Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Jarhyn]

Origination Argument;

1. An agent acts with free will only if she is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
2. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control.
3. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator (or ultimate source) of her actions.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will.

Item 1 is question-begging. It assumes as true the very thing that is under discussion.

No, it's not begging the question.

1- If determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent, as a matter of choice, why call it determinism?

I don't understand your response (it doesn't appear to address my criticism).

Marvin has not suggested (or implied) that "determinism allows multiple options to be realized by an agent".

Marvin is expressing philosophical compatibilism. I am arguing for incompatibility. Giving the reasons why compatibilism fails. It fails because it tries to define free will into reality by ignoring the implications of determinism, that simply calling something free will does not make will free, which makes it a word game.

And I am pointing out as a software engineer that your efforts to use physical determinism to attempt to hand-wave concepts of contention over executiveness which arise over the activity of disparate reference frames with incomplete information of the state of outside frames.

You are engaging in just as much of a word game, ignoring that there are abstract systems of order that arise within ANY deterministic system of sufficient complexity.

you have not answered in any sufficient manner my explanations of the concept from the perspective of software engineering: a system being deterministic does not change the truth of priority levels nor of contention

I am engaging with the standard incompatibilist argument against compatibalism/ free will, which gives valid reasons why the term "free will" does not relate to determinism, the nature of thought, decision making or human behaviour.

I haven't engaged with you because time constraint does not allow me to deal with multiple posters or numerous points, which are usually repetitive.

The argument against free will is clear and relates to determinism, brain function and behaviour, while compatibilism does not, simply pasting a label on a select set of behaviors and declaring this is free will.

Except that it is exactly the thing people generally engage with in philosophical discussions of free will.

Your mistake is that you are failing to see that there are two machines at play.

The first set of machines are the physics engines themselves: put in two quarks, plus virtual event, and you get whatever as a combined object.

Then there are machines made of those machines. The claim that one machine's deterministic flow prevents meaningfulness of the discussion of a set of machines that have private contexts within the substrate and their interaction of contention over goals and subjugation of intent is silly and nonsense.

Will you be so bold as to declare "the discussion of flow control, mutex, priority levels, and interrupts is meaningless, computers are deterministic!"

Of course the universe is deterministic. That doesn't change the worth of metagaming.

Free will is not a concept of physical rules, it's a concept of metagaming. The existence of rules invalidated the value of meta just about NEVER.

There is no mistake. What you say, not being related, does not establish free will. If the world is determined everything proceeds according to initial conditions and natural law, no deviations, no second options, no freedom to do otherwise. Simply declaring action that is not coerced to be free will is not sufficient because everything that happens is necessitated, that events once in motion proceeds without impediment. How things go/fixed is neither ''willed'' or chosen. Free will is incompatible with determinism.

Then you DO claim that software engineering is meaningless because software execution systems are deterministic, so concepts of contention and "flow control" don't need to happen?

How exactly is ''flow control'' related to determinism, compatibilism, brain function, decision making, behaviour and the concept of free will?

How do you relate ''flow control'' to ''free will?''

How do you not?

That's what you need to explain. You need to link your ''flow control'' to cognition and will in a way that supports 'freedom of will.'

What are you proposing? How does it work? You are not suggesting that computers have free will, I take it? So how does it relate to the brain and human cognition?

"Computers" do not have free will. "Processes" may or may not with relation to another process, because there is only a single computer but there are many processors and many processes.

I am saying specifically that "the quality of a process which is capable of operating without being descheduled, overridden, or terminated; the exclusivity of it's needed resources so as to stay out of "bad states", this is exactly the same stuff as our discussions of "free will" as comes from the compatibilist position.

A process does not have "free will" if a secondary process executes that starts donking around with it's memory, or leverages some kind of enhanced permission level and deschedules the other! Something has "suborned" it's "free will".

Humans need to discuss these concepts, not just as regards processes on computer based processes in deterministic electronic systems but of organic processes interacting in physical deterministic systems , and this need arises from the fact that understanding them more enables the efficiency that comes from handling the above well.

The only difference here is that humans have much more variant and unintentional purpose to our lives.

Even if the execution of a whole system is deterministic, processes within it have local indeterminabilities. In fact, on any system with more than one processor state (the universe has (particles) processor states, at a minimum!), This must be true.

I don't disagree with most of what you say. But if your intent is to argue for the reality of free will, I see anything here that does that.

You are asking me to argue for something I do not believe in: I do not believe in indeterminism. I believe in local indeterminabilities.

Really, the problem you are seeing is in fact that compatibilists do not argue for what you wish to argue against. Compatibilists never argue an escape from determinism.

Rather, they argue that if one wishes to make lexical sense of the concept that people discuss when the speak the utterance that is "free will" one best stands to step away entirely from assaulting determinism or challenging the rules or the function of the RNG model; one would be better served acknowledging those things and instead focus on understanding the rules understanding what is RNG, and then engaging the meta.

The meta includes concepts of free will, not from causation or history or determinism, but from each other, and by varying extent; and when and whether this be so.

