Compatibilism: What's that About?

[pood]

Lecture notes on free will and determinism, by Norman Swartz. It is very much worth a read regardless of which side you fall on this debate.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Entanglement is not two separate particles receiving the same effect far apart and being in two different conditions. It is the same particle going back and forth through the fourth spatial dimension at the square of the speed of light.

"The same particle going back and forth through the fourth spatial dimension" is an intriguing speculation; maybe somebody could work that up into a theory and get a quantitative prediction out of it.
"At the square of the speed of light" is empty-headed gibberish; you might as well say the particle is going back and forth at 37 kilograms per volt.

Through That Dimension, We Can Transmit to Alpha Centauri in 15 minutes

You must not believe in the possibility of an outside universe, or else you'd be willing to accept that the maximum velocity there is different from what it is here. Logic prevents entanglement from being two particles, so it can only seem that way if the one particle changes so fast that it seems to be two different particles. Of course, it is also irrational to think it is the same particle being in two places at once.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

 

[steve_bank]

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.


A cosmology book I had used unversed for the observable universe and Universe for all that exists. Anything that exists is by definition part of the Universe whether we see it or not.

'Other dimensions' is mostly colored by scfi plot devices. Along with time travel. FTL. Universal translator implants. Sub Space. Aliens who speak English. Mater energy transport.

If you wat to sink your teeth into a newer speculation there is String Theory. Fully mathematically developed.

String theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in 11 dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of continued research on string theory unification.

 

[Bomb#20]

"At the square of the speed of light" is empty-headed gibberish; you might as well say the particle is going back and forth at 37 kilograms per volt.

Through That Dimension, We Can Transmit to Alpha Centauri in 15 minutes

You must not believe in the possibility of an outside universe, or else you'd be willing to accept that the maximum velocity there is different from what it is here.

Of course that's a possibility; no one said otherwise. The problem is "the square of the speed of light" is not a velocity; therefore the maximum velocity in that hypothetical outside universe can't be that.

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.

Of course it does; but having a meaning isn't enough for it to be what a particle is going back and forth at. "Kilograms per volt" has a perfectly sensible meaning too: it describes the lifting capacity of an electromagnet. The square of the speed of light is 9x10¹⁶ square meters per second per second -- it's the derivative of the rate at which something's area is increasing. You could quantify deforestation of the Amazon basin with it, not particle velocity in an outside universe.

 

[Bomb#20]

Does Carroll's book explain how MWI would result in a typical observer measuring 96 transmitted photons for every 4 reflected by a glass surface? The vast majority of explanations of MWI simply skip over that question as though it had never occurred to their authors to wonder.

I would urge you not to arrive at a conclusion about Sean Carroll's approach to QM from my description of it, since I am not a physicist. Rather, I would direct you to his own publications on the subject and let you draw your conclusions from the source. ...

Fair enough.

Sean Carroll has also addressed this.

Thanks; I took a look.

In fact let’s just focus on a simple special case, where

a = b = 1 / sqrt(2) .

If we can prove that in this case, the probability of either outcome is 50%, we’ve done the hard part of the work — showing how probabilistic conclusions can arise at all from non-probabilistic assumptions. Then there’s a bit of mathematical lifting one must do to generalize to other possible amplitudes, but that part is conceptually straightforward.

Yeah, that's about what I expected. The question was how unequal amplitudes lead to unequal frequency, and Carroll answers, just as practically every other popularizer of Many-Worlds answers, "Let me show you how equal amplitudes lead to equal frequency." He does the part that's already intuitively obvious, he claims he did the hard part, and he calls the part that's utterly mystifying "conceptually straightforward" as his explanation for why he isn't giving an explanation. He's a South Park underpants gnome.

 

[DBT]

Causal necessity creates everything, us, our will, shape, form, function and expression. Will has no say in the matter. That is determinism in action.

That is called a "reification fallacy". Causal necessity is not an entity that goes about in the world creating things. Causation itself never causes anything. Determinism itself never determines anything. Yet you have transferred our control to these imaginary entities.

Nope, it's called determinism; where all events are fixed as a matter of natural law. I work with the given definition making no attempt to redefine or soften its definition.

The fact is that our own brain evaluates our circumstances and, if a decision is required, our own brain chooses what we will do. That chosen intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions, so, choosing what we will do has the actual control.

As far as I know, nobody has said or suggested that determinism ''controls'' us against our will. That's not how determinism works.

And yet that is precisely what you just said. You have "determinism in action". You have causal necessity "creating everything". Basically, you've turned these abstract concepts into gods.

No, determinism is what it is by definition. There is no wriggle room or attempt at softening the consequences of determinism through sophistry.

To say that to act freely, without coercion or force applies to all events within a determined system. Actions are performed freely, but there is no could have done otherwise.

Again you ignore the evidence. You're driving down the road and you see a red traffic light up ahead. Will it remain red, forcing you to stop? Or, will it turn green just as you arrive, allowing you to continue through the intersection? Not knowing what "will" happen, you imagine what "can" happen, to prepare for what actually "does" happen. As you get closer you slow down, but then the light changes to green, so you drive on through. If it were true that the light "could not" have remained red, then why did you slow down? The meaning of "could have" exists only in the context of uncertainty. "Could have" refers to something that may happen, but then again it may never happen. This is very different from something that "will" happen. Something that will happen certainly will happen.

Hard determinists have unfortunately conflated what "can" happen with what "will" happen. They insist that there is only one possibility, AS IF a possibility were the same thing as an actuality. But they are not the same. All possibilities exist solely within our imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive across an actual bridge. However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge.

Are you getting any of this?

It's been explained that what the light does is determined and fixed as a matter of natural law, that our limited perspective forces us to consider what may happen based on our past experience with traffic lights. We understand through past experience that lights change at regulated intervals to enable efficient traffic flow, and that sometimes traffic light malfunction, etc, etc,....our view is probabilistic, yet what the lights actually do is determined, fixed - by defintion - as a matter of natural law

 

[DBT]

A person is choosing for themselves? True as a trivial observation but does not account for the means of decision making or the elements that necessitate it. The world acts upon the brain, that within a determined system produces an inevitable result, a result that was neither consciously decided or freely willed. The brain is constrained by its own architecture and the information that acts upon it.

Ironically, it is causal necessity that turns out to be the triviality. It is always true of every event. What I will inevitably do is exactly identical to me just being me, choosing what I choose, and doing what I do. And that is not a meaningful constraint. It is not something that anyone can, or needs to be, free of.

