Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

It doesn't matter how many transistors, diodes or silicon you assemble; it doesn't equate to free will. Processing power is not free will.

It isn't about processing power. It's about the specific algorithm being implemented.

The brains 'algorithms' are determined by experience.

We - the brain - learn through experience about what brings us pleasure, meaning or reward, what to avoid because it's painful, tastes bad, poisonous, dangerous, etc.....including the knowledge that tolerating discomfort or pain is worth it if the gain or reward is worth the effort.

That ability is enabled by processing power. A human brain by means of greater complexity and processing power surpassing that of other animals with smaller brains without the ability to reason and weigh options (some other species have that ability).

If you have access to the 'algorithms' but your brain is incapable of making sense of their elements, the results may be less than ideal.

So, yes, without processing power, algorithms are not enough.

Nor are algorithms a matter of free will, therefore no case to make.

 

[DBT]

Hence centuries of free will debate.

Hi there! I'm a compatibilist. I'd like to show the incompatibilists, whether hard determinists or libertarian, how free will and determinism are compatible notions. It is time that you two lay down your arms, shake hands, and move on to some of the REAL problems that face humanity in this day and age, you know, war, famine, global warming, injustice, racial and religious persecution, etc. etc. etc.

I agree, the notion of free will is absolutely irrelevant. It tells us nothing about human nature, behaviour, drives, wants, needs, aspirations, how the world came to be in this state or how to fix it.

Yet we argue over free will.

The problems with compatibilism are as described. Other versions, Libertarian, QM uncertainty principle, etc, have their own problems

Fortunately, my compatibilism does not require any of that stuff. It only requires (1) using the ordinary, operational notion of free will that everyone is already using when assessing moral and legal responsibility,

The ordinary operational notion of free will simply refers to outward appearances, human behaviour as we observe it. Digging deeper into the drivers and means of thought and action paints a different picture.

Hence centuries of debate on the nature of free will, or its absence. That 'free will' is not really the means by which we think and act.

and (2) using the empirical notion of determinism, stripped of all its false implications.

Keep it Simple, Sam.

False implications? Are we not working with the same definition of determinism?

Oh, I know, DBT will say the Big Bang made you do it. At least, he said that earlier; then later he said that the brain is the sole decider. Go figure.

You are misrepresenting what I said. Apparently as a result frustration. Which - given that compatibilism is the attempt to unite two incompatible elements, determinism and freedom of will when alternate actions are impossible - is quite understandable.

Where did I misrepresent what you said? I distinctly recall you saying several times that the big bang is the source of all necessitated actions. Then later you said the brain is the sole agent of our actions, which is true. So which is it?

You invoke the fallacy of the excluded middle? A lot has happened since the big bang you know. Stars have formed, planets, life has emerged and evolved on earth, countless species, brains structures, etc?

Not only that, but you ignore the inconvenient detail that there has been an agreement on the definition of determinism? That both sides agree on how determinism works.

You realize that the issue is not with the definition of determinism, just the given definition of free will in relation to determinism?

I’ve already addressed this. The other side, as you would have it, most definitely does not agree to the Consequence Argument, which begs the question by defining free will out of existence. The scaled-back version of the Consequence Argument, presented by Hoefer, comes from a compatibilist. Finally, I’ve given my own definition of determinism, which is Hume’s “constant conjunction,” in which effects are observed to reliably follow causes, full stop. Nothing about precluding free will there, and, of course, Hume was another compatibilist. So I’ve ignored nothing.

You haven't addressed anything. You are repeating arguments that do not prove the proposition for the reasons given over many pages and numerous posts, but ignored.

Of course I addressed it! I was referring specifically to your claim that I IGNORED “the inconvenient detail that there has been an agreement on the definition of determinism.” I did not IGNORE such an “inconvenient detail” because there is no such inconvenient detail to ignore! I have told you that no compatibilists accept the Consequence Argument, and I have told you REPEATEDLY that my own definition of determinism is limited to Hume’s “constant conjunction.“ So how can you possibly say I haven’t addressed this??

Nor I have “ignored” any of your posts. I have REBUTTED them. Big difference.

You may imagine (good for you) that you have made a rebuttal, but that is far from being the case. You say that you don't ignore inconvenient details, yet do just that each and every time you respond.

The bottom line it that compatibilism fails to prove its proposition because it merely applies the 'free will' label to a select set of conditions; acting according to one's will without external necessitation, force or coercion.

The argument fails because it completely ignores internal necessitation, which no less fixes outcomes - regardless of will or free will - than external elements.

In fact internal necessitation is driven by information input which is external and acts upon the system. That is the fatal flaw in compatibilism

So if it makes you feel better to imagine victory in this debate, enjoy the illusion.

You see, I do not “imagine victory” in this debate. I do not claim to have refuted your claims, only to have rebutted them. “Refurte” and “rebut” are not the same thing. And while I actually do think I have refuted your claims, you and others will contest this; but it is incontrestable that I have rebutted them — which is the exact opposite of ignoring them.

Sp now it's down to irrelevant quibbling over semantics? If you imagine that you have rebutted my argument (which you haven't), a rebuttal is form of victory by the mere token that you feel that you have exposed the flaws in your opponent's argument.

It's an imagined rebuttal and an imagined victory over incompatibilism.

Imaginary because your so called rebuttal ignores inner necessitation - which itself is a rebuttal of the notion of free will - and the shaky foundation upon which compatibilism rests, a mere definition based on careful wording.

You say I “ignore inconvenient details.” Which ones? What you actually mean is that since I don’t agree with you, and have reubutted your cliams, it follows then that I have ignored your claims. IOW, if people don’t agree with you, you think they are ignorning you.

I have stated the inconvenient details in practically every post I have made, ie, inner necessitation, the definition of freedom/no possible alternate actions, the absence of the right kind of regulative control, will playing no part in outcomes, how decisions are made, the nature of determinism, the foundation of compatibilism a set of carefully crafted premises that ignore the elements outlined above, etc, etc....

