Compatibilism: What's that About?

[DBT]

Every inevitable step is the making of every following inevitable step. There is no step that is not inevitable.

Including the making of choices.

Given the terms of determinism, each and every action fixed by antecedents before they happen, where are the alternatives? First this, then that, nothing in-between. Given determinism, choosing is an illusion. Does Block Time, for instance, allow its constituent parts/actors alternatives? Does it give them multiple options to choose from?

 

[Jarhyn]

Every inevitable step is the making of every following inevitable step. There is no step that is not inevitable.

Including the making of choices.

Given the terms of determinism, each and every action fixed by antecedents before they happen, where are the alternatives? First this, then that, nothing in-between. Given determinism, choosing is an illusion. Does Block Time, for instance, allow its constituent parts/actors alternatives? Does it give them multiple options to choose from?

The alternatives are held as mathematical projections of the system, held within itself, but made general to the point where, due to the generalness of them, they can be contained (as per compression).

The issue DBT, is that you're forgetting the lead time between "figured out a thing to do" and "actually doing it". There's a time AFTER you figured out several things to do, and so created several objects that are images of behavior, but objectively, mechanically also drive that behavior to happen.

These alternatives exist, much like the alternative rolls you can put in an automatic piano. They are part of the system.

Then when one gets chosen, they stay exactly where they were in space and time, as "unchosen alternatives to this choice process that happened at that point in time".

 

[DBT]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined, calling it our choice.

That's the thing though: the way things get determined is through choice processes.

Determination happens by process, by the stuff continuing to resolve against itself. Part of that process involves choice.

Nope, whatever is determined to happen is fixed before you were born. Fixed before you thought your determined thoughts, fixed before you performed your determined actions, fixed, no deviation, no alternatives, no choosing otherwise.

Initial conditions and the way things go ever are set by the system as it evolves, no randomness or variation in the ways that inputs get delivered as outputs,

There is no act of choosing between two or more possibilities. There are no two or more possibilities, only what must necessarily happen.

Like it or not, protest, wail, gnash your teeth, insist otherwise.... it's all to no avail, because that, according to the definition given by compatibilists, is how determinism works.

There is no free will to be found in determinism.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

No alternative negates choice.

Apparently not.

If you must necessarily turn left at an intersection (this being determined, fixed by antecedents, no deviation, (your own definition of determinism), your only option is to turn left.

Assuming this is a standard intersection, that allows drivers to turn left, continue forward, or turn right, then there are three things that I can choose to do, even though I will turn left in order to get where I'm going.

You cannot choose to turn right.

Of course I CAN choose to turn right! But I won't, because turning right takes me in the opposite direction of where I want to go. On another day, I may be going to some other place that requires me to turn right.

But no matter where I am going, I will ALWAYS have the ABILITY to go left, go right, or go straight at that intersection.

All three options are ALWAYS REALIZABLE at that intersection, unless one of the streets is closed for construction.

What will happen NEVER constrains what can happen. What I will choose NEVER constrains what I can choose.

That's how it works for every action in any and every instance in time. Each and every action is fixed, no deviation.

That is correct. What WILL happen will definitely happen. But this does not change at all the many things that CAN happen or that COULD HAVE happened instead.

Call it what you will, but determinism does not allow choice.

I call it determinism. And I say that determinism makes CHOOSING inevitable, something that must necessarily happen, exactly as it does happen, without deviation. So, the claim that "determinism does not allow choice" is literally false.

”If the neurobiology level is causally sufficient to determine your behavior, then the fact that you had the experience of freedom at the higher level is really irrelevant.” - John Searle.

Hi John. The reason we believe we were free to choose for ourselves what we would do is simply that we did not observe anyone holding a gun to our head or otherwise making the choice for us. That's why the waiter brought us the bill for our dinner, and did not deliver the bill to anyone else. If a waiter can see what is actually happening, then why can't you?

 

[Jarhyn]

whatever is determined to happen is fixed before you were born.

This does not actually contradict that it is fixed via the execution of long process, and without such process, does not come to be as it would otherwise be at all.

It cannot be so fixed without going through all those steps which of them incorporate choice functions from alternatives.

 

[bilby]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined while calling it our choice.

Yes. Because it is our choice. How else do you think it was determined?

