Compatibilism: What's that About?

[steve_bank]

Rather, can maps represent countries? Will the representation of the map have error? There is a country there, and the fact of the map and it's ability to be operated is speaking to the solidity of the idea of "logic" in general, something immutably true about reality itself: that there is a thing there to be mapped out in the first place.
We are getting very close here now to first principles.
Either the universe exists and is bound to operate in a logical way, or science would not work, and all is unknowable and unknown nonsense.
Again, I cannot go into the cave and drag you out of it.

You said the universe conforms to logic. Again you are unable to undershorts simple analogy and metaphor, and post a conflation of philosophical cliches.


I don't want to deail Marvin's thread. You have the last word.

 

[steve_bank]

All events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded, without deviation, from the Big Bang to this moment.
Choosing is a causal mechanism. It is a both a logical and a physical process that causally necessitates our deliberate behavior. Thus, it cannot be excluded from the series of events that causally necessitate our actions.

Marvin,

Given the exact same coditions will you always make the same choice? Can there be an underlying quantum uncertainty as to how our brain works?

 

[Jarhyn]

Rather, can maps represent countries? Will the representation of the map have error? There is a country there, and the fact of the map and it's ability to be operated is speaking to the solidity of the idea of "logic" in general, something immutably true about reality itself: that there is a thing there to be mapped out in the first place.
We are getting very close here now to first principles.
Either the universe exists and is bound to operate in a logical way, or science would not work, and all is unknowable and unknown nonsense.
Again, I cannot go into the cave and drag you out of it.

You said the universe conforms to logic. Again you are unable to undershorts simple analogy and metaphor, and post a conflation of philosophical cliches.


I don't want to deail Marvin's thread. You have the last word.

You aren't even derailing the thread. You are adding yet another voice to the confused chorus of FDI and DBT and all the folks who don't understand that science is built on the assumption that the universe behaves logically.

It's an axiom, Steve. Axioms are, well... The minimal list of things that we must assume Apriori.

Is the universe like this? It would have to be for science to reliably function.

Can there be an underlying quantum uncertainty as to how our brain works?

This question belies an essential failure to understand what is being discussed, Steve.

There is in fact a large discussion way way upthread about the fact that all systems can be modeled as Deterministic ones, assuming one is willing to present as an element of the initial condition, a series which defines in a uniform sequential way all resolutions of all such "uncertain" events.

If you need a metaphor for this, think of each event's resolution to be the result of a draw from a very large card dispenser, large enough to present an answer to every random event as one-time-pad.

Once this has been identified, this finite but large organization of momentary event "rolls" is treated as a deterministic input.

Suddenly, the quantum uncertainty is pulled away into a deterministic series.

As far as I can tell, all systems can have this little trick done to them and this is the basis for the theory of "Superdeterminism", an Unfalsifiable answer to the bell inequality.

Stated differently, even if there is a system where you have to roll a dice or whatever, presenting the same dice rolls generates the same output of the same logical system.

The quantum uncertainty does not lend anything necessary, either, to the operation of compatibilist wills. At best it adjusts efficiencies of various operations.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Given the exact same conditions will you always make the same choice?

Given the same me, the same issue, and the same circumstance, I would always make the same choice.

Can there be an underlying quantum uncertainty as to how our brain works?

Like most machines, the brain is not always reliable from our perspective. There are three separate causal mechanism at play: physical, biological, and rational. If someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat, that would physically alter how things work for a while. If I am sleepy, hungry, or gotta go, then those are biological causes that could alter my brain's performance. If I am prone to a given logical error in my thinking, then that would make my conclusions less reliable. However, they would be consistently wrong in a predictable way (reliably unreliable).

I believe that we may assume that each of these mechanisms provide reliable causation within their own domain, and that our choice remains deterministic by being reliably caused by some specific combination of physical, biological, and rational causation.

As to quantum uncertainty, well there is plenty of human uncertainty in all of the causal mechanisms. However, I believe that quantum events are reliably caused, just like physical events, biological events, and rational events. Our uncertainty about quantum events is due to a lack of knowledge, rather than a lack of reliable causation. So, if reliable causation were a turtle, it would be turtles all the way down.

 

[steve_bank]

There in lies the problem/ Human uncertainties.

Logic, mental states, and choice chnge with our emotional states, which is based in brain chemistry.

Given biology reduces to atomic interactions, I'd say a case can be made there may be an inherent quantum uncertainit as to how our brains worrk.

In his book on QM David Bohm made a brief case for an 'importunity principle of the mind'. The more you narrow focus the more diffuse the options become.

