Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Jarhyn]

rational system does not equate to free will.

See, you keep inserting this word here, "free" in an attempt to spoil it and we're going to keep catching it (mostly):

Rationality does not equate to free will. It equates to will, full stop.

The operation of wills.

Freedom does not come from rationality freedom instead comes from the deterministic reality itself: whether reality determines whether the list meets it's requirement(s).

Will is the product of the mind, not freedom.

Freedom is never really the product of the mind. If you were actually reading any of this with any attempt to understand it, you would understand at least that much.

The mind at best assumes and tries to generate wills that MAY be free IF executed, and this may be it's entire job (to prevent execution of unfree wills).

The mind gets you "will", but the moment you try to force freedom as a product of the mind rather than accept a QUESTION of freedom as a product of reality and determinism AROUND that will, you will be floundering on the topic.

At any rate, anyone who is a serial killer or child molester ought kill themselves. Gin up a •••. Make extra special to check that it's °°°.

 

[DBT]

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.

Yep, there are so many inconvenient things being casually swept under the carpet, as if nobody will notice. It's astonishing.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

Yep, there are so many inconvenient things being casually swept under the carpet, as if nobody will notice. It's astonishing.

You're entirely ignoring whole-cloth the observed reality of "the brain emulates the Turing machine; the Turing machine displays, executes, is built around the execution of concrete wills; therefore the brain executes concrete wills."

Whether those wills are free is a determined fact, an observable property of reality.

You are in fact trying to sweep that fact under a rug of "neuroscience" but it doesn't work, especially since the whole point of various neural systems is to allow arbitrary Algorighm execution

The machine still observably can do what the machine is observed doing, no matter how much you hand-wave.

If I put a dollar into the machine and it spits out a soda, all interpretation and discussion of what happened must at least acknowledge that "putting in the dollar led to a soda coming out" a d "the machine made a decision on the presence or absence of a dollar whether to spit out a soda".

The exact logic it used to do that MAY be a mystery, for now, but there is no way to properly claim "no logic exists in the machine", not now nor ever.

 

[pood]

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

Of course you see no merit to it, because that’s your defensive rationalization for the fact that it must very discomfiting for you to realize that yet another one of your sources from which you carpet-bomb quotes is not a hard determinist. She’s a soft determinist — i.e., a compatibilist. She simply relabels “compatibilist free will” as “rational” behavior. That’s fine with me.

What is the definition of “rational”?

agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible:


a rational plan for economic development.


having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense:


a calm and rational negotiator.


being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid:


The patient appeared perfectly rational.


endowed with the faculty of reason:


rational beings.


of, relating to, or constituting reasoning powers:


the rational faculty.

All of these traits are necessary and sufficient conditions for compatibilist free will. They would be fully absent in a hard deterministic universe, which does not exist. If “falling dominoes” determinism were true (my metaphor for hard determinism) there would be no reason to expect rational behavior. There would be no reason to expect brains at all. What good is all that complex evolutionary baggage in a falling dominoes world? Although you have asserted that we are somehow different from rocks rolling mindlessly a hill, following without choice or cavil a geodesic, you have never specified how we are different. Rationality presupposes the need to think clearly, recall, foresee, and choose among available options in a way consistent with one’s perceived self-interest. None of that is possible in a falling dominoes world.

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.

Exactly! That’s not possible for a falling domino. Hence, compatibilism.

 

[Jarhyn]

If “falling dominoes” determinism were true (my metaphor for hard determinism) there would be no reason to expect rational behavior.

I disagree. The dwarves live in "falling-dominoes determinism", yet even so, they have compatibilist free will and even are even approaching rational behavior.

The dwarf could never not try the door. The universe demands in fact that the dwarf try the door. Has already demanded: they are over the horizon to even possibly have freedom to end that will on account that the absence of an action interpreter function altogether.

For them, that moment of horizon is in fact the moment they decided to do it. Only an external event can break it.

The dwarf absolutely is in a "falling dominoes" world.

Yet they still have a will.

And the will may be free.

 

[DBT]

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.

