Compatibilism: What's that About?

[fromderinside]

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.

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words

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1. any of the faculties, as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch, by which humans and animals perceive stimuli originating from outside or inside the body:My sense of smell tells me that dinner is ready.

2. these faculties collectively.

3. their operation or function; sensation.

4. a feeling or perception produced through the organs of touch, taste, etc., or resulting from a particular condition of some part of the body:

 Sense

Contents​

• 1Definitions
  • 1.1Sensory organs
  • 1.2Sensory modalities
  • 1.3Receptors
    • 1.3.1Structural receptor types
      • 1.3.1.1Location
      • 1.3.1.2Cell type
    • 1.3.2Functional receptor types
  • 1.4Thresholds
    • 1.4.1Absolute threshold
    • 1.4.2Differential threshold
  • 1.5Signal detection theory
  • 1.6Private perceptive experience
  • 1.7Sensory adaptation
  • 1.8Fourier analysis
  • 1.9Sensory neuroscience and the biology of perception
    • 1.9.1Sensory nervous system
  • 1.10Multimodal perception
  • 1.11Philosophy2Human sensation
  • 2.1General
    • 2.1.1Absolute threshold
    • 2.1.2Multimodal perception
  • 2.2External
    • 2.2.1Visual system (vision)
      • 2.2.1.1Visual perception in psychology
    • 2.2.2Auditory system (hearing)
    • 2.2.3Somatosensory system (touch)
    • 2.2.4Gustatory system (taste)
    • 2.2.5Olfactory system (smell)
  • 2.3Internal
    • 2.3.1Vestibular system (balance)
    • 2.3.2Proprioception
    • 2.3.3Pain
    • 2.3.4Other internal sensations and perceptions
• 3Nonhuman animal sensation and perception
  • 3.1Human analogues
    • 3.1.1Smell
    • 3.1.2Vomeronasal organ
    • 3.1.3Taste
    • 3.1.4Vision
    • 3.1.5Spatial orientation
  • 3.2Not human analogues
    • 3.2.1Magnetoception
    • 3.2.2Echolocation
    • 3.2.3Electroreception
    • 3.2.4Hygroreception
    • 3.2.5Infrared sensing
    • 3.2.6Other
• 4 Plant sensation
• 5 Artificial sensation and perception
• 6Culture

A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world and responding to stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain receives signals from the senses, which continuously receive information from the environment, interprets these signals, and causes the body to respond, either chemically or physically.) Although traditionally around five human senses were known (namely sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), it is now recognized that there are many more.[1] Senses used by other non-human organisms are even greater in variety and number. During sensation, sense organs collect various stimuli (such as a sound or smell) for transduction, meaning transformation into a form that can be understood by the brain. Sensation and perception are fundamental to nearly every aspect of an organism's cognition, behavior and thought.

I use lots of words for sense because I'm a retired Psychophysicst and I react badly to the misuse of sense data. I get especially steamed when one pronounces models of the world depend on sense-data as if sense-data could in any way be the basis for a representation of reality. Those who do fail to understand from whence sense derives is from a system of getting along drivers. Our reality bears little relation to reality.

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans and other threat engines and not in touch with the world as it is at time t=0. Hell even Plato discerned that.

 

[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?

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.

Irrelevant. Not knowing everything about how the brain functions doesn't mean that we don't understand anything about how the brain functions.

Experiments (provided) show that consciousness is not the decision maker or regulator of behaviour, that this happens unconsciously in milliseconds, beginning with inputs, processing then conscious activity.

Based on physics,, it must be so. Information cannot be made conscious before it is acquired and processed, hence the necessary delay between input and awareness.

A functional account of cognition is absolutely relevant to the nature of decision making and the status of will for that reason. If decisons are determined unconsciously and will cannot veto or perform 'free won't' the idea of free will is in trouble.

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.

The general 'us' used in this way is deceptive because we as conscious entities have no control over brain function and output, which is an unconscious activity prior to conscious report.

It is not 'us' as the conscious entity that makes decisions, but specifically the brain. The brain is a part of you that you as a conscious self have no control over.

You are whatever a brain is doing. If the brain is dysfunctional, you are dysfunctional.

Unconscious activity is not freely willed activity.

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?

I have already said that consciousness serves as a mental map of the world, our environment and our place in it, which enables us to navigate and respond to challenges.

Consciousness is not the illusion. As a representation of the world and self, our 'map' is being tested as we respond and act.

The illusion is that of conscious will, ie, that conscious will makes or alters decisions at will.

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).

Nobody has claimed a human has no more agency than a rock rolling down a hill or a billiard ball. The issue is the nature of agency in relation to the idea of free will;

Some of the issues being;

''Libet himself recognized at least two ways his stark conclusions negating free will were limited. First, he postulated that we could veto our brain’s unconscious decisions in the period between when we became aware of our intention to move and the movement itself; this veto power is commonly referred to as ‘free won’t’ [9.]. Subsequent studies have shown that such conscious veto decisions are also preceded by an RP and thus subject to the same problematic delay before W-time, making such a position seem untenable [10., 11., 12.].

