Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Jarhyn]

Of course. But I am not suggesting that neuroscience should not inform our courts on matters of neuroscience. I am suggesting that we should not inflict the "determinism versus free will" paradox upon our judges and courts. This paradox has no basis in neuroscience. It is wholly crafted by philosophical abstractions, figurative language, mythical beliefs, and other nonsense that makes otherwise intelligent people say some very stupid things. (Hmm. Does that mean it is literally, "stupefying"?)

Neuroscience? Yes! Paradoxes? NO!

I agree except in reverse to your preferences. We have determinism. 'nuf sed.

KISS!

Some word salad there from the FDI in response. Kind of what I expected.

Here us folks are discussing things in a systematic approach that is nearing a proper mathematical understanding of determinism and causality and some people are just waving their hands around and throwing conflation at the idea.

Starting from a fully physically "solved" superdeterministic (albeit simulated; no less superdeterministic) universe, we can observe an entity holding a list of instructions unto a requirement. The instructions must result in a fixed series of actions. They are a function designed of pure, flawless, perfect math, an object in the truest, most hard-theoretical way.

That series of instructions will execute, and things will happen. Fields will change. A "door" will have an attempt made against it to open it.

The door will not open.

A requirement of the list of instructions will fail.

We compatibilists call this situation, in a determinism "unfreeness" of the "will: list of instructions". It has not satisfied the drive which it was formed against: "to 'fight'" (again, fighting is defined in the field interaction model, the very physics of this universe).

Now, for a moment, we may look at what the dwarf has, as far as systemic processes linked to it's existence.

It does not have any thing telling it what the will is, or reviewing it, short of simple execution.

It does not even have neurons. It has a truth table, and switches that implement that truth table.

It has not satisfied the goal of the will.

And so it can do nothing but the result of what it is and the field properties that define it: it must "tantrum", again something physically defined in the laws of it's universe as a concrete thing.

And so, a will happens, "to tantrum". This will, as you would so have it, is to walk across the room and flip a statue. Again, concretely defined interactions of the basic physics of it's universe.

The transistors of the machine cogitate, a will is generated on the basis of that dwarf's personal traits. The dwarf has no direct control over those traits. NONE. ZERO!

A statue is selected by the machine that generates wills in the dwarf's process definition, again... Physically a concrete fundamental interaction.

The will is passed to the dwarf's executive loop, and the dwarf walks across the room, and the statue flips. The tantrum has been thrown. The will's requirement is satisfied.

We compatibilists call this situation of the will "freeness".

Superdeterministic universe.

No neurons.

No narrator.

Wills that are conditionally free or unfree still yet remain.

The only problem here is that none of the characters have a will of their own. It is your own will that is in play throughout the game.

They do have wills, and they do hold those wills, so they are theirs and determined from their needs which are determined from their personalities.

The only will as I "play" through the game is "to watch the screen", perhaps, and hit pause when something fucked up happens so I can see what exactly it is and (well, in the example I do nothing, so as to not spoil the example created through superdeterminism).

They are their wills as much as their ability to have wills is my will.

Again, causal necessity, creation by a god, same difference. As has been demonstrated, they hold wills, and those wills are of them, defined by their needs.

And those wills may be "free". Or "not free".

But in the moment they are executing their wills they are most assuredly wills unique to and created from their unique existence.

Sometimes the one legged dwarf dwarf trips and his crutch goes flying, then they must "cancel job, find crutch".

I didn't do that. That's their will. They absolutely must do the thing they are going to do, but it's still their will and owing to the fact that the crutch did not fall into the pool of magma, it is an "apparently" free will. The system is only capable of assigning such on the basis of revealed quantum events.

The problem is that there is a revealed quantum event coming up. The dwarf is going to trip on the way to the magma. That's going to set off the spinning blade trap he trips into. The spinning blade trap is going to... Well I'm sorry Urist, but...

So his apparently free will was not actually free. Reality revealed that.

If I reloaded the world a day before he tripped and watched it, he would again hold a will, he would again trip, and again be in need of burial lest he become a ghost.

In order to have a will of his own, Urist must be able to disobey your will, and do something you may not like, for example, destroying the spinning blade trap, or worse, reprogramming your computer to do his will rather than yours. That is only impossible for Urist because you did not want to create something with a will of its own. (Asmiov's Three Laws of Robotics).

No, he need not.

Look at my definitions carefully. Also pay attention to what my will is in this carefully: my will is the very definition of his "causal necessity".

I have no will beyond "this is how causality is necessitated in universe D".

He has a will that derived from that causal necessity, and while he lacks the ability to break the trap, he does have the ability to not trip, even without his crutch.

As you have said, you don't need to be free of causal necessity to be free of constraints within context of events in your causality.

It's unlikely in any given situation that he will reach his crutch, but ultimately his will is either free (he reaches the crutch) or not (he reaches spinning death).

He doesn't have the capacity to see how dangerous it is to make the attempt. He lacks the overall mechanism that would say "that's really dumb". His will generating process, unfortunately, lacks the means to say "examine each step; if step is unsafe, will is not free, select different crutch."

He does have a will of his own, just like you do, though. He's just a fair bit dumber than 2 year old.

The fact is, the thing he did that I did not like was the last time he tripped after a spider bite, and tumbled into the spinning blade trap and started needing a crutch. He causally necessitated a need for more crutches to be made, which causally necessitated a woodcutter to also get in a horrible accident which necessitated a need for more crutches so a need for more wood...

