Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

In nearly all cases we are sufficiently aware of the key facts that are needed for us to plan our actions and make our decisions.

If action is determined before awareness, you are merely playing out what was fixed/decided prior to awareness.

And, if it was fixed/decided by my own brain prior to awareness, then it is still fixed/decided by that which is me.

Our brain is doing it, therefore free will? Nope, doesn't work.

That's odd. It works for me. Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and undue influence. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is no requirement that free will be free from the workings of our own brain, whether that work is performed consciously or unconsciously.

There is no 'we' to whom the interpreter gives the facts. The way you put it suggests the presence of a separate or autonomous entity, a we, a self, to whom the brain or the interpreter reports to.

The 'we' is the brain itself. Keep in mind that it is a collection of specialized functional modules working together for the benefit of the whole person. One of those functions may be calculating the decision. Another of those functions is the interpreter that creates a description of the events that emerged into conscious awareness along the way.

The brain is a modular system, regions cooperating and competing: eat the chocolate, it tastes good/don't eat the chocolate, it's fattening, it spikes blood sugar, etc, etc.

Yes! Exactly.

Different elements producing inputs where only one outcome is realized, but not willed.

Will/volition/intention is the output of deciding what we will do. That output then becomes the input that motivates and directs our thoughts and actions as we carry out that intention.

''We are doing it, therefore free will'' does not represent the means and nature of cognition.

No no. "We are doing it, therefore it is us doing it." Whether we are doing it of our own free will is a separate question. Are we doing it while free of coercion and undue influence? If so, then free will, if not, then not free will.

It is the state and condition of a brain that determines behavioral output regardless of the presence or absence of damage.

Yes, but it makes a difference whether the brain is functioning normally, or functioning abnormally because of significantly brain damage. You get this right? If the damage prevents the person from forming a rational choice, then it unduly influences the person's decision making.

Brain damage just exposes the illusion of control, be it conscious or unconscious....where free will has no role or presence.
Quote;
''People suffering from Alzheimer's disease are not only losing their memory, but they are also losing their personality. In order to understand the relationship between personality and memory, it is important to define personality and memory. Personality, as defined by some neurobiologists and psychologists, is a collection of behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that are not controlled by the I-function. Memory, on the other hand, is controlled and regulated by the I-function of the neocortex. It is a collection of short stories that the I-function makes-up in order to account for the events and people. Memory is also defined as the ability to retain information, and it is influenced by three important stages. The first stage is encoding and processing the information, the second stage is the storing of the memory, and the third stage is memory retrieval. There are also the different types of memories like sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. The sensory memory relates to the initial moment when an event or an object is first detected. Short-term memories are characterized by slow, transient alterations in communication between neurons and long-term memories (1). Long-term memories are marked by permanent changes to the neural structure''

Ah! Another name for the interpreter, the "I-function" of the neocortex. But I have to object to these neuroscientists portraying the story constructed by the brain as being "made up" or "confabulated". If the brain has sufficient information to accurately describe (even if only symbolically and at the macro-level) the sequences of conscious events, then the "story" will be a "true" story. If not, then, like they say, "Garbage In, Garbage Out". And if that were the normal case, then our species would not have survived this long. So, it is reasonable to assume that it is not the normal case. Rather, the information given us by the interpreter/I-function is accurate enough to enable us to deal with the real world in a real way. (Well, at least until the brain is damaged by injury, disease, or simply age).

Yes. Most do as you are doing. Responding to your view of things which is wrong at best and silly at worst. You've got this language of the "what I've read" executed through your fingers as the way it is. You missed that thing about experiments require doing things with material processes and objective measures. Not a single divot have you turned up with your yammering from on uninformed high.

In other words your chanting what others say without actual evidence, or thought even, is becoming tiring so I put my foot to it's throat.

For instance at least I've actually performed Sperry's experiments, lived two floors below him for a year, attended one of his talks. You've read writings of his disciple. Whoopie.

You'll probably respond missing the significance of the pairing above.

 

[Jarhyn]

zzzzzzz

Oh, you answered.

Pretty much repeated your previous overstatement I see.

Yawn.

You can pretend all you like, but you can't escape reality by trying to hide the will at play.

