Compatibilism: What's that About?

[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.

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.'

Two things here: I do not need to explain the mechanism to point to a phenomena.

I do not need to explain the mechanism of a processor to point to the phenomena of it's execution of a will, to indicate the will, to indicate the agent. They are right there, painfully obvious and concrete for all the world to see. Well, all the world except those who bury their faces in the sand because.

You are attempting to use neuroscience to say "the observed phenomena has not been observed, it's a fake phenomena" when the phenomena I'm pointing to is a on a native simple Turing Machine, not even a neural network.

Sorry, have to disagree, I think I do understand

So, Dunning-Kruger is it, then?

The ability to do what we want is enabled by the process that determines what we want.

Wow, now YOU are the dualist here.

No, the ability to do what we want is determined by the process of the rest of nature either giving that as a result of our actions or not.

The action, being determined, necessarily follows from what we want.

No, it follows not from what we want but from what happens of causal necessity.

The will hits the causally necessary action of the agent against that will (it must process the will).

The result of that produces a signal on nerves that then hits the causal necessity of the transport nerve behavior.

The result of that hits the causal necessity of the muscle's reactions.

The muscles' reactions hit the causal necessity of the doorknob's inoperable mechanism.

The doorknob's inoperable mechanism hits the causal necessity of the nerves of the hand.

The nerves of the hand hit the causal necessity of the nerves of the arm and spine, that hits the causal necessity of the agent again which causally necessitates a comparison by the agent which by causal necessity must compare the result to the result in the will which by causal necessity either dumps a "1 or a 0" in so many neural scintilations which then due to the causal necessity of the agents action either finishes executing that will and loads a new one to tantrum, again by causal necessity, or continues down the hall to murder some folks.

And so depending on whether the person in question continues down the hall to murder some folks, or whether they throw the tantrum, is the causally necessary result of "whether their will was 'free' or 'constrained'" in the causally necessary result.

Anyway, it appears your posts have some Dunning-Kruger effect in them.

Maybe you should take FDI's advice and stop trying to do metaphysics? Not because Sabine says you shouldn't but because your posts drip of really BAD metaphysics, and I don't see you getting out of your Chinese room any time soon.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The ability to do what we want is enabled by the process that determines what we want.

The process that determines what we want begins with the biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. The physical needs for air, water, food, shelter, and a mate are the driving forces of all living organisms.

On top of that we have the evolved brain that is capable of imagining alternate ways of satisfying those needs, and choosing what the body will actually be doing to meet them.

The action, being determined, necessarily follows from what we want.

In some cases the action follows from what we want, but in most cases the action follows from what we have decided we will do.

Being determined, the action necessarily proceeds unimpeded and uncoerced.

But what about those events where the action is impeded or the action is coerced? How is it that your determinism excludes these events from the causal chain? And if you exclude these events, how is your determinism true determinism?

as determined but not freely willed.

But what about those events where the person chooses what they will do? You know, all that "decision-making" that the neuroscientists tell us the brain is doing? -- We know they are not free from causal necessity, but they can certainly be free from coercion and undue influence.

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.

No. It is not just desire. If it were, then the desire to kill and the desire to rape would already have removed you from the scene. Intelligent species actually choose which desires they will satisfy, and when and how they will go about doing it.

Inner necessitation comes up again;

The inner necessitation for any deliberate act is the act of deliberation that precedes it. A deliberate act is chosen, you know, by that "decision-making" that neuroscience tells us the brain is doing.

''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. '

Hmm. Please explain what you mean by that (I suspect you do not know).

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'

Without any regard? Actually, we've extensively discussed how the brain decides things. We touched on the frontal cortex, the motor cortex, the vast collection of specialized modules and how they compete and cooperate, many of the illnesses and injuries to the brain and how they affect behavior, the involvement of both unconscious and conscious processes, our narrator function, etc. etc. etc.

The output of our brain is determined by state and condition, not will.

But despite that extensive discussion of the brain, you still do not admit that "will" happens to be one of those "states and conditions" of the brain!

Will begins with the biological needs and is refined by intelligence to a specific motivation to do something, to take some specific action.

If will has no agency,

Will IS the brain's agency. Decision making is the prior cause of a specific will to do something.

that actions follow states, there is no claim to be made for free will. Nothing is being freely willed.

Free will is about whether the decision making, that formed the specific will, was free of coercion and undue influence.

You seem to be clinging to a naïve notion of free will, where "freely willed" refers to some entity untethered to the real world and immune to causation. That ain't free will.

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.

No. It is desire, not will, that is attached to an article, like chocolate. It is desire, not will, that is attached to a goal, like good health. Your will is what you decide to do about those two desires.

It is a simple, but essential distinction, between desire and 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.

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.

You should know better than that by now. It is certainly determined by a process, but that deterministic process will include both conscious and unconscious processing.

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.

Yes. And there is no alternative to the fact that during the choosing process we will have at least two alternative possibilities to choose from. They are required by logical necessity, and guaranteed by causal necessity to appear as mental events.

''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. '

And what is that quote about? What does the author consider to be "the conditions on moral responsibility specified by compatibilists"?

The conditions for moral responsibility are that the person acted deliberately of their own free will (free of coercion and other forms of undue influence). The "deterministic manipulation by other agents" would be coercion, and certainly not free will.

 

[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.'

Two things here: I do not need to explain the mechanism to point to a phenomena.

I do not need to explain the mechanism of a processor to point to the phenomena of it's execution of a will, to indicate the will, to indicate the agent. They are right there, painfully obvious and concrete for all the world to see. Well, all the world except those who bury their faces in the sand because.

