Compatibilism: What's that About?

[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: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

What happens on a cellular level is not chosen. Cells process information and once readiness potential is achieved information, conscious experience is generated.

But what happens in the restaurant is chosen. We have a menu of dinners to choose from, and the chef is capable of preparing any one of them for us. So, each dinner on the menu is a real possibility. The only thing standing between us and dinner is that we must make a choice. No choosing, no dining.

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

Determinism by definition doesn't allow multiple possibilities.

Nope. Determinism, by definition, means that every event is reliably caused by prior events. And, nothing more than that. If you wish to argue that it eliminates possibilities, you must explain why "every event being reliably caused by prior events" eliminates possibilities.

The inevitable progression of events happens to include the restaurant, its menu, and us having to choose what we will have for dinner.

Given determinism, your freedom of choice is an illusion.

Quite the opposite. If it is the case that I order the lobster of my own free will, then that would be causally necessary. If it is the case that one of my dinner companions runs out of patience, pulls out a gun, and shouts, "Order the steak, right now, or I'll put a bullet in you!", then that would be causally necessary. There is nothing about determinism that would make either of those events "illusions". Determinism would simply make them causally necessary.

You see a list of foods on the menu, your brain calculates the pros and cons of each item, one is realized.

Exactly. That actually happens in the empirical world. The brain calculating the choice is called "choosing". When it is my own brain doing the calculating then it is called a freely chosen will. When it is someone else's brain doing the calculating and forcing me to accept his choice, then my dinner is not freely chosen by me.

There was never a possibility of an alternate choice.

Sit at the table. Look at the menu. If you do not see alternate choices then you may be having some kind of illusion.

Choice implies the possibility of an alternate action, which a deterministic system does not allow.

Determinism guarantees that the menu will have a list of alternate possibilities for you to choose from. Your choice will be causally necessary from any prior point in time, but it will also be causally necessary from any prior point in time that you will be doing the choosing.

Changes of mind are not a matter of free will, but the result of fresh information acting upon the system.

The menu is not a guy with a gun. The influence of the menu is not an undue influence. Menus are ordinary influences, with lots of suggestions that we can accept or decline as we choose.

If the menu were an undue influence then we would order all of the items on the menu, one of each. But we don't.

Not only must you make a choice, but the choice you make is a necessitated choice.

Yes. Choosing is a deterministic operation, so our choice will be reliably caused by the things that are most important or desirable to us. And when it is our own thoughts and feelings that cause our choice, then we are considered to be free to choose for ourselves what we will have for dinner.

But if it is our impatient diner with the gun who forces us to choose something we may not want, then it is not our freely chosen will, but his.

In either case determinism holds. In either case the distinction between a free and an unfree choice holds. So, determinism and free will are compatible.

Which is not really a free choice. Not being aware of the underlying production of your experience, you feel that you have chosen freely.

Free will is not a "feeling"! Either I made the choice myself or the guy with the gun made the choice for me. This is a matter of facts, not feelings.

It essentially comes down to the nature of cognition ...

No. It doesn't. We assume that the mechanics of cognition are constant among all normal brains, and that they may be altered in brains affected by significant mental illness or brain injury.

“It might be true that you would have done otherwise if you had wanted, though it is determined that you did not, in fact, want otherwise.” - Robert Kane

Kane's assertion demonstrates why determinism can never make us do something against our will. So, determinism is not a threat to free will.

If it was possible for the horse that did not win, to win, we are not talking about determinism. You may be thinking of quantum probability.

A possibility is something that may or may not happen. The fact that it does not happen does not imply that it could not have happened.

The notions of "possibility" and "probability" allow us to deal with matters of uncertainty in a logical way. We do not know with certainty what "will" happen, but we do know with certainty what "can" happen. One of the horses "will" win the race. Any of the horses "can" win the race. But it is impossible for any horse that is not in the race to win it.

... I just work with the given definition of determinism. Nothing more, nothing less.

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.

Then are you challenging P2: A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events? Or do you view P2 as I do, as a more concise and accurate statement of determinism, without the imaginary causal agents.

The imaginary causal agents in the SEP definition include determinism itself, pictured as a governor of events, and natural law, pictured as a fixer of events. They are imaginary because neither is an actual object or an actual force. They wield no powers. All of the causation is found in the behavior of the actual objects and forces that make up the physical universe. And we happen to be one of those objects that can exert force upon other objects (e.g., cutting down trees to build a house).

In conclusion, there is nothing about determinism that contradicts free will, and, there is nothing about free will that contradicts determinism. (1) The fact that our choices are causally necessary does not contradict the fact that they are our own choices. Neuroscience confirms this by demonstrating that it is our own brain that is doing the choosing. Within this deterministic universe we must still make the distinction between choices that we make for ourselves versus choices imposed upon us against our will. (2) The fact that we make a choice for ourselves, of our own free will, does not contradict the fact that our decision is reliably caused by us, and that we ourselves are the reliable result of prior causes.

 

[pood]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

 

[fromderinside]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

Mr. Buttinski here.

Man's ability to carry out tool making was driven by what equipment man had available to him when he began breaking selected rocks into definitive shapes. So grasping and three-dimensional perception and fairly complex eye-hand motor skills were already in place. Add to that the pressure to extend string together long series of complex manipulations, the need to continuously rehearse ether by repeating operations or learning to repeat sequences of stone, hammer, actions and you've got the road to advanced brain architecture.

Never get there with indeterminism.

 

[fromderinside]

No. I don't think our models of reality rely on sense data.

It's more about signal information.

As long as you don't in any way use your senses to detect signals, you may be making sense, but I'm not quite sure how you manage that.

