boggles my mind that folks here are unwilling to accept the logical fallacy of a belief that they, themselves, reject as fallacious

We point out the logical fallacy that is shared between radical fatalism and libertarianism.

Who was talking about Libertarianism? Was anyone arguing for Libertarianism?

Who brought up the term 'radical fatalism?" Why was that done?

Is not the issue here about compatibilism and how they define their terms and conditions?

Are they wrong?


.

 

[DBT]

I think that you defined determinism in much the same way as it is defined.

This sentence is either a rank tautology, or (more worryingly) suggests that there is a single "correct" way in which determinism IS defined, and against which we could test any proposed alternative definition for "correctness".

Might I suggest that what you meant to say was:

I think that you defined determinism in much the same way as it is defined by me.

I work with the definition given by compatibilists. I don't disagree with the definition that Jarhyn gave.

 

[DBT]

When considering whether Compatibilism has a valid argument for free will, it doesn't matter how the world really works because compatibilists define their version of free will in relation to their definition of determinism.

If the world does have random events, events that alter how things go, how would that help establish an argument for free will?
How would free will work in relation to random events? What would it look like? Some version of Libertarian free will, where random events somehow coincide with one's will?

 

[Jarhyn]

I work with the definition given by compatibilists

No, you seem to not, because every few days you come back spouting "no alternative actions" in a stunning flurry of syntax error.

Let me repeat that that construction of words, in ANY programming language at any point in time anywhere is a syntax error.

Programmers have, for every compiler that detects and rejects such errors, been forced to detect such orderings of words and make a warning that tells people about this and scolds them mechanically for even trying.

I wish we would just install a spell checker feature for people that detects "couldn't have done otherwise" and just red squiggles it with the explanation "modal error: apparent use of individual instance in place of type", particularly when attempting to speak to an individual instance rather than a type.

Sadly, though, because it is sometimes left ambiguous because of the informality of spoken English, they don't always get exposed in every instance; some instances would detect incorrectly without fully expanded syntax in the first place.

If the world does have random events, events that alter how things go, how would that help establish an argument for free will

We already explain this quite a bit: to the extent these "random" events (and I can't explain enough that you also do not have a coherent definition of randomness presented here or elsewhere), that to the extent this randomness exceeds the regularity of the nervous system, we would have to tolerate some manner of "sloppiness" among each other in our behavior, not because we all just claim a right to be a bit sloppy but because the universe itself has noise around the edges.

As it is, this kind of interaction of non-correlated events, or statistically independent events from the perspective of an outcome creeping in, we actually see something like this in reality in computational events: a transistor has a threshold region, where if the voltage is in a small boundary range on the transistor when the clock fires, it fires unreliably, unreasonably, in a way also not correlated to what it normally measures. When this happens, quite pointedly, we attribute responsibility NOT to the circuit, NOT to the measurement, but to the "random chance".

So whenever such noise is louder than all the signals, it's the noise that steals causal focus from the system.

This means that whenever such locally statistically independent data were to overcome the signal, this is is a constraint to free will, not a provider of it.

This is in fact one of the most important differences between the paradigm of compatibilism and radical fatalism: that inversion of the role of "randomness". You literally blame the noise and whatever is allowing it to be noisier than the signal.

(And there is where the radical fatalist really does get to blame something else such as the big bang for what happens, because the big bang created a lot of "noise" that only correlates to weird stuff happening far away).

Our goal is to keep stuff like the noise of the big bang as far away from how our minds function as is possible, according to compatibilists.

 

[pood]

The extraordinary tedium of this debate needs to be enlivened with new input from other members. But given how boring and repetitive this has become, how do we lure them in?

I know! Snazzy ad campaigns!

Ad for determinism

Hey, kids, you knew it all along — it’s one grand puppet show!

But who’s pulling the strings?

Here’s a hint: it starts with the letter “D”.

That’s right — determinism!

Making shit happen since the dawn of time!

Expect no less!

Ad for free will

Danger, danger, Free Will Robinson! Determinism is lurking around that corner, waiting to kidnap you and push you around!

Don’t let the diabolical Mr. D get away with it!

Remember, kids, you are responsible for your own lives. Don’t fob off that responsibility on anyone or anything. Make good free choices!

 

[Jarhyn]

At any rate, from my perspective the failures caused by Libertarians and Radical Fatalists both are simply this: in attributing freedom to randomness, people seeking to be free see a lack of random and paralyze themselves inappropriately, or they see a plethora of randomness and they say "that makes you responsible" and seek to inject randomness so as to get LESS reliable outcomes and neither of those conclusions are true.

No matter which way you flip the coin you get bad advice.