You are attempting to use neuroscience to say "the observed phenomena has not been observed, it's a fake phenomena" when the phenomena I'm pointing to is a on a native simple Turing Machine, not even a neural network.

Sorry, have to disagree, I think I do understand

So, Dunning-Kruger is it, then?

The ability to do what we want is enabled by the process that determines what we want.

Wow, now YOU are the dualist here.

No, the ability to do what we want is determined by the process of the rest of nature either giving that as a result of our actions or not.

The action, being determined, necessarily follows from what we want.

No, it follows not from what we want but from what happens of causal necessity.

The will hits the causally necessary action of the agent against that will (it must process the will).

The result of that produces a signal on nerves that then hits the causal necessity of the transport nerve behavior.

The result of that hits the causal necessity of the muscle's reactions.

The muscles' reactions hit the causal necessity of the doorknob's inoperable mechanism.

The doorknob's inoperable mechanism hits the causal necessity of the nerves of the hand.

The nerves of the hand hit the causal necessity of the nerves of the arm and spine, that hits the causal necessity of the agent again which causally necessitates a comparison by the agent which by causal necessity must compare the result to the result in the will which by causal necessity either dumps a "1 or a 0" in so many neural scintilations which then due to the causal necessity of the agents action either finishes executing that will and loads a new one to tantrum, again by causal necessity, or continues down the hall to murder some folks.

And so depending on whether the person in question continues down the hall to murder some folks, or whether they throw the tantrum, is the causally necessary result of "whether their will was 'free' or 'constrained'" in the causally necessary result.

Anyway, it appears your posts have some Dunning-Kruger effect in them.

Maybe you should take FDI's advice and stop trying to do metaphysics? Not because Sabine says you shouldn't but because your posts drip of really BAD metaphysics, and I don't see you getting out of your Chinese room any time soon.

Whenever you say ''Dunning Kruger,'' Sweetie, gaze into your nice shiny mirror and repeat the term over and over like a mantra in the hope of curing your affliction, vain though the hope may be.

Meanwhile:

''So Harris says to Dennett: we have no control over how or why we desire what we desire — we simply experience these desires. And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’?

Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy.

In Harris's view, therefore, compatibilists like Dennett do not address the root issues surrounding free will, rather they change the subject by redefining what it means to be free, and by extending our idea of agency.''

Now run along and fetch your shiny little mirror.

You don't like that? Well, Sweetie, you seem happy enough to dish it out.

 

[DBT]

The ability to do what we want is enabled by the process that determines what we want.

The process that determines what we want begins with the biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. The physical needs for air, water, food, shelter, and a mate are the driving forces of all living organisms.

On top of that we have the evolved brain that is capable of imagining alternate ways of satisfying those needs, and choosing what the body will actually be doing to meet them.

Imagining alternate ways of doing things, pattern recognition, projection, doesn't entail alternate action in any given instance in time.

Within a deterministic system, the world, the brain, information is fixed by antecedents in each and every instance in time.

Therefore, the decision your brain makes in this instance in time is the only possible decision it can make, followed by the only possible action that can be taken.

That is determinism at work, and we are talking about determinism

The action, being determined, necessarily follows from what we want.

In some cases the action follows from what we want, but in most cases the action follows from what we have decided we will do.

The brain processes information and actuates the result, needs, wants, cost to benefit for this action over that action, impulses, reflex actions, etc....the state of the brain is the state of us.

Will has no control in that fundamental underlying level of production.

Being determined, the action necessarily proceeds unimpeded and uncoerced.

But what about those events where the action is impeded or the action is coerced? How is it that your determinism excludes these events from the causal chain? And if you exclude these events, how is your determinism true determinism?

It's all information input. Somebody has a gun at your head, the brain acquires and processes that information and generates a response;
a modest sum of cash not worth risking your life over, you hand your wallet over, a rational response.

Perhaps a Macho Man, full of bravado, testosterone, feeling outraged, anger and resentment, responds irrationally, fights back and gets shot.

The state of the brain is the state of us, rational, irrational, logical, illogical, the moment of challenge produces the action in that moment.

as determined but not freely willed.

But what about those events where the person chooses what they will do? You know, all that "decision-making" that the neuroscientists tell us the brain is doing? -- We know they are not free from causal necessity, but they can certainly be free from coercion and undue influence.

The brain is the sole means of decision making, the person is and does what the brain is doing, the state of its network, chemical balance, memory content...which informs consciousness, self, response and behaviour, where, if it totally fails, we cease to exist intelligent conscious beings.

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.

No. It is not just desire. If it were, then the desire to kill and the desire to rape would already have removed you from the scene. Intelligent species actually choose which desires they will satisfy, and when and how they will go about doing it.

No, desires are formed unconsciously, then brought to consciousness. It's the same with everything we experience. Information processing informs conscious activity while conscious activity is being generated. Thoughts come to mind as they are being produced by that underlying process.

Plus in this instance, regarding the quote, the word 'desire' just represents wants, urges, impulses, prompt, etc, or the will to act. The will to act being related to the action, eat chocolate/don't eat chocolate, I need to go for a walk/ I don't feel like walking, etc...

Inner necessitation comes up again;

The inner necessitation for any deliberate act is the act of deliberation that precedes it. A deliberate act is chosen, you know, by that "decision-making" that neuroscience tells us the brain is doing.

Prior to deliberation is information input, distribution of information, processing, then the conscious experience of thought and deliberation based on the prior processing milliseconds later, being the physics of cognition, always later.

