According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Michael S. Pearl]

Two "possibilities" with different characteristics at the same place and time are contradictory.

That's a contradiction.

Not at all.

To make it a contradiction, you will have to define place in particular such that no two things can be in the same place at the same time.

You should already sense how preposterous as well as non-necessary such a definition would be.

 

[Jarhyn]

you will have to define place in particular such that no two things can be in the same place at the same time

That's pretty much exactly how "place" is defined, yes.

It is one of the most basic ideas of physics and math, and one of the ways we specifically know something is hinky and requires more investigation.

It is the real corollary to "no contradictions", and the first intuition that drove us to understand quantum mechanics and how it can appear that two phenomena could appear that way.

Like, even with quantum superposition, the assumption there is that the fields can overlap only insofar as the "actual" position ends up entangled and complimentary in some way, implying some complimentary composition in some other-dimensional space that both end up rotating through.

Im pretty sure that's why quantum mechanics needs additional dimensional assumptions in most models, in the first place.

The whole point of physics is modeling it in a way that does not assume a spatial contradiction is to preserve that assumption.

It is the natural corollary to "there are no binary contradictions".

Otherwise, we could say "what if at that place where I observed A, I just didn't manage to observe the ~A property there", and makes the entire assumption of observation in science moot if we just assume nature can present in any way two different states at the same exact position in exactly the same way.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

you will have to define place in particular such that no two things can be in the same place at the same time

That's pretty much exactly how "place" is defined, yes.

It is one of the most basic ideas of physics and math, and one of the ways we specifically know something is hinky and requires more investigation.

It is the real corollary to "no contradictions", and the first intuition that drove us to understand quantum mechanics and how it can appear that two phenomena could appear that way.

Like, even with quantum superposition, the assumption there is that the fields can overlap only insofar as the "actual" position ends up entangled and complimentary in some way, implying some complimentary composition in some other-dimensional space that both end up rotating through.

Im pretty sure that's why quantum mechanics needs additional dimensional assumptions in most models, in the first place.

The whole point of physics is modeling it in a way that does not assume a spatial contradiction is to preserve that assumption.

It is the natural corollary to "there are no binary contradictions".

Otherwise, we could say "what if at that place where I observed A, I just didn't manage to observe the ~A property there", and makes the entire assumption of observation in science moot if we just assume nature can present in any way two different states at the same exact position in exactly the same way.

Based on that definition of place, math and science fail to correspond with reality.

Your body is in one place, the same place as are your body parts and even your thoughts.

Likewise, in one place is the determinate condition which is the conjoining of the A possibility and the not-A possibility.

There is no contradiction.

 

[Jarhyn]

Your body is in one place

No, it is not. My body is in many places across space. It isn't even necessarily in one distinct volume.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Your body is in one place

No, it is not. My body is in many places across space. It isn't even necessarily in one distinct volume.

Your body is certainly not in one distinct volume across spacetime.

Nor are you equally free across spacetime.

Don’t make the mistake of identifying places with dimensionless points, because dimensionless points are not physically real.

As interesting as all that can be made, I expect some part of you already realizes that there was no contradiction.

 

[Jarhyn]

Your body is certainly not in one distinct volume across spacetime

Yes it is shaped roughly like a spikey, 4d worm-like structure with "blobs" occasionally dangling off or around it.

Nor are you equally free across spacetime

Well, before it's shaped like a worm it's shaped kind of like a frayed rope, but much more squiggly, and it looks kind of "melty" at times

In fact, I recently saw an image that sort of looks like what "I" was before I was me, but in 2d frames in 3d, though I'm not sure this is what the intent was to depict... It looked kind of like a tree with vertical branches all extending off into unfurled particles going their own ways?

Then at the end, it progressively gets more confused until things start separating and the bundles that were start being consumed into other stuff and they lines of its cross section stop interacting, and then before you know it, what was all woven tightly drifts promptly apart.

This is in fact one of the reasons you bringing up the Trinity is SO ironic, though, because in addition to that element of me, the spikey worm with frayed ends, "me the child" as it were, there is another "me" more shaped like... Maybe you could represent it like with lines and structures and connections sent into the worm from tufts or "weaves" in tight bundles of stuff outside it, that causes its shape to conform in some way based on what it receives, and other lines extending out back into the more distinct "weaves" of the thing and those connect through and to past instances of other "spikey frayed worms", and they eventually come into and define part of the structure of the spikey worm. This "ghost" connects the whole worm to one or more such "frayed worms" and more bizarre shapes still (the points where bundles become tight weaves rather than diffuse frayed ones).