As to the "means of decision making or the elements that necessitate it", that turns out to be me. My brain is the means of my decision making. My own thoughts and feelings, beliefs and values, and all those other things that make me who and what I am, are "the elements that necessitate" my choice. So, however you slice it up, the causal determinant remains "me" all the way down.

As to my brain being "constrained by its own architecture", well, that's a very perverse and delusional way of looking at it. Isn't it rather the case that my brain's architecture is not that which "constrains", but rather that which "enables" my imagination, my evaluation, my choosing, and all of my deliberate actions?

Some

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

 

[DBT]

It is head-spinning to know where to respond, because the indeterminism and compatibilism threads keep going over the same ground.


If I choose x, it’s simply not true that I could not have chosen y. What seems to be true — though obviously this is not an experiment we can ever run — is that if we rewound the tape of history so that all antecedent events were identical up to my choice of either x or y, then I would again choose x, for why in the world would I choose differently? But it simply does not follow as a matter of logic that I could not have chosen otherwise, just that I would not.

Determinism by definition does not allow multiple choices in any given instance in time. The decision you make in a given instance is the only possible decision you can make in that instance in time, events brought you to that point and determine what happens. Different conditions, different results. Alternate universes/many worlds allow different options to be realized, the world splits and every combination is realized by multiple 'you's.'

 

[Marvin Edwards]

No, determinism is what it is by definition. There is no wriggle room or attempt at softening the consequences of determinism through sophistry.

Ironically, I need no wriggle room at all. Every event is reliably caused by prior events. Every event is always causally necessary/inevitable from any prior point in eternity. So what? What does this change? Nothing.

The only useful information we obtain from reliable causation comes from knowing the specific causes of specific effects. Consider the Covid-19 pandemic. (1) We know that it is a disease caused by a virus. (2) We know that the body's immune system can be primed to destroy a virus by vaccination. (3) We now know of several specific vaccines that can accomplish this. With this knowledge of the specific causes we have begun to control this disease, and free ourselves from its harmful effects.

And what does universal causal necessity/inevitability tell us? Only that each event in this process was causally necessary/inevitable from any prior point in time. That is not useful information. There is no meaningful or relevant information added by this logical fact.

Now, consider free will. Free will distinguishes an act caused by someone's deliberate choice, from an accident, from a coerced choice, and from behavior caused by significant mental illness. Knowing the specific causes of harmful behavior guides our efforts to correct that behavior. If the cause of the bank robbery was someone rationally deciding that robbing the bank was a quick way to get some cash, then we need to change their way of thinking through penalty and rehabilitation. But if the offender was only participating because his family was being held hostage, and the kidnapper was threatening to kill them if he did not participate in the crime, then the offender is easily corrected by simply removing that threat to his family. Or, if the robber's behavior was instead caused by a significant mental illness then we correct the behavior by treating him medically and psychiatrically in a secure psychiatric facility.

Knowing the specific causes of the person's illegal behavior guides our efforts to correct the behavior and rehabilitate the offender.

The fact that the person's behavior was causally necessary/inevitable, from any prior point in eternity, tells us nothing useful. And if we misguidedly think that it does, and try to use it to excuse the offender for his deliberate act, then we also must excuse the judge who hung him for his crime, regardless of the specific cause.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is a logical fact. It is derived from the assumption of a world of reliable cause and effect. But it is never in itself a meaningful or relevant fact. All of the utility of the notion of reliable causation comes from knowing the specific causes of specific effects.

And the hard determinist keeps sweeping these specific causes under the rug of universal causal necessity.

It's been explained that what the light does is determined and fixed as a matter of natural law, that our limited perspective forces us to consider what may happen based on our past experience with traffic lights. We understand through past experience that lights change at regulated intervals to enable efficient traffic flow, and that sometimes traffic light malfunction, etc, etc,....our view is probabilistic, yet what the lights actually do is determined, fixed - by defintion - as a matter of natural law

The fact that the traffic light was determined, from any prior point in eternity, to change to green just as our car arrived, would have been useful knowledge. If we knew that fact as we arrived then we would not have slowed down. But we did not have certain knowledge of that fact. When we do not know what "will" happen, we imagine what "can" happen, to better prepare for what "does" happen.

The reason we slowed down was because we had certain knowledge that "the light could remain red" even though it didn't. We did not have certain knowledge of what "would" happen. But we did have certain knowledge of what "could" happen. The light could remain red was true, and the light could change to green was also true. So, it was wise to slow down, in case the light remained red.

 

[Jarhyn]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

...
I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

DBT, you might avoid burn out by being selective in the comments you respond to. I'm certainly doing that myself, for the same reason. But it's your call.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.


A cosmology book I had used unversed for the observable universe and Universe for all that exists. Anything that exists is by definition part of the Universe whether we see it or not.

'Other dimensions' is mostly colored by scfi plot devices. Along with time travel. FTL. Universal translator implants. Sub Space. Aliens who speak English. Mater energy transport.

If you wat to sink your teeth into a newer speculation there is String Theory. Fully mathematically developed.

String theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in 11 dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of continued research on string theory unification.

Inhibited Escapists

The very reason that the Postclassical gurus didn't use the extra-dimensional explanations for quantum physics was that, decades earlier, it had acquired a bad reputation when fantasists made it the home of ghosts, demons, or even God. That just shows the low character of nerds that they would let the reputation created by people even weirder than they are determine their science. I'm not going to use the "I know, but..." hedge. Anyone who associates an idea with what Hollywood projects about it is being dishonest and can't offer any rational objections.

 

[steve_bank]

One of the first experimental demonstrations of QM, quantum meaning quantized, was Einstein's Photo Electric Effect. It demented light was quantized. That is what got AE known, not relativity at first.

For science to become accepted it must be shown experimentally. Classical mechanics did not explain observation. String theory was rejecd by some as science because there was no way to test it, although that may have changed. More philosophy than science.

QM evolved as an experimental explanation of why classical mechanics did not explain observation like black body radiation. What woud the usefulness be of other dominions? Is there something lacking within the bounds of QM?

QM is mechanics at the small particle scale. It is mainstream science and is routinely used in electronics in the design of things like lasers, transistors, solar cells, and integrated circuits. It is no more mysterious or spooky than Newtonian mechanics. Students at the technician level in electronics are exposed to it. People turn it into a type of mysticism based largely on scifi.

