Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Copernicus]

...In fact, it comes up a lot at conferences, because the overarching goal of AI is to replicate intelligent behavior in machines. It is of particular interest in the field of robotics, because robots have all the same problems that humans do in navigating in uncertain environments. They have to make the same kind of choices, and we model their behavior on human and animal behavior.

Intelligent behaviour in mechanical systems is not willed behaviour. There is no 'will' involved, just function. Function that is determined by circuitry and software.

You seem to think that human bodies are not mechanical systems for some reason. This is just doubling down on a genetic fallacy. Because robots are not "fleshy machines", you believe that bodies made of different materials cannot be made to perform the same functions. At least, that appears to be the unwarranted conclusion you are jumping to.

To conflate intelligence with will is a category error. They are two different things. An animal may not be considered intelligence, yet have both will and the ability to act in accordance to its will.

It would also be a mistake to conflate plain will with free will. We have will, but it is not free will.

Both the will of the animal and the actions that follow are necessitated by antecedents beyond the control of the animal.

Nobody has conflated intelligence with will, so that is a straw man. Obviously, we want people to make intelligent decisions, but they have been known to make stupid ones. Animals have brains and are obviously possess varying degrees of intelligence. The only reason they've been inserted in this discussion is because they don't have the same sense of morality that humans do, and moral responsibility is an issue that we associate with free will. However, in a debate over causal necessity where a concept like "free will" is on the chopping block, I don't see how moral responsibility is going to escape the same doom. I consider the moral responsibility issue as tangential, because morality only concerns human interactions, and even humans exempt each other from responsibility for their actions under many different circumstances. Animals are usually not held responsible for their actions by humans unless they can be trained to behave the way we want them to.

I think you believe that you have, but you don't show much evidence of understanding what definitions do or how they work.

I know exactly what definitions are. Just as I know exactly why compatibilists, given the nature of determinism and the nature of brain function, decision making, action initiation, etc, must define free will in the way they do.

Sorry, but you really don't seem to understand the descriptive nature of definitions, no matter how much you protest otherwise. You won't accept ordinary English usage in the definition of "free will" and insist on prescribing your own definition that seeks to make causal necessity a part of the definition. That begs the question of whether causal necessity ought to be part of the definition. That's why compatibilists consider hard determinists to be engaging in a  fallacy of definition wrt "free will". That's what the debate is about, so it can't be made a premise in your argument.

...

We've discussed Pereboom's Manipulation Argument in the past, and it has more to do with problems inherent in assigning moral responsibility than in actual free will. We judge the behavior of others because we are all expected to adhere to a moral code. However, that has more to do with moral philosophy than what it means to choose from a set of alternative acts of will. What does it mean to be responsible for one's actions? His article was very influential among philosophers, but it attracted as much criticism as praise. Although moral responsibility is often associated with free will, it doesn't actually define it. People may not always be held accountable for their actions, just as we don't hold animals accountable for theirs. Lacking a proper sense of moral responsibility does not mean that one lacks free will.

Moral responsibility is related to free will. As is the nature of cognition, decision making and action initiation.

Moral responsibility is related to free will, but free will does not entail moral responsibility. It is only about the role of free will in assigning moral responsibility, and there are many instances of free will that have nothing to do with morality. For example, animals and infants are responsible for the decisions they make, but not necessarily to adult humans. We teach children to be morally responsible in exercising free will, but we don't judge their actions as if they were already adults. There's a learning curve involved, and they don't suddenly acquire free will when they achieve adulthood.

Another way of putting it being:

Abstract​

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced:

1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated

2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers

3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers

Therefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false.

Others have already dealt with this. From my perspective, it lacks a definition of what the word "powers' means, so it requires reading the paper that this is an abstract for in order to really discuss its merits intelligently.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, I'm just gonna go and snip all the places you just kind of went off on weird lexical diarrhea storms of shit I didn't bring up and don't care about..

A combination of things, molecules, circuits, etc. are by agreement mechanisms. Operationalization is the method by which we understand mechanisms. Macrostructure is a basis. Subsequent to agreement we insert an intervening variables, cause and effect - because Oh, shit - the world is deterministic.

Ok, so, now we are beyond the point where you accept that there IS in fact an indeterminant element to our universe...

We cannot treat this cause and effect as singular, either.

Scientific practice is based on deterministic theory

Yes, and while it is fun to recognize that there are many things science is blind to, because they only ever happen once...

Scientific practice is based on deterministic theory. That same practice arrived at a deterministic relativistic model of things combined with a probabilistic quantum theory only results in determined models which goes a long way to explaining what, why, and how. Probabilistic quantum theory is not indeterministic

Probabilistic systems are, by definition "non-deterministic".

You ask a mathematician especially in the field of discrete mathematics "hey man, is snakes and ladders a deterministic game?" They will say "oh hell no, it's purely probabilistic."

"What about the card game 'war'"

"Oh that's purely probabilistic too; if you want a deterministic game, maybe consider a nice game of Tic Tac Toe, or Chess, or Go."

You may not like that very much, but that is the way this language works.

Choosing is something a transistor does. Choosing is something a processor core does.

Trying to find something so complicated that YOU as an individual can not wrap their head around the sheer scale of the graph that is doing this particular choice is no excuse to ignore that it is doing the same thing as the transistor, as the processor core:

Creating a juncture to which there is an indeterminate input, on which a differential outcome will occur on the basis of that input.

This input is indeterminate, with respect to the choosing reference frame, because of the property of LOCALITY.

Locality comes out of deterministic scientific theory. Even Einstein saw It as a subcategory of determinism, it is not indeterministic.

