Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

This:

DBT writes:

Marvin Edwards replies:

Same words yet the latter is not a proper reply to the former.

Questions?

No. Just a comment. DBT wrote one thing you answered with something else as if it were response to DBT's comment. Your response to me amplified your previous input but offered nothing to link it with DBT's comment.

IOW you were unresponsive. Being wordy about what you wrote doesn't improve your credibility.

DBT added to his comment. IOW he clarified his free will statement clearly putting it in to subjective grounds. Try again to link your response to what has been made clear.

 

[fromderinside]

The 'Quantitative' Argument for a Non-Contradictory Acceptance of Agency

This argument starts with a challenge to the fundamental axiom of determinism - that existence is in fact deterministic. To be deterministic, we must have a system in which for any given input or set of inputs, there is exactly and only one possible result. It is best represented as a mathematical formula that falls into the cluster of "n to 1" formulae.

I submit that existence is NOT deterministic, but is rather stochastic. I posit that for any set of inputs, it is possible for more than one result to occur, with each result having a different likelihood.

The premise for a deterministic existence inherently assumes that as long as we have all of the information, we can perfectly predict the outcome of any path of events. This then, requires that it is possible to acquire all information, which subsequently implies that all information is knowable in the first place. And we know that the last clause is false. Not all things are knowable. Some things are unknowable. At a very base minimum, we have quantum effects where it is impossible to simultaneously know a particle's position and velocity at the same time.

I think that unknowability extends to things much larger than quantum particles though. Let's take a simple example: how many leaves did my tree have on it last week? While we might know that an answer exists from a mathematical and philosophical perspective, we cannot actually know that answer. The number of leaves on my tree is obviously a countable number less than infinity. It's a finite number. But what is that number? Nobody knows. And nobody *can* know. Nobody counted the leaves on my tree last week. And even if someone were to have begun counting the number of leaves on my tree last week, within the time span that it would take for them to count the leaves, some leaves would have fallen or some new leaves would have budded. By the time they finished counting, their count would be inaccurate.

We could, however, make a very good estimate of the number of leaves on my tree last week. We would need to know the average number of leaves in a given volume, and whether there were temperature changes that would have caused more or fewer leaves a week ago, and the rough volume of the leaf-bearing structures on the tree. With that, we can get to an estimate that is probably good enough for most purposes.

But it wouldn't be exact. There would still remain an error bound around that estimate. We might estimate 10,000 leaves... but we would have to acknowledge that it might be anywhere between 7,000 and 13,000 for example.

I must conclude that existence is not deterministic, it is stochastic. The set of inputs to any given operation is always incomplete, and is frequently massively incomplete. It is not possible to know every single thing required in order to guarantee and exact singular outcome as the only possibility.

"Okay" you might say, "But that's just randomness, that still doesn't endorse agency". Well, let's move on to that next.

As I said in my prior post, agency is then the ability to apply a pattern to externalities, make a prediction about the likely outcome, and then react to that prediction in order to influence events. Let's walk through the components of this definition.

The ability to find a pattern is inherently dependent on the ability to take in and store external information. In order to have agency of any level, the object must first have a means of perception, a way of observing and interacting with the world around it. What do we mean by perception? Perception requires that the object be able to process and react to external stimuli. The security light at my front door can do that - it senses movement and turns on when certain conditions are met. It processes the external stimuli of movement and reacts by flipping a switch to on. A rock cannot do any of that, it cannot process external stimuli, and it cannot react to that stimuli. There is no coding in a rock that allows it to sort and respond to conditional stimuli, thus a rock cannot have agency.

Being able to perceive externalities is not, however, sufficient by itself. The object must also be able to store salient elements of those perceptions, it must have a memory of at least some capacity. That storage capacity is integral to the ability to determine a pattern. In order to find a pattern, the object must be able to compare the elements of one event to the elements of another event and find commonalities. If there is no means of storage, then no pattern can be found. My porch light doesn't have any storage. All if can do is react, which it does quite nicely. I could attach it to some recording software, which would allow it to record what set it off. But alas, my security light would still not qualify as an agent: it has no means to compare independent recordings against one another to determine a pattern.

The pattern recognition element is necessary in order to make a prediction. And with some of our more advanced technologies, we're getting quite good with pattern recognition. Marketing certainly has done its fair share of pattern recognition. Every time you get a recommendation based on your past Netflix viewing habits, that is pattern recognition in action. Every time Amazon says "other customers also bought this... " they're employing pattern recognition. Amazon also has the means to perceive and store external information; the software observes the purchases that you make as well as other items that you browsed before purchase, and it stores metadata about your purchasing history. That's how it identifies patterns in the first place.

Does Amazon make predictions about whether or not you'll purchase what they suggest? This is where things get fuzzy, and I don't really know for certain. I'm sure that Amazon calculates probabilities with respect to related purchases, and applies those probabilities to prioritize what to suggest. I'm not sure whether they do that in an aggregate fashion or in an individual fashion with probabilities curated for each individual. I think we have a lot of technology that is right at this edge, identifying patterns and making some level of prediction.

There is some gray area between finding a pattern, employing a pattern predictively, and proactively taking action to influence an outcome. There are some solid arguments that could be made that curated advertising has agency - especially if it's dynamic and based on a learning algorithm.

There's a difference between agency and intelligence, which I won't go into here. I think a good argument could be made that many things have agency to varying degrees: Ad software might have very limited agency, as the number of criteria used to determine a pattern, and the number of actions available to make suggestions to influence behavior are necessarily very limited.

On the other hand, I would say that by my argument, my cat certainly has agency, and a decent bit of it as well. Agency is necessary for training, and the more complex the conditioning the more agency is required. Sometimes that training isn't even intentional. For example, my cat like freeze dried salmon treats. They are her favorite, and given the chance she will (and has) gutted the bag and eaten an entire 6 oz of them. For freeze died food, 6 oz is a lot, I still don't know how her stomach didn't explode. Anyway, we play with her when we give her treats. Sometimes we toss them down the hall and she runs after them and chases them. Sometimes she sits at the end of the hall and plays "goalie" with them. Sometimes we give them to her outside in the courtyard. Sometimes we hold them in our hand and she eats them there with her fuzzy little muzzle tickling our fingers. Sometimes we hold them above her so she has to stand on her hind legs like a meerkat in order to get them.