But some features of that frayed rope's.xross section themselves come to reflect a system which directs where and how the thing is woven together. When the right combination of structural elements (the symmetries of the cross sections of the "woven areas") form some structure among the diffuse connections to the worm, the worm's own weave of bundles shifts to conform to some new cross-sectional conformity.

Across parts of that the structure around this worm various constraints act as hard or soft walls which will prevent the worm from moving past their positions in spacetime, however abstract, owing to controls and lines connecting out, and forward, and into the worm so as to direct it. When these undue influences.

Sometimes the spikey frayed worm merely moves of its own accord, not in connection to another spikey frayed worm but because of something inside that volume.

Depending on whether the motion is due to a wall, even a wall formed of decisions made due to the threat of not achieving some position in the space, or whether that motion is due to the structural rules created inside the spikey 4d worm, we declare the thing "constrained" or "free".

Believe me, I might have spent some time actually thinking what shape I have through spacetime and what observations indicate the freedom and constraint in that shape.

But yes, it is strictly speaking a very strange 4d volume.

If you want I can TRY to draw a 2d version of it that paints it correctly, and extend concepts of area to volumes, and I would have to use spheres or dots to avoid implications of concurrence, or imply some 3d space.

I will admit, though, this is the first time I pushed myself to visualize it completely, so kudos on you for that.

The "human as a frayed spikey worm-rope through time" visualization is in fact one of the ways I've been pushing myself to visualize weirder shit, including block spacetime.

Doing so usually leaves me feeling like my head is full of lead -- which it might be given questionable choices of chewing material as a child -- though "full of piss" is more likely, given how metabolism works.

 

[steve_bank]

Well,

Points are not undermentioned in space-time, they have dimensions in meters in a coordinate system.

Common coordinate systems are Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical.

Position coordinates define position of objections and patches. Volume is what is enclosed by a surface, like the skin of your body. That brings in calculus.

Words are imaginary. Free will vs determinism is an imaginary debate.

We certainly occupy a finite volume in space-time. Defined by the surface of our bodies comprised of real physical particles, IOW atoms.

If you doubt that try to standing where somebody else is standing. Bodi9es are real. Bodies are composed of a collection of atoms and molecules with finite dimensions, IOW volumes.

Points in meters in a coordinate system reference atoms in your body referenced in a coordinate system.

In Euclidean gentry points are defined to be massless and infinitesimally small.

However if actually modeling the body each atom or molecule can be assigned a finite volume within the coordinate system.

From General Semantics, 'the map is not the countryside''. It refers to taking words for objects as the objects themselves. In their philosophy that leads to a distancing from reality which leads to social and mental health problems.

When you kook at an object and think chair what does that mean?

Something to consider when debating free will and determinism. Metaphysics is abstractions not not reality.

 

[BSilvEsq]

you will have to define place in particular such that no two things can be in the same place at the same time

That's pretty much exactly how "place" is defined, yes.

It is one of the most basic ideas of physics and math, and one of the ways we specifically know something is hinky and requires more investigation.

It is the real corollary to "no contradictions", and the first intuition that drove us to understand quantum mechanics and how it can appear that two phenomena could appear that way.

Like, even with quantum superposition, the assumption there is that the fields can overlap only insofar as the "actual" position ends up entangled and complimentary in some way, implying some complimentary composition in some other-dimensional space that both end up rotating through.

Im pretty sure that's why quantum mechanics needs additional dimensional assumptions in most models, in the first place.

The whole point of physics is modeling it in a way that does not assume a spatial contradiction is to preserve that assumption.

It is the natural corollary to "there are no binary contradictions".

Otherwise, we could say "what if at that place where I observed A, I just didn't manage to observe the ~A property there", and makes the entire assumption of observation in science moot if we just assume nature can present in any way two different states at the same exact position in exactly the same way.

Based on that definition of place, math and science fail to correspond with reality.

Your body is in one place, the same place as are your body parts and even your thoughts.

Likewise, in one place is the determinate condition which is the conjoining of the A possibility and the not-A possibility.

There is no contradiction.

To say that two objects (however small) are in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) is not a self-contradiction. Rather, that statement is a contradiction to the proposition that no two objects (however small) can possibly be in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist). Although most folks tend to accept that proposition as true, it is possible that the proposition is false and that two objects (however small) can be in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist).