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

Excerpts:

Does a physical reality exist independent of our ability to observe it? To Bohr and his followers, such questions were meaningless. All that we can know are the results of measurements and observations. It makes no sense to speculate about an ultimate reality that exists beyond our perceptions.[6]: 460–461 

In the EPR thought experiment, however, Bohr had to admit that "there is no question of a mechanical disturbance of the system under investigation." On the other hand, he noted that the two particles were one system described by one quantum function. Furthermore, the EPR paper did nothing to dispel the uncertainty principle.[12]: 454–457  [note 19]

So stood the situation for nearly 30 years. Then, in 1964, John Stewart Bell made the groundbreaking discovery that Einstein's local realist world view made experimentally verifiable predictions that would be in conflict with those of quantum mechanics. Bell's discovery shifted the Einstein–Bohr debate from philosophy to the realm of experimental physics. Bell's theorem showed that, for any local realist formalism, there exist limits on the predicted correlations between pairs of particles in an experimental realization of the EPR thought experiment. In 1972, the first experimental tests were carried out. Successive experiments improved the accuracy of observation and closed loopholes. To date, it is virtually certain that local realist theories have been falsified.[49]

The EPR paper did not prove quantum mechanics to be incorrect. What it did prove was that quantum mechanics, with its "spooky action at a distance," is completely incompatible with commonsense understanding.[51] Furthermore, the effect predicted by the EPR paper, quantum entanglement, has inspired approaches to quantum mechanics different from the Copenhagen interpretation, and has been at the forefront of major technological advances in quantum computing, quantum encryption, and quantum information theory.[52]

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

 

[fromderinside]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

 

[fromderinside]

... Every procedure testing energy or information in operationally defined elements would be an empirical test for/of determinism. We normally call it the scientific method.

The choosing operation inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice. We can objectively observe people walking into the restaurant, sitting at a table, browsing a literal menu of options, and placing their orders. We hear them telling the waiter, "I will have this, please" or "I will have that, please". We observe the waiters bringing the meals to the customers along with a bill for their meal, holding each responsible for their deliberate act of placing the order.

If you want objective measurements we can count the customers, grouping them by gender and age. We can count the meals served broken down into the ratios of "this's" versus "that's" ordered. We can also survey the customers as to why they chose "this" meal rather than "that" meal, and classify their motives into different categories. We can do an economic analysis of the profit margins for each meal, and figure out what that restaurant owes their local and state government in meal taxes, and the share of the owner's profits that will go to her income taxes.

So, I think we can demonstrate, through empirical scientific methods, that choosing happened, why the choices were made, and the effects of that choosing upon the real world, in terms of the economic consequences that were causally necessitated by those choosing operations.

What we cannot do, given the empirical scientific data, is make any kind of metaphysical claim that the choosing operation did not happen.

So I'm supposed to justify you provided an operational definition with that bit.

Nope. "I think you can find ..." doesn't cut it.

 

[DBT]

Abstract​

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced:

1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated

2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers

3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers

Therefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false.

Premise #2, "If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers", is not only false, but is clearly paradoxical. If there are no powers, then how is any event ever necessitated?

Premise #2 clearly refers to determinants that act upon us, elements that we have no control over: antecedents. We have no control over the circumstances of our birth, parents, genetics, location, culture, language, social and economic status, etc, etc...yet all of these things and more make us what we are, how we think and what we do.

Force, such as the force of gravity, causally necessitates the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Without that force, the Earth would fly off into space. So, gravity has the power to keep the Earth orbiting the Sun. Gravity exercises this power without choosing to do so, so gravity has no free will. But it definitely has the power to necessitate planetary orbits and necessitate objects falling to the ground when dropped, etc.

Yes, but the problem still remains that ''determinism makes it impossible for us to “cause and control our actions in the right kind of way” to qualify as an instance of 'freedom of will'

Premise #1 is correct, a priori, by definition. Determinism is the belief that all events are necessitated by prior events.
Premise #3 is almost correct, but it only applies to the agent's specific power to choose for itself what the agent will do.

Because premises #1 and #3 do not contradict each other, we must conclude that compatibilism is true.

Which overlooks the critical point: ''If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers'' - meaning necessary control over the processes that make us who we are, how we think, what we think and what we do is absent, and necessitated actions do not qualify as freedom of will.

''....take just one of our senses, vision. Light enters through the cornea, reaches the retina and is converted to nerve impulses by complex chemical reactions (rod,cones, etc) and conveyed by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, from there it is propogated throughout the brain, gathering memory and infomation before the signals return to the visual cortex and a representation of that information is formed, a conscious image of what we see.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''

 

[DBT]

...In fact, it comes up a lot at conferences, because the overarching goal of AI is to replicate intelligent behavior in machines. It is of particular interest in the field of robotics, because robots have all the same problems that humans do in navigating in uncertain environments. They have to make the same kind of choices, and we model their behavior on human and animal behavior.

Intelligent behaviour in mechanical systems is not willed behaviour. There is no 'will' involved, just function. Function that is determined by circuitry and software.

You seem to think that human bodies are not mechanical systems for some reason. This is just doubling down on a genetic fallacy. Because robots are not "fleshy machines", you believe that bodies made of different materials cannot be made to perform the same functions. At least, that appears to be the unwarranted conclusion you are jumping to.

I didn't say, or intend to imply, that human bodies are not mechanical systems. My distinction was meant to be between biological and artificial mechanical systems, evolved brains in contrast to silicon chips and circuitry. That's all.

To conflate intelligence with will is a category error. They are two different things. An animal may not be considered intelligence, yet have both will and the ability to act in accordance to its will.

It would also be a mistake to conflate plain will with free will. We have will, but it is not free will.

Both the will of the animal and the actions that follow are necessitated by antecedents beyond the control of the animal.

Nobody has conflated intelligence with will, so that is a straw man. Obviously, we want people to make intelligent decisions, but they have been known to make stupid ones. Animals have brains and are obviously possess varying degrees of intelligence. The only reason they've been inserted in this discussion is because they don't have the same sense of morality that humans do, and moral responsibility is an issue that we associate with free will. However, in a debate over causal necessity where a concept like "free will" is on the chopping block, I don't see how moral responsibility is going to escape the same doom. I consider the moral responsibility issue as tangential, because morality only concerns human interactions, and even humans exempt each other from responsibility for their actions under many different circumstances. Animals are usually not held responsible for their actions by humans unless they can be trained to behave the way we want them to.

You brought up 'free will' in robots when your presented: ''Here is a well-known 1999 paper by AI pioneer, John McCarthy: FREE WILL-EVEN FOR ROBOTS''

I pointed out that intelligence is not a matter of will, but circuitry, architecture and software. That a non-biological mechanical system has neither consciousness or will, only functionality.