And the most troubling part is that in the short term, giving someone that trick coin gives you a leg up over them if they act in clear support of it and if you act in principle as a compatibilist despite your words to them.

Just telling people this inversion of the truth starts a grift from which you are the benefactor.

To someone who rejects grifting as unethical harm, it seems like a pretty big and widespread issue.

It also makes me wonder insofar as if this is a grift that naturally helps some ("people without dreams are easy to control"), then is this also an explicit gnostic grift for some? Are there compatibilists out there -- not just in action but in internal model as well -- preaching Radical Fatalism so as to hobble everyone but themselves? Or is there a zeitgeist more of people realizing this somewhere in a deep part of their mind, in a state machine they cannot reasonably access, where Radical Fatalism 'makes sense' only because talking about it benefitted them in an abstract way?

We do know that the failure to believe in one's own freedoms has been studied and that performance on a number of tasks goes down in that situation, so it could very well be something that we evolved to trick each other into believing for our own sakes.

 

[Elixir]

notion with which I take issue is that of a calculation being necessary or even a part of a fatalistic form of determinism.

I did not intend to imply the necessity of such calculus. I was positing a hypothetical calculation - one that would be theoretically possible in a deterministic universe.

is arguably precluded by the paradigm because nobody can ever know what the coalescence of all antecedent activity will produce at any given moment

Our inability to perform such hypothetical calculations is irrelevant. I can’t even calculate the square root of 13975 in my head, and that’s a tiny number. My inability doesn’t preclude anything. In fact it would be a universal necessary in a sufficiently complex deterministic universe, for it to successfully masquerade as non-deterministic under examination by a logical species.

I am not saying that the universe IS deterministic, only that at some level it becomes beyond our capacity to discern, almost by definition. There could simply be no way to put the question to bed from within the universe under examination.

There are a few phenomena that defy deterministic analysis (quantum entanglement etc) but I don’t take that to mean that since we ain’t able to figger it out, it must be magic. But maybe it is - we wouldn’t know. My take is that it’s probably like lightning was to pre-scientific cultures. Magical, FAPP, but explicable given a much broader base of knowledge.

 

[Elixir]

All probabilistic systems likewise can be modeled as deterministic ones in any finite regard, even at scales as vast as our universe, assuming a machine big enough to model it and with enough time to do so, or with features that transform in the correct ways.

That’s another way of saying what I was trying to express. I don’t understand the math that would prove its applicability to all “possible” universes (aka probabilistic systems, if all possible universes ARE probabilistic).
I assume that the size of the modeling “machine” would have to exceed the size of the universe it attempts to model, as it has to contain models of everything including attempts to model it. (How does one “model” a quark without using something bigger than a quark?)
But that would just be an incidental feature. Unless our ACTUAL universe is just a model of an even-more-actual one.

 

[Jarhyn]

All probabilistic systems likewise can be modeled as deterministic ones in any finite regard, even at scales as vast as our universe, assuming a machine big enough to model it and with enough time to do so, or with features that transform in the correct ways.

That’s another way of saying what I was trying to express. I don’t understand the math that would prove its applicability to all “possible” universes (aka probabilistic systems, if all possible universes ARE probabilistic).
I assume that the size of the modeling “machine” would have to exceed the size of the universe it attempts to model, as it has to contain models of everything including attempts to model it. (How does one “model” a quark without using something bigger than a quark?)
But that would just be an incidental feature. Unless our ACTUAL universe is just a model of an even-more-actual one.

The machine would have to operate by rules we can express in finite extent, which extend to infinite extent, bat are such that which we ourselves cannot provide the "infinity" to extend the rules into, or to process upon. Some mechanism available to us may suffice to get us close-ish?

I have plenty of universes I can hold up that are seen from our perspective only as models, but which exist logically/mathematically/metaphysically.

What I find more useful though is modeling the motion of massive numbers of quarks, using something smaller than that massive number of quarks, because the relevant function of those quarks is itself "simulated" or at least a lot more complicated than the model despite their shared rules of behavior.

And it is this symmetry with the system composed of fewer particles that fascinates us so, because then we can use everything that shares that same property with a greater number of even very different particles will have something that WE may know of it: a metaphysical truth about the thing.

In fact I think the relationships revealed between modular forms and elliptical curves recently within number theory are part of this relationship broadly also between probabilistic and deterministic views of systems, or that there is a strikingly similar bridge between these two?

Ultimately this is what I chalk up the non-disprovability of the contention that the universe is probabilistic or deterministic in the first place... However if this is really the logical root of the non-disprovability, then the point still stands, that free will as we understand and experience it would somehow be incompatible with one view or the other.

The conclusion that the compatibilist brings to the core, though, is how complicated the relative representations are.