Nor is it a self-contradiction to say that I suppose that a given object is both in a particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) and not in that particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist). Rather, that statement is a contradiction to the proposition that a given object cannot be both in a specific place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) and not in that place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist). Again, although most folks tend to accept that proposition as true, it is possible that the proposition is false and that a given object can be both in a specific place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) and not in that place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist).

Even the law of non-contradiction, itself, is a valid basis for rejecting a proposition only if one accepts as true that a given statement cannot be both true and false and/or that a given thing cannot be both whatever it is and not whatever it is.
Non of these propositions is empirically provable. Nor are any of these propositions falsifiable.

At some level, all of these things are taken as a matter of faith, or not taken at all.

Of course, we do tend to live our lives "as if" these propositions are true, but we could be woefully mistaken.

--------------------------

Turning to the view of many folks on this thread who insist that a fatalistic determinism is logically impossible, that is so only if one takes as an ultimate truth that it is impossible for everything to be pre-determined -- which is an inherently unprovable and non-falsifiable statement that has no greater (or lesser) claim to truth than the claim of fatalistic determinism.

What then of the argument repeatedly asserted in this thread that the Big Bang could not possibly have written the Bible. How are the odds of that occurring any less fantastical than the odds of a complex universe evolving from the Big Bang into a place where human beings exist with free will to write the Bible? Indeed, how does one even go about calculating the odds of the seemingly impossible and without knowing the alternatives?

The proposition that human consciousness and free will somehow evolved over billions of years out of nothing, such that humans are now free from the physical forces of the universe that created humans in the first instance is no more or less fantastical than the proposition that the Big Bang wrote the Bible. Indeed, both propositions are no more or less fantastical than the proposition that a nearly infinite number of monkeys typing on a nearly infinite number of typewriters for a nearly infinite amount of time could produce the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and everything else that humans have ever written.

In the end, all we have is faith. That, or one version of reality is true and all others are false, but we lack the ability to discern which is which. And, it also is possible that there is no one true version of reality. Indeed, it is possible that there is no reality at all.

As Einstein famously said,"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

 

[Jarhyn]

Although most folks tend to accept that proposition as true, it is possible that the proposition is false and that two objects (however small) can be in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist).

I would say it is in fact quite the contradiction to say that they can be so.

If you would like to demonstrate two objects being in the same place at the same time in the same way but also still two different objects rather than a distinctly new sort of third object, or rotated through new space, or any such notion...

Demonstrate it.

Just one, anywhere, where it must be so that the only possible explanation is this nonsensical contradiction, and maybe we can step past here.

Nor is it a self-contradiction to say that I suppose that a given object is both in a particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) and not in that particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist)

Yes. It is.

Honestly, I think we're done now. You're at the point where you're pointedly "ducking out with the full abandonment of reason".

All of our notions in metaphysical discussions are based entirely on the notion that contradictions can't exist; that is the set of terms under which "possibility" as a notion is defined.

If we accept as possible that which is both A and ~A at the same time and place in the same way, that is a full abandonment of logic and reasoning and anything that could be considered valid metaphysics.

If that's how you want terminate thought, though, so be it..

"Pre-determined" is just saying "in the set of all sets that way and only that way in any place that could be considered similar".

It's a contradiction in premise, admittedly at this point.

 

[DBT]

But the problem goes deeper. If you run an experiment twice, or any number of times, with the exact same initial conditions in the experimental setup, you will NOT, in fact, always get the same outcome. This is because at any given time there are innumerable variables you cannot control for — difference in air pressure, temperature, random quantum fluctuations, and so on. So in addition to being a descriptive process without any coercive power, determinism is also an idealization.

I'm not sure why you mention this. Neither "variables you cannot control for" nor "random quantum fluctuations" are required for compatibilist free will. No need to feed DBT's suspicions that compatibilists don't really accept 'true' determinism.

It's seems that there are some compatibilists, redefining determinism to suit their own needs, who want it both ways.

That is what we are seeing here.