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

 

[DBT]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

I'm not aware of having avoided any of your points. I do feel like that anything I write, quote or cite in response to your points is either not read, not understood or just dismissed.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

Libets proposal of 'veto power' fails.

It fails because 'veto' is not an autonomous element that is able to overrule brain activity. A decision/action is overruled by the very same mechanisms that determined the original decision.

It is not overruled by the power of will, but fresh information altering the system - if there is sufficient time - yet following the same sequence of events as any other action.

You experience 'veto' consciously as a 'change of mind' - you start doing one thing, then switch, think better of it and do something else.

Veto is just a normal brain function, information acting upon the system, altering and adapting response. It's not an additional element that endows us with free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

You don't have to know everything about the brain to know the sequence of the cognitive process, that it is deterministic or that will plays no part in decision making.

The evidence points to the Parietal Lobe;

How Can There Be Voluntary Movement Without Free Will?
''Humans do not appear to be purely reflexive organisms, simple automatons. A vast array of different movements are generated in a variety of settings.

Is there an alternative to free will? Movement, in the final analysis, comes only from muscle contraction.

Muscle contraction is under the complete control of the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord. When the alpha motoneurons are active, there will be movement. Activity of the alpha motoneurons is a product of the different synaptic events on their dendrites and cell bodies. There is a complex summation of EPSPs and IPSPs, and when the threshold for an action potential is crossed, the cell fires.

There are a large number of important inputs, and one of the most important is from the corticospinal tract which conveys a large part of the cortical control. Such a situation likely holds also for the motor cortex and the cells of origin of the corticospinal tract. Their firing depends on their synaptic inputs.

And, a similar situation must hold for all the principal regions giving input to the motor cortex. For any cortical region, its activity will depend on its synaptic inputs. Some motor cortical inputs come via only a few synapses from sensory cortices, and such influences on motor output are clear. Some inputs will come from regions, such as the limbic areas, many synapses away from both primary sensory and motor cortices.

At any one time, the activity of the motor cortex, and its commands to the spinal cord, will reflect virtually all the activity in the entire brain. Is it necessary that there be anything else? This can be a complete description of the process of movement selection, and even if there is something more -- like free will -- it would have to operate through such neuronal mechanisms.

The view that there is no such thing as free will as an inner causal agent has been advocated by a number of philosophers, scientists, and neurologists including Ryle, Adrian, Skinner and Fisher.(Fisher 1993)''

 

[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.

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.

What happens on a cellular level is not chosen. Cells process information and once readiness potential is achieved information, conscious experience is generated.

But what happens in the restaurant is chosen. We have a menu of dinners to choose from, and the chef is capable of preparing any one of them for us. So, each dinner on the menu is a real possibility. The only thing standing between us and dinner is that we must make a choice. No choosing, no dining.

Given determinism, what you choose is necessarily chosen, not freely chosen. That is the distinction set by the rules of determinism. All events are fixed by antecedents. Which rules out freedom of will, but allows actions to proceed freely as determined.

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

Determinism by definition doesn't allow multiple possibilities.

Nope. Determinism, by definition, means that every event is reliably caused by prior events. And, nothing more than that. If you wish to argue that it eliminates possibilities, you must explain why "every event being reliably caused by prior events" eliminates possibilities.

The inevitable progression of events happens to include the restaurant, its menu, and us having to choose what we will have for dinner.

The terms of determinism state fixed, not 'reliable' - they are reliable by way of being fixed. Events, being fixed, can't be anything but 'reliable.' There is no alternative.

Given determinism, your freedom of choice is an illusion.

Quite the opposite. If it is the case that I order the lobster of my own free will, then that would be causally necessary. If it is the case that one of my dinner companions runs out of patience, pulls out a gun, and shouts, "Order the steak, right now, or I'll put a bullet in you!", then that would be causally necessary. There is nothing about determinism that would make either of those events "illusions". Determinism would simply make them causally necessary.

Ordering Lobster is determined by your proclivities, your inner necessitation. Being forced at gunpoint adds an additional layer of necessitation; in addition to your inner necessitation, proclivities, you now have external elements acting upon you.

In the first instance you are able to act in accordance with your necessitated will and in the second instance you are forced to act against your will. Neither involves free will, just plain old will; the urge to act determined by a host of factors.



''It is unimportant whether one's resolutions and preferences occur because an ''ingenious physiologist'' has tampered with one's brain, whether they result from narcotics addiction, from ''hereditary factor, or indeed from nothing at all.'' Ultimately the agent has no control over his cognitive states.

So even if the agent has strength, skill, endurance, opportunity, implements, and knowledge enough to engage in a variety of enterprises, still he lacks mastery over his basic attitudes and the decisions they produce. After all, we do not have occasion to choose our dominant proclivities.'' - Prof. Richard Taylor -Metaphysics.

... I just work with the given definition of determinism. Nothing more, nothing less.

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.

In conclusion, there is nothing about determinism that contradicts free will, and, there is nothing about free will that contradicts determinism. (1) The fact that our choices are causally necessary does not contradict the fact that they are our own choices. Neuroscience confirms this by demonstrating that it is our own brain that is doing the choosing. Within this deterministic universe we must still make the distinction between choices that we make for ourselves versus choices imposed upon us against our will. (2) The fact that we make a choice for ourselves, of our own free will, does not contradict the fact that our decision is reliably caused by us, and that we ourselves are the reliable result of prior causes.

The very nature of determinism rules out free will, but allows actions that are determined to freely (unimpeded, unrestricted) proceed as determined (only as determined, no deviations)

Freely performed actions do not equate to free will.