Yep, there are so many inconvenient things being casually swept under the carpet, as if nobody will notice. It's astonishing.

You're entirely ignoring whole-cloth the observed reality of "the brain emulates the Turing machine; the Turing machine displays, executes, is built around the execution of concrete wills; therefore the brain executes concrete wills."

You still fail to grasp the distinction between function and will. Based on your equivocation, computers have free will, flowers and trees have free will.

Mechanical systems function according to designed or evolved mechanisms, not will. Your car engine doesn't run because that is its will, it runs according to its construction and designed purpose.

Whether those wills are free is a determined fact, an observable property of reality.

You are in fact trying to sweep that fact under a rug of "neuroscience" but it doesn't work, especially since the whole point of various neural systems is to allow arbitrary Algorighm execution

The machine still observably can do what the machine is observed doing, no matter how much you hand-wave.

If I put a dollar into the machine and it spits out a soda, all interpretation and discussion of what happened must at least acknowledge that "putting in the dollar led to a soda coming out" a d "the machine made a decision on the presence or absence of a dollar whether to spit out a soda".

The exact logic it used to do that MAY be a mystery, for now, but there is no way to properly claim "no logic exists in the machine", not now nor ever.

Astonishing. Function is not willed. You seem confused, mechanical systems don't work according to Will, be it conscious or unconscious, they function. How they function is determined by their design and their software.

 

[Jarhyn]

You still fail to grasp the distinction between function and will

No, I just continually reject your badly assembled framework for approaching these things.

It's no wonder that you can't really process it since none of it seems to really make any sense in your head beyond "dislike responsibility, dislike that which calculates responsibility".

You can't make math stop working just because you want to say "you don't have two apples because they are different apples, addition is nonsense!"

Mechanical systems function according to designed or evolved mechanisms, not will

Dude, my entire job is creating and implementing mechanical systems that function according to a will: a list of arbitrary instructions unto a requirement.

This is why, if YOU wish to speak on this YOU need to take a class on computer organization to understand what I mean by "a list of instructions parsed by an execution engine".

Even actual CPUs these days allow you to change the instructions and their actions through internalized wills re: microcode. Even the function of a modern CPU is based on a "will".

Our own brains are much more mutable than the Turing machine in this respect, and capable of "improvise" as an instruction.

With your discussion of Designed Purpose, though, one could almost think you are not an atheist...

Astonishing. Function is not willed.

False Dichotomy, assertion fallacy.

You seem confused, mechanical systems don't work according to Will,

Ad Nauseam.

How they function is determined by their design and their software

Their software... Which is "an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement" which is... You guessed it (not)... A WILL!

 

[DBT]

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

Of course you see no merit to it, because that’s your defensive rationalization for the fact that it must very discomfiting for you to realize that yet another one of your sources from which you carpet-bomb quotes is not a hard determinist. She’s a soft determinist — i.e., a compatibilist. She simply relabels “compatibilist free will” as “rational” behavior. That’s fine with me.

I see no merit because there was no apparent merit to be seen. Farah makes a distinction between a rational system and free will because there is a distinction to be made. A rational system doesn't work on the principle of will - nothing is willed, in the case of a brain, it functions - rationally - on the principle of neural architecture and information processing, not free will, not will, therefore a rational system, not a free will system.

Therefore, to declare actions performed by what is a rational system to be 'freely willed' is false.

What is the definition of “rational”?

agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible:


a rational plan for economic development.


having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense:


a calm and rational negotiator.


being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid:


The patient appeared perfectly rational.


endowed with the faculty of reason:


rational beings.


of, relating to, or constituting reasoning powers:


the rational faculty.

All of these traits are necessary and sufficient conditions for compatibilist free will. They would be fully absent in a hard deterministic universe, which does not exist. If “falling dominoes” determinism were true (my metaphor for hard determinism) there would be no reason to expect rational behavior. There would be no reason to expect brains at all. What good is all that complex evolutionary baggage in a falling dominoes world? Although you have asserted that we are somehow different from rocks rolling mindlessly a hill, following without choice or cavil a geodesic, you have never specified how we are different. Rationality presupposes the need to think clearly, recall, foresee, and choose among available options in a way consistent with one’s perceived self-interest. None of that is possible in a falling dominoes world.