Also, a recent study estimated the point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements to be about 200 ms before movement onset [13.], roughly the same time that Libet thought the veto window opened. This also makes ‘free won’t’ seem untenable, because the window of time in which Libet suggested subjects could veto a movement begins precisely when subjects can no longer veto a movement. More helpfully, Libet suggested that many of our actions result from conscious deliberation that unfolds over much longer time-scales [2.], which would not be subject to these timing issues.''

 

[DBT]

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.

How do we have partial control over circumstances in the past? That needs explaining.

 

[DBT]

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.

The definition of Determinism is that all events are fixed by initial conditions and the laws of nature. Which entails everything in the determined world, including the brain and conscious mind.

There are no loopholes, no special clauses, no exemptions. We can't bend the rules and say; ''well, I could have chosen differently had I wanted to.''

No special pleading - ''Oh, I can act in accordance to my will, therefore I have free will'' - when both will and action proceed as determined, not willed.

'The increments of a normal brain state is not as obvious as direct coercion, a microchip, or a tumor, but the “obviousness” is irrelevant here. Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state. Depending on that state, this will cause you to behave in a specific way within an environment (decide in a specific way), in which all of those things that are outside of a person constantly bombard your senses changing your very brain state. The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over.

We have an illusion of control, but in reality we have no more control over these processes than we do a microchip or tumor leading our brain states to want, think, and decide in specific ways. The distinction between an abnormal or coerced brain state compared to a normal and uncoerced brain state is irrelevant to our lack of control in these regards.

Compatibilists might say that the person couldn’t control the influences of a tumor or microchip, but that misses the point that a person cannot control their own genetics or environmental conditions any more.''



I leave it at that to avoid further repetition.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The definition of Determinism is that all events are fixed by initial conditions and the laws of nature. Which entails everything in the determined world, including the brain and conscious mind. There are no loopholes, no special clauses, no exemptions.

Yeah, but, so what?! That does not change the fact that I, and every other customer in the restaurant, opened the menu, and chose from among the many possibilities, the dinners that we would order. We each did so while free of any coercion or other undue influence.

When I said to the waiter, "I will have the lobster dinner, please", the waiter wrote down my order, the chef prepared the lobster, and the waiter returned with my dinner and the bill, holding me responsible for my deliberate act.

We can't bend the rules and say; ''well, I could have chosen differently had I wanted to.''

There was no bending of any rules. And, yes, I could have chosen the steak dinner. The fact that I didn't choose the steak dinner is consistent with the fact that I could have.

In fact, I was having a hard time making up my mind about which dinner to order, the steak or the lobster. Everyone at the table was pressuring me to "Go ahead and order already!". So, to speed things along, I flipped a coin, and it came up tails, so I ordered the lobster.

No special pleading - ''Oh, I can act in accordance to my will, therefore I have free will'' - when both will and action proceed as determined, not willed.

There's no "special pleading", DBT, just a simple observation of what actually happened in the restaurant. My choice was reliably caused by prior events. But the most meaningful and relevant prior events were me, deciding to flip a coin, and then telling the waiter that "I will have the lobster dinner". We know that I was the most meaningful and relevant cause, because the waiter brought the dinner, and the bill, to me and not to any of the other prior causes in infinite chain of prior events.

'... Brain states incrementally get to the state they are in one moment at a time. In each moment of that process the brain is in one state, and the specific environment and biological conditions leads to the very next state.

The specific environmental conditions were the restaurant and the menu of alternate possibilities. The specific biological conditions were everyone's hunger, and their desire to have dinner. The changes in the brain states were a series of events necessary to get from the "being hungry" to "having a dinner on the table".

This required each brain at the table to make a choice from the restaurant menu. The choosing would causally determine what dinner they would tell the waiter to bring them.

There was no one there to force them to choose one thing rather than another. Therefore, each was free to make this decision for themselves (free of coercion and undue influence, not free of causation).

So, each person made their own choice of their own free will. And it was causally necessary from any prior point in time that they would do so, precisely that way.

"...The internal dialogue in your mind you have no real control over."

That it sounds true, but it is actually false. The false suggestion is that you must exercise some supernatural control over your mind in order to claim that you have control over your choice. That's a lie. It sounds true, but it is actually false.

You see, in order to exercise control over what I will have for dinner, it is only necessary for me to BE that mind deciding what I will order.

We have an illusion of control, ...

It is not an illusion. The restaurant was real. The menu was real. My own brain choosing, between the steak and lobster, was real. Even my choice to flip a coin to choose between two equally attractive possibilities was real.

These things really happen in the real world. So, whoever wrote the article you are quoting is apparently having an illusion, an illusion so convincing to his own mind that he has lost touch with reality. The problem is that illusions are catching. Paradoxes are easily spread from person to person through a series of false, but believable suggestions.

"The distinction between an abnormal or coerced brain state compared to a normal and uncoerced brain state is irrelevant to our lack of control in these regards."

And, finally, he gets around to using the illusion of non-control, he is trying to sell us, to destroy the meaningful and relevant distinctions, between a normal brain versus an abnormal brain, and between a coerced brain versus an uncoerced brain. The author you're quoting, DBT, is a piece of work. Please try to avoid him making you a piece of his work.

 

[Copernicus]

Thanks for letting me know something about your background. I would not have thought that you had expertise in the area of psychophysics. My problem was, and still is, trying to figure out what your point was and how it related to what I was talking about. Much of what you write above, especially all the definitions and descriptions of neural processing don't seem to contradict or correct anything that I have posted here. Maybe you could get to the point more quickly if you weren't referring me to dictionary definitions and textbook descriptions of signal processing.

