Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Marvin Edwards]

Nope, I was referring to the compatibilist definition of free will as 'free from certain external elements that constrain our will, force, coercion, undue influence, yet compatibilists ignore the ultimate constraint on will: internal necessity.

Internal necessity is not ignored. It goes by the name "choosing". And when that choosing is free from coercion and other forms of undue influence, it is called "free will".

Choosing is a deterministic event that necessarily must happen whenever we are faced with two or more courses of action, which causally necessitates that we decide what we will do. Thus, free will also happens to be a deterministic event.

Thus, free will and determinism are 100% compatible.

 

[DBT]

Nope, I was referring to the compatibilist definition of free will as 'free from certain external elements that constrain our will, force, coercion, undue influence, yet compatibilists ignore the ultimate constraint on will: internal necessity.

Internal necessity is not ignored. It goes by the name "choosing". And when that choosing is free from coercion and other forms of undue influence, it is called "free will".

That's an attempt at rebranding. Slapping a label onto a process where it doesn't belong. Putting a baked bean label on a can of spaghetti and meatballs does not make it a can of baked beans.

There is no choice in necessitation.

If the events of the world shape and form you and your thoughts and actions, that is not a matter of 'choosing.' It is necessitation, determinism rather than choice.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

Choosing is a deterministic event that necessarily must happen whenever we are faced with two or more courses of action, which causally necessitates that we decide what we will do. Thus, free will also happens to be a deterministic event.

Thus, free will and determinism are 100% compatible.

Choosing requires the possibility of taking a different option. Determinism by definition does not permit alternate actions, hence there is no choice, whatever must be done is done.

All actions, including thought, contemplation, a sense of uncertainty, fixed, set, immutable before what must happen even comes to the point of realization.

”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.

Sorry, but 'free will' is a case of mislabeling.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Internal necessity is not ignored. It goes by the name "choosing". And when that choosing is free from coercion and other forms of undue influence, it is called "free will".

That's an attempt at rebranding. Slapping a label onto a process where it doesn't belong. Putting a baked bean label on a can of spaghetti and meatballs does not make it a can of baked beans.

Odd, but I've had the same complaint of the hard determinist argument. Slapping the label "free will" onto freedom from causal necessity does not change what free will actually means: an unforced, voluntary choice that we make for ourselves. Free will is a choice that is not free from causal necessity, but only free from coercion and other forms of undue influence.

There is no choice in necessitation.

If it is causally necessary that you will perform addition, then you will perform addition, and there will be two or more numbers for you to sum.

If it is causally necessary that you will perform choosing, then you will perform choosing, and there will be two or more alternatives to choose from.

So, obviously, "there is no choice in necessitation" is a false statement.

If the events of the world shape and form you and your thoughts and actions, that is not a matter of 'choosing.' It is necessitation, determinism rather than choice.

Whenever it is causally necessary that choosing will happen, it is not an either necessitation or choice, but a both necessitation and choice.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

Of course we deny the "no choice principle", just like we deny the "no addition principle". Both choosing and addition happen in physical reality. Causal necessity insures that they both will actually happen exactly as they do happen.

Choosing is a deterministic event that necessarily must happen whenever we are faced with two or more courses of action, which causally necessitates that we decide what we will do. Free will happens to be a deterministic event.

Thus, free will and determinism are 100% compatible.

Choosing requires the possibility of taking a different option.

That's backwards. Actually, it is the possibility of taking different options that requires choosing.

Determinism by definition does not permit alternate actions, hence there is no choice, whatever must be done is done.

Determinism, by definition, includes all events, and therefore guarantees that the menu will be there, in our hands in the restaurant, requiring us to make a choice (or go without dinner). As you say, "whatever must be done is done", and that is what is done. Determinism has not changed what will be done. Choosing will be done. And we will necessarily be doing it.

”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.

If my neurobiology is causally sufficient to determine that I will choose the Salad, even though I could have ordered the Steak, then it is I, myself that has done this choosing. If it was Searle's neurobiology that chose the Salad, then he can damn well pay for it himself.