Some are like a little kids trying to hide their "irresponsibility" in a closet hoping nobody will find it.

People do as they believe they should according to what they perceive, remember and are designed to do.

Free will at play? Naw.

Reality? Naw.

Plan? React IAW programming maybe. On second thought. Naw.

Reality? Persons don't exist in reality.

Persons exist in the past responding to their perceptions of the past as well as their senses and memories can get them.

Notice I didn't say "free". You did. That's a straw man.

Reality? You certainly like ignoring certain parts of it.

You're seriously claiming that people don't exist.

Maybe that's what you tell yourself to sleep at night.

Welcome to hard determinism folks. This is what it looks like when at the sputtering end of it's ability to deny the utility of the math around responsibility

Where °°° is a a discussion of whether a predicate meets it's requirement.

Where ••• is a list of instructions unto a requirement.

 

[Jarhyn]

Responding to your view of things which is wrong at best and silly at worst.

Assertion fallacy.

You've got this language of the "what I've read" executed through your fingers as the way it is.

Ad-hom.

You missed that thing about experiments require doing things with material processes and objective measures.

Red Herring: Not germane to the discussion. We are talking about calculating properties of a system on the basis of observables.

Not a single divot have you turned up with your yammering from on uninformed high

Assertion fallacy combined with ad-hom.

In other words your chanting what others say without actual evidence, or thought even, is becoming tiring so I put my foot to it's throat.

Are you sure sure you like the image of you with a boot to something's throat when people think of you, as you make such assertion fallacies?

For instance at least I've actually performed Sperry's experiments, lived two floors below him for a year, attended one of his talks. You've read writings of his disciple. Whoopie

And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here.

You'll probably respond missing the significance of the pairing above.

At any rate, you fail to catch the significance of a world of people outside yourself considering these problems especially in light of several fairly intelligent folks who have clearly done more work on actually understanding systems theory and determinism than you.

Now maybe actually try processing, cogitating what has been sent your way of you even can. There are a number of posts about ••• and °°°.

I will repeat, anyone who holds a ••• to "kill people" or "hurt children" ought direct that will at themselves such that the ••• is °°°.

 

[pood]

In other words your chanting what others say without actual evidence, or thought even, is becoming tiring so I put my foot to it's throat.

This is basically just ad hom. All of us have been giving plenty of evidence and thought to this matter, and as a matter of fact, Marvin least of all ”chants what others say.” DBT quotes carpets of words from others, for example, but mostly Marvin has said his own thing in his own words. Me and Jahryn too, for that matter.

 

[fromderinside]

In other words your chanting what others say without actual evidence, or thought even, is becoming tiring so I put my foot to it's throat.

This is basically just ad hom. All of us have been giving plenty of evidence and thought to this matter, and as a matter of fact, Marvin least of all ”chants what others say.” DBT quotes carpets of words from others, for example, but mostly Marvin has said his own thing in his own words. Me and Jahryn too, for that matter.

Wow. A three-ply. Not a bit of evidence in any of them. Completely pure b....... .

I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions.

If you can't even present evidence for compatibilism why do you protest so when I knock your logics around a bit.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions. ...

Perhaps it would be helpful if you explained who Sperry was, what his conclusions were, and how you were successful (or not) at falsifying any of them.

 

[Jarhyn]

Wow. A three-ply. Not a bit of evidence in any of them. Completely pure b....... .

I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions.

If you can't even present evidence for compatibilism why do you protest so when I knock your logics around a bit.

Well, you entirely fail to answer °°° and ••• as valid concepts in the calculation of causal responsibility to an event.

The fact that you can't understand that this is about calculating causality chains, not about the sort of thing that is even up to question from an experiment, is your issue here.

All the experimentation that needs be done to draw conclusions on the basis of that experimentation has been done, and was done a very long time ago.

It is the answer to whether humans can write a list pursuant to a requirement (we can).

It is the answer to whether we can calculate whether that list shall succeed in pursuing it's requirement (we can).

And while I can in a deterministic system show this exact process playing out down to the quanta of the system, I don't need to to do the easy demonstration of such: actually writing a list and watching somebody or something execute on that list and return whether it met the requirement for each step.

Your demand for "evidence of compatibilism" is spurious, based on an utterly broken and failed understanding of what is even being discussed.