 

[Jarhyn]

There in lies the problem/ Human uncertainties.

Logic, mental states, and choice chnge with our emotional states, which is based in brain chemistry.

Given biology reduces to atomic interactions, I'd say a case can be made there may be an inherent quantum uncertainit as to how our brains worrk.

In his book on QM David Bohm made a brief case for an 'importunity principle of the mind'. The more you narrow focus the more diffuse the options become.

The logic of the universe, the systemic truth of the thing does not change with our mental state.

To say otherwise is to believe in... Well certainly not the kind of magic I use, that's for sure...

 

[fromderinside]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

The threat of death from heart failure is not a choice. One is going to die in the short term. One adjusts because one dies sooner rather than later if one does not adjust. One is still going to die regardless of whether one adjusts or not.

 

[fromderinside]

The unverse does not obey logic

Yes, the universe obeys logic, otherwise the fundamental assumptions of science fall apart.

The basis of science is the tacit acceptance that something cannot be both true and false in the same way at the same time.

Everything you believe, think and rely upon, the very definition of determinism, of "system" is founded on that assumption.

Way to optimistic. We have gone to science because it gives us leverage near term. We have no hope, being temporal mortal beings, of ever experiencing all the universe exhibits. That is there are aspects of being we can't nor never will fathom or account. We probably can explain one percent of the five percent of what we believe to be out there. The science upon we base our understanding is, and shall remain, incomplete.

Yet it may determined. We'll never know.

 

[Jarhyn]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

The threat of death from heart failure is not a choice. One is going to die in the short term. One adjusts because one dies sooner rather than later if one does not adjust. One is still going to die regardless of whether one adjusts or not.

Yes, it's still a choice. There are plenty of things in would choose to do and be executed for, even were I threatened with death for doing the..

One adjusts because one finds it prudent to adjust on the basis of who they are and the fact they are not a spineless worm afraid of death for things more important than one's own individual life.

The unverse does not obey logic

Yes, the universe obeys logic, otherwise the fundamental assumptions of science fall apart.

The basis of science is the tacit acceptance that something cannot be both true and false in the same way at the same time.

Everything you believe, think and rely upon, the very definition of determinism, of "system" is founded on that assumption.

Way to optimistic. We have gone to science because it gives us leverage near term. We have no hope, being temporal mortal beings, of ever experiencing all the universe exhibits. That is there are aspects of being we can't nor never will fathom or account. The science upon we base our understanding is, and shall remain, incomplete.

Yet it may determined. We'll never know.

It gives us leverage in the near term because the universe has fixed laws.

Just because we won't experience every way that the small things can make very complex things will not remove our ability to determine how small things may interact with small things in small ways, and that all big interactions are permutations and collections of these small ones. We could complete our understanding of quantum field theory and quantum mechanical field collapse.

As it is, you are literally saying the pseudo-atheistic version of "there could be a god/fate/magic(of the nonmatetial variety). We'll never know."

Bring to me a fixed fate, an act of god, a work of nonmaterial "magic" and I'll acknowledge it. So far I have not been impressed by any of the other crazies rolling through here, however.

 

[fromderinside]

Most possibilities will never happen. Consider the items on the restaurant menu. It is possible for you to order all of the items on the menu. But do you ever expect to do so? No. A possibility is not something that we presume will happen. It is only presumed that it can happen, if we choose to make it happen.

And that is why this claim:

They were never possibilities.

Sounds so damn silly.

Silly? Nope. It's based on your own definition of determinism. It is stated in terms and conditions that you gave;

''All of these events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded without deviation from the Big Bang to this moment.'' - Marvin Edwards.

All events proceeding without deviation is equivalent to nothing else can happen.

Where nothing else can happen, all events proceeding without deviation - your own terms - logically, alternate events are not possible.

They were perceived as being possibilities. Perceived to be possible does not make it possible.

As explained before, a possibility exists solely in the imagination. It is not the same thing as an actuality. We cannot drive a car across the possibility of a bridge. We can only drive across an actual bridge.

However, we cannot build an actual bridge without first imagining a possible bridge.

Imaginary possibilities are irrelevant. They are irrelevant because deterministic reality proceeds without alternate possibilities.

We may imagine all sorts of things that do not and cannot happen, Superman flying through the air, Zeus hurling lightning bolts down from Mt Olympus.....

An illusion formed by limited information.

No, a real possibility is not an "illusion". It is a different kind of mental event, one that serves a practical purpose when choosing a dinner, or planning a vacation, or inventing the light bulb, or designing an actual bridge.