That's all very cute, but lets bring this back around to agency. My cat has learned that these behaviors are associated with treats. She perceived the smell and taste of treats, and she perceived the times of day and the order of routines involved. She knows that after I get up in the morning, there will be treats. Furthermore, she knows that the treats will be given after I have filled her food and water bowl, and after I have filled the coffee pot, and while the coffee is brewing. She anticipates the treats: when I fill the coffee pot and she hears it start, she stands up, because she has identified the pattern than almost always results in treats. Sometimes she's wrong - sometimes I don't have coffee, I have tea. Sometimes she doesn't get treats if she's been constipated recently. But she predicts when those treats will occur.

And beyond that, she engages in proactive behavior to influence the game for treats each day. Sometimes she will go to the door and quite clearly ask to have her treats outside. Sometimes she will run to the end of the hall and indicate that I should toss the treats to her. Sometimes she sits and the front of the hall and looks at me over her shoulder so I know she wants me to throw them so she can chase. Sometimes she meerkats for them without me prompting her at all. She has the agency to indicate what she wants and uses that agency to influence my behavior toward her desired outcome.

That's a lot about agency in here. But what, you may ask, does it have to do with a stochastic existence?

Well, here it is in a nutshell. Given that existence is stochastic, any predictions are probabilistic in nature. Sometimes the probability of a specific outcome is so close to 1.0 as to be guaranteed. Sometimes it's a true coin flip. Most of the time, the number of possible outcomes are bounded; bounded by physical constraints, bounded by time or resources, or in the case of agency, bounded by what the agent can imagine as outcomes. The agent taking action will also be bounded by their perceptive capacity, memory capacity, facility with pattern recognition, and their extrapolative intelligence.

The set of inputs is necessarily limited. Some of the information that may affect an outcome is unknowable. The processes available to an agent are limited. And within all of that there does exist at least some element of pure randomness. As a result, while the outcome may in many cases be highly predictable, it is NOT deterministically knowable.

Sufficiently complex processes have agency, and given a set of inputs that is incomplete and contains some unknowable unknowns, the result of any given decision cannot be perfectly predicted.

If we look up the definition of 'agent' we get: something that produces or is capable of producing an effect

Linguistically, it sounds like the term is a short-hand to say: this [object/thing/being] should be given real consideration because it could have an effect on our own well-being. But beyond that it's really a generalization and not a binary; there is no clear delineation, or sharp boundary on when something does or does not have agency. Point being (throwing back to my earlier post) that the phrase agency is just a convenient linguistic construct, and doesn't actually tell us anything specific about what we're describing.

IMO, this is important because discussing ipso facto agency doesn't really get us closer to the definition, meaning, or objective reality of a human life. But, on the other hand, you've already described a number of other properties of human beings: pattern recognition, memory, stochastic existence etc. To me it's actually knowing these qualities which is important to understanding human life and experience. It doesn't really matter whether they imply free will or agency, or anything else, because these properties describe what we actually are objectively. Ultimately, they can't prove that we have free will or agency because these two terms are just linguistic constructs with no concrete definition. We're free to call people agents if we want to, but that doesn't really tell us anything meaningful about their lived experience. So again, being stochastic, having pattern recognition etc is what's actually important to understanding our lived experience, rather than obsessing over whether we are/are not free, or are/are not agents.

Further, if we're looking at the concept of freedom I think it's also crucial to include the environment in which we live and survive. To me one of the very tangible constraints on our freedom isn't how we function, but how we can't escape our own culture, biological needs, and moral law. In a very real way we aren't free not because of the implications of physical law, but because culture and biology limits the range of our behaviour in a very real way.

I've been thinking about my last few posts little more, and I think I can distill them down a bit. For the most part I'm suggesting that the obsession over freedom is irrelevant; we are material beings with objective qualities, and it is those knowable, and definable qualities that are relevant to understanding ourselves.

We are composed of atoms whose behaviour can be described (stochastic), but animals aren't atoms. Likely the stochastic quality does emerge in our behaviour, but in practice we are an unfathomably complex system of atoms whose behaviour and existence needs a more complex and refined explanation. An explanation that likely emerges as we move through physics -> chemistry -> biology -> sociology. Physical explanations have to underlie how we function, but they don't, and can't really tell the full story of human existence and experience. And at the same time I think if you were to draw out the principles of chemistry/biology/sociology the lack of freedom within a logical, and material system would still be present.

One anecdote I keep thinking about lately that points out the absurdity and irrelevance of the determinism/unfree argument is the experience I have with my 17 month old son. I can accept that I live in a materialistic world full-stop with no sense of dissonance, and yet I love my kid. I love when I get to pick him up at daycare every day, I love playing with him, I love caring for him. He brings genuine joy, meaning, and purpose to my existence. So in a situation like that - what, if anything, does determinism tell us? Am I supposed to feel like my relationship with my family is meaningless because it's out of my control? Is the joy and love I feel an illusion? Obviously that conclusion is missing something.

So on one hand we have the laws of physics that describe the universe, and on the other hand we have living things that have evolved over billions of years. It may be apt to understand ourselves in the context of physics, but I don't think raw physical laws can really explain or encapsulate human experience or our objective existence. Because in truth, while we are material, we have unique qualities of our own that are being completely overlooked while we obsess over how atoms behave, and how we can't will otherwise.

Interpreting or rationalizing what to make of the results of our squirts and underlying evolved equipment connecting to various viscera can not be done by the one's' 'experiencing' it just because it it what they are experiencing. It's that self reporting bottleneck between what is real and what we feel. Our systems are at roads end on that sort of thing.

Rousseau what you wrote is a clear statement for why Wundt's methodology cannot succeed. And at a more relevant level explanation for why Emily Lake's position cannot stand. There is no way to bring something self invented AND self reported into the world of objective data.

 

[Jarhyn]

The crazy part about this is that there is nobody on this earth who understands computers well who is not a compatibilist.

Note how ridiculous it would be if I said "Computers are deterministic, there is no such thing as an alternative path of flow nor free execution."

The thing was specifically developed to be a decision engine! To then claim it doesn't pay to discuss flow control, whether a program is in contention over a resource, whether a mutex is necessary, or whether to discuss priority levels... That would be nonsensical.

Free will happens in a different level of abstraction than "the material determinism". "Flow control", "choice" etc are all discussions of "what happens to the system when X vs Y? Is (distance to goal) larger in X? Push Y!".

This is because the identity operating and instantiated within the system of deterministic action is not wholely a unique product of the system, but had its own identity within the implementation but the identity is not a property of the system, but rather a property "of math".

This allows you to understand, even as a deterministic machine, how that identity behaves in different settings, as an integral rather than a derivative.