Your imagined rebuttal is an illusion formed of wishful thinking.


''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.'' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

 

[DBT]

The notion that determinism eliminates freedom is a false implication. Every freedom derives its meaning from some form of meaningful constraint. In, "We set the bird free from its cage", the cage is the constraint. In, "The lady at the grocery store was offering free samples", the constraint is the cost. In, "I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will", the constraint is coercion or some other undue influence.

Freedom is defined as having multiple realizable, possible actions. Determinism/antecedents, by definition, set the only possible action.

Offering free samples or setting a bird free are not examples of free will. Determined actions necessarily proceed as determined. They are neither impeded, restricted or restrained. Which, being determined, does not equate to free will.

Clearly it does eliminate freedom.

If determinism eliminated freedom, then why aren't you lobbying the Merriam-Webster company to remove the words "free" and "freedom" from their dictionary? But you're not doing that, are you.

References to unrestricted, unrestrained, unimpeded actions do not equate to free will. Determined actions are not freely willed actions, being determined, they are set by antecedents.

We are talking about determinism, a system whereby our will is set by antecedents.


“It might be true that you would have done otherwise if you had wanted, though it is determined that you did not, in fact, want otherwise.” - Robert Kane

At some level, you must realize that the notion that causal necessity is "something that we must be free of" is a delusion. Causal necessity is nothing more than reliable cause and effect, something that we observe everyday, in everything that happens, and in everything that we do.

We, ourselves, are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that operate as a single, complex, human being. These mechanisms are our hearts beating and our brains thinking and our legs walking and our voices talking and our jaws chewing gum. Every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires reliable cause and effect.

So, the notion that we must somehow be "free of cause and effect" is pretty silly. Don't you agree?

It is silly to think that we are free of causality within a determined system. Just as it is silly to image that we have free will within a determined system, where will and action is fixed by causality. That is the point.

Of course. And, when there are multiple options and we must choose one, the process of that inner necessitation is called "choosing".

Choosing in relation to determinism involves only one possible outcome, not a freely chosen or willed action, but the determined action.

External information acts upon the system, the nature of that information interacting with memory function determines response.

Of course. In the restaurant, that external information is called a "menu", and we must choose from that menu what we will have for dinner. While making that choice, one of the memory functions may include recalling what we had for breakfast and what we had for lunch, in order to make a healthy choice for dinner.

Of course it does. Memory function enables recognition, decision making and conscious action. Without memory function it all fall apart.

Nothing to do with free will

The 'compatibilist' definition of free will ignores inner necessitated as the means of response, simply declaring; 'acting in accordance with one's will is free will' - never mind the means by which actions are generated.

''Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes, and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.'' - Huettel et al.

You should know better by now than to suggest that compatibilists ignore neuroscience. It seems that the incompatibilists are the ones that are short-sheeting the neuroscience. Neuroscience, including the text you quoted, affirms repeatedly that brains make decisions, and that those decisions control our actions. For example, in the restaurant, the pattern recognition by which we predicted we would enjoy the steak dinner was a reliance upon sequences of events involving steak dinners that we experienced in the past. And so was our memory of the bacon and eggs for breakfast and the double cheeseburger we had for lunch. That's why we decided to have the salad instead.

The claim that compatibilists are ignoring anything from neuroscience is totally bogus.

Compatibilists tend to ignore or dismiss neuroscience in the specific area of agency. Which is, that neuroscience does not support will - be it conscious or unconscious - as the agent of decision making, thought or action. That these abilities are performed and enabled by the necessary networks and structures of the brain prior to conscious experience and determined by the state and condition of the system at any given instance in time.

It is not 'free will' that drives or regulates the system.

Which is why compatibilism defines free will as acting in accordance with one's desire or will.

''This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.''' Volitional control of movement: Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 118, Issue 6, Pages 1179-1192 M. Hallett

 

[Marvin Edwards]

You keep trying to run your flag up the wrong flag poles. This is cause and that is effect. Ergo This then that. When one gets to the point of proposing deliberate causation one has already presumed mind where the self defined stuff applies. Choice is not determined it is a construction by a mind to explain why self is even relevant.

This is why we use the restaurant as an example. In the restaurant, we can forget about mind altogether, if you like. We objectively observe someone reading a menu of alternate possibilities and reducing it to a single dinner order. We objectively observe someone saying to the waiter, "I will have X for dinner, please". A second person says, "I will have Y for dinner, please". A third person says, "I will have Z for dinner, please".

Do you notice a "pattern"? We may form a "predictive hypothesis" at this point, about the behavior of people who walk into a restaurant. And we can test that hypothesis by further observations, confirming that it is a reliable predictive pattern. We might even set up laboratory experiments where we create a room with tables, and menus, and a person with a notepad and pencil standing in the room. Then invite people to enter the room at dinner time, to see what they will do.

After confirming our hypothesis, we may formulate it into a law of nature. We'll call it the "law of restaurant behavior". And we will give names to the specific activities we observe. For example, we see each customer reducing the menu to a single order, a very remarkable task! What shall we call this? Let's call it "menu shrinking".

Do we see "menu shrinking" behavior elsewhere in human life? Indeed we do! We see high school graduates shrinking a list of colleges to the single college they will attend. We see young people shrinking lists of people that they enjoy being with, to the single person they will take to the prom. And so on. So, perhaps there is another name we can use for this behavior?

How about "choosing"?

You would have a lot of trouble explaining whither subvocalization with such 'effect determines' thinking. For me it is a convenient example of how one justifies whatever one is doing. You, on the other hand, are saying as you are doing but you are placing the saying which is caused by the doing before the doing. Doesn't work that way.

Wikipedia has a nice article on Subvocalization. It typically happens when reading and can aid memory and comprehension.

