Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

I did not say they don't exist. I said there in no identified locations for such. I presume subjective state as the result of incomplete representation of reality to a being living in the real world

We can be wrong about the universe. This is why we can possibly hold ••• that will not be °°°, and think it is. Our internal, incomplete judgement on whether our °°° is ••• can be wrong.

This does not in any way allow leverage as to proclaim there is no ••• nor that the °°° is not globally extant as an identifiable property: just because the ape can be wrong about the triangle on a flat universe having a certain amount of radians worth of bend on its angles does not change that it is a property of the triangle to have 180 degrees among its angles.

One may hold an objectively flawed assessment of °°° in one's head, but it doesn't change one iota of the reality and truth value of the real °°°.

In fact, one of our jobs is to observe these discrepancies, explain them, incorporate them, and not have them in the future.

How do you think your restating is different words what I wrote providing similar cause counter what I wrote? Subjective A not equal subjective B (subjectivity, inequality) Realty C is reality C (fact, fact). Both can/do exist. Empirical evidence is critical to understanding reality. See, Even fewer words. And I said it twice.

 

[fromderinside]

Unconscious brain activity processes information which is fed into conscious activity and response. Input precedes unconscious processing, which precedes conscious thought and action by milliseconds.

But, like Gazzaniga says:

What difference does it make if brain activity goes on before we are consciously aware of something? Consciousness is its own abstraction on its own time scale and that time scale is current with respect to it. Thus, Libet’s thinking is not correct. (p. 141)

Casting swill by the swine to the unwashed.

The readiness potential determines onset of action. That is a difference worth noting, whether it is arrived at before or after consciousness, that we are about to do something from the extensive research following Libet, according to findings in  Neuroscience of free will , was probably right.

 

[Jarhyn]

I did not say they don't exist. I said there in no identified locations for such. I presume subjective state as the result of incomplete representation of reality to a being living in the real world

We can be wrong about the universe. This is why we can possibly hold ••• that will not be °°°, and think it is. Our internal, incomplete judgement on whether our °°° is ••• can be wrong.

This does not in any way allow leverage as to proclaim there is no ••• nor that the °°° is not globally extant as an identifiable property: just because the ape can be wrong about the triangle on a flat universe having a certain amount of radians worth of bend on its angles does not change that it is a property of the triangle to have 180 degrees among its angles.

One may hold an objectively flawed assessment of °°° in one's head, but it doesn't change one iota of the reality and truth value of the real °°°.

In fact, one of our jobs is to observe these discrepancies, explain them, incorporate them, and not have them in the future.

How do you think your restating is different words what I wrote providing similar cause counter what I wrote? Subjective A not equal subjective B (subjectivity, inequality) Realty C is reality C (fact, fact). Both can/do exist. Empirical evidence is critical to understanding reality. See, Even fewer words. And I said it twice.

No subjective there. That's the thing. I observed each of these objectively as relates the dwarf. That I use tokens to describe things like "door" does not change the object of what "door" references, does not change the reality of it one iota.

We have •••, same as the Turing machine.

That °°° either gets the goal as per instructions, or it does not.

The ••• are object states.
The °°° is is a measurement of a given object state at a given time.

It's not subjective in the least, and you wishing it was does not absolve, for instance, a serial killer from the responsibility to kill themselves.

 

[fromderinside]

I did not say they don't exist. I said there in no identified locations for such. I presume subjective state as the result of incomplete representation of reality to a being living in the real world

We can be wrong about the universe. This is why we can possibly hold ••• that will not be °°°, and think it is. Our internal, incomplete judgement on whether our °°° is ••• can be wrong.

This does not in any way allow leverage as to proclaim there is no ••• nor that the °°° is not globally extant as an identifiable property: just because the ape can be wrong about the triangle on a flat universe having a certain amount of radians worth of bend on its angles does not change that it is a property of the triangle to have 180 degrees among its angles.

One may hold an objectively flawed assessment of °°° in one's head, but it doesn't change one iota of the reality and truth value of the real °°°.