In this thought experiment a lot of dwarves died over that severed leg. Not Urist though. I honestly would have rather the trap got him the first time but it didn't.

While Urist operates according to your will, neither Nature nor Evolution, our "creators", have any will of their own. Unlike Urist, we were not created by design. Our design independently evolved, simply by surviving and reproducing. And there are tons of life forms that were able to successfully do this, and probably millions of more tons of life forms that didn't work out.

For example, imagine a variation in our species that lacked hunger. It would simply starve to death, without pain, and go extinct.

My point is that even if nature DID have such, it  still does not negate compatibilist free will.

Even being created by design.

Granted I accept that we are not observably created by design, of course.

Urist does operate according to nature though the nature of a processor against a binary field.

We do not need to be free of "causal necessity" as you put it to be free of constraints on our wills.

Nor does Urist. He ISN'T free of constraints on his will to get his crutch. He IS free of constraints to take his next step. He ISN'T free of constraints to take it without falling. And then he has no more constraints or wills.

I just turned the process of causal necessity on against a set of initial conditions. If the fields were different, the physics would still be the same, so it isn't "physics" doing it. It's the contents of the fields in conjunction with the physics. The physics determines what will happen only in the presence of field values.

The field values have responsibility in the execution of the physics.

In short, you can't just say "2, because normal integr addition", you still need to point to the (1,1) that went into the function.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

My point is that even if nature DID have such, it  still does not negate compatibilist free will.

Even being created by design.

Granted I accept that we are not observably created by design, of course.

Urist does operate according to nature though the nature of a processor against a binary field.

We do not need to be free of "causal necessity" as you put it to be free of constraints on our wills.

Nor does Urist. He ISN'T free of constraints on his will to get his crutch. He IS free of constraints to take his next step. He ISN'T free of constraints to take it without falling. And then he has no more constraints or wills.

I just turned the process of causal necessity on against a set of initial conditions. If the fields were different, the physics would still be the same, so it isn't "physics" doing it. It's the contents of the fields in conjunction with the physics. The physics determines what will happen only in the presence of field values.

The field values have responsibility in the execution of the physics.

In short, you can't just say "2, because normal integr addition", you still need to point to the (1,1) that went into the function.

That's one of the key insights, that it is not just physical causation, and not even just physical plus biological causation. It is also rational causation, where a choice is made based upon the current conditions. And a choice is made with a simple IF...THEN...ELSE.

The logic is controlling the physics, not the other way around. The physics has no meaning to bring to the table. But the logic is all about the meaning of what's happening.

Meaning only emerges with mind. Mind is a process that can perform logical operations. My complaint has been that it is your mind rather than Urist's mind, thus the meaning is yours and not Urist's, thus the will is also yours.

But, I get your point that we can imagine Urist as a person or an agent, because he is following instructions located in his own "mind" (the subroutines that implement Urist).

 

[Jarhyn]

My point is that even if nature DID have such, it  still does not negate compatibilist free will.

Even being created by design.

Granted I accept that we are not observably created by design, of course.

Urist does operate according to nature though the nature of a processor against a binary field.

We do not need to be free of "causal necessity" as you put it to be free of constraints on our wills.

Nor does Urist. He ISN'T free of constraints on his will to get his crutch. He IS free of constraints to take his next step. He ISN'T free of constraints to take it without falling. And then he has no more constraints or wills.

I just turned the process of causal necessity on against a set of initial conditions. If the fields were different, the physics would still be the same, so it isn't "physics" doing it. It's the contents of the fields in conjunction with the physics. The physics determines what will happen only in the presence of field values.

The field values have responsibility in the execution of the physics.

In short, you can't just say "2, because normal integr addition", you still need to point to the (1,1) that went into the function.

That's one of the key insights, that it is not just physical causation, and not even just physical plus biological causation. It is also rational causation, where a choice is made based upon the current conditions. And a choice is made with a simple IF...THEN...ELSE.

The logic is controlling the physics, not the other way around. The physics has no meaning to bring to the table. But the logic is all about the meaning of what's happening.

Meaning only emerges with mind. Mind is a process that can perform logical operations. My complaint has been that it is your mind rather than Urist's mind, thus the meaning is yours and not Urist's, thus the will is also yours.

But, I get your point that we can imagine Urist as a person or an agent, because he is following instructions located in his own "mind" (the subroutines that implement Urist).

That last bit, especially. He does have a mind in a way that we also have a mind: the mind of our macro-activities being our brain. Urist has his made of tuned algebras on a ridiculous number of absolutely absurd fields.

He is in fact a fundamental particle of his universe, and his physics allows him to think.

He has thoughts. They are trite and vapid, and he is incapable of learning much.

Still, he has wills, needs, thoughts, moods. Or  had I guess.

Now he has a ghost, because I'm still playing at "not existing, superdeterminism and all that". I'm really not sure how Tarn programmed up ghost behavior. Maybe he still does, at least until I put up a memorial slab, seeing as how he actually survived the blade trap on account of the fact he managed to dodge it. Right into the magma pit that the crutch missed.

The impact this has on the discussion is not to entirely ignore considerations of coercion, merely to say "it makes sense to ask what chains of events which could be avoided in similar situations of the physics, so as to keep that from happening and guarantee more reliable a free execution of will."