Imagine a mathematical function which takes the value of a function, calculates it's integral, finds the derivative of that integral that intersects a line, and then outputs a delta to the original function that will move the inflection point such that when applied shifts the function to that place.

Free will is the ability of the function to complete execution without being interrupted, pounced, or overridden.

Edit:
Free will is not the discussion of the rules. Free Will is the discussion of the META!

 

[steve_bank]

If there is compatibilism does it follow here is incompatibalism?

Compatibilism sounds like a convoluted way way of saying everything we observe fist together.

How can reality be anything than what it is?

 

[Jarhyn]

If there is compatibilism does it follow here is incompatibalism?

Compatibilism sounds like a convoluted way way of saying everything we observe fist together.

How can reality be anything than what it is?

By being what it is not or what it may become on the basis of known or modeled cause and effect.

Cause and effect in the absence of omniscience imply a need exactly to understand what reality is not, and what is not unique to reality.

Compatibilism says incompatibilism is a belief in a nonsense that robs us of our own ability to think in the useful and complete abstraction of physical principles across the randomness and the chaos of the system which elude predictions.

The shape of that belief is exactly that determinism implies there is no "free will" or anything like it possible.

 

[Bomb#20]

Compatibalism appears to be a word game.

To the religious, atheism appears to be a faith.

At a company I used to work for we had a technical writer with no engineering background who wrote manuals for products that involved concepts not yet adequately explained to him. Not yet knowing the right words to express those concepts, he called them "blerk" as a stand-in. Once he and the engineers figured out appropriate wording, he'd go back into his half-written manual and search-and-replace "blerk".

For centuries a subset of determinists have been debating futilely with so-called libertarians about some ineffable unexplainable allegedly possible property of wills. I'm sure that's good clean fun, but from time to time the participants in the interminable blerk-will debate pull their eyes out of each other's navels and tell outsiders their respective arguments have implications for broader philosophy -- typically implications for ethical or meta-ethical questions. This makes the audience wake up and try to follow the debate well enough to make sense of those alleged implications.

The active participants in the blerk-will debate will have grounds to accuse compatibilism of being a word game when, but not before, they are able to produce a coherent justification for why they spell the word blerk "f r e e".

 

[steve_bank]

If there is compatibilism does it follow here is incompatibalism?

Compatibilism sounds like a convoluted way way of saying everything we observe fist together.

How can reality be anything than what it is?

By being what it is not or what it may become on the basis of known or modeled cause and effect.

Cause and effect in the absence of omniscience imply a need exactly to understand what reality is not, and what is not unique to reality.

Compatibilism says incompatibilism is a belief in a nonsense that robs us of our own ability to think in the useful and complete abstraction of physical principles across the randomness and the chaos of the system which elude predictions.

The shape of that belief is exactly that determinism implies there is no "free will" or anything like it possible.

That sounds like the obvious but then I am conditioned by my engineering experience to view reality in a certain way. In a conversation on creation with a Christian engineer I said I don't question reality, I am paid to deal with it. That was odd to him.

When it comes to actually accomplishing something whether us humans are predetermined in our actions and thoughts is irrelevant to ,e. All I can do is choose based on knowledge and experience. There is also the emotional content of ur decisons as well, we do not always choose logically. Those pesky hormones.

If causality is true mening something from nothing and something to nothing are preceded, then the state of our brain has a causal trail going back to the formation of the Sun and further back.

But then randomness comes in. For a chemical reaction there is a probability of success.

Radiate particle emission is statistical, but it occurs. Are mutations deterministic or random? meaning uncorrelated.


I think you can make a case for determinism or not based on how you intepret observation. And it dends on emtional bias from experience.

It is a toss up and a good exercise, with is probably why we have debating it for thousands of years.

The TV show Law And Order touched on the issue of crime and determinism a few times. If somebody or all of us are predetermined by genetics or whatever to be criminals or not then the criminal justice system falls apart. No choice no crime.

 

[Jarhyn]

If there is compatibilism does it follow here is incompatibalism?

Compatibilism sounds like a convoluted way way of saying everything we observe fist together.

How can reality be anything than what it is?

By being what it is not or what it may become on the basis of known or modeled cause and effect.

Cause and effect in the absence of omniscience imply a need exactly to understand what reality is not, and what is not unique to reality.

Compatibilism says incompatibilism is a belief in a nonsense that robs us of our own ability to think in the useful and complete abstraction of physical principles across the randomness and the chaos of the system which elude predictions.

The shape of that belief is exactly that determinism implies there is no "free will" or anything like it possible.

That sounds like the obvious but then I am conditioned by my engineering experience to view reality in a certain way. In a conversation on creation with a Christian engineer I said I don't question reality, I am paid to deal with it. That was odd to him.

When it comes to actually accomplishing something whether us humans are predetermined in our actions and thoughts is irrelevant to ,e. All I can do is choose based on knowledge and experience. There is also the emotional content of ur decisons as well, we do not always choose logically. Those pesky hormones.

If causality is true mening something from nothing and something to nothing are preceded, then the state of our brain has a causal trail going back to the formation of the Sun and further back.

But then randomness comes in. For a chemical reaction there is a probability of success.

Radiate particle emission is statistical, but it occurs. Are mutations deterministic or random? meaning uncorrelated.


I think you can make a case for determinism or not based on how you intepret observation. And it dends on emtional bias from experience.

It is a toss up and a good exercise, with is probably why we have debating it for thousands of years.

The TV show Law And Order touched on the issue of crime and determinism a few times. If somebody or all of us are predetermined by genetics or whatever to be criminals or not then the criminal justice system falls apart. No choice no crime.

Except it does not mean that at all. Because the criminal justice system when imagined in a functional compatibilist manner says "let us design a relationship which expresses forces by which the deleterious to society are reconfigured through certain means constrained by other forces and structures within this 'idea space' to no longer be deleterious to the seeking of the most general set of compatible goals."

No choice with regards to determinism but (if can make (not) across set of (probable) after (yes) or (almost) then (execute that)) still prescribes a criminal justice system of some manner.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Let's try a thought experiment. You are driving down the road and see a red traffic light up ahead. But you don't know whether it will still be red when you get there, or whether it will turn green by the time you arrive. As you get nearer, the light is still red, so you slow down. But just as you're slowing down, the light turns green. So, you speed up again and proceed through the light.

Your hard determinist friend, in the passenger seat, says, "Why did you slow down?"

You reply, "Because the light could have remained red."

"No, it couldn't", your friend replies, "because it was predetermined from the Big Bang that this light would turn green before you reached it. Thus, it was always impossible that it would be red. It could only be green."

