Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Jarhyn]

Pretty pathetic rationale for what requires logical concrete.

This is nonsense. Please revise it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Please explain how more than one possibility conforms to determinism.

Possibilities exist solely in the imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive a car across an actual bridge.

However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge. So, the notion of a "possibility" serves an essential function in our logical reasoning.

In deterministic reality, we encounter problems or issues where we must make a choice before we can continue. Will I turn left or right? Will I order the steak or the salad? Will I wear the red tie or the blue tie?

The logic of decision making is fully deterministic. Each step is causally necessary. And, from any prior point in eternity it will have been causally necessary that I would have two neckties to choose from, and that I, and I alone, would be making that choice.

No, possibilities exist as objects in the set on which the choice function operates.

It just happens in the discussion of "wills" that these "possibilities" reference algorithms or seeds of algorithms that are being selected of for execution by some agent.

They are imaginary in terms of their function and freedom but they are real in terms of their structure and existence as phenomena, and in their presentation to the choice function as a set. That set is named "the possibilities of the choice"

In terms of a concrete example: I fill a bag full of marbles. I open the neck of the bag enough for one marble to be squeezed out.

The set of marbles in the bag are the possibilities. They are actual physical objects.

When I squeeze the bag, a marble pops out: the choice function has operated.

This behavior is a choice function of the bag of marbles.

It's very clear that this language works, makes sense, and is fairly easy to grasp.

Ascertaining these relationships is the entire reason we study physics at all. Moreover, the only useful constructions of language that exist, except for describing useless language as a warning to others, are constructions that are not contradictory, with themselves or with reality.

The fact of the marbles existing inside the bag, and there being a choice function on the bag as a product of the physical mechanics of marbles and bags, is not subjective in the least.

Thankfully, in broad terms, there is nothing contradictory with viewing the set of marbles in the bag as "possibilities of the choice function on squeezing a marble out", because this is what those words have been designed to address.

"Possibilities" is just another word for the mathematical concept of "set" as applied to "objects presented to a choice function".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... possibilities exist as objects in the set on which the choice function operates.

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

It just happens in the discussion of "wills" that these "possibilities" reference algorithms or seeds of algorithms that are being selected of for execution by some agent.

And the agent is choosing what it will do from that set of doable functions.

Intelligent species are basing that choice on the likely outcomes of performing this function versus performing that function. They have their own interests at stake in the outcomes of their choices. This would be a key distinction between the person versus the program.

They are imaginary in terms of their function and freedom but they are real in terms of their structure and existence as phenomena, and in their presentation to the choice function as a set. That set is named "the possibilities of the choice"

Sounds right.

In terms of a concrete example: I fill a bag full of marbles. I open the neck of the bag enough for one marble to be squeezed out.
The set of marbles in the bag are the possibilities. They are actual physical objects.
When I squeeze the bag, a marble pops out: the choice function has operated.

In a fashion, yes. But it is like the thermostat in my room. It has no interest in how hot or cold the room is. But I do have such an interest. And the thermostat is serving my interests, not its own.

With the bag of marbles, there is apparently no interest in which marble happens to squeeze out. If you had such an interest, then you would require a different mechanism.

... the only useful constructions of language that exist, ... are constructions that are not contradictory, with themselves or with reality.

Absolutely. That's why freedom cannot include "freedom from causal necessity", because it contradicts itself, and cannot be observed at all in empirical reality. So, we're limited to using "freedom from coercion and undue influence" as the definition of free will.

The fact of the marbles existing inside the bag, and there being a choice function on the bag as a product of the physical mechanics of marbles and bags, is not subjective in the least.

But that particular mechanism of choosing provides no freedom to control which marble will appear. For example, if you wanted to give each person a random marble, to make sure no one is shown favored treatment, then use the squeezing bag mechanism. But for other purposes a different mechanism may be required.

Thankfully, in broad terms, there is nothing contradictory with viewing the set of marbles in the bag as "possibilities of the choice function on squeezing a marble out", because this is what those words have been designed to address.

Well, one of the concerns in the free will controversy is whether we still have the freedom to control what happens. But the bag of marbles offers us no such freedom (except when we actually desire to get a random distribution, like a bingo number).

"Possibilities" is just another word for the mathematical concept of "set" as applied to "objects presented to a choice function".

I don't think any concepts are "mathematical". I think the language of mathematics may be used to speak of the same concept that we speak of using English. The same concepts may be expressed and used in many different languages.

 

[Jarhyn]

that particular mechanism of choosing provides no freedom to control

It doesn't need to. Right now I'm not discussing freedom of will or people, I am referring to freedom of a choice function. Going back to requirements, this is the freedom to "the requirement to produce a marble rather than not-a-marble", of the choice function of the bag.

While the bag contains marbles bag_squeeze_choice is free. If no marbles, bag_squeeze_choice is not free. Or conversely it's not free to produce a marble. It is free to produce ∅.

You don't need "freedom of control", that's just part of the chaotic operation of the choice function of the bag.

The marbles are the physical instances of possibility.

It could be anything squeezing the bag. It could be a machine, or a natural phenomena. It could be something not-a-bag. It could be a stream, the marbles molecules, the mouth of the bag a delta to the ocean. It could be an arbitrary line across the river itself. Objectively, the water is on a different side. Which water? It is a choice function of chaotic flow. The possibilities in the set are the molecules that spray past a spring head at time T1, until T2, the requirement being passage of the line at Tfinal.

It's all choice functions. Will is a choice function that operates a cogitation on the nature of the thing chosen upon, and then a secondary choice function with its own special name kept separate for context: the requirement.

There is a choice on some thing, arbitrary, but of itself an object -- Like the trigger on a bear trap -- which determines whether the system throws, the will gets freed up, and then the system ends up back in the "pick an intent" phase.

 

[fromderinside]

Please explain how more than one possibility conforms to determinism.

Possibilities exist solely in the imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive a car across an actual bridge.

However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge. So, the notion of a "possibility" serves an essential function in our logical reasoning.

In deterministic reality, we encounter problems or issues where we must make a choice before we can continue. Will I turn left or right? Will I order the steak or the salad? Will I wear the red tie or the blue tie?

The logic of decision making is fully deterministic. Each step is causally necessary. And, from any prior point in eternity it will have been causally necessary that I would have two neckties to choose from, and that I, and I alone, would be making that choice.

Imagination, as far as I know, exists only in the brains of some mammals. Pretty pathetic rationale for what requires logical concrete.

Ironically, the concrete logic also exists only in the brains of some mammals. Your gun appears to shoot backward as well as forward.

Most living things conduct experiments ever moment. That's the concrete to which one should adhere. Logic is much less than that.

Pretty pathetic rationale for what requires logical concrete.

This is nonsense. Please revise it.

Check my response to Marvin.

 

[fromderinside]

Please explain how more than one possibility conforms to determinism.

Possibilities exist solely in the imagination. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive a car across an actual bridge.

However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge. So, the notion of a "possibility" serves an essential function in our logical reasoning.

In deterministic reality, we encounter problems or issues where we must make a choice before we can continue. Will I turn left or right? Will I order the steak or the salad? Will I wear the red tie or the blue tie?

The logic of decision making is fully deterministic. Each step is causally necessary. And, from any prior point in eternity it will have been causally necessary that I would have two neckties to choose from, and that I, and I alone, would be making that choice.