If you invoke other spatial dimensions you then have to derive an experiment that can bear that out.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.


A cosmology book I had used unversed for the observable universe and Universe for all that exists. Anything that exists is by definition part of the Universe whether we see it or not.

'Other dimensions' is mostly colored by scfi plot devices. Along with time travel. FTL. Universal translator implants. Sub Space. Aliens who speak English. Mater energy transport.

If you wat to sink your teeth into a newer speculation there is String Theory. Fully mathematically developed.

String theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in 11 dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of continued research on string theory unification.

Inhibited Escapists

The very reason that the Postclassical gurus didn't use the extra-dimensional explanations for quantum physics was that, decades earlier, it had acquired a bad reputation when fantasists made it the home of ghosts, demons, or even God. That just shows the low character of nerds that they would let the reputation created by people even weirder than they are determine their science. I'm not going to use the "I know, but..." hedge. Anyone who associates an idea with what Hollywood projects about it is being dishonest and can't offer any rational objections.

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

 

[steve_bank]

"At the square of the speed of light" is empty-headed gibberish; you might as well say the particle is going back and forth at 37 kilograms per volt.

Through That Dimension, We Can Transmit to Alpha Centauri in 15 minutes

You must not believe in the possibility of an outside universe, or else you'd be willing to accept that the maximum velocity there is different from what it is here.

Of course that's a possibility; no one said otherwise. The problem is "the square of the speed of light" is not a velocity; therefore the maximum velocity in that hypothetical outside universe can't be that.

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.

Of course it does; but having a meaning isn't enough for it to be what a particle is going back and forth at. "Kilograms per volt" has a perfectly sensible meaning too: it describes the lifting capacity of an electromagnet. The square of the speed of light is 9x10¹⁶ square meters per second per second -- it's the derivative of the rate at which something's area is increasing. You could quantify deforestation of the Amazon basin with it, not particle velocity in an outside universe.

I was being pedantic for no good reason....you are right.

 

[DBT]

No, determinism is what it is by definition. There is no wriggle room or attempt at softening the consequences of determinism through sophistry.

Ironically, I need no wriggle room at all. Every event is reliably caused by prior events. Every event is always causally necessary/inevitable from any prior point in eternity. So what? What does this change? Nothing.

The only useful information we obtain from reliable causation comes from knowing the specific causes of specific effects. Consider the Covid-19 pandemic. (1) We know that it is a disease caused by a virus. (2) We know that the body's immune system can be primed to destroy a virus by vaccination. (3) We now know of several specific vaccines that can accomplish this. With this knowledge of the specific causes we have begun to control this disease, and free ourselves from its harmful effects.

I feel that I have given the reasons why this is insufficient to establish the principle of 'freedom of will' too many times

For now, I'll just quote a good summary of the inadequacy of compatibilism.

''Compatibilists are unable to present a rational argument that supports their belief in the existence of free will in a deterministic universe, except by defining determinism and/or free will in a way that is a watered down version of one or both of the two concepts.

As I understand it, Determinism (which I take to be Causal Determinism) posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] prior activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the prior activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.

As I understand the notion of Free Will, it posits that a human being, when presented with more than one course of action, has the freedom or agency to choose between or among the alternatives, and that the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior to the putative exercise of that freedom of choice does not eliminate all but one option and compel the selection of only one of the available options.

Based on the foregoing, if Determinism is true, human beings lack the ability to think in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, and thereby lack Free Will. By the same token, if human beings have Free-Will, they are capable of thinking in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, which rules out Determinism.

As I understand the two concepts, Determinism and Free Will are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

When all is said and done, all arguments for compatibilism suffer from a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' Bruce Silvertein - B.A. Philosophy & Professional Writing, Beaver College (1983) - Quora.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

 

[DBT]

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

...
I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

DBT, you might avoid burn out by being selective in the comments you respond to. I'm certainly doing that myself, for the same reason. But it's your call.

I am being selective. If I wasn't, our posts would be pages long with hundreds of points to respond to, most being repetitive.

When it's boiled down, compatibilism essentially comes down to how you define your terms and conditions. Terms and conditions that are carefully selected to support the conclusion that free will (a label) is compatible with determinism.

This ultimately fails because it does not take critical factors into account; the nature and role of will, brain function, self and determinism, yet the label is pasted and asserted.

Again, freedom of will requires human will to have agency in decision making, the ability to change outcome and veto decisions, none of which is permitted by the given definition determinism.

Again;
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.

2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).

3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.


1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

3- If 'freedom' does not require a means for the selection an option from set of realizable alternatves, what is freedom?

 

[The AntiChris]

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

Why not? I'm serious.

If the meaning of words is derived from how we use those words, why then should we not use 'freedom of will' to describe our deciding for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence".

 

[Jarhyn]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

How do you not?

I'm pointing to the fact that in the compatibilist framework, free will is not placed as a lexical opposite of determinism. Things don't NEED to be "opposed" in compatibilism!

Determinism means something specific. It can be observed directly and unambiguously by looking at the problem in a contained example: the computer.

I have explained several times, and you will need to explore my posts and the concepts in them.

Regardless of whether the system is deterministic ("no duh!"), There are still conversations of 'processes' on that platform having 'freedom', either in terms of privileges to act, for contention over a resource, or for a variety of other things.

The fact is, even when we acknowledge a platform as "deterministic" there are discussions surrounding concepts of "freedom" not to "have history be any different than it was" but to "have history become as it will only ever be, specifically on this fulcrum of action, that originated from this specific agency", and "the truth that this agency was freely in a position to pivot reality in that way, on that fulcrum"

We cannot choose "both a and b of mutually exclusive options". This does not mean that at the crossroads, a machine capable of producing either decision depending on context, produced one of those decisions based on the context.

Because the machine has a filter point, and it is the machines, the local reference frame rather than the global state, that is discussed on the context of an individual problem.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

When it's boiled down, compatibilism essentially comes down to how you define your terms and conditions. Terms and conditions that are carefully selected to support the conclusion that free will (a label) is compatible with determinism.

But that's not a fair criticism, because determinism itself also comes down to how you define your terms and conditions. In fact, pretty much every discussion comes down to how we define our terms.

I like to use "operational" definitions when I can, which describe the concept in terms of how it "works" and what the notion is actually used for. For example:

This ultimately fails because it does not take critical factors into account; the nature and role of will, brain function, self and determinism, yet the label is pasted and asserted.

