According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[BSilvEsq]

Appreciate the follow up and feedback.

My pleasure.

I am just stating what I learned in college 40 years ago and have continued to read in various philosophy texts and source materials for the past 40 years.

Ok. You say:

(iv) Compatibilists believe that Libertarian Free Will and Hard Determinism can coexist

This isn't just wrong, it's utter nonsense and demonstrates that you really don't understand the terms you're using.

To try and clarify:

1) do you accept that compatibilism is the belief that free will is compatible with determinism,

AND

2) you accept that libertarian free will is not compatible with free will

If you think that either of these statements is not in line with current mainstream thinking/debate then please provide supporting evidence.

Without commenting upon, much less agreeing with the unwarranted and disrespectful preamble to the two questions posed above, my answer to the two questions is the following:

1. Yes

2. No

My turn to apologise. I mis-typed my question #2. It should have said:

2) do you accept that libertarian free will is not compatible with determinism

On the assumption that you do accept that libertarian free will is incompatible with determinism, it follows that compatibilist free will and libertarian free will are mutually exclusive. That being the case, how are we to make sense of your previous claim that:

Compatibilists believe that Libertarian Free Will and Hard Determinism can coexist

Bearing in mind that  Hard Determinism is the view that determinism is true and that it is incompatible with free will (in other words, the hard determinist doesn't believe any form of free will can exist), your statement above makes contradictory claims and I can't make any sense of it.

Thanks for the ongoing dialogue. I also appreciate from your reply that I need to be more crisp in my terminology.

To begin, my answer to your corrected second question is "Yes" -- which is the sole point I have been making throughout my time on this board.

While I accept that you and I may assign different meanings to the terms we have been using, I am trying my best to adhere to the historical definitional descriptions found in philosophical discourse respecting these subjects (as opposed to the newly crafted definitions of popular media and social media that have more recently crept into the discussion).

As I understand the historical philosophical inquiry, the terms "Determinism" and "Free Will" have the same meaning when applied to Incompatibilism, Compatibilism, Hard Determinism, and Libertarianism. The only difference between Incompatibilism, on the ne hand, and Hard Determinism and Libertarianism, on the other hand, is that Incompatibilism is agnostic as to whether Determinism is true or Free Will Exists, while Hard Determinism incorporates the factual beliefs that Determinism is true and Free Will does not exist and Libertarianism incorporates the factual beliefs that Determinism is false and Free Will does exist. Again, however, all four "isms" utilize the same definitions of Determinism and Free Will, and all but Compatibilism posit that Determinism and Free Will are incompatible.

As I understand the historical philosophical inquiry, the only "ism" that utilizes a different definition of Determinism and Free Will is Soft Determinism, which seeks to harmonize the two concepts by refining them in a way that does not violate the laws of logic.

Incompatibilists, Hard Determinists and Libertarians disagree with the propriety of the definitions of Determinism and Free Will employed by Soft Determinists. In principle, however, Incompatibilists, Hard Determinists and Libertarians ought not to have any problem with the logic of Soft Determinism if the definitions of of Determinism and Free Will employed by Soft Determinists are accepted as correct for purposes of the discussion.

The only irreconcilable difference among the five "isms" is the logical divide between Compatibilism, on the one hand, and the other four "isms," on the other hand, because Compatibilism is the only paradigm that claims that Determinism and Free Will -- as defined by all "isms" other than Soft Determinism -- can be harmonized without changing their definitions (as does Soft Determinism to avoid the logical conundrum).

The following chart from the introductory chapter of the 2003 book "Freedom and Determinism" by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke, and David Shier," published by M.I.T., crystalizes the distinctions I have been trying to explain:



It is necessary to read the book (and other historical philosophical works on this subject) to see that the meaning of Determinism and Freedom is the same for all but Soft Determinism, which employs different definitions in order to bridge the logical division between Compatibilism, on the one hand, and Incompatibilism, Hard Determinism and Libertarianism, on the other hand -- and, in so doing, satisfies none of the other four "isms" any more than my aunt used to satisfy her guests who were divided over their preferences for caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee by offering only one urn that contained a blend of the two that satisfied nobody but my aunt.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

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

I'm struggling to follow your train of thought here. You seem to be saying that a compatibilist that holds that determinism is true is in some (obvious?) sense an incompatibilist? Is this what you're saying? If so, can you explain further?

