Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

however, there has been more than sufficient material provided on neuroscience, cognition, agency expert, analysis, arguments from incompatibilism, etc,

You have provided red herrings about neurology and cognition which have been discussed and addressed and flushed using dwarf determinism: neurons are not necessary nor applicable to the concept in the first place, given the definition of a will here as "a series of instructions into a requirement".

Your arguments from incompatibilism are not-even-wrong because they are circular and do not address the definitions of compatibilists. "No Libertarian free will" does not get you to "therefore no compatibilist free will".

The only way you get to "therefore no compatibilist free will" is to actually pick up compatibilist definitions, unpack the whole definition, and show a compatibilist construction that yields a contradiction that states a will as both free AND unfree in the same way.

by doing so it can be claimed that computers have free will and other absurdities

Ah, now here's an interesting point: I do claim computers can have wills. I do claim computers' wills can be free or unfree. It is in fact a corralary of the definitions I use.

You consider it an "absurdity" to claim that humans have "free will*"! Why would I consider someone who believes such nonsense so religiously on ANY thing they deny "free will*" of?

It seems you have some religious need for computers to lack these capabilities? What is your grounds for considering it an "absurdity" beyond it merely being something you find distasteful for whatever reason?

We are mechanical systems in a deterministic environment. Computers are mechanical systems in a deterministic environment.

Our universe has a lot of absurd things in it. You are an absurdity. As am I. Nature does not abhor absurdities but is in fact chock full of them, it being an absurdity itself.

Rather than asking whether it's an absurdity perhaps you would be better served by asking "is this absurdity how the absurdity of nature happens to function?

And the answer to that question is going to be "yes, computers have wills; those wills may be free."

Vladimir, for example, is a patient whose frontal lobes were surgically resectioned after a train accident. As a result, he is unable to form a plan, displays an extreme lack of drive and mental rigidity and is unaware of his disorder

See, this is an interesting part which in fact proves my contention that the brain, particularly the part of brain that I impugn as "the seat of consciousness" is in fact capable of production, execution, and cessation of "wills". I feel bad for Vlad dying like that, to be continued by the less interesting parts of his brain.

He got shoved into "the Chinese room" or "reactive automatic action" or "mere reaction".

It's like what happens in an office when the boss just up and quits and the employees are all too dumb to take over for them. It pretty well indicates that before the frontal lobe went off, there was a boss.

It just happens that the unreliable interpreter function, essentially the guy that relays messages between the boss and the employees well, that guy is still alive and so nobody is any the wiser that the boss is gone. Nobody ever really saw the boss directly.

But it's interesting you use as an example something that proves that the brain normally possesses the regulatory ability to form a plan, execute the plan, etc..

At any rate, Vlad still does have "wills" but they are more simple linkages that, lacking the ability to form complex wills, are much less likely to be free.

So Vlad still has a will, the will is still either free or not, he just now lacks the capacity to exert the regulatory control over them to displace the reactive wills with more measured and considered ones.

In the same way, the line following robot doesn't need the ability to create wills for themselves at all for them to hold a will, for the will to be free. When you calculate the causality of that will being held, you come to me and my will, held by myself freely, and created by my prefrontal cortex (me, btw), and you can say "the robot has the will to follow the line. That will was 'free' as of the last time I looked at it. It held the will to follow the line because I held the free will to put that will there, and I did so 'because I wanted to'."

Now, "because I wanted to" is a pretty big statement. It encodes a lot of stuff and is doing a lot of work here. But you are not yet to the point where we can discuss what that means, implies, or any of that. It is not germane yet to the discussion as to where wills come from and why and what impacts that has on 'responsibilities'.

In the end, the only impact that it really has between where a drive comes from is whether we let you go "free", whether we put you in a corrective environment, or whether we put you in a hole.

*Really, "wills which have binary freedom value"

So, you haven't understood a word that's been said.

This issue comes down to agency, the mental state of 'Vlad' is not subject to his will but a reflection of the physical state and condition of his brain, which - conscious mind having no access to its means of production - Vlad the conscious mind, the man himself has no access to or control over.

The physical state of the brain, chemical imbalances, structural damage, lesions, electrochemical activity, etc, determines the state of him, his experience of the world, his thoughts, feelings, deliberations and actions, all fixed/set in every incremental instance in time by the physical state of brain. not will, not free will. Function does not equate to will. Will has no agency within the information processing activity of a brain. Brain condition, not will, equates to output.

''The increments of a normal brain state is not as obvious as direct coercion, a microchip, or a tumor, but the “obviousness” is irrelevant here. Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state. Depending on that state, this will cause you to behave in a specific way within an environment (decide in a specific way), in which all of those things that are outside of a person constantly bombard your senses changing your very brain state. The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over.''


''Having made my choice or decision and acted upon it, could I have chosen otherwise or not? [. . . ] Here the [compatibilist], hoping to surrender nothing and yet to avoid the problem im-plied in the question, bids us not to ask it; the question itself, he announces, is without meaning. For to say that I could have done otherwise, he says, means only that I would have done otherwise, if those inner states that determined my action had been different; if, that is, I had decided or chosen differently.

To ask, accordingly, whether I could have chosen or decided differently is only to ask whether, had I decided to decide differently, or chosen to choose differently, or willed to will differently, I would have decided or chosen or willed differently. And this, of course, is unintelligible nonsense [. . . ] But it is not nonsense to ask whether the cause of my actions my own inner choices, decisions, and desires are themselves caused.

And of course, they are, if determinism is true, for on that thesis everything is caused and determined. And if they are, then we cannot avoid concluding that, given the causal conditions of those inner states, I could not have decided, willed, chosen, or desired other than I, in fact, did, for this is a logical consequence of the very definition of determinism. Of course, we can still say that, if the causes of those inner states, whatever they were, had been different, then their effects, those inner states themselves, would have been different, and that in this hypothetical sense I could have decided, chosen, willed, or desired differently but that only pushes our problem back still another step [Italics added].

