According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[DBT]

How is it freely willed when one's will is set by an unconscious process that permits no alternatives?

When that process is me.

That the process is me has no relevance or bearing on the necessity of how events unfold within a system that permits no alternate actions.

 

[DBT]

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must will necessarily do.

FTFY.

Suddenly, no problem. I will what I will; The only alternative would be insanity.

I would say the "necessarily" part also needs struck.

I see that you are still having trouble with the basics.

Here's a primer. I hope it helps, but expect that it won't.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''


Necessity
Necessity is the idea that everything that has ever happened and ever will happen is necessary, and can not be otherwise. Necessity is often opposed to chance and contingency. In a necessary world there is no chance. Everything that happens is necessitated.

 

[The AntiChris]

if Compatibilist free will were defined to mean "that which is compatible with determinism [whatever determinism might mean]" the definition would be a mere tautology and fail to advance the debate.

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that "the debate" is about determinism. It's not. It's about what we mean by free will and moral responsibility.

Then you are engaging on a debate to define only half of the two things claimed to be compatible with one another.

Determinism/indeterminism is not the contentious issue in this dispute because, for compatibilists, the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the universe is irrelevant.

I don't normally like resorting to posting quotations in support of my argument but in light of your stubborn intransigence:

  Compatibilism

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics.

To repeat, this dispute is about competing conceptions of free will.

Your wiki source is hardly authoritative,

Ok. Perhaps you can help me. Can you supply any quote that contradicts the above. Can you provide anything that supports your view that compatibilist free will does depend on metaphysics (i.e. support for your belief that any formulation of compatibilist free will must include a definition of the specific determinism it claims to be compatible with).

Since you're the one making the positive claim I think this is a reasonable request.

Given determinism, all events and actions are freely performed or carried out as determined as the system evolves. If determined, there are no impediments. You get up in the morning and go about your daily activities, as determined, feeling free and unimpeded in your activity.

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must necessarily do.

I've no idea why you posted this. Your comment doesn't address/contradict anything in the post you're responding to.

It relates to how the compatibilist definition of free will relates to how determinism is defined

Oh, I see. It was just another of your standard responses.

 

[bilby]

How is it freely willed when one's will is set by an unconscious process that permits no alternatives?

When that process is me.

That the process is me has no relevance or bearing on the necessity of how events unfold within a system that permits no alternate actions.

You are right; Libertarian free will is a daft idea. Good thing nobody here is arguing for it.

But that the process is me has every relevance to the fact that I am the decision maker, and that it is me that influences how things develop; My will is what will happen. I am responsible for my actions. Because the system under consideration, deterministic as it may be, IS me.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Science and Physics are based on all sorts of paradoxes and/or premises that are unprovable and non-falsifiable

No, science is quite pointedly the exclusive domain of the disprovable. If it isn't disprovable it is not science.

You will encounter a number of people.who have done a lot of science work, and that's one of the first rules of the "test" phase.

The apparent paradoxes are ALL treated as puzzles where, when understanding is reached, the apparent contradiction is revealed to be caused by bad initial assumptions.

Whether the universe is strictly infinite or finite is an unobservable thing, something that won't be knowable, but for which the simplest systems would be ones where it is theoretically infinite.

I have thought about each of those questions you ask deeply over decades, with all the time I probably should have spent doing more productive shit.

Many of them have nothing to do with science and more to do with wider philosophy, and with math, and if you really wanted to discuss them with someone who has what they think are actually the best answers we have to those questions, I would entertain you in private conversation (I'll still be just as irreverent) but they are a derail here.

Religion is similarly based on the existence of God, which is unprovable and unfalsifiable

No, it's quite falsifiable depending on the God. See also Russel's Paradox, and Noncontradiction, and 'the set of all sets'.

In fact God is the one thing I think is universally falsified, satisfyingly, in the acceptance of non-contradiction.

If you accept non-contradiction, you reject God... But not all religion is about EinSof, and not all religion assumes contradictions. Some are focused only on specific (and only occasionally even possible) candidates proposed as god of this world. Still others present worship of wholely mundane things.