''The general version of this feature is self-consciousness and the specific version is intentionality. In other words, a person is judged to have acted freely and (ir)responsibly if he was aware of his desire to do X, foresaw the consequences (e.g., how moralists would judge him if he did X), and endorsed the desire (thereby forming an intention). Notice that a true compatibilist, who has gone on record saying that determinism is a fact of nature, must believe that the events of experiencing a desire, foreseeing the consequences of action, and forming an intention to act on the desire, are all determined. The causal chain leading a human to lift a finger is longer than the chain leading a squirrel to lift an acorn, but it is no less deterministic (he who says that it is less deterministic is not a compatibilist but a closet libertarian.''

The point being that it is the unchosen state and condition of the brain in any given instance of decision making that determines the thoughts and actions that are taken in that instance.

And we have shown again and again how: the brain does have the power to choose its own future state. I spent some good amount of time even describing that whole process and even demonstrating for you how you can make a system for which you can trivially observe the process of it choosing its own future operational text from a list of operational text based on its own current operational text.

You haven't shown anything. What you do is try to circumvent the very principles of determinism as compatibilists define it to be.

What the brain does and what it is capable of is not independent of the system.

Not being independent of the system, what the brain does in terms of thought and action is determined by the evolution of system (of which it is a part), without deviation or alternate actions.

By definition, there are no alternate actions within a deterministic system.... keeping in mind that compatibilism is related to determinism, not random or probabilistic events.

Your defence, an incoherent jumble of ideas about free will, neither compatibilist or Libertarian (which are incompatible), but an odd blend of both, fails as an argument for free will.

 

[DBT]

But the problem goes deeper. If you run an experiment twice, or any number of times, with the exact same initial conditions in the experimental setup, you will NOT, in fact, always get the same outcome. This is because at any given time there are innumerable variables you cannot control for — difference in air pressure, temperature, random quantum fluctuations, and so on. So in addition to being a descriptive process without any coercive power, determinism is also an idealization.

I'm not sure why you mention this. Neither "variables you cannot control for" nor "random quantum fluctuations" are required for compatibilist free will. No need to feed DBT's suspicions that compatibilists don't really accept 'true' determinism.

It's seems that there are some compatibilists, redefining determinism to suit their own needs, who want it both ways.

That is what we are seeing here.

''The general version of this feature is self-consciousness and the specific version is intentionality. In other words, a person is judged to have acted freely and (ir)responsibly if he was aware of his desire to do X, foresaw the consequences (e.g., how moralists would judge him if he did X), and endorsed the desire (thereby forming an intention). Notice that a true compatibilist, who has gone on record saying that determinism is a fact of nature, must believe that the events of experiencing a desire, foreseeing the consequences of action, and forming an intention to act on the desire, are all determined. The causal chain leading a human to lift a finger is longer than the chain leading a squirrel to lift an acorn, but it is no less deterministic (he who says that it is less deterministic is not a compatibilist but a closet libertarian.''

The point being that it is the unchosen state and condition of the brain in any given instance of decision making that determines the thoughts and actions that are taken in that instance.

And we have shown again and again how: the brain does have the power to choose its own future state. I spent some good amount of time even describing that whole process and even demonstrating for you how you can make a system for which you can trivially observe the process of it choosing its own future operational text from a list of operational text based on its own current operational text.

This directly disproves your claim, and in fact validates through the trivial clear observation of the principle.

As pointed out by Copernicus in the other thread, this means the paradox in which we clearly observe the outcome, in the midst of your belief that this outcome must be impossible, means that some aspect of your use of language MUST be in error.

We have heavily discussed what that error is and why: it's a modal fallacy, caused by your belief in "the set of all sets", which you call "necessitation", identified clearly by some quality of "omniscience" and creation which you use to improperly justify this injection of nonsense.

That is not actually responsive to DBT. Well, it is not actually responsive to my interpretation/understanding of what DBT is trying to say. I am under the impression that DBT sees this discussion as regarding whether a something referred to as free will is compatible with an other something referred to as determinism with the term compatibilism in this discussion being understood as the holding that determinism is compatible with free will (and/or vice versa).

DBT and the self-described compatibilists both refer to determinism; so, the first question is whether DBT and the self-described compatibilists understand determinism identically.

DBT appears to regard determinism in strictly reductive physicalist terms with that physicalism maintaining that there is no occasion in which there is human control over what occurs physically, and, since all that occurs is physical, there is no frank human control. DBT does not deny that there are humans and human acts; DBT does not deny that humans feel/think they have some control; he simply asserts that there is physical activity occurring entirely in accord with a regularity sufficient for there to be the sufficient descriptions provided by or referred to as physics.