 

[fromderinside]

Determinism, by definition, includes all events, and therefore guarantees that the menu will be there, in our hands in the restaurant, requiring us to make a choice (or go without dinner). As you say, "whatever must be done is done", and that is what is done. Determinism has not changed what will be done. Choosing will be done. And we will necessarily be doing it.

”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.

If my neurobiology is causally sufficient to determine that I will choose the Salad, even though I could have ordered the Steak, then it is I, myself that has done this choosing. If it was Searle's neurobiology that chose the Salad, then he can damn well pay for it himself.

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

 

[fromderinside]

You are right to say that evolution is not, in fact, the origin of representation.

It is instead the driver of a single concept of "success". This provides a reason for it to emerge, but it is not, as you observe, the genitor of it.

It is merely a fact implied by the structure of the system

Move-on.whatever

As for the structure of the system my guess is nature is chaotic with respect to living things.

So according you your structure of system statement you need propose an unpredictable generator.

I see no evidence of that from you. You are so wrapped with within system thinking you just can't break free.

'your guess'

I guess we're done here.

If you think I'm wrapped up with within-system thinking you haven't read ANY of my posts, I guess.

I use the notion of 'within system thinking' to illustrate a common practice by systems people who use a system they know as a frame for understanding all systems. I think you suffer from that problem. A computer system is not a nervous system. There are similarities among some elements of each to the other.

That you take operations from one to replicate operations from the other does not result in 'knowing' what is going on in the other. That an electrical-mechanical assembly can replicate the throughput and outputs of a neuron as we understand it, as I did as an exercise in biophysics 50 years ago, is not replicating a neuron's function. Nor do your modeling such functions now.

I'll even argue that replacing functionality using bioelectrical systems in humans is not replication. Rather its a substitution or refitting as replacement, no more. Full stop.

I doubt that when we regrow or grow and integrate legs and organs that these will be replications. I mean why take the effort to add genetics beyond repair to the replacement. Even if we do there will be subtle operational differences. Besides why risk introducing genetic functions from outside through refitting.

Whoooo. I'm beginning to feel the whacki-tobaci.*

* I haven't used pot in 40 years

 

[Jarhyn]

Determinism, by definition, includes all events, and therefore guarantees that the menu will be there, in our hands in the restaurant, requiring us to make a choice (or go without dinner). As you say, "whatever must be done is done", and that is what is done. Determinism has not changed what will be done. Choosing will be done. And we will necessarily be doing it.

”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.

If my neurobiology is causally sufficient to determine that I will choose the Salad, even though I could have ordered the Steak, then it is I, myself that has done this choosing. If it was Searle's neurobiology that chose the Salad, then he can damn well pay for it himself.

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

Given the fact that humans thinking causes human bodies to move and human bodies moving causes other things to happen, it's pretty damn relevant.

 

[Jarhyn]

A computer system is not a nervous system

Spoken by someone who really doesn't understand what it means that a Turing machine is capable of emulating all other machines.

But the point here is that the nervous system is also a machine capable of performing all such behaviors and processes as are seen in a Turing machine.

I use the notion of 'within system thinking' to illustrate a common practice by systems people who use a system they know as a frame for understanding all systems

Which is why you are so wrong here it's not even really funny anymore, it's just sad. I just understand both systemic models, and know how each can function in context of arrangements of the other.

The point is nothing is special across this barrier. It's not even really a barrier and the point is that if the Turing machine CAN accomplish such operations as I describe, so can a neural network.

That you take operations from one to replicate operations from the other does not result in 'knowing' what is going on in the other.

But it does mean that the other is fully capable of replicating the form of observable behaviors in the other. It puts the claim that "wills" don't, can't exist to shame.

It establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that these behaviors are realized already within the structure of the universe, and that a system may predict a logically coherent series of events flowing from the event of a choice forward, without having to actually have made the choice yet, so that instead of merely choosing an immediate action, one may choose a complex future within the accuracy of the prediction.

