Compatibilism: What's that About?

[Jarhyn]

I don't say physics is an application of math.
I, and most actual theoretical physicists, say physics is an application of math.

If you don't understand why, you don't understand what math is and what physics is.

You don't get to say "physics carries is property of math" without first standing on "physics is described this way by math sufficiently to all observations, and thus this property based on the description via math."

What is Physics and Why is it Important?

Physics is the science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them.

www.universalclass.com

Physics. The science in which matter and energy are studied both separately and in combination with one another.

And a more detailed working definition of physics may be: The science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them. Quite often, physics concentrates upon the forces having an impact upon matter, that is, gravitation, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, and others.

B. Physics. Orientation

Because physics utilizes elements of other branches of sciences, biology and chemistry for example, it has the reputation of being more complicated than other sciences.

Physics, as opposed to natural philosophy (with which it was grouped until the 19th century), relies upon scientific methods in order to describe the natural world.

...

C. Physics and Mathematics

As a whole, physics is closely related to mathematics, for it provides the logical structure in which physical laws may be formulated and their predictions quantified. A great many of physics' definitions, models, and theories are expressed using mathematical symbols and formulas.

The central difference between physics and mathematics is that ultimately physics is concerned with descriptions of the material world whereas mathematics is focused on abstract logical patterns that may extend beyond the real world.

Because physics concentrates on the material world, it tests its theories through the process known as observation or experimentation. In theory, it may seem relatively easier to detect where physics leaves off and mathematics picks up. However, in reality, such a clean-cut distinction does not always exist. Hence, the gray areas in between physics and mathematics tend be called "mathematical physics."

I stand by the above waiting for your chickens to roost.

If YOU wish to claim that "physics is not perfectly describable by melathematics"

THEN, you cannot say "physics is perfectly described as this construct within math re:determinism"

 

[Jarhyn]

Jarhyn - A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.

Stanford - 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 neither of these definitions is "and, determinsm prevents the formation of free will properties at all localities within the system"

That's what you the HARD determinist has to solve. Not my problem. And no, that is not my definition. That is the definition on the top of Google when you Google "deterministic system".

Now, YOU have to do the work of proving that the property WE as COMPATIBLITS call free will is not "coherent".

You're going to need to use math for that.

You're not really paying much attention to the fact that the person who developed the Stanford definition did so by describing the universe mathematically first.

You didn't even read the essay that it came from!

 

[Jarhyn]

Whether deterministic systems contain stochastic systems or not is irrelevant to compatibilism

No, it isn't. See the discussion I'm having with Marvin. I'm not having this same fucking conversation between two different people.

What you do is of no concern to me. I only have so much time to spare. I can't read everyone's conversation.

So pick a thread between you. Either thread works. Both you and FDI wish to argue the same thing (universe is deterministic AND free will is an incoherent concept across all conceptualizations of the intersection of "free" and "will"). Or report them and get them merged. What you do is of concern to me because you are arguing for a religion on a skepticism board.

Further, you are generally arguing past us. Our concept of "free will" is coherent, you just don't want to pick it up long enough to examine it, apparently. I've as much PROVED in this thread from known properties of game theory and systems theory that there is a free will property, and yet still you go on.

Granted it confuses most of the people in this thread because few people on these forums have enough background to converge across physics, math, systems theory, game theory, and neural modeling.

FDI is the closest, AFAICT, but he worked on the wrong side of the problem to get useful context.

Granted I don't really care so much about whether YOU agree with me. To me yours is merely a badly tuned voice sqaucking out of the void about things they don't understand and never really tried to so as to justify the strength of their positions.

I just want to be able to not argue the same damn thing twice at a time.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

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.

...The Big Bang got the show on the road ...

And yet, the Big Bang itself plays no meaningful or relevant role in any human events.

... and provided all the elements and rules for all events to unfold

The Big Bang was just another event in the string of events that eventually led to us. The rules of how stuff worked at the quantum level were probably the only rules in play within the super condensed ball of matter that exploded outward during the Big Bang event. Most of the elements in the periodic table were formed later in subsequent events, like during the gravitational collapse of cooling stars.

