According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[DBT]

Ahem, the subject is not software development or computers (which, as you falsely claim, are not actually conscious)

Yes DBT, the subject IS about software and computation because consciousness is computation and computation is consciousness and all phenomena are abstractly "computation".

You even agreed up thread with Bruce in accepting that the language fits perfectly.

Rational decision making and related motor actions have zip to do with random events, unless there are random muscle spasms, which won't provide an argument for free will (just as compatibilist claim, and why they relate their definition to determinism.) If determinism is true, even apparently random events have their antecedents, that we don't know the cause doesn't mean that there is no cause.

If we say that memory function is the brains ''software,'' random glitches, interference, may not help in generating rational or reasoned response.

 

[DBT]

Yet the problem is still the same, that even adequate determinism does not permit alternate actions.

We’ve been over this too. Determinism is not the kind of thing that can permit, or fail to permit, or coerce anythig at all. It is not a force, it is not an agent, it is not even a law. It’s a description how things go in the classical world, Descriptions are not prescriptions. You persistently treat determinism as a prescriptive force. It would be like saying my watching the sun come up in the morning makes it come up. This gets the flow of truth-making backward. The sun coming up provides the truth grounds for my watching it do so.

Nobody is saying coercion or force. If determinism is true, it's just the way things must go. If determinism is true, we may go about our lives without feeling forced or coerced, feeling free, believing that our decisions could have been otherwise,, but of course that is an illusion. We make mistakes where a moment later we wish we had done otherwise, where what we know now is not what we knew then.

Our decision then was determined by our state in that moment in time, and the realization of an error came a moment too late, followed by regret as the system evolves.

That is the nature of determinism.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I find it fascinating that there are people who claim that a belief in absolute, unconditional and unqualified Determinism that would preclude the existence of Free Will is akin to a religious belief that must be rejected without empirical evidence or mathematical proof of its existence, while those same people cling to the fantastical notion that they have Free Will, which is equally unprovable

Yes, but why accept one claim over the other if, as you claim, both are equally unprovable? Personally, I don't, because both are unprovable (and irrelevant) since either idea has little bearing on how I live my life, much like the purposelessness of existence, which I regard as just as irrelevant to me.

 

[bilby]

We have been over it. Far too many times. Yet the problem is still the same, that even adequate determinism does not permit alternate actions.

Of course it doesn't. The only action permitted is the one I choose.

My freedom to choose doesn't require me to do something other than what I choose; That would be crazy.

How you 'choose' - the means and mechanisms of decision making - is the point at which compatibilism fails.

Is it? How?

Given determinism, what you decide is inevitable,

OK. I agree that I will, inevitably, do what I choose, rather than doing something else. And I also agree that I inevitably chose that thing, and would do so again given the exact same starting conditions.

Like Marty McFly's parents, I will not change any of the decisions I make, unless something changes. But any change, no matter how tiny, might have huge consequences.

We all understand this.

not willed, certainly not freely willed.

Why not? I am making choices. I can't not make choices; I am the kind of thing that makes choices, just as a rock rolls down a hill, because it's the kind of thing that rolls down hills, and it can't not roll down hill.

As it is a matter of the state of the brain

Which is "me",

and unconscious information processing

Which is also "me",

brought to conscious attention,

Which is "me" again...

it has nothing to do with free will or conscious will.

Why not? It is me, making choices; And then doing what I chose to do. It can't not happen that way.

It has to be that way, because I am a deterministic choice making system. Making choices, and acting upon them, is what I must, inevitably, do.

 

[Jarhyn]

We have been over it. Far too many times. Yet the problem is still the same, that even adequate determinism does not permit alternate actions.

Of course it doesn't. The only action permitted is the one I choose.

My freedom to choose doesn't require me to do something other than what I choose; That would be crazy.

How you 'choose' - the means and mechanisms of decision making - is the point at which compatibilism fails.

Is it? How?

Given determinism, what you decide is inevitable,

OK. I agree that I will, inevitably, do what I choose, rather than doing something else. And I also agree that I inevitably chose that thing, and would do so again given the exact same starting conditions.

Like Marty McFly's parents, I will not change any of the decisions I make, unless something changes. But any change, no matter how tiny, might have huge consequences.

We all understand this.

not willed, certainly not freely willed.

Why not? I am making choices. I can't not make choices; I am the kind of thing that makes choices, just as a rock rolls down a hill, because it's the kind of thing that rolls down hills, and it can't not roll down hill.

As it is a matter of the state of the brain

Which is "me",

and unconscious information processing

Which is also "me",

brought to conscious attention,

Which is "me" again...

it has nothing to do with free will or conscious will.