I use lots of words for sense because I'm a retired Psychophysicst and I react badly to the misuse of sense data. I get especially steamed when one pronounces models of the world depend on sense-data as if sense-data could in any way be the basis for a representation of reality. Those who do fail to understand from whence sense derives is from a system of getting along drivers. Our reality bears little relation to reality.

If you are a specialist, then it is possible that you have a more technical usage for the term "sense-data" than I do. Maybe we should be talking about qualia, since those relate to a theory of mind, as opposed to a theory of neurophysics. If you think that past experience of sensations is not the basis for a representation of reality, then please explain your alternative. And do so in a way that is clear and direct, not full of references to dictionaries and source materials.

Let me put it this way. As an English speaker, you know the difference between a noise and a sound, right? A noise is an auditory sensation. A sound is an interpretation of that sensation. Do you agree? A mental model of reality encompasses both, does it not? Is it really wrong to say that the mental model is built up out of sense-data? Do you think they play no role at all?

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans and other threat engines and not in touch with the world as it is at time t=0. Hell even Plato discerned that.

Whoa there! Did I ever say that our reality is "strictly limited to human perceptions". There is a lot more to a mental model of reality than just the sensations that are used to build, extend, and support it. The brain does something more than just collect sensations, but sensations are the building blocks of all human cognition. You can build all sorts of different structures with a rather limited set of building materials. Apparently, the sense-data from my posts have inspired you to build up a mental model of what I believe that is wildly different from reality.

 

[fromderinside]

Thanks for letting me know something about your background. I would not have thought that you had expertise in the area of psychophysics. My problem was, and still is, trying to figure out what your point was and how it related to what I was talking about. Much of what you write above, especially all the definitions and descriptions of neural processing don't seem to contradict or correct anything that I have posted here. Maybe you could get to the point more quickly if you weren't referring me to dictionary definitions and textbook descriptions of signal processing.

I use lots of words for sense because I'm a retired Psychophysicst and I react badly to the misuse of sense data. I get especially steamed when one pronounces models of the world depend on sense-data as if sense-data could in any way be the basis for a representation of reality. Those who do fail to understand from whence sense derives is from a system of getting along drivers. Our reality bears little relation to reality.

If you are a specialist, then it is possible that you have a more technical usage for the term "sense-data" than I do. Maybe we should be talking about qualia, since those relate to a theory of mind, as opposed to a theory of neurophysics. If you think that past experience of sensations is not the basis for a representation of reality, then please explain your alternative. And do so in a way that is clear and direct, not full of references to dictionaries and source materials.

Let me put it this way. As an English speaker, you know the difference between a noise and a sound, right? A noise is an auditory sensation. A sound is an interpretation of that sensation. Do you agree?* A mental model of reality encompasses both, does it not? Is it really wrong to say that the mental model is built up out of sense-data? Do you think they play no role at all?

*All acoustic input not correlated and articulated is noise. Even unlearned potentially meaningful sound is noise until it is learned and systematized. Even then it is noise unless communicated.

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans and other threat engines and not in touch with the world as it is at time t=0. Hell even Plato discerned that.

Whoa there! Did I ever say that our reality is "strictly limited to human perceptions". There is a lot more to a mental model of reality than just the sensations that are used to build, extend, and support it. The brain does something more than just collect sensations, but sensations are the building blocks of all human cognition. You can build all sorts of different structures with a rather limited set of building materials. Apparently, the sense-data from my posts have inspired you to build up a mental model of what I believe that is wildly different from reality.

Repeating:

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions (can refer to the entire spectrum of conscious sensing) which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans (evolution) and other threat engines (environment driven evolution) and not in touch with the world (which is a lot greater than the whole of human cognition, experience, and support systems) as it is at time t=0.

For Chrissake even Plato discerned that. Reality is beyond the reach of the human mind of mankind over all of the time that man has and will exist. All we have access to is a reality the world of/for mankind which is mightily skewed from reality. We are a dim awareness in a limited part of a remote piece of what we believe is the universe.

Finally, sense data and whatever else we consider such as chemical exchange and flow contributing to our building of models are more accurately described as signals and information rather than sense whatever.

Are we done here?

 

[DBT]

The definition of Determinism is that all events are fixed by initial conditions and the laws of nature. Which entails everything in the determined world, including the brain and conscious mind. There are no loopholes, no special clauses, no exemptions.

Yeah, but, so what?! That does not change the fact that I, and every other customer in the restaurant, opened the menu, and chose from among the many possibilities, the dinners that we would order. We each did so while free of any coercion or other undue influence.

Every other customer has their own proclivities that are determined by genetics, environment and life experiences. Information that determines (being determined system) what each customer orders on that occasion. Information processing.

Information processing does not mean 'free will.'

Information processing:
''Information is everywhere. Not only in the things you read and hear in the media, or in the tools you use to navigate through the world (such as the maps or street signs that help guide you), but it can also be found in non-linguistic forms. This includes being able to recognize that your friend is in a good mood through her facial expression, or sense the oncoming storm by the quiet stillness in the humid air, or know you are hungry by the way your stomach feels. Essentially, all these forms of information convey a message that can lead to some kind of action, be it prepare for a celebratory drink with your friend, or move inside to avoid a downpour, or buy the ingredients you need to make yourself dinner (or order takeout, if you’re prone to lazier actions).''