Imagination, as far as I know, exists only in the brains of some mammals. Pretty pathetic rationale for what requires logical concrete.

Ironically, the concrete logic also exists only in the brains of some mammals. Your gun appears to shoot backward as well as forward.

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

After some thought, I think that you're probably right about concrete logic. It would be like math and the concept of "the counting of things". Similar things can be grouped and counted. Another pile of the same type of things can be stacked beside them, and we get the concrete logic of addition. It is something that would seem to be independent of language, and a notion that every language would have to represent in its own words. The words of each language can be mapped to such objects, enabling languages to be translated, because we can know what each other is talking about: that same concrete object. The object(s) sitting there outside of the brain, make the languages and the logics concrete.

So, where does that leave imagination? Well, imagination will also be based upon concrete examples, our experiences with the objective world, such that imagination becomes more accurate in its modeling and its estimates about the likely outcomes of our actions.

 

[Jarhyn]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

After some thought, I think that you're probably right about concrete logic. It would be like math and the concept of "the counting of things". Similar things can be grouped and counted. Another pile of the same type of things can be stacked beside them, and we get the concrete logic of addition. It is something that would seem to be independent of language, and a notion that every language would have to represent in its own words. The words of each language can be mapped to such objects, enabling languages to be translated, because we can know what each other is talking about: that same concrete object. The object(s) sitting there outside of the brain, make the languages and the logics concrete.

So, where does that leave imagination? Well, imagination will also be based upon concrete examples, our experiences with the objective world, such that imagination becomes more accurate in its modeling and its estimates about the likely outcomes of our actions.

The thing about concrete logic is of the sort that builds this "math outside of language" is exactly that nobody gets to have their own math.

As some folks have mentioned, math is a system of axiom, and concrete logic at best gives us a derivation to those shared axioms.

Many thousands of years of work have been done to prove that either someone has some set of fixed axioms in mind, or their math contains contradictions and they believe in some nonsense.

As it is, all the objects I'm talking about in terms of dwarves and lists exist on the computer, an object outside the human mind, even if it was birthed from it.

The end result? Everything I discuss is observable. You can observe the concrete object of the dwarf's will. You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

That are concrete objects. You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Dwarves' wills can be free, or constrained by the offered definitions too. We can observe things satisfying the properties that we attach the word "free" to: the concrete object of the requirement either causes the will (in the system it is called the 'task' or 'job') to be "complete" or "cancelled".

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

I could remove every textual representation, every pixel representation, every arbitrary thing so that the only way the system can be read would be the raw assembly and bits, and still I would be able to identify the object of the dwarf, the object of it's "will", identify the will as "a series of instructions of some kind" and the exit conditions from that series of instructions, as well as the exact exit condition that will eventually be hit.

A pattern will emerge wherein there are two general categorizations of the result: succeeds requirement; fails requirement. Or even +++; ---.

And then we are right back to where we were before: identifying that the ___ has a °°° that is ••• contingently on whether the *** is deterministically +++ or ---.

And then the homology between these relationships is exposed in that we can use words of English on the sentence above to make it intelligible: the dwarf has a will that is  free contingently on whether the requirement is deterministically  satisfied or missed.

The dwarf exists, just like their simulated universe really exists, albeit as a collection of bits being cogitated by an x86 (yet another object) inside a box in my office. It is no less what it is despite the fact that it is invented, configured, altogether bizarre, purposeless, and presented without other context: the computer is an object. Mutable, but objective and concrete in it's operations.

 

[fromderinside]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

After some thought, I think that you're probably right about concrete logic. It would be like math and the concept of "the counting of things". Similar things can be grouped and counted. Another pile of the same type of things can be stacked beside them, and we get the concrete logic of addition. It is something that would seem to be independent of language, and a notion that every language would have to represent in its own words. The words of each language can be mapped to such objects, enabling languages to be translated, because we can know what each other is talking about: that same concrete object. The object(s) sitting there outside of the brain, make the languages and the logics concrete.

So, where does that leave imagination? Well, imagination will also be based upon concrete examples, our experiences with the objective world, such that imagination becomes more accurate in its modeling and its estimates about the likely outcomes of our actions.

The thing about concrete logic is of the sort that builds this "math outside of language" is exactly that nobody gets to have their own math.

As some folks have mentioned, math is a system of axiom, and concrete logic at best gives us a derivation to those shared axioms.

Many thousands of years of work have been done to prove that either someone has some set of fixed axioms in mind, or their math contains contradictions and they believe in some nonsense.

As it is, all the objects I'm talking about in terms of dwarves and lists exist on the computer, an object outside the human mind, even if it was birthed from it.

The end result? Everything I discuss is observable. You can observe the concrete object of the dwarf's will. You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

That are concrete objects. You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Dwarves' wills can be free, or constrained by the offered definitions too. We can observe things satisfying the properties that we attach the word "free" to: the concrete object of the requirement either causes the will (in the system it is called the 'task' or 'job') to be "complete" or "cancelled".

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

I could remove every textual representation, every pixel representation, every arbitrary thing so that the only way the system can be read would be the raw assembly and bits, and still I would be able to identify the object of the dwarf, the object of it's "will", identify the will as "a series of instructions of some kind" and the exit conditions from that series of instructions, as well as the exact exit condition that will eventually be hit.

A pattern will emerge wherein there are two general categorizations of the result: succeeds requirement; fails requirement. Or even +++; ---.

And then we are right back to where we were before: identifying that the ___ has a °°° that is ••• contingently on whether the *** is deterministically +++ or ---.

And then the homology between these relationships is exposed in that we can use words of English on the sentence above to make it intelligible: the dwarf has a will that is  free contingently on whether the requirement is deterministically  satisfied or missed.

The dwarf exists, just like their simulated universe really exists, albeit as a collection of bits being cogitated by an x86 (yet another object) inside a box in my office. It is no less what it is despite the fact that it is invented, configured, altogether bizarre, purposeless, and presented without other context: the computer is an object. Mutable, but objective and concrete in it's operations.

Analogy is not replication. Nor is computation reality.

 

[Jarhyn]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

After some thought, I think that you're probably right about concrete logic. It would be like math and the concept of "the counting of things". Similar things can be grouped and counted. Another pile of the same type of things can be stacked beside them, and we get the concrete logic of addition. It is something that would seem to be independent of language, and a notion that every language would have to represent in its own words. The words of each language can be mapped to such objects, enabling languages to be translated, because we can know what each other is talking about: that same concrete object. The object(s) sitting there outside of the brain, make the languages and the logics concrete.

So, where does that leave imagination? Well, imagination will also be based upon concrete examples, our experiences with the objective world, such that imagination becomes more accurate in its modeling and its estimates about the likely outcomes of our actions.

The thing about concrete logic is of the sort that builds this "math outside of language" is exactly that nobody gets to have their own math.

As some folks have mentioned, math is a system of axiom, and concrete logic at best gives us a derivation to those shared axioms.

Many thousands of years of work have been done to prove that either someone has some set of fixed axioms in mind, or their math contains contradictions and they believe in some nonsense.

As it is, all the objects I'm talking about in terms of dwarves and lists exist on the computer, an object outside the human mind, even if it was birthed from it.

The end result? Everything I discuss is observable. You can observe the concrete object of the dwarf's will. You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

That are concrete objects. You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Dwarves' wills can be free, or constrained by the offered definitions too. We can observe things satisfying the properties that we attach the word "free" to: the concrete object of the requirement either causes the will (in the system it is called the 'task' or 'job') to be "complete" or "cancelled".