''In recent decades, research on the inner workings of the brain has helped to resolve the nature-nurture debate—and has dealt a further blow to the idea of free will. Brain scanners have enabled us to peer inside a living person’s skull, revealing intricate networks of neurons and allowing scientists to reach broad agreement that these networks are shaped by both genes and environment. But there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams.

We know that changes to brain chemistry can alter behavior—otherwise neither alcohol nor antipsychotics would have their desired effects. The same holds true for brain structure: Cases of ordinary adults becoming murderers or pedophiles after developing a brain tumor demonstrate how dependent we are on the physical properties of our gray stuff.''

 

[pood]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

I'm not aware of having avoided any of your points. I do feel like that anything I write, quote or cite in response to your points is either not read, not understood or just dismissed.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

Libets proposal of 'veto power' fails.

It fails because 'veto' is not an autonomous element that is able to overrule brain activity. A decision/action is overruled by the very same mechanisms that determined the original decision.

It is not overruled by the power of will, but fresh information altering the system - if there is sufficient time - yet following the same sequence of events as any other action.

You experience 'veto' consciously as a 'change of mind' - you start doing one thing, then switch, think better of it and do something else.

Veto is just a normal brain function, information acting upon the system, altering and adapting response. It's not an additional element that endows us with free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

You don't have to know everything about the brain to know the sequence of the cognitive process, that it is deterministic or that will plays no part in decision making.

The evidence points to the Parietal Lobe;

How Can There Be Voluntary Movement Without Free Will?
''Humans do not appear to be purely reflexive organisms, simple automatons. A vast array of different movements are generated in a variety of settings.

Is there an alternative to free will? Movement, in the final analysis, comes only from muscle contraction.

Muscle contraction is under the complete control of the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord. When the alpha motoneurons are active, there will be movement. Activity of the alpha motoneurons is a product of the different synaptic events on their dendrites and cell bodies. There is a complex summation of EPSPs and IPSPs, and when the threshold for an action potential is crossed, the cell fires.

There are a large number of important inputs, and one of the most important is from the corticospinal tract which conveys a large part of the cortical control. Such a situation likely holds also for the motor cortex and the cells of origin of the corticospinal tract. Their firing depends on their synaptic inputs.

And, a similar situation must hold for all the principal regions giving input to the motor cortex. For any cortical region, its activity will depend on its synaptic inputs. Some motor cortical inputs come via only a few synapses from sensory cortices, and such influences on motor output are clear. Some inputs will come from regions, such as the limbic areas, many synapses away from both primary sensory and motor cortices.

At any one time, the activity of the motor cortex, and its commands to the spinal cord, will reflect virtually all the activity in the entire brain. Is it necessary that there be anything else? This can be a complete description of the process of movement selection, and even if there is something more -- like free will -- it would have to operate through such neuronal mechanisms.

The view that there is no such thing as free will as an inner causal agent has been advocated by a number of philosophers, scientists, and neurologists including Ryle, Adrian, Skinner and Fisher.(Fisher 1993)''

Well, you do ignore some of my main points, and you’ve just done it again, I’m afraid.

First, as to Libet: It was in fact him who coined the term “free won’t”, and he disagreed that his experiments disproved free will. So if you wish to invoke him and his “readiness potential” you’ll have to do so knowing that you contravene his own conclusions.

You often make appeals to authority, as you do above. I rarely do that, but if you’re going to do it, I suggest you leave out Libet as one of those authorities who supports your position, because he doesn’t. Also, if I wanted to, I could appeal to plenty of authorities myself who agree with me, but I generally dispense with that. Finally, whatever you make of LIbet’s experiments, there is no consensus among neurologists about their meaning.

Now look again. You say you don’t avoid my points. You just did it again! Yet again, you give me a functionalist account of the brain. I am not asking you that. I am asking how it is you think that evolution selected for brains that remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose, when according to you, all of these clear functions are illusions. That is what I am asking, and you have avoided the question every time.

It is not I who am either not reading, not understanding, or dismissing your points. The situation appears to be quite the opposite.

 

[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: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

Given determinism, what you choose is necessarily chosen, not freely chosen.

False. The restaurant menu has both a steak dinner and a lobster dinner. Nothing prevents me from choosing the steak dinner. So, I am free to choose the steak dinner. Nothing prevents me from choosing the lobster dinner. So, I am also free to choose the lobster dinner.

The only thing that is necessary is that I must choose one or the other before I can have dinner. So, I will have to make up my mind soon, because the others at my table have already given the waiter their orders, and everyone is waiting on me. And one of my dinner companions is carrying a gun. So, I had best decide sooner rather than later.

But I am still free at this point to choose either the steak of the lobster. Seeing everyone's frustration with me, I decide to flip a coin. Heads steak. Tails lobster. And then I give the waiter my choice, and everyone is happy again.

All of these events were causally necessary, of course, because all events are always causally necessary. It was causally necessary from any prior point in time: that the restaurant would be there, that the menu would include both the steak dinner and the lobster dinner, that our group would enter the restaurant, that we would sit at the table, that we would browse the menu of possible dinners, that each of us would decide for ourselves what we would eat, that the waiter would deliver both our meals and the bill for the meals.

It was also causally necessary from any prior point in time that we would each be free to decide for ourselves what we would order, and that no one would force us to order something we didn't want.

Therefore, given determinism, it was causally necessary that our dinners would be freely chosen. Not "either determinism or freely chosen", but "both determinism and freely chosen".

So, your claim is false.

That is the distinction set by the rules of determinism. All events are fixed by antecedents.

Yes. All events are reliably caused by prior events, including choices of our own free will.

The terms of determinism state fixed, not 'reliable' - they are reliable by way of being fixed. Events, being fixed, can't be anything but 'reliable.' There is no alternative.