 

[DBT]

It's different because you add the label of free will where it doesn't apply. As shown by evidence from neuroscience, brain function, information processing and action initiation isn't a matter of will. The option that is taken is determined by the information state of the system, life experiences/memory/ environment, not will. So why call it free will?

Why call it "free will"? Because that's what people have always called the event in which a person is free to decide for themselves what they will do! The will is being freely chosen by the person themselves.

What people have always called something is not necessarily representative of what is happening or how something works, sunrise doesn't mean the sun is rising over a stationary earth, it's God's will doesn't mean that things happen because God willed it.....

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long

The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

Why call a cat a "cat", or call a dog a "dog"? Because not all animals are the same kind of animal!

Exactly. Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

You are destroying a significant and useful distinction. And that just makes us all dumber.

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

Saturday night, other things to do, that's all I have time for.

Cheers.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

 

[Jarhyn]

not a free will generator.

processing is not 'free will

labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will'

Three not-even-wrong understandings all in the same post

The brain is not a "free" will generator. It is a will generator and a potential freedom assessment engine. Brain activity is not labeled "free will" by the compatibilist. When we say "will" we are referencing the brain's process. When we say "free" we are referencing the outcome of all reality with respect to that will's requirement.

When the compatibilist discusses a "free will" (note the A in that sentence) they are discussing a will of the brain AND a state of the physical system, a causality which happens ro not constrain the will to unfreeness.

All of us here would disagree with any person who claimed to be a compatibilist and who said "the brain generates free will". This is because the brain merely generates wills, and it just evolved to be really good at not picking constrained ones.

My brain cannot predict the whole, actual future. Nobody's brain can. We can predict partial outcomes, but not complete ones.

If we could see the mechanism of the universe itself, that might change, but we cannot.

That means the brain does not generate freedom. We keep saying this in various ways, and then you keep stepping like Ion back into that misunderstanding.

In many ways, the most the brain can do is constrain wills. It can do this BECAUSE it exists, itself, as a piece of reality, the same reality that constrains our wills, or happens to leave them free.

We do this by picking the wills which we find that we cannot defeat and upon which our doubt of it's freedom fails. Reality may still prove our doubts insufficient (the will we thought could be free still was not), however it is reality that determines freedom of a will and not the brain.

All the work the machine of your brain does is pick the numbers, and the machine of all of reality determines whether those numbers come up.

As Marvin says:

When it is free from coercion and undue influence

This means it is not "the brain" doing "free". Rather it is "causal necessity" just so happening to NOT do "unfree".

 

[fromderinside]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design. Similarly will does not exist. it is attributed consequent to analysis by those who wish to have it. Circularity conundrum there. One can pick among a multitude of imaginary outcomes and post hoc classify them as decisions, options or willed behaviors. Behaviors now there's a mouthful.

I really like your everyone this and everyone that replaces actual determination. Wow. Isn't vaporous logic, not even rule based logic, wunnerful.

 

[Jarhyn]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design. Similarly will does not exist. it is attributed consequent to analysis by those who wish to have it. Circularity conundrum there. One can pick among a multitude of imaginary outcomes and post hoc classify them as decisions, options or willed behaviors. Behaviors now there's a mouthful.

I really like your everyone this and everyone that replaces actual determination. Wow. Isn't vaporous logic, not even rule based logic, wunnerful.

Brains absolutely do design.

It's one of their primary functions.

Function itself is a process that can arise naturally through unthinking process. In fact, as it is, the behavior of any system can generally be broken down into function.

You, who claim to have been involved in a wide array of neural research, should understand that: that the whole point was to describe the math of neural function from the behavior.

Of course it has function, The function is a product of natural form, and the idea of that function is to capture, extract the form of, and operate on that math around it.

Merely lacking clear purpose does not make a system devoid of function. Lacking clear need of functional isolation does not render a system devoid of function.

That the function is simply absurd does not change it's existence any more than the absurdity of quantum interactions renders that devoid of function.

Function is simply "reliable behavior within a system as a result of specific cause".

In fact the lack of permanent, solid boundaries in the human neural network is one of the reasons it is so utterly ridiculous to claim we have no mechanism for review, rejection, and modification of wills as we act on them.

And the very fact that we can and do consider the "potential freedom" is a pretty good intuitive hint that there is a "real freedom" we are trying to achieve with such consideration

FDI, you claim that free will is not possible in determinism. I have demonstrated in a direct, visible way, free wills existing in a deterministic system.

So either you get, FOREVER, to accept "free wills, by the definition of a list of instructions unto a requirement that owing to the state of the extension of reality that includes the will, shall have the requirement met", or you get to be shown to be someone arguing with an agenda, not honesty.

Urist has a will. Urist's will is free. Any will Urist has to not be in a computer game is clearly unfree. His will to pick up his crutch is not free. His will to take a step towards picking up his crutch was free. His will to remain standing was not. His reflexive will to dodge was free. His will to live, after falling into the magma, was not.

Normally, we as compatibilists ask "what is the source of the will?"

Of course, if you go back far enough, it's my fault, for turning the lights on. But then Urist wouldn't have had any drinks of dwarves rum, or have ever enjoyed looking at a fresco of two dwarves smashing a crab, or had 2 children, both of whom tragically were never seen again after someone operated the drawbridge room lever for mysterious reasons one day following an emergency meeting in that very room.