But the rules governing human behavior were all ours. We created them ourselves. For example, you cannot derive the traffic laws from the laws of physics. If you could then England and America would both be driving on the same side of the road, rather than opposite sides.

So, no, the Big Bang did not provide the "rules for all events to unfold". Some of those rules were written by us, for our own interests and our own safety.

A meaningful cause efficiently explains why something happened.
A relevant cause is something we can actually do something about.

If the Big Bang were a meaningful cause of my comments, then why do you address your responses to me? You obviously believe that I am the meaningful cause of my comments.

You don't exist in isolation. You do not act in isolation.

When I choose from the restaurant menu what I will order for dinner, it is my own genetic dispositions and my own prior life experiences that influence my decisions, and not yours. Now, if there were a 5 year old and his mother, and he wanted ice cream for dinner, then it would be his mother's decision and not his, that would control the choice, and he would have to eat the friggin vegetables against his will.

Countless elements determine your behaviour and your response effects/determines countless others, which in turn......Nothing from the time of the Big Bang to our actions happen in isolation. Every component of the system is necessary to make the system as it is, and events to unfold as they do.

There you go smooshing everything together again, destroying the meaningful distinctions. I happen to be an adult who gets to choose for himself what he will order in the restaurant. Among those "countless elements" that "determine" my "behavior" you will find me, myself.

For example, it is my brain, and no other brain in the restaurant, that will be choosing what I will order for dinner. What the rest of the universe happens to be doing while I'm deciding between the steak and the lobster plays no role.

So, no, it is not true that "Every component of the system is necessary to make the system as it is, and events to unfold as they do." That claim is false. Choosing is an intimate matter between me and the restaurant's menu of possible dinners. My choice will not be affected by any South Asian butterfly's flapping wings.

Without the BB nothing would exist.

No, the super condensed ball of matter existed prior to the Big Bang event. If it didn't exist then it couldn't have exploded in a big bang.

How we make decisions is determined by 13.6 billion years of astro-evolution and millions of years of biological evolution that gave us brains capable of processing information and interacting with the world.

But once our brains got here, they were the only things that could make decisions. There was no decision making prior to the appearance of intelligent species. There was no "executive control" of any events prior to these brains.

Having one of these brains is all that I need to decide for myself what I will order for dinner. I say to the waiter, "I will have the lobster, please", and I have causally necessitated a series of actual events in the real world. The waiter takes my order to the chef. The chef prepares the lobster. The waiter brings the lobster to my table and gives me the bill to pay. I eat the lobster and then, as a responsible individual, I take the bill to the cashier and pay her on the way out.

Initial conditions -time t - plus natural law, and here we are; events proceeding naturally (as if "fixed as a matter of natural law") and reliably ("without deviation"). You can apply time t to any point in time and conditions will follow from the state of the system that point in time.

At dinner time (t) we naturally feel hungry and decide to have dinner at the restaurant. At time t+a we enter the restaurant, sit at a table, and look over the menu. At time t+a+b we each decide what we will have for dinner and give our orders to the waiter.

Wait. Something is missing. At what time did we open nature's law book to make sure we were acting according to nature's laws? Oh crap. I didn't bring the law book, did anyone else at the table remember to bring it? No? Then what will we do?! Fortunately, whatever we do will satisfy the laws of nature, because the laws of nature simply describe our own reliable patterns of behavior. Our behavior is the actual source of the laws of nature that supposedly "govern" our behavior.

It's not that we can't choose, clearly, we can.

Yes. Clearly we can choose. We observe each other choosing what we will have for dinner. So it is an empirical fact that we are doing the choosing.

The issue is, how we are able to choose, the means by which we choose,

No. That's not really an issue. We know that choosing happens, and we're pretty sure that choosing is performed by our own brains. The inner workings of the brain are interesting to neuroscience and can help us to diagnose where to look for an injury or tumor, by observing the specific behavior that is affected (memory, reasoning, impulse control, etc.).