 

[DBT]

I like to use "operational" definitions when I can, which describe the concept in terms of how it "works" and what the notion is actually used for. For example:

"Will" is a person's specific intent for the immediate ("I will have pancakes for breakfast") or distant ("last will and testament") future. This intent both motivates and gives direction to the person's subsequent actions.

"Brain functions" are the various functions provided by the neural architecture. Perhaps the most significant of these is the organization of sensory input into a model of reality. Included in this model is the "self" and its "internal environment" and also its "external environment". The key brain functions related to free will are imagination, evaluation, and choosing. [/url]

Brain function and response is not willed. A computer, AI, can make decisions, take actions, switch circuits on or off, run motors, evaluate, present options if words are misspelled, etc, etc, all performed without will or consciousness.

All features and abilities enabled by construction and software. The brain is a physical information processor that acquires software by acquiring information via its senses and responds accordingly. Nothing to do with will, yet alone free will. Will is the product of processing, not its master.

Redefining terms, definitions and other fallacies;

Quote:
''What’s interesting about the compatibilists’ position, is that they adhere to the idea that everything that happens is predetermined to happen, yet still argue for moral responsibility. One wonders, what is it that compatibilists are able to see that allows them to reconcile these two apparently contradictory theories?

There are two possible explanations. On one account, compatibilism may simply derive from an arbitrary standpoint and imply logically contradictory things. We see this in the accounts of those compatibilists who reject the notion of free will yet encourage people to live as if it exists. They say that even if free will does not exist, we have to act like it does. They also argue that moral practices are important for regulating people’s behavior. Yet they fail to explain to us how anything, including moral beliefs, can have a power in changing peoples’ behavior if the course of the world is already determined from the Big Bang. What we end up with is to me a logically contradictory view that can’t be explained outside of the realm of illusion.

However, compatibilism may also derive from purely semantic differences – in other words, from having a different definition for the term ‘determinism’. This can be why at times determinists talk over each other and derive completely different conclusions on ostensively the same subject.

''Determinism is one of the perennial topics of philosophy, and its relatedness to human liberty and morality make it important to our daily lives and practices. Determinism is usually understood as rejecting the concepts of free will and moral responsibility, yet we see philosophers’ different conclusions on the subject. David Hume was able to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory theories of determinism and responsibility. This derives from Hume’s specific take on the term ‘determinism’, which does not reflect the standard philosophical definition, but rather only the perceived cause and effect relationship between events''

 

[DBT]

You are asking me to argue for something I do not believe in: I do not believe in indeterminism. I believe in local indeterminabilities.

Really, the problem you are seeing is in fact that compatibilists do not argue for what you wish to argue against. Compatibilists never argue an escape from determinism.

Rather, they argue that if one wishes to make lexical sense of the concept that people discuss when the speak the utterance that is "free will" one best stands to step away entirely from assaulting determinism or challenging the rules or the function of the RNG model; one would be better served acknowledging those things and instead focus on understanding the rules understanding what is RNG, and then engaging the meta.

The meta includes concepts of free will, not from causation or history or determinism, but from each other, and by varying extent; and when and whether this be so.

Common usage, casual references and people's utterances don't really matter. Who cares, I don't. People can say the ability to jump up and down is free will for all it matters in common utterances. The issue here is sorting out what really happens, the function and role of will, the nature of cognition, motor action, motivations, drives, determinism, indeterminism, etc, in relation to ''free will'' in terms of something more than pasting labels or common references.

 

[Jarhyn]

You are asking me to argue for something I do not believe in: I do not believe in indeterminism. I believe in local indeterminabilities.

Really, the problem you are seeing is in fact that compatibilists do not argue for what you wish to argue against. Compatibilists never argue an escape from determinism.

Rather, they argue that if one wishes to make lexical sense of the concept that people discuss when the speak the utterance that is "free will" one best stands to step away entirely from assaulting determinism or challenging the rules or the function of the RNG model; one would be better served acknowledging those things and instead focus on understanding the rules understanding what is RNG, and then engaging the meta.

The meta includes concepts of free will, not from causation or history or determinism, but from each other, and by varying extent; and when and whether this be so.

Common usage, casual references and people's utterances don't really matter. Who cares, I don't. People can say the ability to jump up and down is free will for all it matters in common utterances. The issue here is sorting out what really happens, the function and role of will, the nature of cognition, motor action, motivations, drives, determinism, indeterminism, etc, in relation to ''free will'' in terms of something more than pasting labels or common references.

That's the issue though. "Sorting out what really happens" and then pointing at the deterministic function of the physics is exactly the same operation as saying that you want to know what really happens so you must understand the assembly and instruction set and ignore the python code because "that's just imaginary and gets compiled away".

Even if the system has a determinism, individuals within the system must still have a game theory. That game theory must itself include a dynamic of "power": "power to act in service of goals"; "power over which goals another may reach".

And with power to act and power over another comes freedom (to act)/(from power of another)/(from constraints of physical barrier). These are not colloquialisms and is not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose is to have terms which have useful application in questions.

The above conversation is muted if one says "freedom is not real because we are all coerced in all things by cold physics to be fated slaves of history." Of course we are fated slaves of history, but the fundamental shape of "slave to history", in this case, is "human", and "human" means fundamentally capable of learning and growth and change for the better through observation of one's mistakes.