Why not? It is me, making choices; And then doing what I chose to do. It can't not happen that way.

It has to be that way, because I am a deterministic choice making system. Making choices, and acting upon them, is what I must, inevitably, do.

At this point, I think DBT is just as lost as Sayed on the topic.

Just because someone claims their nuttiness is secular does not make it so, or any less "nuttiness".

 

[Jarhyn]

I find it fascinating that there are people who claim that a belief in absolute, unconditional and unqualified Determinism that would preclude the existence of Free Will... Is religious.

Specifically the religious part is the belief that this would "preclude free will" in the first place, seeing as Bruce already agreed that it wouldn't preclude free will.

The religious part is that injection of the 'must' in the language of the sea battle.

As Pood and I keep pointing out, THAT is the origin of a contradiction, and one we reject because ultimately, religiousity is built on a contradiction.

I have been very specific with what I meant and why: that the belief in MUST in that language is itself a hidden belief in "the set of all sets".

Belief that the universe not just is some way, but must be some way... that's the moment religion enters into it.

I have pointed out numerous times how to see and understand the language I use, what it means, when, and why.

Nobody in history has ever done as much with fatalism, producing a system with any concept of "must"; every time someone tries, it is violated by another system next to it doing otherwise, by another part of the system itself doing otherwise.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I find it fascinating that there are people who claim that a belief in absolute, unconditional and unqualified Determinism that would preclude the existence of Free Will is akin to a religious belief that must be rejected without empirical evidence or mathematical proof of its existence, while those same people cling to the fantastical notion that they have Free Will, which is equally unprovable

Yes, but why accept one claim over the other if, as you claim, both are equally unprovable? Personally, I don't, because both are unprovable (and irrelevant) since either idea has little bearing on how I live my life, much like the purposelessness of existence, which I regard as just as irrelevant to me.

I do not accept either claim, and I agree that whichever (if either) is true is irrelevant to how I live my life. I am just pointing out that neither perfect Determinism or the existence of Free Will can be proved or falsified, and there are multiple folks om this board who both (i) disagree that perfect Determinism is possible (which they cannot prove, much less know to be true), and (ii) insist that they have Free Will and believe they can prove that to be so (but obviously cannot do so).

Thus, It seems to me that we are in violent agreement, even though your post suggests that you disagree with my posts.

When I first joined this thread, my sole point was that perfect Determinism and true Free Will are incompatible and/or cannot be harmonized. I did not then, and have not since then, asserted that either position has a greater claim to being true -- only that they cannot both be true (at least not without (i) changing the traditional definition of one or the other or both, or (ii) committing a logical fallacy).

As I wrote in one of my first posts in this thread:

Free Will either exists or it does not exist. The same is true of Determinism. The two cannot, however, co-exist.

Compatibilism is an illogical, but understandable, construct that is embraced by either (i) people who lack Free Will and are compelled to embrace Compatibilism despite its illogical underpinnings, or (ii) people who have Free Will and mistakenly believe that Determinism rules the universe.

Determinism posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] antecedent activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the antecedent activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” (or “pre-determined”) — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a wholly deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.

As I understand the notion of Free Will, it posits that a human being, when presented with more than one course of action, has the freedom or agency to choose between or among the alternatives, and that the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior to the putative exercise of that freedom of choice does not eliminate all but one option and compel the selection of only one of the available options.

Based on the foregoing:

1. If Determinism is true (i.e., the universe is truly and entirely deterministic), then humans lack Free Will because the truth of Determinism means that (a) humans lack the ability to think in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, as human cognition is simply a form of activity that is governed by Determinism, and (b) there are no such thing as true “options” or “alternatives” because there is one, and only one, activity that can ever occur at any given instant; and
   
   
2. If Free-Will exists in its pure form, then Determinism is not true because the existence of Free Will in its pure form depends upon (a) the existence of true “options” or “alternatives,” and (b) humans being capable of thinking (and acting) in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside their control.

As I understand Determinism and Free Will, they are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

As William James aptly observed:

“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.”

I could write many pages describing the varied attempts of by Compatibilists to harmonize the irreconcilable concepts of Determinism and Free Will, but it is unnecessary for me to do so, as there is an excellent discussion of this subject on-line at Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). It should suffice to say that none of the various arguments for Compatibilism courageously presented on the Stanford website is satisfying, and all suffer from the same flaw identified above — namely, a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of Determinism and Free Will. Or, as William James less generously observed, all efforts to harmonize Determinism and Free Will are a “quagmire of evasion.”