That an electrical-mechanical assembly can replicate the throughput and outputs of a neuron as we understand it, as I did as an exercise in biophysics 50 years ago, is not replicating a neuron's function

"That an assembly can replicate the function of a neuron is not replicating the function of a neuron, according to research done HALF A CENTURY AGO"



Sure, and an electric car isn't a car because it doesn't use gas.



The point is that the machines in us can achieve any behavior we roughly block out using transistor arrangements (and quite easily), and transistor arrangements verifiably can do all the operations we have been discussing.

Thinking that there is specialness for this one function so described is religious thinking of the highest order.

 

[fromderinside]

Determinism, by definition, includes all events, and therefore guarantees that the menu will be there, in our hands in the restaurant, requiring us to make a choice (or go without dinner). As you say, "whatever must be done is done", and that is what is done. Determinism has not changed what will be done. Choosing will be done. And we will necessarily be doing it.

”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.

If my neurobiology is causally sufficient to determine that I will choose the Salad, even though I could have ordered the Steak, then it is I, myself that has done this choosing. If it was Searle's neurobiology that chose the Salad, then he can damn well pay for it himself.

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

Given the fact that humans thinking causes human bodies to move and human bodies moving causes other things to happen, it's pretty damn relevant.

What you think the brain does would have ended man's survival as soon as humans began to think.

The body is going to do what the body does whether one thinks about it or not. Mainly what the brain thinks is what the body has done or is already doing.

Why does a use a gunshot rather than utter "go" for races?

because ....

For instance, the head begins to turn to the direction of new sound information through muscles in about 8-10 milliseconds after the sound arrives at the cochlea. Directional information is routed to muscles in the neck from the auditory nucleus in the proximal to the ear. Bilateral neurons have been found that facilitate this task. The behavior precedes sound information getting to the cortex, the midbrain, or even the reticular tegmentum. It has to do with evolution and survival, not evolution and superiority. There are similar complexes up and down the nervous system.

Can you imagine how long it would take for runners to begin running if they had to recognize "go"?

Sheesh.

 

[fromderinside]

A computer system is not a nervous system

Spoken by someone who really doesn't understand what it means that a Turing machine is capable of emulating all other machines.

I use the notion of 'within system thinking' to illustrate a common practice by systems people who use a system they know as a frame for understanding all systems

The point is nothing is special across this barrier. It's not even really a barrier and the point is that if the Turing machine CAN accomplish such operations as I describe, so can a neural network.

That you take operations from one to replicate operations from the other does not result in 'knowing' what is going on in the other.

But it does mean that the other is fully capable of replicating the form of observable behaviors in the other. It puts the claim that "wills" don't, can't exist to shame.

It establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that these behaviors are realized already within the structure of the universe, and that a system may predict a logically coherent series of events flowing from the event of a choice forward, without having to actually have made the choice yet, so that instead of merely choosing an immediate action, one may choose a complex future within the accuracy of the prediction.

That an electrical-mechanical assembly can replicate the throughput and outputs of a neuron as we understand it, as I did as an exercise in biophysics 50 years ago, is not replicating a neuron's function

"That an assembly can replicate the function of a neuron is not replicating the function of a neuron, according to research done HALF A CENTURY AGO"



Sure, and an electric car isn't a car because it doesn't use gas.



The point is that the machines in us can achieve any behavior we roughly block out using transistor arrangements (and quite easily), and transistor arrangements verifiably can do all the operations we have been discussing.

Thinking that there is specialness for this one function so described is religious thinking of the highest order.

First analogies are not replicates nor facts. You want to treat will but you haven't even tried to operationalize what you mean by 'will' nor have you demonstrated it, what ever its untouchable existence is even in humans .You also need to operationalize what you mean by "Turing machine". The way you describe it is its some sort of hand-wavy algorithm.

The human brain is NOT a computer. Yes it computes, That being so is not sufficient to call an emotional, behaving, living, thing a computer. Some model human activity as computer programs but they are all very short on what humans actually do.

Let me bring things to the point.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine

Turing machines proved the existence of fundamental limitations on the power of mechanical computation.[14] While they can express arbitrary computations, their minimalist design makes them unsuitable for computation in practice: real-world computers are based on different designs that, unlike Turing machines, use random-access memory.

