Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Marvin Edwards]

And like a weasel you slide cause to choice which is exactly the situation when one applies probability to cause and then hand waves from cause to self by making subjective proclamations by looking inward. That arena is entirely different from reality. Although sensation is generated by material input to receptors what is transmitted in the brain are series of electrical impulses reflecting chemical activity within the nervous system.

Those don't reflect reality. They reflect a cumulative gathering of information which is interpreted via special neural clusters arranged in groups of systems to construct activity that mostly works in navigating the real world. Such is quite different from reality. That level of success is reflecting the evolution of the organism across time to the world in which the being exists, not to how reality acts on the being.

Everything you propose except what you know about reality from scientific endeavor comes from within the individual. So if you think choice, mind, will, you are reflecting opinions about how our nervous, endocrinal, and muscle-skeletal system interpret how the being responds to reality. Opinion or approximation never reality. You are referring to how humans interpret via the equipment they have to what reality presents to them. Interpreting based on within being mechanisms is not knowing or scientific or anywhere near reality.

Your take on science is not serving you well.

And your take on reality leaves us with nothing useful, just more nihilistic nonsense.

 

[DBT]

To recap:

DBT just got through saying, again, that the brain is the SOLE source of human behavior. That’s right! But earlier he said that the Big Bang was the source of human behavior! Both can’t be right. When I challenged him on this earlier, he made some argle-bargle about “excluded middle.”

Your so called recap is flawed.

You make assumptions that suit your own needs while cherry picking comments. At no point have I suggested that the brain exists or operates in isolation.

The brain is the sole agency of our behaviour, which doesn't mean the brain is not a part of the external world, or being acted upon by information from the external world., which I have also said over and over.

It is the sole agent of your behaviour because it produces your experience of conscious being, it's not the trees doing it, it's not the sun or moon doing it, just the brain. The brain stops working, for you it's over, you no longer exist as a conscious entity.

If you can't understand this, there is no hope.

DBT consistently commits the modal fallacy in which he maintains that determinism means that only one outcome is realizABLE. When, in fact, all determinism means is that only one outcome is realizED.

Well, no I don't. Determinism, by definition, only allows one outcome. We are not talking about a probabilistic system. Fixed means fixed.
What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs.''

Where do you see possible alternate actions within a determined system? Your so-called distinction is absurd.

DBT keep saying that there is only one acceptable definition of causal determinism, reducing it to the Consequence Argument. He has repeatedly been corrected on this and repeatedly ignores the corrections.

There was an agreement on the definition of determinism.

Marvin and Jarhyn both gave essentially the same definition as me. We agree on the terms.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation").
''All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

We are all in agreement on the nature of determinism, just not the implications.

DBT confuses emergent properties with their reductions. He talks about neuronal activity, the Big Bang, etc. Why not talk about the behavior of subatomic particles, too? It’s true that in none of these do we find free will. We also don’t find comic strips, religion, the planet Saturn, baseball games, or even, at most reductive level, an arrow of time from past to future. And at the quantum level we don’t even find determinism. So I guess none of these things exist.

No I don't confuse anything. The problem, as shown above, is your flawed interpretation and cherry picking. Not only is your idea of determinism all over the place, you don't appear to understand that compatibilism is not related to QM or probability, but determinism...that the argument here is free will in relation to determinsim.

DBT thinks that all true propositions are necessarily true, a blatant absurdity.

An absurd claim based on a flawed understanding of both compatibilism and incompatibilism. You engage with ad homs rather than reasoned arguments that address the issue.

DBT can’t tell the difference between the words “will” and “must,” when all he need do to find the difference is to consult a standard dictionary.

A waste of time, indeed.

It is you who doesn't understand the nature of will and must when applied to a determined system, the implications of which you cannot grasp. Buy yourself a mirror, Sweetie.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm of the view that this that is singular never shared or multiple. To get will or choice or consciousness one needs to look inward rather than outward. That, my friend, is self definitional which isn't testable until the experiment is performed.

We've always conducted our experiments testable in terms of probability because we can't reduce them with our instruments to certainty. We presume probability is the same as that testable as a single variable. A huge and demonstrably false presumption We come to associate the probability related to a single event with that with which we test which is not true. Using probability as an escape hatch from deterministic absolutes is never reality. It is always maybe.

What we've done with compatibilism is use our uncertainty to implant it in what is necessarily deterministic. So arises this fiction about choice, free, etc. from false identifications and analysis. That we cannot reduce experiment to singular is no excuse for inventing 'causes' such as choice and will.

However if one starts with hard determinism and builds a relativistic substrate under that couched in probabilistic statements re determinist findings one can build another level of analysis which I call self determined or probabilistic which is conditioned on the notion upon which it is based is reality. The probabilistic isn't reality. However it is testable by realistic questions and experiments because it is associated by some discernible presumptions with subjectively derived from one's view of reality. Those presumptions are always self defined and probabilistic which may be either related to reality or interpretationally - a your guess is as good as my guess determination - related to reality.

If one removes them from determinism one looses nothing, yet one has another means for deriving new questions about those who exist without actually using reality directly. It is here where the talk of freedom should be addressed, not to determinism.

Reliable cause and effect means everything, but determinism is meaningless. All of our science begins with the practical problem of exercising sufficient control within our environment to survive. In order to exercise control, we must first have some practical knowledge of how things work. All of the benefits of the notion of causation comes from knowing the specific causes of specific effects. And that's what applied science deals with on a daily basis.

One of the specific causes of relevant human events is people simply deciding what they will do.

Choosing what we will do only works if we can reasonably predict the outcome of our actions. So, control requires reliable cause and effect, because prediction requires reliable cause and effect.

And like a weasel you slide cause to choice which is exactly the situation when one applies probability to cause and then hand waves from cause to self by making subjective proclamations by looking inward. That arena is entirely different from reality. Although sensation is generated by material input to receptors what is transmitted in the brain are series of electrical impulses reflecting chemical activity within the nervous system.

Those don't reflect reality. They reflect a cumulative gathering of information which is interpreted via special neural clusters arranged in groups of systems to construct activity that mostly works in navigating the real world. Such is quite different from reality. That level of success is reflecting the evolution of the organism across time to the world in which the being exists, not to how reality acts on the being.