That being the distinction between biological and artificial mechanical systems. We as biological systems have both consciousness and will, but will is not the driver or regulator, nor is will free. It is just will, the urge or drive to act.

Others have already dealt with this. From my perspective, it lacks a definition of what the word "powers' means, so it requires reading the paper that this is an abstract for in order to really discuss its merits intelligently.

It's been dealt with countless times: it means the regulative control necessary to qualify as freedom of will;

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will


Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans;
''Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.''

 

[DBT]

The compatibilist proposition is simply that free will is a meaningful concept within a deterministic world.

The proof is this:
P1: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.
P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).
P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).
C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

I've just demonstrated a proof of compatibility and you have not questioned any of the premises, so I believe you are stuck with the conclusion: The notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

You have brought this up before and I have addressed each and every point many times.

P1 is incorrect -and misleading - because an action is not chosen in the sense the sense that another option was possible. Given determinism, the action taken was not chosen, it was necessitated. The wording of P1 is designed to give the impression of choice where no choice exists. Choice requires alternate possibilities. No alternate possibilities exist within a determined system. The action that follows is a necessitated action, which if determined, must necessarily proceed unimpeded or unrestricted. The action must necessarily happen as determined.

P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.

Correct. Not just reliably caused, but necessarily caused with no possible alternate action.

P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).

An action is not freely chosen, it is necessitated by goals, reasons or interests that have their own determinants/antecedents. We don't choose the circumstances of our birth, genetics, location, culture, social and economic circumstance, etc. Someone born into the slums of Calcutta is necessarily different perspective on life, self-identity and prospects than someone from a well to do family living in New York.

P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).

External force or influence interferes with or disrupts a persons desires or wishes, which, being determined by the factors outlined above, were not an example of free will.

The distinction lies between acting according to one's will and being forced against one's will: doing what you don't want to do.

What you do want to do is determined by prior causes;
''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - cold comfort in compatibilism

C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

The conclusion, for reasons outlined above, does not follow from P1, P2, P3 or P4.

Sorry.

 

[Jarhyn]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

This is.. so you realize that you are claiming all information exists everywhere? This is patently false. Not to mention also false due to the exclusion principle.

Information is not globally available. If it were, there would be no failure to ever predict anything and we would all know 100% of the future.

How is it so hard for you to accept that, in a locality, knowledge of oncoming states is not possible until those states happen?

There is a locality, the locality contains a discrete arrangement of stuff, and then that locality has additional contextual information become a part of it. The nature of the machine, part of what it has previously been caused it to be, is something that will generate decision on its context.

The fact that I can "draw a line" around any thing in the universe and look at just that one piece of the universe and say "IF the universe around this thing contains waves that will hit this bit of the thing presently, THEN the thing will change this way; else, it will change that way" is what choice is.

I try to narrow things down so you can understand them by looking at things that only experience a single form of decision, mostly because the more complicated things are much more obscure.

Anything you can draw a line around and make a statement like that, that thing experiences decision and choice. Which is... Pretty much everything once you get to standard model scales.

There will always be localities that do not contain certain information.

No matter how much you wish to squeeze locality out of the picture in terms of it's impact on the hiddenness of the future, it's still there, keeping you ignorant of the next moment, forcing you to make decisions: locally, there ARE many real possibilities. IF you see the red light, THEN you will stop.

Determinism does not invalidate choice. Rather it defines and creates it.

 

[The AntiChris]

The compatibilist proposition is simply that free will is a meaningful concept within a deterministic world.

The proof is this:
P1: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.
P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).
P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).
C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

I've just demonstrated a proof of compatibility and you have not questioned any of the premises, so I believe you are stuck with the conclusion: The notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

You have brought this up before and I have addressed each and every point many times.

P1 is incorrect -and misleading - because an action is not chosen in the sense the sense that another option was possible. Given determinism, the action taken was not chosen, it was necessitated. The wording of P1 is designed to give the impression of choice where no choice exists. Choice requires alternate possibilities. No alternate possibilities exist within a determined system. The action that follows is a necessitated action, which if determined, must necessarily proceed unimpeded or unrestricted. The action must necessarily happen as determined.

P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.

Correct. Not just reliably caused, but necessarily caused with no possible alternate action.

P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).

An action is not freely chosen, it is necessitated by goals, reasons or interests that have their own determinants/antecedents. We don't choose the circumstances of our birth, genetics, location, culture, social and economic circumstance, etc. Someone born into the slums of Calcutta is necessarily different perspective on life, self-identity and prospects than someone from a well to do family living in New York.

P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).

External force or influence interferes with or disrupts a persons desires or wishes, which, being determined by the factors outlined above, were not an example of free will.

The distinction lies between acting according to one's will and being forced against one's will: doing what you don't want to do.

What you do want to do is determined by prior causes;
''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - cold comfort in compatibilism

C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

The conclusion, for reasons outlined above, does not follow from P1, P2, P3 or P4.

Sorry.

This rebuttal reduces to: 'choice cannot exist in a deterministic world'.

This position is only sustainable if one subscribes to a usage of 'choose' that virtually no one else uses.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Abstract​

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced:

1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated
2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers
3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers
Therefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false.

Premise #2, "If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers", is not only false, but is clearly paradoxical. If there are no powers, then how is any event ever necessitated?

Premise #2 clearly refers to determinants that act upon us, elements that we have no control over: antecedents.

But how can those determinants act upon us if they have no power?! The authors of that article have blundered. I'm sure they had some idea in mind, some new way of expressing the same old nonsense, but they have unfortunately only added more nonsense.

We have no control over the circumstances of our birth, parents, genetics, location, culture, language, social and economic status, etc, etc...yet all of these things and more make us what we are, how we think and what we do.

So, this is the old argument that someone must somehow be the cause of themselves before they can be considered the "true" cause of anything else. If they have prior causes, then those prior causes are the "true" causes.

There is a simple test that disposes of this kind of argument: Which of those prior causes had no prior causes? None. So, none of the prior causes can be considered "true" causes either. And we can repeat this test upon each of the prior causes of those prior causes with the same result. Thus we end up with a causal chain without a single "true" cause in the chain. Well, there goes true causation, down the drain, dragging determinism along with it.