Turing completeness is the ability for a system of instructions to simulate a Turing machine. A programming language that is Turing complete is theoretically capable of expressing all tasks accomplishable by computers; nearly all programming languages are Turing complete if the limitations of finite memory are ignored.

From my recollection computer people have been trying to do something about modeling nervous systems since the '70s. Please explain why then that such machines are 'capable' of emulating nothing more that of the common carpenter ant which has about 60k neurons to emulate.

We have multiple billions of neural tissue cells. Even giving multiple replications and other redundancies the comparison is off the scale compared to the wind flow analysis problem I mentioned in a previous post.

Emulating driving a muscular system is the very least one needs to show some capability. Did you see Musk's robots? Pathetic.

As for your hand wave claim that Turing whatever in the hands of a competent mathematician can theoretically demonstrate, not actually produce, with some function "T" to be determined when you find the time to get to Alpha Centauri in your imagination. It's a shame you even bothered to key it in.

You are still using rubber nails as scientific/technical discourse. Step it up.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

 

[fromderinside]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

 

[bilby]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

How does Marvin's self-deception lead to the waiter's identical self-deception? Telepathy?

 

[Jarhyn]

What you think the brain does would have ended man's survival as soon as humans began to think.

The body is going to do what the body does whether one thinks about it or not

Good to know you are here typing away on an internet forum without thinking. Your implication not mine.

I can only imagine how you got through your career without thinking.

Maybe other people did that for you.

Maybe try thinking some time. Like thinking that maybe humans weren't the first things in this world thinking, planning, and having wills.

Yes it computes,

And there it is.

Now, here's the money shot... It can compute... What will happen IF it does things.

And then it can choose whether to do those things it computes.

Thanks for playing.

 

[fromderinside]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

How does Marvin's self-deception lead to the waiter's identical self-deception? Telepathy?

Uh, maybe their only connection re the deceit event is the behavior of each other leading to similar reasons for the self-deceit behaviors? Pointing at a causal relationship? Not a problem from my viewpoint.

 

[Jarhyn]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

How does Marvin's self-deception lead to the waiter's identical self-deception? Telepathy?

Uh, maybe their only connection re the deceit event is the behavior of each other leading to similar reasons for the self-deceit behaviors? Pointing at a causal relationship? Not a problem from my viewpoint.

I see self-deception happening here, but not by Marvin or the waiter...

Generally the simplest explanation is the right one, and the simplest explanation is far easier to ascertain: Marvin thought some stuff in such a way as it made his body move. Then the waiter realized that Marvin's body was moving that way because Marvin was thinking in a particular way, then the waiter thought some stuff about that which made the waiter move in such a way to render the bill to the person responsible for thinking in a way that moved it in a way so as to order a salad.

 

[fromderinside]

What you think the brain does would have ended man's survival as soon as humans began to think.

The body is going to do what the body does whether one thinks about it or not

Good to know you are here typing away on an internet forum without thinking. Your implication not mine.

I can only imagine how you got through your career without thinking.

Maybe other people did that for you.

Maybe try thinking some time. Like thinking that maybe humans weren't the first things in this world thinking, planning, and having wills.

Yes it computes,

And there it is.

Now, here's the money shot... It can compute... What will happen IF it does things.

And then it can choose whether to do those things it computes.

Thanks for playing.

whee. If anything 'can' compute it is, by definition, a computer. Simplifies everything. Just have to find those damn traitorous non-computers and the world will be pristine.

 

[fromderinside]

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

How does Marvin's self-deception lead to the waiter's identical self-deception? Telepathy?

Uh, maybe their only connection re the deceit event is the behavior of each other leading to similar reasons for the self-deceit behaviors? Pointing at a causal relationship? Not a problem from my viewpoint.

I see self-deception happening here, but not by Marvin or the waiter...