In fact, one of our jobs is to observe these discrepancies, explain them, incorporate them, and not have them in the future.

How do you think your restating is different words what I wrote providing similar cause counter what I wrote? Subjective A not equal subjective B (subjectivity, inequality) Realty C is reality C (fact, fact). Both can/do exist. Empirical evidence is critical to understanding reality. See, Even fewer words. And I said it twice.

No subjective there. That's the thing. I observed each of these objectively as relates the dwarf. That I use tokens to describe things like "door" does not change the object of what "door" references, does not change the reality of it one iota.

We have •••, same as the Turing machine.

That °°° either gets the goal as per instructions, or it does not.

The ••• are object states.
The °°° is is a measurement of a given object state at a given time.

It's not subjective in the least, and you wishing it was does not absolve, for instance, a serial killer from the responsibility to kill themselves.

It's your problem. When you observes things that don't add up you look inside to find apparent cause, especially for those things that aren't known. You can use the same logics but you can[t execute the same controls.

 

[Jarhyn]

You can use the same logics but you can't execute the same controls.

Oh, you absolutely CAN.

This is entirely what the modern discussion of "mindfulness" recognizes: that the controls ARE there and it is just a matter of figuring out how to use them. It's like a physical therapy but to the muscle of "personal review and management"

All of academic discussions on justice, and much of modern psychology is actually based around this fact.

Even esoteric traditions orbit this capability.

You act as if there would not be ready selection pressure in favor of allowing the process to internally execute.

And even then, it can still be executed through a "hop outside" through various mechanisms.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The readiness potential determines onset of action. That is a difference worth noting, whether it is arrived at before or after consciousness, that we are about to do something from the extensive research following Libet, according to findings in  Neuroscience of free will , was probably right.

I still contend that it makes no difference. Consider that the intention to act is computed entirely unconsciously. That intention is what will arouse both conscious awareness and the readiness potential to act. What should we call that unconscious process, other than "choosing to act".

On the macro level, we have a person choosing to act. And the person will be held responsible for choosing to act that way. What goes on inside the brain is only relevant if the brain is not working reliably, in which case the brain, rather than the person, may be subject to correction, through medical or surgical treatment.

 

[fromderinside]

You can use the same logics but you can't execute the same controls.

Oh, you absolutely CAN.

This is entirely what the modern discussion of "mindfulness" recognizes: that the controls ARE there and it is just a matter of figuring out how to use them. It's like a physical therapy but to the muscle of "personal review and management"

All of academic discussions on justice, and much of modern psychology is actually based around this fact.

Even esoteric traditions orbit this capability.

You act as if there would not be ready selection pressure in favor of allowing the process to internally execute.

And even then, it can still be executed through a "hop outside" through various mechanisms.

Talking about yada yada yada mindfulness wins the the prize. I looked up a study on mindfulness.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13063-018-2547-1

Not only was it yada yada yada, it was a collection off loosely defined terms mashed together into an almost mystical (Buddhist origins) breezy narrative.

Of note from the study?.

Trial status
At the time of manuscript submission, recruitment for this study was ongoing.

That's it.

They published a study in 2018 in which laid out a design and procedure from which they generated no results.

About par for the course.

Ommmmmm

 

[fromderinside]

The readiness potential determines onset of action. That is a difference worth noting, whether it is arrived at before or after consciousness, that we are about to do something from the extensive research following Libet, according to findings in  Neuroscience of free will , was probably right.

I still contend that it makes no difference. Consider that the intention to act is computed entirely unconsciously. That intention is what will arouse both conscious awareness and the readiness potential to act. What should we call that unconscious process, other than "choosing to act".

On the macro level, we have a person choosing to act. And the person will be held responsible for choosing to act that way. What goes on inside the brain is only relevant if the brain is not working reliably, in which case the brain, rather than the person, may be subject to correction, through medical or surgical treatment.

Well about 43 years of study challenge your opinion. You did look at the wiki reference in my post. No?