But a more general approach to the problem you're referencing is that we all were asked as children to "explain ourselves". "Why did you do that?!" and "Did you do that on purpose?", etc. This is Michael Gazzaniga's "interpreter", and it is known to confabulate an explanation, "after the fact", when the brain is unaware of the actual explanation of its behavior. Confabulation happens when a person is given a post-hypnotic suggestion to do something odd upon some triggering event or word, and then told to forget everything that happened while under hypnosis. When asked why he took his shoe off (or some other action) when he heard the word "albatross", he will make up a story. But when the brain knows the actual story, there is no need to confabulate.

If a person is considering whether to do something unusual, like shoplifting, they may think "before the act", asking themselves, "How will I explain this if I am caught?" And it may deter them from choosing to do something that they cannot justify to themselves, because they realize that they will not be able to justify it to others, such as the judge in the courtroom.

So, a conscious realization of the likely outcome opens the behavior up to review "before the fact".

My point is that there are situations where the doing precedes the saying, but that in the significant cases we really care about, the saying precedes the doing. The experimental cases, like Benjamin Libet's, where the doing precedes the saying, are usually limited to insignificant doings, like pressing a button randomly whenever you feel the urge. But choosing whether to order the salad or the steak, or choosing which college to attend, or choosing a prom date, or choosing whether to shoplift, are all a bit more complex than simply pressing a button.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Freedom is defined as having multiple realizable, possible actions.

A specific freedom is defined as the absence of some specific constraint. No one experiences freedom as such. But they experience a constraint as something that prevents them from doing what they want. The lifting of that constraint produces the experience of freedom. We experience freedom when set free from jail. We experience free will when parents allow us to choose for ourselves what we will do, rather than telling us what we must do.

Having multiple realizable options (multiple possible actions), is present in every situation where we must choose what we will do. It's just a fact of life that we must make choices when presented with multiple options. That's the empirical reality we deal with on a daily basis.

Determinism/antecedents, by definition, set the only possible action.

No, it doesn't. Determinism never actually does anything. It does not set the only possible action. Instead, it presents us with real life scenarios where we must choose between two or more real possibilities. And it insures that we will be doing that choosing.

Offering free samples or setting a bird free are not examples of free will. Determined actions necessarily proceed as determined. They are neither impeded, restricted or restrained. Which, being determined, does not equate to free will.

But it being determined does equate to free will when it is determined that we will be making the choice for ourselves while free of coercion and undue influence. This is really too simple to have to repeatedly explain it to you.

References to unrestricted, unrestrained, unimpeded actions do not equate to free will.

Free will is when we choose for ourselves what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence. So, as long as our choosing is unrestrained by coercion and undue influence, it definitely does equate to free will, by definition.

Determined actions are not freely willed actions, being determined, they are set by antecedents.

No, sometimes actions caused by antecedent events are freely chosen and sometimes they are not! If the actions are deliberately chosen while free of coercion and undue influence, then it is a freely chosen will. If antecedent events include coercion or undue influence, then it is not free will.

This should be obvious to you by now. The only thing preventing it from being obvious is a different definition of free will that you are choosing to use rather than the ordinary operational definition.

We are talking about determinism, a system whereby our will is set by antecedents.

And if the antecedent is us choosing, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is called "free will". But if the antecedent includes coercion or undue influence, then it is not free will.

There is nothing about being set by antecedent events that disqualifies either free will or coercion. Both are equally set by antecedent events.

“It might be true that you would have done otherwise if you had wanted, though it is determined that you did not, in fact, want otherwise.” - Robert Kane

And, ironically, that is the compatibilist position. Determinism never makes us do anything that we didn't want to do anyway!

It is silly to think that we are free of causality within a determined system.

100% agreement. In fact, every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires a world of reliable cause and effect. So, the notion that causation is something that we must escape in order to be free is paradoxical, self-contradictory, and an oxymoron.

So, why do you continue to push the notion that we must be free of causality?????

Just as it is silly to image that we have free will within a determined system, where will and action is fixed by causality. That is the point.

But it is not silly to image that we have free will within a deterministic system. Free will is not freedom from determinism or causal necessity. Free will is freedom from coercion and undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Choosing in relation to determinism involves only one possible outcome, not a freely chosen or willed action, but the determined action.

No, you are still confusing what "will" happen with what "can" happen. A correct statement would read like this: "Choosing in relation to determinism involves only one actual outcome". With choosing, there are always at least two possibilities, but only one actuality. If you can get this straight then everything should become clear.

Compatibilists tend to ignore or dismiss neuroscience in the specific area of agency. Which is, that neuroscience does not support will - be it conscious or unconscious - as the agent of decision making, thought or action.

I've explained this to you many times. The brain chooses from among its many inputs what it will attend to. It will ignore hunger for dinner until the workday is finished. Then it will shift its attention to what to do about that hunger. It may choose to go home to eat, or, it may choose to go out to dinner at a restaurant. Having set its intent upon dinner at a restaurant, it will walk or drive to the restaurant, walk in the doorway, sit down at a table, and browse the menu. It will choose what it will have for dinner and inform the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". All of these activities are motivated and directed by the chosen will, "I will have dinner at the restaurant".

That these abilities are performed and enabled by the necessary networks and structures of the brain prior to conscious experience and determined by the state and condition of the system at any given instance in time.

We are only at the restaurant because we decided, "I will have dinner at a restaurant instead of going home". And we remember that we considered going home to eat, but decided to have dinner at the restaurant instead.

It is not 'free will' that drives or regulates the system.

Are you blind? Were we not free of coercion and undue influence when we decided to go to the restaurant instead of going home?

Which is why compatibilism defines free will as acting in accordance with one's desire or will.

Nope. Compatibilism defines free will as choosing what we will do while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. Stop substituting your definition for mine.