Well, duh. But the correct notion is "reliability". The notion of "fixed" implies a "fixer", another imaginary causal agent. We avoid that delusion by using the correct term. Causal necessity is not a causal agent that goes around fixing conditions such that certain outcomes are guaranteed. Causal necessity is the logical outcome of perfectly reliable cause and effect. One event leads reliably to the next event, by normal cause and effect, not by some supernatural power planning what will happen and making it happen against our will.

Ordering Lobster is determined by your proclivities, your inner necessitation. Being forced at gunpoint adds an additional layer of necessitation; in addition to your inner necessitation, proclivities, you now have external elements acting upon you.

Yes. But keep in mind that my proclivities, my genetic dispositions, my love of lobster, my love of steak, my prior life experiences, my beliefs and values, my dietary goals, my dietary reasonings, and all the other stuff that makes me uniquely me, IS ME. And the guy with the gun is NOT ME. And this is a MEANINGFUL distinction when it comes to MY FREEDOM to decide what I will order.

In the first instance you are able to act in accordance with your necessitated will and in the second instance you are forced to act against your will.

In the first instance my deliberate will is NECESSITATED BY ME, which is me exercising my freedom to choose.
In the second instance my deliberate action is necessitated by the guy with the gun, which is him, and no me, exercising his freedom to choose.

Neither involves free will

Wrong. When it is I, myself, that is necessitating the choice, it is FREE WILL. When it is that guy with the gun necessitating the choice, it is COERCION (not free will).

, just plain old will; the urge to act determined by a host of factors.

A person's "will" is a specific intention to act in a specific way. For example, one way would be to tell the waiter, "I will have the steak dinner". Another way would be to tell him, "I will have the lobster dinner". In order to do either of those things, I must first decide which meal I will order. Free will refers to my freedom to make that choice for myself, rather than someone or something else forcing their choice upon me against my will.

Changing "free will" to "just plain old will" overlooks the important distinction between those two events.

Either event will be equally causally necessary, so causal necessity alone cannot make any meaningful distinctions between any events. That's why we need other concepts, like free will and coercion, to make these important distinctions.

The very nature of determinism rules out free will ...

I've demonstrated repeatedly that determinism does not rule out free will. All of the events in the restaurant were causally necessary from any prior point in time. This includes the events where each customer decided for themselves, of their own free will, what they would order for dinner. Oh, and it also includes the event where the toddler decided to order cake and ice cream for dinner, but his mother ordered a nutritious meal for him instead, such that the child was not free to decide for himself what he would have for dinner.

Once again, the compatibility of determinism (all events are the reliable result of prior events) and free will (a choice free of coercion and undue influence) has been proven.

Determinism does not rule out free will, because it never rules out anything other than indeterminism (unreliable cause and effect).

 

[Copernicus]

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

Nope. It doesn't help when I read what you wrote. Perhaps we are signaling each other on different wavelengths. What you wrote above appears to bear no relation to anything I wrote.

 

[Jarhyn]

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

Nope. It doesn't help when I read what you wrote. Perhaps we are signaling each other on different wavelengths. What you wrote above appears to bear no relation to anything I wrote.

Not to mention that sense doesn't depend on genetic anything.

You need A dimension of variance on A stimulus to have a sense. It doesn't even have to be indiscrete.

I could have an electronic mind with a single external sense that is whether or not the button is down on its chassis.

 

[fromderinside]

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

Nope. It doesn't help when I read what you wrote. Perhaps we are signaling each other on different wavelengths. What you wrote above appears to bear no relation to anything I wrote.

Not to mention that sense doesn't depend on genetic anything.

You need A dimension of variance on A stimulus to have a sense. It doesn't even have to be indiscrete.

I could have an electronic mind with a single external sense that is whether or not the button is down on its chassis.

All right. Organ, sense organ.
picky picky picky.

 

[fromderinside]

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

Nope. It doesn't help when I read what you wrote. Perhaps we are signaling each other on different wavelengths. What you wrote above appears to bear no relation to anything I wrote.

...which brings me to why you wrote a response to what I wrote. I just amplified what I wrote in response to your response so maybe it's you who is not communicating.

 

[DBT]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

I'm not aware of having avoided any of your points. I do feel like that anything I write, quote or cite in response to your points is either not read, not understood or just dismissed.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

Libets proposal of 'veto power' fails.

It fails because 'veto' is not an autonomous element that is able to overrule brain activity. A decision/action is overruled by the very same mechanisms that determined the original decision.

It is not overruled by the power of will, but fresh information altering the system - if there is sufficient time - yet following the same sequence of events as any other action.

You experience 'veto' consciously as a 'change of mind' - you start doing one thing, then switch, think better of it and do something else.

Veto is just a normal brain function, information acting upon the system, altering and adapting response. It's not an additional element that endows us with free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

You don't have to know everything about the brain to know the sequence of the cognitive process, that it is deterministic or that will plays no part in decision making.

The evidence points to the Parietal Lobe;

How Can There Be Voluntary Movement Without Free Will?
''Humans do not appear to be purely reflexive organisms, simple automatons. A vast array of different movements are generated in a variety of settings.

Is there an alternative to free will? Movement, in the final analysis, comes only from muscle contraction.

Muscle contraction is under the complete control of the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord. When the alpha motoneurons are active, there will be movement. Activity of the alpha motoneurons is a product of the different synaptic events on their dendrites and cell bodies. There is a complex summation of EPSPs and IPSPs, and when the threshold for an action potential is crossed, the cell fires.

There are a large number of important inputs, and one of the most important is from the corticospinal tract which conveys a large part of the cortical control. Such a situation likely holds also for the motor cortex and the cells of origin of the corticospinal tract. Their firing depends on their synaptic inputs.