The fortress would not have existed, all that wealth never been accrued, all the joys and sadnesses, the books, the conversations and fights, the occasional murders... None of it.

But I didn't decide for those specific events to happen, I, as causal necessity in this scene, merely set the board with pieces, and while the boards operates the pieces according to where they are and how they are set up, it is exactly the places those pieces occupy which determines the future, their arrangement being the specific cause of the evolution of the system, not the physics itself.

And neither did "causal necessity". As Marvin points out well, causal necessity has no agency. It describes a series of operations and that's it. It's up to the specific value of the operators to determine what happens.

Said another way, this is the difference between the machine, and the state.

 

[Jarhyn]

In many ways Urist proves "A Will That is Free" is a sensible construction of language, not merely to a bounds which a philosopher may convince you of, but in a way a mathematician can point to, stand confidently on, and say "there is an algebra or calculus of some kind, of the form which may be described by operations of "wills" and their "freeness" in relation to some field, and that such a system may be deterministic.

It's one of the most ingenious creations I've ever seen.

The idea of randomness itself may be a quiet nonsense, but still this speaks:

"Freedom of wills" remains a sensible concept, so long as things in the system may hold something that is, abstractly, a will, and so long as the system has deterministic behavior be either free or not based on whether the system allows the failure of such against their requirements.

And certainly things in the base field cannot fail their requirements. They have no requirements to fail! They just do as they do, grinding away into waves and constraints on what they may be, only because of what they have been, unto entropy.

We are an extension of that. We host complex neural networks that themselves allow absolutely absurd kinds of operations for the sake of "BE LOUD! REMAIN!"

It is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate.

Sorry, but we observe that brains perform functions. They calculate. They remember. They learn. They speculate. They imagine. And there are probably many other functions that they perform. The fact they they were not designed to do these things does not contradict the fact that they actually perform all of these functions.

Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

Oh, thanks. Another function that brains perform is that they design things. They design cars, houses, clothing, etc. So, there should be no dispute that brains, though not themselves designed, are perfectly capable of designing other things.

Similarly will does not exist. it is attributed consequent to analysis by those who wish to have it.

And that is yet another function of our undesigned brains, to form an intention (will) and to carry out that intention in the real world.

Circularity conundrum there. One can pick among a multitude of imaginary outcomes and post hoc classify them as decisions, options or willed behaviors. Behaviors now there's a mouthful.

Ah, thanks for reminding me. Your defense mechanism is nihilism, to simply wipe out all concepts that you are uncomfortable dealing with.

I really like your everyone this and everyone that replaces actual determination. Wow. Isn't vaporous logic, not even rule based logic, wunnerful.

Seems to work for you...

 

[Marvin Edwards]

In many ways Urist proves "A Will That is Free" is a sensible construction of language, not merely to a bounds which a philosopher may convince you of, but in a way a mathematician can point to, stand confidently on, and say "there is an algebra or calculus of some kind, of the form which may be described by operations of "wills" and their "freeness" in relation to some field, and that such a system may be deterministic.

It's one of the most ingenious creations I've ever seen.

The idea of randomness itself may be a quiet nonsense, but still this speaks:

"Freedom of wills" remains a sensible concept, so long as things in the system may hold something that is, abstractly, a will, and so long as the system has deterministic behavior be either free or not based on whether the system allows the failure of such against their requirements.

And certainly things in the base field cannot fail their requirements. They have no requirements to fail! They just do as they do, grinding away into waves and constraints on what they may be, only because of what they have been, unto entropy.

We are an extension of that. We host complex neural networks that themselves allow absolutely absurd kinds of operations for the sake of "BE LOUD! REMAIN!"

It is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful.

My thermostat turns my baseboard heaters on or off, depending upon the temperature. But it has no personal interest in the room's temperature. It is my interest in the room's temperature that is served by the thermostat. It has no interest of its own.

 

[Jarhyn]

In many ways Urist proves "A Will That is Free" is a sensible construction of language, not merely to a bounds which a philosopher may convince you of, but in a way a mathematician can point to, stand confidently on, and say "there is an algebra or calculus of some kind, of the form which may be described by operations of "wills" and their "freeness" in relation to some field, and that such a system may be deterministic.

It's one of the most ingenious creations I've ever seen.

The idea of randomness itself may be a quiet nonsense, but still this speaks:

"Freedom of wills" remains a sensible concept, so long as things in the system may hold something that is, abstractly, a will, and so long as the system has deterministic behavior be either free or not based on whether the system allows the failure of such against their requirements.

And certainly things in the base field cannot fail their requirements. They have no requirements to fail! They just do as they do, grinding away into waves and constraints on what they may be, only because of what they have been, unto entropy.

We are an extension of that. We host complex neural networks that themselves allow absolutely absurd kinds of operations for the sake of "BE LOUD! REMAIN!"

It is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful.

My thermostat turns my baseboard heaters on or off, depending upon the temperature. But it has no personal interest in the room's temperature. It is my interest in the room's temperature that is served by the thermostat. It has no interest of its own.

So, I keep trying to point out personal interest is a form of will. The thermostat has one "systemic" interest created by a geometric arrangement of metal or signals.

It doesn't matter to the fact of the will and the requirement. One has to even ask which will of it and which requirement.

Of course, the requirement was originated from your will. You set the requirement.