Getting into a derail about the various things religions are based on that don't assume anything about the existence of EinSof, however, would be silly. I have another thread I posted a while ago that gets into the distinctions. Again, happy to go on and on ad nauseum, but not here.in this thread.

Last-Thursdayism is not internally contradictory as silly as it may sound.

Correct, which is why it is a valid premise to use in arguing about possible worlds, with respect to contexts where it even makes sense (although it roughly comports to bounded and composite functions in math, which is a very "wide" context).

None of the foregoing is any more or less probable than the hypothetical possibility of either a fatalist unfolding of the universe

This is where we part ways.

This is because it is not just improbable but impossible owing to contradiction because this:

a solid state block

Does not imply this:

no activity* of any sort

The solid state block still has distinct positions. In fact seeing the time as a position like a another exposes my reason for saying "if it is otherwise anywhere else, 'it can be otherwise' is true with respect to the moment in question"

Furthermore between each layer of the block is a transform symbol implying the operation phase that happened to transform the frame.

The position of the big bang is not the position of the other stuff, and does not "contain" the other stuff. Quite pointedly, only the part of the block that actually contains that stuff contains that stuff, and the part that contains the Bible being written contains it being written, at least the first time, by human authors far removed from the "front" of the big bang.

*The stuff you are calling "activity" is still there in the block, in the variance and separation between the locations.

This is why I am instead calling it "context" or "position" rather than using a word that assumes it t have this temporal quality, or that the block somehow lacks it just because it is seen as a block.

In all that intervening time, the big bang became a human first before writing the Bible, and we as responsible only for generalized (insert standard model equation here), and then only later as a human became responsible for writing the Bible.

This is yet again why I beg everyone who really wants to consider systems like this to get a solid education in software engineering and behavioral modification, through the point where they can take and pass Machine Learning: so that you can get away from some singular dependence on this idea that time is something you can wave away just because you can see it as an array of frames connected by transform rules rather than as a fleeting parade of shadows.

We can change it to a block, but that just changes what was language about "time" into language about "distance", without removing what ultimately comes down to the separation of context between the times that I keep demanding you recognize.

Perhaps, I am just a luddite, but I view the stuff of which you speak to be as fantastical and self-contradictory as you view the paradigm I have posited. The main difference between us is that I view all such paradigms as possible and do not accept the reality of any of them, and you seem to believe in the reality of which you speak. Frankly, I am not sure if it is better to believe in something that may not be true (which I take to be faith) or to have no belief at all even if it may be a correct point of view.

In any event, thanks for the dialogue. I do appreciate learning the details of your thought process.

 

[Jarhyn]

Perhaps, I am just a luddite, but I view the stuff of which you speak to be as fantastical and self-contradictory as you view the paradigm I have posited

Please find the contradiction. I invite you to it if there is one or any there. Perhaps there is a syntax error; I tend to make rather trivial syntax errors or drop lines of thought from time to time. If it's all nonsense, or at all nonsense, I expect you might uncover it rather quickly.

you seem to believe in the reality of which you speak

I'm not speaking of a reality, but of how "possible realities" functions as a concept mechanically. This is metaphysics.

The problem is simply that you just do not understand 'time' in a general way, and I don't know how to help you do that short of seeing you take several courses on linear algebra, software engineering, and discreet math.

 

[pood]

But given the nature of the system as it is defined, you just can't do otherwise. What you do, you must will necessarily do.

FTFY.

Suddenly, no problem. I will what I will; The only alternative would be insanity.

I would say the "necessarily" part also needs struck.

I see that you are still having trouble with the basics.

He isn’t. You are.

Here's a primer. I hope it helps, but expect that it won't.

It doesn’t, because it’s BS.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''

Except there are no deterministic systems in the sense you describe, because of QM. If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result. But that is irrelevant to compatibilism.

Necessity
Necessity is the idea that everything that has ever happened and ever will happen is necessary, and can not be otherwise. Necessity is often opposed to chance and contingency. In a necessary world there is no chance. Everything that happens is necessitated.

As discussed to the point of tears, this is a straightforward modal fallacy which involves modal collapse, the idea that today I picked Coke instead of Pepsi is on the same logical footing as all triangles have three sides. It’s logical nonsense.