When I said to the waiter, "I will have the lobster dinner, please", the waiter wrote down my order, the chef prepared the lobster, and the waiter returned with my dinner and the bill, holding me responsible for my deliberate act.

All determined by circumstances, social conventions, laws, ethics, morality, economics, etc, which we learn from childhood.

''Most—if not all—of the things we experience contain information. There is information in words, objects, actions, sounds, music, temperature, self-movement (proprioception), internal states (hunger, pain), emotions, and social interactions. These types of information rely on the organisms that can process, interpret, and use them in some way. But information also has a life of its own—it is encoded in the fabric of our universe and in the regularities or “laws of nature” that it follows. One could almost say that information feeds life. But how true is this about consciousness? To understand this better, we can focus on the dynamics between consciousness and attention (Montemayor & Haladjian, 2015).''

We can't bend the rules and say; ''well, I could have chosen differently had I wanted to.''

There was no bending of any rules. And, yes, I could have chosen the steak dinner. The fact that I didn't choose the steak dinner is consistent with the fact that I could have.

If Lobster was determined by the state of your being in that instance in time, how could you have chosen steak?

“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

In fact, I was having a hard time making up my mind about which dinner to order, the steak or the lobster. Everyone at the table was pressuring me to "Go ahead and order already!". So, to speed things along, I flipped a coin, and it came up tails, so I ordered the lobster.

These are all the elements that acted upon you, information that your brain acquired, processed and produced your inevitable - in that moment in time - fixed action/selection.

No special pleading - ''Oh, I can act in accordance to my will, therefore I have free will'' - when both will and action proceed as determined, not willed.

There's no "special pleading", DBT, just a simple observation of what actually happened in the restaurant. My choice was reliably caused by prior events. But the most meaningful and relevant prior events were me, deciding to flip a coin, and then telling the waiter that "I will have the lobster dinner". We know that I was the most meaningful and relevant cause, because the waiter brought the dinner, and the bill, to me and not to any of the other prior causes in infinite chain of prior events.

I was referring to the implication that you could have done otherwise, which is forbidden by the rules of determinism.

Saying - ''And, yes, I could have chosen the steak dinner. The fact that I didn't choose the steak dinner is consistent with the fact that I could have.'' - implies a possible ability to do otherwise, an alternate action.

We have an illusion of control, ...

It is not an illusion. The restaurant was real. The menu was real. My own brain choosing, between the steak and lobster, was real. Even my choice to flip a coin to choose between two equally attractive possibilities was real.

The illusion of conscious will refers to the false impression that it is our conscious will that runs the brain (my brain) and that we make decisions according to will....when it is information processing that determines outcome.

The brain responding to our circumstances, information acquired, processed, made conscious.

"The distinction between an abnormal or coerced brain state compared to a normal and uncoerced brain state is irrelevant to our lack of control in these regards."

And, finally, he gets around to using the illusion of non-control, he is trying to sell us, to destroy the meaningful and relevant distinctions, between a normal brain versus an abnormal brain, and between a coerced brain versus an uncoerced brain. The author you're quoting, DBT, is a piece of work. Please try to avoid him making you a piece of his work.

The point being that it is brain state and condition that determines output, what you see, feel, think and do, and not conscious will or free will.

We can think, feel and act consciously, but our experience is being produced by an underlying activity, information processing, over which we have no control or access.

That is the illusion of conscious will. Not that we can't think or act, but the means by which we think and act. Agency is the key.

 

[pood]

Nobody has claimed a human has no more agency than a rock rolling down a hill or a billiard ball.

Well, actually, the author of the blog post you quoted claims just that — he likened the cue ball striking to the Big Bang, and said that everything inevitably must follow from that. Now you say we DO have more agency than a rock or a billiard ball. Fine. But, how, under your metaphysics, do we have more agency than a rolling rock or billiard ball? You keep telling us that everything is basically predetermined, which means I MUST do what I do, in the same way that a rolling rock and a billiard ball must do what they do. So how do you define “agency” such that we have more of it than a rock or a billiard ball?

 

[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.

Every other customer has their own proclivities that are determined by genetics, environment and life experiences.

Yes. Every customer in the restaurant has their own proclivities, determined, in most cases, by their own prior experiences. They have all tried many different foods over their lifetime. Some customers will go directly to their old favorites. Some customers will want to try something new. Many, like me, will find several options they they know they will enjoy, and will have to decide which one they will order tonight.

In each case, the determining factors are found wholly within the person themselves, and in no other object in the physical universe. Each person is unique. And it will be up to them, and no one else, to choose what they will have for dinner.

None of them will be forced to choose something they don't want. Each choice will be free of any such coercion.

None of them will be hypnotized or otherwise manipulated into choosing what they don't want. Each choice will be free of any such undue influence.

Because their choices are free from coercion and undue influence, each "I will" will be freely chosen, whether it be "I will have the steak", or the "I will have the Chef Salad", or the "I will have the Buffalo Wings", or ... you get the idea.

And, of course, each choice will also be causally necessary from any prior point in time. It will be the reliable result of each person's own history of prior causes, resulting in who and what they are at the time that they make their choice.