What then is the "real deal" about the prior causes of us? Well, they are either an integral part of who and what we are right now, or they have no influence at all. I'm sitting alone in a room with a bowl of apples on the table. I'm feeling a bit peckish, and it's a couple of hours yet until dinner time. So, I decide to eat an apple. The hunger is me. The need to decide whether to postpone eating until dinnertime or have a snack now, is my own. I decide it will be okay to eat an apple now, so, I eat the apple.

All of the prior causes of me that could participate in my choice had to first become an integral part of who and what I am. Any other prior causes of me were missing from the room. Thus, it was who and what I was at that moment that actually made the choice to have the apple. It was really me, and not the prior causes of me.

The power to choose is an ability located uniquely within each of us. This power is nothing mystical or supernatural. It is our own brain, processing the information, that transforms our multiple options into a singular will to do something specific. This operation goes by the name "choosing", and we ourselves have the ability (power) to perform that operation.

Force, such as the force of gravity, causally necessitates the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Without that force, the Earth would fly off into space. So, gravity has the power to keep the Earth orbiting the Sun. Gravity exercises this power without choosing to do so, so gravity has no free will. But it definitely has the power to necessitate planetary orbits and necessitate objects falling to the ground when dropped, etc.

Yes, but the problem still remains that ''determinism makes it impossible for us to “cause and control our actions in the right kind of way” to qualify as an instance of 'freedom of will'

No. Choosing from the menu what I will order for dinner is precisely the "right kind of way" that qualifies as a freely chosen will. I made the choice myself, while free of any coercion or undue influence. Therefore, it was a choice of my own free will.

You are using some other definition of free will. You need to explicitly state it and then be prepared to defend it.

Which overlooks the critical point: ''If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers" - meaning necessary control over the processes that make us who we are, how we think, what we think and what we do is absent, and necessitated actions do not qualify as freedom of will.

That argument does not hold up. It asserts that in order for me to be the "true" cause of any event, then I must not have any prior causes, because those prior causes would be the "true" causes of the event, and not me. The problem with that argument is that all of my prior causes also happen to have prior causes, therefore they cannot be the "true" causes either! The hard determinist undermines determinism with that argument, because you end up with no "true" causes of anything. So, the argument is absurd.

''....take just one of our senses, vision. Light enters through the cornea, reaches the retina and is converted to nerve impulses by complex chemical reactions (rod,cones, etc) and conveyed by the optic nerve to the visual cortex, from there it is propogated throughout the brain, gathering memory and infomation before the signals return to the visual cortex and a representation of that information is formed, a conscious image of what we see.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''

Thanks. Please note the portion I've highlighted. The brain forming conscious thoughts of deliberation and sending commands to its motor neurons to carry out its deliberately chosen intention is called a "freely chosen will", or simply "free will".

 

[Copernicus]

...
You seem to think that human bodies are not mechanical systems for some reason. This is just doubling down on a genetic fallacy. Because robots are not "fleshy machines", you believe that bodies made of different materials cannot be made to perform the same functions. At least, that appears to be the unwarranted conclusion you are jumping to.

I didn't say, or intend to imply, that human bodies are not mechanical systems. My distinction was meant to be between biological and artificial mechanical systems, evolved brains in contrast to silicon chips and circuitry. That's all.

The problem here is not that you made a distinction. It is that you never explained its relevance. There is no reason to believe that an artificial mechanical system cannot do what an evolved biological mechanical one can. You are making a gratuitous distinction without a difference here.

...

Nobody has conflated intelligence with will, so that is a straw man. Obviously, we want people to make intelligent decisions, but they have been known to make stupid ones. Animals have brains and are obviously possess varying degrees of intelligence. The only reason they've been inserted in this discussion is because they don't have the same sense of morality that humans do, and moral responsibility is an issue that we associate with free will. However, in a debate over causal necessity where a concept like "free will" is on the chopping block, I don't see how moral responsibility is going to escape the same doom. I consider the moral responsibility issue as tangential, because morality only concerns human interactions, and even humans exempt each other from responsibility for their actions under many different circumstances. Animals are usually not held responsible for their actions by humans unless they can be trained to behave the way we want them to.

You brought up 'free will' in robots when your presented: ''Here is a well-known 1999 paper by AI pioneer, John McCarthy: FREE WILL-EVEN FOR ROBOTS''

I brought it up as a response to your skepticism that free will had anything to do with robotics, nothing more. I proved that it was a topic of interest in AI.

I pointed out that intelligence is not a matter of will, but circuitry, architecture and software. That a non-biological mechanical system has neither consciousness or will, only functionality.

That being the distinction between biological and artificial mechanical systems. We as biological systems have both consciousness and will, but will is not the driver or regulator, nor is will free. It is just will, the urge or drive to act.

You really seem stuck on this assumption that there is something special about biological mechanical systems that gives them a special power unavailable to mechanical systems composed of non-biological materials. I don't know why you assert your assumption here, but it is gratuitous. Your position on materialism is the same as mine--that the human mind depends entirely on physical brain activity. Why is the material that the "brain" is constructed from so relevant to your argument? You do realize, don't you, that this is the very essence of a genetic fallacy?

Others have already dealt with this. From my perspective, it lacks a definition of what the word "powers' means, so it requires reading the paper that this is an abstract for in order to really discuss its merits intelligently.

It's been dealt with countless times: it means the regulative control necessary to qualify as freedom of will;

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will


Movement Intention After Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans;
''Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.''

The rebuttals have also been given countless times, so you don't get to declare yourself the winner of an argument if you just keep restating your original position as if it hadn't been refuted repeatedly and decisively. In the mind of the agent, there are alternative actions, so the agent believes it could have acted otherwise. Agents don't know which action would be best, and a calculation is made whose outcome is ultimately determined by factors unknown to the agent at the time. Free will is about the perception of an agent at a point in time, even if its future behavior is determined by prior events outside of its control. The freedom of choice is in the perspective of the agent, not God.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The compatibilist proposition is simply that free will is a meaningful concept within a deterministic world.