''This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.''' Volitional control of movement: Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 118, Issue 6, Pages 1179-1192 M. Hallett

It doesn't matter when the conscious sense of volition arrives. It will always arrive in time to motivate us to walk to the restaurant, browse the menu, and place our order for dinner. And we will be conscious during each of these events. But perhaps Mr. Hallett has never decided to go to a restaurant for dinner.

 

[fromderinside]

You keep trying to run your flag up the wrong flag poles. This is cause and that is effect. Ergo This then that. When one gets to the point of proposing deliberate causation one has already presumed mind where the self defined stuff applies. Choice is not determined it is a construction by a mind to explain why self is even relevant.

This is why we use the restaurant as an example. In the restaurant, we can forget about mind altogether, if you like. We objectively observe someone reading a menu of alternate possibilities and reducing it to a single dinner order. We objectively observe someone saying to the waiter, "I will have X for dinner, please". A second person says, "I will have Y for dinner, please". A third person says, "I will have Z for dinner, please".

Do you notice a "pattern"? We may form a "predictive hypothesis" at this point, about the behavior of people who walk into a restaurant. And we can test that hypothesis by further observations, confirming that it is a reliable predictive pattern. We might even set up laboratory experiments where we create a room with tables, and menus, and a person with a notepad and pencil standing in the room. Then invite people to enter the room at dinner time, to see what they will do.

After confirming our hypothesis, we may formulate it into a law of nature. We'll call it the "law of restaurant behavior". And we will give names to the specific activities we observe. For example, we see each customer reducing the menu to a single order, a very remarkable task! What shall we call this? Let's call it "menu shrinking".

Do we see "menu shrinking" behavior elsewhere in human life? Indeed we do! We see high school graduates shrinking a list of colleges to the single college they will attend. We see young people shrinking lists of people that they enjoy being with, to the single person they will take to the prom. And so on. So, perhaps there is another name we can use for this behavior?

How about "choosing"?

You would have a lot of trouble explaining whither subvocalization with such 'effect determines' thinking. For me it is a convenient example of how one justifies whatever one is doing. You, on the other hand, are saying as you are doing but you are placing the saying which is caused by the doing before the doing. Doesn't work that way.

Wikipedia has a nice article on Subvocalization. It typically happens when reading and can aid memory and comprehension.

But a more general approach to the problem you're referencing is that we all were asked as children to "explain ourselves". "Why did you do that?!" and "Did you do that on purpose?", etc. This is Michael Gazzaniga's "interpreter", and it is known to confabulate an explanation, "after the fact", when the brain is unaware of the actual explanation of its behavior. Confabulation happens when a person is given a post-hypnotic suggestion to do something odd upon some triggering event or word, and then told to forget everything that happened while under hypnosis. When asked why he took his shoe off (or some other action) when he heard the word "albatross", he will make up a story. But when the brain knows the actual story, there is no need to confabulate.

If a person is considering whether to do something unusual, like shoplifting, they may think "before the act", asking themselves, "How will I explain this if I am caught?" And it may deter them from choosing to do something that they cannot justify to themselves, because they realize that they will not be able to justify it to others, such as the judge in the courtroom.

So, a conscious realization of the likely outcome opens the behavior up to review "before the fact".

My point is that there are situations where the doing precedes the saying, but that in the significant cases we really care about, the saying precedes the doing. The experimental cases, like Benjamin Libet's, where the doing precedes the saying, are usually limited to insignificant doings, like pressing a button randomly whenever you feel the urge. But choosing whether to order the salad or the steak, or choosing which college to attend, or choosing a prom date, or choosing whether to shoplift, are all a bit more complex than simply pressing a button.

First. All the resources required for subvocalization are also required for inner speech. Subvocalization is also associated with skill acquisition and memory building, specifically with that of tool making.

I see where you are going here.

My answer:

One time I conducted a perceptual set experiment with a class of sophomores taking social psychology. Unfortunately I couldn't account for all the variables required to get the information I needed to make an empirical point. Good set up, adequate instructions, dedicated students, got most of the variables into the work they were to perform, got results. Couldn't publish it because the design was incomplete. There were at least three variables unaccounted in the experiment.

Ad hoc uncontrolled examples will fail every time because important things were omitted, left uncontrolled, not recognized, were subject to bias, etc. That's great for Socrates and Plato because they were self confirming their models not discovering them. That's great for you for the same reasons. New information is not being verified, anticipated information isn't being properly controlled or tested, and it all comes from your limited observations, variable identifications, and missed conditions. You are writing a story, not conducting an experiment. It's an in your mind observational description.

My failed experiment is much closer to what one needs to do to demonstrate an empirical fact, much better designed, yet it too failed the test of providing objective data. You have much further to go to convince anyone of anything other than what are your prejudices. Saying while not doing isn't providing objective anything.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

...
My failed experiment is much closer to what one needs to do to demonstrate an empirical fact, much better designed, yet it too failed the test of providing objective data. You have much further to go to convince anyone of anything other than what are your prejudices. Saying while not doing isn't providing objective anything.

I really don't need to prove anything. If I was able to figure it out as a teenager in the public library then so can you.

 

[Jarhyn]

The brains 'algorithms' are determined by experience

And one of the experiences we have is us deliberating for and "inside" ourselves what we will do.

Have you never actually even done that? Is this something you really have no context for? Have you not ever once caught yourself and said "nooo, that's not right! If I do that I'll get my hand fucked up!" Halfway towards doing something you idly thought of doing?

Or never have had to open up the list of "restaurants near me" inside your head and then apply manual elimination on the basis of flavor profile, price range, and regret level?

That annoying asshole narrates all of it back to me unless I decide to shut it off, and even then I halfway expect I'm just blocking it and my amygdala still has to tank it. It also makes me feel like a sociopath? It's not a great feeling turning off the feedback engine.