Does the following help?

If determinism denies that there is macrophysical indeterminateness (such as the macrophysical indeterminateness which persons think they experience/sense/observe when they decide/select/choose), then determinism is incompatible with macrophysical indeterminateness.

If compatibilism is a determinism, then compatibilism denies that there is macrophysical indeterminateness (such as the macrophysical indeterminateness which persons think they experience/sense/observe when they decide/select/choose), and compatibilism is incompatible with macrophysical indeterminateness.

If compatibilism is incompatible with macrophysical indeterminateness, then compatibilists are incompatibilists with regards to the matter of macrophysical indeterminateness.

The stage is now set for considerations into whether or in what way(s) determinism is or is not compatible with what gets referred to as human will.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

It really is a modal fallacy to assign eternalness to momentary phenomena.

The non-static spacetime viewpoint does no such thing.

Per the non-static spacetime viewpoint, there is no eternal is.

It is the assumption of there being no macrophysical indeterminateness at any spacetime location which renders determinateness eternal. The conjoining of the non-static spacetime viewpoint with the determinateness that is eternally devoid of macrophysical indeterminateness leaves all "momentary phenomena" as being non-eternal although never not-determinate before, while, and after each phenomenon is actual.

 

[Jarhyn]

The non-static spacetime viewpoint does no such thing.

Yes. It does.

It is the literal taking of a metaphysical view, and as we have discussed, that's taking it outside the mode of actuality and into the mode of possibility.

It. Is. A. Modal. Fallacy. (Specifically to apply eternalness to momentary instances of phenomena).

A better label might be trying to assign "positionlessness" to a position.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

(Specifically to apply eternalness to momentary instances of phenomena).

That is NOT being done.

The viewpoint at hand has it that no phenomena are eternal; no phenomena within spacetime are eternally actual. If you think that there is never any macrophysical indeterminateness, then you posit eternal determinateness - wittingly or otherwise.

Eternal determinateness in no sense necessitates that phenomena are eternally actual. For that matter, eternal determinateness in no way necessitates any actuality whatsoever. Determinateness describes; it does not do or necessitate. Utter and/or eternal determinateness describes the assumption which holds that there never is actual macrophysical indeterminateness; that determinateness also does not do or necessitate.

Do you think that there is ever actual macrophysical indeterminateness?

 

[Jarhyn]

Here, "eternal" means "everywhere and in all positions true". The one eternal thing that seems to be true everywhere is that "nowhere is there somewhere where it is otherwise in that same position".

Other things less than that seem to be more contextual; when you add some context, it's more bound to that context: it's not true everywhere, it's only true where the context holds.

But I think the problem stems from thinking that pretending one of the dimensions is not "time like" divorces you from the fact that elsewhere it is otherwise.

 

[Jarhyn]

(Specifically to apply eternalness to momentary instances of phenomena).

That is NOT being done.

Yes it is specifically right here:

Utter and/or eternal determinateness describes the assumption which holds that there never is actual macrophysical indeterminateness

Eternal is a word that is meant to describe something free of some particular context, here specifically time but time as a selection of elimination is entirely arbitrary.

There are lots of words that free contexts of ideas and puts things in the metaphysical mode of consideration, but those are by definition freed from a context.

You don't get "eternal" without unfixed contexts, and the "eternalness" is still relative to where the context applies.

Trying to apply "eternal" to a momentary event fully contextualized in a position is nonsensical. It is a modal fallacy.

Eternal attaches to 'can', a metaphysical truth "about" a physical one. And as has been stated many times, we can always free more variables and find positions and contexts where that doesn't actually hold EXCEPT that there are no contradictions.

As I said, you could replace the word "eternal" with "contextless" to look at it without having the confusing time element and see that "in other contexts it is otherwise."

It is not "utterly" or "everywhere" or "universally" true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle. It is contingently true, specifically on the contingency of physics staying as it is and stuff being as it is here, that there will be one. It is not true that tomorrow there must be a sea battle, just that there is one.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Here, "eternal" means "everywhere and in all positions true".

Let's try to work with that manner of expression. According to your thinking, is it "everywhere and in all positions true" that there is no macrophysical indeterminateness?

Other things less than that seem to be more contextual; when you add some context, it's more bound to that context: it's not true everywhere, it's only true where the context holds.