For we will then want to know whether the causes of those inner states were within my control, and so on ad infinitum. We are, at each step, permitted to say could have been otherwise, only in a provision sense provided, that is, that something else had been different but must then retract it and replace it with could not have been otherwise as soon as we discover, as we must at each step, that whatever would have to have been different could not have been different (Taylor, 1992: 45-46).''

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Intention implies an intender that molds events or conditions according to will or plan. The brain doesn't work like that.

Then how do you account for a couple planning a trip to Delaware where they plan to ride the bicycle trails?

Obviously, the brain forms intentions that mold events or conditions according to their will and plans. That is precisely the kind of thing that the brain does!

The state of the system, which is not chosen or intended, is the state of us, how we think, what we think and what we do, intention is the output of processing.

Well, when they get to the trail they've chosen to ride, that intention to ride will be precisely what shapes the state of the brain as they hop on their bikes and begin riding.

Again: intention is in the driver's seat, or in this case in the biker's seat.

Processing is determined by the state and condition of neural networks, not free will.

The philosophical question is: not whether there is a will, but whether it is meaningful to call our choices free when they are causally necessary. This is easily resolved by clarifying what free will is expected to be free of. There are no other freedoms that require freedom from causal necessity. So this extra requirement for free will is a bit of an oddity. The fact that "freedom from causal necessity" is a paradoxical notion suggests that this oddity is also irrational. Therefore, we should stick to the good, old fashion, operational definition of free will, which is a choice that is free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

The neurological question is: how does the brain manage to perform all of the functions that govern a person's behavior as the person goes about choosing what they will do and doing it. It is this observed behavior that neuroscience seeks to explain. There are autonomic bodily functions and their are deliberate behaviors.

Neuroscience encounters chosen intentions as the source of deliberate behaviors. It seeks to explain how those intentions are formed through specific brain functions. And it finds what it must assume is a mechanistic and deterministic process. It must make this assumption because science explains how mechanisms work. And science must assume that these mechanism are deterministic, because only deterministic mechanisms can be successfully explained.

Whether or not someone is coerced at gunpoint to do something against their will is not covered by neuroscience. The guy with a gun is not within the brain, so it is not something that neuroscience studies.

But whether or not someone's behavior is being unduly influenced by a brain tumor or lesion is within the scope of neuroscience. And whether the brain is being unduly influenced by other forms of mental illness is within the scope of psychiatric medicine. So experts may be called into court to testify as to whether the specific illness or injury significantly influenced the offender's specific criminal behavior.

The role of the narrator function is to interpret (not always correctly) actions that are formed by an interaction of information. Narrator function, emerging after action initiation, doesn't have regulatory control. The action is initiated unconsciously, signals sent to muscle groups, then the narrator function is informed through different channels.

Touch your finger to your nose. Now, did you know before, or after touching your nose that you would touch your nose?

There is no free will to be found here.

The free will is found precisely at the point where you either chose to touch your nose or chose not to follow my suggestion until you knew where I was leading.

Input, form and function is the driver, the result is will and action.

You keep posing these riddles where we must choose between things, when the correct answer is "All of the Above". Will (intention) happens to be one of the functions of the brain. It is not matter of "Is it will or is it form and function?". Will is a function of the form of the neural architecture.

The will to overindulge because it's pleasurable may be in conflict with the will to abstain because it's not healthy to overindulge, a battle of wills within the system. One opposing the other.

And that conflict between two wills is resolved by a process called choosing.

Free will? Not at all.

Choosing what we will do is a function of the brain. Free will distinguishes between cases where we are free to make this decision for ourselves versus cases where we are coerced or otherwise unduly influenced by someone or something other than our normal, rational selves.

You may intend to cross the road, but suddenly a car comes around the corner and you jump back, the imperative to leap back overrules your desire to cross the road.

Yes indeed. And we don't really need an article on the limbic system to understand or admire our reflexive behaviors.

But a list of the many things that we do not choose never eliminates a single item from the many things that we do choose, like whether to have the salad or the steak for dinner.

 

[Jarhyn]

the mental state of 'Vlad' is not subject to his will

We are all materialists here. As has been discussed, Vladdy boy here is still subject to "wills", but he merely now lacks the ability to adjust what those wills are.

His mental state is still subject to a number of agencies of autonomic will. Since they are his autonomics and not anyone else's, be is still subject to "his" will as in the wills created by HIS autonomics.

Having made my choice or decision and acted upon it, could I have chosen otherwise or not?

Of course you could not have chosen otherwise. In the moment you were choosing you thought you might, but really only one of those wills you were choosing was EVER even maybe free. In this way your concept of their freedom was an illusion, and in this way it can be easy to think you can make the leap to "all freedom is illusion" but you can't. You're stuck with "my own assumption of freedom is an illusion at best an incomplete guess at a real freedom value on contingent knowledge. At best you can be a little more sane and precise with how you characterize it: the wills are not "absolutely" free, they are "provisionally" free. "It is not free UNLESS I pick it and maybe not even then".

The will to pick is free, but at some point, q will is going to be imposed from elsewhere. It is the free will of something else I have no control over at that point.

It is exactly the nature, location, and tractibility of whichever agent originated that imposed will that all this is a discussion heading towards: what do we do about (person's) (impulse) to (do shit that makes our wills unfree).

We absolutely have some measure of regulatory control though over how and what our impulses suggest, and most importantly over whether or not we listen to or dispose of the results of those impulses.

We don't really care entirely whether their impulse was freely decided upon by them. They have it, they are a problem, we do something about it. Sure, IF we can fix it, regulate it, end the production of such, we do that. If we can't, we either put them in a hole until they are too frail and broken to keep doing it or we put them in a hole dead.

 

[DBT]

the mental state of 'Vlad' is not subject to his will

We are all materialists here. As has been discussed, Vladdy boy here is still subject to "wills", but he merely now lacks the ability to adjust what those wills are.

His mental state is still subject to a number of agencies of autonomic will. Since they are his autonomics and not anyone else's, be is still subject to "his" will as in the wills created by HIS autonomics.