Really in your diner (2 stars, btw, some guy with a gun was making people order steaks!) We are discussing not the will per SE, but the origin of the requirement. In order for your will to be free (to live) it requires freedom of his will (to force you to eat a steak).

Forcing a requirement of someone else's will to rest upon the freedom of your own will, we call coercion.

We say in broad terms a general abuse of language to say "your will is not free". It is not the will to eat the steak and get the gun out of the face we are addressing with this discussion of unfreeness. It is your will to decide on the requirements of your wills for yourself, which is unfree.

Urist does not have such a mechanism, and while we do, first we must discuss the idea of "free" and "will", separate from considering them in the more complicated context of the brain, because first, we must dispose of the idea that determinism stands in some way opposed to that.

It gets complicated when you get specific and granular, and so it requires establishing one idea at a time.

There is plenty of time to discuss "the will to decide wills for ourselves", but that only happens once it has been established that determinism does no injuries "will" nor "freedom"

We have to build this up one piece at a time.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

In many ways Urist proves "A Will That is Free" is a sensible construction of language, not merely to a bounds which a philosopher may convince you of, but in a way a mathematician can point to, stand confidently on, and say "there is an algebra or calculus of some kind, of the form which may be described by operations of "wills" and their "freeness" in relation to some field, and that such a system may be deterministic.

It's one of the most ingenious creations I've ever seen.

The idea of randomness itself may be a quiet nonsense, but still this speaks:

"Freedom of wills" remains a sensible concept, so long as things in the system may hold something that is, abstractly, a will, and so long as the system has deterministic behavior be either free or not based on whether the system allows the failure of such against their requirements.

And certainly things in the base field cannot fail their requirements. They have no requirements to fail! They just do as they do, grinding away into waves and constraints on what they may be, only because of what they have been, unto entropy.

We are an extension of that. We host complex neural networks that themselves allow absolutely absurd kinds of operations for the sake of "BE LOUD! REMAIN!"

It is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful.

My thermostat turns my baseboard heaters on or off, depending upon the temperature. But it has no personal interest in the room's temperature. It is my interest in the room's temperature that is served by the thermostat. It has no interest of its own.

So, I keep trying to point out personal interest is a form of will. The thermostat has one "systemic" interest created by a geometric arrangement of metal or signals.

It doesn't matter to the fact of the will and the requirement. One has to even ask which will of it and which requirement.

Of course, the requirement was originated from your will. You set the requirement.

Really in your diner (2 stars, btw, some guy with a gun was making people order steaks!) We are discussing not the will per SE, but the origin of the requirement. In order for your will to be free (to live) it requires freedom of his will (to force you to eat a steak).

Forcing a requirement of someone else's will to rest upon the freedom of your own will, we call coercion.

We say in broad terms a general abuse of language to say "your will is not free". It is not the will to eat the steak and get the gun out of the face we are addressing with this discussion of unfreeness. It is your will to decide on the requirements of your wills for yourself, which is unfree.

Urist does not have such a mechanism, and while we do, first we must discuss the idea of "free" and "will", separate from considering them in the more complicated context of the brain, because first, we must dispose of the idea that determinism stands in some way opposed to that.

It gets complicated when you get specific and granular, and so it requires establishing one idea at a time.

There is plenty of time to discuss "the will to decide wills for ourselves", but that only happens once it has been established that determinism does no injuries "will" nor "freedom"

We have to build this up one piece at a time.

The conceptual framework has already been built over millions of years of evolution, not just of the evolution of the body, but also the evolution of the conceptual framework by which we interpret reality and discuss what is going on in it.

The result of that evolved conceptual framework is documented in our dictionaries.

 

[Jarhyn]

In many ways Urist proves "A Will That is Free" is a sensible construction of language, not merely to a bounds which a philosopher may convince you of, but in a way a mathematician can point to, stand confidently on, and say "there is an algebra or calculus of some kind, of the form which may be described by operations of "wills" and their "freeness" in relation to some field, and that such a system may be deterministic.

It's one of the most ingenious creations I've ever seen.

The idea of randomness itself may be a quiet nonsense, but still this speaks:

"Freedom of wills" remains a sensible concept, so long as things in the system may hold something that is, abstractly, a will, and so long as the system has deterministic behavior be either free or not based on whether the system allows the failure of such against their requirements.

And certainly things in the base field cannot fail their requirements. They have no requirements to fail! They just do as they do, grinding away into waves and constraints on what they may be, only because of what they have been, unto entropy.

We are an extension of that. We host complex neural networks that themselves allow absolutely absurd kinds of operations for the sake of "BE LOUD! REMAIN!"

It is absolutely ridiculous and beautiful.

My thermostat turns my baseboard heaters on or off, depending upon the temperature. But it has no personal interest in the room's temperature. It is my interest in the room's temperature that is served by the thermostat. It has no interest of its own.

So, I keep trying to point out personal interest is a form of will. The thermostat has one "systemic" interest created by a geometric arrangement of metal or signals.

It doesn't matter to the fact of the will and the requirement. One has to even ask which will of it and which requirement.

Of course, the requirement was originated from your will. You set the requirement.

Really in your diner (2 stars, btw, some guy with a gun was making people order steaks!) We are discussing not the will per SE, but the origin of the requirement. In order for your will to be free (to live) it requires freedom of his will (to force you to eat a steak).

Forcing a requirement of someone else's will to rest upon the freedom of your own will, we call coercion.