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

I could remove every textual representation, every pixel representation, every arbitrary thing so that the only way the system can be read would be the raw assembly and bits, and still I would be able to identify the object of the dwarf, the object of it's "will", identify the will as "a series of instructions of some kind" and the exit conditions from that series of instructions, as well as the exact exit condition that will eventually be hit.

A pattern will emerge wherein there are two general categorizations of the result: succeeds requirement; fails requirement. Or even +++; ---.

And then we are right back to where we were before: identifying that the ___ has a °°° that is ••• contingently on whether the *** is deterministically +++ or ---.

And then the homology between these relationships is exposed in that we can use words of English on the sentence above to make it intelligible: the dwarf has a will that is  free contingently on whether the requirement is deterministically  satisfied or missed.

The dwarf exists, just like their simulated universe really exists, albeit as a collection of bits being cogitated by an x86 (yet another object) inside a box in my office. It is no less what it is despite the fact that it is invented, configured, altogether bizarre, purposeless, and presented without other context: the computer is an object. Mutable, but objective and concrete in it's operations.

Analogy is not replication. Nor is computation reality.

Computation, of a real computer, is reality. It is a real object with real parts operating in reality. Your repeated inability to understand this is not mine nor anyone's problem.

It is merely a description of the behavior of an object.

The fact that this assembly of objects exists satisfying the relationship form you claim cannot possibly exist in terms of a deterministic system invalidates your claims.

So you are at "No True Scotsman Deterministic System" despite the fact that the deterministic system, if the universe is deterministic, must inherit our universe's determinism.

That you do not wish to accept this is down to your religion, not your capacity for reason.

 

[DBT]

Based on the given and accepted definition of determinism, alternate actions do not exist within a deterministic system.

And yet there they are, right in front of our noses. Which ice cream would you like? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry? Who will you be voting for in the upcoming races, Republicans or Democrats? Which necktie goes best with this shirt?

I have explained the terms of reference too many times that - by your given definition of determinism - there can be no alternate action in any given instance in time.

If you claim that you could have chosen either option in any given instance in time, it could have been chocolate or vanilla, etc, in any instance in time, you are contradicting your own definition of determinism.

Which means that you are not a Compatibilist at all, but a Libertarian.

Again, if ''all of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment'' - Marvin Edwards - there is necessarily one possible action in any given instance in time, without deviation (by your own definition.)

Within a fully deterministic system, there is only one thing that actually "will" happen. But there are many different things that actually "can" happen.

Not possible. According to your definition, there are is no deviation. Therefore, that which has been determined to happen - initial conditions and the way things go is fixed by natural law - is what must necessarily happen.

Your own definition stipulates that different things cannot happen;

''they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment'' - Marvin Edwards

We will necessarily choose the single thing that we will do from among the many things that we can do. "I better have a salad for dinner considering what I've already eaten for breakfast and lunch today".

What we do is fixed before we think or act; ''they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment'' - Marvin Edwards

The context of possibilities provides the logic and the grammar required by the rational causal mechanism in order to do its job. And we cannot break this mechanism without threatening the survival advantage that it has provided to our species.

Insisting upon a single actuality is perfectly fine. But insisting upon a single possibility is totally irrational. So, get the fork over it.

I don't insist on anything. The given definition of determinism stipulates no deviation, initial conditions and how things go ever after fixed by natural law.

This is not my definition, or something I insist on, it is the given definition of determinism: your definition.

Determinism can have no uncertainty, ...

Determinism can neither have certainty nor uncertainty, because it lacks a brain, not to mention lacking a body, and lacking any interests in any outcomes, etc. Determinism is simply the belief that all events are reliably caused by prior events. It is a rational belief, at least until people start drawing all kinds of false conclusions about its implications.

It doesn't need a brain, one state evolves into the next according to natural law, cause and effect, each cause an effect and each effect a cause forming an unbreakable web of necessitated actions, with no deviations or alternate possiblities.

That is the nature determinism. It is your given definition.

That people feel a sense of uncertainty is the state of the system in that instance in time, insufficient information in relation to the means of production.

Exactly! Thus the grammatical and logical context of possibilities, abilities, things that can happen, may happen, might happen, etc.

But they cannot happen. It is our limited perspective of the system that gives us the impression of multiple realizable options when in fact the system, if determined, does not allow multiple options in any given instance.

There is no feedback loop between consciousness and its neural information processing substrata.

That's scientifically false. Consciousness is not a free floating spiritual entity, operating outside the brain.

That's not what I said, or suggested. I was talking about brain function in terms of Libet, et al, sensory input preceding transmission and processing of information, which occurs milliseconds prior to, and feeding into conscious activity.

I have posted countless studies and references. Hallet, Haggard, Gazzaniga's narrator function, etc.

The personal narrative
''For example, in one study, researchers recorded the brain activity of participants when they raised their arm intentionally, when it was lifted by a pulley, and when it moved in response to a hypnotic suggestion that it was being lifted by a pulley.

Similar areas of the brain were active during the involuntary and the suggested “alien” movement, while brain activity for the intentional action was different. So, hypnotic suggestion can be seen as a means of communicating an idea or belief that, when accepted, has the power to alter a person’s perceptions or behaviour.''

''All this may leave one wondering where our thoughts, emotions and perceptions actually come from. We argue that the contents of consciousness are a subset of the experiences, emotions, thoughts and beliefs that are generated by non-conscious processes within our brains.''

The brain is processing information and the exchange of information between cells and regions creates a sense of uncertainty during the transition between input and action taken.

And what do you think this "sense" of uncertainty is for, if not to reflect our logical uncertainty prior to completing our own choosing? The rational causal mechanism deals with uncertainty by shifting to the context of multiple possibilities until choosing is complete, and we have resolved the question: "What will we do?".

Uncertainty is a state of incomplete information. If an event has low predictability, we cannot be certain it will happen as predicted or hoped for.

An illusion of consciousness, ...

An illusion is incapable of performing a function. Conscious awareness performs a function. It manages attention to a given task. It reinforces neural pathways during the recall of information. It explains the reasons for our chosen actions. It is certainly not an illusion. It is as real as any other function within the brain.

Consciousness has a function. Which doesn't mean that consciousness has complete access to its substrata, the brain's underlying information processing activity, inputs, memory integration, etc....which occurs milliseconds prior to conscious representation.

You appear to be drifting into probabilistic territory.

Not at all! But you appear to be grasping at straws.

I am referring to your own definition of determinism, which clearly stipulates no deviation, yet you seem to suggest multiple realizable options - 'And yet there they are, right in front of our noses. Which ice cream would you like? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry? Who will you be voting for in the upcoming races, Republicans or Democrats? Which necktie goes best with this shirt?'' - Marvin Edwards.

The issue is agency;

Indeed. For example, determinism has no agency. But you and I have plenty of agency, as witnessed by this very long thread.

Determinism fixes all actions and outcomes, initial conditions and events ever after, no deviation, a system where free will has no place or agency, where all actions - by definition - are necessitated, not freely chosen.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

...
As it is, all the objects I'm talking about in terms of dwarves and lists exist on the computer, an object outside the human mind, even if it was birthed from it.

The end result? Everything I discuss is observable. You can observe the concrete object of the dwarf's will. ...