Do you think there is any context in which there is macrophysical indeterminateness?

I think the problem stems from thinking that pretending ...

Whatever problems there might be, in this discussion it is expression that is being repeatedly tested.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Eternal is a word that is meant to describe something free of some particular context, here specifically time but time as a selection of elimination is entirely arbitrary.

That is not necessarily the case.

Instead of describing "something free of some particular context", it is possible for it to describe something that holds in and across all particular contexts. So, is it your position that all particular physical or spacetime contexts are devoid of macrophysical indeterminateness?

 

[Jarhyn]

Let's try to work with that manner of expression. According to your thinking, is it "everywhere and in all positions true" that there is no macrophysical indeterminateness

No; the statements do not mix.

I specifically said the one thing that is everywhere and always true: there are no contradictions; therefore otherwise is elsewhere and elsewhere is otherwise but here is exactly as it is.

Where there is macro-physical determinateness, you have already turned your view away from "everywhere and in all positions".

Only positions about sets and functions and metaphysical concepts are true without respect to time and position, and only insofar as they actually exist without respect to those things; only one thing actually touches everything and everywhere without exception and that is "no contradictions".

Instead of describing "something free of some particular context", it is possible for it to describe something that holds in and across all particular contexts

"Something that holds across all particular contexts is" is "free of some particular context", specifically the context which you observe "across".

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

I specifically said the one thing that is everywhere and always true

But that seemed to be your way of interpreting my use of eternal and its related forms. Even if your interpretation is a possible understanding of my expression that is alternative to my meaning/understanding, it does not follow that your interpretation is the only possible and legitimate understanding of what I expressed.

According to your way of thinking, is there actual macrophysical indeterminateness?

"Something that holds across all particular contexts is" is "free of some particular context", specifically the context which you observe "across".

Something that holds across all particular contexts is most definitely not free of any of those contexts; that something which holds across all particular contexts is always including all of those contexts or is always included by all of those contexts. Whether including or included, the something that holds across all particular contexts is not free of any of those contexts insofar as it is not independent of those contexts.

But, let us say that there is a free context from which the "across" observation is made. And, since the issue is that of determinateness as a description applicable across contexts, is that free context one in which there is macrophysical indeterminateness?

According to your way of thinking, is there any context wherein there is macrophysical indeterminateness?

 

[Jarhyn]

According to your way of thinking, is there actual macrophysical indeterminateness

I have already posed that there is no micro physical indeterminateness, but that this fact still does not mean that the facts of those moments are eternally true in any sense that implies that things "must" and "always" were that way; they are still where they are, when they are, as they are there.

Something that holds across all particular contexts is most definitely not free of any of those contexts

Did you not read what I said? I didn't say it was free along those contexts, I said it was specifically freed in the context which is viewed "across-wise". It is freed in a context, just not those contexts which are fixed. (Edit: and you could just as easily pick those and free them)

Those particular contexts are not all contexts.

In some respects even the use of the words "all particular contexts" embeds what could be a modal fallacy; if there is an "across", the things held fixed are not "all".

 

[steve_bank]

Do you think there is any context in which there is macrophysical indeterminateness?

The word indeterminate scan b contextual.

in·de·ter·mi·nate ˌin-di-ˈtər-mə-nət
-ˈtərm-nət
Synonyms of indeterminate
1
a
: not definitely or precisely determined or fixed : vague
… after some time, —a very indeterminate time,—…, he would write the great things …—
Jack London
b
: not known in advance
their future is indeterminate
c
: not leading to a definite end or result
an indeterminate debate
2
: having an infinite number of solutions
a system of indeterminate equations

This debate is indeterminate ....

Indeterminate form - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In structural mechanics there are statically indeterminate problems having nothing to do with quantum uncertainties.

As to macro or Newtonian uncertainties. QM app;lies to small particles. Newtonian or macro applles to large collections of particles like a bowling ball. Quantum uncertainties apply to a bowling ball, each atom is in motion vibranting within the structure. At the macro scale quantum uncertainties appear as noise for a lack of a better word. We measure at the macro scale averages of quantum states. Quantum effects are below the instrument thresholds.

What you see as a bowling ball it is the sum or superposition of all the states of each atom in the ball, which are constantly changing.