Nothing of the sort. The brain is a rational system, not due to free will, but because it has the capacity to process information and produce appropriate response, as it is evolved to do

The appropriate response is determined by an interaction of information, basically inputs, architecture and memory.

To conflate function with free will is false. To declare ' the brain is rational, therefore free will is false.

Decisions;
''There are two major ways of processing information facilitated by the human brain. I hold that all decisions are made by a risk/reward comparison of the incoming sensory information within the emotional brain (‘System 1 thinking’) rather than within the rational brain (‘System 2 thinking’). System 1, the emotional system for processing sensory information and generating responses to it according to a risk or reward weighting, is automatic, intuitive, and fast, even impulsive. System 2 is the rational, slow, and controlled system of thought, where we reason through our options. (For more about these systems of thought, see Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2011.)

Tucked away in the centre of the brain, System 1 monitors the environment one way or another to minimize risk to survival and maximize reward. Feedback continually updates the system about the environment. The emotional response system evaluates all the incoming sensory information, and then scores it for a ‘winner-takes-all’ competition to decide on the best response. My contention in this article is that System 1 interacting with incoming sensory information runs everything. There is no room for any homunculus here.''

The Rational Brain
''It is now clear that the two systems for decision-making in man operate so-called ‘dual process monitoring’ (see for instance De Neys and Glumicic in Cognition Vol. 106, 2008). I see the mechanism for this dual processing being as follows. If at any time a certain threshold for alerting System 1 is not exceeded, judgement is withheld, and the more deliberative, rational System 2 may come into play. Nonetheless, the intuitive, emotional system still tends to strongly dominate. De Neys and Glumicic have found that subjects struggle to override the instinctive emotional risk/reward brain responses, since rational thought options often do not receive enough cerebral ‘weight’ to prevail over the choices of the emotional brain.''

My suggestion for how to understand that is as follows. The emotional brain always harvests the best option for response as the one having the highest risk/reward emotion score, whether this score is derived primarily from the emotional brain, or indirectly via the rational brain. If nothing above a certain threshold is produced from the primary analysis of the incoming sensory information by the emotional system, then analysis is switched to the slower deliberations of the rational system. But – and here’s the rub – the eventual risk/reward score calculated is not estimated primarily through a ‘rational ranking’, but rather, is based on the risk/reward value of that response to the emotional brain. Moreover, because of the way the brain works, the emotional score of rational deliberations is likely to often be less than rating from any analysis primarily through the emotional system. In effect then: Rational options are chosen if and only if the emotion scores they evoke in the evaluation of the emotional brain are high enough to beat the scores of any more intuitive competitor responses.

Determinism Rules © Jack Hodges 2016 Please visit jackhodges.tumblr.com

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.

Exactly! That’s not possible for a falling domino. Hence, compatibilism.

False labelling. 'Rational' does not equate to 'free will.' 'Function' does not equate to 'free will.' Compatibilists merely assert their definition and free will label.

Begging the question
Compatibilist: "free will is compatible with determinism"
Incompatibilist: "How do you know."
Compatibilist: "Because our definition says so."
Incompatibilist: "Why should I accept your definition?"
Compatibilist:"Because our definition allows free will to be compatible with determinism."

''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.

 

[DBT]

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.

Awareness always comes after inputs, transmission and processing of information and memory integration, enabling recognition, understanding and rational thought....which is being fed by the underlying mechanisms according to information exchange rather than free will. A rational, intelligent system. Rationality and intelligence as functions of complex neural networks does not equate to free will.

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.

Makes no difference. There was no free will involved from start to finish. Information processing is not free will.

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.

Slapping a label onto something doesn't make it so. Pasting a beer label on a can of beans doesn't change the ingredients, it's still beans, not beer.

The label is not the thing.