But we do not have a concrete dwarf. We have a computer program with a collection of routines that we are calling a "dwarf". And that's the problem.

You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

Again, nothing concrete, but rather an analogy. The analogy is used to communicate certain characteristics of an actual dwarf. But it leaves out the most important characteristics.

An actual dwarf is a living organism with biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. These drives animate the living organism to obtain food, shelter, a mate, etc. An actual dwarf is also an intelligent species, that can learn from its experiences which options are most likely to satisfy his needs. And he can build upon what he has learned by inventing new ways to achieve those goals and satisfy those needs. These are characteristics of the concrete dwarf which are not replicated in the computer program.

You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

But there is no need to experiment, because we already know what the program will do. Rather than experimenting, we are simply testing the logic, to see that it is doing what we intended (our intentions are driving the behavior of the "dwarf", not his own).

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Ironically, the concrete dwarf has properties that are impossible to its host system, the universe. The concrete dwarf has a brain. The universe does not. The concrete dwarf can imagine new possibilities. The universe, lacking a brain, cannot imagine anything at all. The concrete dwarf can make a plan and take deliberate actions, but the universe, lacking a brain, can neither plan nor deliberate.

So, the concrete dwarf has abilities that the universe, its host, is lacking.

On the other hand, the programmed dwarf also has abilities that its host, the computer hardware, lacks. The programmed dwarf has its programmer's purpose. And that purpose controls what the program does, which in turn controls what the computer does. The computer provides the architecture, but provides no purposes, goals, or plans. These exist within the programmer, but not within the computer.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Well, that's a stretch for an analogy. The concrete dwarf's will is motivated by biology and directed by deliberation. The computer dwarf's will is basically the programmer's will for it.

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

On the one hand we have intelligence and then we have "artificial" intelligence. Artificial intelligence attempts to be an analog of actual intelligence, rather than vice versa. The capabilities that we have are different in nature from the capabilities that a computer has.

So, it seems a bit of a stretch to prove our capabilities by the fact that we may create an artificial analogy for a certain limited set of our capabilities.

We must first assume the capability in us before we can attempt an analogy of it on the computer.

 

[Jarhyn]

I have explained the terms of reference too many times that - by your given definition of determinism - there can be no alternate action in any given instance in time

Nobody has asked for alternate action. What is demonstrated repeatedly is the existence of possibilities of the choice function.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, the existence of the possibilities, concrete objects presented to a choice function, is trivially true.

If you claim that you could have chosen either option in any given instance

He doesn't. He claims that you could only actually choose one option in any given instance, OF the possibilities. The possibilities were there, are there, will always have been there. They just could not have been chosen.

This is why I brought up listA, whose possibilities are equally real, the momentary second of which shall never be chosen by pop. The second object in the list is still in "the set of possibilities" despite the fact that it deterministically shall not be returned.

What we do is fixed before we think or act

No, the state upon which we think or act is fixed, but what we do is fixed BY the thinking, fixed BY the acting.

It is similar to saying "what the ring of +/* on integers does is fixed by it's definition". Yes, but you still need to supply operands for the operation to have meaning.

In many ways, this means that X+Y=Z is fixed by only when given an X and a Y. The phrase otherwise is "variably dependent".

The thinking and acting still has to operate for the result to happen. You still have to do the thinking before the acting, and you are responsible for both.

The given definition of determinism stipulates no deviation, initial conditions and how things go ever after fixed by natural law...

And the continued state, of which we are a part, and so we bear momentary responsibility for the part we each play.

different things cannot happen

And there you fail. It is not that different things cannot happen, merely that different things will not happen.

Different things absolutely CAN happen. I can take all the same raws, all the same configuration values, change the seed (the initial conditions), and watch different things happen.

Determinism merely describes a fixed process on a GIVEN configuration.

That process quite often involves "many possibilities go into a choice function, some subset of those possibilities results."

With perfect knowledge of the determinism of the choice function, you can end up knowing which possibility shall be selected but it makes the unselected ones no less "possibilities" in the framework of compatibilism.

But they cannot happen

Again mixing contexts. "Cannot" used here is really an attempt to say "will not" with sloppy language. Of course sloppy language is allowed, but not when it steps as this does upon a conflation.

They CAN happen, they just WILL NOT happen.

To make this clear, when someone stands before someone else holding a sword, and the other is standing with a rifle pointed at the swordsman from some paces away, the rifleman might say to the swordsman "you can, but you won't," and this is a valid statement of English without contradiction. This is because it is a compound statement that states two things in two different contexts: that the swordsman has in his list of possibilities one which if you were to stop the universe, and modify the arrangement of particles inside his head in the very specific and minimal nature required to cause a signal to travel that "accepts" the one which roughly translates to "run at the rifleman with the sword, accept the pain of being shot, and stab him before bleeding out" that "run at the rifleman with the sword, accept the pain of being shot, and stab him before bleeding out" is what will happen.

This universe, while deterministic, cannot be stopped and tinkered in that way to the best of our knowledge.

Even so, this tells us about what is meant by "can" and informs us that such imaginings are sensible things to discuss.

 

[Jarhyn]

But we do not have a concrete dwarf. We have a computer program with a collection of routines that we are calling a "dwarf". And that's the problem.

It's only a problem if you can't understand that when you say dwarf here in this conversation, you are really abstracting a replacement to "the collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits relative to this other collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits that both exist adjacent to some behavioral system with a set of truths defined by arrangement of switches with binary activation energies and state transition models of the same through a clocked time phase."

If we can both accept we don't mean "a stout humanoid of quarks and gluons and carbon chemistry that happens to be fond of drink and industry" that isn't an issue.

The point is to show objects doing this stuff, and the "dwarf" is an object. If I could shove all that code that defined a dwarf into a box and characterize and can enough behavioral Algorighm to make it operate a real robot in a real space, it would just be doing so much more work just to prove the same damn point.

You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

Again, nothing concrete, but rather an analogy. The analogy is used to communicate certain characteristics of an actual dwarf. But it leaves out the most important characteristics.

As I said, what the real concrete shape of the dwarf is, is described above.

It is the use of common names to describe incredibly complex things for the sake of demonstrating one very important relationship among them: the presence of a series of instructions, which contains a requirement, which has a truth value of "whether it shall be met".

The "door", the "hallway", all of it is formed of a very complex arrangement of "bits", binary charges of electrical potentials, and machinery that operates upon those charge potentials.

I already understood this going into it. The point is that it demonstrates the existence of the relationship acting in reality. It is a physical proof that the relationship is not "nonsense"

An actual dwarf is a living organism with biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. These drives animate the living organism to obtain food, shelter, a mate, etc. An actual dwarf is also an intelligent species, that can learn from its experiences which options are most likely to satisfy his needs. And he can build upon what he has learned by inventing new ways to achieve those goals and satisfy those needs. These are characteristics of the concrete dwarf which are not replicated in the computer program.

As stated I'm not talking about an organic being. I  know I am not talking about an organic being. It's unimportant to demonstrate this being done by an organic being because its not possible with current technology to do this with organic beings. The point is to demonstrate the relationship is sensible with some objects that we can interrogate properly.

Did you not pick up on this when often I couch DF objects as "door" rather than door?

Color charged particles are not literally emitting wavelengths of light. We just use those words because it's a convenient metaphor for the thing that it is.

The reality of what it is does not detract from the relationship that is being demonstrated.