To understand what I'm talking about you need to know how... Well, not how AI "works" at this point but how it is trained.

First, you start with a "blank" neural region. Now, "blank" here just means one about the right size and shape to solve your problem (trial and error, baby!)

This problem can be anything, from "getting over a hill", to "estimating the population of available neural functions and finding the 'enumeration' of the function whose operations most closely mirrors the new operation."

Then, the neural group is "trained" to provide correct outputs on the basis of input:

There's a process that either likes the output or dislikes it and says "yeah, that" or "no, not that, like THIS, try again with (next input, maybe same as the last)".

There's also a process that says "this many, from this region, are producing input, reproduce this input as this output to there.

Often times this comes down to a skillful management of knowing what capability to rub up against what problem, and actually paying attention to the outputs and directing emotions at the output appropriately.

And then there's the math engine.

Still, some of my most useful and cherished "invasives" pour in from that direction, so it gets a lot of Validation from me whenever it spits cool things. But mostly it's just doing its own thing and occasionally weighing in when I'm looking at a complex problem. I can choose not to pay attention to it (usually a bad idea) and I do notice it occasionally misbehaving and getting a scolding and a training session.

It means operating certain emotions/feelings at certain times and pointing them in certain directions.

And let's be clear, I'm not talking about the narration of such, but the event happening and being narrated of.

The whole of me has sat in front of a computer, on an artificial neural network, doing this task by this process, having to constrain my operation to the interface a computer offers to do such. It is clunky and painful to do so when I have much richer controls and less fiddling to do, to do it inside my own head with meat neurons.

But I do know "the right kind of regulatory control" exists inside and of human neural structures to train a neural intelligence, because my human neural structure has done this observably with an AI, both using automated tools and manually.

 

[DBT]

That these abilities are performed and enabled by the necessary networks and structures of the brain prior to conscious experience and determined by the state and condition of the system at any given instance in time.

We are only at the restaurant because we decided, "I will have dinner at a restaurant instead of going home". And we remember that we considered going home to eat, but decided to have dinner at the restaurant instead.

It's the process of deciding that determines the nature of 'free will.' As it stands, it doesn't exist as an element of decision making. There is no 'free will' that able to make a difference to what is a determined, not willed, decision. Being determined, the only possible decision.

It is not 'free will' that drives or regulates the system.

Are you blind? Were we not free of coercion and undue influence when we decided to go to the restaurant instead of going home?

Free of external coercion does not eliminate internal necessitation. That which is necessitated is not freely willed

Which is why compatibilism defines free will as acting in accordance with one's desire or will.

Nope. Compatibilism defines free will as choosing what we will do while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. Stop substituting your definition for mine.

To act is the result of a process of decision making/choosing. The act is the choice in action. Doing x instead of y.

''Hobbes famously said that man was as free as an unimpeded river. A river that flows down a hill necessarily follows a channel, but it is also at liberty to flow within the channel. The voluntary actions of people are similar. They are free because their actions follow from their will; but the actions are also necessary because they spring from chains of causes and effects which could in principle be traced back to the first mover of the universe, generally called God. So on this view, to be at liberty is merely to not be physically restrained rather than to be uncaused. For Hobbes, to be free is to act as we will, and to be un-free is to be coerced by others.''

''This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.''' Volitional control of movement: Clinical Neurophysiology, Volume 118, Issue 6, Pages 1179-1192 M. Hallett

It doesn't matter when the conscious sense of volition arrives. It will always arrive in time to motivate us to walk to the restaurant, browse the menu, and place our order for dinner. And we will be conscious during each of these events. But perhaps Mr. Hallett has never decided to go to a restaurant for dinner.

It does matter in terms of whether it was necessitated or freely willed. Actions that are necessitated are not willed, therefore not freely willed.

What reason do we have to label that which is neither willed or freely willed as an example of free will?

 

[DBT]

The brains 'algorithms' are determined by experience

And one of the experiences we have is us deliberating for and "inside" ourselves what we will do.

Deliberation is function of the brain and information processing, which is not subject to will, wish or - if determined - alteration.

You deliberate because the brain is responding to its inputs and producing the experience of deliberation as a result.

Have you never actually even done that? Is this something you really have no context for? Have you not ever once caught yourself and said "nooo, that's not right! If I do that I'll get my hand fucked up!" Halfway towards doing something you idly thought of doing?

Saying that shows that you have yet to grasp what I am saying. Not only me, but all the material from neuroscience that I have provided.

It seems that nothing helps;

Once again:

''When it comes to the human brain, even the simplest of acts can be counter-intuitive and deceptively complicated. For example, try stretching your arm.

Nerves in the limb send messages back to your brain, but the subjective experience you have of stretching isn't due to these signals. The feeling that you willed your arm into motion, and the realisation that you moved it at all, are both the result of an area at the back of your brain called the posterior parietal cortex. This region helped to produce the intention to move, and predicted what the movement would feel like, all before you twitched a single muscle.

Michel Desmurget and a team of French neuroscientists arrived at this conclusion by stimulating the brains of seven people with electrodes, while they underwent brain surgery under local anaesthetic. When Desmurget stimulated the parietal cortex, the patients felt a strong desire to move their arms, hands, feet or lips, although they never actually did. Stronger currents cast a powerful illusion, convincing the patients that they had actually moved, even though recordings of electrical activity in their muscles said otherwise.''

 

[Jarhyn]

I think the more interesting part here is that "free" has nothing to do with the decision, other than assessing whether to hold a will (it is deleterious of a system to hold a will that is not, cannot be assessed as, free; it wastes energy)

"Free" is a descriptor used so as to speak sentences that are true or false, and use the truth or falseness of those sentences to determine future action.

"Free" does not decide anything, it describes it, for other things to make decisions upon: That will is not 'free' therefore (reselect new will)".