The proof is this:
P1: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.
P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).
P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).
C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

P1 is incorrect -and misleading - because an action is not chosen in the sense the sense that another option was possible.

An action is chosen in the sense that two or more options are input, some criteria of comparative evaluation is applied, and a single choice is output. For example, a person enters a restaurant, browses the menu and places their order. I'm sure you've seen this many times, so it cannot reasonably be said that choosing doesn't happen.

You are using the "figurative sense", which does not reflect what is actually happening in the real world. Your claim is that, since the choice was inevitable it is AS IF choosing never happened. But it is an objective fact that choosing actually happened.

The problem with the figurative sense is that every figurative statement is literally false. I am describing what is actually happening, and you are not.

Given determinism, the action taken was not chosen, it was necessitated.

No. Given determinism it was causally necessary/inevitable that the action would be actually chosen.

If a person's choice was inevitable, then it was also inevitable that the person would perform the choosing. The notion of universal causal necessity/inevitability does not imply what you believe it implies.

The wording of P1 is designed to give the impression of choice where no choice exists. Choice requires alternate possibilities.

You're still caught up in the figurative sense. In the literal sense, the person in the restaurant has an actual menu of alternate possibilities. You cannot claim that any item on the menu is impossible, because the chef is prepared to fix any meal that the person chooses.

No alternate possibilities exist within a determined system.

Pardon me, but isn't that a menu you're holding?

The action that follows is a necessitated action, which if determined, must necessarily proceed unimpeded or unrestricted. The action must necessarily happen as determined.

And if the choosing is a necessitated action then it must necessarily happen. There is no way around this.

P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.

Correct. Not just reliably caused, but necessarily caused with no possible alternate action.

Well, no. It was causally necessary that the restaurant would be there, that it would have menus on the table full of alternate possibilities, and that the person would choose one of them, of their own free will.

P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).

An action is not freely chosen, it is necessitated by goals, reasons or interests that have their own determinants/antecedents. We don't choose the circumstances of our birth, genetics, location, culture, social and economic circumstance, etc. Someone born into the slums of Calcutta is necessarily different perspective on life, self-identity and prospects than someone from a well to do family living in New York.

1. Free will does not require freedom from prior causes. In fact, the prior causes are assumed and explicitly referenced by "(with their prior causes)".
2. Free will does not require freedom from who and what we are at the time of choosing. P3 includes all of the genetics, culture, etc. which one would normally expect to apply.

Free will only requires freedom from coercion and other forms of undue influence that might remove our control over our own choices.

P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).

External force or influence interferes with or disrupts a persons desires or wishes,

Yes. A guy with a gun can force his will upon a person, forcing them to submit their will to his.

which, being determined by the factors outlined above, ...

Already included in my argument.

were not an example of free will.

A person does not get to choose their own genetics, etc., so things that are not chosen are unrelated to free will. Free will is about what we choose to do.

The distinction lies between acting according to one's will and being forced against one's will: doing what you don't want to do.

Yes. That is what coercion is about, when someone forces a person to do something against their will.

What you do want to do is determined by prior causes

Yes. So, causal necessity cannot be viewed as coercion, because coercion forces the person to do what they don't want, and it is logically and physically impossible for causal necessity to do the same. Causal necessity is a person doing what they would have done anyway. It never "makes" them do something they would rather not do.

''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - cold comfort in compatibilism

Please stop quoting that trash. It adds nothing to your argument.

C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

The conclusion, for reasons outlined above, does not follow from P1, P2, P3 or P4.

Unfortunately, the reasons you outlined above fail to contradict any of the premises or the conclusion.

 

[fromderinside]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

This is.. so you realize that you are claiming all information exists everywhere? This is patently false. Not to mention also false due to the exclusion principle.

Information is not globally available. If it were, there would be no failure to ever predict anything and we would all know 100% of the future.

How is it so hard for you to accept that, in a locality, knowledge of oncoming states is not possible until those states happen?

There is a locality, the locality contains a discrete arrangement of stuff, and then that locality has additional contextual information become a part of it. The nature of the machine, part of what it has previously been caused it to be, is something that will generate decision on its context.

The fact that I can "draw a line" around any thing in the universe and look at just that one piece of the universe and say "IF the universe around this thing contains waves that will hit this bit of the thing presently, THEN the thing will change this way; else, it will change that way" is what choice is.

I try to narrow things down so you can understand them by looking at things that only experience a single form of decision, mostly because the more complicated things are much more obscure.

Anything you can draw a line around and make a statement like that, that thing experiences decision and choice. Which is... Pretty much everything once you get to standard model scales.

There will always be localities that do not contain certain information.

No matter how much you wish to squeeze locality out of the picture in terms of it's impact on the hiddenness of the future, it's still there, keeping you ignorant of the next moment, forcing you to make decisions: locally, there ARE many real possibilities. IF you see the red light, THEN you will stop.

Determinism does not invalidate choice. Rather it defines and creates it.

Not squeezing because of hiddenness, just saying that information is available localities to some extent everywhere, not hidden. The probabilistic game begins to play as current information obeys the speed limit. Otherwise, the locality is moot. Something that has not arrived is being transmitted, not hidden. It is simply obeying material law. Otherwise, there'd be time travel. Once created information exists and the mailman will deliver it.

What we're having trouble with is how humans seem to have information before behavior. Think of behavior as many rather than singular. Then humans can have information, subvocalized and heard, before the muscles and other components engage. both are carriers of information, perhaps the same information or like, perhaps not.

 

[fromderinside]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

This is.. so you realize that you are claiming all information exists everywhere? This is patently false. Not to mention also false due to the exclusion principle.

Information is not globally available. If it were, there would be no failure to ever predict anything and we would all know 100% of the future.

How is it so hard for you to accept that, in a locality, knowledge of oncoming states is not possible until those states happen?

There is a locality, the locality contains a discrete arrangement of stuff, and then that locality has additional contextual information become a part of it. The nature of the machine, part of what it has previously been caused it to be, is something that will generate decision on its context.

The fact that I can "draw a line" around any thing in the universe and look at just that one piece of the universe and say "IF the universe around this thing contains waves that will hit this bit of the thing presently, THEN the thing will change this way; else, it will change that way" is what choice is.