As a computer scientist I work with the tools I have, not with the tools I lack. I have complicated arrangements of electron charges on bits of heavily modified sand, I demonstrate my definitions operating between those.

The claim was "reality is deterministic", "not in determinism", therefore "not in reality".

If I can show "in reality", it propagates back to "not in determinism" being false. And then we can consider what relevance it has for us, namely the fact that "lists of instructions", "requirements" and "a truth value of whether the requirement(s) were met" are all valid things to discuss among deterministic systems which can host such relationships as these words describe.

You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

But there is no need to experiment, because we already know what the program will do. Rather than experimenting, we are simply testing the logic, to see that it is doing what we intended (our intentions are driving the behavior of the "dwarf", not his own).

It stopped being my intention the moment I hit go, the same way it stopped being "casual necessity's" intention the moment this all stepped off of temporal singularity.

It became only and exactly what it is. In the same way our prior causes became us making decisions, it's prior causes became it making decisions.

That it accomplished making decisions in different ways, that someone very painstakingly set up a set of initial conditions in the raw files, it means that reality was coerced into hosting that, yes, the existence of the system is by my will, and I am responsible for it, all the "pain" and "suffering" and "madness" and death.

Our concept of "door" is actually the metaphor for what the Dwarven door is, not the other way around. But  will a real observable series of instructions operating on that object, with a real requirement, is not a metaphor. It just happens to operate, in the proof, on things that if we were to approach them without metaphor we would quickly go about as insane as... Well, you've seen my posts, ya?

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Ironically, the concrete dwarf has properties that are impossible to its host system, the universe. The concrete dwarf has a brain. The universe does not. The concrete dwarf can imagine new possibilities. The universe, lacking a brain, cannot imagine anything at all. The concrete dwarf can make a plan and take deliberate actions, but the universe, lacking a brain, can neither plan nor deliberate.

And isn't it the truth! But the dwarf of doped silicon and electrons is no less concrete. Although it doesn't exactly think with the thing that is described as it's "brain".

Instead it thinks with a parameterized common function of it's universe, wherein the parameters used are the Dwarf object's instance data.

In a very strange way, the universe both of the dwarf and of ourselves, has exactly the many brains it does: our brains.

So, the concrete dwarf has abilities that the universe, its host, is lacking.

On the other hand, the programmed dwarf also has abilities that its host, the computer hardware, lacks. The programmed dwarf has its programmer's purpose. And that purpose controls what the program does, which in turn controls what the computer does. The computer provides the architecture, but provides no purposes, goals, or plans. These exist within the programmer, but not within the computer.

Exactly my point. Once the computer steps off of go, while I'm responsible for putting the dwarves there, they are responsible for what they do now that they ARE there.

Remember that I am talking about an object as concrete, of it's form, as cells of organic flesh.

I'm not going to belabor the point though any further.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Well, that's a stretch for an analogy. The concrete dwarf's will is motivated by biology and directed by deliberation. The computer dwarf's will is basically the programmer's will for it.

Excepting that both types of dwarf are concrete objects.

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

On the one hand we have intelligence and then we have "artificial" intelligence. Artificial intelligence attempts to be an analog of actual intelligence, rather than vice versa. The capabilities that we have are different in nature from the capabilities that a computer has.

Well, the point I make here is that the dwarf's intelligence is a relatively simple arrangement of operating algorithms. We are much more complicated and expressed with significantly different chemistry and physical instantiation.

But fundamentally, I don't need to prove HOW we hold wills to prove, once wills have been proven exist at all as sensible observed objects, that we satisfy the relationship of a thing which can interact meaningfully with a "will" as observed and defined previously, that these wills can have requirements, and that these requirements can be free or constrained in any given moment.

The point is first to disprove all that nonsense about "determinism invalidates 'choice' and 'will' and 'free' in linguistic usage" by sticking a nice metaphorical adamantium axe of physical mathematical proof in it's metaphorical skull.

So, it seems a bit of a stretch to prove our capabilities by the fact that we may create an artificial analogy for a certain limited set of our capabilities.

We must first assume the capability in us before we can attempt an analogy of it on the computer.

I am not attempting to prove our capability. I am attempting to disprove the hard determinist's claim of absolute incapability.

Once we've left hard determinism in the dust, the person who wishes to leave their responsibility behind will have to argue "neurons can't execute algorithms like that".

Which is why I made a very long argument some pages back about "neurons can accomplish any algorithmic form a Turing machine may", and so it implies that neurons CAN do that.

Then the burden of proof falls on the irresponsible person to demonstrate that we can't possibly be doing those things.

It puts a crack in the hard determinist's foundation that cannot be recovered from.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

But we do not have a concrete dwarf. We have a computer program with a collection of routines that we are calling a "dwarf". And that's the problem.

It's only a problem if you can't understand that when you say dwarf here in this conversation, you are really abstracting a replacement to "the collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits relative to this other collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits that both exist adjacent to some behavioral system with a set of truths defined by arrangement of switches with binary activation energies and state transition models of the same through a clocked time phase."

If we can both accept we don't mean "a stout humanoid of quarks and gluons and carbon chemistry that happens to be fond of drink and industry" that isn't an issue.

The point is to show objects doing this stuff, and the "dwarf" is an object. If I could shove all that code that defined a dwarf into a box and characterize and can enough behavioral Algorighm to make it operate a real robot in a real space, it would just be doing so much more work just to prove the same damn point.

You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

Again, nothing concrete, but rather an analogy. The analogy is used to communicate certain characteristics of an actual dwarf. But it leaves out the most important characteristics.

As I said, what the real concrete shape of the dwarf is, is described above.

It is the use of common names to describe incredibly complex things for the sake of demonstrating one very important relationship among them: the presence of a series of instructions, which contains a requirement, which has a truth value of "whether it shall be met".

The "door", the "hallway", all of it is formed of a very complex arrangement of "bits", binary charges of electrical potentials, and machinery that operates upon those charge potentials.

I already understood this going into it. The point is that it demonstrates the existence of the relationship acting in reality. It is a physical proof that the relationship is not "nonsense"

An actual dwarf is a living organism with biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. These drives animate the living organism to obtain food, shelter, a mate, etc. An actual dwarf is also an intelligent species, that can learn from its experiences which options are most likely to satisfy his needs. And he can build upon what he has learned by inventing new ways to achieve those goals and satisfy those needs. These are characteristics of the concrete dwarf which are not replicated in the computer program.

As stated I'm not talking about an organic being. I  know I am not talking about an organic being. It's unimportant to demonstrate this being done by an organic being because its not possible with current technology to do this with organic beings. The point is to demonstrate the relationship is sensible with some objects that we can interrogate properly.

Did you not pick up on this when often I couch DF objects as "door" rather than door?

Color charged particles are not literally emitting wavelengths of light. We just use those words because it's a convenient metaphor for the thing that it is.

The reality of what it is does not detract from the relationship that is being demonstrated.

As a computer scientist I work with the tools I have, not with the tools I lack. I have complicated arrangements of electron charges on bits of heavily modified sand, I demonstrate my definitions operating between those.

The claim was "reality is deterministic", "not in determinism", therefore "not in reality".

If I can show "in reality", it propagates back to "not in determinism" being false. And then we can consider what relevance it has for us, namely the fact that "lists of instructions", "requirements" and "a truth value of whether the requirement(s) were met" are all valid things to discuss among deterministic systems which can host such relationships as these words describe.