A real possibility in determinism is something that must necessarily happen. What we imagine as being a possibility has no bearing on whether it happens or not.

It either must happen, or it doesn't happen.

If it doesn't happen, given your terms and conditions, there was never a possibility of it happening, just the perception that it might have.....which is an illusion formed by insufficient information.

A possibility has the chance of happening. But having the chance of happening never requires that it actually does happen. Every item on the menu had the chance of being ordered. But only one item would be ordered.

If there was never the possibility of it happening, it is not a possibility.

That's determinism as you define it.

You know well by now how I define determinism. Determinism means that everything that ever happens will be reliably caused by prior things that have happened. All events will metaphorically "unfold" in precisely one way. Basically, what we see is what we get.

Yes, all well and good, but then you throw 'choosing' into the definition, which based on the given terms and conditions of determinism, is an error.

How did the events unfold in the restaurant? Each customer walked in, sat at a table, opened the menu, considered their many possibilities, and choose what they would order.

Each and every consideration unfolded as it must, deterministic information processing resulting in the inevitable order being placed.

Each and every customer according their own state and condition in any given instance in time.

''The literal meaning of choice is that there are multiple options, and the person selects one of them.

Thus, choice requires multiple possible outcomes, which is a no-no to determinism. To the determinist, the march of causality will make one outcome inevitable, and so it is wrong to believe that anything else was possible. The chooser does not yet know which option he or she is going to choose, hence the subjective experience of choice.

Thus, the subjective choosing is simply a matter of one's own ignorance - ignorance that those other outcomes are not really possibilities at all.''

You are going the wrong way on the right train of thought. The chooser is looking at the determined world from an inside perspective. From where he is he sees choice because he sees possibilities that are already fixed because where he is is in part of the world. From the outside the world is complete and determined.

 

[fromderinside]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

The threat of death from heart failure is not a choice. One is going to die in the short term. One adjusts because one dies sooner rather than later if one does not adjust. One is still going to die regardless of whether one adjusts or not.

Yes, it's still a choice. There are plenty of things in would choose to do and be executed for, even were I threatened with death for doing the..

One adjusts because one finds it prudent to adjust on the basis of who they are and the fact they are not a spineless worm afraid of death for things more important than one's own individual life.

The unverse does not obey logic

Yes, the universe obeys logic, otherwise the fundamental assumptions of science fall apart.

The basis of science is the tacit acceptance that something cannot be both true and false in the same way at the same time.

Everything you believe, think and rely upon, the very definition of determinism, of "system" is founded on that assumption.

Way to optimistic. We have gone to science because it gives us leverage near term. We have no hope, being temporal mortal beings, of ever experiencing all the universe exhibits. That is there are aspects of being we can't nor never will fathom or account. The science upon we base our understanding is, and shall remain, incomplete.

Yet it may determined. We'll never know.

It gives us leverage in the near term because the universe has fixed laws.

Just because we won't experience every way that the small things can make very complex things will not remove our ability to determine how small things may interact with small things in small ways, and that all big interactions are permutations and collections of these small ones. We could complete our understanding of quantum field theory and quantum mechanical field collapse.

As it is, you are literally saying the pseudo-atheistic version of "there could be a god/fate/magic(of the nonmatetial variety). We'll never know."

Bring to me a fixed fate, an act of god, a work of nonmaterial "magic" and I'll acknowledge it. So far I have not been impressed by any of the other crazies rolling through here, however.

The actual crazies are looking at things from their perspective which is within the world. The world is fixed, determined. Were what they reported choices? I think not. If an end can be specified then it is determined. Objects in play never determine. They are being played. They are determined.

 

[Jarhyn]

The chooser is looking at the determined world from an inside perspective

"Inside perspective". Dualist claptrap that.

I can watch from the outside as a choice is executed and still identify it as a choice. I can record the nature of what choices it must make and even optimize the initial condition of a system to produce desired output.

It's not a subjective question of who made the choice to open the door: Urist did, when their logic combined some bit of chaos with their personality. What can be certain is that it was Urist's personality that led him to choose this, not "subjective" but because of the object properties of some bit of material corresponding specifically to him.

He saw a choice, and I look down into the system and it's particles (bits), and see that his particles were arranged to make a choice.

If an end can be specified then it is determined.

The end cannot be specified without acknowledging the role Urist's own personality played in deciding to fight, that he would NOT choose to go worship, or talk to his family or do "useful work".