The evidence is simple: I can write an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement. I can identify when that list of instructions, IF executed, would or would not lead to it's requirements being validated.

The fact that these can be done, the latter at success rates greater than "random", is the experimental evidence.

It just happens that the experimentation can be done by your average first grader, so it tends not to see much publisher review.

 

[fromderinside]

... I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions. ...

Perhaps it would be helpful if you explained who Sperry was, what his conclusions were, and how you were successful (or not) at falsifying any of them.

 Roger Wolcott Sperry

... There were professors from the California Institute of Technology in the audience of the symposium who, after listening to Sperry's lecture, were so impressed with him they offered him a job as the Hixson Professor of Psychobiology.[15] In 1954, he accepted the position as a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech as Hixson Professor of Psychobiology) where he performed his most famous experiments with Joseph Bogen, MD and many students including Michael Gazzaniga.

One Brain. Two Minds? Many Questions - PMC

For several decades, split-brain research has provided valuable insight into the fields of psychology and neuroscience. These studies have progressed our knowledge of hemispheric specialization, language processing, the role of the corpus callosum, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The current debate in split-brain research brings the audience’s attention to critical components of scientific research in general, including experimental design and interpretation, as well as communication within the field. Though the separate sets of authors may disagree, they communicate effectively and publicly, and in doing so demonstrate that there can be wide variation in interpretation of scientific evidence which can largely affect the implications of a study as well as guide future research.

In addition to being a great teaching tool for the aspects mentioned above, this exchange is also useful in that it can introduce students to a variety of publication types. The inclusion of an empirical paper, a review, and responses in the form of letters to the editor, teaches students that scientific research is not done in isolation, and shows how and when to use different forms of publication.

The two articles outline why my beliefs that the issue of two brains is not closed.

I expect you actually read the entire articles even though I believe I captured them fairly well.

Riding the Gazzaniga wagon isn't very useful as a source for opining 'truths'.

 

[fromderinside]

Wow. A three-ply. Not a bit of evidence in any of them. Completely pure b....... .

I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions.

If you can't even present evidence for compatibilism why do you protest so when I knock your logics around a bit.

Well, you entirely fail to answer °°° and ••• as valid concepts in the calculation of causal responsibility to an event.

The fact that you can't understand that this is about calculating causality chains, not about the sort of thing that is even up to question from an experiment, is your issue here.

All the experimentation that needs be done to draw conclusions on the basis of that experimentation has been done, and was done a very long time ago.

It is the answer to whether humans can write a list pursuant to a requirement (we can).

It is the answer to whether we can calculate whether that list shall succeed in pursuing it's requirement (we can).

And while I can in a deterministic system show this exact process playing out down to the quanta of the system, I don't need to to do the easy demonstration of such: actually writing a list and watching somebody or something execute on that list and return whether it met the requirement for each step.

Your demand for "evidence of compatibilism" is spurious, based on an utterly broken and failed understanding of what is even being discussed.

The evidence is simple: I can write an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement. I can identify when that list of instructions, IF executed, would or would not lead to it's requirements being validated.

The fact that these can be done, the latter at success rates greater than "random", is the experimental evidence.

It just happens that the experimentation can be done by your average first grader, so it tends not to see much publisher review.

As I pointed out in my response to Marvin Edwards there is an open debate in the nature of mind let alone whether mindfulness is even meaningful. Summarizing popular books selling points isn't very useful as reason for opinion.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps you should rethink your beliefs. You ignore anything and everything that is explained and provided. You seize on a word and run with it regardless of what was meant or what was subsequently explained and supported.

It is you who plays a game of bluff and bluster to cover your own inadequate understanding of the subject matter.

Oh, you big tease! You say the same thing to all the guys and gals!

Perhaps you should hold up a mirror and say the same thing.

Or perhaps you should take your own advice. While at it, ponder on the implications that determinism has for both agency and will.