Thus, P1: the definition of free will, is satisfied and P2: the definition of determinism is also satisfied. There is no incompatibility between them.

Information processing does not mean 'free will.'

Information processing does not mean 'not free will'. Choosing is information processing. Free will is when the choosing is free of coercion and undue influence.

''Information is everywhere. ... "

Well, yeah. But all the information relevant to this example is found on the restaurant menu. Let's not wander off into traffic signals, college degrees, and other distractions to escape dealing with what is on the table in front of you.

If Lobster was determined by the state of your being in that instance in time, how could you have chosen steak?

Well, I wanted the steak and I also wanted the lobster. And I was certainly free to make that choice for myself. The steak was there on the menu, so it was a real possibility that I could have the steak if I chose to have the steak. And, for the same reason, it was also a real possibility that I could have the lobster. But having both of them would be a bit much, so I had to choose between them.

So, let's look into the choosing operation itself, to see how it works. Choosing is a deterministic operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the thing that I've chosen to do.

Choosing requires at least two options, each of which I can choose. "I can choose steak" was true. "I can choose lobster" was also true. So, I had my two options. Then I began weighing my two options in different ways, imagining what I would experience if I chose the steak, and then imagining what I would experience if I chose the lobster. If I was concerned about the cost, then I may have also compared the price of the steak dinner versus the price of the lobster dinner. If I was concerned about my dietary goals, then I may also have estimated the effect of each upon my cholesterol, or my calories, or my balance of fat versus proteins, etc.

At the end of the choosing process, I would have two things: (1) the single "I will have the X" where X is either the steak or the lobster plus (2) the single "I could have had the Y" where Y is either the lobster or the steak.

That's how choosing works. It always begins with two real possibilities, and it always ends with a single "I will" and at least one "I could have".

And that is why P2 defines determinism as: "A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events." It would be silly to say that determinism means that "I could not have done otherwise" when every choosing operation always outputs at least one thing that "I could have done".

“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

What Robert (and Schopenhauer) overlooks is that we often have many wants and desires at the same time, making it necessary that we choose what we will do about them. Our actions are not controlled by our desires, but by our choices as to whether, when, and how we will go about dealing with that desire.

Choosing fixes the will upon a specific intent. The intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions. For example, having set my intent to have the lobster dinner, my subsequent action is to tell the waiter, "I will have the lobster, please."

These are all the elements that acted upon you, information that your brain acquired, processed and produced your inevitable - in that moment in time - fixed action/selection.

Well, no, my response is not a passive acceptance of the world's influences driving me willy-nilly wherever it wants me to go. I exist as a living organism, with my own purposes, and as an intelligent human, with my own reasons. So, I can and will push back. I am not merely an effect. I am also a cause.

I was referring to the implication that you could have done otherwise, which is forbidden by the rules of determinism.

See P2. There is nothing there that forbids me from having options to choose from! In fact, it is causally necessary, from any prior point in time, that the restaurant menu will have a list of all of the things that I "can" have for dinner. The fact that, tonight, I "can" have any of those items is true, logically implies that, tomorrow, I "could have" had any of those items will also be true.

Of course, it will also be causally necessary, from any prior point in time, that, tonight, I "will" have only the lobster dinner, which logically implies that, tomorrow, I "would have" had only the lobster dinner.

Under P2, we may safely say that, given the same circumstance, "I would not have done otherwise", but it would be false to claim that "I could not have done otherwise".

Sorry, but the implication that determinism prohibits "I could have done otherwise" is simply false. Don't blame me. It's built into the logic of the language, a logic that enables us to deal effectively with situations of uncertainty, which if often the case.

That is the illusion of conscious will. Not that we can't think or act, but the means by which we think and act. Agency is the key.

Yes, agency is the key. And that is why the waiter brings me the bill for the lobster, because it is obvious to the waiter who the agent actually is. The question is how the hard determinists have managed to acquire the illusion that agent resides somewhere else.

But, that's how a paradox works. A series of false, but believable, suggestions create a hoax, a con, a self-deception about the nature of the world. Zeno was famous for creating paradoxes.

For example, in the story of Achilles and the Tortoise, the world's fastest runner must catch the world's slowest animal. Achilles, confident that he can do so, allows the tortoise a large head start. Then Achilles begins his run to where the tortoise is. But, when Achilles gets to where the tortoise was, the tortoise has also advanced, farther down the road. So, Achilles takes off again to where the tortoise is. But, again, when he gets to where the tortoise was, no tortoise, because the tortoise had once again moved on. No matter how many times Achilles repeats this attempt, he can never catch the tortoise.

What is the false but believable suggestion that creates this paradox? It "sounds true" but it is really false.

 

[Jarhyn]

proclivities that are determined by genetics, environment and life experiences

... That drive them to make the choices they do.

Choices have reasons too.

You're not invalidating the choice just to say that the context has priors.

In the moment, the context is all. Universe is not a machine that spits out a whole block at once from the beginning but rather process happens and each next moment is a function of the current, not the previous, moment.

 

[Jarhyn]

driven by need-to-live

No. My decisions are not in fact driven by need to live.

Swing and a miss.

My decisions are driven by my goals, the goals created by the physical configuration of my neurons.

Nothing else.