Everything you propose except what you know about reality from scientific endeavor comes from within the individual. So if you think choice, mind, will, you are reflecting opinions about how our nervous, endocrinal, and muscle-skeletal system interpret how the being responds to reality. Opinion or approximation never reality. You are referring to how humans interpret via the equipment they have to what reality presents to them. Interpreting based on within being mechanisms is not knowing or scientific or anywhere near reality.

Your take on science is not serving you well.

And your take on reality leaves us with nothing useful, just more nihilistic nonsense.

making subjective proclamations by looking inward...

So, this is interesting because it assumes what is happening "inward" is not some real, concrete process. It is back to nihilism.

Essentially, I can look inside the nuts and bolts of something else's mind and observe all these happening not of myself but of some other thing. I can watch it's choice functions operate entirely and execute real choosing operations.

I can objectively, concretely, and entirely point to it's will.

Of course, when the circuit has a potential, the potential is not a pressure, it is now a potential but the potential still encodes the information of the pressure.

It appears that FDI has shot holes through their own kneecaps because they worship a broken form of science that doesn't allow an individually to investigate something nor solve something themselves.

It is you who doesn't understand the nature of will and must when applied to a determined system, the implications of which you cannot grasp. Buy yourself a mirror, Sweetie.

"let °°° be 'when causal necessity determines that an object shall pass through a given configuration or one of a set of given configurations'"

And let's define another word:
"let ••• be 'a set of configurations which through causal necessity determines some future aspect of systemic behavioral moment'"

We can use the terms °°° and ••• instead of it hurts your mind so much to discuss "free" and "will". I'm not married to the words.

We can do the math with those two terms regardless.

You will be hard pressed to say that either °°° or ••• cannot exist in a deterministic system. Which is entirely the point: to observe sensible terms which allow calculus on responsibility.

 

[pood]

Your so called recap is flawed.

Do tell.

You make assumptions that suit your own needs while cherry picking comments. At no point have I suggested that the brain exists or operates in isolation.

I didn’t say that you did! But you DID say that the brain in the SOLE author of our actions, and I agree with that! Obviously, however, what we decide is based on external inputs and antecedent conditions. NO ONE here has argued otherwise.

The brain is the sole agency of our behaviour, which doesn't mean the brain is not a part of the external world, or being acted upon by information from the external world., which I have also said over and over.

Right! I agree!

It is the sole agent of your behaviour because it produces your experience of conscious being, it's not the trees doing it, it's not the sun or moon doing it, just the brain. The brain stops working, for you it's over, you no longer exist as a conscious entity.

Right! I agree!

If you can't understand this, there is no hope.

Can’t understand it? I’ve been arguing this all along! It’s not the trees, the sun or the moon, or the big bang doing it, it’s ME! Yet YOU are the one who ORIGINALLY said that the big bang does it! Later you said that the brain is the SOLE author of our behavior. You can’t have it both ways. It is the brain, or the big bang? Choose!

pood said:

DBT consistently commits the modal fallacy in which he maintains that determinism means that only one outcome is realizABLE. When, in fact, all determinism means is that only one outcome is realizED.

Well, no I don't. Determinism, by definition, only allows one outcome. We are not talking about a probabilistic system. Fixed means fixed.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?

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

Where do you see possible alternate actions within a determined system? Your so-called distinction is absurd.

Yes, it allows one outcome! The non sequitur is your conclusion from this that only one outcome is realizeABLE. The compatibilist agrees that if you could rewind the tape of history and replay it back up the present moment in all its identical particulars, then, if I chose salad for dinner the first time, I would choose it again on the rewind. So what? It does not follow from this that I MUST choose salad, only that I WILL — you know, that pesky difference between “must” and “will” that you fail to grasp.

pood said:

DBT keep saying that there is only one acceptable definition of causal determinism, reducing it to the Consequence Argument. He has repeatedly been corrected on this and repeatedly ignores the corrections.

There was an agreement on the definition of determinism.

Marvin and Jarhyn both gave essentially the same definition as me. We agree on the terms.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation").

''All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

We are all in agreement on the nature of determinism, just not the implications.

Yes, but as I have pointed out a million times, you have REDUCED that argument to the question-begging, non sequitur Consequence Argument, which begs the question against free will. Neither Marvin nor Jarhyn nor I agree with the Consequence Argument, obviously! And for myself, I have REPEATEDLY stated that I only hold to the most parsimonious definition of causal determinism, first elucidated by Hume: CONSTANT CONJUNCTION. IOW, Effects reliably follow causes, full stop. Good thing, too, since if they didn’t, free will would actually be impossible!

pood said:

DBT confuses emergent properties with their reductions. He talks about neuronal activity, the Big Bang, etc. Why not talk about the behavior of subatomic particles, too? It’s true that in none of these do we find free will. We also don’t find comic strips, religion, the planet Saturn, baseball games, or even, at most reductive level, an arrow of time from past to future. And at the quantum level we don’t even find determinism. So I guess none of these things exist.

No I don't confuse anything. The problem, as shown above, is your flawed interpretation and cherry picking. Not only is your idea of determinism all over the place, you don't appear to understand that compatibilism is not related to QM or probability, but determinism...that the argument here is free will in relation to determinsim.

This has nothing to do with what I actually wrote! I NEVER SAID that compatibilism has anything to do with either QM or probability! What I was talking about your confusing emergence with reductionism. Free will is emergent, like water is emergent on its component parts, none of which are wet, solid, or gaseous. What am saying if that you insist on drawing no distinction between emergence and reductionism, what you end up with is NO determinism, because determinism does not exist in QM, and NO arrow of time, because no such arrow exist in the reduction of physicalism to its constituents. Yet here, obviously, we have determinism, and we have an arrow of time! Just so, we have free will — and baseball games, comic strips, cathedrals, on and on, none of which are found in reductive descriptions of reality.

pood said:

DBT thinks that all true propositions are necessarily true, a blatant absurdity.

An absurd claim based on a flawed understanding of both compatibilism and incompatibilism. You engage with ad homs rather than reasoned arguments that address the issue.

This is laughable! Do you, or do you not, think that your metaphysics entails that all true propositions are NECESSARILY true? Yes or no? You obviously make no distinction between the proposition “all triangles have three sides” and “I had salad for dinner last night.” If you do make the distinction, TELL US WHAT IT IS. What you wrote above is doubly laughable because I did not ad hom you! If you spotted an ad hom tell us what it is. If you can’t point out the ad hom, please retract!

pood said:

DBT can’t tell the difference between the words “will” and “must,” when all he need do to find the difference is to consult a standard dictionary.