We say in broad terms a general abuse of language to say "your will is not free". It is not the will to eat the steak and get the gun out of the face we are addressing with this discussion of unfreeness. It is your will to decide on the requirements of your wills for yourself, which is unfree.

Urist does not have such a mechanism, and while we do, first we must discuss the idea of "free" and "will", separate from considering them in the more complicated context of the brain, because first, we must dispose of the idea that determinism stands in some way opposed to that.

It gets complicated when you get specific and granular, and so it requires establishing one idea at a time.

There is plenty of time to discuss "the will to decide wills for ourselves", but that only happens once it has been established that determinism does no injuries "will" nor "freedom"

We have to build this up one piece at a time.

The conceptual framework has already been built over millions of years of evolution, not just of the evolution of the body, but also the evolution of the conceptual framework by which we interpret reality and discuss what is going on in it.

The result of that evolved conceptual framework is documented in our dictionaries.

Indeed, but moreover the conceptual framework continues to evolve past our dictionaries and into our mathematical frameworks. It's my contention that we need to start being a little more rigorous lest we leave room open for misinterpretations.

Start with proving that "free" and "will" in the sloppy, lazy use (which I myself can occasionally apply) actually have a rigorous underlying intent.

Then we can get into the discussion of specific, special wills like "drives" and their relationship with "needs" and "need fulfillment" and "self actualization" and even "force of will" as it relates to our neurological underpinnings.

First, before we talk about the bells and whistles and power windows, we need to address the principles of the engine itself.

 

[DBT]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

It is really very simple.

We are talking about determinism.

Determinism doesn't allow freedom of choice.

There is no freedom of choice because each and every action/decision is fixed by the non chosen state of the system in that instance, not willed or subject to will.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

What I said was the decision that is made in any instance is determined by the state of the system, with possible alternative action or decision in any given instance in time.

Whatever happens in any moment in time is fixed by antecedents.....as your own definition of determinism states.

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.

Fixed by the state of the system in the instance of action initiation. Not willed. Not open to modification.

2. Decision making chooses what we will do.

Specifically, the brain. What the brain does according to its evolutionary role and function as a rational system. Nothing to do with free will.

Nothing is freely willed, not neural architecture, not electrochemical information processing....the state of the system being expressed in how we think, what we think and what we do.

3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".

Nothing is free of necessitation. All thoughts and actions are necessitated not freely willed.

Actions are freely carried out as determined, not willed.

Absence of necessitation is a condition of freedom;

free·dom
1: the quality or state of being free: as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Determinism is necessitation. Actions necessarily follow causes. Brain states are determined/necessitated by antecedents

4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.

Nope, it happens milliseconds before ''I will'' emerges. Inputs, distribution of information, processing, then conscious action.


How Can There Be Voluntary Movement Without Free Will?
''Humans do not appear to be purely reflexive organisms, simple automatons. A vast array of different movements are generated in a variety of settings. Is there an alternative to free will? Movement, in the final analysis, comes only from muscle contraction. Muscle contraction is under the complete control of the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord. When the alpha motoneurons are active, there will be movement. Activity of the alpha motoneurons is a product of the different synaptic events on their dendrites and cell bodies. There is a complex summation of EPSPs and IPSPs, and when the threshold for an action potential is crossed, the cell fires.

There are a large number of important inputs, and one of the most important is from the corticospinal tract which conveys a large part of the cortical control. Such a situation likely holds also for the motor cortex and the cells of origin of the corticospinal tract. Their firing depends on their synaptic inputs. And, a similar situation must hold for all the principal regions giving input to the motor cortex. For any cortical region, its activity will depend on its synaptic inputs.

Some motor cortical inputs come via only a few synapses from sensory cortices, and such influences on motor output are clear. Some inputs will come from regions, such as the limbic areas, many synapses away from both primary sensory and motor cortices. At any one time, the activity of the motor cortex, and its commands to the spinal cord, will reflect virtually all the activity in the entire brain. Is it necessary that there be anything else?

This can be a complete description of the process of movement selection, and even if there is something more -- like free will -- it would have to operate through such neuronal mechanisms.
The view that there is no such thing as free will as an inner causal agent has been advocated by a number of philosophers, scientists, and neurologists including Ryle, Adrian, Skinner and Fisher.(Fisher 1993)''[/QUOTE]

5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

It's called information processing. The brain acquires and processes information, producing a response that is determined by an interaction of inputs, the architecture of the brain and memory function.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

There are both compatibalists and incompatibalists, each with their own perspective on the issue of free will. The average person just goes about their business not thinking about the issue at all....maybe using the term free will casually now and then.

How people use the term doesn't tell us a thing about how the brain works, how decisions are made, the state of the system, or anything else.

That is the role of neuroscience.

''....in order to have an updated discussion of free will, it is now necessary to account for objective findings arising from experimental studies. These studies begin with the work of Benjamin Libet, who demonstrated in a series of experiments performed in the 1980s that prior to the conscious intention to move one’s hand in an apparent act of free will, unconscious brain activity correlated with that movement (called the “readiness potential”) is detectable by electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. In other words, your brain appears to decide to move before any conscious intention to do so, suggesting that the conscious decision “I choose to move” is more of an afterthought than the causal determining force during a simple motor task.