''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. '

Hmm. Please explain what you mean by that (I suspect you do not know).

I have been explaining it. Non chosen brain state, which is inner necessitation as the process that determines the action.

Or as Harris puts it;

''Harris says to Dennett: we have no control over how or why we desire what we desire — we simply experience these desires. And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’?

Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy

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.

Again, from the article;

''Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

''So Harris says to Dennett: we have no control over how or why we desire what we desire — we simply experience these desires. And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’?

And with that question a paradox is born. It is similar to the deception I described in my blogpost Free Will: What's Wrong, and How to Fix It:

Deception #1 – Bait and Switch

The initial deception goes like this: “If everything I do is causally inevitable, then how can it be said that my will is free?”

Did you notice what just happened? The definition of free will just got switched from a choice “free of coercion and undue influence” to a choice “free of causal necessity”.

The correct answer to the deception is that there is no such thing as “freedom from causal necessity”. Causal necessity is logically derived from the presumption of reliable cause and effect. So, what does it mean to be “free from reliable cause and effect”? Well, for one thing, you could never reliably cause any effect, which means you would no longer have any freedom to do anything at all. Every freedom that we have requires a world of reliable causation.

So, freedom from causation is an irrational concept. One cannot be “free” of the very mechanisms by which all of our freedoms operate. And because it is irrational, it may not be used as the definition of anything. Yet this irrational definition of free will is the one that is used in the philosophical debate!

The bait-and-switch question itself, like a Chinese Finger Trap, is a hoax. And yet many scientists and philosophers have fallen for it. The cure is simple. Don’t be tricked into substituting an irrational definition for one that is operationally meaningful and relevant.

In the case of Harris's question to Dennett, "And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’", we are presented with another question that comes with a presumption. In trying to answer such a question, we are seduced into accepting its premise, that one must be free of one's own unconscious functions before one can be free.

The premise is false, of course. We are never free of any part of our own brain, conscious or unconscious. So, if you accept the premise that all our freedoms require freedom from our own brain, then all freedoms disappear. The premise of the question creates an absurdity, but it is not recognized as such because it is hidden in the form of a seemingly innocent question.

And that is how we get seduced into a paradox. Consider, for example, Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. They are to have a race. The tortoise is very slow and Achilles is the fastest runner in Greece. So, Achilles decides to give the tortoise a significant head start. Then Achilles begins running to where the tortoise is. But when he gets there, the tortoise has also made some progress and is no longer there. So, Achilles begins running to where the tortoise is now. But, again, when he gets there, the tortoise has also moved farther along. So, how can Achilles ever catch the tortoise?

Another paradox involves getting from our chair to the door. Before we can get to the door, we must first get halfway to the door. But, before we can get halfway to the door, we must first get halfway to the halfway point. But, before we can get there, we must get halfway to that point. But, before we can get there ... Thus, we have an infinite number of points to pass through on our way to the door. So, how is it possible to get from our chair to the door?

Anyway. You get the idea. A paradox is created by a believable but false suggestion. And Sam Harris creates such a paradox by redefining freedom as to require freedom from our own unconscious processes.

Dennett is not the one who is redefining freedom, Harris is.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Imagining alternate ways of doing things, pattern recognition, projection, doesn't entail alternate action in any given instance in time.

Correct! There is no alternate path that gets us around the causal necessity of imagining alternative options and choosing between them.

I'm sorry if this notion is a bit too subtle for you to grasp, but it is the key that you've yet to find on your own keyring. And it's right there in front of you.

Within a deterministic system, the world, the brain, information is fixed by antecedents in each and every instance in time.

Absolutely!

Therefore, the decision your brain makes in this instance in time is the only possible decision it can make...

Oops. Incorrect. The decision is simply the single inevitable choice that the brain will actually make given its antecedent causes. But it is not the only "possible" decision that it "can" make. It is simply the only decision that it "will" make.

Among the antecedents causes of the inevitable choice were the multiple possibilities that the brain considered on its way to making that single inevitable choice. And the brain had to believe, as a logical truth, that it could choose each and every one of those possibilities. This is the nature of the term "could". Unlike the word "would", "could" represents a possibility that may or may not be realized depending upon how things work out. And the fact that the possibility did not happen never implies that it could not have happened.

As has been pointed out before, "could have happened" always implies (1) that it did not happen and (2) that it only would have happened under different circumstances (in this case, the specific implication would be a different set of antecedent causes).

What we "can" do constrains what we "will" do, because if we cannot do it then we will not do it.

What we "will" do never constrains what we "can" do. What we "can" do is only constrained by our imagination and our capability of carrying it out, if we choose to do so.

That is determinism at work, and we are talking about determinism.

There are ways of talking about determinism that make sense, and other ways that do not make sense.

For example, "determinism at work" does not make sense, because determinism never performs any work. It never causes any effects. It is not itself an object or a force or an event. And it is certainly not a causal agent.

The actual causes of the inevitable choice were its antecedent events. These events included: (1) us encountering an problem that required a choice between two or more options, (2) then considering the likely outcomes of each choice, then, based on that consideration, (3) choosing the specific thing that we would do.

There is no path that gets you around these events, because they are each and every one causally necessary in order to produce the single inevitable choice.

Thus, determinism holds true, and, inevitably, it also holds real possibilities.

The brain processes information and actuates the result, needs, wants, cost to benefit for this action over that action, impulses, reflex actions, etc....the state of the brain is the state of us.