 

[DBT]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined while calling it our choice.

Yes. Because it is our choice. How else do you think it was determined?

It was determined by the countless factors, environment, proclivities, needs, desires, etc that bring you to the point of being in that situation carrying out the only possible action.

Without alternatives at any stage, determinism, it was never a choice, it was an inevitability.

We act necessarily and compatibilists calls it choosing, compatibilists call it choosing because calling it choosing gives an impression of freedom of choice where no freedom of choice exists (the given terms of determinism).

 

[bilby]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined while calling it our choice.

Yes. Because it is our choice. How else do you think it was determined?

It was determined by the countless factors, environment, proclivities, needs, desires, etc that bring you to the point of being in that situation carrying out the only possible action.

Without alternatives at any stage, determinism, it was never a choice, it was an inevitability.

We act necessarily and compatibilists calls it choosing, compatibilists call it choosing because calling it choosing gives an impression of freedom of choice where no freedom of choice exists (the given terms of determinism).

Compatibilists call it choosing for the same reason that they call something that looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, a duck.

Choosing is a mechanism by which humans turn an unknown future into a known past.

Whether the future is unchangeable, as well as unknown, is completely unimportant and irrelevant.

 

[DBT]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined while calling it our choice.

Yes. Because it is our choice. How else do you think it was determined?

It was determined by the countless factors, environment, proclivities, needs, desires, etc that bring you to the point of being in that situation carrying out the only possible action.

Without alternatives at any stage, determinism, it was never a choice, it was an inevitability.

We act necessarily and compatibilists calls it choosing, compatibilists call it choosing because calling it choosing gives an impression of freedom of choice where no freedom of choice exists (the given terms of determinism).

Compatibilists call it choosing for the same reason that they call something that looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, a duck.

Choosing is a mechanism by which humans turn an unknown future into a known past.

Whether the future is unchangeable, as well as unknown, is completely unimportant and irrelevant.

Appearances can be deceptive.

If the future is fixed as defined, there are no alternatives to choose from. The future is in fact fixed, immutable and everybody does precisely what they must do without an option of doing something else.

To choose means having two or more realizable options to select from. Determinism has no realizable options to select from, whatever happens must happen without deviation.

However things may appear on the surface, these is the terms and conditions of determinism. Having no alternate options does not present us with a choice.

 

[fromderinside]

Okay. But we still have to check our math against reality, just like we check our logic. Scientific experiments certainly attempt to do that checking. And some experiments are simple enough for anyone to do.

Um that would be a no. We check our experiments against previous theories by using maths and repeating experiments. We check our logic against propositions for consistency of presumptions in propositions

Not even close to the same.

 

[fromderinside]

Except determinism does not apply to choice. Choice is purely subjective in nature. The subjective can exist in a deterministic world but the subjective is a dead end when considering determinism.

There is nothing subjective about a coin going into a sorting machine, and the geometry of the coins forcing each coin that was placed into the same hole into a different piece of it.

There is nothing subjective about a set of neurons overcoming the activation bias to send something through where previously it was not.

Choice happens as a product of mechanical resolution. There's nothing subjective about that.

In the end, FDI, subjectivity is in fact one of those "illusions"... Though choice is not.

All images are objects. Think in the moment of the self-playing piano and a roll of paper containing an image of a song upon it. But the image of this song is written in such a way that it is also a mechanism, an object whose geometry shall, when it is placed in a particular way against the object of the piano's mechanism, generate a series of tones described by that image upon the paper.

The word that humans use for when this trick is done, to describe the object which one has power to cease treating it as an image and instead apply it's geometry as physical mechanism, is called a "script" or "program" or "instructions."

So what is the sorting machine but a device following determined protocol to accomplish process. the only way you can get to sorting machine or choice is through mind. Without mind there no 'choice or 'sorting machine'. Both device and protocol are determined.

 

[fromderinside]

When we have 'whatever happens must necessarily happen as determined' - which is the given definition of determinism - this is not exactly compatible with 'choosing' or 'freedom of will.'

Not even close.

It is if we are predestined to choose.

We act as determined while calling it our choice.

Yes. Because it is our choice. How else do you think it was determined?

You just formally validated my point to Jarhyn.