 

[DBT]

Here is the whole e-mail conversation between the the author and Martha Farah, whom DBT quoted above:

Me:__ The big question is how much people should feel comfortable extrapolating these results to other, more seemingly complex decisions about which we feel a deep personal connection -- do I rent an apartment, get involved in a relationship, leave my job in search of another, and so on.
__
Martha Farah:__ The authors have taken an important first step toward understanding how we make decisions, and toward revealing the apparently prolonged cascade of unconscious processes that precede the conscious decisions we make with what seems like "free will." But of course there is always a trade-off in science between making a process scientifically tractable and making it realistic. Remember, Galileo rolled balls down inclines and theorized about infinite frictionless planes; he didn't set about trying to understand the fluttering, zig-zagging motion of a falling leaf! The authors started with a very simple decision-making task, and their results now form the basis for some good working hypotheses to be tested with more complex decisions.

__
Me:__ How do these results square with our notion of free will?
Do they obviate free will, which in that light is an illusion; or might there still be a balance between free will and unconscious decisions;
or is free will still paramount, but operating at some other level?

__
MF:__ Let me start with a very general observation. Neuroscience is changing the way we think about ourselves. One of the hardest changes for people to assimilate is the idea that our intentional, voluntary behavior is the product of a physical system, the brain. If physical processes in the brain cause our actions, then how can there be free will? How can we be held responsible for our behavior? Can't we just all plead "my brain made me do it"?

The Soon et al paper jumps right into the middle of these issues. It shows us how limited, even misleading, our introspections are. According to the authors, many seconds before we are aware that we have made a decision, we have -- or at least, our brain has! All of the data of cognitive neuroscience are pushing us to replace the idea of mind-body duality, which is so intuitive, with the idea that mental processes are brain processes. But these results on the neural processes underlying free decisions rub our noses in it! One can assimilate findings about color vision or motor control being brain functions a lot more easily than findings about consciously experienced
"free will" being a brain function, and hence physically determined and not free at all!

I don't think "free will" is a very sensible concept, and you don't need neuroscience to reject it -- any mechanistic view of the world is good enough, and indeed you could even argue on purely conceptual grounds that the opposite of determinism is randomness, not free will! Most thoughtful neuroscientists I know have replaced the concept of free will with the concept of rationality -- that we select our actions based on a kind of practical reasoning. And there is no conflict between rationality and the mind as a physical system -- After all, computers are rational physical systems!
__
Me:__ As I'm sure you often hear, this makes my head spin a bit. One follow-up: re: the replacement of free will with the concept of rationality, selecting actions based on practical reasoning -- I can see how rationality and the mind as physical system don't conflict, but doesn't the very concept of selection (and, arguably, reasoning) imply an agency that is rendered illusory by findings like these?
__
MF:__ Depends what you mean by agency... If you think of a computer selecting certain actions based on a combination of inputs and stored information about goals etc, then there is a (not too head-spinny)
sense in which the computer is the agent selecting the actions. (Of course, what makes the computer that kind of agent that it is, making the selections that it does, is its whole history -- how it was designed, what kind of goals and knowledge have been programmed in, etc. -- But it is the computer, in its current state, that is selecting and so it seems reasonable to say it is the locus of the rational decision.)

Going back to the Nature Neuroscience findings, the parts of the brain whose activity are correlated with the decision and precede the person's conscious awareness of having decided -- as well as potentially other parts -- are the analogs of the computer described above... And this happens well before the conscious experience of "free will" making the decision.

One advantage of focusing on rationality rather than free will is that it enables us to retain the concept of moral and legal responsibility.
If someone is rational and is not under coercion (eg someone holds a gun to your head and says you'll be shot if you don't do X) then it is reasonable to hold him or her responsible...

Me: Still struggling a bit. But not because of any deficiencies or illogic in your own excellent explanation -- I suspect my response to all this is skewed by some instinctive (subconscious -- ha) need to cling to the idea of free will. Perhaps because my sense of free will is tied in some inexplicable way to my sense of self and ...
authenticity? That's not the right word. Maybe I should come right out and say (non-religious) soul, of which free will is a manifestation.

Somehow the computer doesn't seem satisfactory, in the sense that a rational program would make the same decision again and again again.
Somehow that doesn't seem alive. I'm always unsettled by computational analogies to the soul, in the sense that the appearance of self-awareness is not the same thing as self-awareness.