Notwithstanding the foregoing, if people do, in fact, lack Free Will, then the true and only reason that anyone believes in Compatibilism is because that is what such people are compelled to believe by forces outside of their non-existent control. By the same token, if Free Will does exist, then the people who freely choose to believe in Compatibilism do so based on the mistaken belief that Determinism is true, combined with an emotion-driven irrational effort to harmonize their mistaken belief in Determinism with their psychological desire to believe (correctly) in their own Free Will.

After that, multiple others on this thread commenced an endless loop of repeating the same arguments with different words that both (i) fail to disprove the logic of my initial post, and (ii) buttress the quoted observation of William James and other historical philosophers.

 

[pood]

Last night, I had a big dinner, so this morning I choose to skip breakfast.

Or,

Last night, I skipped dinner, so this morning I choose to have a big breakfast.

And?

 

[pood]

When I first joined this thread, my sole point was that perfect Determinism and true Free Will are incompatible and/or cannot be harmonized.

Which you have failed to demonstrate, while notably not explaining what “true” free will is supposed to be. Are you suggesting it must be libertarian to be “true” free will? Also, what is “perfect” determinism? Quantum mechanics tells us this is a fantasy.

 

[Jarhyn]

When I first joined this thread, my sole point was that perfect Determinism and true Free Will are incompatible and/or cannot be harmonized.

Which you have failed to demonstrate, while notably not explaining what “true” free will is supposed to be. Are you suggesting it must be libertarian to be “true” free will? Also, what is “perfect” determinism? Quantum mechanics tells us this is a fantasy.

I mean I explained exactly the math of how perfect determinism can express as quantum phenomena with unpredictable and uncorrelated information entering local interactions, and also, using that same math, how the idea of possibilities endures this perfectly deterministic system with quantum features because of the problem of undecidability, and how wills operate on their own freedoms even in closed systems.

In fact, that's one of my whole reasons for introducing Spectre in the thread: to discuss how, specifically using an aperiodic system as an example, a system may unfold in a perfectly regular and calculable way while having an perfectly "locally undecidable" element, while still presenting real alternatives parallel to that system.

I may have actually discovered the basis for super-determinism, like an actually mathematical concept of the thing, not merely hypothetical but directly exposed.

... And it still doesn't imply fatalism.

 

[Elixir]

When I first joined this thread, my sole point was that perfect Determinism and true Free Will are incompatible and/or cannot be harmonized.

I explained exactly the math of how perfect determinism can express as quantum phenomena with unpredictable and uncorrelated information entering local interactions, and also, using that same math, how the idea of possibilities endures this perfectly deterministic system with quantum features because of the problem of undecidability, and how wills operate on their own freedoms even in closed systems.

Less arguable IMHO; perfect determinism and true free will would be indistinguishable from any living human experience.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I find it fascinating that there are people who claim that a belief in absolute, unconditional and unqualified Determinism that would preclude the existence of Free Will... Is religious.

Specifically the religious part is the belief that this would "preclude free will" in the first place, seeing as Bruce already agreed that it wouldn't preclude free will.

The religious part is that injection of the 'must' in the language of the sea battle.

As Pood and I keep pointing out, THAT is the origin of a contradiction, and one we reject because ultimately, religiousity is built on a contradiction.

I have been very specific with what I meant and why: that the belief in MUST in that language is itself a hidden belief in "the set of all sets".

Belief that the universe not just is some way, but must be some way... that's the moment religion enters into it.

I have pointed out numerous times how to see and understand the language I use, what it means, when, and why.

Nobody in history has ever done as much with fatalism, producing a system with any concept of "must"; every time someone tries, it is violated by another system next to it doing otherwise, by another part of the system itself doing otherwise.

The post above is borderline fraudulent, because it uses an ellipsis to excise words in the original quote that is being criticized and the excised words show that the quote says something entirely different than the post that criticizes the quote. If someone were to do that in a legal brief, they would be sanctioned. Very poor effort at argumentation. The original and unabridged statement is the following:

I find it fascinating that there are people who claim that a belief in absolute, unconditional and unqualified Determinism that would preclude the existence of Free Will is akin to a religious belief that must be rejected without empirical evidence or mathematical proof of its existence, while those same people cling to the fantastical notion that they have Free Will, which is equally unprovable and can be accepted only on faith that it exists. Where there is a competition between beliefs in two equally unprovable and non-falsifiable beliefs, the proponent of neither belief has the burden of proof that the belief that they hold is superior to the belief that they do not hold.