The universe and its history is only one way. You claim it must be that way. I say science and logic shows it is just IS that way, not that it MUST be that way. You cannot show otherwise and you have the burden of proof to do so.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The problem is simply that you just do not understand 'time' in a general way, and I don't know how to help you do that short of seeing you take several courses on linear algebra, software engineering, and discreet math.

Query: Are you suggesting that you subscribe to only one theory of "time"? If so, can you please point me to a source where I can read of that single theory that is superior to all others? If you are not saying that, are you able to state how many theories of time you accept as possibilities and identify a source where I can read about them?

I do not mean to suggest by my questions that I presume to know what you think or mean. That is the genuine purpose of my questions -- to better understand what you are saying. We seem to use the same words differently, and I do not care that you use them differently than I do. I just want to understand their meaning as you are using them.

 

[BSilvEsq]

If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result.

And you know this to a certainty -- how?

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the scientific method requires empirical proof as a foundational basis for accepting the validity or truth of a hypothesis and also that a hypothesis that is not falsifiable is not scientific. In what way it your statement empirically provable as true? What possible proof could there be that would falsify this assertion?

As best I understand, nobody has yet unwound the universe to witness the result. So, how do we know what would happen if the universe did miraculously unwind, and how can we prove it would not be the same as it is today? Also, how would the unwound universe be the same as the one that preceded it, in the first instance, as it would now have the property of having been unwound.

One further question -- for anyone out there to answer -- would free will exist (as you define it) if the universe were such that it if it were possible to rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it that you would get precisely the same result?

Feel free (as I am sure you do) to tell me I am all wet or sidestep my questions, but a direct answer that can be understood by a fifth grader would be most appreciated.

 

[pood]

If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result.

And you know this to a certainty -- how?

I never said I knew it to a certainty, so do not put words in my mouth. Science does not deal in proof positive. What I said has to do with the fact that deterministic processes are leavened by quantum indeterministic processes. From this it follows that to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the scientific method requires empirical proof as a foundational basis for accepting the validity or truth of a hypothesis and also that a hypothesis that is not falsifiable is not scientific.

Your understanding is mistaken. See the Philosophy of Science thread and the problems with falsification as a criterion for doing science,

In what way it your statement empirically provable as true? What possible proof could there be that would falsify this assertion?

I didn’t say it was empirically demonstrable, only that it falls out of the best evidence and logic that we have.

As best I understand, nobody has yet unwound the universe to witness the result. So, how do we know what would happen if the universe did miraculously unwind, and how can we prove it would not be the same as it is today? Also, how would the unwound universe be the same as the one that preceded it, in the first instance, as it would now have the property of having been unwound.

Feel free (as I am sure you do) to tell me I am all wet or sidestep my questions, but a direct answer that can be understood by a fifth grader would be most appreciated.

See above. I have directly answered your questions,

 

[pood]

Also, there is no “scientific method.” There are a variety of methodologies including outright intuitive guesses unsupported by direct evidence. See: Newton intuiting that bodies fall toward each other, and Einstein intuiting relativity, Also see: Feyerabend.

 

[pood]

Also, there is no such thing as “empirical proof,” if by that you mean proof beyond any doubt whatsoever. There are defeasible proofs beyond any reasonable doubt so far as we know, which is the same standard in a court of law.

 

[bilby]

Also, there is no “scientific method.”

Sure there is:
1. Formulate Hypothesis
2. Test
3. Reformulate or reject Hypothesis
4. Go to 1

The problem is that formulating an Hypothesis is a touch less methodical. The method for formulating an Hypothesis is:

Show

1. Guess
2. No, really, just take a wild stab in the dark
3. Seriously, that's what it means
4. It's just a guess. We only call it "hypothesise" because "guess" scares the punters

 

[BSilvEsq]

If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result.

And you know this to a certainty -- how?

I never said I knew it to a certainty, so do not put words in my mouth. Science does not deal in proof positive. What I said has to do with the fact that deterministic processes are leavened by quantum indeterministic processes. From this it follows that to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the scientific method requires empirical proof as a foundational basis for accepting the validity or truth of a hypothesis and also that a hypothesis that is not falsifiable is not scientific.