And it can also be applied after the fact: the will to shoot the clerk was left free; the will to shoot the clerk was put there by their will to have money, which was left free by their personal responsibility processes, "them".

The issue is that their will needs to not be free (jail) or their responsibility process needs work (train until "need money" no longer leads to "shoot clerk" as a "valid" plan structure, usually attempted from inside a jail).

"Will" is the decision, the process decides "will", and reality (or a reasonable facsimile produced by reduced model simulation) determines "freedom". Really, the assumption of the model is "provisional freedom" where the results of reality determine "real freedom".

You deliberate because the brain is responding to its inputs and producing the experience of deliberation as a result

No, it produces the experience of narration of deliberation as a result of the deliberation being narrated, usually fairly accurately.

It's interesting that you bring up the Parietal Cortex and where it is.

For reference, I've been doing my best to "root around" in here. It's a long, and as you say rather counterintuitive process. I've been trying since I learned how AI functions to get a "handle" on myself as it were.

I can, with effort, stimulate the Parietal Cortex "with intent". A couple times it was to make the back of my hand feel like... Well when I started and even still, it can be a little hard to exert clear control. More often, it's me in a particular private context directing the feeling somewhere else. It's a bit of a chore still though not making it just feel like whatever part was, for instance, dunked in water or stuck in a fire ant nest.

It's pretty clear to me that the brain is where feeling originates, that I can expect to feel a certain way when I move, and have that presented in expectation of work being done that "it happened".

It's not much different from a boss telling an employee "do a thing" and the employee saying "already on it" and then instead of the boss haranguing the employee like a fucking helicopter, they let the employee work, and carry their own expectations of timeline while ignoring the email box.

Then at a later time discrepancies between the output and expected output are resolved: either the prefrontal cortex levels validation, disapproval, or nothing at the Parietal Cortex.

Of course when it's a researcher stimulating the Parietal Cortex all on its own, the results can get a little weird: when you manually press the employee's "already on it!" response trigger with an electrode, and it triggers the whole somatic response pathway on its own. Of course, there was not a request to disapprove of the response to, so it just ends up being a confusing "feeling" where the arm doesn't actually move.

Of course the employee that processes the soma is different from the one that actually swings the arm. Really, it's just "slacking off" most times and why wouldn't it? Actually translating a distal nerve signal is more work, and that's more calories. It's a lot easier to short circuit that.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Free of external coercion does not eliminate internal necessitation.

I wouldn't dream of eliminating internal necessitation. Internal necessitation is the brain choosing what we will do, for example, choosing to have the salad for dinner when it could have had the steak.

That which is necessitated is not freely willed

It is our own brain that necessitates the decision, by considering our options and choosing between them. And, if our own brain is free of coercion and undue influence during the decision making process, then the brain was free to choose what we will do. Not "freely willed", but "a freely chosen will".

To act is the result of a process of decision making/choosing. The act is the choice in action. Doing x instead of y.

Exactly. (But not all acts are deliberate acts, some are autonomic, some are reflexes, some are matters of habit or skill).

''Hobbes famously said that man was as free as an unimpeded river. A river that flows down a hill necessarily follows a channel, but it is also at liberty to flow within the channel. The voluntary actions of people are similar. They are free because their actions follow from their will; but the actions are also necessary because they spring from chains of causes and effects which could in principle be traced back to the first mover of the universe, generally called God. So on this view, to be at liberty is merely to not be physically restrained rather than to be uncaused. For Hobbes, to be free is to act as we will, and to be un-free is to be coerced by others.''

Well, Hobbes overlooks the fact that rivers don't have brains, but we do. Still, note that he is using coercion as the opposite of free will, just like I and most other ordinary folk do. He also points out that liberty is the absence of specific restraints, and NOT the absence of causation.

What reason do we have to label that which is neither willed or freely willed as an example of free will?

A simple definition of a simple concept. Free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence. The "free" means the will was freely chosen (not free floating, not uncaused, not indeterministic). The "will" is the intention that was causally necessitated by the choice. That intent motivates and directs our subsequent actions as we carry out our will.

 

[fromderinside]

...
My failed experiment is much closer to what one needs to do to demonstrate an empirical fact, much better designed, yet it too failed the test of providing objective data. You have much further to go to convince anyone of anything other than what are your prejudices. Saying while not doing isn't providing objective anything.

I really don't need to prove anything. If I was able to figure it out as a teenager in the public library then so can you.

I'm sure what you out figured out as a teenager would prove useful advancing our knowledge of things except we we had your level of understanding before we knew reality existed.

I can only hope you see the irony in my statement.

 

[DBT]

I think the more interesting part here is that "free" has nothing to do with the decision, other than assessing whether to hold a will (it is deleterious of a system to hold a will that is not, cannot be assessed as, free; it wastes energy)

"Free" is a descriptor used so as to speak sentences that are true or false, and use the truth or falseness of those sentences to determine future action.

"Free" does not decide anything, it describes it, for other things to make decisions upon: That will is not 'free' therefore (reselect new will)".

And it can also be applied after the fact: the will to shoot the clerk was left free; the will to shoot the clerk was put there by their will to have money, which was left free by their personal responsibility processes, "them".

The issue is that their will needs to not be free (jail) or their responsibility process needs work (train until "need money" no longer leads to "shoot clerk" as a "valid" plan structure, usually attempted from inside a jail).

"Will" is the decision, the process decides "will", and reality (or a reasonable facsimile produced by reduced model simulation) determines "freedom". Really, the assumption of the model is "provisional freedom" where the results of reality determine "real freedom".

You deliberate because the brain is responding to its inputs and producing the experience of deliberation as a result

No, it produces the experience of narration of deliberation as a result of the deliberation being narrated, usually fairly accurately.

It's interesting that you bring up the Parietal Cortex and where it is.