By the way intention and unconscious are a conflict in terms. One cannot form intention without being aware one is forming an intention. Even Pavlov in 1905 understood that. Respondent and Operant conditioning would never have arisen had that not been so.

I'm a foggy. I'm not brain dead.

 

[Jarhyn]

You can use the same logics but you can't execute the same controls.

Oh, you absolutely CAN.

This is entirely what the modern discussion of "mindfulness" recognizes: that the controls ARE there and it is just a matter of figuring out how to use them. It's like a physical therapy but to the muscle of "personal review and management"

All of academic discussions on justice, and much of modern psychology is actually based around this fact.

Even esoteric traditions orbit this capability.

You act as if there would not be ready selection pressure in favor of allowing the process to internally execute.

And even then, it can still be executed through a "hop outside" through various mechanisms.

Talking about yada yada yada mindfulness wins the the prize. I looked up a study on mindfulness.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13063-018-2547-1

Not only was it yada yada yada, it was a collection off loosely defined terms mashed together into an almost mystical (Buddhist origins) breezy narrative.

Of note from the study?.

Trial status
At the time of manuscript submission, recruitment for this study was ongoing.

That's it.

They published a study in 2018 in which laid out a design and procedure from which they generated no results.

About par for the course.

Ommmmmm

See, this is an interesting aspect about some folks: they don't understand that it has nothing to do with "mysticism" and everything to do with self-management.

It seems readily apparent that anyone with a vested interest in resisting the acceptance of responsibility might reject the mechanisms that would allow someone to modify their own behavior.

This has been discussed, discovered, lost, rediscovered, hidden, guarded, revealed again so many times mostly on account of a few unfortunate facts:

It's really hard to write anything absolutely concretely true about what is happening when you don't even know what a neuron is or that humans have them or how they get trained effectively (ignorance in antiquity), various religions have often taken to reversing these mechanisms against the exercise of free will (re: scientology), and from the perspective of something embedded in a larger mass that you don't have absolute and universal connectivity to it can look a lot like you are talking "outside" when you are really just talking locally (illusion of spirits).

What? You thought a process that took several thousand people over the course of almost 100 years armed with electron microscopes and scalpels and diamond edged brain slicing machines disassembling whole brains to figure out how to formally describe a neuron and how to train them in groups from the outside would be easy to figure out and describe intuitively from the inside without any of that?

Instead, we got layers and heaps of metaphor and bad assumptions and piles of religions accreting around the idea, and of course some idiots throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they reject those religious treatments.

You are a neural network, embedded in a larger neural network. You have access to various levers of that neural network as neural networks have, whether directly or indirectly. Some of those levers are "move this, this way" some of the levers are "No, not THAT way!"

You don't even really have an excuse. You KNOW networks have those levers. What did you think they were attached to, exactly?

The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can get on with picking up your abdicated responsibilities.

 

[DBT]

The parts interact and function as designed without consciousness or will.

Assertion fallacy countered by the fact I am a machine and the parts clearly have an exposed will and an exposed consciousness.

So you can't tell the difference between a calculator and a human brain. Thought not.

If you are claiming that your computer has consciousness or will, your claim is patently absurd and unfounded

My computer clearly has a will when I turn it on. The will is exposed by the BIOS code and operation combined with the OS code.

Please stop. It's a mechanical function based on design, not something that's being willed. What you say is too silly for words. Do you know what equivocation means?

It's what you are engaging with here. Will in terms of conscious human impulses or drives are not the same as mechanical functionality....which in animals gives rise to conscious impulses and drives, but not in artificial machinery.

You are making category errors on an industrial scale.

That's all I can take without falling onto the floor with laughter.

Next you'll be claiming free will for computers.

 

[Jarhyn]

the difference between a calculator and a human brain

It's interesting that you descend down to making an EQUIVOCATION after bringing up equivocation inaccurately as an accusation so many times.

It's a mechanical function based on design, not something that's being willed

Making a design argument? By jove, I could almost mistake your positions for those of a Christian.