Many things (in fact a number of very chaotic events, essentially "dice rolls" on a deterministic roller) in fact influenced his behavior.

In fact the whole point is that we can recognize that the role Urist's personality played in deciding to fight rather than pet a cat is exactly the reason why when we ask "how do we end up with fewer murdered dwarves" the answer is "restructure Urist's personality".

Sometimes in our own lives we can come to the answer "someone's personality needs reconstructing". Sometimes we can recognize that person is ourselves.

Do we need to have decided on our proclivities in order to decide  with them? Most assuredly we do not.

This it is determined that we shall choose, but if we can access the "determination", we can violate it. What I choose forms the truth basis for how it is determined, rather than "it being determined" forming the truth basis of what I choose.

It is determined through an operation of fixed deterministic choice.

Fates that cannot be escaped should be reserved as an element of bad plots of stories from antiquity.

 

[fromderinside]

The chooser is looking at the determined world from an inside perspective

"Inside perspective". Dualist claptrap that.

I can watch from the outside as a choice is executed and still identify it as a choice.

Yes you can and that is a subjective act. Ergo it is a subjective choice and because you exist in a determined world your act is determined not chosen. No one gives a figs fart what you think you did subjectively. That's a whole other realm. He was punched, he fell. You thought otherwise. He could be trying to duck but he wasn't fast enough. That you thought he chose to duck is not a choice.

 

[bilby]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification is entailed. People breaking the law prompts the need for penalties and penalties set the following conditions. The system evolves as it must. The modification of behaviour is entailed, not freely chosen or freely willed. It's a matter of how the course of deterministic events must evolve.

The law breakers don't will a new attitude or way of thinking, they are compelled to think in terms of punishment, a matter of cost to benefit and how that effects the individuals brain and thought processes (information processing).

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

It can't be different. If it that it can be different, it's not determinism and compatibilists can throw their definition of determinism out of the window and call themselves Libertarians. Which is what many of them are at heart.

I didn't say it could be different. I said it would be different, had the intervention not occurred. It's a hypothetical. Which is the only way we have of discussing the future. Indeed, you do it yourself - all I am doing here is pointing out the implications of YOUR words.

 

[fromderinside]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification is entailed. People breaking the law prompts the need for penalties and penalties set the following conditions. The system evolves as it must. The modification of behaviour is entailed, not freely chosen or freely willed. It's a matter of how the course of deterministic events must evolve.

The law breakers don't will a new attitude or way of thinking, they are compelled to think in terms of punishment, a matter of cost to benefit and how that effects the individuals brain and thought processes (information processing).

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

It can't be different. If it that it can be different, it's not determinism and compatibilists can throw their definition of determinism out of the window and call themselves Libertarians. Which is what many of them are at heart.

I didn't say it could be different. I said it would be different, had the intervention not occurred. It's a hypothetical. Which is the only way we have of discussing the future. Indeed, you do it yourself - all I am doing here is pointing out the implications of YOUR words.

Thank you.

 

[DBT]

The threat of a penalty modifies behaviour.

Because people can choose how they behave. Yes.

Even in a deterministic universe.

(I would have put a thumbs up on your comment had I the leeway for doing so because it makes obvious what is going on in this discussion. ergo this friend of the court comment)

DBT's threat statement is an empirical observation not a choice. That a threat is observed adds to what we know about what determines how we behave generally. It makes more specific why a cause results in a particular effect. It tells us something about how we are wired. That someone would interpret that as choice says more about our ignorance about how one functions in the world than it says about what one is doing.

How do you get to "modifies" without choice?

How does a threat modify behaviour, if not by causing the threatened party to choose to do something they otherwise would not have done (or to choose not do do something they otherwise would have done)?

Modification is entailed. People breaking the law prompts the need for penalties and penalties set the following conditions. The system evolves as it must. The modification of behaviour is entailed, not freely chosen or freely willed. It's a matter of how the course of deterministic events must evolve.

The law breakers don't will a new attitude or way of thinking, they are compelled to think in terms of punishment, a matter of cost to benefit and how that effects the individuals brain and thought processes (information processing).

Modification demands that until the intervention (in this case, a threat), the choice would have been different.

Which of course, it would.

It can't be different. If it that it can be different, it's not determinism and compatibilists can throw their definition of determinism out of the window and call themselves Libertarians. Which is what many of them are at heart.

I didn't say it could be different. I said it would be different, had the intervention not occurred. It's a hypothetical. Which is the only way we have of discussing the future. Indeed, you do it yourself - all I am doing here is pointing out the implications of YOUR words.