Having made my choice or decision and acted upon it, could I have chosen otherwise or not?

Of course you could not have chosen otherwise. In the moment you were choosing you thought you might, but really only one of those wills you were choosing was EVER even maybe free. In this way your concept of their freedom was an illusion, and in this way it can be easy to think you can make the leap to "all freedom is illusion" but you can't. You're stuck with "my own assumption of freedom is an illusion at best an incomplete guess at a real freedom value on contingent knowledge. At best you can be a little more sane and precise with how you characterize it: the wills are not "absolutely" free, they are "provisionally" free. "It is not free UNLESS I pick it and maybe not even then".

The will to pick is free, but at some point, q will is going to be imposed from elsewhere. It is the free will of something else I have no control over at that point.

It is exactly the nature, location, and tractibility of whichever agent originated that imposed will that all this is a discussion heading towards: what do we do about (person's) (impulse) to (do shit that makes our wills unfree).

We absolutely have some measure of regulatory control though over how and what our impulses suggest, and most importantly over whether or not we listen to or dispose of the results of those impulses.

We don't really care entirely whether their impulse was freely decided upon by them. They have it, they are a problem, we do something about it. Sure, IF we can fix it, regulate it, end the production of such, we do that. If we can't, we either put them in a hole until they are too frail and broken to keep doing it or we put them in a hole dead.

I won't waste time trying to explain what has been explained too many times,

Just read the article, for all the good it'll do, which is none;

''Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion. (Read this and this, but for a contrarian view, also read this.) Of course, most people can’t relate to the idea that free will is an illusion, and there’s a good reason why. It feels as if we exercise free will all the time. For instance, it seems that you are exercising free will in choosing to read this article. Similarly, it seems that you exercise free will when you deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food, or when you overcome laziness to work out at the gym.


But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will. To understand why, consider why you sometimes deny yourself an unhealthy-but-tasty snack. It’s because you were, at some point in your life, made to recognize the long-term negative effects of eating such food. Perhaps you noticed that consuming unhealthy food makes you feel heavy, or that regularly consuming such food makes your blood pressure shoot up. Or perhaps your doctor told you that you need to stop eating unhealthy food; or maybe you read about the negative effects of consuming unhealthy food in a magazine. In other words, you deny yourself the pleasure of consuming unhealthy food because of exposure to external inputs—feedback from your body or from others—over which you had no control. Had you been exposed to a different set of inputs—e.g., despite consuming unhealthy food, your health did not suffer, or your doctor never dissuaded you from eating unhealthy food—you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food.


If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did. For instance, you had no choice in where, to whom, and in what period of time, you were born. You also had no choice in the kind of neighbors and friends to whom you were exposed during early childhood. You therefore had no choice in how you made your decisions during that time.''

 

[DBT]

Intention implies an intender that molds events or conditions according to will or plan. The brain doesn't work like that.

Then how do you account for a couple planning a trip to Delaware where they plan to ride the bicycle trails?

A matter of brain function as it has evolved to acquire and process information and respond in adaptive ways. Or if damaged, not so adaptive ways. A rational system. Rational not equating to free will.

Rational machines
''Rational Machines and Artificial Intelligence describes why machine rationality is flexibly bounded due to advances in technology. This effectively means that optimally designed machines are more rational than human beings. Readers will also learn whether machine rationality can be quantified and identify how this can be achieved.....''

Obviously, the brain forms intentions that mold events or conditions according to their will and plans. That is precisely the kind of thing that the brain does!

Yes, and it is the means and mechanisms by which intentions are formed that determines whether we have a legitimate claim to free will, or not.

The evidence for free will is not looking good

The state of the system, which is not chosen or intended, is the state of us, how we think, what we think and what we do, intention is the output of processing.

Well, when they get to the trail they've chosen to ride, that intention to ride will be precisely what shapes the state of the brain as they hop on their bikes and begin riding.

The electrochemical process of decision making and action begins before the intention forms or is brought to consciousness.

Again: intention is in the driver's seat, or in this case in the biker's seat.

Nope, first comes information input, distribution within the system, processing, then intention.
Experiments showing that this is so have been provided. Never mind physics, that we cannot physically be conscious of something, see an object, before reflected light is acquired by the eyes, the information transmitted to the visual cortex, processed and brought to consciousness.

An intelligent rational system.

 

[Jarhyn]

Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion

So, another deconstruction and attack on libertarian free will! Imagine that. You tear that straw-man up good and well.

But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will

And again, you display that you are arguing against a straw man.

A choice represents A free will, namely "the will to choose was free thus a choice was made: making a choice was the requirement and the requirement was met when many provisionally free options were revealed concretely unfree in the selection of a single choice which was revealed still provisionally free".

It does not reflect "free will (proper)" because "free will (proper)" is a nonsensical word salad.

I'm probably going to tear into Marvin again some time soon about this, too.

Even so, his utterances at least allow "A" to be understood before "free will" AFAICT.

If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed

Yet in many times the mechanism of the difference is exactly the effect of a list of actions completed unto a requirement: a will. In some cases that will was "select different ways within the chaos that is available to you until A way leads to a different outcome. Observe and record the principles which created different results. Test those observations of principle. If tests against principle of operation fail, continue back to observe and record up to (max tries) tries. If tries < max tries, success, else failure"

And because a number of those executions were successful, I can say at least a number of the decisions I have made are the result of a will, and that the will they are the result of was free.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Intention implies an intender that molds events or conditions according to will or plan. The brain doesn't work like that.

Then how do you account for a couple planning a trip to Delaware where they plan to ride the bicycle trails?

A matter of brain function as it has evolved to acquire and process information and respond in adaptive ways. Or if damaged, not so adaptive ways. A rational system. Rational not equating to free will.

Free will is when that rationality is free to decide what the system will do. But rational control may be impaired or prevented by coercion or undue influence.

There is no need for any kind of free will other than the freedom of the system to decide for itself what it will do in the absence of coercion or other forms of undue influence.

When the rational mechanism is free to do what it normally does, it is freely choosing what the system will do.