''Proponents of many popular compatibilist arguments often agree in rejecting contra-causal or magical free will. Yet they seem to be trying, at all costs, to rescue some snippet of freedom from the obvious fact that everything that happens in this universe is either caused by something that went before or is a truly random event. Neither of these alternatives provides any room for what most people would call free will. Of course human beings make choices. I am not denying this. Nor am I denying that we can be more or less constrained in the choices available to us, nor that we can be held responsible for some choices and not others. But we should not confuse the decision making powers of a living creature with freedom of the will.

This, it seems to me, has caused a lot of confusion. For example, Dennett’s (2003) book Freedom Evolves is a wonderful description of how humans and other animals have evolved the ability to make ever more complex choices in ever more complex environments. But these choices are not free in the sense that most people want them to be free. They are the result of the evolved complexity of the perceptual and motor systems that Dennett so ably describes. A more apt title would therefore be Choice Evolves.''

 

[Jarhyn]

I see no merit because there was no apparent merit to be seen.

Assertion fallacy.

Farah makes a distinction between a rational system and free will because there is a distinction to be made

And I make a distinction between your broken "free will" and °°° and •••. And then at the same time you hand wave and say there is no distinction there.

Literally in the other thread you tried to draw a false distinction between "software" and "will", so forgive me if I trust your "distinctive ability" not-at-all unless you can actually produce a modal statement that doesn't evaluate either "nonsense" or "false" on the topic. I have yet to see any evidence of that.

A rational system doesn't work on the principle of will

Ad Nauseam.

How they function is determined by their design and their software

Their software... Which is "an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement" which is... You guessed it (not)... A WILL!

not a free will system

Again, you are back to putting carts before horses.

The system has no leverage by which to make any truly unfree thing free nor to make any truly free thing unfree. That is the role here of causal determinism.

I make a will, reality dictates whether it is free or not. I cannot change the laws of physics, I cannot change what is arranged in reality arrayed against my wills, and while I can change my wills I cannot change that who I was in the past demands that I change them.

It always must have been so, that they were either free wills or unfree wills as they were. They would not be free or unfree if not for this fact. Causal necessity and determinism CREATE freedom in the space of a system which holds wills, as @Marvin Edwards has pointed out repeatedly.

Therefore

As all your premises in that are fallacious, assertions, or not-even-wrong... Flush.

Nothing of the sort. The brain is a rational system, not due to free will, but because it has the capacity to process information and produce appropriate response, as it is evolved to do

Faulty premise, as above.

I hold that all decisions are made by a risk/reward comparison of the incoming sensory information within the emotional brain

In which case your authority is arguing from a position we have already invalidated: the brain has executed an arbitrary list of instructions, a will, unto a requirement. We can watch it happening. The fact that it can do this means that EITHER not all decisions are made in such facile ways or decisions being made in such facile ways are nonetheless compatible with a concept of will.

And because freedom of will is a calculation and property CREATED by causal necessity in the presence of any will (which is to say the "freedom of will" calculation may result in "not free"), you nor your authority from which you argue and quote badly do not pass go nor collect your $200.

Awareness always

The dwarf is not even aware AT ALL. Nowhere is awareness germane to the discussion of freedom, nor of wills

Information processing is not free will

Assertion fallacy. Also not-even-wrong. The fact that you are unable to utter "will" without the "free" next to it is a major issue here.

Pasting a beer label on a can of beans doesn't change the ingredients, it's still beans, not beer.

Indeed. Which is why no matter how much you dislike the contents of that can of "responsibility calculus", °°° and ••• are still there and aren't going anywhere.

Neither of these alternatives provides any room for what most people would call free

So here's the unargued assertions in your argument from authority

But these choices are not free in the sense that most people want them to be free

And then you go to Ad Nauseam again, as if you think that merely by restating an assertion that is unargued in your post, it becomes any more true. It does not.

Let °°° be: when a system shall pass through some given configuration or set of configurations to the satisfaction of a requirement.

Let ••• be: an arbitrary list of instructions unto a requirement.

These are arguably the things that sit behind these concepts.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

Exactly! That’s not possible for a falling domino. Hence, compatibilism.

Except it doesn't. Causal responsibility requires no such thing.