That the Turing test was devised by someone for whom disguising or transcending the body was so (sadly) necessary, and Norbert Wiener himself such a person of mind rather than body, adds to my unsettlement. But that's my own superstition, rather than a real critique.

Fascinating! Let’s upack this! Because it seems to me that Farah is a compatibilist but doesn’t know it, maybe because she sucks at philosophy no matter what her scientific credentials are? It wouldn’t be the first time that a scientist sucked at philosophy. Hell, a lot of scientists, like Steven Hawking (“philosophy is dead,” he wrote in the first page of a book that was devotred entirely to philosophy, O irony) think that philosophy is a waste of time. They’re wrong. But more later.

Martha Farah is a compatibilist, but doesn't know it? Hilarious.

It's far more likely that you are interpreting what is said in a way that suits your beliefs and your faith in the label that is compatibilism.

That it's not Martha Farah, and everyone that disagrees with your faith, who ''suck at philosophy,'' but you, yourself who fails to grasp the implications of determinism (actions fixed, no possible alternate action), and what the nature of brain architecture and function has for the notion of free will.

 

[DBT]

Of course it makes a difference. If action is determined before awareness, you are merely playing out what was fixed/decided prior to awareness.

You're placing undue burden on "awareness". You don't even need to be aware of your decisions for others to clearly see that "you: the sum total of process happening amid and of your flesh" are the originator of them in the moment.

If will plays no regulatory role in decision making, it makes no difference that the 'sum total of the process makes the decision''

''We are doing it, therefore free will'' doesn't prove the proposition. You are invoking WILL, you are claiming that WILL is FREE, that we have free will.....yet at no point has it been shown that will plays a regulatory role or makes any difference.

Therefore your ''free will'' label is irrelevant. It does nothing. There is not presence of free will within the system.

You may as well print up a free will sticker and play pin it on the Donkey.

"Awareness" is feedback and review, and that's not germane to who actually made the decision. The dwarf didn't need to have a narrator telling him what his will was for him to have it and for that will to be free.

That's right, the decisions are made prior to conscious report. No free will to be found there.

Our brain is doing it, therefore free will? Nope, doesn't work

Argument from incredulity/assertion.

No, that is what Compatibilists generally say. You expressed your own version in this very post; ''You don't even need to be aware of your decisions for others to clearly see that "you: the sum total of process happening amid and of your flesh" are the originator of them in the moment.'' - Jarhyn.

''The sum total of the process happening amid and of your flesh,'' therefore free will? Nope, doesn't work.

 

[Jarhyn]

If will plays no regulatory role in decision making

Ah, right out the gate with a straw man argument I guess.

Awareness is not "will". The dwarf is not "aware" that his will is to fight. He does not have to be aware of this will, he merely needs to hold it.

Will determines what decisions are made when, and why. It's a pretty big role. I have no clue what broken parser in your head allowed you to string ideas together like that, but it's presence indicates that it needs some work.

You are invoking WILL

Yes, the same way I do when I write a JavaScript program, and invoke that will on a reader, and then that reader executes on the will, making decisions on observations, and either succeeding or failing to output data.

you are claiming that WILL is FREE

Ah, there's your problem. I'm claiming SOME of the wills are free. But I am not saying that it is me who makes the will free. At best I calculate a provisional pretend freedom score of the will because that's the most I can do.

If I could stop time and really debug the moment I could be much more accurate, but I have to do JIT predictive debugging instead, which is a LOT harder and a LOT less accurate.

I create the will. Reality and it's shape determines whether my will is free.

The dwarf inserted FIGHT into his own position for "current will". He does not determine whether that will is free. Rather, I did, when I locked the door.

Now, you may claim °°° and ••• are irrelevant, excepting that I can use them usefully, and have, to inform future behavior and refine current behavior.

You demanding that there is no real ••• within the system, no will, is silliness. I present you with the Turing machine, a machine purpose-built that holds and executes •••: lists of instructions unto requirements.

No, that is what Compatibilists generally say

I hazard that it is what hard determinists HEAR but it is not what compatibilists say.

Your desire to straw-man my argument.

You do not originate or control whether your will is "free". You have ZERO leverage over whether a will is free. None. The only leverage you have is to pick a will that is already free (hopefully). You originate the will, reality decides on its freedom.