... it is the means and mechanisms by which intentions are formed that determines whether we have a legitimate claim to free will, or not.

That depends entirely upon the claim to free will. The claim to free will that most people understand is simply being free of coercion and undue influence when they decide what they will do.

Philosophy has managed to corrupt this simple claim by insisting we are not "truly" free unless we are also free of causal necessity. But that is a silly notion. Freedom is impossible without the ability to reliably cause some effect. Therefore, it is paradoxical to suggest that any freedom must include freedom from reliable cause and effect.

The electrochemical process of decision making and action begins before the intention forms or is brought to consciousness.

And you think that means something? It doesn't. The fact that unconscious processing is involved in all brain activity does not change the fact that the person is choosing for itself what it will do.

We assume from the outset that our thoughts and feelings are both produced and also consumed, by our own brain. The modules interact in a way that allows the brain to speak for the whole person. It makes choices. These choices determine what we will say and do. And we are held responsible for our deliberate acts, except when our choice is coerced or unduly influenced by someone or something else.

 

[pood]

the mental state of 'Vlad' is not subject to his will

We are all materialists here. As has been discussed, Vladdy boy here is still subject to "wills", but he merely now lacks the ability to adjust what those wills are.

His mental state is still subject to a number of agencies of autonomic will. Since they are his autonomics and not anyone else's, be is still subject to "his" will as in the wills created by HIS autonomics.

Having made my choice or decision and acted upon it, could I have chosen otherwise or not?

Of course you could not have chosen otherwise. In the moment you were choosing you thought you might, but really only one of those wills you were choosing was EVER even maybe free. In this way your concept of their freedom was an illusion, and in this way it can be easy to think you can make the leap to "all freedom is illusion" but you can't. You're stuck with "my own assumption of freedom is an illusion at best an incomplete guess at a real freedom value on contingent knowledge. At best you can be a little more sane and precise with how you characterize it: the wills are not "absolutely" free, they are "provisionally" free. "It is not free UNLESS I pick it and maybe not even then".

The will to pick is free, but at some point, q will is going to be imposed from elsewhere. It is the free will of something else I have no control over at that point.

It is exactly the nature, location, and tractibility of whichever agent originated that imposed will that all this is a discussion heading towards: what do we do about (person's) (impulse) to (do shit that makes our wills unfree).

We absolutely have some measure of regulatory control though over how and what our impulses suggest, and most importantly over whether or not we listen to or dispose of the results of those impulses.

We don't really care entirely whether their impulse was freely decided upon by them. They have it, they are a problem, we do something about it. Sure, IF we can fix it, regulate it, end the production of such, we do that. If we can't, we either put them in a hole until they are too frail and broken to keep doing it or we put them in a hole dead.

I won't waste time trying to explain what has been explained too many times,

Just read the article, for all the good it'll do, which is none;

''Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion. (Read this and this, but for a contrarian view, also read this.) Of course, most people can’t relate to the idea that free will is an illusion, and there’s a good reason why. It feels as if we exercise free will all the time. For instance, it seems that you are exercising free will in choosing to read this article. Similarly, it seems that you exercise free will when you deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food, or when you overcome laziness to work out at the gym.


But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will. To understand why, consider why you sometimes deny yourself an unhealthy-but-tasty snack. It’s because you were, at some point in your life, made to recognize the long-term negative effects of eating such food. Perhaps you noticed that consuming unhealthy food makes you feel heavy, or that regularly consuming such food makes your blood pressure shoot up. Or perhaps your doctor told you that you need to stop eating unhealthy food; or maybe you read about the negative effects of consuming unhealthy food in a magazine. In other words, you deny yourself the pleasure of consuming unhealthy food because of exposure to external inputs—feedback from your body or from others—over which you had no control. Had you been exposed to a different set of inputs—e.g., despite consuming unhealthy food, your health did not suffer, or your doctor never dissuaded you from eating unhealthy food—you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food.


If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did. For instance, you had no choice in where, to whom, and in what period of time, you were born. You also had no choice in the kind of neighbors and friends to whom you were exposed during early childhood. You therefore had no choice in how you made your decisions during that time.''

I answered this in the “What is free will?” thread. It’s nothing but a silly red herring.

 

[DBT]

the mental state of 'Vlad' is not subject to his will

We are all materialists here. As has been discussed, Vladdy boy here is still subject to "wills", but he merely now lacks the ability to adjust what those wills are.

His mental state is still subject to a number of agencies of autonomic will. Since they are his autonomics and not anyone else's, be is still subject to "his" will as in the wills created by HIS autonomics.

Having made my choice or decision and acted upon it, could I have chosen otherwise or not?

Of course you could not have chosen otherwise. In the moment you were choosing you thought you might, but really only one of those wills you were choosing was EVER even maybe free. In this way your concept of their freedom was an illusion, and in this way it can be easy to think you can make the leap to "all freedom is illusion" but you can't. You're stuck with "my own assumption of freedom is an illusion at best an incomplete guess at a real freedom value on contingent knowledge. At best you can be a little more sane and precise with how you characterize it: the wills are not "absolutely" free, they are "provisionally" free. "It is not free UNLESS I pick it and maybe not even then".

The will to pick is free, but at some point, q will is going to be imposed from elsewhere. It is the free will of something else I have no control over at that point.

It is exactly the nature, location, and tractibility of whichever agent originated that imposed will that all this is a discussion heading towards: what do we do about (person's) (impulse) to (do shit that makes our wills unfree).

We absolutely have some measure of regulatory control though over how and what our impulses suggest, and most importantly over whether or not we listen to or dispose of the results of those impulses.

We don't really care entirely whether their impulse was freely decided upon by them. They have it, they are a problem, we do something about it. Sure, IF we can fix it, regulate it, end the production of such, we do that. If we can't, we either put them in a hole until they are too frail and broken to keep doing it or we put them in a hole dead.