In a systemic evolution of states, the state passing through a given configuration is itself causally responsible for the next state.

"In a different system held to the same rules and physics as this one given different preconditions, different by "that domino being removed from the sequence by a really fast chunk of rock swinging out of the sky", we can impugn that dominoes there in this part of the sequence, therefore whole that dominoes was responsible in the last moment for tipping this one, this one was responsible in the current moment for tipping the next".

The responsibility of the dwarf for several murders, despite not being of sound mind or even much of a mind at all, still leads me to locking him into a room and selecting him as my guinea pig for !!FUN!!.

So no. You do not need a rational mind for responsibility to exist. You DO, however, need a much more powerful rational and complete human mind to actually do anything about it*.

*Not exactly 100% true. The dwarves do have a criminal justice system, and are capable of holding grudges and doing some evidentiary investigation, but they aren't very good at it and it's all kind of witch-hunt shaped currently.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

You still fail to grasp the distinction between function and will.

And you still fail to grasp the fact that will is a function of our brain, just like the many other functions. The brain performs executive functions that initiate actions. One of these functions is to concentrate its attention upon a specific task in order to carry it out. The technical term for "will" is "volition".

From Wikipedia:
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action.

 

[pood]

DBT,

Begging the question

Compatibilist: "free will is compatible with determinism"

Incompatibilist: "How do you know."

Compatibilist: "Because our definition says so."

Incompatibilist: "Why should I accept your definition?"

Compatibilist:"Because our definition allows free will to be compatible with determinism."

Begging the question

Incompatibilist: "free will is incompatible with determinism"

Compatibilist: "How do you know."

Incompatibilist: "Because our definition says so."

Compatibilist: "Why should I accept your definition?"

Incompatibilist:"Because our definition allows free will to be incompatible with determinism."

Yawn.

You see, this is at least the second time you have constructed this dishonest strawman of the compatibilist position, and the second time I have had to throw it back at you. In fact, though, I do not think that the incompatibilist is arguing in this circular way; but neither is the compatibilist. NOBODY who is a compatibilist here is making your ridiculous caricature of an argument above, so it is really dishonest of you to keep pretending that we are. You are certainly entitled to think that the compatibilist position is wrong, but you are not going to get a free pass on mischaracterizing our arguments this way. The fact that you keep doing this despite it obviously being wrong smacks of trolling, frankly.

As to Farah, it is absolutely plain to everyone familiar with this debate that she is EXACTLY espousing the compatibilist position, and I have demonstrated this with her own quotes. She may not realize this, of course, but that is what she is doing. Her attack, very explicitly in her own words, is on DUALISM, and its implied libertarianism, which compatibilists also reject. Since Farah is clearly compatibilist in substance, cherry picking her words represents yet another example of you invoking the words of authors in support of your hard determinism who do not actually agree with your hard determinism.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Awareness always comes after inputs, transmission and processing of information and memory integration, enabling recognition, understanding and rational thought....which is being fed by the underlying mechanisms according to information exchange rather than free will. A rational, intelligent system. Rationality and intelligence as functions of complex neural networks does not equate to free will.

Did you order the salad or not? Your friends at the table all said that you ordered the salad. So, I'm giving you the bill for the salad, and you'd best pay the cashier on the way out, or I'll call the police.

There was no free will involved from start to finish. Information processing is not free will.

Hello officer. We've been holding this guy here for you. He claims he has no responsibility for paying for the salad he ate, because his brain made him do it against his will. Thanks for arresting him. The judge will make him pay for the salad.

''Proponents of many popular compatibilist arguments often agree in rejecting contra-causal or magical free will. Yet they seem to be trying, at all costs, to rescue some snippet of freedom from the obvious fact that everything that happens in this universe is either caused by something that went before or is a truly random event. Neither of these alternatives provides any room for what most people would call free will. Of course human beings make choices. I am not denying this. Nor am I denying that we can be more or less constrained in the choices available to us, nor that we can be held responsible for some choices and not others. But we should not confuse the decision making powers of a living creature with freedom of the will.