Separate and apart from the foregoing, I have openly acknowledged that a belief in Determinism or any other absolute belief about the universe (or any absolute belief about anything else, for that matter) ultimately rests upon some foundational premise that cannot be proved or falsified and must be taken on faith -- which is the essence of religion. That applies to theological beliefs, Determinism, Empiricism, and even logic and math. That is the point of Godel's Incompleteness theorems, as I understand them -- which also must be taken on faith if they are taken at all.

 

[Jarhyn]

The post above is borderline fraudulent

No, it's not. Nothing of value was lost and attempting to nitpick it will only make you seem disingenuous... Oh wait you did nitpick it and you did seem disingenuous.

You also failed to address any of the actual post about WHY your belief equates specifically to a belief in God, not merely the action of taking some axioms on momentary and provisional faith (when the expectation is already to minimize these axioms which we accept, and only accept them as we find need to).

I have explicitly pointed out why I find your "must" to be contradictory.

This is the ONLY part that we are focusing on now, YOUR "must".

You are playing a stereotypical "lawyer game" and not the sort that earns you any respect from me, squealing like a third grader because I used ellipses to abbreviate your opening statement by 3 words, and point out exactly why and what I thought was "religious" about your beliefs, specifically your retreat to "The Set of All Sets", which is "God:EinSof", which is the very heart of theism.

You are not going to outrun the claim that determinism somehow fouls free will. It's DOA. The original error was always insertion of "must" into the sea battle.

That is religious, by the definition of people who eschew all religion, no matter how abstract, to insert the "must" where a "shall" belongs.

All you did was the predictably "lawyerly" retreat away from all knowledge into solipsism, which is itself the belief that you are God, or perhaps past that, away from any knowledge at all.

It does not become you.

 

[Jarhyn]

If you do not wish to be accused of believing in something religious, do not present to me a statement of extant contradiction.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The post above is borderline fraudulent

No, it's not. Nothing of value was lost and attempting to nitpick it will only make you seem disingenuous... Oh wait you did nitpick it and you did seem disingenuous.

You also failed to address any of the actual post about WHY your belief equates specifically to a belief in God, not merely the action of taking some axioms on momentary and provisional faith (when the expectation is already to minimize these axioms which we accept, and only accept them as we find need to).

I have explicitly pointed out why I find your "must" to be contradictory.

This is the ONLY part that we are focusing on now, YOUR "must".

You are playing a stereotypical "lawyer game" and not the sort that earns you any respect from me, squealing like a third grader because I used ellipses to abbreviate your opening statement by 3 words, and point out exactly why and what I thought was "religious" about your beliefs, specifically your retreat to "The Set of All Sets", which is "God:EinSof", which is the very heart of theism.

You are not going to outrun the claim that determinism somehow fouls free will. It's DOA. The original error was always insertion of "must" into the sea battle.

That is religious, by the definition of people who eschew all religion, no matter how abstract, to insert the "must" where a "shall" belongs.

All you did was the predictably "lawyerly" retreat away from all knowledge into solipsism, which is itself the belief that you are God, or perhaps past that, away from any knowledge at all.

It does not become you.

Respect from you is the least of things about which I care. There is little value in respect from others, and there is no value in respect from disrespectful people.

There is nothing disingenuous about my response to your fraudulent post.

I could not be more clear in my agreement that a belief in Determinism (the philosophical version and not the scientific version) is akin to a belief in God. So, as I have said before, we are in violent agreement on that point, and I fail to understand your myopic insistence on making a point that is not in controversy.

Where we come apart is in my contention that your belief that science and/or computer science or software engineering somehow provides you with a platform for making claims about the nature of reality (if such a thing exists) that is superior to any religious belief of any sort, because the underlying premise or premises of your own claim are, themselves, religious in nature and akin to a belief in God.

Respond as you wish, and be as disrespectful as to wish, but it will not change the fact that your posts are logically incoherent and I have no intention to engage further with someone who refuses to engage and/or is incapable of engaging in civil and open-minded discourse.

I do, however, wish you a restful Thanksgiving filled with gratitude for everything that is.

 

[pood]

@BSilvEsq thinks everyone who disagrees with him is disrespectful.

 

[Jarhyn]

There is nothing disingenuous about my response to your fraudulent post.

Yes, there is everything disingenuous about it and rather than do the one thing that could separate you from that, you did other things.

Fatalism is the belief in a God, namely the belief that there is a God (which you call "necessity") that dictates what you shall do and that you MUST do as it dictates rather than as Pood and I point out, that God cannot dictate a thing to do other than as it will in the place where it exists; god cannot make ME decide to fuck my mother or kill my father, so I overpower god in that respect.

I have pointed out numerous times where the syntax error is, and where it comes from, and where it leads to.