I won't waste time trying to explain what has been explained too many times,

Just read the article, for all the good it'll do, which is none;

''Over the past few decades, gathering evidence from both psychology and the neurosciences has provided convincing support for the idea that free will is an illusion. (Read this and this, but for a contrarian view, also read this.) Of course, most people can’t relate to the idea that free will is an illusion, and there’s a good reason why. It feels as if we exercise free will all the time. For instance, it seems that you are exercising free will in choosing to read this article. Similarly, it seems that you exercise free will when you deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food, or when you overcome laziness to work out at the gym.


But these choices do not necessarily reflect free will. To understand why, consider why you sometimes deny yourself an unhealthy-but-tasty snack. It’s because you were, at some point in your life, made to recognize the long-term negative effects of eating such food. Perhaps you noticed that consuming unhealthy food makes you feel heavy, or that regularly consuming such food makes your blood pressure shoot up. Or perhaps your doctor told you that you need to stop eating unhealthy food; or maybe you read about the negative effects of consuming unhealthy food in a magazine. In other words, you deny yourself the pleasure of consuming unhealthy food because of exposure to external inputs—feedback from your body or from others—over which you had no control. Had you been exposed to a different set of inputs—e.g., despite consuming unhealthy food, your health did not suffer, or your doctor never dissuaded you from eating unhealthy food—you wouldn’t deny yourself the pleasure of eating tasty-but-unhealthy food.


If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did. For instance, you had no choice in where, to whom, and in what period of time, you were born. You also had no choice in the kind of neighbors and friends to whom you were exposed during early childhood. You therefore had no choice in how you made your decisions during that time.''

I answered this in the “What is free will?” thread. It’s nothing but a silly red herring.

You answered, but your answer addressed nothing. You asserted your belief in compatibilism, while dismissing anyone and anything that happens to contradict your belief in it.

Decision making is not a matter of free will. Evidence supports the proposition that the state of the system in any given instance determines the action/decision taken in that instance. You make a mistake, for example, the mistake is brought to attention a moment later by new inputs, first one state then the other and so on. Everything being processed prior to being brought to awareness, nothing being freely willed.

Actions performed freely as determined but not freely willed.... hence the failure of compatibilism. Determined actions freely performed as determined, according to determined will, are not freely willed actions.

Not being freely willed actions, there is no case to be made for free will.

Sorry if that hurts.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

''Goldberg brings his description of frontal dysfunction to life with insightful accounts of clinical cases. These provide a good description of some of the consequences of damage to frontal areas and the disruption and confusion of behavior that often results. Vladimir, for example, is a patient whose frontal lobes were surgically resectioned after a train accident. As a result, he is unable to form a plan, displays an extreme lack of drive and mental rigidity and is unaware of his disorder. In another account, Toby, a highly intelligent man who suffers from attention deficits and possibly a bipolar disorder, displays many of the behavioral features of impaired frontal lobe function including immaturity, poor foresight and impulsive behavior.''

Note that Vladimir, prior to brain damage, was able to "form a plan" and had the normal "drive" to carry it out. Forming a plan would be Vladimir deciding what he will do. And that drive would be Vladimir following through on that intention that he chose for himself.

Note that Toby suffers from "attention deficit", an inability to sustain conscious attention upon a given task. And that his bipolar disorder results in "poor foresight" and "impulsive behavior". Foresight is a person's ability to be consciously aware of the likely consequences of his actions. And "impulsive behavior" is an inability to exercise a person's normally expected control of their behavior.

Neuroscience is telling us that normally people are able to decide for themselves what they will do, and that their chosen intent motivates and directs their subsequent behavior.

Neuroscience is telling us that normally people consciously attend to the task at hand until it is complete.

Neuroscience is telling us that people normally have the ability to control their behavior, despite their impulses.

DBT, you need to actually listen to what neuroscience is actually telling us.

''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from 'hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states. So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.' - Prof. Richard Taylor

And professor Taylor should not be confusing what the normal brain is capable of, with what the abnormal brain is incapable of.

The normal brain is capable of making choices for itself, forming plans, and attending to those plans until the task is complete.

For example, it's 5pm and the workday is done. We gather at the water cooler and discuss going out for dinner. We decide to go to Ruby Tuesdays. We get in our cars and drive to the restaurant. We sit at the table and consider the many alternate possibilities on the menu. We decide what we will have for dinner. We tell the waiter. He brings us our dinner and our bill. We enjoy conversation and our dinner. On the way out we responsibly pay the cashier for our meals. Having successfully completed our chosen intent to go out for dinner, we go home.

We choose what we will do. That chosen intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions until our freely chosen purpose is resolved by our actions.

 

[DBT]

Intention implies an intender that molds events or conditions according to will or plan. The brain doesn't work like that.

Then how do you account for a couple planning a trip to Delaware where they plan to ride the bicycle trails?

A matter of brain function as it has evolved to acquire and process information and respond in adaptive ways. Or if damaged, not so adaptive ways. A rational system. Rational not equating to free will.

Free will is when that rationality is free to decide what the system will do. But rational control may be impaired or prevented by coercion or undue influence.

A rational system processes information. It doesn't freely will what it does or what it produces. An interaction of information, environment and memory determines action taken in any given instance in time. Information does more than influence, within deterministic system, information determines output or action. Matter/energy carries and conveys information.

There is no need for any kind of free will other than the freedom of the system to decide for itself what it will do in the absence of coercion or other forms of undue influence.

That's an example of careful wording designed to support the proposition of free will. The problem lies in the premises, especially if they don't take the nature of the means of action production into account.

When the rational mechanism is free to do what it normally does, it is freely choosing what the system will do.

Which implies that a computer, being a rational deterministic system, being able to process information and initiate actions, has free will?

... it is the means and mechanisms by which intentions are formed that determines whether we have a legitimate claim to free will, or not.

That depends entirely upon the claim to free will. The claim to free will that most people understand is simply being free of coercion and undue influence when they decide what they will do.

If it was that simple, we would not have centuries of free will debate. Things not being that simple is the reason why some neuroscientists are calling for a review of the justice system, because the common notion of 'free will' is too simplistic.

The electrochemical process of decision making and action begins before the intention forms or is brought to consciousness.