If I were to compare this, I would compare this to the aperiodic structures that can be formed of chevrons. Chevrons can be arranged in a number of aperiodic ways, but are not obligated to be aperiodic. Chevrons seem "more probabilistic" than the Spectre, which has fewer valid placement regimes and all of which obligated infinite aperiodicity.

Despite the fact that the cardinalities are likely the same, there is still a larger number of ways to position a smaller number of tiles for the Chevron, and some seem much more "arbitrary". Part of my brain wants to think about the way low primes are relatively less "arbitrary" than high ones, with much more chaotic interaction in a constricted prime sieve, for all low primes have the same measure of multiples (countably infinite) as higher ones do (also countably infinite).

Math would suggest that there is a compact way to express both the rules and the initial condition, with arbitrary-seeming selections made in few or even only one singular place according to each of the precondition and the transform rules on the field it forms, and how "compact" this ends up being and how "accessible" the arbitrary-seeming selection is seems to be the general extent of how we end up measuring probabilistics at all.

Because we can model that precondition not-at-all, because it appears entirely and absolutely undecidable (and if the universe is a growing bubble of interaction amid infinite orthogonal bubbles of growing interaction on an aperiodic field, ARE literally undecidable), we model that part almost exclusively with probabilistics and we use fairly probabilistic language to discuss it.

When it pertains instead to the deterministic stuff that seems to change in very predictable ways, when there are statistically measurable effects going on, we instead model it with the mostly deterministic version.

Ever philosophy seems to wrap the probabilistic seeming stuff in determinism, or at least in attempting to imagine, in theory, what systems could be assuming you knew a compact way to express a precondition from a reasonably accessible position from the reference, and that this precondition's nature implies (such as the nature of a field as a spectre field), even if the specific fields we look at or the places we see them in do not comport to any place we can see.

The end result ends up being the suggestion of a razor, in fact Occam's razor: select the least probabilistic theory of all those presented; the theory that assumes the least amount of not-math numbers.

 

[BSilvEsq]

notion with which I take issue is that of a calculation being necessary or even a part of a fatalistic form of determinism.

I did not intend to imply the necessity of such calculus. I was positing a hypothetical calculation - one that would be theoretically possible in a deterministic universe.

I used to believe that Determinism implies the theoretical capability to predict the future with absolute certainty with the combination of perfect knowledge of all antecedent activity and unlimited computational power -- much like the concept of an omniscient (but not necessarily omnipotent) god. I have, however, come to appreciate that acceptance of the tents of Determinism preclude (and do not necessitate) even the theoretical possibility of being able to predict the future with certainty.

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace, a French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statistics, physics and astronomy, hypothesized that the future of a deterministic universe is theoretically predictable with scientific or mathematical certainty. As Laplace wrote:

“We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes.”

When I first began to ponder Determinism, I thought that Laplace's demon hypothesis provided a good summary of the paradigm. Over time, however, I came to disagree with Laplace’s hypothesis. I now believe that the future would be no more or less predictable in a perfectly deterministic universe than the future would be perfectly predictable in a probabilistic universe -- even though I do believe that the future in a perfectly deterministic universe would be "fixed" (as in pre-determined, but not deliberately, consciously, or purposefully) by antecedent activity without regard to the impossibility of predicting that fixed future activity with certainty (as Laplace hypothesized).

As I understand the paradigm of Causal Determinism, it generally explains the process by which all activity occurs without regard to the specific details of what antecedent activity causes any subsequent activity. Indeed, I submit that Causal Determinism necessarily posits that the antecedent activity that causes subsequent activity is the entirety of all antecedent activity and no particular subset thereof and that the subsequent activity is similarly the entirety of all subsequent activity. Or, stated differently, the coalescence of all antecedent activity causes the coalescence of all subsequent activity, such that each successive state of the universe (if there really is movement within a time / space continuum) is the effect if the prior state of the universe, and no aspect of that state of the universe can be disentangled from the the entirety of the state of the universe and assigned a specific cause.

Causal Determinism posits that all activity has a cause and cannot occur in any manner other than how it does occur — without regard to the actual or theoretical ability to predict or replicate that activity. Causal Determinism does not posit that the totality of the antecedent activity that has caused, is causing, or will cause subsequent activity can be known or understood, or that any future activity can be predicted with any degree of certainty. Indeed, if the tenets of Causal Determinism are taken to their logical conclusion, Causal Determinism, itself, makes it impossible for Laplace’s demon to know how the totality of all antecedent activity will interact to cause the next occurrence of all activity, because the totality of all antecedent activity has never before coalesced, which precludes even the theoretical possibility of there being a reliable model for predicting the effect of that unique collection of causal activity. As Heraclitus observed, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” So, too, is the universe never the same from one instant to the next.