You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

But there is no need to experiment, because we already know what the program will do. Rather than experimenting, we are simply testing the logic, to see that it is doing what we intended (our intentions are driving the behavior of the "dwarf", not his own).

It stopped being my intention the moment I hit go, the same way it stopped being "casual necessity's" intention the moment this all stepped off of temporal singularity.

It became only and exactly what it is. In the same way our prior causes became us making decisions, it's prior causes became it making decisions.

That it accomplished making decisions in different ways, that someone very painstakingly set up a set of initial conditions in the raw files, it means that reality was coerced into hosting that, yes, the existence of the system is by my will, and I am responsible for it, all the "pain" and "suffering" and "madness" and death.

Our concept of "door" is actually the metaphor for what the Dwarven door is, not the other way around. But  will a real observable series of instructions operating on that object, with a real requirement, is not a metaphor. It just happens to operate, in the proof, on things that if we were to approach them without metaphor we would quickly go about as insane as... Well, you've seen my posts, ya?

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Ironically, the concrete dwarf has properties that are impossible to its host system, the universe. The concrete dwarf has a brain. The universe does not. The concrete dwarf can imagine new possibilities. The universe, lacking a brain, cannot imagine anything at all. The concrete dwarf can make a plan and take deliberate actions, but the universe, lacking a brain, can neither plan nor deliberate.

And isn't it the truth! But the dwarf of doped silicon and electrons is no less concrete. Although it doesn't exactly think with the thing that is described as it's "brain".

Instead it thinks with a parameterized common function of it's universe, wherein the parameters used are the Dwarf object's instance data.

In a very strange way, the universe both of the dwarf and of ourselves, has exactly the many brains it does: our brains.

So, the concrete dwarf has abilities that the universe, its host, is lacking.

On the other hand, the programmed dwarf also has abilities that its host, the computer hardware, lacks. The programmed dwarf has its programmer's purpose. And that purpose controls what the program does, which in turn controls what the computer does. The computer provides the architecture, but provides no purposes, goals, or plans. These exist within the programmer, but not within the computer.

Exactly my point. Once the computer steps off of go, while I'm responsible for putting the dwarves there, they are responsible for what they do now that they ARE there.

Remember that I am talking about an object as concrete, of it's form, as cells of organic flesh.

I'm not going to belabor the point though any further.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Well, that's a stretch for an analogy. The concrete dwarf's will is motivated by biology and directed by deliberation. The computer dwarf's will is basically the programmer's will for it.

Excepting that both types of dwarf are concrete objects.

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

On the one hand we have intelligence and then we have "artificial" intelligence. Artificial intelligence attempts to be an analog of actual intelligence, rather than vice versa. The capabilities that we have are different in nature from the capabilities that a computer has.

Well, the point I make here is that the dwarf's intelligence is a relatively simple arrangement of operating algorithms. We are much more complicated and expressed with significantly different chemistry and physical instantiation.

But fundamentally, I don't need to prove HOW we hold wills to prove, once wills have been proven exist at all as sensible observed objects, that we satisfy the relationship of a thing which can interact meaningfully with a "will" as observed and defined previously, that these wills can have requirements, and that these requirements can be free or constrained in any given moment.

The point is first to disprove all that nonsense about "determinism invalidates 'choice' and 'will' and 'free' in linguistic usage" by sticking a nice metaphorical adamantium axe of physical mathematical proof in it's metaphorical skull.

So, it seems a bit of a stretch to prove our capabilities by the fact that we may create an artificial analogy for a certain limited set of our capabilities.

We must first assume the capability in us before we can attempt an analogy of it on the computer.

I am not attempting to prove our capability. I am attempting to disprove the hard determinist's claim of absolute incapability.

Once we've left hard determinism in the dust, the person who wishes to leave their responsibility behind will have to argue "neurons can't execute algorithms like that".

Which is why I made a very long argument some pages back about "neurons can accomplish any algorithmic form a Turing machine may", and so it implies that neurons CAN do that.

Then the burden of proof falls on the irresponsible person to demonstrate that we can't possibly be doing those things.

It puts a crack in the hard determinist's foundation that cannot be recovered from.

I still prefer to attack the hard determinists metaphorical view with empirical observation and pragmatic analysis. The ultimate goal is to get at the truth, and metaphors are not reliable guides to the truth. All figurative statements are literally false.

 

[Jarhyn]

But we do not have a concrete dwarf. We have a computer program with a collection of routines that we are calling a "dwarf". And that's the problem.

It's only a problem if you can't understand that when you say dwarf here in this conversation, you are really abstracting a replacement to "the collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits relative to this other collection of routines that exists as a collection of bits that both exist adjacent to some behavioral system with a set of truths defined by arrangement of switches with binary activation energies and state transition models of the same through a clocked time phase."

If we can both accept we don't mean "a stout humanoid of quarks and gluons and carbon chemistry that happens to be fond of drink and industry" that isn't an issue.

The point is to show objects doing this stuff, and the "dwarf" is an object. If I could shove all that code that defined a dwarf into a box and characterize and can enough behavioral Algorighm to make it operate a real robot in a real space, it would just be doing so much more work just to prove the same damn point.

You can observe the concrete object of the possibilities of intents to seek satisfaction of. You can observe the concrete object of the need itself. You can observe the concrete object of the requirement.

Again, nothing concrete, but rather an analogy. The analogy is used to communicate certain characteristics of an actual dwarf. But it leaves out the most important characteristics.

As I said, what the real concrete shape of the dwarf is, is described above.

It is the use of common names to describe incredibly complex things for the sake of demonstrating one very important relationship among them: the presence of a series of instructions, which contains a requirement, which has a truth value of "whether it shall be met".

The "door", the "hallway", all of it is formed of a very complex arrangement of "bits", binary charges of electrical potentials, and machinery that operates upon those charge potentials.

I already understood this going into it. The point is that it demonstrates the existence of the relationship acting in reality. It is a physical proof that the relationship is not "nonsense"

An actual dwarf is a living organism with biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. These drives animate the living organism to obtain food, shelter, a mate, etc. An actual dwarf is also an intelligent species, that can learn from its experiences which options are most likely to satisfy his needs. And he can build upon what he has learned by inventing new ways to achieve those goals and satisfy those needs. These are characteristics of the concrete dwarf which are not replicated in the computer program.

As stated I'm not talking about an organic being. I  know I am not talking about an organic being. It's unimportant to demonstrate this being done by an organic being because its not possible with current technology to do this with organic beings. The point is to demonstrate the relationship is sensible with some objects that we can interrogate properly.

Did you not pick up on this when often I couch DF objects as "door" rather than door?

Color charged particles are not literally emitting wavelengths of light. We just use those words because it's a convenient metaphor for the thing that it is.

The reality of what it is does not detract from the relationship that is being demonstrated.

As a computer scientist I work with the tools I have, not with the tools I lack. I have complicated arrangements of electron charges on bits of heavily modified sand, I demonstrate my definitions operating between those.

The claim was "reality is deterministic", "not in determinism", therefore "not in reality".

If I can show "in reality", it propagates back to "not in determinism" being false. And then we can consider what relevance it has for us, namely the fact that "lists of instructions", "requirements" and "a truth value of whether the requirement(s) were met" are all valid things to discuss among deterministic systems which can host such relationships as these words describe.

You can do experiments on them even. You can watch the whole system operate down to it's basic fundamental particle of the "bit" which has two states: "on" and "off".