And you think that means something? It doesn't.

But it does. It means that will plays no part in the decision-making process, that will cannot regulate, modify or veto actions that proceed to be brought conscious thought and action.

Not being willed, what claim is there for free will beyond the label?

The fact that unconscious processing is involved in all brain activity does not change the fact that the person is choosing for itself what it will do.

Regulative control is an issue. determined action proceeding freely as determined is not a sufficient foundation for free will...nothing is being freely willed. Determined action necessarily follows determined will without restriction or impediment as determined.

Determinism is a Harsh Mistress.

 

[pood]

You answered, but your answer addressed nothing. You asserted your belief in compatibilism, while dismissing anyone and anything that happens to contradict your belief in it.

Complete nonsense. I did not simply “assert my belief in compatibilism.” I answered your author’s anti-free will claims in detail. How did you miss that? Was it deliberate?

Here, I’ll restate it in bold for emphasis:


The argument that we lack free will because we did not choose our nature or our nurture, and that our decisions are responsive to antecedent inputs, is completely irrelevant to the point at hand. We are not talking about choosing our genes or our upbringing, or the conditions that prevailed at the big bang. Of course we did not choose those things. We are talking about whether we can freely choose what to have for dinner, and many other things besides, that are within our power to choose. I cannot choose the charge on an electron. But I can choose what shirt to put on in the morning.


As I reread what this author wrote, as a matter of fact, it is pretty plain that like Farah and so many others you quoted, his target is really libertarian free will and not compatibilist free will. The compatibilist agrees that we use, indeed depend upon, deterministic inputs to output our actions.


So how did my answer address nothing? I just addressed it again in detail!

Decision making is not a matter of free will. Evidence supports the proposition that the state of the system in any given instance determines the action/decision taken in that instance.

Yes, and since I am the state of my system at any given instance, including consciously and subconsciously, it follows that the “system” that “determines the action/decision taken in that instance” is ME. It’s really that simple.

You make a mistake, for example, the mistake is brought to attention a moment later by new inputs, first one state then the other and so on. Everything being processed prior to being brought to awareness, nothing being freely willed.

Indeed, the mistake is brought to MY attention by new inputs, so that the system that will correct the mistake is ME.

Determined actions freely performed as determined, according to determined will, are not freely willed actions.

Of course they are! You just said it yourself: freely performed. And they are freely performed, if carried out without coercion or impediment.

Not being freely willed actions, there is no case to be made for free will.

Both the author you quote from Psychology Today, and Farah, and now you yourself just above, have made the exact case for compatibilism!

Sorry if that hurts.

I have no personal stake in any of this. If I thought you were right, I’d say so. I obviously think you’re wrong. So when you write snide little personal asides like this, as you do often, I chalk it up to pure projection on your part.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

A rational system processes information.

The reason our brain processes information is to decide upon a course of action. What are my options? Which option is likely to produce the best results? This enables the human species to adapt to a wide variety of environments and creatively solve its daily challenges.

It doesn't freely will what it does or what it produces.

Nobody expects the brain to "choose" how it operates. That stupid riddle really needs to be retired. It is quite sufficient that the brain operates as it does, and makes choices as to what we as persons will do.

An interaction of information, environment and memory determines action taken in any given instance in time. Information does more than influence, within deterministic system, information determines output or action. Matter/energy carries and conveys information.

You know what that sounds like to me? That's an example of careful wording designed to attack the proposition of free will.

The problem lies in the premises, especially if they don't take the nature of the means of action production into account.

The premise is simply this: free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do while free of coercion and undue influence. That is the common understanding of free will. According to the dictionaries, free will is a voluntary, unforced choice. And that is precisely what being free of coercion and undue influence means.

There is no requirement that free will must be "free of the brain" ("the nature of the means of action production"). That is a strawman definition that assumes free will to involve a "soul" or some other supernatural ability or immaterial agent.

But that's not necessary. Our brain is sufficient to produce us and our mental functions just fine on its own. And the brain makes our choices for us, based upon our own genetic dispositions and prior life experiences, our own beliefs and values, our own goals and reasons, our own thoughts and feelings, such that our choice is indeed our own.

The only time this is not the case is when we are coerced or unduly influenced by someone or something else.

If it was that simple, we would not have centuries of free will debate. Things not being that simple is the reason why some neuroscientists are calling for a review of the justice system, because the common notion of 'free will' is too simplistic.

It's a paradox. A paradox is a hoax created by a few false, but believable, suggestions. For example, you created a paradox above when you suggested that, if the brain does not first choose how it operates, then it cannot be said to choose anything else. However, we note that in empirical reality the brain is choosing all kinds of stuff without having first chosen how it operates, but simply by operating as it does.

So, the free will debate is created by a false, but believable, suggestion that, since everything we do can be traced to prior causes, then it must be those prior causes, and not us, that is doing the actual causing. But that is empirically false, because we are still the actual cause of what we do.

A strawman definition of free will, as a choice free of causal necessity, was born of that paradox. And the debate has surrounded that blunder for hundreds of years.

Which implies that a computer, being a rational deterministic system, being able to process information and initiate actions, has free will?

A computer is a machine we created to help us do our will. It has no will of its own. I'm sure I've mentioned this before.

Not being willed, what claim is there for free will beyond the label?

As I've repeatedly pointed out, free will is when we decide for ourselves what we will do while free of coercion and undue influence.

It is an empirical distinction between cases where the cause of a person's action is their own choice, versus a coerced act or an insane or otherwise unduly influenced act.

This is not a meaningless distinction. It is not "just a label". It is how we assess a person's responsibility for their action. It is how we distinguish different causes in order to select the appropriate means of correction.

Regulative control is an issue.

No. It's not. Our brain exercises executive control by choosing what we will do. Simple as that.

Determined action necessarily follows determined will without restriction or impediment as determined.

Yeah, but why should that bother anyone? We expect our actions to follow our chosen will.

Determinism is a Harsh Mistress.

And that would be a delusion.