When someone discusses freedom, oneust fundamentally ask "freedom from what?"

Freedom is contextual because freedom is a property that only exists in comparison between localities.

In other ways of putting it, you might as well claim that we shouldn't care about nuclear power because all the universe balances out to 0 net charge or whatever.

 

[fromderinside]

Jarhyn said: Even if the system has a determinism, individuals within the system must still have a game theory. That game theory must itself include a dynamic of "power": "power to act in service of goals"; "power over which goals another may reach".

A determinism? WTF? It either is or it is not! It doesn't pop up willy nilly as if by whim. We aren't talking about something within it is The something. No one who considers selected circumstances from within a system, knowing they are speaking circumstantially, would ever make the claim that they are permitted to violate a system rule because they observe only that within the system, excluding all else, which would permit the rule breaking. Its a red herring if they do. They would label it apparent this or that.

It is presumed that all scientific law is provisional, dependent on new findings, scientists readily admit this. Why the F..k can't free willers just acknowledge that in the adult play field of determinism that any claim free will is no more than provisional ever. Even us hard determinists acknowledge we aren't able to observe everything, prove determinism. However there is no evidence ever for free will in any specification of determinism, not permitted by definition. Every claim of free will has been falsified. Take a different tack.

We are not Bill Mahar humorists "We don't know it's true."

 

[DBT]

You are asking me to argue for something I do not believe in: I do not believe in indeterminism. I believe in local indeterminabilities.

Really, the problem you are seeing is in fact that compatibilists do not argue for what you wish to argue against. Compatibilists never argue an escape from determinism.

Rather, they argue that if one wishes to make lexical sense of the concept that people discuss when the speak the utterance that is "free will" one best stands to step away entirely from assaulting determinism or challenging the rules or the function of the RNG model; one would be better served acknowledging those things and instead focus on understanding the rules understanding what is RNG, and then engaging the meta.

The meta includes concepts of free will, not from causation or history or determinism, but from each other, and by varying extent; and when and whether this be so.

Common usage, casual references and people's utterances don't really matter. Who cares, I don't. People can say the ability to jump up and down is free will for all it matters in common utterances. The issue here is sorting out what really happens, the function and role of will, the nature of cognition, motor action, motivations, drives, determinism, indeterminism, etc, in relation to ''free will'' in terms of something more than pasting labels or common references.

That's the issue though. "Sorting out what really happens" and then pointing at the deterministic function of the physics is exactly the same operation as saying that you want to know what really happens so you must understand the assembly and instruction set and ignore the python code because "that's just imaginary and gets compiled away".

Even if the system has a determinism, individuals within the system must still have a game theory. That game theory must itself include a dynamic of "power": "power to act in service of goals"; "power over which goals another may reach".

And with power to act and power over another comes freedom (to act)/(from power of another)/(from constraints of physical barrier). These are not colloquialisms and is not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose is to have terms which have useful application in questions.

The above conversation is muted if one says "freedom is not real because we are all coerced in all things by cold physics to be fated slaves of history." Of course we are fated slaves of history, but the fundamental shape of "slave to history", in this case, is "human", and "human" means fundamentally capable of learning and growth and change for the better through observation of one's mistakes.

When someone discusses freedom, oneust fundamentally ask "freedom from what?"

Freedom is contextual because freedom is a property that only exists in comparison between localities.

In other ways of putting it, you might as well claim that we shouldn't care about nuclear power because all the universe balances out to 0 net charge or whatever.

References to freedom are contextual within a determined system, but ultimately - within a determined system - nothing can do otherwise. ''Freedom'' refers to unrestricted motion, the orbits of planets, birds flying, animals grazing, people interacting, vehicles travelling, people going about their business unimpeded, each according to the own needs and wants....but is that free will? No, it's not. Rather than a matter of will it is necessitated movement freely performed.

 

[Copernicus]

...

It seems clear by now that DBT is never going to concede that ordinary usage of the expression "free will" is a valid basis for defining its meaning. Freedom from coercion or undue influence is a completely acceptable way to define the term, but hard determinists want to treat it as either meaning freedom from causal necessity or not having any meaningful significance at all. In the end, their argument means little, because people are still going to be judged guilty and punished for using their "imaginary" free will to commit crimes. Eliminativism strikes me as an intellectually bankrupt position, but no harm as long as it makes them happy.

Ahem, I don't deny ordinary usage. The argument here is not merely about semantics, how people use words. The argument relates to actual function, how decisions are made, determinism and how actions are performed. The argument against free will is about reality, not semantics, that common usage is inadequate in explaining cognition or motor action, how and why we think and behave as we do...that the compatibilist definition fails for the given reasons.....reasons that are typically ignored by its supporters.

What do you think it means to "deny ordinary usage"? It seems to me that you do just that in your very next sentence. If you don't care about how people use words, then why should people care about how you use your words? Arguments are composed entirely of words, and, if anyone is to understand your argument, then they have to take into account the semantics of those words. If you want to argue about semantics--to persuade someone that you have a point--then you need to use words to do that.