And, one of those "states of the brain" happens to be us holding onto a deliberately chosen intention until we have carried it out.

The brain is the sole means of decision making, the person is and does what the brain is doing, the state of its network, chemical balance, memory content...which informs consciousness, self, response and behaviour, where, if it totally fails, we cease to exist intelligent conscious beings.

Damn straight. And, the brain has this handy narrator function that explains to itself and others what it is doing and why. This allows us to describe, at least symbolically, those inner experiences that arouse conscious awareness.

Plus in this instance, regarding the quote, the word 'desire' just represents wants, urges, impulses, prompt, etc, or the will to act. The will to act being related to the action, eat chocolate/don't eat chocolate, I need to go for a walk/ I don't feel like walking, etc...

That's the point I'm trying to make. The will to act is the driving force behind the acting. The desire to act is something we may think about before acting upon it. You desire to eat chocolate and you desire to eat healthy. Choosing one desire sets the will upon satisfying that desire. You "desire" both, but you "will" only one. Same for walking/not walking, and any other conflict between two desires.

Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy

We are responsible for our voluntary, deliberate, willful actions. It is the action for which we will be praised or blamed, approved or disapproved, emulated or castigated. It is the action that evidences our good will or our ill will toward others.

We know that a person's behavior is affected by our responses to that behavior. And we know that we are consciously aware of each other's behavior and each other's responses.

If unconscious processes actually were the authors of our behavior, then the same processes that modify behavior at the conscious level must also pass this effect onto the unconscious layers, because we can observe behavior changes through counseling, a conscious process.

We need not concern ourselves with these unconscious processes so long as we can effectively address them at the level of consciousness. We cannot "get at them" any other way. The only other way to affect the unconscious processes is through surgery, medication, or electroshock therapy.

Again, from the article;
''Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy.

My God, Sam Harris sounds like a total clown.

 

[DBT]

''So Harris says to Dennett: we have no control over how or why we desire what we desire — we simply experience these desires. And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’?

And with that question a paradox is born. It is similar to the deception I described in my blogpost Free Will: What's Wrong, and How to Fix It:

I've read that site. I see it as an attempt to salvage free will through careful wording and use of terms and references. I guess that's what it comes down to in the end.

Deception #1 – Bait and Switch

The initial deception goes like this: “If everything I do is causally inevitable, then how can it be said that my will is free?”

Did you notice what just happened? The definition of free will just got switched from a choice “free of coercion and undue influence” to a choice “free of causal necessity”.

The thing is, a determined system entails everything being causally inevitable. That is the very nature and definition of determinism.

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Being free of coercion doesn't alter the causal inevitability of will and action.

The correct answer to the deception is that there is no such thing as “freedom from causal necessity”. Causal necessity is logically derived from the presumption of reliable cause and effect. So, what does it mean to be “free from reliable cause and effect”? Well, for one thing, you could never reliably cause any effect, which means you would no longer have any freedom to do anything at all. Every freedom that we have requires a world of reliable causation.

That's an example of careful wording coming into play. It is causal necessitation that negates freedom of will. Determined events are far more than mere 'reliable causation' - which gives the impression of reliable control where none exists - they are fixed by antecedents.

Fixed means no other possibility, just what is determined, not willed. Will doesn't regulate events, events regulate will. Will is fixed by antecedent events.

So, freedom from causation is an irrational concept. One cannot be “free” of the very mechanisms by which all of our freedoms operate. And because it is irrational, it may not be used as the definition of anything. Yet this irrational definition of free will is the one that is used in the philosophical debate!

The bait-and-switch question itself, like a Chinese Finger Trap, is a hoax. And yet many scientists and philosophers have fallen for it. The cure is simple. Don’t be tricked into substituting an irrational definition for one that is operationally meaningful and relevant.

In the case of Harris's question to Dennett, "And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’", we are presented with another question that comes with a presumption. In trying to answer such a question, we are seduced into accepting its premise, that one must be free of one's own unconscious functions before one can be free.

The premise is false, of course. We are never free of any part of our own brain, conscious or unconscious. So, if you accept the premise that all our freedoms require freedom from our own brain, then all freedoms disappear. The premise of the question creates an absurdity, but it is not recognized as such because it is hidden in the form of a seemingly innocent question.

And that is how we get seduced into a paradox. Consider, for example, Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. They are to have a race. The tortoise is very slow and Achilles is the fastest runner in Greece. So, Achilles decides to give the tortoise a significant head start. Then Achilles begins running to where the tortoise is. But when he gets there, the tortoise has also made some progress and is no longer there. So, Achilles begins running to where the tortoise is now. But, again, when he gets there, the tortoise has also moved farther along. So, how can Achilles ever catch the tortoise?

Another paradox involves getting from our chair to the door. Before we can get to the door, we must first get halfway to the door. But, before we can get halfway to the door, we must first get halfway to the halfway point. But, before we can get there, we must get halfway to that point. But, before we can get there ... Thus, we have an infinite number of points to pass through on our way to the door. So, how is it possible to get from our chair to the door?

Anyway. You get the idea. A paradox is created by a believable but false suggestion. And Sam Harris creates such a paradox by redefining freedom as to require freedom from our own unconscious processes.

Dennett is not the one who is redefining freedom, Harris is.

Freedom from causation is an irrational concept. That is the point. Freedom, by definition, requires alternate possibilities and regulative power, that will can do something to make a difference.

If will has no regulative control, cannot do anything other than what is determined and cannot make a difference to determined actions.....how is it free? Clearly will is not free.