We know that choosing is a specific information processing function performed by the brain. The brain can input multiple options, such as those listed on a restaurant menu, and reduce those options to a single choice that determines what we will order for dinner.

The notion of free will is not about whether the brain operates deterministically or not. It does. Reasoning, logical thought, is a deterministic process, whether it is performing basic arithmetic or deciding what to have for dinner.

Free will (a freely chosen will) is when the choosing is free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. For example, if the brain is healthy and no one is pointing a gun at it, then the person is free to choose for themselves what they will do.

When an action is freely chosen, then the person is held responsible for what they chose to do.
When the action is coerced, then the guy with the gun is held responsible for what the victim does.
When the action is caused by significant mental illness or brain injury, then the illness or injury is held responsible for the action.

Free will is not complicated. Whenever technical neuroscience information is required to inform a jury as to whether a mental illness or injury is a significant cause of the behavior, experts are called in to testify.

But the general notion of a freely chosen "I will" is well understood by everyone, because everyone has decided for themselves to do specific things many times.

... and If the option we take is fixed, whether we r not we have the possibility of an alternate action, ie, choosing something else in any given instance in time...and if not, whether we can call our actions a matter of free will.

The chosen option is always determined (fixed) by the choosing operation. And it is never fixed prior to the completion of that operation.

It is causally necessary from any prior point in time. But it is only finalized, fixed, and determined by the choosing operation itself. The choosing operation is the final, responsible, prior cause of the choice.

Without the possibility of alternate actions, free will it ain't.

Well, I've shown you the restaurant menu, full of possible alternate actions.

A. Every meal on the menu is something that certainly can happen.
B. There is only one meal on the menu that certainly will happen.

Determinism may safely assert that under the same circumstances, I never would have chosen otherwise. But determinism cannot truthfully assert that under the same circumstances, I never could have chosen otherwise.

Under the exact same circumstances, there will always be the same menu, with the same list of alternate possibilities, from which any item can be chosen, even though only one item will be chosen.

What can happen constrains what will happen, because if it cannot happen then it will not.

But what will happen and what does happen never constrains what can happen, because what can happen is only constrained by the possibilities we will imagine and our ability to make them happen if we choose to.

That is the logic embedded in the language. Conflating can with will breaks that logic. And, since the ability to imagine alternatives and choose between them gives us adaptive survival benefits, it is best not to break the choosing operation by forking with the language.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't say physics is an application of math.
I, and most actual theoretical physicists, say physics is an application of math.

If you don't understand why, you don't understand what math is and what physics is.

You don't get to say "physics carries is property of math" without first standing on "physics is described this way by math sufficiently to all observations, and thus this property based on the description via math."

What is Physics and Why is it Important?

Physics is the science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them.

www.universalclass.com

Physics. The science in which matter and energy are studied both separately and in combination with one another.

And a more detailed working definition of physics may be: The science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them. Quite often, physics concentrates upon the forces having an impact upon matter, that is, gravitation, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, and others.

B. Physics. Orientation

Because physics utilizes elements of other branches of sciences, biology and chemistry for example, it has the reputation of being more complicated than other sciences.

Physics, as opposed to natural philosophy (with which it was grouped until the 19th century), relies upon scientific methods in order to describe the natural world.

...

C. Physics and Mathematics

As a whole, physics is closely related to mathematics, for it provides the logical structure in which physical laws may be formulated and their predictions quantified. A great many of physics' definitions, models, and theories are expressed using mathematical symbols and formulas.

The central difference between physics and mathematics is that ultimately physics is concerned with descriptions of the material world whereas mathematics is focused on abstract logical patterns that may extend beyond the real world.

Because physics concentrates on the material world, it tests its theories through the process known as observation or experimentation. In theory, it may seem relatively easier to detect where physics leaves off and mathematics picks up. However, in reality, such a clean-cut distinction does not always exist. Hence, the gray areas in between physics and mathematics tend be called "mathematical physics."

I stand by the above waiting for your chickens to roost.