If you were paying attention to my words, you would be seeing that I am agreeing with you that "free will" doesn't make sense unless there is some sense of indeterminism. And that just isn't possible, if you are looking at a deterministic system in which you know the initial state of that system and all of the factors that produce outcomes in it. That is what you are talking about--a reality in which everything is predetermined. Marvin has also seen your point fully and clearly. It doesn't take a genius to understand it. The problem is that nobody, including yourself, in this deterministic reality has any awareness of future outcomes, just an ability to imagine alternative outcomes and choose actions to address what we all expect to happen. That's the actual reality we find ourselves in, not the reality of an omniscient observer of the deterministic system. From our perspective, reality is not deterministic because we do not have the ability to know future outcomes, only to guess at them. So the "free will" concept makes sense from our perspective, because we don't know for certain what effect our actions will have on this deterministic chaos that we struggle to survive. That's why Marvin is exactly right to define "free will" in the way he has, and you are exactly right to consider it nonexistent from the perspective of the omniscient observer. There is no contradiction there. Two different perspectives make them compatible. It's just that you only want to acknowledge the validity of one of those perspectives, and I get the sense that you are rigidly determined to do what you most want to do.

 

[DBT]

...

It seems clear by now that DBT is never going to concede that ordinary usage of the expression "free will" is a valid basis for defining its meaning. Freedom from coercion or undue influence is a completely acceptable way to define the term, but hard determinists want to treat it as either meaning freedom from causal necessity or not having any meaningful significance at all. In the end, their argument means little, because people are still going to be judged guilty and punished for using their "imaginary" free will to commit crimes. Eliminativism strikes me as an intellectually bankrupt position, but no harm as long as it makes them happy.

Ahem, I don't deny ordinary usage. The argument here is not merely about semantics, how people use words. The argument relates to actual function, how decisions are made, determinism and how actions are performed. The argument against free will is about reality, not semantics, that common usage is inadequate in explaining cognition or motor action, how and why we think and behave as we do...that the compatibilist definition fails for the given reasons.....reasons that are typically ignored by its supporters.

What do you think it means to "deny ordinary usage"? It seems to me that you do just that in your very next sentence. If you don't care about how people use words, then why should people care about how you use your words? Arguments are composed entirely of words, and, if anyone is to understand your argument, then they have to take into account the semantics of those words. If you want to argue about semantics--to persuade someone that you have a point--then you need to use words to do that.

If you were paying attention to my words, you would be seeing that I am agreeing with you that "free will" doesn't make sense unless there is some sense of indeterminism. And that just isn't possible, if you are looking at a deterministic system in which you know the initial state of that system and all of the factors that produce outcomes in it. That is what you are talking about--a reality in which everything is predetermined. Marvin has also seen your point fully and clearly. It doesn't take a genius to understand it. The problem is that nobody, including yourself, in this deterministic reality has any awareness of future outcomes, just an ability to imagine alternative outcomes and choose actions to address what we all expect to happen. That's the actual reality we find ourselves in, not the reality of an omniscient observer of the deterministic system. From our perspective, reality is not deterministic because we do not have the ability to know future outcomes, only to guess at them. So the "free will" concept makes sense from our perspective, because we don't know for certain what effect our actions will have on this deterministic chaos that we struggle to survive. That's why Marvin is exactly right to define "free will" in the way he has, and you are exactly right to consider it nonexistent from the perspective of the omniscient observer. There is no contradiction there. Two different perspectives make them compatible. It's just that you only want to acknowledge the validity of one of those perspectives, and I get the sense that you are rigidly determined to do what you most want to do.

In this instance, all I meant was that people do use the term in everyday language. People do say 'he acted of his own free will,' ''she was not forced, she freely chose to marry him,'' and so on. The question, as I went on to say being, what is really happening, why did he act, what happened, why did she marry him, what brought her to that state, what drives behaviour, how are decisions made, why do we act like we do.....which exposes the the simplicity and inadequacy of the term ''free will' - which is nothing more than a convenient figure of speech but tells us nothing about the nature of the world, mind, brain, behaviour or its drivers. That the term free will is a semantic construct, a casual reference to actions that are not forced by an external agent.

I don't care what you believe, the argument here is the validity of compatibilism. Marvin is arguing for compatibilism. Which I expect means that he believes free will to be precisely as it is defined by compatibilism.

Obviously, there is a contradiction between compatibilism and incompatibilism, both cannot be true.

 

[Copernicus]

...

In this instance, all I meant was that people do use the term in everyday language. People do say 'he acted of his own free will,' ''she was not forced, she freely chose to marry him,'' and so on. The question, as I went on to say being, what is really happening, why did he act, what happened, why did she marry him, what brought her to that state, what drives behaviour, how are decisions made, why do we act like we do.....which exposes the the simplicity and inadequacy of the term ''free will' - which is nothing more than a convenient figure of speech but tells us nothing about the nature of the world, mind, brain, behaviour or its drivers. That the term free will is a semantic construct, a casual reference to actions that are not forced by an external agent.