And, a similar situation must hold for all the principal regions giving input to the motor cortex. For any cortical region, its activity will depend on its synaptic inputs. Some motor cortical inputs come via only a few synapses from sensory cortices, and such influences on motor output are clear. Some inputs will come from regions, such as the limbic areas, many synapses away from both primary sensory and motor cortices.

At any one time, the activity of the motor cortex, and its commands to the spinal cord, will reflect virtually all the activity in the entire brain. Is it necessary that there be anything else? This can be a complete description of the process of movement selection, and even if there is something more -- like free will -- it would have to operate through such neuronal mechanisms.

The view that there is no such thing as free will as an inner causal agent has been advocated by a number of philosophers, scientists, and neurologists including Ryle, Adrian, Skinner and Fisher.(Fisher 1993)''

Well, you do ignore some of my main points, and you’ve just done it again, I’m afraid.

I don't think so. You may have missed the relevant bits.

First, as to Libet: It was in fact him who coined the term “free won’t”, and he disagreed that his experiments disproved free will. So if you wish to invoke him and his “readiness potential” you’ll have to do so knowing that you contravene his own conclusions.

'Free won't' doesn't exist. The brain acquires and processes information, and if a decision is altered or vetoed, it is altered by exactly the same information processing activity as the original course of action

'Free won't' or 'veto function' is not some special autonomous agency that acts upon a process and 'freely' vetoes it according to will.

The brain is the sole agent. A course of action can be vetoed (if there is time) by new inputs which results in a change of mind.

''Free won't'' is not some special agency exempt from determinism, it is a part of normal brain activity that is being constantly updated and modified by inputs.

You often make appeals to authority, as you do above. I rarely do that, but if you’re going to do it, I suggest you leave out Libet as one of those authorities who supports your position, because he doesn’t. Also, if I wanted to, I could appeal to plenty of authorities myself who agree with me, but I generally dispense with that. Finally, whatever you make of LIbet’s experiments, there is no consensus among neurologists about their meaning.

I don't appeal to authority. I used reliably sourced material. Hallett for example is a specialist on cognition and motor action, being qualified in his field, his material is relevant to the subject of free will. This is not an appeal to authority.

I bet if I used obscure sources, you would dismiss them for that reason. You look for any perceived weakness to exploit while ignoring what is said and provided.

Now look again. You say you don’t avoid my points. You just did it again! Yet again, you give me a functionalist account of the brain. I am not asking you that. I am asking how it is you think that evolution selected for brains that remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose, when according to you, all of these clear functions are illusions. That is what I am asking, and you have avoided the question every time.

It is not I who am either not reading, not understanding, or dismissing your points. The situation appears to be quite the opposite.

I provided material from evolutionary biology and psychology that deals with these questions. You made no real comment, ignoring what was described....only to repeat your accusation that I have avoided your question.

I have pointed out time and time again that the brain evolved as a means to interact with the objects and events of the world in adaptive ways.

Evolutionary biology goes into the details....why do you ignore this? Are your here to play games?

 

[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.

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.

Given determinism, what you choose is necessarily chosen, not freely chosen.

False. The restaurant menu has both a steak dinner and a lobster dinner. Nothing prevents me from choosing the steak dinner. So, I am free to choose the steak dinner. Nothing prevents me from choosing the lobster dinner. So, I am also free to choose the lobster dinner.

Well, then you are not talking about determinism. If the world is determined, you choose Lobster because choosing Lobster is determined in that instance in time (antecedents/proclivities/ necessitation). Determinism doesn't allow you an alternative.

The only thing that is necessary is that I must choose one or the other before I can have dinner. So, I will have to make up my mind soon, because the others at my table have already given the waiter their orders, and everyone is waiting on me. And one of my dinner companions is carrying a gun. So, I had best decide sooner rather than later.

What you do choose is determined by existing proclivities and neural necessitation milliseconds prior to your awareness of making a choice: the inevitable action made conscious.

But I am still free at this point to choose either the steak of the lobster. Seeing everyone's frustration with me, I decide to flip a coin. Heads steak. Tails lobster. And then I give the waiter my choice, and everyone is happy again.

There was never the possibility to do other than what is determined. What you say suggests something along the line of quantum probability.

All of these events were causally necessary, of course, because all events are always causally necessary. It was causally necessary from any prior point in time: that the restaurant would be there, that the menu would include both the steak dinner and the lobster dinner, that our group would enter the restaurant, that we would sit at the table, that we would browse the menu of possible dinners, that each of us would decide for ourselves what we would eat, that the waiter would deliver both our meals and the bill for the meals.

It was also causally necessary from any prior point in time that we would each be free to decide for ourselves what we would order, and that no one would force us to order something we didn't want.

Therefore, given determinism, it was causally necessary that our dinners would be freely chosen. Not "either determinism or freely chosen", but "both determinism and freely chosen".

So, your claim is false.

But your dinners were not freely chosen in the sense that you had realizable options other than what is determined.

A free choice entails the possibility to do otherwise. Determinism negates all possibility of doing otherwise.

At no point could you have done other than what is determined.


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

The very nature of determinism rules out free will ...

I've demonstrated repeatedly that determinism does not rule out free will. All of the events in the restaurant were causally necessary from any prior point in time. This includes the events where each customer decided for themselves, of their own free will, what they would order for dinner. Oh, and it also includes the event where the toddler decided to order cake and ice cream for dinner, but his mother ordered a nutritious meal for him instead, such that the child was not free to decide for himself what he would have for dinner.

Once again, the compatibility of determinism (all events are the reliable result of prior events) and free will (a choice free of coercion and undue influence) has been proven.

Determinism does not rule out free will, because it never rules out anything other than indeterminism (unreliable cause and effect).