Sometimes the mechanical function based on "design" (blind evolution), is that it may hold a "will": a mechanical function based on state configuration.

Whether the state configuration is the state configuration of ink marks on a page or sequences of potentials being held by switching networks of neurons oscillating between refractory groups makes little difference.

Will in terms of conscious human impulses or drives are not the same as mechanical functionality

And then you were back on Dualism.

I reject your assertion! ••• in terms of conscious human impulses in a mechanical deterministic universe is the same as mechanical function, for the same reason that will in terms of what a program execution is going to do is the same as mechanical function of the Turing machine.

You are making category errors on an industrial scale

Same to you, same to you, twice as loud, infinitely more true.

Next you'll be claiming free will for computers

My example started in DF using a computer to demonstrate °°° and ••• in a determined system.

And your mock exasperation shit is STILL the "serial killer's apartment" version of a meme.

 

[DBT]

Your quotes do not support the idea that consciousness plays the role of free will.

Here is the role that consciousness plays: First, recall that free will is about choosing what we will do. Second, recall that the brain, while choosing what we will do, is us choosing what we will do. Consciousness allows us to know what we chose and why we chose it.

Wow, the size of the post, you have been working. I've got no hope of getting through all that in the time that I have.

Choosing is choosing. Selection does not necessarily equate to free will

'Free will' is not necessary as an explanation for what is essentially a matter of information processing.

A system that has the capacity to process information and categorize has the ability to select an option based on a set of criteria.

It is the state of the processor and the given criteria that determines the option that is taken. The outcome is not being willed, freely willed or chosen in the sense that an alternate action could have been possible.

Determined actions are not freely chosen (no possible alternative), and once determined, proceed as determined without restriction or impediment. Freedom of action (as determined) but not freedom of will.

But, like Gazzaniga says:

What difference does it make if brain activity goes on before we are consciously aware of something? Consciousness is its own abstraction on its own time scale and that time scale is current with respect to it. Thus, Libet’s thinking is not correct. (p. 141)

In terms of 'free will' it makes a world of difference that actions are determined unconsciously, with no possible alternate action because nothing is being willed, it's a process of acquired information acting upon the system, with its sets of criteria determining actions which are reported consciously milliseconds later.

An intelligent responsive system with no free will involvement in the process of decision making and action. Actions are not being willed.

 

[Jarhyn]

Choosing is choosing

And the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club...

Selection does not necessarily equate to free will

Nowhere did anyone say it did. Selection equates to the implantation, the writing of will.

That process itself is a will.

That will is NOT necessarily always free WRT (my goal). Sometimes the will is only free WRT the goal orientation of the guy holding the gun. Which is quite the point, I think, to recognize "he did it because gun" versus "he did it because he himself prioritizes not being a slob over all that delicious regretful BEEF!"

You have a machine that puts together random, crazy, chaotic absurdities together.

You are one of those random, crazy, chaotic absurdities. The role of that absurdity is absurdly to manage and make decisions about what absurd things actually worked to satisfy the goal, to win a game.

There are a few games that are being played, and a lot of players playing them, and each game only really starts when the earlier of them have been effectively "won".

DANGER, Thirst, Hunger, Exposure, Pain/Maintenance, Anxiety/Security, Insanity/Invention, Reproduction, in roughly that order.

Once a game has been "satisfied", or perhaps "won, for now", you get to go to the next game, and so on.

If you don't, you lose altogether. You die.

That's what you are there for: play those games.

You didn't decide to play those games. You MUST play them. That was not your freedom to decide.

What you have decision upon is exactly how you, as a computational engine made of meat and constructed of variable mutable connected analog transistors (neurons), move the glob of meat you have access to moving as "a token on the board".

If you do it in such a way to intersect asymmetrically with the play of another player, then we taken your token and put it in jail until we are reasonably sure you're going to stop deciding to do that shit.

But we can recognize that all the antecedent causes stopped being antecedent once they finished causing, and that antecedent became coincident at some point to the next moment of antecedent.