"So, why did you slow down?", he asks again.

So, why did you slow down?

The brain is constantly acquiring information and responding to it, as an intelligent information processor the brain is able to respond to changing conditions as the information is acquired. Adjusting to conditions milliseconds after they occur. Re, your example, the brain estimates probability based on past experience, how long a light stays green, travel speed, etc, which determines whether you must stop or there is sufficient time to cross before the light turns amber or red.

What happens on any occasion is determined by an interaction of multiple elements, speed, distance, light cycle times, urgency, mood, etc, which come together as an action performed: on this occasion you stop as the light turns amber.

Just to clarify, in the example the light was already red, so you slowed down, even though it actually did change to green at the last minute. Your determinist passenger asked "Why you slow down?" and you said that the light could have remained red, even though it did not remain red, but instead it change to green as you arrived. But the determinist argues that it was impossible for it to remain red, because it was destined to be green since the Big Bang. So he asks again, "Why did you slow down?"

If I'm reading your response correctly, you are pointing out that the brain is a complex organ that "is constantly acquiring information and responding to it, as an intelligent information processor".

And that, "the brain estimates probability based on past experience". So, you knew that the light could have remained red even though it actually did turn green just as you arrived at the traffic light. Despite the fact that it would not remain red, it still could have remained red.

Pattern Recognition;
''Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes, and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.''

Exactly. We had seen both patterns in the past. We had seen the pattern where the our prediction of the future state of the traffic light was true. We had also seen the pattern where our prediction of the future state of the traffic light was false.

We knew from prior experience that there were two real possibilities: (1) our red light could remain red when we arrived and (2) our red light could change to green as we arrived. Despite that fact that there would only be one actual future, there were two possible futures: one future in which the light remained red and the other future in which the light would be green.

Whenever we are uncertain what will happen, we consider what can happen, to better prepare for what does happen.

''Huettel et al. point out that their study identifies the role various regions of prefrontal cortex play in moment-to-moment processing of mental events in order to make predictions about future events. Thus implicit predictive models are formed which need to be continuously updated, the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes. As a third possible explanation, Ivry and Knight propose that activation of the prefrontal cortex may reflect the generation of hypotheses, since the formulation of an hypothesis is an essential feature of higher-level cognition.
A monitoring of participants awareness during pattern recognition could provide a test of the PFC’s ability to formulate hypotheses concerning future outcomes.''

Exactly. One of the functions of prefrontal cortex is not only "to make predictions about future events", but also to take into account when the prediction is wrong: "the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes".

A parietal-premotor network for movement intention and motor awareness
''It is commonly assumed that we are conscious of our movements mainly because we can sense ourselves moving as ongoing peripheral information coming from our muscles and retina reaches the brain. Recent evidence, however, suggests that, contrary to common beliefs, conscious intention to move is independent of movement execution per se. We propose that during movement execution it is our initial intentions that we are mainly aware of. Furthermore, the experience of moving as a conscious act is associated with increased activity in a specific brain region: the posterior parietal cortex. We speculate that movement intention and awareness are generated and monitored in this region. We put forward a general framework of the cognitive and neural processes involved in movement intention and motor awareness.''

Well, that's very interesting. When the movement is voluntary, our sense that it is voluntary can arise from a simple recall of the earlier intention: "We propose that during movement execution it is our initial intentions that we are mainly aware of." That sounds like they are suggesting Libet's simple movement experiments may be misinterpreted.

A proper consideration of the Libet experiment, as it relates to free will, should start, in my opinion, before the experiment begins. "Were the subjects required to participate in the experiments, or did they choose to do so of their own free will?" Everyone knows precisely what free will means in that sentence. And next we should consider that before the experiment began, the researchers had to explain the apparatus to the subject and what the subject was expected to do. We assume that the subjects were paying conscious attention to the instructions. It was only after the conscious decision to participate and the conscious awareness of the instructions, that the experiment could begin. Just sayin'.

 

[DBT]

Compatibalism appears to be a word game.

To the religious, atheism appears to be a faith.

At a company I used to work for we had a technical writer with no engineering background who wrote manuals for products that involved concepts not yet adequately explained to him. Not yet knowing the right words to express those concepts, he called them "blerk" as a stand-in. Once he and the engineers figured out appropriate wording, he'd go back into his half-written manual and search-and-replace "blerk".

For centuries a subset of determinists have been debating futilely with so-called libertarians about some ineffable unexplainable allegedly possible property of wills. I'm sure that's good clean fun, but from time to time the participants in the interminable blerk-will debate pull their eyes out of each other's navels and tell outsiders their respective arguments have implications for broader philosophy -- typically implications for ethical or meta-ethical questions. This makes the audience wake up and try to follow the debate well enough to make sense of those alleged implications.

The active participants in the blerk-will debate will have grounds to accuse compatibilism of being a word game when, but not before, they are able to produce a coherent justification for why they spell the word blerk "f r e e".

I was trying to be kind.

Compatibalism has been demonstrated to be a word game. The reasons why free will is not compatible with determinism and compatibilism is a word game have been given.

Which, of course doesn't stop those who are attracted to the compatibilist faith from believing and trying to justify their position with word play.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Free will is being used as a kind of A Priori label. A label that doesn't represent brain function, which does not work on the principle of free will. Function is not willed. It is function, not Will, that determines output.

Choosing, what we will do, is a brain function. The choosing function causally determines our will when there are competing needs or desires, and we have to choose which we will pursue.

Free will distinguishes whether that choosing was was unduly affected by coercion or mental illness, or hypnosis, etc., or whether that choosing was free of these undue influences.

The brain's choosing function is affected by the information it inputs. When part of the information it is processing happens to be a guy holding a gun to our head, then the choice will be affected by that information.

By "a priori label" I assume you mean what we happen to call something. For example, a small animal with whiskers that purrs when we pet it is call a "cat". And when we choose for ourselves what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is called "free will".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

This:

DBT writes:

Marvin Edwards replies:

Same words yet the latter is not a proper reply to the former.

Questions?

No. Just a comment. DBT wrote one thing you answered with something else as if it were response to DBT's comment. Your response to me amplified your previous input but offered nothing to link it with DBT's comment.

IOW you were unresponsive. Being wordy about what you wrote doesn't improve your credibility.

DBT added to his comment. IOW he clarified his free will statement clearly putting it in to subjective grounds. Try again to link your response to what has been made clear.