All words are semantic constructs, whether you choose to use them or not. Choosing to use different words does not get you free of the semantics of words. I think that you are acknowledging that the common use of the term "free will" has its uses, and on that we can agree. If you then go on to say that it isn't always a useful concept in every situation, I have no problem with that. You are right that we can ask all sorts of questions about underlying causes, and it is certainly useful to correlate thoughts and behavior with the brain activity that gives rise to them. The usefulness of the term "free will" does not disappear in everyday life because we choose to analyze the nature of choice, and that is why Marvin has been defining choice as a fully determined process. It is. And it is very worthwhile to break it down into its component parts and examine how they fit together. But "free will" is a concept that makes sense at a level of description where we talk about human actions, their consequences, responsibility, morality, and so forth. All of those things exist and are real in the reality that we experience as everyday life. If you wish to talk about lower level phenomena--molecules and atoms interacting with each other, for example--then concepts like "free will" make no sense at all.

I don't care what you believe, the argument here is the validity of compatibilism. Marvin is arguing for compatibilism. Which I expect means that he believes free will to be precisely as it is defined by compatibilism.

But that right there is the problem. Compatibilism doesn't define "free will". Popular usage does. Like any expression its various meanings are social conventions, and nothing more. Now it is possible to redefine the expression in the way that some philosophers do--that freedom doesn't mean "free of coercion or undue influence" as those terms are understood by ordinary English speakers. Instead, we can define it as somehow being free of causal necessity, which might be a technical usage among philosophers discussing deterministic systems. Redefining words is legitimate, as long as the community of speakers you interact with accept the new usage. In that case, "free will" seems to be a completely useless concept--a kind of illusion that we can eliminate as materially irrelevant. Compatibilism merely suggests that the two different meanings of "free will" are in a kind of complementary distribution. They don't clash with each other, because they are only valid in different contexts.

Obviously, there is a contradiction between compatibilism and incompatibilism, both cannot be true.

If you say so. Since compatibilism obeys the Law of the Excluded Middle (P ∨ ¬P), I would say that it is true and incompatibilism is false in the context of this discussion. That is, compatibilism says that "free will" exists and doesn't exist, just not in the same contexts. The two different senses of the expression are in complementary distribution.[/QUOTE]

 

[DBT]

...

In this instance, all I meant was that people do use the term in everyday language. People do say 'he acted of his own free will,' ''she was not forced, she freely chose to marry him,'' and so on. The question, as I went on to say being, what is really happening, why did he act, what happened, why did she marry him, what brought her to that state, what drives behaviour, how are decisions made, why do we act like we do.....which exposes the the simplicity and inadequacy of the term ''free will' - which is nothing more than a convenient figure of speech but tells us nothing about the nature of the world, mind, brain, behaviour or its drivers. That the term free will is a semantic construct, a casual reference to actions that are not forced by an external agent.

All words are semantic constructs, whether you choose to use them or not. Choosing to use different words does not get you free of the semantics of words. I think that you are acknowledging that the common use of the term "free will" has its uses, and on that we can agree. If you then go on to say that it isn't always a useful concept in every situation, I have no problem with that. You are right that we can ask all sorts of questions about underlying causes, and it is certainly useful to correlate thoughts and behavior with the brain activity that gives rise to them. The usefulness of the term "free will" does not disappear in everyday life because we choose to analyze the nature of choice, and that is why Marvin has been defining choice as a fully determined process. It is. And it is very worthwhile to break it down into its component parts and examine how they fit together. But "free will" is a concept that makes sense at a level of description where we talk about human actions, their consequences, responsibility, morality, and so forth. All of those things exist and are real in the reality that we experience as everyday life. If you wish to talk about lower level phenomena--molecules and atoms interacting with each other, for example--then concepts like "free will" make no sense at all.

I don't care what you believe, the argument here is the validity of compatibilism. Marvin is arguing for compatibilism. Which I expect means that he believes free will to be precisely as it is defined by compatibilism.

But that right there is the problem. Compatibilism doesn't define "free will". Popular usage does. Like any expression its various meanings are social conventions, and nothing more. Now it is possible to redefine the expression in the way that some philosophers do--that freedom doesn't mean "free of coercion or undue influence" as those terms are understood by ordinary English speakers. Instead, we can define it as somehow being free of causal necessity, which might be a technical usage among philosophers discussing deterministic systems. Redefining words is legitimate, as long as the community of speakers you interact with accept the new usage. In that case, "free will" seems to be a completely useless concept--a kind of illusion that we can eliminate as materially irrelevant. Compatibilism merely suggests that the two different meanings of "free will" are in a kind of complementary distribution. They don't clash with each other, because they are only valid in different contexts.

Obviously, there is a contradiction between compatibilism and incompatibilism, both cannot be true.

If you say so. Since compatibilism obeys the Law of the Excluded Middle (P ∨ ¬P), I would say that it is true and incompatibilism is false in the context of this discussion. That is, compatibilism says that "free will" exists and doesn't exist, just not in the same contexts. The two different senses of the expression are in complementary distribution.

[/QUOTE]

Common usage doesn't establish the reality of the thing in question.

People talk about God - "we are blessed by God" - "God created the world" - or Satan, demons, angels, evil spirits, flying saucers, anal probes, Pixies, ghosts, goblins, each and every one defined by common usage, word use, semantics.....but this establish the reality of gods and goblins, demons and angels? No. Not even slightly.