Essentially, when the ball struck the other ball in the air, their moments ceased, and became new moments in that event. While the earlier causes had effects, the effect is no longer the earlier cause.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Well about 43 years of study challenge your opinion.

You'd think that, but no.

You did look at the wiki reference in my post. No?

Ah yes, but I had already seen the article. It's nice that Wikipedia has a summary of the science. Makes me glad that I support them.

By the way intention and unconscious are a conflict in terms. One cannot form intention without being aware one is forming an intention.

Well, I'd certainly like to think that were true as well. But functionally, the calculation that selects the intention could be performed unconsciously and then passed up through the levels to where it becomes reportable. I believe it is forming the report that carries the overhead that causes the delay.

Even Pavlov in 1905 understood that. Respondent and Operant conditioning would never have arisen had that not been so.

I don't know the difference between respondent and operant conditioning. All I know is that you can pair a bell with a dinner such that later the bell is sufficient to cause salivation. And I think that is "operant" conditioning. I don't know what "respondent" conditioning is about.

I'm a foggy. I'm not brain dead.

Good to know.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well about 43 years of study challenge your opinion.

You'd think that, but no.

You did look at the wiki reference in my post. No?

Ah yes, but I had already seen the article. It's nice that Wikipedia has a summary of the science. Makes me glad that I support them.

By the way intention and unconscious are a conflict in terms. One cannot form intention without being aware one is forming an intention.

Well, I'd certainly like to think that were true as well. But functionally, the calculation that selects the intention could be performed unconsciously and then passed up through the levels to where it becomes reportable. I believe it is forming the report that carries the overhead that causes the delay.

Even Pavlov in 1905 understood that. Respondent and Operant conditioning would never have arisen had that not been so.

I don't know the difference between respondent and operant conditioning. All I know is that you can pair a bell with a dinner such that later the bell is sufficient to cause salivation. And I think that is "operant" conditioning. I don't know what "respondent" conditioning is about.

I'm a foggy. I'm not brain dead.

Good to know.

I disagree. We can absolutely form intention without being aware an intention is being formed. I watch coworkers do it all the time. Mostly it comes from not actually paying direct attention to what you are doing: you let the narrator be treated as reliable.

The narrator is unreliable.

This can be seen when someone flirts with a coworker without seeing that they themselves are flirting.

Of course, they COULD, if they were aware that they form intentions outside of their normal awareness, instead directly observe rather than accepting passive narration, on the question "I have a will, is that will 'to flirt'?"

Then rather than relying on "he put together a will to flirt" coming through your passive awareness, you get "he put together a will... (You, to somewhere else: Is the will to flirt?) (Somewhere else: The will IS flirt shaped! Here is my work that shows it) (you, to somewhere else: ah this work is sound, but everything checks out, I'm flirting. STOP FLIRTING!!!)"

 

[pood]

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.

1. As Jarhyn points out, I can certainly modify my physical makeup by deliberation and choice. It is true that I didn’t get to choose my genetic makeup, how or where I was born or brought up, or what happened in the distant past, but those are different matters. You further go off the rails with the final four words, “or how it responds.” “It” is “me.” Therefore I get to choose how to respond.
2. “I am the system, therefore free will” is not my argument. Therefore no question is begged.
3. I know what begging the question means, thanks very much. As I have previously pointed out, the Consequence Argument you invoke begs the question against free will.

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.

Yes, determinism allows only one outcome. It does not follow that no other outcome can be realized. You keep saying that the nature of determinism has been “defined and agreed upon” by everyone. I have repeatedly pointed out that is not so, but you ignore this. Finally, any number of actions is possible in any given instance in time, but only one is realized.

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

Twice you define “begging the question” for me! Thanks, I know what it means, but your condescension is duly noted. However, by your lights, you can’t help yourself; you’re just a puppet of the big bang. But then again, so are we all, right? So none of us can help what we’re writing here, having no more actual choice that a rolling rock. That being the case, why attack compatibilists? Oh, that’s right, you have no choice in the matter, puppet of the big bang, reductio ad absurdum …

I'm not saying or implying anything of the sort.