The intervention is itself inevitable. Just another deterministic element in a web of causality as the system transitions from past to present and future states.

Our speculations on what is possible have no bearing on how the system evolves. Imagination and speculation being a matter of brain activity, this is also an inevitable part of the deterministic, fixed, inevitable flow of events.

So where is free will? Compatibilism doesn't establish 'free will,' it merely redefines the terms 'free' and 'will' in order to make it appear that compatibility is possible.

A game of smoke and mirrors. It's enough to make a stage Magician proud.

 

[DBT]

All events, including my choices, were causally necessary from any prior point in time. And they all proceeded, without deviation, from the Big Bang to this moment.

Choosing is a causal mechanism. It is a both a logical and a physical process that causally necessitates our deliberate behavior. Thus, it cannot be excluded from the series of events that causally necessitate our actions.

Determinism means that everything that ever happens will be reliably caused by prior things that have happened. All events will metaphorically "unfold" in precisely one way.

Yes, all well and good, but then you throw 'choosing' into the definition, which based on the given terms and conditions of determinism, is an error.

It would be an error to exclude any real causal mechanism from determinism. You have pointed this out yourself, every time that you bring up the unconscious neurological processes that produce our conscious experiences.

Choosing includes all of those unconscious and conscious neurological activities that accomplish the human brain's decision-making function.

This decision-making function is invoked by every customer in the restaurant as they choose from the menu of what they will order for dinner.

I didn't "throw choosing in" to the definition of determinism. It has always been there, by the implication that all events are reliably caused by some deterministic mechanism. Choosing is one of those deterministic mechanisms.

And you are attempting to "throw choosing out". If we throw it out, our determinism becomes an incomplete, and false version of determinism. So, we cannot throw it out.

They were never possibilities.

A possibility is a logical token used by the decision-making function. It is part of the machinery. We cannot throw out parts of the machinery without breaking the decision-making function.

Choosing is a logical operation, just like addition and subtraction. Choosing inputs two or more things that we can do, evaluates these options by some appropriate criteria, and then outputs a single choice, the single thing that we have decided that we will do.

These "things that we can do" are possibilities. And there must always be at least two real possibilities before choosing between them can begin.

Thus, it would be silly to say that "they were never possibilities". They must be real possibilities, by logical necessity, just as a triangle must have three sides, by logical necessity.

All events proceeding without deviation is equivalent to nothing else can happen.

No. As has been explained repeatedly, all events proceeding without deviation is equivalent to nothing else will happen.

It can never imply that nothing else "can" (present) or "could" (future) or "could have" (past) happened. These words invoke the context of possibilities, and the context of possibilities is built into the logical machinery of planning, choosing, inventing, evaluating, etc. The context of multiple possibilities cannot be destroyed without destroying those functions of the human brain. So, let's try not to do that.

We may imagine all sorts of things that do not and cannot happen, Superman flying through the air, Zeus hurling lightning bolts down from Mt Olympus.....

Of course. Our imagination is capable of entertaining impossibilities as well as possibilities. And the decision-making function would screen out impossibilities from our menu of options whenever making real choices. Real possibilities are things that we can actually do if we choose to do them. That's why we stick to the restaurant menu when deciding what to order for dinner. All of the items on the menu are presumed to be real possibilities, items that we can actually have for dinner if we choose them.

Once we know what our real possibilities are, we can proceed to choose between them. That's how the logical machinery works.

A real possibility in determinism is something that must necessarily happen.

That's obviously incorrect. If we took that literally then we would feel compelled to order every possibility on the menu! That's kind of silly, don't you think?

What we imagine as being a possibility has no bearing on whether it happens or not.

Oh, but it does! If an item is not on the menu of possibilities, then it will not happen. (With the exception of my little sister, who is a vegetarian, and will negotiate with the restaurant staff to satisfy her requirements consistent with theirs).

If it doesn't happen, given your terms and conditions, there was never a possibility of it happening, just the perception that it might have.....which is an illusion formed by insufficient information.

There is a difference between a logical object and a physical object. A logical object is, of course, represented via neurological events that take place in the physical brain, so it is not divorced from physical reality, but it is only observed from within the brain.

A real possibility is a logical object. It is the concept of something that can happen or that we can do, under realistic circumstances. In the restaurant, all of the items listed on the menu are real possibilities. They are not "imaginary" possibilities or "illusions" of possibilities. They are as real as any possibility ever gets to be. (When adding 3 to 4 to get 7, 3 and 4 are logical objects that are fed to the addition function to produce the sum of 7. Our possibilities on the restaurant menus are just as real as 3, 4, and 7. The numbers are not "illusions" of numbers, nor are they "imaginary" numbers. They are "real" numbers. The same applies to the possibilities on the restaurant menu.)