Carefully worded definitions do not negate the implacable rule of determinism. Defining free will as 'acting in accordance with ones will' etc, ignores both the means, how actions are produced and the rules of determinism.

1. We have no control over circumstances that existed in the past, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature.

2. If A causes B, we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B.

3. All of our actions and thoughts are consequences of past events and the laws of nature.

4. Assuming responsibility requires control, we are not responsible for what we do or think (2, 3).

So, in the end it just comes down to the point that we lack the right kind of control to qualify as free will.

 

[pood]

DBT,


You keep avoiding my main points. That’s your privilege, of course, but it does tend to stifle conversation.

I'm not aware of having avoided any of your points. I do feel like that anything I write, quote or cite in response to your points is either not read, not understood or just dismissed.

You spoke of the readiness potential, but did not address my point that Libet also found that the conscious mind has a veto power over the readiness potential. Someone called that “free won’t,” but of course it’s just compatibilist free will.

Libets proposal of 'veto power' fails.

It fails because 'veto' is not an autonomous element that is able to overrule brain activity. A decision/action is overruled by the very same mechanisms that determined the original decision.

It is not overruled by the power of will, but fresh information altering the system - if there is sufficient time - yet following the same sequence of events as any other action.

You experience 'veto' consciously as a 'change of mind' - you start doing one thing, then switch, think better of it and do something else.

Veto is just a normal brain function, information acting upon the system, altering and adapting response. It's not an additional element that endows us with free will.

The fact that most our evaluation, processing, etc. is done subconsciously is irrelevant. It’s still US doing the evaluation, purocessing, etc., because we are our brains. It’s not some coercive agent called Mr. Causal Determinism.

Finally, you offer again a functionalist account of the brain. I’m not interested in that, not least because we don’t have a full explanation of how the brain works and may never have. I am asking, again, how you think it is that natural selection incrementally favored brains whose powers to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose are entirely illusory according to you. Why aren’t we instead philosophical zombies obeying a pre-programmed subroutine? That would be much more parsimonious, and in keeping with the fact that natural selection does not favor structures or properties that are illusory. Illusion is not a good survival strategy.

You don't have to know everything about the brain to know the sequence of the cognitive process, that it is deterministic or that will plays no part in decision making.

The evidence points to the Parietal Lobe;

How Can There Be Voluntary Movement Without Free Will?
''Humans do not appear to be purely reflexive organisms, simple automatons. A vast array of different movements are generated in a variety of settings.

Is there an alternative to free will? Movement, in the final analysis, comes only from muscle contraction.

Muscle contraction is under the complete control of the alpha motoneurons in the spinal cord. When the alpha motoneurons are active, there will be movement. Activity of the alpha motoneurons is a product of the different synaptic events on their dendrites and cell bodies. There is a complex summation of EPSPs and IPSPs, and when the threshold for an action potential is crossed, the cell fires.

There are a large number of important inputs, and one of the most important is from the corticospinal tract which conveys a large part of the cortical control. Such a situation likely holds also for the motor cortex and the cells of origin of the corticospinal tract. Their firing depends on their synaptic inputs.

And, a similar situation must hold for all the principal regions giving input to the motor cortex. For any cortical region, its activity will depend on its synaptic inputs. Some motor cortical inputs come via only a few synapses from sensory cortices, and such influences on motor output are clear. Some inputs will come from regions, such as the limbic areas, many synapses away from both primary sensory and motor cortices.

At any one time, the activity of the motor cortex, and its commands to the spinal cord, will reflect virtually all the activity in the entire brain. Is it necessary that there be anything else? This can be a complete description of the process of movement selection, and even if there is something more -- like free will -- it would have to operate through such neuronal mechanisms.

The view that there is no such thing as free will as an inner causal agent has been advocated by a number of philosophers, scientists, and neurologists including Ryle, Adrian, Skinner and Fisher.(Fisher 1993)''

Well, you do ignore some of my main points, and you’ve just done it again, I’m afraid.

I don't think so. You may have missed the relevant bits.

First, as to Libet: It was in fact him who coined the term “free won’t”, and he disagreed that his experiments disproved free will. So if you wish to invoke him and his “readiness potential” you’ll have to do so knowing that you contravene his own conclusions.

'Free won't' doesn't exist. The brain acquires and processes information, and if a decision is altered or vetoed, it is altered by exactly the same information processing activity as the original course of action

'Free won't' or 'veto function' is not some special autonomous agency that acts upon a process and 'freely' vetoes it according to will.

The brain is the sole agent. A course of action can be vetoed (if there is time) by new inputs which results in a change of mind.

''Free won't'' is not some special agency exempt from determinism, it is a part of normal brain activity that is being constantly updated and modified by inputs.

You often make appeals to authority, as you do above. I rarely do that, but if you’re going to do it, I suggest you leave out Libet as one of those authorities who supports your position, because he doesn’t. Also, if I wanted to, I could appeal to plenty of authorities myself who agree with me, but I generally dispense with that. Finally, whatever you make of LIbet’s experiments, there is no consensus among neurologists about their meaning.

I don't appeal to authority. I used reliably sourced material. Hallett for example is a specialist on cognition and motor action, being qualified in his field, his material is relevant to the subject of free will. This is not an appeal to authority.

I bet if I used obscure sources, you would dismiss them for that reason. You look for any perceived weakness to exploit while ignoring what is said and provided.

Now look again. You say you don’t avoid my points. You just did it again! Yet again, you give me a functionalist account of the brain. I am not asking you that. I am asking how it is you think that evolution selected for brains that remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose, when according to you, all of these clear functions are illusions. That is what I am asking, and you have avoided the question every time.