I have not said "you originate your will therefore free will". I have said "you originate your will". Full stop.

Then in a separate sentence I say "reality originates it's freedom value". Again, a full stop there.

You originate your will (as a locality of reality). Reality and the passage of time in the execution determine freedom of wills.

Therefore "free will" is a coherent concept.

Therefore you are just pulling up straw-men.

 

[Jarhyn]

Wow. A three-ply. Not a bit of evidence in any of them. Completely pure b....... .

I especially like that to my response I had at least actually performed a split brain experiment the comeback "And I hazard to think what he may have thought of your line of reasoning here." My answer is: My intent was to falsify most of Sperry's conclusions.

If you can't even present evidence for compatibilism why do you protest so when I knock your logics around a bit.

Well, you entirely fail to answer °°° and ••• as valid concepts in the calculation of causal responsibility to an event.

The fact that you can't understand that this is about calculating causality chains, not about the sort of thing that is even up to question from an experiment, is your issue here.

All the experimentation that needs be done to draw conclusions on the basis of that experimentation has been done, and was done a very long time ago.

It is the answer to whether humans can write a list pursuant to a requirement (we can).

It is the answer to whether we can calculate whether that list shall succeed in pursuing it's requirement (we can).

And while I can in a deterministic system show this exact process playing out down to the quanta of the system, I don't need to to do the easy demonstration of such: actually writing a list and watching somebody or something execute on that list and return whether it met the requirement for each step.

Your demand for "evidence of compatibilism" is spurious, based on an utterly broken and failed understanding of what is even being discussed.

The evidence is simple: I can write an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement. I can identify when that list of instructions, IF executed, would or would not lead to it's requirements being validated.

The fact that these can be done, the latter at success rates greater than "random", is the experimental evidence.

It just happens that the experimentation can be done by your average first grader, so it tends not to see much publisher review.

As I pointed out in my response to Marvin Edwards there is an open debate in the nature of mind let alone whether mindfulness is even meaningful. Summarizing popular books selling points isn't very useful as reason for opinion.

"There's an open debate which on some side of that debate which I acknowledge is open would prove me absolutely wrong, but IM CERTAINLY RIGHT!!!1111"

Yawn.

I have directly done every experiment necessary to establish my claims as to the presence and execution of arbitrary •••, and the objective observable reality of °°°, and the ability of the brain to at the very least emulate the behavior of a Turing machine with respect to ••• operation.

 

[pood]

Martha Farah is a compatibilist, but doesn't know it? Hilarious.

It's far more likely that you are interpreting what is said in a way that suits your beliefs and your faith in the label that is compatibilism.

I note you didn’t respond to my fuller deconstruction of of Farah’s email exchange. Why is that?

How about when she says:

Depends what you mean by agency... If you think of a computer selecting certain actions based on a combination of inputs and stored information about goals etc, then there is a (not too head-spinny) sense in which the computer is the agent selecting the actions

And when she says:

Of course, what makes the computer that kind of agent that it is, making the selections that it does, is its whole history -- how it was designed, what kind of goals and knowledge have been programmed in, etc. -- But it is the computer, in its current state, that is selecting and so it seems reasonable to say it is the locus of the rational decision.)

And particularly when she says:

One advantage of focusing on rationality rather than free will is that it enables us to retain the concept of moral and legal responsibility.

If someone is rational and is not under coercion (eg someone holds a gun to your head and says you'll be shot if you don't do X) then it is reasonable to hold him or her responsible...

What does that sound like? Does it sound like compatibilism?

Why, yes, yes it does!

The only difference is semantical: she prefers to call “free will” “rationality.” She is not arguing against compatbilism. She is arguing against libertartianism and dualism.

And the compatibilist agrees that those things do not exist.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The two articles outline why my beliefs that the issue of two brains is not closed.

So, your point is that the science on this is not a settled matter, and that the scientists themselves may hold various opinions as to what the facts imply.

I expect you actually read the entire articles even though I believe I captured them fairly well.

No thank you. I don't accept homework assignments. I was trying to get some idea of the point you were trying to make. And it seems to be that uncertainty rules everywhere.

Riding the Gazzaniga wagon isn't very useful as a source for opining 'truths'.