And of course, non coerced actions do not entail free will for the reasons already given.

It's not a matter of being 'free from our brain' - which is of course impossible - but that the nature of determinism and the brain as a deterministic system doesn't permit free will.

We cannot be 'free from our brain,' nobody has claimed that we can.

 

[The AntiChris]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

 

[DBT]

Imagining alternate ways of doing things, pattern recognition, projection, doesn't entail alternate action in any given instance in time.

Correct! There is no alternate path that gets us around the causal necessity of imagining alternative options and choosing between them.

I'm sorry if this notion is a bit too subtle for you to grasp, but it is the key that you've yet to find on your own keyring. And it's right there in front of you.

You miss an important detail; necessitation, which means options are determined, not freely willed or chosen. The action that is realized being the only possible action.

Within a deterministic system, the world, the brain, information is fixed by antecedents in each and every instance in time.

Absolutely!

Right. Which means fixed, not freely willed.

More;


''My position is that free will is only a perception—our interpretation of how we experience our actions in the world. No evidence can be found for the common view that it is a function of our brains that causes behavior. I will make my argument based on research about making “voluntary” movements for two reasons. First, I am a neurologist, specifically a motor physiologist. Second, movements are easily measured. While other, more complex decisions, such as what I choose for dinner, also can be viewed as influenced by free will, I suspect that they will turn out to be analogous to movement. Anyway, such decisions often eventually manifest in movement of some kind, perhaps reaching for the cookbook or a take-out menu.

I do not doubt that I feel strongly that I have freedom of choice. And I suspect most humans have the same feeling as I do, even though I can’t assess this directly. But, of course, this feeling of free will is the case only when I think about it, since most of the time I just go about my business, more or less on automatic pilot. My feeling that I have free will is a subjective perception, an element of my consciousness that philosophers call a “quale.” We do not understand The answers to these questions are easy only for the dualist, who believes in a mind separate from the brain and who thinks that free will comes from the mind.

''Consciousness can be deceptive, so is it possible that our sense of W, of willing a movement, is incorrect in regard to when it actually happened in the brain? A number of experiments have explored this. The results show that, first, W is not strongly linked to the time of movement onset, so whatever is going on in the brain at time W cannot be responsible for movement genesis.1 Moreover, the brain event of W may even be later than we subjectively report. This should not be a complete surprise since humans “live in the past”—certainly perception of a real-world event has to be subsequent to its actual occurrence, since it takes time (albeit very little time) for the brain to process sensory information about the event. A recent experiment showed that it was possible to manipulate the conscious awareness of willing a movement by delivering a transcranial magnetic stimulus to the area of the brain just in front of the supplementary motor area after the movement had already occurred.3 This suggests that the brain events of W may occur even after the movement.

If free will does not generate movement, what does?

Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex. The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do. ''

Therefore, the decision your brain makes in this instance in time is the only possible decision it can make...

Oops. Incorrect. The decision is simply the single inevitable choice that the brain will actually make given its antecedent causes. But it is not the only "possible" decision that it "can" make. It is simply the only decision that it "will" make.

As the decision that the brain will make is determined, which means fixed, with no possible alternate action, it is the only action that can be taken. What will be chosen must necessarily be chosen.

Sorry, that's the nature of determinism.

Again, from the article;
''Besides, if our free agency extends to decisions made by unconscious neural networks in our brain, as Dennett posits, does this mean it also includes the ‘decisions’ made by other organs we have no awareness of, like our digestive tracts, livers, and kidneys? As Harris states:

To say that you are responsible for everything that goes on inside your skin because it's all ‘you’ is to make a claim that bears absolutely no relationship to the feelings of agency and moral responsibility that have made the idea of free will an enduring problem for philosophy.

My God, Sam Harris sounds like a total clown.

Not really. You may have missed the point. Some compatibilists claim that because whatever the brain is doing and it is 'us doing it,' that this is sufficient, that because it is 'us' - the person, brain, mind - acting without coercion, this qualifies as free will.

Harris fairly points out that we as conscious people have no more responsibility for what goes on in 'our' brain than what is happening in our other organs (we don't choose arrythmia, blocked arteries, kidney failure, indigestion or whatever). Yet what goes on within our brain determines who we are, how we think and what we do.

If we are not responsible for goes on in our brain, we are not ultimately responsible for our thoughts and actions.

Neuroscience seeks review of the law to reflect these findings....citations and quotes have been provided.

 

[DBT]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

Incompatibilism: The notion of Free Will is incompatible with determinism.

 

[The AntiChris]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

Incompatibilism: The notion of Free Will is incompatible with determinism.

Sorry, I don't understand your response.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

''So Harris says to Dennett: we have no control over how or why we desire what we desire — we simply experience these desires. And how does passively witnessing our unconscious workings in any way constitute ‘freedom’?

And with that question a paradox is born. It is similar to the deception I described in my blogpost Free Will: What's Wrong, and How to Fix It:

I've read that site. I see it as an attempt to salvage free will through careful wording and use of terms and references. I guess that's what it comes down to in the end.

But careful wording is required whenever a paradox is created through careless wording. For example, the notion that determinism has any kind of causal agency results from careless wording. And the notion that we "could not have done otherwise" is a careless conflation of "can" and "will", which has become so ingrained in victims of the paradox that they can no longer make the relevant distinction.

So, yes, using words with care is essential to keeping touch with empirical reality and avoiding falling into mythical thinking. On the mythical thinking side, we find people arguing that we are not making the decisions that control our deliberate actions, but that something else, something other than us, is making those decisions. And yet they are blind to the absurdity of this notion. That is the power of a paradox.