For reference, I've been doing my best to "root around" in here. It's a long, and as you say rather counterintuitive process. I've been trying since I learned how AI functions to get a "handle" on myself as it were.

I can, with effort, stimulate the Parietal Cortex "with intent". A couple times it was to make the back of my hand feel like... Well when I started and even still, it can be a little hard to exert clear control. More often, it's me in a particular private context directing the feeling somewhere else. It's a bit of a chore still though not making it just feel like whatever part was, for instance, dunked in water or stuck in a fire ant nest.

It's pretty clear to me that the brain is where feeling originates, that I can expect to feel a certain way when I move, and have that presented in expectation of work being done that "it happened".

It's not much different from a boss telling an employee "do a thing" and the employee saying "already on it" and then instead of the boss haranguing the employee like a fucking helicopter, they let the employee work, and carry their own expectations of timeline while ignoring the email box.

Then at a later time discrepancies between the output and expected output are resolved: either the prefrontal cortex levels validation, disapproval, or nothing at the Parietal Cortex.

Of course when it's a researcher stimulating the Parietal Cortex all on its own, the results can get a little weird: when you manually press the employee's "already on it!" response trigger with an electrode, and it triggers the whole somatic response pathway on its own. Of course, there was not a request to disapprove of the response to, so it just ends up being a confusing "feeling" where the arm doesn't actually move.

Of course the employee that processes the soma is different from the one that actually swings the arm. Really, it's just "slacking off" most times and why wouldn't it? Actually translating a distal nerve signal is more work, and that's more calories. It's a lot easier to short circuit that.

Still nothing to do with free will. Brain function is determined by the architecture of neural networks. Outcomes in terms of response, which is behaviour, it determined by the state of the system from moment to moment, inputs acting upon networks and 'algorithms' in the form of memory which provides sets of criteria relating to situations in the external world. Presented with a menu, the brain unconsciously sorts through options (information processing) based on memory, what may taste good, how you feel in this moment, etc, the decision is brought to consciousness with the signals sent to muscle groups underway: you think, deliberate and act.

Cognition is not free will.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

...
My failed experiment is much closer to what one needs to do to demonstrate an empirical fact, much better designed, yet it too failed the test of providing objective data. You have much further to go to convince anyone of anything other than what are your prejudices. Saying while not doing isn't providing objective anything.

I really don't need to prove anything. If I was able to figure it out as a teenager in the public library then so can you.

I'm sure what you out figured out as a teenager would prove useful advancing our knowledge of things except we we had your level of understanding before we knew reality existed.

I can only hope you see the irony in my statement.

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

 

[DBT]

Free of external coercion does not eliminate internal necessitation.

I wouldn't dream of eliminating internal necessitation. Internal necessitation is the brain choosing what we will do, for example, choosing to have the salad for dinner when it could have had the steak.

Necessitation is not the essence of freedom.

If you are actions are necessitated, you did not choose them: they are determined.

Necessitation is the antithesis of freedom.

That which is necessitated is not freely willed

It is our own brain that necessitates the decision, by considering our options and choosing between them. And, if our own brain is free of coercion and undue influence during the decision making process, then the brain was free to choose what we will do. Not "freely willed", but "a freely chosen will".

Both the external elements that act upon the brain and its own inherent condition necessitate how the brain works, thinks and acts.

You may be free from external force or coercion, but never free from internal necessitation which determines the state of the system itself.

The distinction being; we may act freely according to our will, if that is determined, or we may be forced against our will by external forces.

If an action is determined, it must necessarily proceed freely as determined. There is no alternative. A determined action performed freely as determined is not an example of free will.

It was not willed. It is determined.

''Hobbes famously said that man was as free as an unimpeded river. A river that flows down a hill necessarily follows a channel, but it is also at liberty to flow within the channel. The voluntary actions of people are similar. They are free because their actions follow from their will; but the actions are also necessary because they spring from chains of causes and effects which could in principle be traced back to the first mover of the universe, generally called God. So on this view, to be at liberty is merely to not be physically restrained rather than to be uncaused. For Hobbes, to be free is to act as we will, and to be un-free is to be coerced by others.''

Well, Hobbes overlooks the fact that rivers don't have brains, but we do. Still, note that he is using coercion as the opposite of free will, just like I and most other ordinary folk do. He also points out that liberty is the absence of specific restraints, and NOT the absence of causation.

Brains don't will their own makeup or condition. Information is acquired and processed unconsciously. Nothing to that point is willed. It's a physical mechanism that has evolved to process information. Will plays no part in neural network functionality.....yet functionality determines output; how we think, what we think and do.

Free will? Nah. Cognition at work, enabled by the evolution of an intelligent system: the brain. Perhaps soon to be surpassed by artificial silicon brains.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Necessitation is not the essence of freedom.

Nor is causal necessity the opposite of freedom. It will either be causally necessary that you were free of coercion and undue influence (see Wikipedia article) when you made your choice, or it will be causally necessary that you were coerced or unduly influenced.

Causal necessity does not actually change anything.

If you are actions are necessitated, you did not choose them: they are determined.

It will either be causally necessary that you did choose your actions or it will be causally necessary that someone else chose your actions (for example, if you're a toddler then your mother limits the choices you get to make for yourself, or, if you are a soldier then your commander limits the choices you get to make for yourself, etc.

All events are always causally necessary. The fact of causal necessity, in itself, never makes any difference at all to what actually happens in the real world.

Necessitation is the antithesis of freedom.

Apparently not. Your belief as to the nature of causal necessity, not to mention your notion of the nature of freedom, is clearly mistaken.

Every meaningful use, of the terms "free" or "freedom", either explicitly or implicitly, references some meaningful constraint, something that prevents us from doing what we want, and something that we could actually be free of. For example, the lady in the grocery store was offering us "free samples", meaning that they were "free of charge".