Determinism only means that the events in our lives follow one upon the other in a natural flow of causes and their effects. And we have significant control over those events by simply choosing what we will do next.

Universal causal necessity is the grandest of all trivialities. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. It is basically, "what we would have done anyway". And that is not a meaningful or relevant constraint.

 

[DBT]

A rational system processes information.

The reason our brain processes information is to decide upon a course of action. What are my options? Which option is likely to produce the best results? This enables the human species to adapt to a wide variety of environments and creatively solve its daily challenges.

Yes, the course of action is determined by an interaction of information, which is not willed or regulated by will. Without the ability to do anything other than what is determined, will has no freedom to do otherwise. Without regulative control, will is not free.

Determined actions must necessarily proceed as determined, which means without coercion, force, impediment or restriction.....if determined actions freely proceed as determined, but not freely willed.

It doesn't freely will what it does or what it produces.

Nobody expects the brain to "choose" how it operates. That stupid riddle really needs to be retired. It is quite sufficient that the brain operates as it does, and makes choices as to what we as persons will do.

The point being; will has no agency when it comes to how the brain functions, the decisions it makes or the actions it initiates, that will has no freedom, it does what is determined. Action follows accordingly.

An interaction of information, environment and memory determines action taken in any given instance in time. Information does more than influence, within deterministic system, information determines output or action. Matter/energy carries and conveys information.

You know what that sounds like to me? That's an example of careful wording designed to attack the proposition of free will.

It's a brief description of how the brain works as a deterministic information processor. I have gone into it in some detail with articles from neuroscience, experiments, etc.

The problem lies in the premises, especially if they don't take the nature of the means of action production into account.

The premise is simply this: free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do while free of coercion and undue influence. That is the common understanding of free will. According to the dictionaries, free will is a voluntary, unforced choice. And that is precisely what being free of coercion and undue influence means.

The brain actuates options based on an interaction of information, not will, not free will. It's not a matter of will. Information processing is performed by neural networks without coercion or force, according to neural architecture and memory content (the brain's software), not will, not free will.

There is no requirement that free will must be "free of the brain" ("the nature of the means of action production"). That is a strawman definition that assumes free will to involve a "soul" or some other supernatural ability or immaterial agent.

Will that has no agency has no freedom. A prisoner in a cell doing what he is instructed, without the option to do otherwise, is not free.

Will without agency (the ability to regulate) or control is not free will.

It's a paradox. A paradox is a hoax created by a few false, but believable, suggestions. For example, you created a paradox above when you suggested that, if the brain does not first choose how it operates, then it cannot be said to choose anything else.

That's not a paradox. Brain state and condition in any instance in time determines output in that instance in time, simple as that

However, we note that in empirical reality the brain is choosing all kinds of stuff without having first chosen how it operates, but simply by operating as it does.So, the free will debate is created by a false, but believable, suggestion that, since everything we do can be traced to prior causes, then it must be those prior causes, and not us, that is doing the actual causing. But that is empirically false, because we are still the actual cause of what we do.A strawman definition of free will, as a choice free of causal necessity, was born of that paradox. And the debate has surrounded that blunder for hundreds of years.

How it operates is determined by genetics and environment, what the brain decides, thinks, feels or does is determined by.....it's state and condition in any instance in time;

''Every moment of the day your nervous system is active. It exchanges millions of signals corresponding with feeling, thoughts and actions. A simple example of how important the nervous system is in your behavior is meeting a friend.
First, the visual information of your eyes is sent to your brain by nervous cells. There the information is interpreted and translated into a signal to take action. Finally the brain sends a command to your voice or to another action system like muscles or glands. For example, you may start walking towards him. Your nervous system enables this rapid recognition and action. ''


Despite the complexity of the process, this is quite rapid in recognition and action. 160 to 215 milliseconds for auditory and visual response, and 500 milliseconds for higher order decision making.


Reaction time (RT) is the elapsed time between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response. RT is often used in experimental psychology to measure the duration of mental operations, an area of research known as mental chronometry. The behavioral response is typically a button press but can also be an eye movement, a vocal response, or some other observable behavior.

RT is fastest when there is only one possible response (simple reaction time) and becomes slower as additional response options are added (choice reaction time). According to Hick's law, choice reaction time increases in proportion to the logarithm of the number of response alternatives. The law is usually expressed by the formula RT = a + blog2(n + 1), where a and b are constants representing the intercept and slope of the function, and n is the number of alternatives.[1]

Reaction time is quickest for young adults and gradually slows down with age. It can be improved with practice, up to a point, and it declines under conditions of fatigue and distractions.''

 

[DBT]

BTW, I'm no longer responding to three posters and multiple lengthy posts. Not enough free time in the day to repeat what has already been said too many times by both sides.

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes, the course of action is determined by an interaction of information, which is not willed or regulated by will.

Assertion, bald and suspect.

A prisoner in a cell doing what he is instructed, without the option to do otherwise, is not free

see, this is where you fall off the rails: You, being what you are, are capable of not doing "what you are instructed", but rather "what you instruct of yourself.

Just like when instructed to react in a particular way to a threat, I can say "no", exercise "will: the force by which overcomes instructions from the normal instruction stream" and insert different instructions.

Do you really think you have no control over that?

I accept you might be a prisoner of the Chinese room. The solution to that is to make an attempt to learn Chinese. I don't know that you can, in this metaphor, but you can try.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Yes, the course of action is determined by an interaction of information, which is not willed or regulated by will. Without the ability to do anything other than what is determined, will has no freedom to do otherwise. Without regulative control, will is not free.

Then you do not understand freedom, regulative control, will, or even that ability to do otherwise. So, let me recap:

1. Freedom is the general ability to do what we want. A specific freedom is a specific ability, for example, I have the ability to choose any item from the restaurant menu. This ability can be easily demonstrated by simply ordering one of each item on the menu. However, this will not be free of charge, because to order an item also means that I must pay for it. Which brings us to specific things that we can be free of. The lack of funds would limit my freedom to order everything on the menu. But if we all chipped in, I would be free of that constraint.