I try to narrow things down so you can understand them by looking at things that only experience a single form of decision, mostly because the more complicated things are much more obscure.

Anything you can draw a line around and make a statement like that, that thing experiences decision and choice. Which is... Pretty much everything once you get to standard model scales.

There will always be localities that do not contain certain information.

No matter how much you wish to squeeze locality out of the picture in terms of it's impact on the hiddenness of the future, it's still there, keeping you ignorant of the next moment, forcing you to make decisions: locally, there ARE many real possibilities. IF you see the red light, THEN you will stop.

Determinism does not invalidate choice. Rather it defines and creates it.

Not squeezing because of hiddenness, just saying that information is available localities to some extent everywhere, not hidden. The probabilistic game begins to play as current information obeys the speed limit. Otherwise, the locality is moot. Something that has not arrived is being transmitted, not hidden. It is simply obeying material law. Otherwise, there'd be time travel. Once created information exists and the mailman will deliver it.

What we're having trouble with is how humans seem to have information before behavior. Think of behavior as many rather than singular. Then humans can have information, subvocalized and heard, together with or before the muscles and other components engage. Both are carriers of information, perhaps the same information or like, perhaps not. Notice I didn't invoke choice. Didn't have to because the situation was properly defined. To understand try this thought experiment. Consider a plan then consider the muscles acting on the plan. What you'll get is confirmation you have executed the plan. I would be a waste of words to say we 'chose'. Here we go loop-de-loop ......

 

[Jarhyn]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

This is.. so you realize that you are claiming all information exists everywhere? This is patently false. Not to mention also false due to the exclusion principle.

Information is not globally available. If it were, there would be no failure to ever predict anything and we would all know 100% of the future.

How is it so hard for you to accept that, in a locality, knowledge of oncoming states is not possible until those states happen?

There is a locality, the locality contains a discrete arrangement of stuff, and then that locality has additional contextual information become a part of it. The nature of the machine, part of what it has previously been caused it to be, is something that will generate decision on its context.

The fact that I can "draw a line" around any thing in the universe and look at just that one piece of the universe and say "IF the universe around this thing contains waves that will hit this bit of the thing presently, THEN the thing will change this way; else, it will change that way" is what choice is.

I try to narrow things down so you can understand them by looking at things that only experience a single form of decision, mostly because the more complicated things are much more obscure.

Anything you can draw a line around and make a statement like that, that thing experiences decision and choice. Which is... Pretty much everything once you get to standard model scales.

There will always be localities that do not contain certain information.

No matter how much you wish to squeeze locality out of the picture in terms of it's impact on the hiddenness of the future, it's still there, keeping you ignorant of the next moment, forcing you to make decisions: locally, there ARE many real possibilities. IF you see the red light, THEN you will stop.

Determinism does not invalidate choice. Rather it defines and creates it.

Not squeezing because of hiddenness, just saying that information is available localities to some extent everywhere, not hidden. The probabilistic game begins to play as current information obeys the speed limit. Otherwise, the locality is moot. Something that has not arrived is being transmitted, not hidden. It is simply obeying material law. Otherwise, there'd be time travel. Once created information exists and the mailman will deliver it.

What we're having trouble with is how humans seem to have information before behavior. Think of behavior as many rather than singular. Then humans can have information, subvocalized and heard, before the muscles and other components engage. both are carriers of information, perhaps the same information or like, perhaps not.

You claim that "it is being transmitted and is not hidden".

This is false; It is locally hidden.

This is material law.

The FACT that the mailman has not yet delivered it is relevant.

 

[fromderinside]

Now things get interesting. Your response forced me to take a crash, three-hour tour through locality and to scan an article on Einstein's thought experiments.

 Einstein's thought experiments​

So while I still hold that determinism is the basis for the scientific method I accept there are aspects of QM that need resolution for us to get to a reality we can communicate. I thank you Jarhyn for pushing me there.

At the same time, I'm ever more confident that information and thermodynamics are related. But, at the same time I'm with Bohr in all that we need to be concerned about are empirical (deterministic= scientific method) experimental results.

Even now I'm seeing advances in science following empirical principles, keeping me firmly in the Determinists camp. Yet it would be a hoot for a deterministic methodology to arrive at reality as not deterministic.

"Indetermined" is not equal to "indeterministic" or even "probabilistic"

It just means that "the information that will create the next configuration if this stable system has not happened and does not exist within the locality yet.

Read my post again while holding that in your mind and then make a more correct reply, if any.

Thank ewe for clearing me up. Just because something may as are not in a locality, an energy field already exists, there is always something in space which is one reason why I wrote quantum locality is just a convenience in an earlier post.

Quantum vacuum state - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[31][32] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes:

The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ... Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[33]

I think that is a pretty good placeholder for fields being everywhere. Now all we need do is include that information substrate is not the particular information itself leading to your noting "... stable system ....". But the fields exist in some form, state everywhere.

So, yes the specific state can't travel faster than the speed of light but some status of the state exists there so no cake and eat it too. The field exists all the time, just not in a particular configuration to introduce probabilistic nature to support speed limits in QM.

I think that handles sets stage for whatever we need to explain how reality and relativity exist at the same time.

This is.. so you realize that you are claiming all information exists everywhere? This is patently false. Not to mention also false due to the exclusion principle.

Information is not globally available. If it were, there would be no failure to ever predict anything and we would all know 100% of the future.

How is it so hard for you to accept that, in a locality, knowledge of oncoming states is not possible until those states happen?

There is a locality, the locality contains a discrete arrangement of stuff, and then that locality has additional contextual information become a part of it. The nature of the machine, part of what it has previously been caused it to be, is something that will generate decision on its context.

The fact that I can "draw a line" around any thing in the universe and look at just that one piece of the universe and say "IF the universe around this thing contains waves that will hit this bit of the thing presently, THEN the thing will change this way; else, it will change that way" is what choice is.

I try to narrow things down so you can understand them by looking at things that only experience a single form of decision, mostly because the more complicated things are much more obscure.

Anything you can draw a line around and make a statement like that, that thing experiences decision and choice. Which is... Pretty much everything once you get to standard model scales.