A waste of time, indeed.

It is you who doesn't understand the nature of will and must when applied to a determined system, the implications of which you cannot grasp. Buy yourself a mirror, Sweetie.

Ha, ha, sweetie, then YOU tell us the nature of “will” and “must” in a determined system. It’s the question you dismissed earlier as too vague, which I now repeat: What do YOU think, in a determined system, is the difference between “will” and “must”?

 

[Jarhyn]

I recall a lecture from one of my college math classes, maybe some 11 years ago now, from when I went back to school.

It was either linear or discreet.

The whole thing revolves around discussion of a concept called "circle-plus", and that certain forms of operation could be stood in for others that would result in a "different math".

Essentially, we changed what "plus" did and discussed the system of behaviors that resulted from that.

Most definitions could not satisfy the requirements of a math, however, which is to say the requirement for numbers to have equal opposites, or the requirement for identity properties to work.

Notably, there was an operation where the entire math was reduced to -1, 0, 1 where it worked out, I think?

But most notably, it when someone like FDI or DBT decides on a "circle-plus" that leaves them in a tiny universe with a broken math, it still doesn't invalidate math others do with "normal-plus", even if a LOT of people, when asked, wl regurgitate the definition for "circle-plus" rather than "normal-plus".

Their usage is consistent with "normal-plus".

This is the observation of the compatibilist. The belief in (and wrongness of that belief in) libertarian free will does not invalidate the compatibilist use of free will which most people are doing when they actually discuss whether wills are free, same as how someone can regurgitate a "circle-plus" definition when asked and yet still ALSO regurgitate base ten multiplication and addition tables and get right answers.

This is because the operational definitions n and the nominal definition are, for most people, divorced.

Some of us do not have that problem: instead, we observe the function of the concept and then we describe that function directly.

When someone does that, we call them a "compatibilist" because they stop spewing their broken nominal definitions and start spewing their operational definition instead.

Then there's the hard determinist who sees that the nominal definition is broken and then shuts down entirely.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm of the view that this that is singular never shared or multiple. To get will or choice or consciousness one needs to look inward rather than outward. That, my friend, is self definitional which isn't testable until the experiment is performed.

We've always conducted our experiments testable in terms of probability because we can't reduce them with our instruments to certainty. We presume probability is the same as that testable as a single variable. A huge and demonstrably false presumption We come to associate the probability related to a single event with that with which we test which is not true. Using probability as an escape hatch from deterministic absolutes is never reality. It is always maybe.

What we've done with compatibilism is use our uncertainty to implant it in what is necessarily deterministic. So arises this fiction about choice, free, etc. from false identifications and analysis. That we cannot reduce experiment to singular is no excuse for inventing 'causes' such as choice and will.

However if one starts with hard determinism and builds a relativistic substrate under that couched in probabilistic statements re determinist findings one can build another level of analysis which I call self determined or probabilistic which is conditioned on the notion upon which it is based is reality. The probabilistic isn't reality. However it is testable by realistic questions and experiments because it is associated by some discernible presumptions with subjectively derived from one's view of reality. Those presumptions are always self defined and probabilistic which may be either related to reality or interpretationally - a your guess is as good as my guess determination - related to reality.

If one removes them from determinism one looses nothing, yet one has another means for deriving new questions about those who exist without actually using reality directly. It is here where the talk of freedom should be addressed, not to determinism.

Essentially, I can look inside the nuts and bolts of something else's mind and observe all these happening not of myself but of some other thing. I can watch it's choice functions operate entirely and execute real choosing operations.

I can objectively, concretely, and entirely point to it's will.

Of course, when the circuit has a potential, the potential is not a pressure, it is now a potential but the potential still encodes the information of the pressure.

It appears that FDI has shot holes through their own kneecaps because they worship a broken form of science that doesn't allow an individually to investigate something nor solve something themselves.

So, this is interesting because it assumes what is happening "inward" is not some real, concrete process. It is back to nihilism.

Essentially, I can look inside the nuts and bolts of something else's mind and observe all these happening not of myself but of some other thing. I can watch it's choice functions operate entirely and execute real choosing operations.

I can objectively, concretely, and entirely point to it's will.

Of course, when the circuit has a potential, the potential is not a pressure, it is now a potential but the potential still encodes the information of the pressure.

It appears that FDI has shot holes through their own kneecaps because they worship a broken form of science that doesn't allow an individually to investigate something nor solve something themselves.

Referencing what one senses is subjective. What one senses is activity of neural units that may have links to frequency reported through tonotopically arranged auditor cells, through visually sensitive photo receptors arranged according to visuals space available to the eye, to sensory of touch, feel, taste, and smell which provide neural signals reporting whatever passes through sensory organs. We can't sense light, sound, motion, place, taste, smell, we sense what our sensors report through their evolved capacity as a sense organs to whatever sensory process carried out through neural activity from real physical events input to them.

In that sense we must call the results subjective sense whatever reaches receptors is integrated into whatever the body is doing and processing. They are not the light etc. That we an make sense at all depends on other functions carried out by the nervous system and happens over time. All those things you worship like sense, consciousness, mind, choice, will, are also responsively derived, not inherent in the being.

You want to chant what is happening is nihilism or whatever other derived product you choose. The being does not come complete with a program except the one that permits us to learn and adapt and adjust and acquire facility with which to deal.

That is why the science experiment need be independent of any being's interference or tampering to get useful results. It is why I had to insist observers only carry out the task of observing according to programmed protocol designed for the experiment according to strict requirements set by the particular scientific community. It is why 8000 physicists are assigned to each of two teams using different apparatuses to observe LHC experiments to examine the billions of results which take place.

You can't find will anywhere in the brain. It is entirely a driven construct after the fact just as Wegner pointed out back in the day. Is that the hard determinist just shutting down? Nope. It's a neuroscientist trying to explain to a plebe the facts of nervous function as being incapable of actually processing directly anything in reality.

Pood you clump wrongly. The brain is no more stand alone than is any other organ. Worse the brain is primarily a digital processor with many features. the first clue is that what come in is not directly used by the brain. Whatever enters is transformed to chemical energy before it is cognitively processed. That alone should make it clear that whatever goes on in the brain is, at best, theater. Many of the living animals around you, bugs etc., have no idea of you at all, yet they share genetic material with you. Don't hurt your brain but we wouldn't be us unless we evolved from their ancestors.