"Will" is a person's specific intent for the immediate ("I will have pancakes for breakfast") or distant ("last will and testament") future. This intent both motivates and gives direction to the person's subsequent actions.

"Brain functions" are the various functions provided by the neural architecture. Perhaps the most significant of these is the organization of sensory input into a model of reality. Included in this model is the "self" and its "internal environment" and also its "external environment". The key brain functions related to free will are imagination, evaluation, and choosing.

"Self" is the brain's model of the person, including things like their body, their thoughts, and their experiences.

"Determinism" is the belief (-ism) that all events are the reliable result of prior events.

"Causal necessity" is the notion that prior events reliably bring about future events, making them necessary and inevitable.

Are there any differences between how we are using those terms?

Again, freedom of will requires human will to have agency in decision making...

"Choosing" ("decision making") is a brain function, available to intelligent species, that (a) inputs two or more options, (b) applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and (c) outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the specific thing they will do. That intent then motivates and directs their subsequent actions.

"Freedom of will" refers to the freedom to decide for ourselves what we will do, without meaningful constraints, such as coercion and other undue influences. ("Freedom of will" does not mean a "free floating intent", that is to say, an intent that is not causally determined by the choosing process).

"Agency" is the source of control that brings about some effect.

"Control" is that which decides what will happen next. (For example, my thermostat controls the temperature in my room, but I control the thermostat).

Do you have problems with any of those definitions?

... the ability to change outcome and veto decisions...

The person's brain causally determines what the person will do next. What the person does next determines what happens next. Thus, the person causally determines the outcome.

The person changing or vetoing their own decision would be part of the choosing operation that ultimately leads to the decision. After they've acted upon their decision, it would be too late to change or veto it.

... none of which is permitted by the given definition determinism.

Let's check that. Since "determinism" is the belief (-ism) that all events are the reliable result of prior events, what is the most significant prior cause of a deliberate act? Is it not the act of choosing that sets our intent (our will) upon doing the act?

So, there seems to be nothing about determinism that does not permit a person from choosing for themselves what they will do.

Again;
1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

Well, let's think about that.

No one can change the past. But we were active participants in creating our own past. What we choose to do in the present immediately becomes our past. The ability to participate, in actually causing the facts of the past, is our power regarding the facts of the past.

No one can change the laws of nature. But those laws are as much a part of who and what we are, as they are about any other object or force in the universe. We are physical objects, and we are also living organisms, and we are also intelligent species. We are able to imagine many possible futures, to accomplish our biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce, and we incorporate the physical forces in our bodies that enable us to bring such futures into actuality. We are not only an embodiment of those laws of nature, but also a force of nature. So, the laws of nature do not require any changes, in order for us to be actual forces of those laws.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

Multiple options are never realized. So, determinism holds. Only one of those option is realized, the one thing that we "will" do. All the other options become "things that we could have done, but didn't".

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

The "possibility" of realizing any one of those options is a matter of our ability to realize that option if, and only if, we choose to do so. So, the fact that we did not realize all the options, but only the one we actually chose, does not make those other options "impossibilities", or even "unrealizable", it merely makes them unchosen and unrealized.

"Freedom" is the absence of a meaningful and relevant constraints. For example, the constraints on free speech are censorship. The constraints upon a prisoner are handcuffs and the prison. The constraints upon a free public education is the money usually charged by private schools. The constraints upon freedom of religion is a national religion imposed by the state.

And, of course, the constraints that are meaningful and relevant to free will, to choosing for ourselves what we will do, are "coercion" and "undue influence".

3- If 'freedom' does not require a means for the selection an option from set of realizable alternatves, what is freedom?

Since selecting an option from a set of realizable alternatives is exactly how the deterministic operation of choosing works, we would have to say that determinism in no way contradicts free will, or any other freedom.

Reliable causation is not, in itself, a meaningful or relevant constraint. Only specific causes, like the prisoner's handcuffs, or the cost of a private school, or a national religion, or coercion, or undue influence are meaningful and relevant constraints.

Reliable cause and effect, in itself, is neither coercive nor undue, so causal necessity poses no threat to free will. Only specific causes, such as coercion and other forms of undue influence are meaningful and relevant.

 

[steve_bank]

Energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared.

E =-.5 MV^2 kinetic energy
E = MC^2 atomic energy

So C^2 does have a meaning.


A cosmology book I had used unversed for the observable universe and Universe for all that exists. Anything that exists is by definition part of the Universe whether we see it or not.

'Other dimensions' is mostly colored by scfi plot devices. Along with time travel. FTL. Universal translator implants. Sub Space. Aliens who speak English. Mater energy transport.

If you wat to sink your teeth into a newer speculation there is String Theory. Fully mathematically developed.

String theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

String theory is a broad and varied subject that attempts to address a number of deep questions of fundamental physics. String theory has contributed a number of advances to mathematical physics, which have been applied to a variety of problems in black hole physics, early universe cosmology, nuclear physics, and condensed matter physics, and it has stimulated a number of major developments in pure mathematics. Because string theory potentially provides a unified description of gravity and particle physics, it is a candidate for a theory of everything, a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter. Despite much work on these problems, it is not known to what extent string theory describes the real world or how much freedom the theory allows in the choice of its details.

String theory was first studied in the late 1960s as a theory of the strong nuclear force, before being abandoned in favor of quantum chromodynamics. Subsequently, it was realized that the very properties that made string theory unsuitable as a theory of nuclear physics made it a promising candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. The earliest version of string theory, bosonic string theory, incorporated only the class of particles known as bosons. It later developed into superstring theory, which posits a connection called supersymmetry between bosons and the class of particles called fermions. Five consistent versions of superstring theory were developed before it was conjectured in the mid-1990s that they were all different limiting cases of a single theory in 11 dimensions known as M-theory. In late 1997, theorists discovered an important relationship called the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence), which relates string theory to another type of physical theory called a quantum field theory.

One of the challenges of string theory is that the full theory does not have a satisfactory definition in all circumstances. Another issue is that the theory is thought to describe an enormous landscape of possible universes, which has complicated efforts to develop theories of particle physics based on string theory. These issues have led some in the community to criticize these approaches to physics, and to question the value of continued research on string theory unification.