These results have been reproduced and refined in numerous subsequent studies, including a recent experiment published in 2011 by Itzak Fried, a neurosurgeon and researcher at UCLA. Fried replaced Libet’s EEG recordings with electrodes monitoring single neurons and found that the readiness potential isn’t just some nonspecific preparatory signal as some have argued, but brain activity that predicts both whether a subject will move and what hand they will use before they make that those conscious decisions. Again, this seems to give lie to our subjective sense of free will in which our experience tells us that our conscious decision to move is what sets that decision in motion. In actuality, things are already set into motion long before any conscious awareness of that decision is made.''


Hard determinism need not be the nihilistic philosophy it’s cracked up to be. If we were to give up the idea of duality and the belief in free will, it might help us to gain something in the process. For example, if the “you” that says that you consciously chose your actions is an “unreliable reporter,” could it also be an unreliable reporter for other things, like when we tell ourselves that we’re ugly, fat, incompetent, or doomed to fail?


In fact, this updated version of the self is a cornerstone of so-called “third wave psychotherapies” like acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and mindfulness-based therapy. These approaches teach us to be leery about what our “minds” tell us and encourage us to instead observe our conscious thoughts non-judgmentally while also calling them into question or letting them go. ACT asks us, “If I’m not my thoughts, what am I?” Good question. In order to understand the true nature of the self, it may be worth abandoning some of our time-honored intuitions like free will and duality in favor of a more neuroscientifically grounded, ongoing process of self-inquiry. Equipped with such enhanced self-awareness, who knows what mental health benefits might result?''

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Start with proving that "free" and "will" in the sloppy, lazy use (which I myself can occasionally apply) actually have a rigorous underlying intent.

The underlying intent of the term "free will" is to identify a specific cause of the action that concerns us. For example, if you program Urist to kill someone and build him a body to enable him to do it, then you will be held responsible for Urist's behavior. Urist will be turned off, and you would end up in prison.

You may be able to express this issue in mathematical terms (that guy in "A Beautiful Mind" won a prize for using math to address a social issue). But I'll have to stick with the words. My presumption is that anything that can be expressed mathematically can also be explained verbally, because, after all, that's how we all learned math.

Then we can get into the discussion of specific, special wills like "drives" and their relationship with "needs" and "need fulfillment" and "self actualization" and even "force of will" as it relates to our neurological underpinnings.

There are all kinds of things that could be discussed. But I'm primarily addressing the paradoxical notions that result in the silly determinism "versus" free will debate. It seems to me that there is some value in ending the debate.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Determinism doesn't allow freedom of choice.

Obviously, determinism does allow freedom of choice, because people make choices every day. The fact that their choices were causally necessary does not change the fact that they are free of coercion and undue influence. And being free of coercion and other forms of undue influence is precisely what freedom of choice means!

There is no freedom of choice because each and every action/decision is fixed by the non chosen state of the system in that instance, not willed or subject to will.

The fact that every event is reliably caused by prior events does not in any way prevent a person from choosing what they will have for dinner. It simply makes that choosing inevitable and who will be doing that choosing inevitable.

Determinism does not actually change anything.

What Does Deterministic System Mean?
''A deterministic system is a system in which a given initial state or condition will always produce the same results. There is no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs

That's correct. In the thought experiment, in which we roll back the clock, the person will have exactly the same thoughts and feelings as they did before.
1. They will start with uncertainty as to what they will do: "Will I choose A or will I choose B. I don't know yet, and I will not know until after I have made my choice".
2. By logical necessity, "I can choose A" will be true and "I can choose B" will also be true.
3. Then the two options will be considered in terms of their likely results. One of them will inevitably seem to produce a better result than the other.
4. We will choose A or B.
5. The one will become the thing we "will" do.
6. The other will become the thing we "could have" done.

Rolling back the clock, the whole series of events, from start to finish, will be repeated, just as before.

Whatever happens in any moment in time is fixed by antecedents.....as your own definition of determinism states.

Of course. But we're only concerned with the meaningful and relevant antecedents. It is rather silly and completely useless to trace back all the way to the Big Bang. There is nothing that can be done about the Big Bang.

But there is hopefully something that can be done about the thoughts that showed up during the person's deliberations as to whether or not to rob that bank. So, that's where we concentrate our efforts when we hold the person responsible for their deliberate action.

Nothing is free of necessitation.

Of course. But, nothing is expected to be free of causal necessitation. The notion of "freedom from causal necessity" is a totally irrational concept. How can one be free of reliable cause and effect and still be able to reliably cause any effects?

And causal necessity is not a meaningful or relevant constraint. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, doing what we choose to do. It's "what we would have done anyway". That is not a meaningful constraint.

 

[The AntiChris]

Determinism doesn't allow freedom of choice.

Obviously, determinism does allow freedom of choice, because people make choices every day.

The only disagreement here is one of word usage. It's a semantic disagreement.

You're both in agreement about human behaviour (what people actually do) but disagree profoundly about what words can be used to describe these behaviours.

Until you address the the word usage conflict (i.e. debate when it's appropriate to use certain words) your "Yes it does!" - "No it doesn't!" exchanges are doomed to continue.

 

[Jarhyn]

Start with proving that "free" and "will" in the sloppy, lazy use (which I myself can occasionally apply) actually have a rigorous underlying intent.