The thing is, a determined system entails everything being causally inevitable. That is the very nature and definition of determinism.

Yes, it is!

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Very easily, by simply specifying what it is you claim to be "free of". For example, a bird can be set free "from its cage". That same bird is not free from causal inevitability. Nevertheless, the bird is now free to fly off to wherever he wants. He is free to build a nest. He is free to find a mate and he is free to find food for the family. He has all kinds of freedoms, without ever being free from causal inevitability.

Being free of coercion doesn't alter the causal inevitability of will and action.

Correct! But being free of coercion means we are free to decide for ourselves what we will do, rather than being required to do what the guy with a gun says. In choosing what we will do, we can be free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. While we are never free of causal inevitability, we are still free to choose for ourselves where we will live, what car we will drive, who we will marry, what we will have for dinner, and pretty much every other freedom that we had always enjoyed before we had ever heard of determinism or causal inevitability.

The fact of determinism and causal inevitability never removes any of our freedoms, except one: freedom from causal inevitability. And, as it turns out, we have no need for that specific freedom. You see, what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, doing what we do, and choosing what we choose. It is basically, "what we would have done anyway", and that is not a meaningful constraint.

The correct answer to the deception is that there is no such thing as “freedom from causal necessity”. Causal necessity is logically derived from the presumption of reliable cause and effect. So, what does it mean to be “free from reliable cause and effect”? Well, for one thing, you could never reliably cause any effect, which means you would no longer have any freedom to do anything at all. Every freedom that we have requires a world of reliable causation.

That's an example of careful wording coming into play.

Thank you!

It is causal necessitation that negates freedom of will.

Sorry that I cannot return the complement. Causal necessitation negates only one thing: the absence of causal necessitation. Everything else is actually necessitated by causal necessitation. Ironically (from your perspective), this includes the choices we make of our own free will (you know, that choice we make for ourselves while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence).

Determined events are far more than mere 'reliable causation' - which gives the impression of reliable control where none exists - they are fixed by antecedents.

Being "fixed by antecedents" is precisely what reliable causation means. The antecedent event is the "cause" and the current event is the "effect". If this relationship is reliable, we have determinism. If it is unreliable, we have indeterminism. And no one really wants a world where the rules are constantly changing and no event is ever predictable. Reliable cause gives us predictability. Predictability gives us control. Control gives us freedom. All of our freedoms require reliable causation.

Fixed means no other possibility

Careless wording again. The restaurant menu is fixed by antecedent events, and it contains a list of possibilities. As we attempt to reduce this list to a simple dinner order, our thoughts will follow one upon the other in a fixed order. Those thoughts will include how each item is perceived as desirable or not desirable. And they will conclude by fixing our "will" upon having a specific dinner order. Thus, "I will have the Chef Salad, please" is spoken to the waiter.

We could have selected any possibility listed on the menu. But we never would have selected any other possibility than the Chef Salad. Both the possibilities and the choice were causally inevitable.

just what is determined, not willed.

Sorry, but it is not one or the other. It was determined by antecedent events that our brain would deliberately form the intention (aka, "will") to have the Chef Salad for dinner. That chosen will became the antecedent event which fixed our action (speaking the words to the waiter, "I will have the Chef Salad, please").

Our freely chosen will IS the antecedent event that fixes our deliberate action. One cannot ignore its role in making the action causally inevitable.

Will doesn't regulate events, events regulate will. Will is fixed by antecedent events.

And those words were not chosen carefully either. Encountering the menu was the antecedent cause of the choosing. Choosing was the antecedent cause of the will. The will was the antecedent cause of telling the waiter we will have the salad for dinner.

Every event is both an effect of antecedent events and a cause of subsequent events. Thus the figurative image of a "causal chain".

Freedom from causation is an irrational concept. That is the point.

But freedom from coercion and undue influence is not an irrational concept. We can be free from coercion. We can be free from undue influence. We can enjoy samples that are free of charge. We can enjoy freedom of speech, of the press. We can have both freedom of and freedom from religion. We can get vaccinated so that we are free from the measles, and polio, and significantly free of influenza and covid-19.

We are loaded with plenty of freedoms that are not irrational concepts: freedoms that are empirically observed in our abilities and which can be empirically constrained in meaningful ways.

Freedom, by definition, requires alternate possibilities and regulative power, that will can do something to make a difference.

Hmm. Did I ever mention the example of having dinner in a restaurant? You know, where we are faced with a literal menu of alternate possibilities, and our brain's choosing function regulates our deliberate intent, and then that freely selected "I will have the Chef Salad, please" makes a difference in what the waiter will bring us for dinner?

It's not a matter of being 'free from our brain' - which is of course impossible - but that the nature of determinism and the brain as a deterministic system doesn't permit free will.

Not only is free will permitted by determinism, it is empirically necessitated by it.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

You miss an important detail; necessitation, which means options are determined, not freely willed or chosen. The action that is realized being the only possible action.

Nothing missed here. The restaurant menu was causally inevitable. The need to choose a dinner from the menu of alternate possibilities was also causally inevitable. The choosing process, and all the mental events that took place as we considered the many things we could choose, was likewise causally inevitable. And our choice itself was, of course, causally inevitable. In the same fashion, the fact that it would be us, and no other object in the physical universe, that would be making this choice, was also causally inevitable.

The whole procedure from start to finish, and all of the sub-events within it, were causally inevitable from any prior point in time.