Inhibited Escapists

The very reason that the Postclassical gurus didn't use the extra-dimensional explanations for quantum physics was that, decades earlier, it had acquired a bad reputation when fantasists made it the home of ghosts, demons, or even God. That just shows the low character of nerds that they would let the reputation created by people even weirder than they are determine their science. I'm not going to use the "I know, but..." hedge. Anyone who associates an idea with what Hollywood projects about it is being dishonest and can't offer any rational objections.

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

I can take a hint...I'll take my marbles and play elsewhere!!!!

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

If you invoke other spatial dimensions you then have to derive an experiment that can bear that out.

Flatline Should Not Have Been Flat-Lined

Displacement without motion is impossible unless the particle goes into another dimension. A leap in your acceptable universe, going from A to B without traveling on the line AB, is explained by motion through the third dimension of height. So the quantum leap is itself the experiment that proves there must be another dimension. Your objection is no more valid than, "Prove that what just happened did happen."

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

A Thread Is Not a Tightrope

Human will is another dimension with the power to control, contend with, or limit the damages of the determined world. So it is analogous with the fourth spatial dimension that will be recognized in post-Postclassical Physics.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I can take a hint...I'll take my marbles and play elsewhere!!!!

You're free to go, but please leave the marbles.

 

[DBT]

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

Why not? I'm serious.

If the meaning of words is derived from how we use those words, why then should we not use 'freedom of will' to describe our deciding for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence".

Why not? It has been explained over and over. If your actions are fixed as a matter of natural law, your behaviour and response necessitated by events outside of your ability to alter or control, your will - just as everything else in the world - set as a consequence, how is your will free? It is not. It has the same status as everything else within a determined system

Freedom by definition requires regulative control, the ability to have done otherwise, which is not permitted by determinism;


Free; a. Not affected or restricted by a given condition or circumstance
b. Not subject to a given condition; exempt: income that is free of all taxes.
5. Not subject to external restraint: Unconstrained; unconfined:
*free; unrestrained; having a scope not restricted by qualification <a free variable>
7 a: not obstructed, restricted, or impeded.


Necessity:
''Necessity is the idea that everything that has ever happened and ever will happen is necessary, and can not be otherwise. Necessity is often opposed to chance and contingency. In a necessary world there is no chance. Everything that happens is necessitated.''


Freedom:
a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.



1)There are no realizable alternatives within a determined system.
2) Freedom requires the existence of realizable alternatives.
3)Without realizable alternatives, there is no freedom.
4)Freedom (the existence of realizable alternatives) is incompatible with determinism.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

How do you not?

That's what you need to explain. You need to link your ''flow control'' to cognition and will in a way that supports 'freedom of will.'

What are you proposing? How does it work? You are not suggesting that computers have free will, I take it? So how does it relate to the brain and human cognition?

 

[DBT]

When it's boiled down, compatibilism essentially comes down to how you define your terms and conditions. Terms and conditions that are carefully selected to support the conclusion that free will (a label) is compatible with determinism.

But that's not a fair criticism, because determinism itself also comes down to how you define your terms and conditions. In fact, pretty much every discussion comes down to how we define our terms.

Determinism has a given definition. Basically - ''that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature'' - the risk in imposing one's own rules and conditions can create biases in favour of whatever is being claimed.

I like to use "operational" definitions when I can, which describe the concept in terms of how it "works" and what the notion is actually used for. For example:

This ultimately fails because it does not take critical factors into account; the nature and role of will, brain function, self and determinism, yet the label is pasted and asserted.

"Will" is a person's specific intent for the immediate ("I will have pancakes for breakfast") or distant ("last will and testament") future. This intent both motivates and gives direction to the person's subsequent actions.

"Brain functions" are the various functions provided by the neural architecture. Perhaps the most significant of these is the organization of sensory input into a model of reality. Included in this model is the "self" and its "internal environment" and also its "external environment". The key brain functions related to free will are imagination, evaluation, and choosing.

"Self" is the brain's model of the person, including things like their body, their thoughts, and their experiences.

"Determinism" is the belief (-ism) that all events are the reliable result of prior events.

"Causal necessity" is the notion that prior events reliably bring about future events, making them necessary and inevitable.

Are there any differences between how we are using those terms?

That's right....it goes wrong when someone points to a select portion of determined events and declares this select portion to be free will.


''Determinism (which I take to be Causal Determinism) posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] prior activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the prior activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.''


''As I understand the two concepts, Determinism and Free Will are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

''When all is said and done, all arguments for compatibilism suffer from a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' Bruce Silvertein - B.A. Philosophy - Quora.

 

[DBT]

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

A Thread Is Not a Tightrope

Human will is another dimension with the power to control, contend with, or limit the damages of the determined world. So it is analogous with the fourth spatial dimension that will be recognized in post-Postclassical Physics.

Will, in determined World with its necessitated objects and events, is shaped and formed by events beyond any possible control or ability to alter. Will is fixed as a matter of natural law, time and events.

 

[The AntiChris]

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

Why not? I'm serious.

If the meaning of words is derived from how we use those words, why then should we not use 'freedom of will' to describe our deciding for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence".

Why not? It has been explained over and over.

Yes, but your explanation makes no sense.

If your actions are fixed as a matter of natural law, your behaviour and response necessitated by events outside of your ability to alter or control, your will - just as everything else in the world - set as a consequence, how is your will free? It is not. It has the same status as everything else within a determined system

So, according to you, nothing in a determined system is free. This implies that all usage of the terms 'free' and 'freedom' are mistaken. Are you actually suggesting that the words 'free' and 'freedom' should be expunged from the English language?

If this is not what you intended, you should correct your explanation.

 

[fromderinside]

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

Why not? I'm serious.

If the meaning of words is derived from how we use those words, why then should we not use 'freedom of will' to describe our deciding for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence".

Why not? It has been explained over and over.

Yes, but your explanation makes no sense.

If your actions are fixed as a matter of natural law, your behaviour and response necessitated by events outside of your ability to alter or control, your will - just as everything else in the world - set as a consequence, how is your will free? It is not. It has the same status as everything else within a determined system

So, according to you, nothing in a determined system is free. This implies that all usage of the terms 'free' and 'freedom' are mistaken. Are you actually suggesting that the words 'free' and 'freedom' should be expunged from the English language?

If this is not what you intended, you should correct your explanation.