They are the choices of my model, as driven by my goals, through the mechanics of my model, as defined by the organization of my neurons.

That will or will not contain "need to live" as is defined exactly by the goal in question.

As it stands, I've made the very conscious decision to die at a fixed point in my future!

It is not near to now, in fact is quite far off! My free will in this decision may be robbed of me if I die before that.

 

[Copernicus]

...

Let me put it this way. As an English speaker, you know the difference between a noise and a sound, right? A noise is an auditory sensation. A sound is an interpretation of that sensation. Do you agree?* A mental model of reality encompasses both, does it not? Is it really wrong to say that the mental model is built up out of sense-data? Do you think they play no role at all?

*All acoustic input not correlated and articulated is noise. Even unlearned potentially meaningful sound is noise until it is learned and systematized. Even then it is noise unless communicated.

This is completely nonresponsive. Do you understand the difference between a noise and a sound? I told you what I thought it was, but you did not agree or disagree. Instead you talked about something else. Are not both part of our mental model of reality? Unless you want to engage me on the difference between a noise and a sound, I don't see the point in continuing.

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans and other threat engines and not in touch with the world as it is at time t=0. Hell even Plato discerned that.

Whoa there! Did I ever say that our reality is "strictly limited to human perceptions". There is a lot more to a mental model of reality than just the sensations that are used to build, extend, and support it. The brain does something more than just collect sensations, but sensations are the building blocks of all human cognition. You can build all sorts of different structures with a rather limited set of building materials. Apparently, the sense-data from my posts have inspired you to build up a mental model of what I believe that is wildly different from reality.

Repeating:

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions (can refer to the entire spectrum of conscious sensing) which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans (evolution) and other threat engines (environment driven evolution) and not in touch with the world (which is a lot greater than the whole of human cognition, experience, and support systems) as it is at time t=0.

For Chrissake even Plato discerned that. Reality is beyond the reach of the human mind of mankind over all of the time that man has and will exist. All we have access to is a reality the world of/for mankind which is mightily skewed from reality. We are a dim awareness in a limited part of a remote piece of what we believe is the universe.

Finally, sense data and whatever else we consider such as chemical exchange and flow contributing to our building of models are more accurately described as signals and information rather than sense whatever.

Are we done here?

Since you are just repeating yourself without addressing what I wrote, I think that we are. It's obvious that we aren't communicating. Thanks for making the effort, anyway.

 

[fromderinside]

driven by need-to-live

No. My decisions are not in fact driven by need to live.

Swing and a miss.

My decisions are driven by my goals, the goals created by the physical configuration of my neurons.

Nothing else.

They are the choices of my model, as driven by my goals, through the mechanics of my model, as defined by the organization of my neurons.

That will or will not contain "need to live" as is defined exactly by the goal in question.

As it stands, I've made the very conscious decision to die at a fixed point in my future!

It is not near to now, in fact is quite far off! My free will in this decision may be robbed of me if I die before that.

Need to live refers to evolutionary demands/constraints on all things in every human. It has no effect on what you can choose, decide, whatever beyond the fact those are based on very limited and partial knowledge of reality.

 

[fromderinside]

...

Let me put it this way. As an English speaker, you know the difference between a noise and a sound, right? A noise is an auditory sensation. A sound is an interpretation of that sensation. Do you agree?* A mental model of reality encompasses both, does it not? Is it really wrong to say that the mental model is built up out of sense-data? Do you think they play no role at all?

*All acoustic input not correlated and articulated is noise. Even unlearned potentially meaningful sound is noise until it is learned and systematized. Even then it is noise unless communicated.

This is completely nonresponsive. Do you understand the difference between a noise and a sound? I told you what I thought it was, but you did not agree or disagree. Instead you talked about something else. Are not both part of our mental model of reality? Unless you want to engage me on the difference between a noise and a sound, I don't see the point in continuing.

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans and other threat engines and not in touch with the world as it is at time t=0. Hell even Plato discerned that.

Whoa there! Did I ever say that our reality is "strictly limited to human perceptions". There is a lot more to a mental model of reality than just the sensations that are used to build, extend, and support it. The brain does something more than just collect sensations, but sensations are the building blocks of all human cognition. You can build all sorts of different structures with a rather limited set of building materials. Apparently, the sense-data from my posts have inspired you to build up a mental model of what I believe that is wildly different from reality.

Repeating:

Our reality, if it is as you suggest, is strictly limited to human perceptions (can refer to the entire spectrum of conscious sensing) which, as is I said before, are driven by need-to-live among humans (evolution) and other threat engines (environment driven evolution) and not in touch with the world (which is a lot greater than the whole of human cognition, experience, and support systems) as it is at time t=0.

For Chrissake even Plato discerned that. Reality is beyond the reach of the human mind of mankind over all of the time that man has and will exist. All we have access to is a reality the world of/for mankind which is mightily skewed from reality. We are a dim awareness in a limited part of a remote piece of what we believe is the universe.

Finally, sense data and whatever else we consider such as chemical exchange and flow contributing to our building of models are more accurately described as signals and information rather than sense whatever.

Are we done here?

Since you are just repeating yourself without addressing what I wrote, I think that we are. It's obvious that we aren't communicating. Thanks for making the effort, anyway.