You wrote this in response to my observation that your hard determinist metaphysics entails that all true propositions are necessarily true. So I ask you again to explain, under your hard determinism, what is the difference between the true propositions, “all triangles have three sides” and “I had eggs for breakfast this morning.”

Now if we parse the above out in possible worlds (modal) terminology, we find that there is no possible world at which “all triangles have three sides” fails to be true. But there are possible worlds at which I had something other than eggs for breakfast. Agree or disagree?

If you agree with me that there are possible worlds at which I had something other than eggs for breakfast, then you agree that it is possible for me not to have eggs. From this it follows that you renounce hard determinism. If, on the other hand, you maintain it is not possible for me to have other than eggs for breakfast, then you hold that the proposition is necessarily true, just like the proposition “All triangles have three sides.” Which position do you hold? There is nothing “dishonest,” as you claim, about my analysis of your position. All you have to do is answer the question. Please note that you have been maintaining that in a (hard) deterministic system, if I had eggs for breakfast this morning, then it was impossible for me to have had anything else for breakfast, or to have skipped breakfast entirely.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

1. As Jarhyn points out, I can certainly modify my physical makeup by deliberation and choice. It is true that I didn’t get to choose my genetic makeup, how or where I was born or brought up, or what happened in the distant past, but those are different matters. You further go off the rails with the final four words, “or how it responds.” “It” is “me.” Therefore I get to choose how to respond.
2. “I am the system, therefore free will” is not my argument. Therefore no question is begged.
3. I know what begging the question means, thanks very much. As I have previously pointed out, the Consequence Argument you invoke begs the question against free will.

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.

Yes, determinism allows only one outcome. It does not follow that no other outcome can be realized. You keep saying that the nature of determinism has been “defined and agreed upon” by everyone. I have repeatedly pointed out that is not so, but you ignore this. Finally, any number of actions is possible in any given instance in time, but only one is realized.

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

Twice you define “begging the question” for me! Thanks, I know what it means, but your condescension is duly noted. However, by your lights, you can’t help yourself; you’re just a puppet of the big bang. But then again, so are we all, right? So none of us can help what we’re writing here, having no more actual choice that a rolling rock. That being the case, why attack compatibilists? Oh, that’s right, you have no choice in the matter, puppet of the big bang, reductio ad absurdum …

I'm not saying or implying anything of the sort.

You wrote this in response to my observation that your hard determinist metaphysics entails that all true propositions are necessarily true. So I ask you again to explain, under your hard determinism, what is the difference between the true propositions, “all triangles have three sides” and “I had eggs for breakfast this morning.”

Now if we parse the above out in possible worlds (modal) terminology, we find that there is no possible world at which “all triangles have three sides” fails to be true. But there are possible worlds at which I had something other than eggs for breakfast. Agree or disagree?

If you agree with me that there are possible worlds at which I had something other than eggs for breakfast, then you agree that it is possible for me not to have eggs. From this it follows that you renounce hard determinism. If, on the other hand, you maintain it is not possible for me to have other than eggs for breakfast, then you hold that the proposition is necessarily true, just like the proposition “All triangles have three sides.” Which position do you hold? There is nothing “dishonest,” as you claim, about my analysis of your position. All you have to do is answer the question. Please note that you have been maintaining that in a (hard) deterministic system, if I had eggs for breakfast this morning, then it was impossible for me to have had anything else for breakfast, or to have skipped breakfast entirely.

And let's be clear, the worlds we are discussing may be the worlds not just of (this preface, slightly different priorities), but of (the world of today) and (the world of tomorrow).

In some ways I disagree it is about "possibility" it doesn't need to be possible for zombies to infect the world to consider "IF zombies THEN....."

Even I were God, I would need to do work to calculate whether some general statement of the future state of the system is true, even if that work is changing the time index being framed and rendered and taking a peek.