This, it seems to me, has caused a lot of confusion. For example, Dennett’s (2003) book Freedom Evolves is a wonderful description of how humans and other animals have evolved the ability to make ever more complex choices in ever more complex environments. But these choices are not free in the sense that most people want them to be free. They are the result of the evolved complexity of the perceptual and motor systems that Dennett so ably describes. A more apt title would therefore be Choice Evolves.''

Hello, Dr. Blackmore. May I suggest to you that "free in the sense that most people want" is simply to be free of coercion and undue influence? Ask yourself, "Would I like to be forced, by a guy with a gun, to do something against my will?". If your answer is "No", then I think you already understand the kind of freedom that most people want. Stop imagining that people really want to be free from cause and effect. It's a really dumb presumption, especially for a psychologist like yourself, who should know better. You've allowed the philosophical debate to corrupt your understanding of what people actually mean when they use the term "free will", and have lost the common understanding that most people have.

 

[Jarhyn]

You still fail to grasp the distinction between function and will.

And you still fail to grasp the fact that will is a function of our brain, just like the many other functions. The brain performs executive functions that initiate actions. One of these functions is to concentrate its attention upon a specific task in order to carry it out. The technical term for "will" is "volition".

From Wikipedia:
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action.

I think this muddies the discussion here even more.

I define will, ••• very differently.

In compatibilistic discussion, there is a function of our brains that does these things, and that is necessary for there to be a ••• at all (and to pick ••• that is more likely °°°), it is not ••• but an active execution OF an •••. So it is not •••, but •••(*), merely "a member (subset, if you wish) of the set of all •••" that is meant uttering "volition", regardless of what the dictionary may say.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I define will, ••• very differently.

In compatibilistic discussion, there is a function of our brains that does these things, and that is necessary for there to be a ••• at all (and to pick ••• that is more likely °°°), it is not ••• but an active execution OF an •••. So it is not •••, but •••(*), merely "a member (subset, if you wish) of the set of all •••" that is meant uttering "volition", regardless of what the dictionary may say.

I'm not going to try to discuss a bunch of dots (or dwarves for that matter). I have enough problems with real words and real objects.

 

[Jarhyn]

I define will, ••• very differently.

In compatibilistic discussion, there is a function of our brains that does these things, and that is necessary for there to be a ••• at all (and to pick ••• that is more likely °°°), it is not ••• but an active execution OF an •••. So it is not •••, but •••(*), merely "a member (subset, if you wish) of the set of all •••" that is meant uttering "volition", regardless of what the dictionary may say.

I'm not going to try to discuss a bunch of dots (or dwarves for that matter). I have enough problems with real words and real objects.

The dots are specifically there to delineate any misalignment between what you mean when you say "free" and "will" with what I mean when I think about what your concepts are, roughly, referencing.

I could use set notation, but then you might even be more lost. "Free` Will`" would also work, or any such notation that disambiguates whose language we are speaking in. Even so, I'm more than fine with letting abstracts remain abstracted.l, obviously.

Feel free to use the words Free and Will without the disambiguation, instead of °°° and ••• specifically... but if you do, it will be very confusing for you and I make no guarantees as to getting things straight. See also math discussions of "Circle Plus".

I would recommend reading up on what a Turing machine is, and studying a while on instruction/interpreter relationships.

At any rate, the dwarves are real things, and real objects. Their physical form looks very different from their "abstract logical form", and to be fair when I try to hold the relational integration between the two in my head for longer than a few seconds, even I get a little close to puking.

I use these as tools to discuss what is necessary or sufficient, so as to whittle away the red herrings from the neuroscience corner.

 

[DBT]

I see no merit because there was no apparent merit to be seen.

Assertion fallacy.

Nah, you ignore explanations that don't suit you and assert your own fallacies.

Farah makes a distinction between a rational system and free will because there is a distinction to be made

And I make a distinction between your broken "free will" and °°° and •••. And then at the same time you hand wave and say there is no distinction there.