Really. You need to understand what noise and sound are, not what you consider polite discussion between chatty drinkers at the club.

OSH Answers Fact Sheets​

Noise - Basic Information

What are sound and noise? Sound is what we hear.

www.ccohs.ca

 

[Copernicus]

Really. You need to understand what noise and sound are, not what you consider polite discussion between chatty drinkers at the club.

If you don't want to address what I posted about the difference, posting random materials that you find on the internet is not going to help advance the discussion. I was interested in how you might address the problem of building a mental model of reality, but I suspect that you have nothing of interest to say on the subject. Let's just let it rest.

 

[DBT]

Nobody has claimed a human has no more agency than a rock rolling down a hill or a billiard ball.

Well, actually, the author of the blog post you quoted claims just that — he likened the cue ball striking to the Big Bang, and said that everything inevitably must follow from that. Now you say we DO have more agency than a rock or a billiard ball. Fine. But, how, under your metaphysics, do we have more agency than a rolling rock or billiard ball? You keep telling us that everything is basically predetermined, which means I MUST do what I do, in the same way that a rolling rock and a billiard ball must do what they do. So how do you define “agency” such that we have more of it than a rock or a billiard ball?

Rocks that roll down hills cannot process information. A tumbling rock has no internal agency, it cannot process information or act according to its own makeup. A brain processes information, producing outcomes according to its own makeup, but they are not freely chosen outcomes.

They are not freely chosen outcomes because the brain cannot choose its own state and condition. It doesn't have the right kind of regulative control.

The agency I refer to is the neural makeup of a brain, each brain with a unique makeup, neural architecture, and each brain producing its own set of behaviours based on architecture, inputs and memory content, therefore output is determined by the state and condition of the brain.

Rocks tumbling down hills cannot do that. That is the distinction, but ultimately, the freedom to do otherwise cannot exist within a determined system, which is why compatibilists carefully define free will as the ability to act in accordance with ones will, which of course is necessitated by the .system


Definition of freedom
1: the quality or state of being free: such as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action - Merrium Webster

 

[DBT]

proclivities that are determined by genetics, environment and life experiences

... That drive them to make the choices they do.

Choices have reasons too.

You're not invalidating the choice just to say that the context has priors.

In the moment, the context is all. Universe is not a machine that spits out a whole block at once from the beginning but rather process happens and each next moment is a function of the current, not the previous, moment.

Determinism doesn't allow alternate actions. There is not freedom to do otherwise within a determined system.

 

[fromderinside]

Really. You need to understand what noise and sound are, not what you consider polite discussion between chatty drinkers at the club.

If you don't want to address what I posted about the difference, posting random materials that you find on the internet is not going to help advance the discussion. I was interested in how you might address the problem of building a mental model of reality, but I suspect that you have nothing of interest to say on the subject. Let's just let it rest.

Its pretty evident from my responses that we can't build a mental model of reality.

What we are left with is an explanation of how what we do is achieved by our nervous system. You don't seem interested in that since it, at best, we can only be model a relative reality in accordance with our privative equipment. Again this is something you don't seem interested in doing.

But ...

If you want to begin, It is obvious we believe we have control and we believe it is proper we believe we are in control. I see this as the result of humans having established a pretty thoroughly integrated nervous system - nervous system integration is something ongoing rapidly in most mammals. . Also we subvocalize as a means of rehearsal. I think this was driven by the evolution of our fairly advanced tool-making capabilities which I believe lead to post Homo Erectus evolution.

I justify this view with the above claims by findings humans have demonstrated an interest in representing the external world in drawings. In addition, the beginnings of creating token items reflecting emotive experiences and the beliefs in both the supernatural and external presence occurred over the past 120 thousand years.

However Neanderthal did bury their dead so consciousness may go back about 700 million years. Note: It is difficult to justify a continuum from this because of the selective pressure on group size brought on by the ice ages over the past million or so years.

Prior to this evidence protohumans and ancient humans began to run in groups of more than ten members. This change probably was facilitated with an ability to articulate vocally which may go back to the rise of Homo Erectus 1.5 million years ago.

 

[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.

Every other customer has their own proclivities that are determined by genetics, environment and life experiences.

Yes. Every customer in the restaurant has their own proclivities, determined, in most cases, by their own prior experiences. They have all tried many different foods over their lifetime. Some customers will go directly to their old favorites. Some customers will want to try something new. Many, like me, will find several options they they know they will enjoy, and will have to decide which one they will order tonight.

In each case, the determining factors are found wholly within the person themselves, and in no other object in the physical universe. Each person is unique. And it will be up to them, and no one else, to choose what they will have for dinner.

None of them will be forced to choose something they don't want. Each choice will be free of any such coercion.

None of them will be hypnotized or otherwise manipulated into choosing what they don't want. Each choice will be free of any such undue influence.

Because their choices are free from coercion and undue influence, each "I will" will be freely chosen, whether it be "I will have the steak", or the "I will have the Chef Salad", or the "I will have the Buffalo Wings", or ... you get the idea.

And, of course, each choice will also be causally necessary from any prior point in time. It will be the reliable result of each person's own history of prior causes, resulting in who and what they are at the time that they make their choice.

Thus, P1: the definition of free will, is satisfied and P2: the definition of determinism is also satisfied. There is no incompatibility between them.