There will always be localities that do not contain certain information.

No matter how much you wish to squeeze locality out of the picture in terms of it's impact on the hiddenness of the future, it's still there, keeping you ignorant of the next moment, forcing you to make decisions: locally, there ARE many real possibilities. IF you see the red light, THEN you will stop.

Determinism does not invalidate choice. Rather it defines and creates it.

Not squeezing because of hiddenness, just saying that information is available localities to some extent everywhere, not hidden. The probabilistic game begins to play as current information obeys the speed limit. Otherwise, the locality is moot. Something that has not arrived is being transmitted, not hidden. It is simply obeying material law. Otherwise, there'd be time travel. Once created information exists and the mailman will deliver it.

What we're having trouble with is how humans seem to have information before behavior. Think of behavior as many rather than singular. Then humans can have information, subvocalized and heard, before the muscles and other components engage. both are carriers of information, perhaps the same information or like, perhaps not.

You claim that "it is being transmitted and is not hidden".

This is false; It is locally hidden.

This is material law.

The FACT that the mailman has not yet delivered it is relevant.

How far are you willing to go with your mailman analogy. I contend it is in the system and the mailman has it. I've already specified the speed limit constraint. Then you tell me the location is material, that because choosing is important the processor and register in the processor are in a locality. Well so is a bit of field information reserving the line for the particular content at the location even in the register.

So why exclude information just because it takes time to complete the trip. Seems to me that location as a condition isn't very viable given the system exists to receive the message whether it is adjacent, in location or information must travel space to the location where some of the information exists already.

The information contains the operation and the machine merely contains the processes necessary to execute the information. It's not choosing due to the existence of locality because the locality has nothing to do with choosing. That a machine has many capabilities is meaningless because the information only produces information to do one thing. Locality only establishes the place where the information is executed.

Poof.

 

[DBT]

The compatibilist proposition is simply that free will is a meaningful concept within a deterministic world.

The proof is this:
P1: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.
P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.
P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).
P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).
C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

I've just demonstrated a proof of compatibility and you have not questioned any of the premises, so I believe you are stuck with the conclusion: The notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

You have brought this up before and I have addressed each and every point many times.

P1 is incorrect -and misleading - because an action is not chosen in the sense the sense that another option was possible. Given determinism, the action taken was not chosen, it was necessitated. The wording of P1 is designed to give the impression of choice where no choice exists. Choice requires alternate possibilities. No alternate possibilities exist within a determined system. The action that follows is a necessitated action, which if determined, must necessarily proceed unimpeded or unrestricted. The action must necessarily happen as determined.

P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events.

Correct. Not just reliably caused, but necessarily caused with no possible alternate action.

P3: A freely chosen will is reliably caused by the person's own goals, reasons, or interests (with their prior causes).

An action is not freely chosen, it is necessitated by goals, reasons or interests that have their own determinants/antecedents. We don't choose the circumstances of our birth, genetics, location, culture, social and economic circumstance, etc. Someone born into the slums of Calcutta is necessarily different perspective on life, self-identity and prospects than someone from a well to do family living in New York.

P4: An unfree choice is reliably caused by coercion or undue influence (with their prior causes).

External force or influence interferes with or disrupts a persons desires or wishes, which, being determined by the factors outlined above, were not an example of free will.

The distinction lies between acting according to one's will and being forced against one's will: doing what you don't want to do.

What you do want to do is determined by prior causes;
''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X. At this point, we should ascribe free will to all animals capable of experiencing desires (e.g., to eat, sleep, or mate). Yet, we don’t; and we tend not to judge non-human animals in moral terms.'' - cold comfort in compatibilism

C: Therefore, the notion of a freely chosen will (and its opposite) is still meaningful within a fully deterministic world.

The conclusion, for reasons outlined above, does not follow from P1, P2, P3 or P4.

Sorry.

This rebuttal reduces to: 'choice cannot exist in a deterministic world'.

This position is only sustainable if one subscribes to a usage of 'choose' that virtually no one else uses.

Common usage refers to action and appeared, which doesn't necessarily relate to the ultimate nature of the world, that if determinism is true, all events are fixed according to initial conditions and proceed as a matter of natural law. If that is the case, options are not chosen, they are necessitated. There is no possible alternate action. Common usage does not account for the physics of determinism, only surface appearance. Just like we feel that we are making conscious decisions, yet neuroscience tells us that the work is done unconsciously milliseconds prior to conscious experience.

This has been explained over and over and over....yet the same objections are trotted out regardless.

 

[DBT]

...
You seem to think that human bodies are not mechanical systems for some reason. This is just doubling down on a genetic fallacy. Because robots are not "fleshy machines", you believe that bodies made of different materials cannot be made to perform the same functions. At least, that appears to be the unwarranted conclusion you are jumping to.

I didn't say, or intend to imply, that human bodies are not mechanical systems. My distinction was meant to be between biological and artificial mechanical systems, evolved brains in contrast to silicon chips and circuitry. That's all.

The problem here is not that you made a distinction. It is that you never explained its relevance. There is no reason to believe that an artificial mechanical system cannot do what an evolved biological mechanical one can. You are making a gratuitous distinction without a difference here.

The relevance is that machine intelligence has neither consciousness or will, only function. Humans and other animals have functionality that acts through the medium of consciousness and will (the urge or prompt to act).

Some feel that because they are making conscious, willed, decisions that this is free will at work. Machined cannot think consciously nor do they have will. Which is relevant for that definition of free will, making conscious decisions.

Compatibilism of course defines free will as acting in accordance to ones will, which is in contrast to non biological mechanical intelligence which has neither consciousness or will, but is able to produce determinations and unimpeded actions based on its deteminations.

The significance of all this has been explained numerous times, and I'm tired of repeating.

...

Nobody has conflated intelligence with will, so that is a straw man. Obviously, we want people to make intelligent decisions, but they have been known to make stupid ones. Animals have brains and are obviously possess varying degrees of intelligence. The only reason they've been inserted in this discussion is because they don't have the same sense of morality that humans do, and moral responsibility is an issue that we associate with free will. However, in a debate over causal necessity where a concept like "free will" is on the chopping block, I don't see how moral responsibility is going to escape the same doom. I consider the moral responsibility issue as tangential, because morality only concerns human interactions, and even humans exempt each other from responsibility for their actions under many different circumstances. Animals are usually not held responsible for their actions by humans unless they can be trained to behave the way we want them to.