The underlying intent of the term "free will" is to identify a specific cause of the action that concerns us. For example, if you program Urist to kill someone and build him a body to enable him to do it, then you will be held responsible for Urist's behavior. Urist will be turned off, and you would end up in prison.

You may be able to express this issue in mathematical terms (that guy in "A Beautiful Mind" won a prize for using math to address a social issue). But I'll have to stick with the words. My presumption is that anything that can be expressed mathematically can also be explained verbally, because, after all, that's how we all learned math.

Then we can get into the discussion of specific, special wills like "drives" and their relationship with "needs" and "need fulfillment" and "self actualization" and even "force of will" as it relates to our neurological underpinnings.

There are all kinds of things that could be discussed. But I'm primarily addressing the paradoxical notions that result in the silly determinism "versus" free will debate. It seems to me that there is some value in ending the debate.

Well, the end goal is certainly to discuss a particular set of wills. I find talking about Urist kind of tedious, too.

In this situation, the process by which Urist holds wills is a law of his physics, so it's less interesting. As others point out, he lacks certain regulatory controls over which wills he makes swings on, or what kinds of wills he can assemble, but as others fail to understand, that doesn't make these things he holds any less "a will", nor remove the reality that some of his "wills" are free.

Indeed if I programmed him, if I gave him the requirement, and so coerced his existence into being one in which he is a murderer, that would be my fault back at compile time. Let him hate the god that created him as he is. Even so, he is as he is now by a will he holds that is his own, based specifically on his needs.

The other dwarves can't really do much to remove his wills other than to call up 'the hammerer', who I might add solves such problems in a fairly easy-to-grasp way. Mostly, this is on account of the fact that they can't do anything about me, as you point out, and even if they could it still wouldn't change the facts of their universe.

My intent here is to establish that these things which we are using as the building blocks of our arguments against hard determinism are mathematically sound, undeniable structures displayed within deterministic systems.

Once we are finally to the point where the hard determinists have no "neurology" to wave around they have no choice but to step off the foundation of "free wills can't exist in deterministic systems". Only then we can address what complexities can exist in the shape of "will structures" in evolved/neurological systems, and possibly even how to invent systems which work similarly rather than as Urist's simple wills.

At that point it is be possible to dissect the diner, and lay out the structure of whose will contains which requirement originated where, and what identifiable measures might be taken when to prevent unfree wills and coercion (the situation of one will being driven by the requirements of a will originating outside the neural graph structure which holds said will).

At that point it is no longer a debate over whether "wills" exist, and whether the word "free" can be used of them, and even in what context of freedom we are currently discussing of "provisional" and "actual" freedom.

Well, neither does Urist. It does not change for Urist the reality of the consequences of him having such wills to kill folks in the moment: something which will make Urist's wills unfree must still be engineered to happen. It will happen regardless of whether it is a causally necessary quantum event in which a door locks and a drawbridge falls, or a visit from "The Hammerer'" as a result of the will of the Watch Captain to see the crime resolved and punishment rendered to the killer.

I will assure you, I'd rather go to your diner and leave more 2 star reviews rather than talk more about Urist, but I'm stuck in this stupid fortress proving first that my definitions make sense in deterministic systems.

I am doing my very best to do as AntiChris says: address the difference in the usage of words and being pedantically clear about it.

Once that's done, I would love to take a trip to your diner with the lessons learned in my fort.

 

[pood]

The brain doesn't function according to the principle of free will regardless of how many people refer to it, or for how long.
The brain is a biological mechanism, not a free will generator.

This is really very simple, DBT. One of the brain's functions is to decide what we will do. When it is free from coercion and undue influence then it is a freely chosen will. When it is coerced or unduly influenced, it is not a freely chosen will.

Just as neural networks, architecture and electrochemical information processing is not 'free will.'

And now you're pretending that the brain does not make decisions? Then you're contradicting neuroscience!

Far from destroying anything, I am calling a spade a spade.....in this instance correctly labelling brain activity as 'information processing' rather than 'free will' because will does not run the brain, which is a matter of architecture and function, electrochemical activity and an interaction of information within a deterministic system where will does not perform these functions.

1. Information processing includes decision making.
2. Decision making chooses what we will do.
3. When that choosing is free of coercion and undue influence, it is a freely chosen "I will".
4. The freely chosen "I will" sets the brain's intention upon a specific course of action, which the brain and body then act upon.
5. This is called a "deliberate" act. And people are held responsible for their deliberate acts.

That is what free will is about. It is a simple notion that everyone understands. It requires nothing supernatural. It makes no claims to being an uncaused event. It simply does its job of identifying the meaningful and relevant cause of a given event.

Let's set simple aside since it adds nothing as your analysis demonstrates.

The brain is an evolved thing not a designed thing. So function attribution is inappropriate. Brains aren't designed nor do they design.

“The brain is an evolved thing, not a designed thing.“ Right.

“So function attribution is inappropriatre“ … Wrong! Purpose attribution is inappropriate. The heart pumps blood, but that is not its purpose, because purpose preupposes someone who gave it a purpose: a designer. But clearly the heart functions as a pump — in fact, is a pump. Similarly, while the brain does not have a purpose, it has functions — many of them, as a matter of fact.

”Brains aren’t designed …” Right.

“Nor do they design.”

Excuse me? The Empire State Building designed itself? The Mona LIsa? The Apollo rocket? The (insert here ten trillion other things that brains have designed).

Hard determinist arguments are simply surreal.