You yourself commit the fraud in juxtaposing Fatalism with determinism, and claiming it's somehow a sensible proposition that some nonsensical God-idea is more responsible for skyscrapers and music than architects and composers.

You yourself admitted that nothing about my posts was logically incoherent before?

At any rate, I don't really find it respectful to keep jumping from observations of scientific and mathematical determinism -- the rigorous metaphysical approach -- to fatalism, some sloppy approach born of a syntax error.

 

[The AntiChris]

Compatibilism is an illogical, but understandable, construct...

Can you list the premises on which you base this conclusion?

I may be misreading you but I'm struggling to see how your argumentation pertains to compatibilism as I understand it.

 

[DBT]

We have been over it. Far too many times. Yet the problem is still the same, that even adequate determinism does not permit alternate actions.

Of course it doesn't. The only action permitted is the one I choose.

My freedom to choose doesn't require me to do something other than what I choose; That would be crazy.

How you 'choose' - the means and mechanisms of decision making - is the point at which compatibilism fails.

Is it? How?

Compatibilism fails to account for will itself being set, shaped, formed or fixed by antecedents. That will is not free and the actions that follow are inevitable. The actions are not only freely performed, but necessarily performed.

Given determinism, neither will, be it related to habits, addictions, desires or fears, or the related actions are examples of free will.

'Acting without being forced, coerced or unduly influenced does not qualify as free will. Determined will is not free will.

Given determinism, what you decide is inevitable,

OK. I agree that I will, inevitably, do what I choose, rather than doing something else. And I also agree that I inevitably chose that thing, and would do so again given the exact same starting conditions.

Like Marty McFly's parents, I will not change any of the decisions I make, unless something changes. But any change, no matter how tiny, might have huge consequences.

We all understand this.

If we all understand this, there would be nobody left to argue for compatibilism. Decisions change because conditions change according to how the system, if deterministic, progresses and evolves without deviations or alternate actions.

not willed, certainly not freely willed.

Why not? I am making choices. I can't not make choices; I am the kind of thing that makes choices, just as a rock rolls down a hill, because it's the kind of thing that rolls down hills, and it can't not roll down hill.

As it is a matter of the state of the brain

Which is "me",

Sure, but if determinism is real, just not a me that has free will.

and unconscious information processing

Which is also "me",

A me that has no awareness of the unconscious activity of information acquisition and processing that shapes, forms and generates this me -self identity, thoughts, feelings, etc - in conscious form.

Why not? It is me, making choices; And then doing what I chose to do. It can't not happen that way.

It has to be that way, because I am a deterministic choice making system. Making choices, and acting upon them, is what I must, inevitably, do.

For the reasons outlined above.

 

[DBT]

We have been over it. Far too many times. Yet the problem is still the same, that even adequate determinism does not permit alternate actions.

Of course it doesn't. The only action permitted is the one I choose.

My freedom to choose doesn't require me to do something other than what I choose; That would be crazy.

How you 'choose' - the means and mechanisms of decision making - is the point at which compatibilism fails.

Is it? How?

Given determinism, what you decide is inevitable,

OK. I agree that I will, inevitably, do what I choose, rather than doing something else. And I also agree that I inevitably chose that thing, and would do so again given the exact same starting conditions.

Like Marty McFly's parents, I will not change any of the decisions I make, unless something changes. But any change, no matter how tiny, might have huge consequences.

We all understand this.

not willed, certainly not freely willed.

Why not? I am making choices. I can't not make choices; I am the kind of thing that makes choices, just as a rock rolls down a hill, because it's the kind of thing that rolls down hills, and it can't not roll down hill.

As it is a matter of the state of the brain

Which is "me",

and unconscious information processing

Which is also "me",

brought to conscious attention,

Which is "me" again...

it has nothing to do with free will or conscious will.

Why not? It is me, making choices; And then doing what I chose to do. It can't not happen that way.

It has to be that way, because I am a deterministic choice making system. Making choices, and acting upon them, is what I must, inevitably, do.

At this point, I think DBT is just as lost as Sayed on the topic.

Just because someone claims their nuttiness is secular does not make it so, or any less "nuttiness".

Nah, you lost all credibility when you claimed that computers are conscious and have free will. That would have to be the epitome of Nuttiness. It takes the cake.

Not to mention failing to grasp the implications of your own definition of determinism....or, apparently, that it is this very definition that compatibilists base their definition of free will.

All you do is show a bitchy attitude, blow your own trumpet, run in all directions and pretend that you are making a point.

Not understanding determinism or compatibilism, unable to offer a coherent argument for any version of free will, you essentially have nothing.