 

[Jarhyn]

Referencing what one senses is subjective

No, it's referencing the observable configuration of an object, if causal necessity has anything to say about it.

The brain is an object. Feeling a sense is objectively the result of a change in the object.

Oftentimes the change is from a particular pattern being emitted by a particular neural cluster to a different pattern.

What exact pattern maps onto what exact response is variable, but is still an object property

You can't find will anywhere in the brain

I can absolutely find will in a dwarf. I found it and pointed to it.

It's defined and explained and indicated all the way to the way the processor operates charges on memories.

You can claim "well, human brains can't do that!!!111" and you would be wrong. Because neurons can do anything a Turing machine can do and then some.

Now if you have such a hard time accepting "free" and "will" we can go to °°° and •••.

"let °°° be 'when causal necessity determines that an object shall pass through a given configuration or one of a set of given configurations'"

And let's define another word:
"let ••• be 'a set of configurations which through causal necessity determines some future aspect of systemic behavioral moment'"

We can use the terms °°° and ••• instead of it hurts your mind so much to discuss "free" and "will". I'm not married to the words.

We can do the math with those two terms regardless.

You will be hard pressed to say that either °°° or ••• cannot exist in a deterministic system. Which is entirely the point: to observe sensible terms which allow calculus on responsibility.

As I have said, I am not married to the terms but my expectation is you would like to divorce yourself from responsibility.

 

[fromderinside]

Referencing what one senses is subjective

No, it's referencing the observable configuration of an object, if causal necessity has anything to say about it.

The brain is an object. Feeling a sense is objectively the result of a change in the object.

Oftentimes the change is from a particular pattern being emitted by a particular neural cluster to a different pattern.

What exact pattern maps onto what exact response is variable, but is still an object property

You can't find will anywhere in the brain

I can absolutely find will in a dwarf. I found it and pointed to it.

It's defined and explained and indicated all the way to the way the processor operates charges on memories.

You can claim "well, human brains can't do that!!!111" and you would be wrong. Because neurons can do anything a Turing machine can do and then some.

Now if you have such a hard time accepting "free" and "will" we can go to °°° and •••.

"let °°° be 'when causal necessity determines that an object shall pass through a given configuration or one of a set of given configurations'"

And let's define another word:
"let ••• be 'a set of configurations which through causal necessity determines some future aspect of systemic behavioral moment'"

We can use the terms °°° and ••• instead of it hurts your mind so much to discuss "free" and "will". I'm not married to the words.

We can do the math with those two terms regardless.

You will be hard pressed to say that either °°° or ••• cannot exist in a deterministic system. Which is entirely the point: to observe sensible terms which allow calculus on responsibility.

As I have said, I am not married to the terms but my expectation is you would like to divorce yourself from responsibility.

There is little that one can do for those who try to make specific real properties retain their objectiveness. That is difficult when information from material forces is passed through a filter, much less through a transfer function. We need to resolve that first. The experimental method of science is one way to accomplish such a task.

Then after resolving maps in the biological that roughly approximate aspects of material reality from whence they came. Unfortunately for those who think one is the other the transformed data is integrated with internal operating processes such as those that go to make the faerie tale of autonomy and purpose are confounded with that sense data. We go from optical and mechanical to chemical plus going from quantum mechanical to digital. Then we go from thermodynamic to computational behavioral. Yet every thing is a pipe to you. There is no way to recover real sense data since it is convolved with purpose, survival and autonomy mechanics.

It makes no sense to squeeze material attributes of the world out of a being that is only an approximation of a being existing in the world. It's much worse than the cave limitations Plato proposed.

I give ore merit to the notions of objectivity and subjectivity than do you. You deny the subjective and insist everything is objective. No. there at least two sets of laws here. Those that apply to the obviously deterministic world and those that apply to the living world of a particular being which are derivative and approximate and purpose driven compared to reality.

 

[Jarhyn]

There is little that one can do for those who try to make specific real properties retain their objectiveness

There is no try. We can either discuss "free" and "will" as °°° and ••• or we can keep to sensible utterances of normal audible language.

I get that you have a hard time discussing through material layers and transfer functions of capability. That's why we proved the material behavior and transfer before we started using simple shit so you wouldn't have to bother with that. That was about when you threw the "I DoNt UnDeRStAnD TrAnSfOrM SiMplIfIcAtIoNs!"

The material simplification and transform was merely to generate a proof of concept: that deterministic systems can provably hold °°° and ••• as objective, observable properties.

And happy day, it did: It proved mathematically philosophically that °°° and ••• are functional definitions within a deterministic system.

It's not much different from using a Fourier transform to simplify proving problems that you can't directly address in the time domain of a complex wave.

The reality is that HTMs (and as a corralary human neural configurations) are much more capable of embedding arbitrary instructions sets (and even arbitrary process behaviors) than the dwarf.

It makes no sense to squeeze material attributes of the world out of a being that is only an approximation of a being existing in the world

It makes all the sense. You are saying similar to "no value X in the system A(X) may resolve to A(x)= 1." I realize that A gets much more difficult to calculate when X grows "large".

You are making your claim on the basis of not even being able to complete the operation of the equation! But all I have to do is find a single disproof to your absolutist statement that there is no °°° and no ••• in a deterministic system that allows sensibility in the sentences "They had °°° ••• to shoot that person" and "we must constrain their ••• such that it shall not be °°°".

I am not squeezing attributes out of "the world". I am squeezing attributes out of a mathematical idea "determinism".

There is only one set of physical laws and if you believe you can make the statement "the universe is deterministic" you also acknowledge that those physical laws are bound to the laws of math. Period.

From there, the way we feel are given rise by material phenomena, we become exposed as machines, and the function of those machines becomes an objective fact. "Feeling" a way means something objective at this point (though much information cannot be ascertained from "merely" knowing what something "feels"; much has been lost in the "hash")

Having a desire to do some thing is likewiae associated then with a wide variety of neural organizations, but is in fact a result of neural organization.

Neural organizations can embed strings of motion requests and timely tests of success.

Whether the instructions have their success trigger stepped on is the key.

Regardless of how much meat is there and whatever else is going on, that instruction list is buried in there, and it clearly originates mostly from inside the thing most days.