And, of course, it was also causally inevitable that we would not be coerced or otherwise unduly influenced as we performed the choosing operation. Therefore it was causally inevitable that we would make this choice of our own free will.

Note that there is nothing about causal inevitability that prevented this choice from being free of coercion and undue influence! Thus, your conclusion that it was not a choice of our own free will is false. It was causally inevitable that this choice would be free of coercion and undue influence, therefore it was causally inevitable that this would be a choice of our own free will.

One more thing. This course of events was not the only possible course of events. Someone, or more likely several person, could have robbed the restaurant and all the customers at gun point, collecting their wallets in a bag, along with the contents of the cash register. Although this did not happen, it was still a possibility. And although this would never happen, given the existing antecedent events, it certainly could have happened given a different set of antecedent events.

Within a deterministic system, the world, the brain, information is fixed by antecedents in each and every instance in time.

Absolutely!

Right. Which means fixed, not freely willed.

As I've demonstrated, above, antecedent events will fix certain chains of events such that they include a freely chosen will. Again, it is not an either fixed or free, but rather how the events are actually fixed. There is no "freedom from fixing by prior causes", of course. But there is
choosing which is fixed such that it is free of coercion and undue influence.

More;

No thank you. We should be able to agreed that the brain, though it did not choose itself, nevertheless chooses all kinds of other stuff.

The author of the article you quoted from does not enlighten us at all on how the brain decides what to order for dinner. He grants us that "While other, more complex decisions, such as what I choose for dinner, also can be viewed as influenced by free will, I suspect that they will turn out to be analogous to movement."

But, I don't really care if the underlying mechanisms of motor activity are analogous to choosing what we will have for dinner.

Nothing in neuroscience changes that fact that the person does choose what they will have for dinner, and that they will be presented with the bill for their meal.

Some compatibilists claim that because whatever the brain is doing and it is 'us doing it,' that this is sufficient, that because it is 'us' - the person, brain, mind - acting without coercion, this qualifies as free will.

That would certainly include me.

Harris fairly points out that we as conscious people have no more responsibility for what goes on in 'our' brain than what is happening in our other organs (we don't choose arrythmia, blocked arteries, kidney failure, indigestion or whatever). Yet what goes on within our brain determines who we are, how we think and what we do.

If we are not responsible for goes on in our brain, we are not ultimately responsible for our thoughts and actions.

Neuroscience seeks review of the law to reflect these findings....citations and quotes have been provided.

But Harris is wrong (and his position is dualistic). Our brain is responsible for what it chooses to do, because our brain tells itself that it has had those very thoughts and that it has chosen those specific actions. And it has no reason to doubt its own explanation of what it caused to happen and why it chose to make it happen.

We find none of this executive control of the body's action in our other organs. Only in our brain. So, Harris's "logic" is just clowning around.

As to inflicting this paradox upon the law, to spread this confused view of reality throughout our justice system, well, that's just evil.

 

[fromderinside]

Justification by talking to your 'self' about the morality of what your 'self' does is a bit over the top. Our vocalizations are heard. That doesn't mean they are responses to what we need to do. They are only vocal reflections of what we are doing.

 

[DBT]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

Incompatibilism: The notion of Free Will is incompatible with determinism.

Sorry, I don't understand your response.

It shouldn't be hard. It's been said many times in many ways. Actions proceed freely, without coercion, as determined.


''If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.'' - Albert Einstein

‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills’ - Schopenhauer

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Justification by talking to your 'self' about the morality of what your 'self' does is a bit over the top. Our vocalizations are heard. That doesn't mean they are responses to what we need to do. They are only vocal reflections of what we are doing.

Yeah, I didn't say that very well. I was trying to describe two things at the same time. One point was that we are limited to the dialog that the brain itself creates to explain itself. The logic of this dialog is being updated by scientific knowledge and discoveries, but we'll never be able to explain ourselves in terms of specific neurons firing in a specific way. The brain is still too small to provide such information, because it would take multiple additional neurons to carry that information about a single neuron, and we end up with an infinitely expanding brain.

So, we're limited to using word symbols for things like "will", and "cause", and "free", etc. The struggle of philosophy and science seems to be in testing our descriptions of reality for adequate functional effectiveness. Oh, and, of course, even that goal statement is itself is made up of the very stuff we're trying to straighten out.

And wtf was my other point? Oh. That the notion of choosing and of freedom and of responsibility are all part of the landscape when discussing the morality of human behavior. When the hard determinist attempts to wipe these concepts from the face of the earth, we lose the essential tools that the human race has evolved over millions of years to cope with its own behaviors.

 

[The AntiChris]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

Incompatibilism: The notion of Free Will is incompatible with determinism.

Sorry, I don't understand your response.

It shouldn't be hard. It's been said many times in many ways. Actions proceed freely, without coercion, as determined.


''If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.'' - Albert Einstein

‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills’ - Schopenhauer

I'm pretty sure I fully understand your objections to free will (no need to constantly repeat them).

What I don't understand is how your response addressed the specific question I asked. The question wasn't about free will, it was an enquiry about your approach to freedom in general within a deterministic universe.

 

[DBT]

You miss an important detail; necessitation, which means options are determined, not freely willed or chosen. The action that is realized being the only possible action.

Nothing missed here. The restaurant menu was causally inevitable. The need to choose a dinner from the menu of alternate possibilities was also causally inevitable. The choosing process, and all the mental events that took place as we considered the many things we could choose, was likewise causally inevitable. And our choice itself was, of course, causally inevitable. In the same fashion, the fact that it would be us, and no other object in the physical universe, that would be making this choice, was also causally inevitable.