DBT has a tendency to express his thinking in terms of physics as controlling, and that is how his expression comes to be in terms of must rather than will; however, as the previous paragraph makes apparent, the reductive physicalist account to which DBT seems to hold has no need of there being - has no need of reference to - any sort of control whatsoever: not human and not even physical.

This means that for DBT, determinism is the belief that the physical is sufficiently consistently regular such that all which occurs is fixed, settled, determined to be as it occurs whether it has occurred or will occur, whether it has already become or been actual or whether it is yet to be actual.

I think that what DBT wants to know is whether the self-described compatibilists in this discussion have the same understanding about determinism as that presented in the previous paragraph.

If yes, there then follows the matter of free will, but, if the compatibilists do not have the same understanding about determinism which DBT seems to have, then the matter of free will and whether it is compatible with determinism is not really at issue. The issue would simply be: what is determinism?

It does no good to say "we have shown again and again". If DBT is (thought to be) intentionally recalcitrant, then stop showing and stop saying he has been shown. If what has supposedly been "shown again and again" makes no sense to DBT, then a new and different manner of expression can be tried in place of that manner of expression which has been used "again and again".

For reasons which should be obvious, it does no good to describe determinism as deterministic or in terms of deterministic systems. Maybe DBT cannot free himself from thinking in terms of control, and maybe DBT or someone else would want to modify the description of determinism as the belief that there is only physical activity occurring entirely in accord with a regularity sufficient for there to be the sufficient descriptions provided by or referred to as physics with the physical being sufficiently consistently regular such that all which occurs is fixed, settled, determined to be as it occurs whether it has occurred or will occur, whether it has already become or been actual or whether it is yet to be actual.

Then again, maybe I have misunderstood DBT's contention.

I think the compatibilists on this forum simply disregard their own definition of determinism and assert free will regardless of the terms of their own definition of determinism.

For instance, Pood has endorsed constant conjunction and adequate determinism, which do not permit alternate choice or action, yet argues for free choice.

Jarhyn defines determinism ''a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system'' yet claims the brain can do otherwise.

So, it just looks irrational.

I don't dispute the given definitions of determinism, just their assertions and definitions of free will in relation to determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

a deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system

Ah yes, off the cuff definitions given 7 years ago: the standard itself of accurate discussion.

That said, you don't understand "randomness" so you don't understand what that definition even means in the first place.

You absolutely refuse to do any actual study in any of the fields that would help you understand what these claims are about, and then pretend that you think you could possibly understand what is being discussed.

"Randomness" here is taken in terms of "probabilistic events", not in really even in terms of uncorrelated information.

For instance, if I have an aperiodic field formed by a deterministic choice process for tile arrangements (which is, again, why I bring up Spectre), you will, after some large time frame, end up with an arbitrarily large field.

If you then start accounting for the tiles "around" any given tile (let's say, just "walking" out in a spiral from that tile), the evolution of what you see will be unpredictable. In fact, an observer of the set of tiles ignorant of the placement regime (which is not evidenced by the tiles themselves) will be mathematically incapable of telling you where in the field they are or even which field they are actually in, or what tile they will see next in the walk-out from their origin. There's no randomness there in its evolution, no randomness in its creation; every time you run the program it happens exactly the same...

And yet even so, every single tile in the whole field has an experience of randomness, due to a problem of undecidability: the fact that what you did doesn't allow reaching out and accessing certain information about what you did within the thing you did.

It's not an illusion, it's actual randomness, though, in terms of its perfect unpredictability from what has happened before.

What the brain does and what it is capable of is not independent of the system

Yes, it is largely physically independent, even if it is itself physical, owing to insulation.

Do you not know how insulation works? The thing that keeps the charge in the wire independent of charges and ions in the air such that circuits do not close except on the pathway of the wire itself?

Do you not know how fields isolate due to being perpendicular to one another?

Like, my last job involved specifically a problem of field alignment, where if you rotated a thing wrong, signals would just stop carrying across a system and we would lose track of where something physically was because just twisting it caused it to insulate from the emitter that powered and tracked it.

Field isolation creates relative independence, which is yet again why I BEG you to get some sort of education in systems theory, and to actually debug a deterministic system some time to understand that determinism doesn't imply choices do not happen.

Only fatalism implies that by stealing all choice and attributing it to a nonsensical God.

 

[pood]

For instance, Pood has endorsed constant conjunction and adequate determinism, which do not permit alternate choice or action, yet argues for free choice.