It's not "subjective" that "Bob holds a set of instructions, some ••• in some format to open the door". I could crack open his skull, twiddle some of his neurons, and change the instructions, based on what I want Bob to hold a ••• for. Bob can even list subjective interpretations of these objectively held instructions. They are objectively real though, given the fact that just anyone with the knowledge of how to crack open a skull and read the moment of a neural system can take a peek there.

The dwarf is more than enough to flush your mistaken perception away that °°° and ••• are somehow properties that cannot exist in deterministic systems. Or even in this universe, seeing as how I could implement "our universe" formal definitions of "door" and "open" and unleash the dwarf on a real door in our greater spatial fields rather than bound to that paltry field it normally sits within.

Then, all that is left are to answer the question as to whether a fleshy meaty bag of neurons is capable of certain operations that prove arbitrary instructions may be held:

Give someone a list of encoded instructions, with occasional branch points on requirements, put them at the beginning of a maze, and see if they can operate the list.

Then when they reach a point that they cannot continue ask them to circle the object in the list that failed to validate, or whether they completed the maze and got the stamp at the end of their instructions.

This objectively proves both °°° and ••• exist observably as properties in the system. Other things may exist but we have proven that °°° and ••• do at the very least.

 

[DBT]

Your so called recap is flawed.

Do tell.

I do tell. And point out why.

You make assumptions that suit your own needs while cherry picking comments. At no point have I suggested that the brain exists or operates in isolation.

I didn’t say that you did! But you DID say that the brain in the SOLE author of our actions, and I agree with that! Obviously, however, what we decide is based on external inputs and antecedent conditions. NO ONE here has argued otherwise.

The brain is the sole agency of our behaviour, which doesn't mean the brain is not a part of the external world, or being acted upon by information from the external world., which I have also said over and over.

Right! I agree!

It is the sole agent of your behaviour because it produces your experience of conscious being, it's not the trees doing it, it's not the sun or moon doing it, just the brain. The brain stops working, for you it's over, you no longer exist as a conscious entity.

Right! I agree!

If you can't understand this, there is no hope.

Can’t understand it? I’ve been arguing this all along! It’s not the trees, the sun or the moon, or the big bang doing it, it’s ME! Yet YOU are the one who ORIGINALLY said that the big bang does it! Later you said that the brain is the SOLE author of our behavior. You can’t have it both ways. It is the brain, or the big bang? Choose!

You say you understand, then proceed to demonstrate that you don't. The point in regard to the notion of free will being that you don't get to choose your physical makeup, how inputs act upon it or how it responds.

Asserting 'I am the system, therefore free will' is begging the question.

What you claim is a fine example of begging the question, where the premises assume the truth of the conclusion. '

pood said:

DBT consistently commits the modal fallacy in which he maintains that determinism means that only one outcome is realizABLE. When, in fact, all determinism means is that only one outcome is realizED.

Well, no I don't. Determinism, by definition, only allows one outcome. We are not talking about a probabilistic system. Fixed means fixed.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?

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

Where do you see possible alternate actions within a determined system? Your so-called distinction is absurd.

Yes, it allows one outcome! The non sequitur is your conclusion from this that only one outcome is realizeABLE. The compatibilist agrees that if you could rewind the tape of history and replay it back up the present moment in all its identical particulars, then, if I chose salad for dinner the first time, I would choose it again on the rewind. So what? It does not follow from this that I MUST choose salad, only that I WILL — you know, that pesky difference between “must” and “will” that you fail to grasp.

Determinism allows only one outcome; the determined action. Howl in protest, but that is the nature of determinism as defined and agreed upon. No other action is possible in any given instance in time.

pood said:

DBT keep saying that there is only one acceptable definition of causal determinism, reducing it to the Consequence Argument. He has repeatedly been corrected on this and repeatedly ignores the corrections.

There was an agreement on the definition of determinism.

Marvin and Jarhyn both gave essentially the same definition as me. We agree on the terms.

''Each state of the universe and its events are the necessary result of its prior state and prior events. ("Events" change the state of things.) Determinism means that events will proceed naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation").

''All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.''

We are all in agreement on the nature of determinism, just not the implications.

Yes, but as I have pointed out a million times, you have REDUCED that argument to the question-begging, non sequitur Consequence Argument, which begs the question against free will. Neither Marvin nor Jarhyn nor I agree with the Consequence Argument, obviously! And for myself, I have REPEATEDLY stated that I only hold to the most parsimonious definition of causal determinism, first elucidated by Hume: CONSTANT CONJUNCTION. IOW, Effects reliably follow causes, full stop. Good thing, too, since if they didn’t, free will would actually be impossible!

A million times? Well, then you have been wrong a million times. Why would I expect a compatibilist to agree with the Consequence Argument? Of course you don't, but that doesn't make you right.

The Consequent Argument is based on the given and accepted definition of determinism, ie, that is how determinism works.

Determinism must work as it is defined, otherwise what is the point of the definition?

If it works as defined, as it must, nothing is being reduced and there is no begging the question, just the terms and conditions being adhered to, as they must.

It is the compatibilist who begs the question, unimpeded actions, therefore free will.. an argument where the premises assume the truth of the conclusion.

pood said:

DBT confuses emergent properties with their reductions. He talks about neuronal activity, the Big Bang, etc. Why not talk about the behavior of subatomic particles, too? It’s true that in none of these do we find free will. We also don’t find comic strips, religion, the planet Saturn, baseball games, or even, at most reductive level, an arrow of time from past to future. And at the quantum level we don’t even find determinism. So I guess none of these things exist.

No I don't confuse anything. The problem, as shown above, is your flawed interpretation and cherry picking. Not only is your idea of determinism all over the place, you don't appear to understand that compatibilism is not related to QM or probability, but determinism...that the argument here is free will in relation to determinsim.

Still way off. I cherry pick nothing. I interpret nothing. I work strictly within the bounds of the accepted and agreed up definition of determinism

On the contrary, it is you who does not appear to understand the implications of determinism. Or the role of will.

This has nothing to do with what I actually wrote! I NEVER SAID that compatibilism has anything to do with either QM or probability! What I was talking about your confusing emergence with reductionism. Free will is emergent, like water is emergent on its component parts, none of which are wet, solid, or gaseous. What am saying if that you insist on drawing no distinction between emergence and reductionism, what you end up with is NO determinism, because determinism does not exist in QM, and NO arrow of time, because no such arrow exist in the reduction of physicalism to its constituents. Yet here, obviously, we have determinism, and we have an arrow of time! Just so, we have free will — and baseball games, comic strips, cathedrals, on and on, none of which are found in reductive descriptions of reality.