 

[Jarhyn]

a device following determined protocol to accomplish process

...is the definition of a choice. Or, more accurately, one of the many ways of paraphrasing the definition.

It's good that you agree then that choice happens.

 

[Jarhyn]

Except determinism does not apply to choice. Choice is purely subjective in nature. The subjective can exist in a deterministic world but the subjective is a dead end when considering determinism.

There is nothing subjective about a coin going into a sorting machine, and the geometry of the coins forcing each coin that was placed into the same hole into a different piece of it.

There is nothing subjective about a set of neurons overcoming the activation bias to send something through where previously it was not.

Choice happens as a product of mechanical resolution. There's nothing subjective about that.

In the end, FDI, subjectivity is in fact one of those "illusions"... Though choice is not.

All images are objects. Think in the moment of the self-playing piano and a roll of paper containing an image of a song upon it. But the image of this song is written in such a way that it is also a mechanism, an object whose geometry shall, when it is placed in a particular way against the object of the piano's mechanism, generate a series of tones described by that image upon the paper.

The word that humans use for when this trick is done, to describe the object which one has power to cease treating it as an image and instead apply it's geometry as physical mechanism, is called a "script" or "program" or "instructions."

So what is the sorting machine but a device following determined protocol to accomplish process. the only way you can get to sorting machine or choice is through mind. Without mind there no 'choice or 'sorting machine'. Both device and protocol are determined.

Yet even without a mind or a human being on all of the earth systems decide on choices of alternatives.

If coins fell into something that was just shaped like that they would still do the thing we call sorting, without us needing to be there to call it that, the same way any computer as an object will still cogitate on the script it has to execute, same way as the automatic piano would belch out a tune without anyone there to say "this is an image of a song.

Choice is a process that exists without us or with us and it makes no never mind whether a mind is there to discern it happening.

We developed the word to describe things we watched happening.

A choice by any other name is still a choice.

 

[pood]

As usual, David Hume nailed it hundreds of years ago.

 

[DBT]

No alternative negates choice.

Apparently not.

Where is the choice when you have a single course of action that must be performed? That's determinism, what is done must be done.

That's not how choice is defined.

If you must necessarily turn left at an intersection (this being determined, fixed by antecedents, no deviation, (your own definition of determinism), your only option is to turn left.

Assuming this is a standard intersection, that allows drivers to turn left, continue forward, or turn right, then there are three things that I can choose to do, even though I will turn left in order to get where I'm going.

By saying ''there are three things that I can choose to do'' you are contradicting determinism, which has only one thing you can do in any given instance. In this instance: turn left. In this instance you have no other options. Each driver has only one 'option,' this one must turn right, that one must go straight, that one must do a U turn because he got a call from his wife about an emergency.....each their own action, all possible actions are taken by different drivers, none has alternatives.

You cannot choose to turn right.

Of course I CAN choose to turn right! But I won't, because turning right takes me in the opposite direction of where I want to go. On another day, I may be going to some other place that requires me to turn right.

But no matter where I am going, I will ALWAYS have the ABILITY to go left, go right, or go straight at that intersection.

All three options are ALWAYS REALIZABLE at that intersection, unless one of the streets is closed for construction.

What will happen NEVER constrains what can happen. What I will choose NEVER constrains what I can choose.

Again, options that are generally available doesn't mean that multiple actions are available to everyone at any given time.

Determinism only permits one action at any given time. That action is different for different people/different states, one driver does x, the other does y. But in the moment of action, the one doing x can only do x, and one doing y can only do y.

Countless different people doing different things, yet each only has one realizable action in the instance of acting; that which is determined. Multiple options do not exist at any given moment. Whatever happens, must happen.

 

[bilby]

No alternative negates choice.

Apparently not.

Where is the choice when you have a single course of action that must be performed? That's determinism, what is done must be done.

That's not how choice is defined.

If you must necessarily turn left at an intersection (this being determined, fixed by antecedents, no deviation, (your own definition of determinism), your only option is to turn left.

Assuming this is a standard intersection, that allows drivers to turn left, continue forward, or turn right, then there are three things that I can choose to do, even though I will turn left in order to get where I'm going.