In fact it would be a universal necessary in a sufficiently complex deterministic universe, for it to successfully masquerade as non-deterministic under examination by a logical species.

I concur. Although stated in different words, I believe that my discussion about Laplace is consistent with your quoted statement. There also are issues akin to Godel's incompleteness theorems that preclude the ability to prove or falsify the paradigm of Determinism.

I am not saying that the universe IS deterministic, only that at some level it becomes beyond our capacity to discern, almost by definition. There could simply be no way to put the question to bed from within the universe under examination.

I concur. I believe you have zeroed in on one of multiple reasons that we lack the ability to achieve perfect and complete observation of the universe, with the observer effect being another, which seems to preclude even the ability to achieve perfect and complete observation of the universe from outside the universe under observation.

There are a few phenomena that defy deterministic analysis (quantum entanglement etc) but I don’t take that to mean that since we ain’t able to figger it out, it must be magic. But maybe it is - we wouldn’t know. My take is that it’s probably like lightning was to pre-scientific cultures. Magical, FAPP, but explicable given a much broader base of knowledge.

Again, I concur.

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Elixir]

the future would be no more or less predictable in a perfectly deterministic universe than the future would be perfectly predictable in a probabilistic universe

Zackly. Well said.

each successive state of the universe (if there really is movement within a time / space continuum) is the effect if the prior state of the universe, and no aspect of that state of the universe can be disentangled from the the entirety of the state of the universe and assigned a specific cause.

That looks like one of those things we can say to be “true” given our current limitations, which are themselves products of precedent conditions.
Some nuts are simply not made to be cracked.
I am fairly certain that Jahryn could even construct a “universe” wherein such uncrackable nuts rule the day(s) of its inhabitants.

 

[BSilvEsq]

At any rate, from my perspective the failures caused by Libertarians and Radical Fatalists both are simply this: in attributing freedom to randomness, people seeking to be free see a lack of random and paralyze themselves inappropriately, or they see a plethora of randomness and they say "that makes you responsible" and seek to inject randomness so as to get LESS reliable outcomes and neither of those conclusions are true.

No matter which way you flip the coin you get bad advice.

And the most troubling part is that in the short term, giving someone that trick coin gives you a leg up over them if they act in clear support of it and if you act in principle as a compatibilist despite your words to them.

Just telling people this inversion of the truth starts a grift from which you are the benefactor.

To someone who rejects grifting as unethical harm, it seems like a pretty big and widespread issue.

It also makes me wonder insofar as if this is a grift that naturally helps some ("people without dreams are easy to control"), then is this also an explicit gnostic grift for some? Are there compatibilists out there -- not just in action but in internal model as well -- preaching Radical Fatalism so as to hobble everyone but themselves? Or is there a zeitgeist more of people realizing this somewhere in a deep part of their mind, in a state machine they cannot reasonably access, where Radical Fatalism 'makes sense' only because talking about it benefitted them in an abstract way?

We do know that the failure to believe in one's own freedoms has been studied and that performance on a number of tasks goes down in that situation, so it could very well be something that we evolved to trick each other into believing for our own sakes.

I am beginning to understand the disconnect between our respective posts.

Your posts are about the way we feel, think and act on the plane of the mundane -- i.e., the ordinary, worldly, and earthly aspects of existence, as we perceive them to be. In that regard, I do not quarrel with very much, if anything, you say -- subject to the caveat that I do not believe there are any moral truths even on the mundane plane, and that conflicting morals of different cultures or religions can (but do not necessarily) have equivalent value.

My posts are about the supermundane, which is beyond our earthly capacity to discern and can only be hypothesized. I am exploring the ramifications to the mundane of different theoretical realities, premises, and axioms of the supermundane. In that regard, it is not possible to prove or falsify any premise or axiom, much less a premise or axiom about the supermundane. The most that can be proved about a premise or axiom is that it leads to self-contradictory results -- which I do generally take to be a form of falsification, but only insofar as I accept the axioms of math and logic, which themselves cannot be proved or falsified using math and logic, as theorized by Godel.

When we accept our feelings and understandings on the mundane plane, many answers are easy to come by. On the plane of the supermundane, everything is paradoxical. I find the exploration of those paradoxes interesting, and am ever-interested in learning or discovering theories that harmonize or solve the paradox. The first step in doing that involves identifying the paradox, which is where my exploration of Determinism (in the sense you call fatalism) comes into play.

I can tell you are an intelligent and educated person. I tend to believe the same of myself (but I could be delusional). As such, it troubles me when our posts seem to be so diametrically opposed on matters upon which we ought to be able to find common ground. As explained above, I believe we do have common ground, but we are looking in different directions and talking as if we are looking at the same thing.