I made the QM comment to emphasize the point that the argument is free will in relation to determinism.

Nobody is denying that properties can manifest themselves as the result of various system components working together, but that's not an escape clause from determinism.

Free will is not an emergent property in any case. Compatibilism defines free will as acting without external force or coercion. That not an emergent property over. It is a determined action progressing as determined. It has no special property of free will. Free will is being carefully defined and asserted.

''Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent.[1] It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism.'' - wiki.

pood said:

DBT thinks that all true propositions are necessarily true, a blatant absurdity.

An absurd claim based on a flawed understanding of both compatibilism and incompatibilism. You engage with ad homs rather than reasoned arguments that address the issue.

This is laughable! Do you, or do you not, think that your metaphysics entails that all true propositions are NECESSARILY true? Yes or no? You obviously make no distinction between the proposition “all triangles have three sides” and “I had salad for dinner last night.” If you do make the distinction, TELL US WHAT IT IS. What you wrote above is doubly laughable because I did not ad hom you! If you spotted an ad hom tell us what it is. If you can’t point out the ad hom, please retract!

I'm not saying or implying anything of the sort. You make false assumptions in the pretense that you are making a point. It's dishonest.

We are talking about compatibilism, which is the argument that free will is compatible with determinism.

The issue here is the role and nature of will in relation to determinism.

pood said:

DBT can’t tell the difference between the words “will” and “must,” when all he need do to find the difference is to consult a standard dictionary.

A waste of time, indeed.

It is you who doesn't understand the nature of will and must when applied to a determined system, the implications of which you cannot grasp. Buy yourself a mirror, Sweetie.

Ha, ha, sweetie, then YOU tell us the nature of “will” and “must” in a determined system. It’s the question you dismissed earlier as too vague, which I now repeat: What do YOU think, in a determined system, is the difference between “will” and “must”?

Once again; If your use of ''will'' implies the ability to do otherwise under the same circumstances, ''will'' is an illusion. There is no ambiguity or uncertainty within a determined system. Only 'must necessarily' exists. All actions must necessarily proceed as determined.

Invoking 'will' as if it makes a difference, is a Red Herring.

 

[Jarhyn]

you don't get to choose your physical makeup

Yes, we do. We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision.

Because our decisions and our thoughts relate to changes in our physical makeup.

One of the ways we are EXPECTED to do this is to change our physical makeup when that makeup incorporates a ••• (°°° or not) that hurts people: we are expected to read our own physical makeup to the extent we may, and do so regularly, identify the ••• that is not acceptable to the requirement "don't be evil", and then blast that
neural region that made it will back into unformatted activation sequences.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Referencing what one senses is subjective. ...

But, as you point out, that's our only link to the external reality. We see the tree, we bump into the tree and fall down, we feel the bark, we sense the pain when we thump the trunk with our fist, and we assign words to name the object "tree" and to describe its properties in relation to other objects. For example, the "air". We walk through the air, but we cannot walk through the tree. We can feel the air, its heat or coolness, the pressure as it moves the hairs on our arms and legs.

So, given that this is all we have to go on, the practical problem is simply surviving, thriving, and reproducing in a world that apparently has air and trees and lots of other things.

And our thoughts enable us to plan how to effectively deal with that mysterious reality out there. We cut down trees and build houses to keep us warm in winter and dry when it rains.

So, we cannot dismiss our inner experience or the practical knowledge it gives us about reality and the consequences of our behavior within it. To dismiss it as "subjective" and claim it holds no pragmatic truths about that reality out there is not wise.

 

[Jarhyn]

Referencing what one senses is subjective. ...

But, as you point out, that's our only link to the external reality. We see the tree, we bump into the tree and fall down, we feel the bark, we sense the pain when we thump the trunk with our fist, and we assign words to name the object "tree" and to describe its properties in relation to other objects. For example, the "air". We walk through the air, but we cannot walk through the tree. We can feel the air, its heat or coolness, the pressure as it moves the hairs on our arms and legs.

So, given that this is all we have to go on, the practical problem is simply surviving, thriving, and reproducing in a world that apparently has air and trees and lots of other things.

And our thoughts enable us to plan how to effectively deal with that mysterious reality out there. We cut down trees and build houses to keep us warm in winter and dry when it rains.

So, we cannot dismiss our inner experience or the practical knowledge it gives us about reality and the consequences of our behavior within it. To dismiss it as "subjective" and claim it holds no pragmatic truths about that reality out there is not wise.

But moreover our inner experience of "a list of instructions" has an externally visible and describable-by-outside-observer as "list of instructions" thing that is, actually, a list of instructions.

It can be both the subjective experience of, and in actuality a, list of instructions.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

But moreover our inner experience of "a list of instructions" has an externally visible and describable-by-outside-observer as "list of instructions" thing that is, actually, a list of instructions.

It can be both the subjective experience of, and in actuality a, list of instructions.

It sounds like you are referring to the pre-programmed affects and any reflexive responses to those affects (feelings). Those would be comparable to a list of instructions. With self-awareness and conscious control we get to write new instructions for ourselves.

 

[pood]

Pood you clump wrongly. The brain is no more stand alone than is any other organ. Worse the brain is primarily a digital processor with many features. the first clue is that what come in is not directly used by the brain. Whatever enters is transformed to chemical energy before it is cognitively processed. That alone should make it clear that whatever goes on in the brain is, at best, theater. Many of the living animals around you, bugs etc., have no idea of you at all, yet they share genetic material with you. Don't hurt your brain but we wouldn't be us unless we evolved from their ancestors.

Not sure why you, like DBT lately, seems to be rebutting things I never said. But anyway …

Where did I say that the brain is more “stand alone” than any other organ? What I did say — in agreeing with DBT — is that the brain is the sole decider of what I will do, for the simple reason that I am synonymous with my brain. But of course the brain is inextricably intwined with other organs and the environment. If my heart stops beating my brain will quickly die. If I am hit by a speeding bus my brain may quit working and I will die. What of it?


The brain is primarily a “digital processor”? Even if true, what of it? But I’ve already linked at least one article by a neuroscientist who denies that the brain is a digital computer. Perhaps this explains why we have no clue how to build a self-aware computer — because computers and brains are fundamentally different.