In your world what is the operational meaning of order? Is it material in the context of what you or the waiter does? Instead of you and waiter think OneA and oneB. Or is it just a figure of speech about what could be just a verbal exchange? Is order necessary to receive or is presence enough? Is even presence necessary?

 

[DBT]

Choosing requires the possibility of taking a different option.

That's backwards. Actually, it is the possibility of taking different options that requires choosing.

A different way of saying much the same thing. Without realizable options, there can be no choosing. It is the possibility of taking different realizable options that enables choosing.

Determinism doesn't enable choosing because all present and future actions are fixed by the prior states of the system, consequently permits no alternatives to choose from.

Hence, given determinism, the decision-making process, rather than being a matter of choosing, is a process of entailment.

Determinism: given the state of the world at any moment in time, there is only one way it can be at the next moment.

Which is basically why the notion of free will is incompatible with determinism...and the compatibilist definition of free will being insufficient (inner necessity) to prove the proposition.

 

[Jarhyn]

What you think the brain does would have ended man's survival as soon as humans began to think.

The body is going to do what the body does whether one thinks about it or not

Good to know you are here typing away on an internet forum without thinking. Your implication not mine.

I can only imagine how you got through your career without thinking.

Maybe other people did that for you.

Maybe try thinking some time. Like thinking that maybe humans weren't the first things in this world thinking, planning, and having wills.

Yes it computes,

And there it is.

Now, here's the money shot... It can compute... What will happen IF it does things.

And then it can choose whether to do those things it computes.

Thanks for playing.

whee. If anything 'can' compute it is, by definition, a computer. Simplifies everything. Just have to find those damn traitorous non-computers and the world will be pristine.

???

Have you entirely lost the plot at this point?

You are the one who admitted the brain computes. I just presented one variety of computation that it clearly does a d which may clearly be and observably has been done in the universe by other things, too, the computation of "what would happen if..."

The fact is, not computing your own work is rather frowned on.

How you frame whatever you think you are, or are doing, isn't relevant to causality. It is only relevant to what you think.

It's not just me. The waiter brought me the Salad I ordered, and also the bill for the Salad, because he also thinks that I ordered it.

Everybody deceiving themselves is not proof they aren't.

How does Marvin's self-deception lead to the waiter's identical self-deception? Telepathy?

Uh, maybe their only connection re the deceit event is the behavior of each other leading to similar reasons for the self-deceit behaviors? Pointing at a causal relationship? Not a problem from my viewpoint.

I see self-deception happening here, but not by Marvin or the waiter...

In your world what is the operational meaning of order? Is it material in the context of what you or the waiter does? Or is it just a figure of speech about what could be just a verbal exchange? Is order necessary to receive or is presence enough? Is even presence necessary?

This question is asked in a rather obtuse way.

There are many definitions of "order", each with different context. Here, order means "to issue a command". As in "Marvin issued a command to the waiter to bring them salad".

The compression waves among the molecules in the room that were emitted by Marvin as an object would as an artifact be computed upon by the waiter as being "an object conforming to the definition 'command'".

Then the waiter would further unpack object properties to discover a command for salad. They computed the results of obeying this command vs not, and they decided they wanted to keep their job so they fulfilled the command, and brought a salad. Then, they brought the bill to the thing whose thoughts and computations resulted in a command to bring it salad.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Without realizable options, there can be no choosing. It is the possibility of taking different realizable options that enables choosing.

A realizable option is a real possibility. It is something we can make happen if we choose to do so. Thus, every item on the restaurant menu is a realizable option. We can choose any one of them by simply telling the waiter "I will have this, please" or "I will have that please" and he will actually bring it to us and set it on the table in front of us in physical reality. Thus, every item on the menu is a realizable option.

The options on the menu are all realizable. Thus, it is up to us to choose from them what we will have for dinner.

Determinism doesn't enable choosing because all present and future actions are fixed by the prior states of the system, consequently permits no alternatives to choose from.

And yet there is the menu of realizable options, causally determined to be in our hands, and causally necessitating that we choose what we will have for dinner.

All of the events were always causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they are determined to be just so. This includes the menu. This includes the choosing. This includes us doing the choosing.