It is often the case that I believe I have answered the question, but it's possible that I haven't given sufficient clues as to how the answer relates specifically to the question. That's why I ask for details when someone makes a comment suggesting I haven't responded specifically to the comment. Often, the answer has already been provided but I need to repeat it because it has not yet been heard, or acknowledged yet.

The process here is not perfect. And if you can provide useful information to make the process better, then please do. But it may be simpler to just ignore the process issues and redirect attention to the content, so we don't get stuck in the mud.

 

[DBT]

Free will is being used as a kind of A Priori label. A label that doesn't represent brain function, which does not work on the principle of free will. Function is not willed. It is function, not Will, that determines output.

Choosing, what we will do, is a brain function. The choosing function causally determines our will when there are competing needs or desires, and we have to choose which we will pursue.

Free will distinguishes whether that choosing was was unduly affected by coercion or mental illness, or hypnosis, etc., or whether that choosing was free of these undue influences.

The brain's choosing function is affected by the information it inputs. When part of the information it is processing happens to be a guy holding a gun to our head, then the choice will be affected by that information.

By "a priori label" I assume you mean what we happen to call something. For example, a small animal with whiskers that purrs when we pet it is call a "cat". And when we choose for ourselves what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is called "free will".

Most of what happens within a determined system happens without being effected by external coercion, ie, forced to do something else.
Will produced by a brain that is not under pressure is no more free than a that of a damaged brain or one under pressure, a brain simply responds according to its own condition and inputs in all circumstances.

We can say that someone is being forced to act against their wishes or will.

We have will.

But because will is shaped and formed through unconscious processes, with no possibility of doing otherwise in any given instance in time, will cannot be described as being "Free Will."

A butterfly can act according to its own inner urges and impulses, its own will, but is incapable of higher reasoning or moral understanding.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Free will is being used as a kind of A Priori label. A label that doesn't represent brain function, which does not work on the principle of free will. Function is not willed. It is function, not Will, that determines output.

Choosing, what we will do, is a brain function. The choosing function causally determines our will when there are competing needs or desires, and we have to choose which we will pursue.

Free will distinguishes whether that choosing was was unduly affected by coercion or mental illness, or hypnosis, etc., or whether that choosing was free of these undue influences.

The brain's choosing function is affected by the information it inputs. When part of the information it is processing happens to be a guy holding a gun to our head, then the choice will be affected by that information.

By "a priori label" I assume you mean what we happen to call something. For example, a small animal with whiskers that purrs when we pet it is call a "cat". And when we choose for ourselves what we will do, while free of coercion and undue influence, it is called "free will".

Most of what happens within a determined system happens without being effected by external coercion. Will produced by a brain that is not under pressure is no more free than a that of a damaged brain or one under pressure, the brain simply responds according to its condition and inputs in all circumstances.

We can say that someone is being forced to act against their wishes or will.

We have will. But because will is shaped and formed through unconscious processes, with no possibility of doing otherwise in any given instance in time, will cannot be described as being "Free Will."

A butterfly can act according to its own inner urges and impulses, its own will, but is incapable of higher reasoning or moral understanding.

But it sounds like you are saying that the brain cannot take the guy with the gun into account when "responding to its condition and inputs". And if, as you suggest, "will is shaped and formed through unconscious processes", then how is it that the body's behavior is very different when it is threatened by a gun? The bank teller does not ordinarily give away the bank's money. But when threatened by the robber, she hands him the money.

The robber does not set the gun down, and begin moving her arms for her against her will. The threat is assessed by her brain, and her brain chooses to do what the robber says, because it calculates that things will turn out better for her if she acquiesces to do his will, instead of her own.

How this calculation is performed unconsciously would perhaps be a matter for further study. But the conscious interpretation of this event is commonly understood and fairly clear: When threatened by a gun, she chooses her life over the bank's money. (And the bank will have trained her to do so, to avoid being sued by her for a workplace hazard.)

Will produced by a brain that is not under pressure is no more free than a that of a damaged brain or one under pressure, the brain simply responds according to its condition and inputs in all circumstances.

Of course. But the will produced by a brain that is under pressure of coercion, or that is damaged, will be significantly different from the will produced by a brain that is free of these specific conditions. That is why these special conditions are meaningful and relevant.

To say that the brain will always behave according to reliable cause and effect (deterministically) is certainly true. But we all take this logical fact for granted, because it is always true all the time of all events. So, while it is a logical fact, it is neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact.

All of the utility of the concept of reliable cause and effect comes from knowing the specific causes of specific effects.

Universal causal necessity/inevitability, while it is a logical fact, is neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact. All of the utility of reliable causation comes from knowing the specifics.

 

[Bomb#20]

In that case the ion would be one of the specific reliable causes determining the coin flip. Which leads us to wonder, "What quantum event caused the ion to be released at precisely that moment?" The question itself implies the expectation of a reliable cause, even if we never discover what it is.

Sure -- most people expect there to be a reliable cause. But that's a fact of human psychology, not a fact of physics. It probably happened because one monkey reacted to an unexpected noise by looking around for a potential saber-toothed tiger and one didn't, and we all know which of those monkeys the human race is descended from.

The mind raising the question, is evidence that we all believe that every event has its specific causes, that reliably bring it about.

It's evidence that we all have an instinctive predisposition to believe it. An awful lot of physicists do not in fact believe what you say we all believe. "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above." - Katharine Hepburn

Concepts cannot knock over pencils. "Quantum uncertainty" is a notion, not a causal agent.

[Note to self: always go the extra mile in precision when talking to Marvin.] The pencil has a vanishingly small probability of staying up longer than about five seconds, even if no external horizontal forces act on it other than the table's reaction to the horizontal component of the force exerted by the pencil on the table due to compression of the pencil along its axis due to the earth's gravitational attraction of the pencil and the table's electrical repulsion of the pencil, because the pencil's finite momentum guarantees it has nonzero uncertainty in the positions of its upper and lower ends, which in turn guarantees that the horizontal component of the compression vector along its length cannot be exactly zero.

On the other hand, if I'm hammering a nail, I'd prefer to reliably hit the nail, rather than randomly hit my hand. Reliable causation is our friend. (Well, after we become skilled enough to stop hitting our thumb).

Whether Bob is our friend or enemy isn't evidence of whether the person behind us is Bob. (And for what it's worth, in the deterministic theory that preceded quantum mechanics, electrons in atoms had unstable orbits and spiraled into nuclei, killing us all. Sometimes random quantum fluctuation is our friend. And nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. )

Well, if we're going to keep smashing protons into stuff, then we should hope that the consequences are contained.