Causal necessity is not something that we can actually be free of. Fortunately, causal necessity is not a meaningful or relevant constraint. It is exactly identical to us just being us, doing what we do, choosing what we choose. It is essentially us "doing what we would have done anyway". And that is NOT a meaningful constraint.

Both the external elements that act upon the brain and its own inherent condition necessitate how the brain works, thinks and acts.

Right. For example, in the restaurant the external element acting upon the brain is the menu, and the waiter with his pad and pencil, waiting for your brain to causally necessitate a choice for dinner.

You may be free from external force or coercion, but never free from internal necessitation which determines the state of the system itself.

Well, let's hope so. Part of that internal necessitation is my perception that it is time for a meal. Another part is considering the likely outcome of ordering the steak for dinner after having bacon and eggs for breakfast and a cheeseburger for lunch. So, I choose the salad, of my own free will, which means it was causally necessitated by my own thoughts and feelings.

The distinction being; we may act freely according to our will, if that is determined, or we may be forced against our will by external forces.

Exactly. And that is a significant and meaningful distinction.

If an action is determined, it must necessarily proceed freely as determined.

It is not a question of "if" an action is determined. ALL actions are ALWAYS determined by prior events.

For example, my action of telling the waiter "I will have the Chef Salad, please" was determined by the prior event of my choice to have the salad instead of the steak.

My choice to have the salad was determined by the prior events of my considering the steak in light of my having had bacon and eggs for breakfast and a cheeseburger for lunch.

And my choosing between the salad and the steak was determined by the prior event of seeing both the salad and the steak on the menu.

And my seeing the salad and the steak on the menu was determined by my walking into the restaurant, sitting at the table, and picking up the menu.

And my walking into the restaurant was determined by our decision to have dinner at a restaurant instead of going home to eat.

Etc. Etc. Etc. Big Bang. Etc.

There is no alternative.

Well, yes and no. There were certainly alternatives on the menu. But there was no alternative to me picking up that menu and choosing from those alternatives at that point in time. It was always, from any prior point in time, causally necessary that I would be picking up that menu, considering the alternatives, and choosing for myself what I would have for dinner.

And that is exactly what we would expect under the presumption of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect: Me, at that place and time, choosing what I would have for dinner, of my own free will.

Deterministic causal necessity never changes anything. It is simply a background constant of the universe.

A determined action performed freely as determined is not an example of free will.

Except when it is. Me, choosing, of my own free will, to have the salad instead of the steak, was precisely what was causally determined!

It was not willed. It is determined.

They are not opposites. If it is determined that it will be willed, then it must necessarily be willed.

Brains don't will their own makeup or condition.

Fortunately, brains do not need to create themselves before they can create other things, like these comments, or the Wright brothers' flying machine, or mom's apple pie.

One need not be "the cause of oneself" in order to be the cause of other things. One need only to BE oneself. The ability to cause stuff comes with being a person with a brain.

Information is acquired and processed unconsciously.

But the role of awareness is also critical. For example, I am aware of the decision to walk to the restaurant. I am aware when I read the menu. I am aware when I recall what I had for breakfast and lunch. I am aware of feeling that the salad would be the better choice for dinner. I am aware of telling the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please". Etc.

I do not find myself waking up in the restaurant with a salad in front of me, having no idea as to how I or the salad got there.

Nothing to that point is willed.

Going to the restaurant was willed. Picking up the menu was willed. Choosing the salad was willed. Paying the bill was willed. Every deliberate action is always willed.

The fact of unconscious processing cannot be used to dismiss the fact of conscious intent or willful behavior.

It's a physical mechanism that has evolved to process information.

It's a physical mechanism that also produces conscious awareness.

Will plays no part in neural network functionality.....yet functionality determines output; how we think, what we think and do.

The brain chooses what we will do. What we will do determines what the brain will be thinking about until that task is done. Will is just as much a cog in that physical machine as perception.

You may want to check out the Wikipedia article on Executive Control which speaks directly to the issue of how the brain controls our actions.

 

[The AntiChris]

Necessitation is the antithesis of freedom.

To be consistent, if you sincerely believed this, you would have to concede that all uses of the words free and freedom are mistaken (and should therefore be eliminated from the English language).

This has been pointed out to you by many people on many occasions yet you have never accepted this criticism preferring instead to insist that freedom of will is a special case.

This is  special pleading. It is an informal fallacy and is an example of the application of a double standard.

You need to give a reasoned justification for making free will a 'special case' - a justification that amounts to more than your firmly held conviction that 'will' must be treated differently.

 

[Jarhyn]

Brains do, for the next moment, in this moment, decide on their own makeup and composition, within the bounds of how physics may allow this: from one moment to the next, one set of neurons in the brain recognizes (processes information) that the "will" held did not accomplish the "requirements", and so this process causes a backpropagation towards the thing which holds wills... Impacting it's makeup and composition through forcing an adjustment of connection biases.

I am in some ways floored by how ignorant some folks are of how neural systems function.

Neural Systems, particularly biological ones, are "self modification all the way down and around"

 

[fromderinside]

...
My failed experiment is much closer to what one needs to do to demonstrate an empirical fact, much better designed, yet it too failed the test of providing objective data. You have much further to go to convince anyone of anything other than what are your prejudices. Saying while not doing isn't providing objective anything.

I really don't need to prove anything. If I was able to figure it out as a teenager in the public library then so can you.

I'm sure what you out figured out as a teenager would prove useful advancing our knowledge of things except we we had your level of understanding before we knew reality existed.

I can only hope you see the irony in my statement.

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

Let me put your position in perspective. At a certain age boys begin playin with themselves. If your ideas of marriage and social conduct comes from this you would be typical. However we are in a world with others and the insights you gained by reflecting on your masturbation's would be inappropriate social conduct. You have to get beyond yourself. That's why science is so damn important. It demands you find empirical justification for what you place as fact.

Welcome to my world.