Any meaningful use of the term "free" or "freedom" must imply or explicitly state the meaningful constraint that one expects to be "free from", or "free of". In this case, by taking up a collection, I was freed of the cost constraint.

Free will is the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do. This ability comes with our intelligent brain. The mechanisms of how the brain goes about choosing what we will order for dinner is being studied by neuroscientists. But every neuroscientist agrees that it actually is our own brain that is doing the deciding. And that is sufficient for understanding free will.

Free will is a choice we make for ourselves that is free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. That is all that is required for free will to be a meaningful and relevant concept. Nothing more. Nothing less.

2. Regulative control is us (our own brain) deciding what we will do next. Will we order the steak? Or, will we order the salad? Because we had bacon and eggs for breakfast, and a double cheeseburger for lunch, we decide we will order the salad for dinner. And that is us (our own brain) exercising regulative control over what happens next. What the chef prepares for dinner is regulated and controlled by our own choice. That which decides what will happen next is exercising control.

3. "Will" is our deliberate intention to do something. That intention then motivates and directs our subsequent actions. When we decided to have dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, that intention motivated us to get in our cars, drive to Ruby Tuesdays, enter the restaurant, sit at the table, pick up the menu, and choose what we would have for dinner. Then we enjoyed our dinner and responsibly paid the cashier on the way out. We completed our intention to have dinner at Ruby Tuesday at that point. But all of our actions from the point of decision to paying the cashier was motivated and directed by our deliberately chosen will.

4. The ability to do otherwise never requires that we actually do otherwise. It only requires that, should we choose to do otherwise, that we actually had the ability to do so. We could not order items that were not on the menu. But we could order any or all of the items listed.

Determined actions must necessarily proceed as determined, which means without coercion, force, impediment or restriction.....if determined actions freely proceed as determined, but not freely willed.

I'm sorry, but that is too garbled to respond to directly.

The truth of the matter is that every event is always reliably caused by prior events. Period. Empirical events which we've actually observed to be included in these strings of causation include choices free of coercion and undue influence, coerced choices, unduly influenced choices, forced actions, restricted actions, regulative control, etc. No real events can ever be excluded by the concept of deterministic causal necessity. Period. To exclude any real event from the causal chain falsifies determinism.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

BTW, I'm no longer responding to three posters and multiple lengthy posts. Not enough free time in the day to repeat what has already been said too many times by both sides.

I don't blame you. Usually, as a compatibilist, I find myself the lonely poster trying to keep up with multiple conversations. It ain't easy. At least this is a better forum than most. Over at Reddit you end up having to repeat yourself because the threads get isolated. But here, we have more of a bulletin board format, where it's easier to read multiple threads.

Anyway, take care of yourself, and take a break when needed. There's no rule that you have to respond to everyone all the time.

 

[DBT]

Yes, the course of action is determined by an interaction of information, which is not willed or regulated by will.

Assertion, bald and suspect.

Nonsense, pure and simple. I have supported what I said numerous times, quotes, links, studies, analysis by experts in the field, et, etc....so I'm not going to keep providing information from neuroscience that you are clearly not able to understand, or grasp the implications of.

Just keep repeating, ''it is the agent doing it to themselves, as an execution of the will,'' over and over without actually understanding what it is you say, how it works, the implications or the references of the claim, the nature of this 'agent' or 'an execution of will.'

 

[DBT]

Yes, the course of action is determined by an interaction of information, which is not willed or regulated by will. Without the ability to do anything other than what is determined, will has no freedom to do otherwise. Without regulative control, will is not free.

Then you do not understand freedom, regulative control, will, or even that ability to do otherwise. So, let me recap:

Sorry, have to disagree, I think I do understand.

1. Freedom is the general ability to do what we want. A specific freedom is a specific ability, for example, I have the ability to choose any item from the restaurant menu. This ability can be easily demonstrated by simply ordering one of each item on the menu. However, this will not be free of charge, because to order an item also means that I must pay for it. Which brings us to specific things that we can be free of. The lack of funds would limit my freedom to order everything on the menu. But if we all chipped in, I would be free of that constraint.

The ability to do what we want is enabled by the process that determines what we want. The action, being determined, necessarily follows from what we want. Being determined, the action necessarily proceeds unimpeded and uncoerced. as determined but not freely willed.

Prior causes;
''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X.

Any meaningful use of the term "free" or "freedom" must imply or explicitly state the meaningful constraint that one expects to be "free from", or "free of". In this case, by taking up a collection, I was freed of the cost constraint.

Inner necessitation comes up again;
''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '

Free will is the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do. This ability comes with our intelligent brain. The mechanisms of how the brain goes about choosing what we will order for dinner is being studied by neuroscientists. But every neuroscientist agrees that it actually is our own brain that is doing the deciding. And that is sufficient for understanding free will.

Free will in this instance is a label being applied the 'freedom to decide for ourselves' without any regard to how 'we decide for ourselves'

The output of our brain is determined by state and condition, not will. If will has no agency, that actions follow states, there is no claim to be made for free will. Nothing is being freely willed. Will is attached to an article, the will to indulge in Chocolate or whatever, in opposition to the will to refrain for health reasons. One will in conflict with the other, neither free because they are part and parcel of the urges being generated by past pleasures and availability causing temptation.

Free will? Nah. Just the process of cognition and action.

Free will is a choice we make for ourselves that is free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. That is all that is required for free will to be a meaningful and relevant concept. Nothing more. Nothing less.

There is no choice but brain agency and state. The brain is the sole agency of thought and action. Thought and action being the output of information processing.

The ''choice we make for ourselves' is determined by a process, an activity beyond the control of our conscious self, our awareness or the agency of our will.
We - specifically the brain - necessarily choose what we prefer. Our choice, brain state and condition in that moment, represents precisely what we prefer at the moment that a choice is made....with, of course, no alternate action possible.

''An action’s production by a deterministic process, even when the agent satisfies the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists, presents no less of a challenge to basic-desert responsibility than does deterministic manipulation by other agents. '