But there is no need to experiment, because we already know what the program will do. Rather than experimenting, we are simply testing the logic, to see that it is doing what we intended (our intentions are driving the behavior of the "dwarf", not his own).

It stopped being my intention the moment I hit go, the same way it stopped being "casual necessity's" intention the moment this all stepped off of temporal singularity.

It became only and exactly what it is. In the same way our prior causes became us making decisions, it's prior causes became it making decisions.

That it accomplished making decisions in different ways, that someone very painstakingly set up a set of initial conditions in the raw files, it means that reality was coerced into hosting that, yes, the existence of the system is by my will, and I am responsible for it, all the "pain" and "suffering" and "madness" and death.

Our concept of "door" is actually the metaphor for what the Dwarven door is, not the other way around. But  will a real observable series of instructions operating on that object, with a real requirement, is not a metaphor. It just happens to operate, in the proof, on things that if we were to approach them without metaphor we would quickly go about as insane as... Well, you've seen my posts, ya?

You can see this system is deterministic even in ways we cannot validate of our own host system. Because the "guest system" is entirely contained inside the host, it cannot have any properties or relationships impossible of the host, and because it is deterministic (superdeterministic, in fact), any properties it does have CANNOT be discounted of determinism.

Ironically, the concrete dwarf has properties that are impossible to its host system, the universe. The concrete dwarf has a brain. The universe does not. The concrete dwarf can imagine new possibilities. The universe, lacking a brain, cannot imagine anything at all. The concrete dwarf can make a plan and take deliberate actions, but the universe, lacking a brain, can neither plan nor deliberate.

And isn't it the truth! But the dwarf of doped silicon and electrons is no less concrete. Although it doesn't exactly think with the thing that is described as it's "brain".

Instead it thinks with a parameterized common function of it's universe, wherein the parameters used are the Dwarf object's instance data.

In a very strange way, the universe both of the dwarf and of ourselves, has exactly the many brains it does: our brains.

So, the concrete dwarf has abilities that the universe, its host, is lacking.

On the other hand, the programmed dwarf also has abilities that its host, the computer hardware, lacks. The programmed dwarf has its programmer's purpose. And that purpose controls what the program does, which in turn controls what the computer does. The computer provides the architecture, but provides no purposes, goals, or plans. These exist within the programmer, but not within the computer.

Exactly my point. Once the computer steps off of go, while I'm responsible for putting the dwarves there, they are responsible for what they do now that they ARE there.

Remember that I am talking about an object as concrete, of it's form, as cells of organic flesh.

I'm not going to belabor the point though any further.

Dwarves, in a deterministic system contained in our own deterministic system can hold wills, therefore "things in our own deterministic systems may hold wills".... Therefore our determinism does not prevent us from holding wills.

Well, that's a stretch for an analogy. The concrete dwarf's will is motivated by biology and directed by deliberation. The computer dwarf's will is basically the programmer's will for it.

Excepting that both types of dwarf are concrete objects.

Therefore, by the same mechanism by which observable objective Dwarven wills are observably, objectively "free", by the same mechanism that they consider "possibilities" and make "choices", we also may have such.

On the one hand we have intelligence and then we have "artificial" intelligence. Artificial intelligence attempts to be an analog of actual intelligence, rather than vice versa. The capabilities that we have are different in nature from the capabilities that a computer has.

Well, the point I make here is that the dwarf's intelligence is a relatively simple arrangement of operating algorithms. We are much more complicated and expressed with significantly different chemistry and physical instantiation.

But fundamentally, I don't need to prove HOW we hold wills to prove, once wills have been proven exist at all as sensible observed objects, that we satisfy the relationship of a thing which can interact meaningfully with a "will" as observed and defined previously, that these wills can have requirements, and that these requirements can be free or constrained in any given moment.

The point is first to disprove all that nonsense about "determinism invalidates 'choice' and 'will' and 'free' in linguistic usage" by sticking a nice metaphorical adamantium axe of physical mathematical proof in it's metaphorical skull.

So, it seems a bit of a stretch to prove our capabilities by the fact that we may create an artificial analogy for a certain limited set of our capabilities.

We must first assume the capability in us before we can attempt an analogy of it on the computer.

I am not attempting to prove our capability. I am attempting to disprove the hard determinist's claim of absolute incapability.

Once we've left hard determinism in the dust, the person who wishes to leave their responsibility behind will have to argue "neurons can't execute algorithms like that".

Which is why I made a very long argument some pages back about "neurons can accomplish any algorithmic form a Turing machine may", and so it implies that neurons CAN do that.

Then the burden of proof falls on the irresponsible person to demonstrate that we can't possibly be doing those things.

It puts a crack in the hard determinist's foundation that cannot be recovered from.

I still prefer to attack the hard determinists metaphorical view with empirical observation and pragmatic analysis. The ultimate goal is to get at the truth, and metaphors are not reliable guides to the truth. All figurative statements are literally false.

Except it is not a figurative statement. It is recognition of objects of much more concrete nature in fact when you look at a "Dwarven door" versus a "door". Things get fuzzy and complicated and more an exercise in general math rather than granular specifics when you look at the dwarf, and that complicated mess is where the hard determinist generally waves their hands and says "causal determinsm".

As a result they fail utterly to recognize that the relationships we discuss here are relationships of things that are complicated instances of the same general relationship, proven possible as a matter of course through instantiation of a visible example with a computer.

In other words, I assumed the inverse, and disproved that assumption with counterexample.

This relationship is "lists of instructions with requirements" lurking among our neurons, being executed of and by them, and some operations to create many, select one or two, and let the rest be pruned, and a recognition that the requirement can go one of two general ways: success and failure.

Images of these wills are objects selected of. "Images" are objects, but the things they imagine... Well, "this is not a pipe" pretty much sums it up. It is however "a picture of a pipe".

 

[fromderinside]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

.

Computation, of a real computer, is reality. It is a real object with real parts operating in reality. Your repeated inability to understand this is not mine nor anyone's problem.

It is merely a description of the behavior of an object.

The fact that this assembly of objects exists satisfying the relationship form you claim cannot possibly exist in terms of a deterministic system invalidates your claims.

So you are at "No True Scotsman Deterministic System" despite the fact that the deterministic system, if the universe is deterministic, must inherit our universe's determinism.

That you do not wish to accept this is down to your religion, not your capacity for reason.

Its reality Iff it is material, measured, referenced, and observed in experiment. It is not if it is designed by minds that only use what they sense.

Real computers are bits of electronics organized IAW experimental result. What they do isn't anything more than run programs executing, as far as I know, human fashioned procedures in IAW logic consisting of operations which are carried out IAW someone's wet dream.

Ergo real computers aren't reality. Can't analogize reality.

What's your problem? You keep avoiding the importance of direct controlled nd measured observation of the world and go back to some ancients (Plato and Aristotle) notion of how things should be seen.

I'd say grow up, quit attributing your deficiencies as those of others.

Do you see experiment or association with existing confirmed realities anywhere in what you posted? I don't. Not mechanism, not logic, not test, not observation, not confirmation, not, not, not.

 

[Jarhyn]

Most living things conduct experiment every moment. This is the concrete to which I refer. It's much better than rational logic.

.

Computation, of a real computer, is reality. It is a real object with real parts operating in reality. Your repeated inability to understand this is not mine nor anyone's problem.

It is merely a description of the behavior of an object.