It is not I who am either not reading, not understanding, or dismissing your points. The situation appears to be quite the opposite.

I provided material from evolutionary biology and psychology that deals with these questions. You made no real comment, ignoring what was described....only to repeat your accusation that I have avoided your question.

I have pointed out time and time again that the brain evolved as a means to interact with the objects and events of the world in adaptive ways.

Evolutionary biology goes into the details....why do you ignore this? Are your here to play games?

Sorry, it seems to me it is you who are playing games. A functionalist account is irrelevant to this discussion for three reasons: First, our knowledge of exactly how the brain operates and what it does is woefully incomplete. We know less about the universe inside our heads (i.e., ourselves) than we know about the universe itself.

Second, since we are our brains, how the brain processes inputs, both subconsciously and consciously, is precisely us doing the processing, thinking, and outputting. It’s called compatibilist free will — in contrast to as rock, which rolls down as hill blindly, without will or choice, or a billiard ball struck by a cue ball which cannot alter its course after.

And third and most important, you still do not answer my question: how did evolution select for the illusion, as you would have it, of remembering, foreseeing, evaluating, pondering, and choosing? If a human has no more agency than a rock rolling down a hill or a billiard ball after it is struck by a cue ball, of what survival advantage are our complex brains? This is the question you do not answer. I hold that in your hard deterministic world, it would be much more likely that humans and other organisms would be philosophical zombies, that is to say, obeying inputted subroutines but completely dark inside, without consciousness or qualia. None of your descriptions of functionalism address this at all.

If the brain, as you put it, evolved to interact with objects and events in the world in adaptive ways, well, yes, that’s kind of my point. To do that the brain needs to be able to remember, foresee, evaluate, and choose (compatibilist free will).

 

[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: A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

Well, then you are not talking about determinism.

P1 is about free will. P2 is about determinism. Please try to keep up.

If the world is determined, you choose Lobster because choosing Lobster is determined in that instance in time (antecedents/proclivities/ necessitation).

But the "antecedent proclivities" that necessitated me choosing the lobster are my own antecedent proclivities. So, it remains the case that it is in fact me that is choosing the lobster.

My genetic desires to eat lobster, steak, cake, and anything else that provides my body with the necessary fats, proteins, and carbohydrates it needs to survive, are not found anywhere in the universe except within me. Everyone else at the dinner table has their own, similar genetic desires. These desires are an essential part of who and what we are. Without them, our species would likely become extinct due to starvation.

And, of course, we also each come with a brain that can select which food we will eat when presented with multiple possibilities, like those on the restaurant menu.

Determinism itself has no antecedent proclivities. It has no genetic dispositions. It has no brain. And yet you are treating determinism as if it were a causal agent. But it is not, that's just an illusion.

Determinism doesn't allow you an alternative.

Determinism has no power to allow or disallow anything. Determinism can only describe, it can never cause. For example, determinism says that the restaurant owner causally necessitated the menu, and that each of the customers at my table causally necessitated their own dinner order. And, in each case, the behavior of the owner and the customers was 100% reliable and theoretically 100% predictable from any prior point in time.

But in every case, determinism did not make anything happen. Only the actual objects and forces, the things that actually exist in the actual universe, can make things happen. Determinism simply asserts that we will do so in a reliable, if not entirely predictable, fashion.

What you do choose is determined by existing proclivities and neural necessitation milliseconds prior to your awareness of making a choice: the inevitable action made conscious.

In other words, you're confirming that the causal mechanism of choosing is our own brain. It is actually us, doing the choosing. The role of conscious awareness in the choosing process versus the role of unconscious functions, is a matter for neuroscience to sort out. And I have no problem with any of the facts of neuroscience.

But the question of free will is not about how the brain operates. Free will is about who or what is doing the choosing. In the restaurant, each of the customers is doing their own choosing. Each sees the multiple possibilities on the menu. Each decides for themselves what they will order for dinner.

Determinism does not alter these facts. Determinism simply asserts that each choice will be reliably caused by each person's own brain, and that each brain will have been reliably caused by prior events, such as the parents sexual intercourse, the formation of the zygote, the cell division and cell specialization, etc.

But the waiter in the restaurant is not concerned with all that. The waiter simply needs to know who is responsible for each order, so that he brings everyone their dinner and brings each person the correct bill. The waiter never brings the parents the bill, unless the customer is a minor.

All of these events, as always, are the reliable result of prior events. But the waiter does not hold these prior events responsible for the bill.

But your dinners were not freely chosen in the sense that you had realizable options other than what is determined.

The dinners are freely chosen because we, ourselves, are doing the choosing that determines what we will order. Determinism is not a causal agent that decides for us what we will choose. We must do that ourselves.

Choosing is one of the things that neuroscience tells us that our brain does for us when we are presented with multiple possibilities, like the restaurant menu.

A free choice entails the possibility to do otherwise. Determinism negates all possibility of doing otherwise.

The possibilities are right there on the restaurant menu. Determinism asserts that the menu and its possibilities were causally necessary from any prior point in time, just like every other event that ever happens. (It turns out that determinism is very boring.)

A possibility is something that can happen. The fact that a possibility never happens does not mean that it was impossible, it just means it was something that could have happened but never did happen.

Now, if the restaurant ran out of lobsters, then it would be physically impossible for me to have a lobster dinner. And the chef would pass this information on to the waiters, who would pass it on to me, and I would eliminate that option from my choices. Perhaps I would then agonize over the steak versus the fried chicken.

At no point could you have done other than what is determined.

Well, since I am the one that is actually doing the determining, I fail to see the imaginary problem.

... (At this point DBT quotes somebody else's opinion about things, and, if they were here then I would be discussing their mistakes with them, but they are not here, so DBT must either understand them sufficiently to speak for their ideas or cease quoting them and expecting me to explain what they are saying to him.) ...