By saying ''there are three things that I can choose to do'' you are contradicting determinism, which has only one thing you can do in any given instance. In this instance: turn left. In this instance you have no other options. Each driver has only one 'option,' this one must turn right, that one must go straight, that one must do a U turn because he got a call from his wife about an emergency.....each their own action, all possible actions are taken by different drivers, none has alternatives.

You cannot choose to turn right.

Of course I CAN choose to turn right! But I won't, because turning right takes me in the opposite direction of where I want to go. On another day, I may be going to some other place that requires me to turn right.

But no matter where I am going, I will ALWAYS have the ABILITY to go left, go right, or go straight at that intersection.

All three options are ALWAYS REALIZABLE at that intersection, unless one of the streets is closed for construction.

What will happen NEVER constrains what can happen. What I will choose NEVER constrains what I can choose.

Again, options that are generally available doesn't mean that multiple actions are available to everyone at any given time.

Determinism only permits one action at any given time. That action is different for different people/different states, one driver does x, the other does y. But in the moment of action, the one doing x can only do x, and one doing y can only do y.

Countless different people doing different things, yet each only has one realizable action in the instance of acting; that which is determined. Multiple options do not exist at any given moment. Whatever happens, must happen.

HISTORY only permits one action at any given time. The only horse that can win the 2021 Melbourne Cup is Verry Elleegant.

This winner was chosen by the running of the race. Before the race was run, nobody had any possible way of knowing for sure that Verry Elleegant would win. There's an entire multi-million dollar industry that exists only because it's impossible for anyone to know the results before the winner has been chosen by the act of running the race.

And this is true, even though the whole thing happened 9 months ago. It's in the past. It's indisputably unchangeable, regardless of anyone's opinions of whether or not the future is changeable.

But despite being completely and indisputably unchangeable, it remains bleeding obvious that a choice was made - not by a mind, or a will, or anything that could be ineffable or poorly understood, but by the efforts and abilities of the horses and their jockeys, as modified by a million other factors, as diverse as the weather conditions, and the degree to which the precise angles of the windows in the grandstands reflected the sun into the competitor's eyes.

The choice is a fact of history. To suggest that the immutability of history eliminates the choice is absurd - you cannot change the past, so you cannot eliminate the choice.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Where is the choice when you have a single course of action that must be performed? That's determinism, what is done must be done.

Like you say, what is done must be done. There, in the restaurant, choosing must be done. Choosing cannot be avoided. There is no deviation that can get you around the choosing. There is no alternative to choosing. Choosing happens because it must happen, specifically at that place and at that time.

You keep asking "where is the choice" when the choosing is happening right there in front of you. There is the menu, a list of alternate possibilities from which we select the single dinner that we will order. Do you need to consult the dictionary again?

Moving from the restaurant to the traffic example, we find we have a standard intersection of two roads. And here we find there are three things that I can choose to do. I can turn left, I can turn right, and I can drive straight ahead. Even though I will only choose to turn left to get where I'm going today, I still have the ability to turn right or go straight.

By saying ''there are three things that I can choose to do'' you are contradicting determinism, which has only one thing you can do in any given instance. In this instance: turn left.

In this instance I WILL turn left, even though I CAN turn right and I CAN drive straight.

What I CAN do at that intersection remains constant no matter what I WILL do.

Determinism tells us what I WILL do. But what I CAN do is determined by the physical arrangement of the two roads and my ability to drive a car.

In this instance you have no other options.

An option is something that I CAN do. My options are not limited by what I WILL do in this instance. Today I will turn left. Tomorrow I WILL turn right to go somewhere else. But on EVERY DAY I will have the same 3 options. There will ALWAYS be 3 options at that intersection, not just for me, but for every other driver as well.

Each driver has only one 'option,' this one must turn right, that one must go straight, that one must do a U turn because he got a call from his wife about an emergency.....each their own action, all possible actions are taken by different drivers, none has alternatives.

Each driver will have the same three options at that intersection. If a driver MUST turn right, then he WILL turn right. If another MUST do a U turn because he got a call from his wife about an emergency, then he WILL make a U turn.

Each WILL do their own action, according to their own goals and reasons, as they MUST. And each WILL still have the same 3 options, because they MUST have them at that point in time, due to the construction of the intersection.