You write: “Whatever enters is transformed to chemical energy before it is cognitively processed. That alone should make it clear that whatever goes on in the brain is, at best, theater.”


The first sentence seems to have little to do with the topic at hand. The second sentence strikes me as a non sequitur. Please explain how transformations to chemical energy make what goes on in the brain “theater,” by which I presume you mean illusionary free will, or something. I know that I have no control over dreams, though some people claim to be able to control them. But I certainly do have at least some control over events when I am awake. Are you suggesting that waking life is no different from dreams?


As to the rest of your comment, I’m at a loss. Did I ever say, or even remotely imply, that we are not related to all living things, and that all living things share a universal common ancestor? And since we do all share a UCA, what does this have to do with the topic at hand? You seem somehow to be suggesting that evolution rules out free will? I don’t get it. On the contrary, as I argued earlier, IMO the evolution of the brain supports free will. If indeed we were all puppets on the strings of the big bang, there would be no evolutionary selection for complex brains that can remember, foresee, ponder, and decide on a course of action. If those are all illusions, where did the selection pressure come for building these illusions? Puppets on strings would be much more likely to be philosophical zombies, entities that might exhibit traits that we associate with conscious, deliberative behavior, but in fact completely black inside, just robots going through the motions. That is the robot world that hard determinists postulate and I hold that in such a world consciousness and self-awareness would be useless and hence would never evolve. But not only we ourselves but plenty of animals, perhaps even a majority, display just such traits. I know perfectly well from close association that dogs, for example, and plenty conscious and fully self aware and make decisions just like we do.

 

[Jarhyn]

But moreover our inner experience of "a list of instructions" has an externally visible and describable-by-outside-observer as "list of instructions" thing that is, actually, a list of instructions.

It can be both the subjective experience of, and in actuality a, list of instructions.

It sounds like you are referring to the pre-programmed affects and any reflexive responses to those affects (feelings). Those would be comparable to a list of instructions. With self-awareness and conscious control we get to write new instructions for ourselves.

Well, yes, I wasn't referring to the instruction-writing bit. The instructions, the are the "will(-B)". Whether will-A executed to place that will-B was executed by the thing also executing will-B, versus placed there by an override of some sort such as "Turn on your lizard brain and comply, I've got a gun" just came in through the Speech Processor, and it's signaling "live, from ears".

Which would say, is "is the will free", is really the much more complicated but abbreviated "where does the freedom chain of Will-B terminate? Let (freely held?)(Will-B) be: Was Will-B from (freely held?)(Will-A)?"

This creates a recursive question chain from which a truth value will be derived. It requires a moment of consideration. As in a moment which is being considered.

In any local moment prior to a given specific event, there's going to be a specific free particle.

In any local moment to a set of events, there are contributions to the future state available to observe. When those come down to things that do not and cannot process information through graph model, we generally say "it's blind unthinking nature, natural evil, ought did it."

We can't really change the laws of physics, is the thing.

Thankfully the laws of physics and so the laws of neural interrelation within that physics, the dynamics of neural systems, indicate that we ourselves can change how our neurons are configured in particular and interesting ways, such as deciding on wills. In turn, those wills, which may just be held for now and in truth "unfree" though assumed free for the time being, or perhaps held to their freedom and resolution.

Sometimes the diner has no freely held will but the will to live, and the will to say the words "steak please" were first impressed upon them by the guy with the gun.

Other times, such as at the cafe across the street, and high enough in the building that they don't know what's going on across the street, the diner says "salad", and in the moment those words were spoken, their will was not "to live", but merely "to not be hungry, and also not be a regretful slob". That all terminates at vectors inside the person in that moment.

They didn't choose to be human, or to exist, or to need to eat, they didn't choose the options at the restaurant, they didn't choose the color of the sky.

They did, as a result of all that and more in that moment, choose to say "salad please".

The restauranteur recognizes this, and when the hard determinist decides to dine-and-dash with a note saying "bill the big bang", the restauranteur calls the cops, and the hard determinist ends up losing a steep fine's worth of abstract fungible freedom, far more than if they had accepted responsibility and just paid their damn bill as they ought.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

But moreover our inner experience of "a list of instructions" has an externally visible and describable-by-outside-observer as "list of instructions" thing that is, actually, a list of instructions.

It can be both the subjective experience of, and in actuality a, list of instructions.

It sounds like you are referring to the pre-programmed affects and any reflexive responses to those affects (feelings). Those would be comparable to a list of instructions. With self-awareness and conscious control we get to write new instructions for ourselves.

Well, yes, I wasn't referring to the instruction-writing bit. The instructions, the are the "will(-B)". Whether will-A executed to place that will-B was executed by the thing also executing will-B, versus placed there by an override of some sort such as "Turn on your lizard brain and comply, I've got a gun" just came in through the Speech Processor, and it's signaling "live, from ears".

Which would say, is "is the will free", is really the much more complicated but abbreviated "where does the freedom chain of Will-B terminate? Let (freely held?)(Will-B) be: Was Will-B from (freely held?)(Will-A)?"

This creates a recursive question chain from which a truth value will be derived. It requires a moment of consideration. As in a moment which is being considered.

In any local moment prior to a given specific event, there's going to be a specific free particle.

In any local moment to a set of events, there are contributions to the future state available to observe. When those come down to things that do not and cannot process information through graph model, we generally say "it's blind unthinking nature, natural evil, ought did it."

We can't really change the laws of physics, is the thing.

Thankfully the laws of physics and so the laws of neural interrelation within that physics, the dynamics of neural systems, indicate that we ourselves can change how our neurons are configured in particular and interesting ways, such as deciding on wills. In turn, those wills, which may just be held for now and in truth "unfree" though assumed free for the time being, or perhaps held to their freedom and resolution.

Sometimes the diner has no freely held will but the will to live, and the will to say the words "steak please" were first impressed upon them by the guy with the gun.

Other times, such as at the cafe across the street, and high enough in the building that they don't know what's going on across the street, the diner says "salad", and in the moment those words were spoken, their will was not "to live", but merely "to not be hungry, and also not be a regretful slob". That all terminates at vectors inside the person in that moment.

They didn't choose to be human, or to exist, or to need to eat, they didn't choose the options at the restaurant, they didn't choose the color of the sky.

They did, as a result of all that and more in that moment, choose to say "salad please".