Time t from the perspective of one observing now versus one observing earlier has an interesting property. The one now has access to what happened between then an now while the one then has no access all the determinants arising between her observations and your observations. Yet laws are universal, reliable is determined.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Determinism has a given definition. Basically - ''that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature''

That's fine! It is indeed the case that every event is always necessitated by antecedent events and conditions. For example, a person's birth happens to be one of those antecedent events and conditions in the chain of events to what the person becomes later. And a person behaves according to their nature. When a person is old enough to choose for themselves what they will do, they will be presented with realizable alternatives, "It's lunchtime. Would you like to go to MacDonald's or Wendy's?" In order to eat they must make a choice. They will imagine what they like about MacDonald's. Then they will imagine what they like about Wendy's. They will choose the option that seems most likely to please their desires today. All of these smaller events are causally necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.

And, the event of choosing for ourselves what we will do is called "free will", because they are free to choose for themselves what they will do.

Do any of these events contradict causal necessity or the laws of nature? No. Not one.

Does the term "free will" mean that any of these events contradict causal necessity or the laws of nature? No. All of these events are deterministic, following a causal chain stretching back in time as far as anyone can imagine.

So, what does "free will" mean? It means they decided for themselves what they would do, while free of coercion and undue influence.

- the risk in imposing one's own rules and conditions can create biases in favour of whatever is being claimed.

Fortunately, there was never any necessity to impose my own rules or conditions.

I like to use "operational" definitions when I can, which describe the concept in terms of how it "works" and what the notion is actually used for. For example:

This ultimately fails because it does not take critical factors into account; the nature and role of will, brain function, self and determinism, yet the label is pasted and asserted.

"Will" is a person's specific intent for the immediate ("I will have pancakes for breakfast") or distant ("last will and testament") future. This intent both motivates and gives direction to the person's subsequent actions.

"Brain functions" are the various functions provided by the neural architecture. Perhaps the most significant of these is the organization of sensory input into a model of reality. Included in this model is the "self" and its "internal environment" and also its "external environment". The key brain functions related to free will are imagination, evaluation, and choosing.

"Self" is the brain's model of the person, including things like their body, their thoughts, and their experiences.

"Determinism" is the belief (-ism) that all events are the reliable result of prior events.

"Causal necessity" is the notion that prior events reliably bring about future events, making them necessary and inevitable.

Are there any differences between how we are using those terms?

That's right....it goes wrong when someone points to a select portion of determined events and declares this select portion to be free will.

Are you suggesting that we should avoid looking at the different events within the determined system? As long as all of the events are equally determined by preceding events and the laws of nature, what is your objection?

''Determinism (which I take to be Causal Determinism) posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] prior activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the prior activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.''

Yes, Bruce. And among these "mandated activities" are choosing for ourselves what we will do. Not free of determinism, of course, but definitely free of coercion and undue influence.

''As I understand the two concepts, Determinism and Free Will are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

No, Bruce. Free will and determinism are not opposites. The opposite of free will is a choice imposed upon us by someone or something else. The opposite of determinism (reliable causation) is indeterminism, where causation is unreliable. All of the causation within the choosing event is presumed to be reliable. So, there is no conflict between the notion of determinism and the notion of free will.

''When all is said and done, all arguments for compatibilism suffer from a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' Bruce Silvertein - B.A. Philosophy - Quora.

Sorry, Bruce, but the stubbornness is wholly owned by the hard determinist, who refuses to see what is right there in front of him.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Will, in determined World with its necessitated objects and events, is shaped and formed by events beyond any possible control or ability to alter. Will is fixed as a matter of natural law, time and events.

No problem. A person, like any other natural object, behaves according to natural law. A person's will is necessitated by a series of deterministic events within that person: the consideration of realizable alternatives, the estimated outcome of realizing each alternative, and setting their intent upon realizing the best outcome. Their intent then marshals their body into action realizing that alternative.

This deterministic process of deciding for themselves what they will do is called "free will", which is literally a freely chosen "I will". And, what is it "free" of? It is obviously not free of reliable causation, because without reliable causation they could never realize their selected alternative. So, it must be free of something else. Something that choosing can actually be free of. Hmm. How about "free from coercion and undue influence"? Yes! That works!

 

[Jarhyn]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

How do you not?

That's what you need to explain. You need to link your ''flow control'' to cognition and will in a way that supports 'freedom of will.'

What are you proposing? How does it work? You are not suggesting that computers have free will, I take it? So how does it relate to the brain and human cognition?

"Computers" do not have free will. "Processes" may or may not with relation to another process, because there is only a single computer but there are many processors and many processes.

I am saying specifically that "the quality of a process which is capable of operating without being descheduled, overridden, or terminated; the exclusivity of it's needed resources so as to stay out of "bad states", this is exactly the same stuff as our discussions of "free will" as comes from the compatibilist position.

A process does not have "free will" if a secondary process executes that starts donking around with it's memory, or leverages some kind of enhanced permission level and deschedules the other! Something has "suborned" it's "free will".

Humans need to discuss these concepts, not just as regards processes on computer based processes in deterministic electronic systems but of organic processes interacting in physical deterministic systems , and this need arises from the fact that understanding them more enables the efficiency that comes from handling the above well.

The only difference here is that humans have much more variant and unintentional purpose to our lives.

Even if the execution of a whole system is deterministic, processes within it have local indeterminabilities. In fact, on any system with more than one processor state (the universe has (particles) processor states, at a minimum!), This must be true.

 

[steve_bank]

I can take a hint...I'll take my marbles and play elsewhere!!!!

You're free to go, but please leave the marbles.

I was wondering if yiu had a sense of humor.

 

[steve_bank]

In his book on QM Bohm briefly raised the idea of an Uncertainty Principle of the mind.

The more you focus and try to define something the more diffuse and scattered it becomes.

I would not call decision making in general deterministic. I'd call it subjective, emotion is involved. How you feel matters at the time. WE are not logical engines. It is a gloomy overcast, rainy, and cold day. Can that affect a decision? Or a fight with a partner or a hangover?

It is looking line decsiion making can be more probabilistic than deterministic, or at least influenced by unrelated events.

People can fall into a rut over time and keep making the same decisions over and over without thought. A 'one track mind'.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

In his book on QM Bohm briefly raised the idea of an Uncertainty Principle of the mind.

The more you focus and try to define something the more diffuse and scattered it becomes.