A piece of copper at room, temperature is called solid. But inside atoms are separated by vast relative inter-atomic distances. Solid at the macro scale is contextual.

Circa 1900 when xray diffraction of a metal showed tiny nodes separated by vast relative distances caused a philosophical stir. The idea of a solid went out the window.

All that being said there are plenty of examples of macro scale everyday indeterminacy.

Pick a person walking by on a crowded street.The weight, height, eye color are not predicable in advance. We can statistically predict the probability of beng within a weight range.

 

[Jarhyn]

I will reiterate that "utterly" and "eternally" here, regardless of what is claimed, would very much appear to be synonymous with "universally" or "contextlessly" true.

If there were no indeterminateness in what we experience in terms of how it unfolds, which I have already granted, this does not make statements that only pertain to those locations in spacetime "utterly" true.

They are true exactly where and when they are true and at no other time are they true.

If you want to say something that is true in more contexts, you have to operate in terms of metaphysics; you extract the state of interest from the lot of it, and observe how the "properties" of that interact, how the metaphysical concept, how the set interacts.

These are more "scattered across time and space and weirder things", still contextualized but with some part the context freed, not merely the micro-state.

This is "more utter" by some measure, especially since a lot of instances aren't even necessarily within the same spatial mechanics, but not "utter", because the only thing it is ever when it is "utterly" so is merely looking at all "non-contradictory" stuff on one end and "momentary" on the other.

As soon as you ask about what something could do, you aren't looking directly at the thing anymore, you're looking at a set across some freed context, something metaphysical that you ginned up using some graph implemented by the actual thing.

Truths about that will hold for all instances, but qualities of mere instances are just... about this instances, at that point in time, at that location in spacetime, "only where they actually happen to be true", and are not in any way 'utter' or 'eternal' or in any other way 'irrespective of' the exact things they are, quite explicitly, 'respective of'.

This means that the only 'utterness' any truth gets is specifically in terms of some freed context.

It's just easy for us to think of 'time' as 'the' freed context because we observe moments across time on our existence.

Freedom from time doesn't even create 'utterness'; you need truth free of all context, but truth is contextual, all truth, except perhaps noncontradiction... And even the empty set itself might be considered a contradiction, or some metaphysical idea of something to be empty of at the very least.

You can partially free position, and then it is "utter" across the freed variable?

But at the end of the day it amounts to modal scope and the fact that truths contingent on some context can't limit truths NOT contingent on that specific context, and things only become something less than "utterly momentary" when that context is freed.

I am pretty sure this is the problem we keep running into, here, and it's modal fallacy shaped.

Things are only as "eternal", "utter" or "non-contextual" or "necessarily true" within the context of the fixture, and across the range of the freedom.

 

[The AntiChris]

Thanks for the ongoing dialogue. I also appreciate from your reply that I need to be more crisp in my terminology.

Great!

To begin, my answer to your corrected second question is "Yes" -- which is the sole point I have been making throughout my time on this board.

So you agree that libertarian free will is incompatible with determinism. If this was the sole point you've been making, who has disagreed with you? It's a universally understood and accepted attribute of libertarian free will (that it's incompatible with determinism) so it really shouldn't be a contentious issue.

It does occur to me that you don't realise that when compatibilists talk about free will , they're not talking about libertarian free will. You are aware that there are other conceptions of free will than libertarianism aren't you? If you weren't aware then this would explain your extraordinary claim that:

Compatibilists believe that Libertarian Free Will and Hard Determinism can coexist

 

[The AntiChris]

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

I'm struggling to follow your train of thought here. You seem to be saying that a compatibilist that holds that determinism is true is in some (obvious?) sense an incompatibilist? Is this what you're saying? If so, can you explain further?

Does the following help?

Yes it demonstrates quite clearly the mistake you're making.

If compatibilism is a determinism,

It's not. Compatibilism is simply the belief that free will and determinism are compatible. Compatibilists can be determinists, indeterminists or agnostic - Compatibilism makes no claims about determinism/indeterminism.

If compatibilism is incompatible with macrophysical indeterminateness,

It's not (as explained above).

then compatibilists are incompatibilists

They're not.

 

[BSilvEsq]

So you agree that libertarian free will is incompatible with determinism. If this was the sole point you've been making, who has disagreed with you? It's a universally understood and accepted attribute of libertarian free will (that it's incompatible with determinism) so it really shouldn't be a contentious issue.