The possibility of having the Salad for dinner, and, the possibility of having the Steak dinner, are both real possibilities. We can choose either one of them. The choosing operation will be deterministic, of course, and every step of the process will be causally necessary from any prior point in time.

This means that the possibilities will be guaranteed to show up, as real possibilities, by causal necessity as well as by logical necessity.

This has been covered time and time again.

You have argued for the compatibilist position, free will and determinism: how compatibilism is defined. I have argued for the incompatibilist position, the problems relating to the idea of free will within a deterministic system and why they are incompatible.

We are in repeat mode.

We have been for some time.

Is it worth going around in circles like this?

Is it going to achieve anything?

Do you want to keep going?

 

[Jarhyn]

Yes you can and that is a subjective act.

No, it is an objective act when an object does a thing that is consistently observable, because I'm talking about choices observably made, in fact choices made under open observation, and objectively satisfying the set theoretical definitions of "will" and "freedom with respect to an instruction" and "choice".

I have argued for the incompatibilist position, the problems relating to the idea of free will within a deterministic system and why they are incompatible.

No, you have asserted them, without arguing them. You state two problems, "deviation" and "randomness" which you vacillate between calling relevant and irrelevant, even as you are unable to actually show those problems in action in any exploration of compatibilist choice.

The intervention is itself inevitable. Just another deterministic element in a web of causality as the system transitions from past to present and future states.

And no compatibilist argues differently.

However it's inevitably does not change the fact that the intervention is still happening, nor the fact that we call such interventions "choices". That is in fact the name we invented for them.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

There in lies the problem/ Human uncertainties.

Logic, mental states, and choice change with our emotional states, which is based in brain chemistry.

Given biology reduces to atomic interactions, I'd say a case can be made there may be an inherent quantum uncertainty as to how our brains work.

In his book on QM David Bohm made a brief case for an 'importunity principle of the mind'. The more you narrow focus the more diffuse the options become.

Oddly, it turns out to be a two way street. Beliefs, for which there is no unique brain chemistry, can alter brain chemistry. One might think of a belief as a specific packet of neural connections that, when activated, trigger a host of other packets of neural connections, resulting in specific thoughts and feelings.

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga described the unique impact of beliefs upon the human mind this way:

Are we just a fancier and more ingenious animal snorting around for our dinner? Sure, we are vastly more complicated than a bee. Although we both have automatic responses, we humans have cognition and beliefs of all kinds, and the possession of a belief trumps all the automatic biological process and hardware, honed by evolution, that got us to this place. Possession of a belief, though a false one, drove Othello to kill his beloved wife, and Sidney Carton to declare, as he voluntarily took his friend’s place at the guillotine, that it was a far, far better thing he did than he had ever done.

Gazzaniga, Michael S.. Who's in Charge? . HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

And, we can deliberately choose to change our brain, by simply opening a book and reading. An example I like to use is the college girl who is invited to a party, but knows she has a chemistry exam in the morning, so she chooses to stay home and study for the exam. She reviews her lecture notes and the textbook, practicing recalling the key facts she needs, which she knows will help her to remember those facts when faced with the test questions in the morning. She has, by deliberate choice, modified the neural pathways in her own brain, strengthening the connections related to her chemistry test.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... The chooser is looking at the determined world from an inside perspective. From where he is he sees choice because he sees possibilities that are already fixed because where he is is in part of the world. From the outside the world is complete and determined.

From the inside world he is seeing things as they must be seen if he is to eat dinner tonight. And, if he likes, he can simultaneously entertain the notion that everything he does is causally necessary from any prior point in time. But the waiter is now tapping his foot, impatiently waiting for the diner to make a choice. And that causally necessitates that the diner abandon useless philosophical notions and return to the practical matter of deciding what he will order from the menu of alternate possibilities.

From the outside, we only see the customer picking up the menu, holding it for a minute or two, and then telling the waiter what he will order. From the outside we cannot see the logical operation that actually accomplishes this mysterious task of reducing the menu to a dinner order. From the outside all we have is a black box, that inputs a menu and outputs a dinner order.

So, we have the science of psychology that explores the inner workings of that black box, and uncovers the logical steps of decision making, and we have the science of neurology that explores what parts of the brain are activated as it performs this logical process.