If YOU wish to claim that "physics is not perfectly describable by melathematics"

THEN, you cannot say "physics is perfectly described as this construct within math re:determinism"

What's this with perfect? Determined is, full stop.

Math is mainly developed by necessity to characterize via hoc ventures by those having need to communicate relationships.

Yes, most math's have been developed by those characterizing the physical world. That does not make math or physics the parent, that makes the curious and experimental the curators. Besides we all know the study of physics is an ongoing process which may have no end as far as humanity is concerned.

Many analogies apply to the process of science as a study ranging from telescope/microscope to existence/beginning.

 

[DBT]

Jarhyn - A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.

Stanford - 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 neither of these definitions is "and, determinsm prevents the formation of free will properties at all localities within the system"

Determined events are fixed, there is no randomness involved, no deviation.
Actions proceed as determined by antecedents, not will, not free will.
There are no possible alternate actions.
Therefore, there are no 'free will' properties within a determined system.

That's what you the HARD determinist has to solve. Not my problem. And no, that is not my definition. That is the definition on the top of Google when you Google "deterministic system".

Now, YOU have to do the work of proving that the property WE as COMPATIBLITS call free will is not "coherent".

You're going to need to use math for that.

You're not really paying much attention to the fact that the person who developed the Stanford definition did so by describing the universe mathematically first.

You didn't even read the essay that it came from!

I've read many essays and I am familiar with the subject matter. Determinism is the same for both compatibilists and incompatibilists. Hard and Soft merely refers to the nature and definition of free will

Marvin Edwards, a compatibilist gave the very same definition of determinism as I use.

 

[DBT]

Whether deterministic systems contain stochastic systems or not is irrelevant to compatibilism

No, it isn't. See the discussion I'm having with Marvin. I'm not having this same fucking conversation between two different people.

What you do is of no concern to me. I only have so much time to spare. I can't read everyone's conversation.

So pick a thread between you. Either thread works. Both you and FDI wish to argue the same thing (universe is deterministic AND free will is an incoherent concept across all conceptualizations of the intersection of "free" and "will"). Or report them and get them merged. What you do is of concern to me because you are arguing for a religion on a skepticism board.

Further, you are generally arguing past us. Our concept of "free will" is coherent, you just don't want to pick it up long enough to examine it, apparently. I've as much PROVED in this thread from known properties of game theory and systems theory that there is a free will property, and yet still you go on.

Granted it confuses most of the people in this thread because few people on these forums have enough background to converge across physics, math, systems theory, game theory, and neural modeling.

FDI is the closest, AFAICT, but he worked on the wrong side of the problem to get useful context.

Granted I don't really care so much about whether YOU agree with me. To me yours is merely a badly tuned voice sqaucking out of the void about things they don't understand and never really tried to so as to justify the strength of their positions.

I just want to be able to not argue the same damn thing twice at a time.

Again, I don't care what you do. Your time is your own. Argue, don't argue, gnash your teeth, wail, cry, complain, moan, wring your hands......I don't care in the least

 

[DBT]

And yet, the Big Bang itself plays no meaningful or relevant role in any human events.

Nobody is saying that it does.

... and provided all the elements and rules for all events to unfold

The Big Bang was just another event in the string of events that eventually led to us. The rules of how stuff worked at the quantum level were probably the only rules in play within the super condensed ball of matter that exploded outward during the Big Bang event. Most of the elements in the periodic table were formed later in subsequent events, like during the gravitational collapse of cooling stars.

But the rules governing human behavior were all ours. We created them ourselves. For example, you cannot derive the traffic laws from the laws of physics. If you could then England and America would both be driving on the same side of the road, rather than opposite sides.

So, no, the Big Bang did not provide the "rules for all events to unfold". Some of those rules were written by us, for our own interests and our own safety.

That's the point, the Big Bang was the initial event that eventually led to us. It's physical properties, matter/energy, space/time, enabling galaxies, stars and planets to form, including life on at least one planet. Without which, we would not exist. We are composed of the stuff of the Big Bang.

The stuff of the Big Bang allows enables chemistry and evolution, animals and plants, brains capable of experiencing the world to emerge, form and evolve.