As I have said to others, it seems to me that we are in violent agreement.

All I am saying is that libertarian free will is incompatible with 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.”

If you agree with that, we are on the same page on that subject, and it does not matter who has disagreed.

It does occur to me that you don't realise that when compatibilists talk about free will , they're not talking about libertarian free will. You are aware that there are other conceptions of free will than libertarianism aren't you?

I do realize that many folks who call themselves Compatibilists are not talking about Libertarian Free Will when they say that Determinism and Free Will can be harmonized, and I am well aware that there are other conceptions of free will than Libertarian Free Will.

In my experience, many folks who call themselves Compatibilists also are not talking about the Determinism of Hard Determinists. And, I also understand that there are conceptions of Determinism other than those of the Hard Determinist.

As explained in the text I identified (and many others), the concept of Compatibilism within classic philosophical discourse seeks to harmonize the Libertarian concept of Free Will and the Hard Determinist concept of Determinism -- which you and I seem to agree to be a logically incoherent effort. Within classic philosophical discourse, the "ism" that harmonizes Free Will and Determinism using different concepts of Free Will than Libertarian Free Will and/or different concepts of Determinism than that of Hard Determinism is called Soft Determinism.

It appears that you agree that the Libertarian concept of Free Will and the Hard Determinist concept of Determinism are logically incompatible, and the only way to harmonize Free Will and Determinism is to redefine Free Will as being something other than Libertarian Free Will and/or to redefine Determinism as something less than that of Hard Determinism. If we do agree on that one point, we are in complete agreement on the one and only logical proposition I have been stating (or, at least, attempting to state) in all of my posts on this board.

If you are calling "Compatibilism" the position that seeks to harmonize Free Will and Determinism by using a definition of Free Will that is different from Libertarian Free Will and/or a definition of Determinism that is something less than that of Hard Determinism, then I have no issue with the logic of your position, but I do believe you are using terminology that varies from classic Philosophical discourse. So long as we are clear in our respective definitions, however, the words we use are of no consequence. We could just as easily use emojis with definitions we agree upon.

 

[Jarhyn]

“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.”

No, both sides are wrong, specifically due to a syntax error they both share, and a third party with a more complete model is actually correct.

We wager that not only are the views not in agreement with each other, neither is in agreement with noncontradiction, and neither is or can possibly be in agreement with any possible world, and this both are strictly in disagreement with themselves.

It is a "perfectly sharp issue"; each in making the injection of "must" in the sea battle, invoking necessity, considering things limited to contexts in some way "utter" except under the context, considering a truth about a position as positionless, or any other such contradiction, these results expose invalid metaphysics, the violation of noncontradiction.

Both are wrong; you excluded "the middle".

 

[BSilvEsq]

So you agree that libertarian free will is incompatible with determinism. If this was the sole point you've been making, who has disagreed with you? It's a universally understood and accepted attribute of libertarian free will (that it's incompatible with determinism) so it really shouldn't be a contentious issue.

As I have said to others, it seems to me that we are in violent agreement.

All I am saying is that libertarian free will is incompatible with 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.”

If you agree with that, we are on the same page on that subject, and it does not matter who has disagreed.

I will add, however, that there are posers on this board who will evade the agreement we seem to have by rejecting, out of hand, the foundational premises of Hard Determinists and Libertarianism. They are so wedded to the Soft Determinism they call Compatibilism that they are unable to even concede the incompatibility of Hard Determinism and Libertarianism -- as if doing so will remove the very foundation of their own contrary beliefs and send them crashing to the ground. Moreover, they espouse their views with arrogance and insolence, with an admixture of belligerence and profanity, and, in one case, an acknowledgment of being an asshole that the poser seems to wear as a badge of honor.

 

[Jarhyn]

they are unable to even concede the incompatibility of Hard Determinism and Libertarianism

both sides are wrong, specifically due to a syntax error they both share, and a third party with a more complete model is actually correct.

We wager that not only are the views not in agreement with each other, neither is in agreement with noncontradiction

None of my beliefs are contrary in the least. Simply that BOTH views are based on errors, so of course neither view is correct.

I have pointed out the shape of the errors and why they are errors, and how the majority of determinism becomes compatible with the majority of language about free will, so long as one doesn't assume that free will has to come from a contradiction.