Again, options that are generally available doesn't mean that multiple actions are available to everyone at any given time.

BUT THEY ARE! There's the intersection. There we are in the car looking at that intersection. (1) We CAN turn left. (2) We CAN turn right. And (3) we CAN go straight ahead. There are THREE realizable possibilities. ONE of them WILL be realized and the other TWO WILL NOT be realized in this instance, but they COULD HAVE been realized IF we had chosen to. And that is what REALIZ-ABLE means, that we were ABLE to realize them IF we had chosen to.

Determinism only permits one action at any given time. That action is different for different people/different states, one driver does x, the other does y.

With each driver, only one of the three possible actions WILL be taken. So, determinism is satisfied.

But in the moment of action, the one doing x can only do x, and one doing y can only do y.

At the moment of action there is only one thing that each driver WILL do, but three things that each driver CAN do. Determinism guarantees the three CAN's as much as it guarantees the single WILL. Because it was causally necessary from any prior point in time that the intersection would be designed to enable every driver to go left, right, and straight.

Countless different people doing different things, yet each only has one realizable action in the instance of acting; that which is determined. Multiple options do not exist at any given moment. Whatever happens, must happen.

How does each person discover what their one realizable action is without the notion of multiple options? For example, if I CAN only turn left at that intersection, then how will I ever reach any location on the right? There must be some rational mechanism that allows me to believe that I CAN turn right at that intersection. If not, then I must always turn left.

 

[DBT]

Where is the choice when you have a single course of action that must be performed? That's determinism, what is done must be done.

Like you say, what is done must be done. There, in the restaurant, choosing must be done. Choosing cannot be avoided. There is no deviation that can get you around the choosing. There is no alternative to choosing. Choosing happens because it must happen, specifically at that place and at that time.

There is no choosing at work in the restaurant or anywhere within a determined system. There is the surface appearance of people selecting their preferences from a list of alternatives.

Alternatives exist for the group at large, each option designed to appeal to someone's taste, one orders this, the other orders that....yet in the instance of ordering their meal, no other option is possible, what is ordered in that instance must be ordered and there are no alternatives. It is the illusion of choice

That is how determinism works in each and every instance in time, this then that, x, y, z, no deviation.

It's entailment, there are no alternatives in any given action, therefore no choosing. Actions are entailed, necessitated, fixed.

You keep asking "where is the choice" when the choosing is happening right there in front of you. There is the menu, a list of alternate possibilities from which we select the single dinner that we will order. Do you need to consult the dictionary again?

Entailment is not choice. Determined actions are played out, not chosen. The system evolves from prior to current and future states without deviation. Choice requires possible alternatives. No deviation means no alternatives and no choice.

Moving from the restaurant to the traffic example, we find we have a standard intersection of two roads. And here we find there are three things that I can choose to do. I can turn left, I can turn right, and I can drive straight ahead. Even though I will only choose to turn left to get where I'm going today, I still have the ability to turn right or go straight.

The circumstances determine what you do. Your brain acquires information from your circumstances/environment, processes that information and generates the response based on external and internal conditions.

That is determinism.

By saying ''there are three things that I can choose to do'' you are contradicting determinism, which has only one thing you can do in any given instance. In this instance: turn left.

In this instance I WILL turn left, even though I CAN turn right and I CAN drive straight.

You do what is determined. We are talking about determinism. If you could have turned right or went straight, it's not determinism.

If turning left is determined, you turn left.

What I CAN do at that intersection remains constant no matter what I WILL do.

Only one action is open to you in any given instance in time, the determined action.

''Determinism, in philosophy and science, the thesis that all events in the universe, including human decisions and actions, are causally inevitable. Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.''

A determined action is clearly not a choice. No event is an isolated action, there are no independent agents, everything that happens is an interaction between many events. Every cause an effect and every effect a cause. A web of causality that does not allow free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

There is no choosing at work in the restaurant or anywhere within a determined system

Then there is no piece of paper on the table?

There are no words coming out of the customer's mouths?

There is no conformity of those words out of the customer's mouths to the text on the menu?

If I put three balls in a machine, and the machine spits out a ball, the machine chose a ball.

Would you pose that the lottery doesn't happen either?

Choosing is just an operation in which "many go in, a subset comes out".