Your understanding is mistaken. See the Philosophy of Science thread and the problems with falsification as a criterion for doing science,

In what way it your statement empirically provable as true? What possible proof could there be that would falsify this assertion?

I didn’t say it was empirically demonstrable, only that it falls out of the best evidence and logic that we have.

As best I understand, nobody has yet unwound the universe to witness the result. So, how do we know what would happen if the universe did miraculously unwind, and how can we prove it would not be the same as it is today? Also, how would the unwound universe be the same as the one that preceded it, in the first instance, as it would now have the property of having been unwound.

Feel free (as I am sure you do) to tell me I am all wet or sidestep my questions, but a direct answer that can be understood by a fifth grader would be most appreciated.

See above. I have directly answered your questions,

As an editor, I am confident that you know that the following two statements are materially different:

1. "If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would get the same result."\

and

2. "to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different."

The first sentence is an unqualified putative statement of fact, and the second statement contains the qualifier "to the best of our knowledge." The first sentence, lacking a qualification, may or may not be correct, depending on the reality of the universe (whatever that might be). The second sentence also is incomplete in that it fails to add the further qualifier of "Based on science," or "Based on physics," or "Based on QM," or some other sort of qualifier that identifies the basis for paradigm for discerning reality upon which the putative "current knowledge" is based.

Also, there is no “scientific method.” There are a variety of methodologies including outright intuitive guesses unsupported by direct evidence. See: Newton intuiting that bodies fall toward each other, and Einstein intuiting relativity, Also see: Feyeraben

Intuitive guesses are not science. They are the beginning of a process in science.

Within science, intuitive guesses often lead to discoveries that seem to be factually sound. Within science, intuitive guesses also can be established to be wildly wrong. The point of the scientific method it to evaluate the intuitive guesses to ascertain whether they hold up to empirical observation -- and that is based on the metaphysical underpinning of science that there is an empirically observable reality in which past observations have a bearing on future performance.

My intuitive guesses are different from yours. What is your standard for evaluating competing intuitive guesses within the science upon which you claim to rely if not empirical observation? It seems to me that, in the absence of empirical proof, your standard for evaluating intuitive guesses is that your intuition trumps (no pun intended) mine and/or that there may be some sort of majority rule? How many times in history has a single individual (or a small minority of folks) intuited something contrary to the intuition of the masses, and turned out to be perceived to be correct at a future time -- perhaps only to be perceived wrong at a further time when a new intuition develops (which, itself, may be rejected initially)? How many intuitive beliefs may be rejected today that will, one day, be accepted.

 

[pood]

But even when you test a hypothesis and it passes all sorts of-called falsification checks, it does not make it a true description of reality. See Ptolemy geocentrism and Newtonian classical mechanics. The pessimistic meta-induction tell us we should expect all our current theories to be strictly false.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Also, there is no “scientific method.”

Sure there is:
1. Formulate Hypothesis
2. Test
3. Reformulate or reject Hypothesis
4. Go to 1

The problem is that formulating an Hypothesis is a touch less methodical. The method for formulating an Hypothesis is:

Show

1. Guess
2. No, really, just take a wild stab in the dark
3. Seriously, that's what it means
4. It's just a guess. We only call it "hypothesise" because "guess" scares the punters

I feel like singing Breakfast at Tiffany's.

For those who don't get the pop reference, are the pertinent lyrics are quoted below. It is a great song if you haven't heard it.

You say that we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You'll say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still, I know you just don't care

[Chorus]
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember that film and
As I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

 

[BSilvEsq]

But even when you test a hypothesis and it passes all sorts of-called falsification checks, it does not make it a true description of reality. See Ptolemy geocentrism and Newtonian classical mechanics. The pessimistic meta-induction tell us we should expect all our current theories to be strictly false.

Exactly -- you nailed it, and the existence of free will is just one of the many current theories we might expect to be strictly false. The point is that nobody truly knows. Yet, you and others on this board, consistently post as if you know, for a fact, that your paradigm is true and the hypothetical paradigm I posit is false. I am at a loss to understand how someone who understands the fleeting paradigmatic nature of our beliefs can write some of the things you write.