True; but hope is a poor excuse for belief. (And if proton collider energies were sufficient to destroy the earth then the earth would have already been destroyed by cosmic rays.)

Quantum mechanics is 95 years old, and a lot of the smartest people in the world have spent years of their professional lives trying to come up with a deterministic theory that matches experimental results, and so far they've all* failed. Doesn't that shake your confidence that reliably caused quark behavior is more likely?

Not at all. The inability to discover the cause does not mean there is no cause.

This goes beyond not discovering a cause. We haven't even been able to come up with a fantasy guess at any hypothetical something that could possibly cause it if that something were real -- never mind whether we can discover evidence for that something actually existing and actually causing quantum events.

The analogy with Relativity is instructive. Since the early 1900s, there has been a viable alternative to Einstein's theory of Relativity all along. It's called "Lorentz Ether Theory". It says the Luminiferous Ether that Einstein is generally considered to have refuted really does exist after all and light really is a wave in the Ether; the Ether just has such-and-such peculiar properties; light behaves so strangely because Ether is waving just a little bit differently from the way 19th-century physicists believed it waved; and their experiments attempting to detect it all failed because of those such-and-such properties I mentioned. Modern physicists nearly all reject this theory in favor of Relativity, not because of any observational evidence against it, but simply because of philosophical considerations like Occam's Razor, parsimony, and predictive power. But if somebody finds Relativity emotionally or philosophically problematic because we all believe that every event has an absolute time when it happens, and therefore he rejects Relativity, at least he has a comprehensible answer when somebody says "How can you reject Relativity? Look at all the evidence for it! Your GPS wouldn't work if time didn't slow down!". He just says, "My GPS would still work, same as always. Time slowing down is just an illusion due to our movement in the Lorentz Ether." And then he can run the numbers and show the LET calculations and prove his GPS still works.

The point is, for Relativity we have a Lorentz Ether we've never discovered but which is at least possible; but we haven't got anything like that for quantum mechanics. And it's not for lack of trying.

Quantum systems show an effect called "entanglement" in which events on this side of the lab appear to make a difference to what happens on that side of the lab, faster than the speed of light. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". It's mathematically very difficult to reconcile that with Relativity in a theory with reliable causation.

Actually, gravity and electromagnetism could also be called "spooky action at a distance". The only reason it is not spooky is because we see it so often that we take it for granted. So, entanglement might eventually become so common as to be ordinary as well.

No, that's not why gravity and electromagnetism aren't spooky. They aren't spooky because they're "fields". In an electric or gravitational field there's a quantitative strength and direction to the field at every point in space and time, and a differential equation that describes how that strength and direction changes and what causes it to change, and all those changes are "local", meaning the only thing that affects the strength or direction is physical events at that location or infinitesimally close to it. I.e., the force of the earth on the moon is propagated from the one to the other -- it's mediated by physical events we can describe and quantify taking place at every point between the two.

If we had an explanation like that for quantum entanglement then physicists wouldn't find it spooky.

The means by which the number is produced makes it predictable in theory, if not in practice.

Predictable in which theory? The situation would be different if we had an unpredictable theory that works and a predictable theory that works; then philosophizing about how the number is predictable in theory would carry some weight. But as it is, in 2021, all we have is an unpredictable theory that works and a bunch of predictable theories that don't work.

The theory of predictability is that every effect is reliably caused. It's that ordinary notion of reliable "cause and effect".

That's not a theory. For it to be a theory you'd have to be able to get a testable prediction out of it.

 

[DBT]

Most of what happens within a determined system happens without being effected by external coercion. Will produced by a brain that is not under pressure is no more free than a that of a damaged brain or one under pressure, the brain simply responds according to its condition and inputs in all circumstances.

We can say that someone is being forced to act against their wishes or will.

We have will. But because will is shaped and formed through unconscious processes, with no possibility of doing otherwise in any given instance in time, will cannot be described as being "Free Will."

A butterfly can act according to its own inner urges and impulses, its own will, but is incapable of higher reasoning or moral understanding.

But it sounds like you are saying that the brain cannot take the guy with the gun into account when "responding to its condition and inputs". And if, as you suggest, "will is shaped and formed through unconscious processes", then how is it that the body's behavior is very different when it is threatened by a gun? The bank teller does not ordinarily give away the bank's money. But when threatened by the robber, she hands him the money.

That's not what I'm saying. The brain takes the situation, the man with the gun, his attitude, nervous, twitchy, etc, into account, weighs cost to benefit according to the circumstances and responds accordingly, signals are sent, muscle groups put into action, you hand your wallet over, the risk of injury or death is not worth the cost of a few dollars....

That is decision making in action, governed by the state of your brain, fear, anxiety, rational thought interacting with the elements of the situation, a desperate character with a gun which generates an outcome which effects your behaviour into the future.

This has nothing to do with will. The only part that will plays being the prompts or urges to act, to reach for your wallet, to say ''Here, I don't want any trouble.''

The robber does not set the gun down, and begin moving her arms for her against her will. The threat is assessed by her brain, and her brain chooses to do what the robber says, because it calculates that things will turn out better for her if she acquiesces to do his will, instead of her own.

The robber acts according to their own will, will that's shaped and driven by their own needs and proclivities. Just as you act according to your own will when faced with the threat of violence; the will to avoid getting injured.

Your will is shaped by the circumstances you are in. You respond according to your situation. Sometimes our circumstances relate to our wishes, mor often they don't. The brain responds regardless.

Decision-Making

''Decision-making is such a seamless brain process that we’re usually unaware of it — until our choice results in unexpected consequences. Then we may look back and wonder, “Why did I choose that option?” In recent years, neuroscientists have begun to decode the decision-making process. What they’re learning is shedding light not only on how the healthy brain performs complex mental functions, but also on how disorders, such as stroke or drug abuse, affect the process.''

''Researchers can study decision-making in animals. As monkeys decide which direction a moving target is headed, researchers record the activity in brain cells called neurons. These studies have helped to reveal the basis for how animals and humans make everyday decisions.''

Thanks to advances in technology, researchers are beginning to unravel the mysterious processes by which humans make decisions. New research is helping scientists develop:

A deeper understanding of how the human brain reasons, plans, and solves problems.
Greater insight into how sleep deprivation, drug abuse, neurological disorders, and other factors affect the decision-making process, suggesting new behavioral and therapeutic approaches to improve health.
Our brains appear wired in ways that enable us, often unconsciously, to make the best decisions possible with the information we’re given. In simplest terms, the process is organized like a court trial. Sights, sounds, and other sensory evidence are entered and registered in sensory circuits in the brain. Other brain cells act as the brain’s “jury,” compiling and weighing each piece of evidence. When the accumulated evidence reaches a critical threshold, a judgment — a decision — is made.''