The restauranteur recognizes this, and when the hard determinist decides to dine-and-dash with a note saying "bill the big bang", the restauranteur calls the cops, and the hard determinist ends up losing a steep fine's worth of abstract fungible freedom, far more than if they had accepted responsibility and just paid their damn bill as they ought.

I think I'm finally catching on to your "freely-held" modifier. It's been assumed in my "freely-chosen", as in "I freely chose to hold will-A instead of will-B. The "holding" would be reversed in my view though. Our holding that will is actually the will holding us upon a specific path.

I'm also thinking that the the specific path would be a program and will is calling that routine, which may in turn call subsequent routines. For example, the will to have dinner at the restaurant calls the subroutine of choosing a meal from the menu. The choosing exits and the subsequent tasks of the original routine continue to completion as we pay the bill and walk out the door. Then the "have dinner at a restaurant" routine is complete and exits.

The laws of physics are insufficient to explain human behavior. We need the laws of the life sciences to explain the behavior of living organisms and the laws of the social sciences to explain the behavior of intelligent species. The laws of physics are never broken, they are just incomplete.

For example physics can explain why a cup of water poured on the ground flows downhill, but it has no clue as to why a similar cup of water, heated, and mixed with a little coffee, hops into a car and goes grocery shopping.

 

[fromderinside]

The dwarf is more than enough to flush your mistaken perception away

I'm going to feed your dwarf.

What are the 14 Levels of Organization of Matter?

The Levels of organization of the subject Are a pattern that has been established to facilitate the analysis and study...

www.lifepersona.com

1- Subatomic level​

Subatomic particles ... when interacting with each other, these microparticles give rise to the atom.

2 - Atomic Level​

Atoms ... are the smallest particles of a chemical element and the minimum unit of matter which is
formed by a dense nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by a much larger cloud of electrons.

3- Molecular Level​

A molecule is a set of two or more atoms that are held together by covalent bonds, sharing electrons.
When assembled without establishing covalent bonds with each other to form molecular complexes, such as hemoglobin and ribosomes. All are combinations of atoms and all these atoms are present in the periodic table.

4- Macromolecular level​

The molecules are joined together, usually by electrostatic attraction (or otherwise) and form molecular complexes called also biomolecules or macromolecules.

Here are proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and carbohydrates, among others.

5- Orgánulos​

An organelle (also called an organelle) is a small organ or compartment that has its own membrane and performs a specific function within a cell.

They are cell organelles: Ribosome , the Chloroplast and the mitochondria .

6- Cell Level​

A cell is the structural and functional unit of every form of life. There are two Cell types : Prokaryotes and eukaryotes

7- Tissue Level​

Tissues are a set of cells in a similar way that are linked and coordinate a specific function.

8- Organic Level​

An organ is a set of tissues organized into a structural and functional unit of an organism.

9- Systems and Devices​

A system is a set of organs that perform a specific function, such as root, stem or flowers in plants, or the circulatory system, the nervous system or the digestive system in animals.

10- Organisms or Individuals​

Systems are organized in multicellular organisms. An individual living being is an organism.

11- Population​

It is a set of organisms of the same species that live in a delimited area.

12- Community​

A community is a set of populations in a delimited area. It consists of diverse populations ranging from bacteria, palm trees, reptiles, birds, fish, humans and many more.

13- Ecosystems​

A community and the environment or physical environment that surrounds it constitute an ecosystem. Two types of factors make up the Ecosystems : Biotic and abiotic factors. Among the abiotic factors is the environment, while among the biotics are mainly living beings.

14- Biosphere​

All the ecosystems of the planet constitute the biosphere, which is the set of all living beings and the environments in which they coexist.

The biosphere is the layer that covers the surface of our planet; Is formed by the lithosphere or solid earth, the hydrosphere that constitute the lakes, rivers and seas, and by a part of the atmosphere.

There are more depending on how the various components above are maintained and supported.​

Now what you need to do is find the common thread among all these permitting one to distinguish objective from subjective. ... and put to lie your inference that light transforms via light sensitive cells to signaling light directly to a being. I can suggest how one can get to an understanding of light variation by putting together structures with fields and commonalities produced by repetition. It isn't a simple transform and it is a bit beyond your pay grade.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm going to feed your dwarf

Speaking about layers of complexity to attempt to handwave the simple observation that °°° and ••• both clearly exist within a determined system is merely a red herring, and a silly one at that.

The more complicated systems merely allow for more complicated and rich versions of °°° and •••.

More simple hand-waving. As I said, the dwarf is more than enough proof, simplistic as it is, that °°° and ••• exist within deterministic systems. Never after that point can you claim honestly or correctly that they do not.

 

[DBT]

you don't get to choose your physical makeup

Yes, we do. We choose our physical makeup every time we have a thought and as a result make a decision.

Oh, goody, you got to choose where you would be born, you chose your parents, your genetic makeup, your circumstances, language, culture, society, brain architecture, cognitive abilities....you have done all of this through the magic of free will?

How, pray tell, do you think you choose your physical makeup every time you have a thought? I eagerly await your thesis.

Because our decisions and our thoughts relate to changes in our physical makeup.

How does that relate to you ''actively choosing your physical makeup every time you have a thought?''

You must know by now that thoughts are near the end of the production line? First inputs, then transmission of information, then processing, then conscious representation of thoughts milliseconds after input.


Neuronal Mechanisms of Conscious Awareness
''Masking experiments have been instrumental in further defining the temporal gap between stimulus presentation and its conscious perception. Masking refers to the suppression of conscious perception of a target stimulus by another stimulus. The masking effect is enhanced in some patients with focal cerebral lesions (eg, neglect syndrome), but it can also be produced in healthy subjects. In the somatosensory modality, a mask given 50 to 100 milliseconds after the target stimulus to the opposite hand is actually more effective in blocking the target than if presented simultaneously with the target.8 These findings demonstrate not only that conscious perception is delayed but also that the mechanisms leading to conscious perception are particularly sensitive to disruptions at this specific time interval.''

One of the ways we are EXPECTED to do this is to change our physical makeup when that makeup incorporates a ••• (°°° or not) that hurts people: we are expected to read our own physical makeup to the extent we may, and do so regularly, identify the ••• that is not acceptable to the requirement "don't be evil", and then blast that
neural region that made it will back into unformatted activation sequences.

Again, how exactly do we - supposedly - ''change our physical makeup every time we have a thought?"

You need to describe the mechanisms and means by which your contention works.