What I am saying is that whoever decides what will happen next has regulative control. When I decide what meal the chef will cook for me, I have regulative control.

Carefully worded definitions do not negate the implacable rule of determinism.

Rhetorical claims are dismissed.

Defining free will as 'acting in accordance with ones will' etc, ignores both the means, how actions are produced and the rules of determinism.

Free will is clearly defined in 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. If you have a different definition that you are willing to defend, then put it on the table. Otherwise, deal with P1, either refute it or concur with it.

1. We have no control over circumstances that existed in the past, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature.

Fortunately, I have no need to control the past or the laws of nature in order to choose between the steak and the lobster, right here, right now, in the present. Premise 1 falsely suggests that we must have control over the past and the laws of nature in order to decide what we will have for dinner.

2. If A causes B, we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B.

A believable, but false suggestion, used to create a paradox. It sounds true, but it is not true. For example, replace "A" with "I myself", and replace "B" with "whatever I choose to have for dinner".

"I myself", although I did not control my own creation, still control what "I will have for dinner". So, premise 2 fails.

The lie is the suggestion that we must not have any prior causes before we ourselves can be the cause of something else. This is the argument that "in order to be the true cause, one must not have any prior causes, because the prior causes are the true causes". This test leads to an absurdity, because none of our prior causes can pass this test, nor can any prior causes of those prior causes, etc. The absurdity is that there are no true causes, because no prior causes can ever pass the test.

3. All of our actions and thoughts are consequences of past events and the laws of nature.

There's no problem with premise 3 as long as we keep in mind that we were active participants in the creation of that past from the day we were born. And the laws of nature are descriptive, not causative. The laws of nature describe reliable patterns of behavior found in natural objects, like us. And, if the laws of nature are inconsistent with our behavior, and fail to offer the predictability that they serve to provide, then it is the laws themselves that must be amended, and not us.

4. Assuming responsibility requires control, we are not responsible for what we do or think (2, 3).

The conclusion does not follow from the premises, and is refuted by simple empirical observation of people being held responsible for their deliberate choices when the waiter brings them the bill.

So, in the end it just comes down to the point that we lack the right kind of control to qualify as free will.

A freely chosen will is when someone chooses for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. This was obviously the case in the restaurant as each customer decided for themselves what they would have for dinner. That is the only kind of control necessary to qualify as free will.

 

[pood]

1. We have no control over circumstances that existed in the past, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature.

2. If A causes B, we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B.

3. All of our actions and thoughts are consequences of past events and the laws of nature.

4. Assuming responsibility requires control, we are not responsible for what we do or think (2, 3).

So, in the end it just comes down to the point that we lack the right kind of control to qualify as free will.

1. We do have partial control over circumstances in the past — those things that I did in the past. We don’t need any control over the laws of nature because they have no control over us. The so-called laws are descriptive and not prescriptive. It’s true I don’t have control over the charge on an electron, but then again, the charge on an electron has no control over what shirt I choose to wear this morning (example due to Norman Swartz)
2. Of course we have control over A, if we ourselves caused B. Surely our decision to cause B was influenced by past events, but no one except the libertarian denies this.
3. Those prior consequences include our past acts. Our thoughts and actions are not consequences of the laws of nature, because the laws are not laws. They are descriptions and not prescriptions.
4. Four doesn’t follow from 2 and 3 because your 2 and 3 are false.
5. And obviously the conclusion cannot follow.

 

[Copernicus]

It would help if you read what I wrote.

Sense depends on being genetically driven by signals which produce sensory attributes in receivers, uh sensors that lead to sense. It turns out we have very near optimum sensors over the range of maximum sensitivity in several domains such as for frequency and frequency change rate in the hearing sense.

A sense is much more than a general modality transducer. There can't be perception unless there are all the underlying dimensions for such available to one for use in resolving the importance of the sensory input.

Nope. It doesn't help when I read what you wrote. Perhaps we are signaling each other on different wavelengths. What you wrote above appears to bear no relation to anything I wrote.

...which brings me to why you wrote a response to what I wrote. I just amplified what I wrote in response to your response so maybe it's you who is not communicating.

Look, you started the chain by commenting on my claim "... our models of reality are all interpretations of sense data." I didn't find your comment relevant or sensible, so I commented back. Your subsequent attempts to "amplify" your remarks have not helped to clarify your response to me, and I think that I have been communicating that fact to you.

 

[fromderinside]

Look, you started the chain by commenting on my claim "... our models of reality are all interpretations of sense data." I didn't find your comment relevant or sensible, so I commented back. Your subsequent attempts to "amplify" your remarks have not helped to clarify your response to me, and I think that I have been communicating that fact to you.

I was pretty clear. Sense data humans receive depends on sense organs detecting and transmitting evolutionarily important data we are calling sense data in this sequence.. We do so because sense organs are genetically determined by the development of receptor organs adapted to specific sense data from which humans are exposed and benefit. They are sending data via evolved sense organs we call evolutionarily important sense data.

The organs evolved. They detect, transduce into neural language, and transmit specific energy information up the nervous system scientists call evolutionarily important sense-data.

What's your problem. Is it you don't understand that human sense data comes from biologically significant energy available in the environment?

 

[Copernicus]

What's your problem. Is it you don't understand that human sense data comes from biologically significant energy available in the environment?

How do you get anything like that from my use of the term "sense-data"? Maybe I should have said "qualia" instead of "sense data", although I have a problem with the way philosophers use that term. What I really don't understand is what point you are trying to make with all of your wordy replies about evolved organs and "neural language". They don't seem to connect with anything I said.