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Sure -- most people expect there to be a reliable cause. But that's a fact of human psychology, not a fact of physics.

On the other hand, physics is also a fact of human psychology. And it presumes a reliable cause in everything it describes. It has no facility for describing uncaused events, as they would be irrational.

It probably happened because one monkey reacted to an unexpected noise by looking around for a potential saber-toothed tiger and one didn't, and we all know which of those monkeys the human race is descended from.

Thank goodness.

It's evidence that we all have an instinctive predisposition to believe it. An awful lot of physicists do not in fact believe what you say we all believe. "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above." - Katharine Hepburn

I'm guessing that must be from the movie where she heads a research bureau that is about to be replaced by a computer.

Concepts cannot knock over pencils. "Quantum uncertainty" is a notion, not a causal agent.

[Note to self: always go the extra mile in precision when talking to Marvin.]

Damn straight.

The pencil has a vanishingly small probability ...

Likewise, probabilities cannot knock over pencils.

... of staying up longer than about five seconds, even if no external horizontal forces act on it other than the table's reaction to the horizontal component of the force exerted by the pencil on the table due to compression of the pencil along its axis due to the earth's gravitational attraction of the pencil and the table's electrical repulsion of the pencil, because the pencil's finite momentum guarantees it has nonzero uncertainty in the positions of its upper and lower ends, which in turn guarantees that the horizontal component of the compression vector along its length cannot be exactly zero.

Well, that was a quick turnabout from "even if no external horizontal forces act on it" to "other than" a list of forces acting upon it.

And, of course, "the pencil's finite momentum guarantees it has nonzero uncertainty" reminds us that uncertainty is a matter of missing knowledge, and not a matter of unreliable causation.

On the other hand, if I'm hammering a nail, I'd prefer to reliably hit the nail, rather than randomly hit my hand. Reliable causation is our friend. (Well, after we become skilled enough to stop hitting our thumb).

Whether Bob is our friend or enemy isn't evidence of whether the person behind us is Bob. (And for what it's worth, in the deterministic theory that preceded quantum mechanics, electrons in atoms had unstable orbits and spiraled into nuclei, killing us all. Sometimes random quantum fluctuation is our friend. And nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. )

Random fluctuations are only our friends when unpredictability is desirable, like when we flip the coin to see who goes first.

Well, if we're going to keep smashing protons into stuff, then we should hope that the consequences are contained.

True; but hope is a poor excuse for belief. (And if proton collider energies were sufficient to destroy the earth then the earth would have already been destroyed by cosmic rays.)

Quantum mechanics is 95 years old, and a lot of the smartest people in the world have spent years of their professional lives trying to come up with a deterministic theory that matches experimental results, and so far they've all* failed. Doesn't that shake your confidence that reliably caused quark behavior is more likely?

Not at all. The inability to discover the cause does not mean there is no cause.

This goes beyond not discovering a cause. We haven't even been able to come up with a fantasy guess at any hypothetical something that could possibly cause it if that something were real -- never mind whether we can discover evidence for that something actually existing and actually causing quantum events.

Well, there is always the "God of the gaps".

The analogy with Relativity is instructive. Since the early 1900s, there has been a viable alternative to Einstein's theory of Relativity all along. It's called "Lorentz Ether Theory". It says the Luminiferous Ether that Einstein is generally considered to have refuted really does exist after all and light really is a wave in the Ether; the Ether just has such-and-such peculiar properties; light behaves so strangely because Ether is waving just a little bit differently from the way 19th-century physicists believed it waved; and their experiments attempting to detect it all failed because of those such-and-such properties I mentioned. Modern physicists nearly all reject this theory in favor of Relativity, not because of any observational evidence against it, but simply because of philosophical considerations like Occam's Razor, parsimony, and predictive power. But if somebody finds Relativity emotionally or philosophically problematic because we all believe that every event has an absolute time when it happens, and therefore he rejects Relativity, at least he has a comprehensible answer when somebody says "How can you reject Relativity? Look at all the evidence for it! Your GPS wouldn't work if time didn't slow down!". He just says, "My GPS would still work, same as always. Time slowing down is just an illusion due to our movement in the Lorentz Ether." And then he can run the numbers and show the LET calculations and prove his GPS still works.

The point is, for Relativity we have a Lorentz Ether we've never discovered but which is at least possible; but we haven't got anything like that for quantum mechanics. And it's not for lack of trying.

Oh. So the Lorentz Ether was the "God of the gaps". Cool.

Quantum systems show an effect called "entanglement" in which events on this side of the lab appear to make a difference to what happens on that side of the lab, faster than the speed of light. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". It's mathematically very difficult to reconcile that with Relativity in a theory with reliable causation.

Actually, gravity and electromagnetism could also be called "spooky action at a distance". The only reason it is not spooky is because we see it so often that we take it for granted. So, entanglement might eventually become so common as to be ordinary as well.

No, that's not why gravity and electromagnetism aren't spooky. They aren't spooky because they're "fields". In an electric or gravitational field there's a quantitative strength and direction to the field at every point in space and time, and a differential equation that describes how that strength and direction changes and what causes it to change, and all those changes are "local", meaning the only thing that affects the strength or direction is physical events at that location or infinitesimally close to it. I.e., the force of the earth on the moon is propagated from the one to the other -- it's mediated by physical events we can describe and quantify taking place at every point between the two.

So, if we had an explanation like that for quantum entanglement then physicists would no longer find it spooky. Actually, an explanation as to why it happens is unnecessary. It is sufficient that it reliably happens in order for it to qualify as a common law of physics.

There are many things (perhaps all things) where the unanswerable question is "Why does it happen this way, and some other way?" For example, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" The answer to this type of a question truncates at "Because that's just the way things are". However, when it comes to causes of real events, there will be real causes.

The means by which the number is produced makes it predictable in theory, if not in practice.

Predictable in which theory? The situation would be different if we had an unpredictable theory that works and a predictable theory that works; then philosophizing about how the number is predictable in theory would carry some weight. But as it is, in 2021, all we have is an unpredictable theory that works and a bunch of predictable theories that don't work.

The theory of predictability is that every effect is reliably caused. It's that ordinary notion of reliable "cause and effect".