Information processing does not mean 'free will.'

Information processing does not mean 'not free will'. Choosing is information processing. Free will is when the choosing is free of coercion and undue influence.

''Information is everywhere. ... "

Well, yeah. But all the information relevant to this example is found on the restaurant menu. Let's not wander off into traffic signals, college degrees, and other distractions to escape dealing with what is on the table in front of you.

If Lobster was determined by the state of your being in that instance in time, how could you have chosen steak?

Well, I wanted the steak and I also wanted the lobster. And I was certainly free to make that choice for myself. The steak was there on the menu, so it was a real possibility that I could have the steak if I chose to have the steak. And, for the same reason, it was also a real possibility that I could have the lobster. But having both of them would be a bit much, so I had to choose between them.

So, let's look into the choosing operation itself, to see how it works. Choosing is a deterministic operation that inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the thing that I've chosen to do.

Choosing requires at least two options, each of which I can choose. "I can choose steak" was true. "I can choose lobster" was also true. So, I had my two options. Then I began weighing my two options in different ways, imagining what I would experience if I chose the steak, and then imagining what I would experience if I chose the lobster. If I was concerned about the cost, then I may have also compared the price of the steak dinner versus the price of the lobster dinner. If I was concerned about my dietary goals, then I may also have estimated the effect of each upon my cholesterol, or my calories, or my balance of fat versus proteins, etc.

At the end of the choosing process, I would have two things: (1) the single "I will have the X" where X is either the steak or the lobster plus (2) the single "I could have had the Y" where Y is either the lobster or the steak.

That's how choosing works. It always begins with two real possibilities, and it always ends with a single "I will" and at least one "I could have".

And that is why P2 defines determinism as: "A world is deterministic if every event is reliably caused by prior events." It would be silly to say that determinism means that "I could not have done otherwise" when every choosing operation always outputs at least one thing that "I could have done".

“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

What Robert (and Schopenhauer) overlooks is that we often have many wants and desires at the same time, making it necessary that we choose what we will do about them. Our actions are not controlled by our desires, but by our choices as to whether, when, and how we will go about dealing with that desire.

Choosing fixes the will upon a specific intent. The intent then motivates and directs our subsequent actions. For example, having set my intent to have the lobster dinner, my subsequent action is to tell the waiter, "I will have the lobster, please."

These are all the elements that acted upon you, information that your brain acquired, processed and produced your inevitable - in that moment in time - fixed action/selection.

Well, no, my response is not a passive acceptance of the world's influences driving me willy-nilly wherever it wants me to go. I exist as a living organism, with my own purposes, and as an intelligent human, with my own reasons. So, I can and will push back. I am not merely an effect. I am also a cause.

I was referring to the implication that you could have done otherwise, which is forbidden by the rules of determinism.

See P2. There is nothing there that forbids me from having options to choose from! In fact, it is causally necessary, from any prior point in time, that the restaurant menu will have a list of all of the things that I "can" have for dinner. The fact that, tonight, I "can" have any of those items is true, logically implies that, tomorrow, I "could have" had any of those items will also be true.

Of course, it will also be causally necessary, from any prior point in time, that, tonight, I "will" have only the lobster dinner, which logically implies that, tomorrow, I "would have" had only the lobster dinner.

Under P2, we may safely say that, given the same circumstance, "I would not have done otherwise", but it would be false to claim that "I could not have done otherwise".

Sorry, but the implication that determinism prohibits "I could have done otherwise" is simply false. Don't blame me. It's built into the logic of the language, a logic that enables us to deal effectively with situations of uncertainty, which if often the case.

That is the illusion of conscious will. Not that we can't think or act, but the means by which we think and act. Agency is the key.

Yes, agency is the key. And that is why the waiter brings me the bill for the lobster, because it is obvious to the waiter who the agent actually is. The question is how the hard determinists have managed to acquire the illusion that agent resides somewhere else.

But, that's how a paradox works. A series of false, but believable, suggestions create a hoax, a con, a self-deception about the nature of the world. Zeno was famous for creating paradoxes.

For example, in the story of Achilles and the Tortoise, the world's fastest runner must catch the world's slowest animal. Achilles, confident that he can do so, allows the tortoise a large head start. Then Achilles begins his run to where the tortoise is. But, when Achilles gets to where the tortoise was, the tortoise has also advanced, farther down the road. So, Achilles takes off again to where the tortoise is. But, again, when he gets to where the tortoise was, no tortoise, because the tortoise had once again moved on. No matter how many times Achilles repeats this attempt, he can never catch the tortoise.

What is the false but believable suggestion that creates this paradox? It "sounds true" but it is really false.

Agency just comes down to state and condition of a brain in any moment in time. The internal condition of the brain and external elements that act upon it in each moment in time producing a necessarily fixed response in each and every moment in time.

You cannot do something one moment, but the next you can do what you could not a moment ago.....not because you have free will and you decided to do otherwise, but because the brain was altered by information acting upon it: inner necessitation.

Your dinner companions urge you to try this or that, information that the brain acquires, processes, integrates with memory function, proclivities, etc, then brings the only possible action - in that moment in time - to consciousness: you decide to order Lobster.

Which - rather than 'free will' - is a case of information processing within a determined system.

Necessitated actions - being determined - are by definition not willed, chosen or negotiable.