Yet I have pointed out that you have never yet defended the claim that determinism does “not permit alternate choice or action,” whereas I have pointed out that because determinism is a mindless descriptive process, it is not the sort of thing that can permit, fail to permit, or coerce, anything.

I await your answer to my longstanding request to explain how hard determinism paints pictures, writes novels, composes symphonies, and designs buildings.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

If you would like to demonstrate two objects being in the same place at the same time in the same way

With regards to possibilities, the fact is that possibilities are not objects (which is to say physical objects). Therefore, a fact that two physical objects cannot be in the same place at the same time in the same way has no bearing whatsoever on the matter of possibilities.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

To say that two objects (however small) are in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) is not a self-contradiction. Rather, that statement is a contradiction to the proposition that no two objects (however small) can possibly be in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist).

Right. In this case I specifically noted that "To make it a contradiction, you will have to define place in particular such that no two things can be in the same place at the same time."

The most immediate problem with that to-be-asserted definition in the context of this discussion is that if the "things" are possibilities, then when "things" gets restricted to "physical objects", the intended-to-be-problematic definition is inapplicable to those "things" which are possibilities, since possibilities are not physical objects.

There is no contradiction in saying that there can be possibilities at a location or in a context.

 

[Jarhyn]

With regards to possibilities, the fact is that possibilities are not objects

Yes they are. They are literal, actual objects. Right there is a possibility for how reality may be shaped and it is "scissors" shaped. And over there is a possibility that is "book" shaped.

Whether these possibilities are posed to the question "which of these would I pick up first so as to clean the table" is decided by a decider, often twice.

In addition to there being a physical set of possibilities identified (which is far from exhaustive of all possibilities, some of which order in hierarchical ways to one another), there is a second physical set of possibilities in the brain, composed of switching paths, and when those two things meet, a decision is made and the "scissors" path lights up and the rest stay dark because "I want to trim my mustache" is the lit one.

But as I keep noting, the book and the scissors, the "book" pathway and the "scissors" pathway, all of these are, actually, physical objects.

The non-physicality of choice and agents and 'the imagination' is the thing that is illusory; the truth behind the illusion of non-physicality is that all of these things are concrete objects, and concrete relationships between those objects created by physical stuff.

"Non-physicality" only ascribes to the metaphysical "in theory", granted those theories are still made of stuff and that stuff can end up representing stuff badly much more readily than representing it accurately.

There are a number of possibilities, however, that are not physical objects until they are not and might never be but which are the product of some other system that is itself concrete and whose shape implies the accessibility of those possibilities, such as a "factory" process that takes some seed information and maps that physically to a set of results.

Then there are even such possibilities proposed that are strictly inaccessible by such means.

But to assert that physical possibilities are not possibilities is completely wrong.

Of course there are infinitely many inaccessible possibilities and by an immeasurably infinitely large proportion, than accessible ones; and that is itself infinitely larger (but by a smaller cardinality) than the possibly finite number of accessed possibilities, of which an even smaller subset are reflected entirely into the path of the body of a "frayed 4d worm-rope-thing".

These errors in proclaiming them NOT to be physical things comes from a junky understanding of math and numbers and what is even meant by "possibilities" in the first place.

Please, all of you, take the time to seek more education in math, and to take an introduction on programming in C/C++, preferably one where you construct the concepts of a class in C before you see the presentation of that in C++ in easier terms, and definitely through the section on Pointers.

Don't even attend for grades, just take the class for free on Coursera or something and skip the testing and evaluation portions!

Then do what I say and actually pay attention to why the compiler warns or errors.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

to assert that physical possibilities are not possibilities is completely wrong.

What have been referred to previously in terms of physical possibilities are certainly possibilities and have consistently been noted to be possibilities, but they are physical possibilities without having to be physical objects even if physical possibilities relate to expression in or by a physical person, for instance.

The possibilities at issue in this discussion are those which regard humans. The relevant possibilities are those recognized by humans; a human chooses based on the possibilities which the human recognizes. Human recognition of possibilities is a form of human expression. Recognition of possibilities by a physical human is a physical expression (an expression which occurs (from) within a physical human), and, yet, the possibilities themselves are not discreet, individually distinct physical objects.

All possibilities are imagined inasmuch as all possibilities which are recognized are expressions of thinking/mental processing. Possibilities are imagined without necessarily being imaginary. Possibilities are expressed/imagined without those possibilities necessarily being - and without necessarily being thought of as - (discreet, individually distinct) physical objects.