I don't ride Gazzaniga's wagon. For example, I disagree with his presentation of the interpreter function as a lying bastard. It is, after all, our only rational access to the real world. And if it can only confabulate, then we're likely to walk off cliffs or into trees, and our species would never have survived to this point. So, the interpreter must be sufficiently accurate for us to describe the real world that we experience to each other.

 

[fromderinside]

The two articles outline why my beliefs that the issue of two brains is not closed.

So, your point is that the science on this is not a settled matter, and that the scientists themselves may hold various opinions as to what the facts imply.

I expect you actually read the entire articles even though I believe I captured them fairly well.

No thank you. I don't accept homework assignments. I was trying to get some idea of the point you were trying to make. And it seems to be that uncertainty rules everywhere.

Riding the Gazzaniga wagon isn't very useful as a source for opining 'truths'.

I don't ride Gazzaniga's wagon. For example, I disagree with his presentation of the interpreter function as a lying bastard. It is, after all, our only rational access to the real world. And if it can only confabulate, then we're likely to walk off cliffs or into trees, and our species would never have survived to this point. So, the interpreter must be sufficiently accurate for us to describe the real world that we experience to each other.

You answered in your response. Gazzaniga summarized from his experiments the interpreter function was a lying bastard. You reject that finding because it doesn't fit you rationalization of the interpreter. The interpreter only compares experiences and senses against individual outcomes none of which reflect reality. Rationalization can't correct that.

Since you hadn't seen sails disappearing as ships approached the horizon you would believe the earth flat? Humans exist is a sea of reality with only approximating tools to report to executive functions. Independent experiment is the tool that permits us to measure reality.

The world we normally report to each other is sense, memory, and outcome driven. How does one get reality from that? Kinda is about as good as guesses using those tools get. Obviously kinda is good enough. We survived.

The reason we advance with experiment and didn't with rationalization is because experiment provides instances of reality whereas logical reasoning only reports rational statements.

 

[Jarhyn]

Gazzaniga summarized from his experiments the interpreter function was a lying bastard

So what? The fact that the narrator is unreliable (duh!) Does not change that there is something being narrated, and just because it is unreliable doesn't make much difference to the fact of something happening.

The interpreter only

... It doesn't even do that much. The interpreter only looks and describes what it sees happening on the inside in abstract terms.

Of course the signals are no longer exactly the image of the thing. They don't have to be to perform general logic on the signals in lieu of the thing. This logic still generates lists, sometimes those lists have requirements, sometimes those requirements get fulfilled through execution of the list.

What is concrete is the requirement: that this nerve surface here was at least so saturated with a signal of a particular pattern.

Executive function doesn't need to recurrently report to exist.

The dwarf has an executive function, and it does not have this reporting capability.

As it is the universe has an apparently logical structured behavior. You demand this in saying "the universe is deterministic", because that is what determinism describes: a perfect logical system.

IF the universe is deterministic, THEN all structures in the universe conform to modalities, and logical reasoning is descriptive given the principles by which determination progresses.

You are here proclaiming the universe is deterministic (a logical statement, and one experimentation can NEVER prove), and then you attempt to reject logical reasoning entirely.

Anyway, let me just finish this by saying child molesters and serial killers have a responsibility to kill themselves.

 

[DBT]

Martha Farah is a compatibilist, but doesn't know it? Hilarious.

It's far more likely that you are interpreting what is said in a way that suits your beliefs and your faith in the label that is compatibilism.

I note you didn’t respond to my fuller deconstruction of of Farah’s email exchange. Why is that?

Two reasons, time constraints, and I didn't see any merit in your 'deconstruction.'

How about when she says:

Depends what you mean by agency... If you think of a computer selecting certain actions based on a combination of inputs and stored information about goals etc, then there is a (not too head-spinny) sense in which the computer is the agent selecting the actions

That's what I have been arguing. Your error as a compatibilist lies in slapping your free will label where it doesn't belong.

The brain, as an information processor, as Farah puts it, a rational not a free will system.

Rational does not equate to free will.

And when she says:

Of course, what makes the computer that kind of agent that it is, making the selections that it does, is its whole history -- how it was designed, what kind of goals and knowledge have been programmed in, etc. -- But it is the computer, in its current state, that is selecting and so it seems reasonable to say it is the locus of the rational decision.)