We are far more limited than "God" (here assumed to exist like √(-1) 'imaginary'), so our assumptions and calculated understanding of freedom is less absolutely correct than "God's".

God also has no use for any of this information, unless he happens to both exist (prove it!), AND has interest in doctoring up the story.

We are the only ones to which this information has meaning because it is wasted effort when action is executed that does not satisfy the drive that triggered it's production... Or when the drive and the resultant will is self-destructive.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Wow, the size of the post, you have been working. I've got no hope of getting through all that in the time that I have.

I figured that if you were going to throw Gazzaniga at me, I had better go over the notes I had taken while reading his book.

Choosing is choosing. Selection does not necessarily equate to free will. 'Free will' is not necessary as an explanation for what is essentially a matter of information processing.

Right. The notion of free will is not intended to explain how the brain works.

'Free will' is usually applied to describe whether the person was free to decide for themselves or not. Based upon their control of their choice of action, the person is either held responsible for their actions, OR, someone or something else is held responsible.

In matters of free will and responsibility, we don't really need the details of how the brain works, except when the brain is not working normally. But the person, specifically their normally functioning brain, chooses what they will do. We empirically observe people making choices, so we know that this is not an illusion. Any illusions the person may have as to how their choices came about, that their brain constructs for them while modeling the self, is irrelevant to the notion of free will. All that society cares about is whether their normal adult brain decided to perform the act or not. When that is the case, society holds them responsible for those actions.

Whether the decision was calculated unconsciously and then passed to consciousness as reportable experience, or whether consciousness was informed by the more unconscious processes more frequently during the process of deliberation, is not a significant problem. As long as conscious intent was present at the time of the action, the person is held responsible. How the brain managed to form that conscious intent is a matter for neuroscience, not jurisprudence. Jurisprudence only cares about whether the brain was functioning abnormally, in a way that could reasonably be said to remove the person's normal control of their actions.

The same is true for the notion of free will outside of the legal system. The person is held responsible for what they deliberately chose to do. This may be a good thing, something worthy of praise to encourage others to copy that behavior. Or, if it is a bad thing, it may be worthy of blame, to discourage others from copying it.

A system that has the capacity to process information and categorize has the ability to select an option based on a set of criteria.

And that is what we call "choosing".

It is the state of the processor and the given criteria that determines the option that is taken.

Of course. Choosing is a deterministic function. At the macro description level, we speak of the person's goals and reasons, their thoughts and feelings, as the reliable causes of their selecting the option. And thus we retain the notion of reliable causation at the macro level.

The outcome is not being willed, freely willed or chosen in the sense that an alternate action could have been possible.

You're still dismissing the role of volition and intention (synonyms for will) which keeps the brain motivated and directed to complete a specific task. It is this intention that moves the brain to enter the choosing operation and see it through to completion. Processing the menu, and deriving from it a single dinner order, takes work. The work must be motivated and directed by something, otherwise we would simply sit there staring at the menu forever. The brain attends to the work at hand, ignoring other stimuli until the work is complete. People who are unable to do this are said to have an Attention Deficit Disorder, which makes it difficult for them to concentrate on the work at hand and finish it.

Determined actions are not freely chosen (no possible alternative), and once determined, proceed as determined without restriction or impediment. Freedom of action (as determined) but not freedom of will.

In the restaurant, it is clearly determined that each customer will face a menu containing many alternative possibilities, and it is also determined that each will have to select from that menu a single dinner order or they will go without any dinner.

All events are always causally determined. So, we cannot dismiss those events where we are necessarily faced with many possibilities, and must choose what we will do.

If multiple possible alternatives are causally necessary, then they will show up exactly at that time and place. They are unavoidable. It is impossible to avoid these multiple possibilities.

We will, of course, process those possibilities in a deterministic manner, resulting in an inevitable dinner order. But the multiple possibilities were just as inevitable as the choice. And our making that choice for ourselves was also just as inevitable as the choice.