I would not call decision making in general deterministic. I'd call it subjective, emotion is involved. How you feel matters at the time. WE are not logical engines. It is a gloomy overcast, rainy, and cold day. Can that affect a decision? Or a fight with a partner or a hangover?

It is looking line decsiion making can be more probabilistic than deterministic, or at least influenced by unrelated events.

People can fall into a rut over time and keep making the same decisions over and over without thought. A 'one track mind'.

The word "determine" has at least two distinct meanings: "to know" and "to cause". For example, "We were unable to determine (know) whether it was the heat or the pressure that determined (caused) when the reaction took place". So, there are two different issues with determinism, causation and prediction.

When DBT and I are discussing "causal determinism" we're suggesting that all events are reliably caused by prior events. But the fact that something is reliably caused implies a "theoretical predictability" but not always a "practical predictability". Notions of random or chaotic events are, to me, issues of predictability but not issues of causation. These events are, to me, reliably caused, but still unpredictable, except by statistical probability.

We can know all of the vectors that causally determine that a flipped coin will land heads up or tails up. There is the speed of the coin's rotation, the height of the toss, the wind resistance, the angle and force that the coin hits the surface, and the bounce (essentially a second toss). And, we could, at least in theory, build a coin flipping machine in which all of those vectors were controlled, so that the coin always landed heads up.

So, the result of the coin toss is reliably caused, but unpredictable.

It is this unpredictability that makes determining (knowing) the result a question of "uncertainty", rather than a question of unreliable causation.

I think there is an opposite situation in that the positions of the stars and planets at any given time were predictable, due to astronomers recording data year after year, probably long before the causes of their apparent movement was known.

We are not machines, of course. A machine is a tool that we create to help us accomplish our goals. The machine has no goals of its own. But we do appear to be a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms, that keep our hearts beating and our ideas flowing. We come into the world, like all living organisms, with biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. So, we have a built-in purpose. We also have an evolved brain that allows us to imagine many possibilities and to choose the one we think is best.

In fact, within the domain of human influence (stuff we can make happen if we choose to), the single inevitable future will be chosen by us from among the many possible futures that we imagine.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

A Thread Is Not a Tightrope

Human will is another dimension with the power to control, contend with, or limit the damages of the determined world. So it is analogous with the fourth spatial dimension that will be recognized in post-Postclassical Physics.

Will, in determined World with its necessitated objects and events, is shaped and formed by events beyond any possible control or ability to alter. Will is fixed as a matter of natural law, time and events.

Science Must Not Be a Game Played by Escapist Immature Nerds

The way you deny extra-dimensionality you must believe in the Quantum Quacks.

 

[DBT]

You guys should start a thread on string theory.

A Thread Is Not a Tightrope

Human will is another dimension with the power to control, contend with, or limit the damages of the determined world. So it is analogous with the fourth spatial dimension that will be recognized in post-Postclassical Physics.

Will, in determined World with its necessitated objects and events, is shaped and formed by events beyond any possible control or ability to alter. Will is fixed as a matter of natural law, time and events.

Science Must Not Be a Game Played by Escapist Immature Nerds

The way you deny extra-dimensionality you must believe in the Quantum Quacks.

How is extra-dimensionality supposed to help with free will? You need to explain, not assert, cry wow or wring your hands in anguish.

 

[steve_bank]

That is the problem with philosophy and metaphysics, there are no precise definitions. One freely coopts terms and invents new ones.

 

[fromderinside]

Cummon steve_bank, be rational.

 

[DBT]

Will, in determined World with its necessitated objects and events, is shaped and formed by events beyond any possible control or ability to alter. Will is fixed as a matter of natural law, time and events.

No problem. A person, like any other natural object, behaves according to natural law. A person's will is necessitated by a series of deterministic events within that person: the consideration of realizable alternatives, the estimated outcome of realizing each alternative, and setting their intent upon realizing the best outcome. Their intent then marshals their body into action realizing that alternative.

This deterministic process of deciding for themselves what they will do is called "free will", which is literally a freely chosen "I will". And, what is it "free" of? It is obviously not free of reliable causation, because without reliable causation they could never realize their selected alternative. So, it must be free of something else. Something that choosing can actually be free of. Hmm. How about "free from coercion and undue influence"? Yes! That works!

Realizable alternatives exist in general, but these are not realizable options available to all. A career in Mathematics, for instance, is quite possible for some, but not all. It's not only a matter of application and study, but aptitude. Some learn easily, others not at all. Not for want of trying, but because their brain is not wired for it.

A career in sports is a realizable option for some, becoming champion swimmer, boxer, sprinter, tennis player, but not for all, not even for most people....not because of want of training, drive, motivation, just physical suitability: they are not built for it.

Again, nothing to do with will, free will or choice, just 'luck of the draw' - yet in a determined system, whatever you are and whatever you can or can't do being necessitated.... not even luck of the draw.

 

[DBT]

2- If freedom does not require the possibility of realizable options, that the world proceeds along a determined, singular, course of events, why call it freedom?

Why not? I'm serious.

If the meaning of words is derived from how we use those words, why then should we not use 'freedom of will' to describe our deciding for ourselves what we will do while "free of coercion and undue influence".

Why not? It has been explained over and over.

Yes, but your explanation makes no sense.

If your actions are fixed as a matter of natural law, your behaviour and response necessitated by events outside of your ability to alter or control, your will - just as everything else in the world - set as a consequence, how is your will free? It is not. It has the same status as everything else within a determined system

So, according to you, nothing in a determined system is free. This implies that all usage of the terms 'free' and 'freedom' are mistaken. Are you actually suggesting that the words 'free' and 'freedom' should be expunged from the English language?

If this is not what you intended, you should correct your explanation.

Yeah, as simple and as straight forward the terms and definitions are - freedom, will, necessity, the consequences of determinism - I didn't expect that it would make sense to you.

Your response is precisely what I expected to see.

 

[DBT]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

How do you not?

That's what you need to explain. You need to link your ''flow control'' to cognition and will in a way that supports 'freedom of will.'

What are you proposing? How does it work? You are not suggesting that computers have free will, I take it? So how does it relate to the brain and human cognition?

"Computers" do not have free will. "Processes" may or may not with relation to another process, because there is only a single computer but there are many processors and many processes.

I am saying specifically that "the quality of a process which is capable of operating without being descheduled, overridden, or terminated; the exclusivity of it's needed resources so as to stay out of "bad states", this is exactly the same stuff as our discussions of "free will" as comes from the compatibilist position.