Nothing wrong with that. A rational system does not equate to free will. Far from it. Compatibilists love their label

And particularly when she says:

One advantage of focusing on rationality rather than free will is that it enables us to retain the concept of moral and legal responsibility.

If someone is rational and is not under coercion (eg someone holds a gun to your head and says you'll be shot if you don't do X) then it is reasonable to hold him or her responsible...

What does that sound like? Does it sound like compatibilism?

Nope, not in the least. Not even a little bit. Responsibility requires a functional brain capable of making rational decisions, to be of sound mind.

Sociopaths may have an otherwise functional brain, intelligent, perceptive, but are unable to feel empathy or care for others, a deficiency in brain function that allows them to kill, steal, rape or torture with a clear conscience.


Free Will as a Matter of Law
''This chapter confronts the issue of free will in neurolaw, rejecting one of the leading views of the relationship between free will and legal responsibility on the ground that the current system of legal responsibility likely emerged from outdated views about the mind, mental states, and free will. It challenges the compatibilist approach to law (in which free will and causal determinism can coexist). The chapter argues that those who initially developed the criminal law endorsed or presupposed views about mind and free will that modern neuroscience will aid in revealing as false. It then argues for the relevance of false presuppositions embedded in the original development of the criminal law in judging whether to revise or maintain the current system. In doing so, the chapter shares the view that neuroscientific developments will change the way we think about criminal responsibility.''

Why, yes, yes it does!

The only difference is semantical: she prefers to call “free will” “rationality.” She is not arguing against compatbilism. She is arguing against libertartianism and dualism.

And the compatibilist agrees that those things do not exist.

'Rational' represents the brain as an information processor, free will does not. Compatibilists slap their free will label where it doesn't belong.

 

[DBT]

If will plays no regulatory role in decision making

Ah, right out the gate with a straw man argument I guess.

Awareness is not "will". The dwarf is not "aware" that his will is to fight. He does not have to be aware of this will, he merely needs to hold it.

Will determines what decisions are made when, and why. It's a pretty big role. I have no clue what broken parser in your head allowed you to string ideas together like that, but it's presence indicates that it needs some work.

You are invoking WILL

Yes, the same way I do when I write a JavaScript program, and invoke that will on a reader, and then that reader executes on the will, making decisions on observations, and either succeeding or failing to output data.

you are claiming that WILL is FREE

Ah, there's your problem. I'm claiming SOME of the wills are free. But I am not saying that it is me who makes the will free. At best I calculate a provisional pretend freedom score of the will because that's the most I can do.

If I could stop time and really debug the moment I could be much more accurate, but I have to do JIT predictive debugging instead, which is a LOT harder and a LOT less accurate.

I create the will. Reality and it's shape determines whether my will is free.

The dwarf inserted FIGHT into his own position for "current will". He does not determine whether that will is free. Rather, I did, when I locked the door.

Now, you may claim °°° and ••• are irrelevant, excepting that I can use them usefully, and have, to inform future behavior and refine current behavior.

You demanding that there is no real ••• within the system, no will, is silliness. I present you with the Turing machine, a machine purpose-built that holds and executes •••: lists of instructions unto requirements.

No, that is what Compatibilists generally say

I hazard that it is what hard determinists HEAR but it is not what compatibilists say.

Your desire to straw-man my argument.

You do not originate or control whether your will is "free". You have ZERO leverage over whether a will is free. None. The only leverage you have is to pick a will that is already free (hopefully). You originate the will, reality decides on its freedom.

I have not said "you originate your will therefore free will". I have said "you originate your will". Full stop.

Then in a separate sentence I say "reality originates it's freedom value". Again, a full stop there.

You originate your will (as a locality of reality). Reality and the passage of time in the execution determine freedom of wills.

Therefore "free will" is a coherent concept.

Therefore you are just pulling up straw-men.

Couldn't be bothered. Been through this a hundred times, there are two threads running on the topic, and you still haven't grasped the basics.

I could explain again, I could quote, cite information, the nature of decision making, the implications of determinism, etc, etc....and I'd be right back to this point, dealing with your red herrings and strawmen.

Perhaps you should gaze in your mirror for answers?