The list of alternate possibilities being presented are realizable by a group of diners, each according to their own proclivities, with only one possible selection in any given moment of the selection process, each and every moment in time. Incremental states of the brain determining what happens in that instance in time, with no possible alternate action in that moment in time.

Consequently, the action that is determined in any given instance in time is fixed by the state of the brain in that instance, and not 'freely willed.'

Determinism is not a free will process. Each state determines the next as events unfold. If Fish is chosen, that is the only possible action in that moment in time, but not necessarily the next. The next moment you change your mind (your brain is in a different state, and you choose Steak instead. Neither is a freely willed decision, both being determined by brain state and condition in that incremental moment.

Harris fairly points out that we as conscious people have no more responsibility for what goes on in 'our' brain than what is happening in our other organs (we don't choose arrythmia, blocked arteries, kidney failure, indigestion or whatever). Yet what goes on within our brain determines who we are, how we think and what we do.

If we are not responsible for goes on in our brain, we are not ultimately responsible for our thoughts and actions.

Neuroscience seeks review of the law to reflect these findings....citations and quotes have been provided.

But Harris is wrong (and his position is dualistic).

No, Harris is correct because there is no dualism, no homunculus, no free will agency, and we are not responsible for the workings, states and conditions within our bodies, be it the Liver, Kidneys, etc, or brain.

That this is indeed ''us'' does not equate to free will.

Our brain is responsible for what it chooses to do, because our brain tells itself that it has had those very thoughts and that it has chosen those specific actions. And it has no reason to doubt its own explanation of what it caused to happen and why it chose to make it happen.

The brain is responsible in the sense that it is its own state and condition that produces behavioral output. But as the brain has no choice in the matter of its own condition or how it functions, be it rationally, irrationally or self destructively, it is not morally responsible.

The brain has no choice as to its own makeup and condition, its condition is not freely willed. The right kind of regulative control to qualify as free will is missing.

That is the point.

We find none of this executive control of the body's action in our other organs. Only in our brain. So, Harris's "logic" is just clowning around.

No, Harris know his stuff. Executive control is itself the work of the brain, namely, the prefrontal cortex. The state of the PFC determines how well the regulation or modification of impulses is carried out. The same deterministic rules apply to the PFC as any other brain structure or organ, neural architecture determines function. The PFC offers higher order information processing and rational behaviour.

As to inflicting this paradox upon the law, to spread this confused view of reality throughout our justice system, well, that's just evil.

Evil? It's a reasonable consideration of brain function in relation to behavior meant to bring better treatment and outcome for offenders who may have PFC damage, chemical imbalances, etc and are literally unable to control their impulses (brain state again) and are simply locked up without hope of getting the treatment they need.

It's a work in progress;
Neuroscience and the law
''Neuroscientists seek to determine how brain function affects behaviour, and the law is concerned with regulating behaviour. It is therefore likely that developments in neuroscience will increasingly be brought to bear on the law. This report sets out some of the areas where neuroscience might be of relevance, along with some of the limits to its application. Specific issues discussed include risk assessment in probation and parole decisions; detecting deception; assessing memory; understanding pain; and Non-Accidental Head Injury NAHI).''
It is important that professionals at all stages of the legal system who might encounter neuroscience understand some of the key principles on which it is based; the limitations to what studies can tell us; and some of the generic challenges of its application. Lawyers and judges in England and Wales often have no training in scientific principles.''

 

[DBT]

The question follows, given that both will and action is causally inevitable (determined), how can it be claimed that will is free?

Can you tell us what can be claimed to be free, if anything, in a deterministic universe?

Incompatibilism: The notion of Free Will is incompatible with determinism.

Sorry, I don't understand your response.

It shouldn't be hard. It's been said many times in many ways. Actions proceed freely, without coercion, as determined.


''If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.'' - Albert Einstein

‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills’ - Schopenhauer

I'm pretty sure I fully understand your objections to free will (no need to constantly repeat them).

I'm not sure you do. I know you say you do, but that's not the same. Your questions suggest that you don't.

What I don't understand is how your response addressed the specific question I asked. The question wasn't about free will, it was an enquiry about your approach to freedom in general within a deterministic universe.

The thread is about free will. I pointed out that the 'freedom' to be found within a determined system are actions proceeding as determined, hence the quotes.

If it is determined by the state of the system - circumstances - you can jump up and down within the range of your determined ability, you jump without being impeded or restricted, your actions, jumping, is freely performed as determined.

‘Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills’ - Schopenhauer

 

[The AntiChris]

I'm pretty sure I fully understand your objections to free will (no need to constantly repeat them).

I'm not sure you do. I know you say you do, but that's not the same.

You shouldn't mistake disagreement with non-understanding.

I completely agree agree with you that libertarian free will is a non-starter (for all the reasons you repeatedly enumerate).

I disagree with you about compatibilist free will. In order to challenge your position, I need to understand your reasons for rejecting compatibilism.

As far as I can tell, the reason you reject compatibilist free will is because it's not "real" (i.e. libertarian) free will - its a sham. In other words your objection to the notion of compatibilist free will is that it is an incorrect use of the word 'free' (you seem to imply that 'free' is being used in an inappropriate context in the case of compatibilism).

Your questions suggest that you don't.

My questions tend to focus on establishing what criteria you employ when deciding when it is appropriate to use the word free in a deterministic universe (so we can talk sensibly about our differences) .

To date, I've been completely unsuccessful in this endeavour