You brought up 'free will' in robots when your presented: ''Here is a well-known 1999 paper by AI pioneer, John McCarthy: FREE WILL-EVEN FOR ROBOTS''

I brought it up as a response to your skepticism that free will had anything to do with robotics, nothing more. I proved that it was a topic of interest in AI.

It is a topic of interest in AI, however as far as I know, AI has yet to achieve consciousness or will.

I pointed out that intelligence is not a matter of will, but circuitry, architecture and software. That a non-biological mechanical system has neither consciousness or will, only functionality.

That being the distinction between biological and artificial mechanical systems. We as biological systems have both consciousness and will, but will is not the driver or regulator, nor is will free. It is just will, the urge or drive to act.

You really seem stuck on this assumption that there is something special about biological mechanical systems that gives them a special power unavailable to mechanical systems composed of non-biological materials. I don't know why you assert your assumption here, but it is gratuitous. Your position on materialism is the same as mine--that the human mind depends entirely on physical brain activity. Why is the material that the "brain" is constructed from so relevant to your argument? You do realize, don't you, that this is the very essence of a genetic fallacy?

I'm not stuck on anything. You asked for a distinction between the brain and Computer AI, and I gave it. Pointing out that AI has neither mind or will, only functionality, however complex. The suggestion was that free will may be possible for AI.

That's all. Don't read too much into it.

The rebuttals have also been given countless times, so you don't get to declare yourself the winner of an argument if you just keep restating your original position as if it hadn't been refuted repeatedly and decisively. In the mind of the agent, there are alternative actions, so the agent believes it could have acted otherwise. Agents don't know which action would be best, and a calculation is made whose outcome is ultimately determined by factors unknown to the agent at the time. Free will is about the perception of an agent at a point in time, even if its future behavior is determined by prior events outside of its control. The freedom of choice is in the perspective of the agent, not God.

Compatibilism has no rebuttals, only carefully crafted wording designed to give the impression of free will where no free will exists.

Acting according to one's will is not an instance of free will, but a necessity. Determined actions are not freely chosen, they are necessitated

The distinction between being forced against ones will and acting in accordance with ones will is that. Will itself is not free, acting in accordance with ones will is inevitable, unless disrupted by force....with that disruptive element itself being determined.

The correct description being ''he acted according to his will'' or ''he was forced against his will'' Just 'will' because if the world is determined, free will is an illusion.

 

[DBT]

Abstract​

If one’s solution to the free will problem is in terms of real causal powers of agents then one ought to be an incompatibilist. Some premises are contentious but the following new argument for incompatibilism is advanced:

1. If causal determinism is true, all events are necessitated
2. If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers
3. Free will consists in the exercise of an agent’s powers
Therefore, if causal determinism is true, there is no free will; which is to say that free will is incompatible with determinism, so compatibilism is false.

Premise #2, "If all events are necessitated, then there are no powers", is not only false, but is clearly paradoxical. If there are no powers, then how is any event ever necessitated?

Premise #2 clearly refers to determinants that act upon us, elements that we have no control over: antecedents.

But how can those determinants act upon us if they have no power?! The authors of that article have blundered. I'm sure they had some idea in mind, some new way of expressing the same old nonsense, but they have unfortunately only added more nonsense.

Cause and effect (causal determinism) is the power. Cause is an effect and effect becomes cause. Physics, the nature of matter/energy and progression of determined events is the power that shapes and forms our being, our thoughts and actions.

Evolution brought us into being, determined our genetic makeup, our capacities and weaknesses, our thoughts and our actions.

That is the nature and definition of a determined world. Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Compatibilism accepts that the world is determined, but defines free will as acting in accordance to one's will.

A definition that is inadequate to prove the proposition because mind and will itself is determined and the actions that follow are inevitable actions, not freely willed actions

''Not freely willed'' in the real sense that what is being willed is a consequence of antecedents, the pesky actions of cause/effect, each cause an effect and each effect a cause as time and events roll on, unstoppable as a runaway freight train, no deviations, no alternate thoughts, decisions or actions, no maybe, no if only, no what if, only what is.

That is determinism.

The visual information is interpreted by the various systems of the brain and translated into a signals to take action (visual,auditory,tactile reflexes) and on to the prefrontal cortex region which deal with complex responses, one's social values, cultural expectations, ethics, etc - the seat of one's personality and sense of self. Finally the brain forms conscious thoughts a deliberation and sends a commands to its motor neurons, muscle groups, glands... and the action is undertaken.''

Thanks. Please note the portion I've highlighted. The brain forming conscious thoughts of deliberation and sending commands to its motor neurons to carry out its deliberately chosen intention is called a "freely chosen will", or simply "free will".

Only by those who the desire to prove the idea of free will through the use of carefully crafted wording. Conscious thoughts or deliberations are not the means of decision making, only the report, a part of the conscious 'mental map' of self and one's surroundings generated as a means of navigation within a complex environment: the world around us.

Basically:
''What did you have for breakfast this morning? Was it delicious? Was it one to forget? Whatever it was, you didn't choose to have it. You might think you did. But, in actuality, you didn't. And though you may have had the conscious awareness of choice — porridge or toast? coffee or tea? — and remember making an active decision, the fact is you could not have selected any other option. Any decision you think you may have made was simply an illusion.''

''And, unfortunately, it doesn't just stop at breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or in fact any decision you ever remember making. Everything you've done couldn't possibly have happened any other way, and everything you will do will be decided for you — without any input from your conscious self.''

''Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.''

 

[Jarhyn]

How far are you willing to go with your mailman analogy. I contend it is in the system and the mailman has it. I've already specified the speed limit constraint.

Nobody is contending whether "the mailman has it". The mailBOX does not.

Until the mail is in my hot little hand, I have a choice set up, just waiting to see which way the pins go. Then when the mail comes, decision on the choice happens