Why would it be different for "free will?" Will itself is not the driver of decision making, behaviour, thought or action, it comes into play late in the process, prompting action that has already been decided/necessitated.

Pasting a label which is used in trivial reference to a selected behaviour does not establish freedom of will. The label is not the thing. The word "God" is not God.

 

[The AntiChris]

Obviously, there is a contradiction between compatibilism and incompatibilism, both cannot be true.

If incompatibilism and compatibilism referenced the exact same notion of 'free will', then you'd be absolutely correct.

The fact that you do believe incompatibilism and compatibilism are mutally exclusive (i.e. you believe they do reference the same notion of free will), suggests one of two things. Either:

1) You haven't understood what Marvin's been saying on this thread

or

2) You don't believe what Marvin's said on this thread

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The point is that a sports star, mathematician, rock star, etc, does not choose their physical makeup, body or brain, that it is their non chosen physical makeup, neural architecture, muscles, physique, inherent talents, drive/will that open possibilities for them but not others.

The MYTH you're promoting is that being subject to prior causes means we are not "true" causes ourselves. You're suggesting that our prior causes must be the "true" causes. But this test cannot be passed by any of our prior causes, because all of our prior causes also have prior causes. You end up with the absurdity that there are no "true" causes anywhere. You destroy the notion of causation.

We only care about causes that are meaningful and relevant, causes which enable us to control events. Do we want to play the piano well? Then we must make it a habit to practice every day. If we are "willing" to practice every day, then we will improve our skills.

Causes over which we have no control are irrelevant to us. So, scientists and engineers develop large colliders that let us control the protons, speed them up, and crash them into other particles, to see what is inside.

But there is no controlling causation itself, because it is not an entity that exercises any control. The protons exist. The electromagnetic forces generated within the collider exist. And, of course, we exist. We were the causes that brought the collider into existence.

The prior causes of us are not the true causes of the collider. The scientists and the engineers who imagined the possibility of such a machine, and decided they would build it, and convinced others to fund the project, and designed it in detail, and constructed it, these were the true causes of the collider.

Options that are open for someone, but not for everyone, sometimes only for the very few, and in relation to determinism, not only open but necessitated....it cannot be otherwise.

This other MYTH, that things must be otherwise in order for them to be what they are, is absurd on its face. Things need only to be exactly as they are in order to be exactly as they are. So, how, exactly were things.

The scientists and engineers imagined, designed, and chose to construct the collider. They are the meaningful and relevant causes of the collider.

Causation did not imagine, design, or construct the collider. Causation is neither an object nor a force. Only the actual objects and forces that make up the physical universe can be said to cause events. We happen to be true objects and we are able to exert force upon other objects, like when we build a collider or when we use the collider to bump a couple of protons into each other to see what happens.

The notion of causation is something we use to describe the orderly sequence of events:
(1) We are curious what protons are made of.
(2) We wonder how we might see inside.
(3) We imagine speeding up protons and colliding them into each other.
(4) We imagine different kinds of colliders.
(5) We evaluate which design is likely to work best.
(6) We decide we will build a specific collider.
(7) That chosen intent then motivates and directs our behavior as we take steps to raise money, create blueprints, build, test, and operate the collider in order to satisfy that original curiosity that existed within us, and which could not exist in any inanimate object or non-intelligent species.

In summary, we were the original source of the notion of a collider, which we set our sights (our will) upon building.

So, again, where does this thing we call free will come into the picture as a real attribute that makes a difference?

The freely chosen "I will" is right there in front of us. We imagined ways to break open a proton to see what's inside. Some of these ways were likely impossible, and were eliminated at the outset. But some of them were real possibilities, things that we could do, if we chose to, like a linear accelerator or a ring accelerator. Different science teams selected different designs, according to their own needs. In each case, the driving force was a freely chosen will, a will that sustained their activity as they proceeded through the steps necessary to actualize their freely chosen option.

Had they decided not to bother, then there would be no colliders. Their choices were the meaningful and relevant causes of the colliders.

 

[Jarhyn]

You are asking me to argue for something I do not believe in: I do not believe in indeterminism. I believe in local indeterminabilities.

Really, the problem you are seeing is in fact that compatibilists do not argue for what you wish to argue against. Compatibilists never argue an escape from determinism.

Rather, they argue that if one wishes to make lexical sense of the concept that people discuss when the speak the utterance that is "free will" one best stands to step away entirely from assaulting determinism or challenging the rules or the function of the RNG model; one would be better served acknowledging those things and instead focus on understanding the rules understanding what is RNG, and then engaging the meta.

The meta includes concepts of free will, not from causation or history or determinism, but from each other, and by varying extent; and when and whether this be so.

Common usage, casual references and people's utterances don't really matter. Who cares, I don't. People can say the ability to jump up and down is free will for all it matters in common utterances. The issue here is sorting out what really happens, the function and role of will, the nature of cognition, motor action, motivations, drives, determinism, indeterminism, etc, in relation to ''free will'' in terms of something more than pasting labels or common references.

That's the issue though. "Sorting out what really happens" and then pointing at the deterministic function of the physics is exactly the same operation as saying that you want to know what really happens so you must understand the assembly and instruction set and ignore the python code because "that's just imaginary and gets compiled away".