 

[pood]

If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result.

And you know this to a certainty -- how?

I never said I knew it to a certainty, so do not put words in my mouth. Science does not deal in proof positive. What I said has to do with the fact that deterministic processes are leavened by quantum indeterministic processes. From this it follows that to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the scientific method requires empirical proof as a foundational basis for accepting the validity or truth of a hypothesis and also that a hypothesis that is not falsifiable is not scientific.

Your understanding is mistaken. See the Philosophy of Science thread and the problems with falsification as a criterion for doing science,

In what way it your statement empirically provable as true? What possible proof could there be that would falsify this assertion?

I didn’t say it was empirically demonstrable, only that it falls out of the best evidence and logic that we have.

As best I understand, nobody has yet unwound the universe to witness the result. So, how do we know what would happen if the universe did miraculously unwind, and how can we prove it would not be the same as it is today? Also, how would the unwound universe be the same as the one that preceded it, in the first instance, as it would now have the property of having been unwound.

Feel free (as I am sure you do) to tell me I am all wet or sidestep my questions, but a direct answer that can be understood by a fifth grader would be most appreciated.

See above. I have directly answered your questions,

As an editor, I am confident that you know that the following two statements are materially different:

1. "If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would get the same result."\

and

2. "to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different."

The first sentence is an unqualified putative statement of fact, and the second statement contains the qualifier "to the best of our knowledge.

Oh, please, stop with your pedantry, The first sentence implies what the second sentence makes clear.

Also, you dropped the word “not” from Number 1.

Moreover, your opening sentence contains a misplaced modifier.

 

[BSilvEsq]

If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would not get the same result.

And you know this to a certainty -- how?

I never said I knew it to a certainty, so do not put words in my mouth. Science does not deal in proof positive. What I said has to do with the fact that deterministic processes are leavened by quantum indeterministic processes. From this it follows that to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the scientific method requires empirical proof as a foundational basis for accepting the validity or truth of a hypothesis and also that a hypothesis that is not falsifiable is not scientific.

Your understanding is mistaken. See the Philosophy of Science thread and the problems with falsification as a criterion for doing science,

In what way it your statement empirically provable as true? What possible proof could there be that would falsify this assertion?

I didn’t say it was empirically demonstrable, only that it falls out of the best evidence and logic that we have.

As best I understand, nobody has yet unwound the universe to witness the result. So, how do we know what would happen if the universe did miraculously unwind, and how can we prove it would not be the same as it is today? Also, how would the unwound universe be the same as the one that preceded it, in the first instance, as it would now have the property of having been unwound.

Feel free (as I am sure you do) to tell me I am all wet or sidestep my questions, but a direct answer that can be understood by a fifth grader would be most appreciated.

See above. I have directly answered your questions,

As an editor, I am confident that you know that the following two statements are materially different:

1. "If you could rewind the history of the universe to the start and replay it, you would get the same result."\

and

2. "to best of our current knowledge, if we could rewind the universe to the start and replay it, we would not get the same result. It could even be wildly different."

The first sentence is an unqualified putative statement of fact, and the second statement contains the qualifier "to the best of our knowledge.

Oh, please, stop with your pedantry, The first sentence implies what the second sentence makes clear.

Also, you dropped the word “not” from Number 1.

Moreover, your opening sentence contains a misplaced modifier.

My bad on dropping a word. Not sure how that happened. It was not intentional.

I thought I read you were an editor. If not, I retract the modifier.

As for the "pedantry" -- I suggest that you put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror. The problem is not that I am pedantic. It is that your language is imprecise. An editor would know that. There also is a difference between "I believe" (which is personal) and "to the best of our knowledge" -- which implies a universal acceptance. An editor would know that also.

I had written off further discourse with you before, and one of my greatest mistakes in this board was to reengage. I will not make that mistake again.

 

[pood]

I don’t believe anyone here is going to waste time qualifying every single statement with “I believe that” or “I think that” because such qualifiers are obviously implied,