A process does not have "free will" if a secondary process executes that starts donking around with it's memory, or leverages some kind of enhanced permission level and deschedules the other! Something has "suborned" it's "free will".

Humans need to discuss these concepts, not just as regards processes on computer based processes in deterministic electronic systems but of organic processes interacting in physical deterministic systems , and this need arises from the fact that understanding them more enables the efficiency that comes from handling the above well.

The only difference here is that humans have much more variant and unintentional purpose to our lives.

Even if the execution of a whole system is deterministic, processes within it have local indeterminabilities. In fact, on any system with more than one processor state (the universe has (particles) processor states, at a minimum!), This must be true.

I don't disagree with most of what you say. But if your intent is to argue for the reality of free will, I see anything here that does that.

 

[DBT]

Determinism has a given definition. Basically - ''that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature''

That's fine! It is indeed the case that every event is always necessitated by antecedent events and conditions. For example, a person's birth happens to be one of those antecedent events and conditions in the chain of events to what the person becomes later. And a person behaves according to their nature. When a person is old enough to choose for themselves what they will do, they will be presented with realizable alternatives, "It's lunchtime. Would you like to go to MacDonald's or Wendy's?" In order to eat they must make a choice. They will imagine what they like about MacDonald's. Then they will imagine what they like about Wendy's. They will choose the option that seems most likely to please their desires today. All of these smaller events are causally necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.

And, the event of choosing for ourselves what we will do is called "free will", because they are free to choose for themselves what they will do.

Do any of these events contradict causal necessity or the laws of nature? No. Not one.

Does the term "free will" mean that any of these events contradict causal necessity or the laws of nature? No. All of these events are deterministic, following a causal chain stretching back in time as far as anyone can imagine.

So, what does "free will" mean? It means they decided for themselves what they would do, while free of coercion and undue influence.

- the risk in imposing one's own rules and conditions can create biases in favour of whatever is being claimed.

Fortunately, there was never any necessity to impose my own rules or conditions.

I like to use "operational" definitions when I can, which describe the concept in terms of how it "works" and what the notion is actually used for. For example:

This ultimately fails because it does not take critical factors into account; the nature and role of will, brain function, self and determinism, yet the label is pasted and asserted.

"Will" is a person's specific intent for the immediate ("I will have pancakes for breakfast") or distant ("last will and testament") future. This intent both motivates and gives direction to the person's subsequent actions.

"Brain functions" are the various functions provided by the neural architecture. Perhaps the most significant of these is the organization of sensory input into a model of reality. Included in this model is the "self" and its "internal environment" and also its "external environment". The key brain functions related to free will are imagination, evaluation, and choosing.

"Self" is the brain's model of the person, including things like their body, their thoughts, and their experiences.

"Determinism" is the belief (-ism) that all events are the reliable result of prior events.

"Causal necessity" is the notion that prior events reliably bring about future events, making them necessary and inevitable.

Are there any differences between how we are using those terms?

That's right....it goes wrong when someone points to a select portion of determined events and declares this select portion to be free will.

Are you suggesting that we should avoid looking at the different events within the determined system? As long as all of the events are equally determined by preceding events and the laws of nature, what is your objection?

''Determinism (which I take to be Causal Determinism) posits that all activity in the universe is both (i) the effect of [all] prior activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the prior activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. In a deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.''

Yes, Bruce. And among these "mandated activities" are choosing for ourselves what we will do. Not free of determinism, of course, but definitely free of coercion and undue influence.

''As I understand the two concepts, Determinism and Free Will are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of Determinism.

No, Bruce. Free will and determinism are not opposites. The opposite of free will is a choice imposed upon us by someone or something else. The opposite of determinism (reliable causation) is indeterminism, where causation is unreliable. All of the causation within the choosing event is presumed to be reliable. So, there is no conflict between the notion of determinism and the notion of free will.

''When all is said and done, all arguments for compatibilism suffer from a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' Bruce Silvertein - B.A. Philosophy - Quora.

Sorry, Bruce, but the stubbornness is wholly owned by the hard determinist, who refuses to see what is right there in front of him.

Well, no. Bruce is quite correct. He gives a nice summary of the issue that relates to the terms and conditions of freedom and determinism.

Because determinism doesn't allow realizable alternatives at each point of decision making (unless sting theory is correct and the world splits) we don't actually get to choose, the brain responds to it inputs according to its architecture and state in that moment in time, producing the only possible action in that that moment in time.

Nothing is willed, information is acquired, processed, represented in conscious form, the action initiated even before intent comes to conscious attention.

Brain/mind/cognition, highly complex information processing/behaviour. Free will? Not really.

 

[Bomb#20]

Inhibited Escapists

The very reason that the Postclassical gurus didn't use the extra-dimensional explanations for quantum physics was that, decades earlier, it had acquired a bad reputation when fantasists made it the home of ghosts, demons, or even God. That just shows the low character of nerds that they would let the reputation created by people even weirder than they are determine their science. I'm not going to use the "I know, but..." hedge. Anyone who associates an idea with what Hollywood projects about it is being dishonest and can't offer any rational objections.

Oh for the love of god! You have no idea just how uninhibited those guys are. Quantum Mechanics is an extra-dimensional explanation. The Schroedinger Equation is not an equation about 3-space; it's an equation about "configuration space". To describe a system of two particles it posits six dimensions, seven when you count time. QM needs a ten-dimensional space to explain what a three particle system will do, and so forth. But to do QM right, including antimatter, pair-creation, and relativistic speeds, you need Quantum Field Theory, where the predicted quantities aren't particle positions and velocities, but force fields, which means you need a dimension for the strength and direction of those forces at every point in spacetime. I.e. QFT is a theory of infinitely many dimensions. The Postclassical gurus are way ahead of you.

 

[The AntiChris]

So, according to you, nothing in a determined system is free. This implies that all usage of the terms 'free' and 'freedom' are mistaken. Are you actually suggesting that the words 'free' and 'freedom' should be expunged from the English language?

Yeah, as simple and as straight forward the terms and definitions are - freedom, will, necessity, the consequences of determinism - I didn't expect that it would make sense to you.

Your response is precisely what I expected to see.

Apologies for being dense (it's not intentional). Can you confirm that you really are suggesting that all uses of the the words 'free' and 'freedom' to describe anything in a determined system are mistaken?