Even if the system has a determinism, individuals within the system must still have a game theory. That game theory must itself include a dynamic of "power": "power to act in service of goals"; "power over which goals another may reach".

And with power to act and power over another comes freedom (to act)/(from power of another)/(from constraints of physical barrier). These are not colloquialisms and is not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose is to have terms which have useful application in questions.

The above conversation is muted if one says "freedom is not real because we are all coerced in all things by cold physics to be fated slaves of history." Of course we are fated slaves of history, but the fundamental shape of "slave to history", in this case, is "human", and "human" means fundamentally capable of learning and growth and change for the better through observation of one's mistakes.

When someone discusses freedom, oneust fundamentally ask "freedom from what?"

Freedom is contextual because freedom is a property that only exists in comparison between localities.

In other ways of putting it, you might as well claim that we shouldn't care about nuclear power because all the universe balances out to 0 net charge or whatever.

References to freedom are contextual within a determined system, but ultimately - within a determined system - nothing can do otherwise. ''Freedom'' refers to unrestricted motion, the orbits of planets, birds flying, animals grazing, people interacting, vehicles travelling, people going about their business unimpeded, each according to the own needs and wants....but is that free will? No, it's not. Rather than a matter of will it is necessitated movement freely performed.

So, you have acknowledged "freedom" within physical space. This is the first step.

Now we just need you to get to seeing "freedom" in "goal space".

Because free will is a discussion, in compatibilism, of strategy of how as planets orbiting, a bird flying, an animal grazing, people interacting, we may attain our goals.

It is even perfectly imaginary! But that's OK since the vast majority of things humans deal with are imaginary. Money is imaginary, words are imaginary, gender is imaginary, even sex and concepts like "species" and "human DNA" are purely imaginary: in reality there are just objects, and those objects will only ever be exactly themselves and those objects will behave as they will.

But we use imaginary concepts because they are useful, and imagining things, untrue things, things not that are what will happen but what "may", a patent nonsense, enables efficiency because some things happen commonly or in common ways: some things are not on the basis of an image but are concrete. All of these alternatives one imagines are imaginary but are "around" the reality, and of those many imaginary outcomes one even has within them an imaginary model of "if I A then B" so there is even a nebulous "picking" operation of one of the "imaginary" possibilities leading to a concrete future something more like that imaginary one than the others. Note that it doesn't matter that you can only pick one nor does it matter that one will be picked, invariably, as a result of it's individual geometry and the geometry of the machine so picking. It doesn't even matter that the system is picking an image of a set of images that are not even realities, that the reality will necessarily be different from the imagination that was picked in hopeful ignorance.

These are realities of our existence as local entities. We MUST discuss free will, and be capable of doing so without being paralyzed by a concept of fatedness. We do not know our fates and cannot, and I am strictly of the opinion that we ought not try. Nobody likes a player who cheats at their dice rolls, after all, at least any more than anyone does.

Regardless of whether the results on the inside of the process are imaginary, the process itself is happening in concrete reality, and is part of what shapes concrete reality A choice is made on the basis of who you are, and some of that basis of who you are is within the purview of such choices.

In many ways I break from Copernicus here. I do not acknowledge the ideas here as more than "imaginary", but I do not claim they have to be more than "imaginary" to be important. Because even while I choose a lie to be the future with every thought, I am generally comfortable with how reality makes such a liar out of me.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... However there is no evidence ever for free will in any specification of determinism, not permitted by definition. Every claim of free will has been falsified. Take a different tack.

Free will is when a person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

Free will 100% deterministic. How is this possible? BECAUSE FREE WILL IS NOT "FREEDOM FROM CAUSAL NECESSITY". The notion of "freedom from causal necessity" is an oxymoron. Without reliable cause and effect, we could never reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all. So, the notion of freedom ALWAYS implies a world of reliable causation.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... The issue here is sorting out what really happens, the function and role of will, the nature of cognition, motor action, motivations, drives, determinism, indeterminism, etc, in relation to ''free will'' in terms of something more than pasting labels or common references.

What really happens is simple. In the inevitable chain of events, we find people confronting problems that require them to make a choice. They consider their options, and based upon that evaluation, they choose what they will do. That chosen "will" then motivates and directs their subsequent options.

What really happens is that these people have an evolved neurology that enables a variety of mental functions, including creating an internal model of reality that they can use to imagine possibilities, estimate the likely outcomes of different options, and output their choice in the form of an "I will" do something.

What really happens is that in some cases the person may be subject to coercion, where a guy points a gun at them and tells them what to do. The guy with the gun forces them to do something that they are normally "unwilling" to do, like handing over their wallet. But in order to live they must subjugate their will to his.

When the person decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other undue influences, we call this "free will". Free will is literally a freely chosen "I will".

And that is what really happens.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

''Freedom'' refers to unrestricted motion, the orbits of planets, birds flying, animals grazing, people interacting, vehicles travelling, people going about their business unimpeded, each according to the own needs and wants....but is that free will? No, it's not. Rather than a matter of will it is necessitated movement freely performed.

Why isn't free will "necessitated choosing freely performed"? Why isn't free will simply another case of "people going about their business unimpeded"? Why is free will singled out and treated as a special case in your theory?