Literally in the other thread you tried to draw a false distinction between "software" and "will", so forgive me if I trust your "distinctive ability" not-at-all unless you can actually produce a modal statement that doesn't evaluate either "nonsense" or "false" on the topic. I have yet to see any evidence of that.

Your rationalizations and excuses were broken from the beginning. You failed to understand the implications of determinism and incompatibilism right at the start, and nothing has changed.

You impose your own interpretations and ague with a Strawman of your own making.

I could try to explain for the hundredth time, but the result would be the same as the first time, and every time since.

 

[DBT]

DBT,

Begging the question

Compatibilist: "free will is compatible with determinism"

Incompatibilist: "How do you know."

Compatibilist: "Because our definition says so."

Incompatibilist: "Why should I accept your definition?"

Compatibilist:"Because our definition allows free will to be compatible with determinism."

Begging the question

Incompatibilist: "free will is incompatible with determinism"

Compatibilist: "How do you know."

Incompatibilist: "Because our definition says so."

Compatibilist: "Why should I accept your definition?"

Incompatibilist:"Because our definition allows free will to be incompatible with determinism."

Yawn.

You see, this is at least the second time you have constructed this dishonest strawman of the compatibilist position, and the second time I have had to throw it back at you. In fact, though, I do not think that the incompatibilist is arguing in this circular way; but neither is the compatibilist. NOBODY who is a compatibilist here is making your ridiculous caricature of an argument above, so it is really dishonest of you to keep pretending that we are. You are certainly entitled to think that the compatibilist position is wrong, but you are not going to get a free pass on mischaracterizing our arguments this way. The fact that you keep doing this despite it obviously being wrong smacks of trolling, frankly.

As to Farah, it is absolutely plain to everyone familiar with this debate that she is EXACTLY espousing the compatibilist position, and I have demonstrated this with her own quotes. She may not realize this, of course, but that is what she is doing. Her attack, very explicitly in her own words, is on DUALISM, and its implied libertarianism, which compatibilists also reject. Since Farah is clearly compatibilist in substance, cherry picking her words represents yet another example of you invoking the words of authors in support of your hard determinism who do not actually agree with your hard determinism.

Changing the wording doesn't help establish a case for compatibility.

As pointed out, it's the compatibilist who claims that free will is compatible with determinism. Incompatibilists ask how. The compatibilist presents their carefully crafted definition of free will - acting according to one's will without external force or coercion is an instance of free will - the incompatibilist then points out the problems: inner necessitation, determinism fixes all outcomes and actions, there is no 'free will' at work within the system, therefore no claim for free will to be made..... therefore applying the free will label to what are determined, fixed, non willed actions is false.

But of course, the compatibilist cannot consider or accept the problems and continues to assert free will on the basis of absence of external factors that restrict will....never mind the inner process.

 

[DBT]

You still fail to grasp the distinction between function and will.

And you still fail to grasp the fact that will is a function of our brain, just like the many other functions. The brain performs executive functions that initiate actions. One of these functions is to concentrate its attention upon a specific task in order to carry it out. The technical term for "will" is "volition".

From Wikipedia:
Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action.

It has been pointed out that volition is a physical brain process, information processing, where will is formed as a result of that process, which it does not and cannot regulate.

Take note of the wording of your quote, namely the ''process'' - the process by which decisions are made and actions taken

Refer to Gazzaniga's experiments with brain function and narrator function, first information acts upon the system, actions are determined and the narrator function forms a narrative on what is happening, sometimes wildly wrong.

The process of volition does not equate to free will. What is happening within the brain is determined by the non-chosen state of the system before the volitional process even begins.

''Metzinger (2006) has described the experience of volition as ‘thin and evasive’. This is because we are rarely aware of the sensory consequences of our own actions. For example, participants can be given misleading visual feedback about the position of their limb when they are controlling the position of a cursor on a screen. In order to move the cursor straightforward, they may have to move their hand slightly to one side. People are unaware of such deviations as long as they are less than about 15 degrees (Fourneret and Jeannerod 1998). At the sub-personal level (Hornsby 2000), the brain takes account of the deviation since the movement is appropriately adjusted to ensure that the cursor reaches the target.''