The fact that this assembly of objects exists satisfying the relationship form you claim cannot possibly exist in terms of a deterministic system invalidates your claims.

So you are at "No True Scotsman Deterministic System" despite the fact that the deterministic system, if the universe is deterministic, must inherit our universe's determinism.

That you do not wish to accept this is down to your religion, not your capacity for reason.

Its reality Iff it is material, measured, referenced, and observed in experiment. It is not if it is designed by minds that only use what they sense.

It is material: elections on silicon.

It is referenced. In fact the whole thing has reference, a schematic, a design, a truth table...

It's clearly observed. It's sitting right there on the floor with a debugger open and displaying memory states. So it's clearly measured.

You are, however, failing at your assertion that "being designed by minds that only use what they sense" deals any injury to the objectivity of what it happens, materially, to be.

A rose by any other name is still exactly the reproductive organ of a particular family of shrubs and shrub like thorned plants.

And a "dwarf" by any other name is still a complicated series of charge patterns on doped silicon and copper.

Real computers are bits of electronics organized IAW experimental result. What they do isn't anything more than run programs executing, as far as I know, human fashioned procedures in IAW logic consisting of operations which are carried out IAW someone's wet dream.

No, they are bits of electronics organized with respect to each other. The experiment did not need to be run for matter arranged so to be what it is. The fact is that it is exactly what it is: an object holding subordinate objects of charge patterns with a relationship such that they hold lists of instructions with requirements.

It doesn't matter why the silly thing exists, only that it disproves the assertion that such relationships are "impossible in deterministic systems".

real computers aren't reality.

nonsense! They are clearly real objects, just as the structures of charge patterns upon them are real objects.

Do you see experiment or association with existing confirmed realities anywhere in what you posted? I don't. Not mechanism, not logic, not test, not observation, not confirmation, not, not, not.

Then your head might be buried somewhere, perhaps in your "hard determinism".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I have explained the terms of reference too many times that - by your given definition of determinism - there can be no alternate action in any given instance in time.

And I've explained many times that the definition of determinism means that there will not be any alternate action, even though there always could have been alternate actions.

What can happen constrains what will happen. If it cannot happen then it will not happen.

But what will happen never constrains what can happen or what could have happened. What can happen is only constrained by our ability to make it happen, should we choose to do so. If we have that ability, then we can, in fact, do it. Even if we choose not to do it, we still retain that ability. Here, watch...there, did you see? I just raised my right hand, which proves that I had that ability all along.

And if, right now, I can raise my right hand, then it will be the case later on that I could have raised my hand right now, even if I didn't.

If you claim that you could have chosen either option in any given instance in time, it could have been chocolate or vanilla, etc, in any instance in time, you are contradicting your own definition of determinism.

Determinism asserts that every event will be the reliable result of prior events. Thus only one thing will happen.

But it is ridiculous for determinism to assert that only one thing can happen or only one thing could have happened. Such a notion corrupts the meaning of these terms, and leads to absurdities and paradoxes.

Remember the waiter who told the customer that there was only one thing that the customer could order for dinner, but could not tell the customer what that one thing was? That's a paradox. And it is absurd.

Remember that red light that we slowed down for, because it could have remained red, even though it turned green? And then our hard determinist insisted that it could not have remained red, because it did not, and then asked us again to explain why we slowed down? You can't go around disabling the meaning of words like "could have".

Which means that you are not a Compatibilist at all, but a Libertarian.

Baloney. Compatibilists understand the difference between things that "will" happen versus things that "can" happen. Only the incompatibilists, both the hard determinists and libertarians, remain confused about the difference between saying something "can" happen versus saying that something "will" happen.

The fact that all events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time, and that they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment, does not logically imply that things could not have turned out differently under different circumstances.

Every use of the term "could have" always carries the logical implication that (1) it didn't happen that way, and, (2) that it only would have happened that way under different circumstances.

Within a fully deterministic system, there is only one thing that actually "will" happen. But there are many different things that actually "can" happen.

Not possible.

Sounds strange to you, I know, but that is only because you've heard determinism explained repeatedly with the notion of "could not have done otherwise". Sorry, but that's the fault of others, not me.

According to your definition, there are is no deviation.

Correct. But no deviation from what will happen is ever required in order to entertain the possibility of something else happening.

Thus, we had the possibility that the light would remain red even though it never would have done so.
Thus, we have the possibility of ordering each item on the menu, even though we would never choose anything but the salad.

As soon as you start suggesting that there was only a single possibility, you stop making coherent and sensible statements. And we end up having to choose between a single possibility or the impossibility of dealing with our uncertainty as to whether the light would remain red or change green. The results of this logical error are paradox and absurdity.

So, kindly stop doing that. Oh, and you might mention this problem to your philosophy professor to clue him in as well.

I have posted countless studies and references. Hallet, Haggard, Gazzaniga's narrator function, etc.

I've already responded to most of them, pointing out that they are using the libertarian definition of free will and not the operational definition. The compatibilist notion of free will, the one that most people grew up with, is simply a voluntary choice that a person makes for themselves while free of coercion and undue influence. It does not require freedom from causal necessity.

Here's an example you've posted before and are repeating here:

The personal narrative
''For example, in one study, researchers recorded the brain activity of participants when they raised their arm intentionally, when it was lifted by a pulley, and when it moved in response to a hypnotic suggestion that it was being lifted by a pulley.

Similar areas of the brain were active during the involuntary and the suggested “alien” movement, while brain activity for the intentional action was different. So, hypnotic suggestion can be seen as a means of communicating an idea or belief that, when accepted, has the power to alter a person’s perceptions or behaviour.''

''All this may leave one wondering where our thoughts, emotions and perceptions actually come from. We argue that the contents of consciousness are a subset of the experiences, emotions, thoughts and beliefs that are generated by non-conscious processes within our brains.''

First, the narrator function provides accurate descriptions when it has accurate information, but when it's garbage in then it will be garbage out. Manipulation by hypnosis or other means during an experiment is designed to provide inaccurate information to the narrator function, and will cause confabulation.

Second, we are not in the dark as to where our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions actually come from. They come from within us. And, by "within us", we may include their being generated by non-conscious processes within our brains. It is still us. It is still our brain.

Third, the Libet-styled experiments do not address operational free will. To see operational free will in action, observe the people being asked whether they would like to participate in the study. Some will choose to participate. Others will choose not. In either case, it is a voluntary choice, a choice made while free of coercion and undue influence. So, we see operational free will before the experiment even begins.

 

[fromderinside]

Do you see experiment or association with existing confirmed realities anywhere in what you posted? I don't. Not mechanism, not logic, not test, not observation, not confirmation, not, not, not.

Then your head might be buried somewhere, perhaps in your "hard determinism".

From  Determinism

Determinism often is taken to mean causal determinism, which in physics is known as cause-and-effect. It is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by prior states.

Determinism should not be confused with self-determination of human actions by reasons, motives, and desires. Determinism is about interactions which affect our cognitive processes in our life.[3] It is about the cause and the result of what we have done in our life. Cause and result are always bounded together in our cognitive processes. It assumes that if an observer has sufficient information about an object or human being, that such an observer might be able to predict every consequent move of that object or human being. Determinism rarely requires that perfect prediction be practically possible.

On the last point I believe determinism, to be causal, reduces experiments to a single cause resulting in a single effect. That is why I care that the scientific paradigm be reductive. It is the only practical way to get to reality.