 

[Copernicus]

...

Common usage doesn't establish the reality of the thing in question.

No one is arguing that it does. It establishes what the words and expressions mean. Arguments consist of words, so usage conventions are important.

People talk about God - "we are blessed by God" - "God created the world" - or Satan, demons, angels, evil spirits, flying saucers, anal probes, Pixies, ghosts, goblins, each and every one defined by common usage, word use, semantics.....but this establish the reality of gods and goblins, demons and angels? No. Not even slightly.

You are preaching to the choir here.

Why would it be different for "free will?" Will itself is not the driver of decision making, behaviour, thought or action, it comes into play late in the process, prompting action that has already been decided/necessitated.

Nobody is saying that it is different for "free will". People either have it or they don't. They have it from their own subjective experience, because their future is indeterminate. They don't have it from the perspective of an omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate. I'm sure that you get this, so I think the problem may be a stubborn unwillingness to concede the point. Hence, you keep insisting on the validity of just one perspective--the omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate.

Pasting a label which is used in trivial reference to a selected behaviour does not establish freedom of will. The label is not the thing. The word "God" is not God.

Believe me when I tell you this. Linguists don't mix up sense and reference. They are fundamentally different aspects of a linguistic form.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

... Nobody is saying that it is different for "free will". People either have it or they don't. They have it from their own subjective experience, because their future is indeterminate. They don't have it from the perspective of an omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate. I'm sure that you get this, so I think the problem may be a stubborn unwillingness to concede the point. Hence, you keep insisting on the validity of just one perspective--the omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate.

I think we need to separate causation from prediction. Perfectly reliable causation implies the "theoretical" possibility of prediction, but not necessarily the "practical" possibility of prediction. So, it might simplify things to avoid the term "indeterminate" and simply use the term "unknown".

To "determine" sometimes means "to figure it out". Other times to "determine" means to "cause something to happen". The example I use is "We could not determine (figure out) whether it was the pressure or the heat that determined (caused) the reaction would take place".

It would seem necessary to conclude that there will be only one single actual future, simply because we have only one single past to put it in. But, within the domain of human influence, we will choose that single actual future from among the many possible futures we imagine.

Our future will be both reliably caused (deterministic), and it will be reliably caused by us (free will).

 

[Copernicus]

... Nobody is saying that it is different for "free will". People either have it or they don't. They have it from their own subjective experience, because their future is indeterminate. They don't have it from the perspective of an omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate. I'm sure that you get this, so I think the problem may be a stubborn unwillingness to concede the point. Hence, you keep insisting on the validity of just one perspective--the omniscient observer for whom the future is determinate.

I think we need to separate causation from prediction. Perfectly reliable causation implies the "theoretical" possibility of prediction, but not necessarily the "practical" possibility of prediction. So, it might simplify things to avoid the term "indeterminate" and simply use the term "unknown".

To "determine" sometimes means "to figure it out". Other times to "determine" means to "cause something to happen". The example I use is "We could not determine (figure out) whether it was the pressure or the heat that determined (caused) the reaction would take place".

It would seem necessary to conclude that there will be only one single actual future, simply because we have only one single past to put it in. But, within the domain of human influence, we will choose that single actual future from among the many possible futures we imagine.

Our future will be both reliably caused (deterministic), and it will be reliably caused by us (free will).

I think that the problem is somewhat paradoxical. We have faith in the determinate nature of reality, but we also know that even our best, most reliable predictions sometimes fail. So the future is always going to appear indeterminate from our perspective, because only the past and present can be reliably known. Our deterministic reality is somewhat chaotic or subject to unexpected change. Hence, we construct causal predictive models of reality in order to enhance our chances of success in achieving desirable outcomes. You can try to separate causation from prediction, but you can't break the bond between them. Note that I used the term "indeterminate" only in connection with the subjective experience of an agent. The future may be determinate from an objective perspective, but it is always going to appear indeterminate from the subjective perspective of a volitional actor. Hence, every choice is more or less a gamble.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I think that the problem is somewhat paradoxical. We have faith in the determinate nature of reality, but we also know that even our best, most reliable predictions sometimes fail. So the future is always going to appear indeterminate from our perspective, because only the past and present can be reliably known. Our deterministic reality is somewhat chaotic or subject to unexpected change. Hence, we construct causal predictive models of reality in order to enhance our chances of success in achieving desirable outcomes. You can try to separate causation from prediction, but you can't break the bond between them. Note that I used the term "indeterminate" only in connection with the subjective experience of an agent. The future may be determinate from an objective perspective, but it is always going to appear indeterminate from the subjective perspective of a volitional actor. Hence, every choice is more or less a gamble.

Right. Without reliable cause and effect, any prediction would be like the broken clock that is right twice a day. So, in order to determine (know) what we need to do, so that we can determine (control) the future we want, we really need a world of reliable cause and effect. The better we understand the causes, the less our choice is a gamble. And, thankfully, our predictive capability is pretty reliable most of the time for ordinary daily life. Come to think of it, our predictive capability as a society has been reliable enough to do some pretty extraordinary things, like landing people on the Moon, and getting them back safely to Earth.