There is not and has not been a contradiction, but what I am thus far unable to imagine is why you imagine it is important that there have been a contradiction.

 

[Jarhyn]

What have been referred to previously in terms of physical possibilities are certainly possibilities and have consistently been noted to be possibilities, but they are physical possibilities without having to be physical objects even if physical possibilities relate to expression in or by a physical person, for instance

And if you can point out to any location (denoted by the existence of some set of established variables such that it is fully concrete" where any two of these fully intersect (where it is relational rather than functional), that would be just dandy.

the possibilities themselves are not discreet, individually distinct physical objects

Yes they are. Those are "accessed" possibilities, and are quite pointedly distinctly physical objects and structures in a concrete way, and concrete structures (factories) which produce those in systematic ways and which imply the metaphysical existence of such possibilities in perhaps other "places" that are not "here".

But the point under metaphysics is that we can define some abstract "factory factory" and then run the factory factory and use physics to form new physics and make the thing concrete.

Of course there are all the strictly inaccessible possibilities, but those don't strictly "exist", at least not here; maybe somewhere else or in some physics we can't build with the stuff we have here.

But every time a human touches it, it's absolutely a physical thing, in addition to being a logical thing.

Every single time.

It's absolutely a contradiction to say that two different things can exist in the same place at the same time as different things!

That's like, the one thing that logic rejects, at all levels, in all places. It's the foundational assumption of the word "possibility".

Again, please take SOME courses in math and software engineering, preferably something foundational, and seek to understand why compilers assert errors and when.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Although most folks tend to accept that proposition as true, it is possible that the proposition is false and that two objects (however small) can be in precisely the same place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist).

I would say it is in fact quite the contradiction to say that they can be so.

If you would like to demonstrate two objects being in the same place at the same time in the same way but also still two different objects rather than a distinctly new sort of third object, or rotated through new space, or any such notion...

Demonstrate it.

Just one, anywhere, where it must be so that the only possible explanation is this nonsensical contradiction, and maybe we can step past here.

Your persistent insistence upon demonstration is demonstrably limiting.

Nor is it a self-contradiction to say that I suppose that a given object is both in a particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist) and not in that particular place / location (including howsoever many dimensions may exist)

Yes. It is.

Honestly, I think we're done now. You're at the point where you're pointedly "ducking out with the full abandonment of reason".

All of our notions in metaphysical discussions are based entirely on the notion that contradictions can't exist; that is the set of terms under which "possibility" as a notion is defined.

If we accept as possible that which is both A and ~A at the same time and place in the same way, that is a full abandonment of logic and reasoning and anything that could be considered valid metaphysics.

If that's how you want terminate thought, though, so be it..

"Pre-determined" is just saying "in the set of all sets that way and only that way in any place that could be considered similar".

It's a contradiction in premise, admittedly at this point.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

And if you can point out to any location (denoted by the existence of some set of established variables such that it is fully concrete" where any two of these fully intersect (where it is relational rather than functional), that would be just dandy.

The above is uncommunicative expression. You might like it that way, but it would not be for any respectable reasons.

Describe "concrete", because, by your presentation, your demand comes across as a non-necessary requirement. Then describe "relational" and "functional", and I might be able to render your remark communicative.

"accessed" possibilities ... are quite pointedly distinctly physical objects and structures in a concrete way

For someone who supposedly "look(s) with suspicion on anything we might declare as necessary", you sure do tend towards expressing matters as though they are necessary (here technically in the sense of necessarily actual to the exclusion of other erstwhile related possibilities).

Address yourself to this remark that I made: "Possibilities are expressed/imagined without those possibilities necessarily being - and without necessarily being thought of as - (discreet, individually distinct) physical objects."

If you find yourself responding with the notion in the remark of yours quoted immediately above, then you might be committing seriously fallacious reasoning.

That is unless you can establish that "'accessed' possibilities" actually are only "distinctly physical objects and structures in a concrete way".

please take SOME courses in math and software engineering, preferably something foundational

Your cited remark once again indicates that you really have no clue as to the practical usefulness of modal logic. So, as a favor, at least stop your rather frequent reflexive modal fallacy chants. I have told you previously that when you realize - if you ever realize - what is the practical usefulness of modal logic, you will begin to understand that philosophical charity can have a practical usefulness for you.