And what do we call it when we are free of coercion and undue influence while choosing what we will do? It is called free will. So, you continue to be incorrect in your claim that determinism implies no free will. It was inevitable, from any prior point in eternity, that we would make that choice for ourselves while free of coercion and undue influence.

In terms of 'free will' it makes a world of difference that actions are determined unconsciously, with no possible alternate action because nothing is being willed, it's a process of acquired information acting upon the system, with its sets of criteria determining actions which are reported consciously milliseconds later.

Everything the brain does is motivated by biological needs. Without those drives to do what is necessary to survive, thrive, and reproduce, we would sit motionless, just like a rock, and we would have become extinct. Quite possibly there were many variations in species that lacked these drives and did immediately die off. So, we may generalize these drives, figuratively, as a "will to live", and suggest that such a will is the driving force within the brain and all of the other systems in the body. As Mark Solms suggests, it is the affects produced by mechanisms in the brain stem that originate conscious awareness. He suggests that the key characteristic of feelings is that they are felt, that they are the earliest things of which we are aware.

So, I'm going to suggest that will is the driving force for the whole mechanism.

 

[Voland0]

Compatibilism asserts that free will remains a meaningful concept within a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. There is no conflict between the notion that my choice was causally necessary from any prior point in time (determinism) and the notion that it was me that actually did the choosing (free will).

The only way that determinism and free will become contradictory is by bad definitions. For example, if we define "determinism" as "the absence of free will", or, if we define "free will" as "the absence of determinism", then obviously they would be incompatible. So, let's not do that.

Determinism asserts that every event is the reliable result of prior events. It derives this from the notion of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. Our choices, for example, are reliably caused by our choosing operation. The choosing operation is a deterministic event that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and, based on that evaluation, outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the thing that we have decided we will do. Our chosen intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions.

Free will is literally a freely chosen "I will". The only issue here is what that choice is expected to be "free" of. Operationally, free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence". The notion of "undue influence" includes things like a mental illness that distorts our view of reality with hallucinations or delusions, or impairs the ability of the brain to reason, or imposes an irresistible impulse. Undue influence would also include things like hypnosis, or the influence of those exercising some control over us, such as a parent/child, doctor/patient, commander/soldier. It can also include other forms of manipulation that are too subtle or too strong to resist. These are all influences that can be reasonably said to remove our control of our choices.

The operational definition of free will is used when assessing someone's moral or legal responsibility for their actions.

Note that free will is not "free from causal necessity". It is simply free from coercion and undue influence.

So, there is no contradiction between a choice being causally necessitated by past events, and the most meaningful and relevant of these past events being the person making the choice.

Therefore, determinism and free will are compatible notions.

This is the way I've seen it. That which determines our choices *is* our "free will", as long as we are not externally determined, like puppets.

Those who have denied "free will" seem to require that we make our choices randomly, or that our choice-making faculty is somehow independent of what informs our choices, our urges, desires and beliefs. They also seem to hold to a Strong Determinism, ignoring race conditions between decision-making circuits, and even quantum indeterminacy.

 

[fromderinside]

Well about 43 years of study challenge your opinion.

You'd think that, but no.

You did look at the wiki reference in my post. No?

Ah yes, but I had already seen the article. It's nice that Wikipedia has a summary of the science. Makes me glad that I support them.

By the way intention and unconscious are a conflict in terms. One cannot form intention without being aware one is forming an intention.

Well, I'd certainly like to think that were true as well. But functionally, the calculation that selects the intention could be performed unconsciously and then passed up through the levels to where it becomes reportable. I believe it is forming the report that carries the overhead that causes the delay.

Even Pavlov in 1905 understood that. Respondent and Operant conditioning would never have arisen had that not been so.

I don't know the difference between respondent and operant conditioning. All I know is that you can pair a bell with a dinner such that later the bell is sufficient to cause salivation. And I think that is "operant" conditioning. I don't know what "respondent" conditioning is about.

I'm a foggy. I'm not brain dead.

Good to know.

- nm