That's not a theory. For it to be a theory you'd have to be able to get a testable prediction out of it.

But reliable cause and effect is very testable. We all test it every day and in everything we do. We move one foot forward and shift our weight and walk to the kitchen and back. That's reliable causation in every step.

It is the opposing theory, that some events are uncaused, that has yet to be demonstrated with experimental evidence.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

That's not what I'm saying. The brain takes the situation, the man with the gun, his attitude, nervous, twitchy, etc, into account, weighs cost to benefit according to the circumstances and responds accordingly, signals are sent, muscle groups put into action, you hand your wallet over, the risk of injury or death is not worth the cost of a few dollars....

That is decision making in action, governed by the state of your brain, fear, anxiety, rational thought interacting with the elements of the situation, a desperate character with a gun which generates an outcome which effects your behaviour into the future.

This has nothing to do with will. The only part that will plays being the prompts or urges to act, to reach for your wallet, to say ''Here, I don't want any trouble.''

It sounds like we're saying the same thing. The brain considers the alternatives and decides to hand over the wallet rather than being shot. It does have to do with will precisely as you said, the 'part that will plays being the prompts or urges to act, to reach for your wallet, to say ''Here, I don't want any trouble.'' '

Because you were coerced into handing over your wallet, no one will hold you responsible for losing the money. They will hold the robber responsible for your loss. The specific "will", your brain came up with under coercion, was "I will hand over my wallet".

The robber does not set the gun down, and begin moving her arms for her against her will. The threat is assessed by her brain, and her brain chooses to do what the robber says, because it calculates that things will turn out better for her if she acquiesces to do his will, instead of her own.

The robber acts according to their own will, will that's shaped and driven by their own needs and proclivities. Just as you act according to your own will when faced with the threat of violence; the will to avoid getting injured. Your will is shaped by the circumstances you are in. You respond according to your situation. Sometimes our circumstances relate to our wishes, mor often they don't. The brain responds regardless.

Of course. But again, you hide the significant distinction between a coerced choice and one that is free from coercion. In one case you are free to decide for yourself what you will do. In the other case you are forced to submit your will to the will of the guy with the gun. This fact makes all the difference when judging who is responsible for this event, and whose behavior requires correction.

Decision-Making

''Decision-making is such a seamless brain process that we’re usually unaware of it — until our choice results in unexpected consequences. Then we may look back and wonder, “Why did I choose that option?” In recent years, neuroscientists have begun to decode the decision-making process. What they’re learning is shedding light not only on how the healthy brain performs complex mental functions, but also on how disorders, such as stroke or drug abuse, affect the process.''

''Researchers can study decision-making in animals. As monkeys decide which direction a moving target is headed, researchers record the activity in brain cells called neurons. These studies have helped to reveal the basis for how animals and humans make everyday decisions.''

Thanks to advances in technology, researchers are beginning to unravel the mysterious processes by which humans make decisions. New research is helping scientists develop:

A deeper understanding of how the human brain reasons, plans, and solves problems.
Greater insight into how sleep deprivation, drug abuse, neurological disorders, and other factors affect the decision-making process, suggesting new behavioral and therapeutic approaches to improve health.
Our brains appear wired in ways that enable us, often unconsciously, to make the best decisions possible with the information we’re given. In simplest terms, the process is organized like a court trial. Sights, sounds, and other sensory evidence are entered and registered in sensory circuits in the brain. Other brain cells act as the brain’s “jury,” compiling and weighing each piece of evidence. When the accumulated evidence reaches a critical threshold, a judgment — a decision — is made.''

And there's the metaphor that clinches my case:

"Other brain cells act as the brain’s “jury,” compiling and weighing each piece of evidence. When the accumulated evidence reaches a critical threshold, a judgment — a decision — is made."

 

[fromderinside]

A proper consideration of the Libet experiment, as it relates to free will, should start, in my opinion, before the experiment begins. "Were the subjects required to participate in the experiments, or did they choose to do so of their own free will?" Everyone knows precisely what free will means in that sentence. And next we should consider that before the experiment began, the researchers had to explain the apparatus to the subject and what the subject was expected to do. We assume that the subjects were paying conscious attention to the instructions. It was only after the conscious decision to participate and the conscious awareness of the instructions, that the experiment could begin. Just sayin'.

Well if they are FSU science majors it is pretty clear official coercion is applied.

https://www.bio.fsu.edu/undergrad/research.php

Doing research as an undergraduate will enrich your experience at FSU by connecting you to your field and to the faculty and graduate students in the department. Undergraduate research experience will also improve your chances for admission into graduate schools and medical, dental and veterinary schools. Undergraduates can become involved in research in several ways. The UROP program allows students to begin doing research in their freshman and sophomore years. Or, you can do Directed Independent Study (DIS) doing research with a faculty member and get credits toward your Biological Science major. And finally, there is Honors in the Major, which is similar to DIS work but involves writing and defending a thesis at the end of your project.

Eyup. Some coercion was applied. Nothing is free in this world even when you describe it. I bolded one sentence. But it is clear that free isn't operative in any sentence in that description. Cost/benefit all the way to turtles.

Go ahead. Climb up the decision tree. You'll find one isn't at any level freely making anything.

 

[DBT]

It sounds like we're saying the same thing. The brain considers the alternatives and decides to hand over the wallet rather than being shot. It does have to do with will precisely as you said, the 'part that will plays being the prompts or urges to act, to reach for your wallet, to say ''Here, I don't want any trouble.'' '

Because you were coerced into handing over your wallet, no one will hold you responsible for losing the money. They will hold the robber responsible for your loss. The specific "will", your brain came up with under coercion, was "I will hand over my wallet".

Responsibility depends on brain condition and the ability to reason rationally, not will. Will is the result of the brains functionality and ability to reason, not its driver.

Someone may be intelligent, able to reason, but is constantly making bad decisions.

A computer is able to make rational decisions/selections based on sets of criteria, therefore able to choose what is considered good and moral. It is the system, not its impulses or its will that selects the only option it has available to it in any given instance in time (determinism). We are judged on the basis of our decision making ability (being of sound mind or not), not our will.

The perception of decision making.
''Recognizing that consciousness is awareness does change the way we can look at the fundamental problem of free will. Free will is more correctly defined as “the perception that we choose to make movements.” Looking at it in this way produces at least two possibilities. The first is that there is a process of free will, an aspect of consciousness, that does choose to make a specific movement. The second is that the brain’s motor system produces a movement as a product of its different inputs, consciousness is informed of this movement, and it is perceived as being freely chosen


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