A meaningful cause efficiently explains why something happened.
A relevant cause is something we can actually do something about.

If the Big Bang were a meaningful cause of my comments, then why do you address your responses to me? You obviously believe that I am the meaningful cause of my comments.

Again, nobody is arguing that the BB has a current input into brain activity, information processing, decision making or action initiation.

That is determined by the architecture of the brain responding to its environment through its 'avatar' the conscious self: Marvin Edwards choosing Lobster at a dinner party.

You don't exist in isolation. You do not act in isolation.

When I choose from the restaurant menu what I will order for dinner, it is my own genetic dispositions and my own prior life experiences that influence my decisions, and not yours. Now, if there were a 5 year old and his mother, and he wanted ice cream for dinner, then it would be his mother's decision and not his, that would control the choice, and he would have to eat the friggin vegetables against his will.

Your character, disposition, proclivities, etc, are a part of your biological makeup and psychological development as you live, experience and learn.

None of it is run, organized or regulated by 'will' or 'free will.'

''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.

We simply lack the right kind of control to qualify as free will.

Without the possibility of alternate actions, free will it ain't.

Well, I've shown you the restaurant menu, full of possible alternate actions.

Possible alternate actions exist for other guests, each with their own determined selection, some steak, others Lasagna, some Lobster, Vegetarian, etc.

None with the possibility of an alternate action of their own, just what was determined in each instance for each and every guest, each according to their own proclivities/taste.

A. Every meal on the menu is something that certainly can happen.
B. There is only one meal on the menu that certainly will happen.

Determinism may safely assert that under the same circumstances, I never would have chosen otherwise. But determinism cannot truthfully assert that under the same circumstances, I never could have chosen otherwise.

If an action is determined, how could you choose to do otherwise? How is that possible? How would it work?

Under the exact same circumstances, there will always be the same menu, with the same list of alternate possibilities, from which any item can be chosen, even though only one item will be chosen.

Other options are open for other guests. Each according to their own proclivities. No single guest has an alternate option. All the options are chosen by the guests that are present as a matter of necessity, not free will choice.

What can happen constrains what will happen, because if it cannot happen then it will not.

But what will happen and what does happen never constrains what can happen, because what can happen is only constrained by the possibilities we will imagine and our ability to make them happen if we choose to.

That is the logic embedded in the language. Conflating can with will breaks that logic. And, since the ability to imagine alternatives and choose between them gives us adaptive survival benefits, it is best not to break the choosing operation by forking with the language.

Whatever happens must necessarily happen. That's the nature of determinism.

 

[Jarhyn]

Actions proceed as determined by antecedents, not will, not free will.

See this is where you just declare a real property prematurely out of existence

To be necessarily anticedent to a demand of the geometry of the system is to have a "will". As in "you will fall towards that massive object". To have that demand of the anticedent blocked by some barrier, so as to have the moment towards that low-point deflected as a vector is to lack "freedom" towards that position which is nonetheless drawing you.

Such that I may say "because of that surface, you will not freely fall beyond that surface, you will fall towards it, but not freely".

 

[Marvin Edwards]

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.

... We are composed of the stuff of the Big Bang. The stuff of the Big Bang allows enables chemistry and evolution, animals and plants, brains capable of experiencing the world to emerge, form and evolve.

The key point here is that matter organized differently behaves differently.
1. Inanimate matter, like a bowling ball, responds passively to physical forces. Place a bowling ball on a slope and it will always roll downhill, governed by the force of gravity.
2. Living organisms, like a squirrel, behave purposefully, biologically driven to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Place a squirrel on that same slope and he is free to go uphill or down, or any other direction where he expects to find his next acorn. While still affected by gravity, he is not governed by it.
3. Intelligent species, like us, can behave deliberately. We can imagine alternate ways to satisfy our biological needs and we get to choose when, where, and how we go about meeting them. Our behavior is still affected by physical forces and biological drives, but is governed by our choices.

Purposeful behavior showed up for the first time in the universe with the appearance of living organisms.

Deliberate behavior, as well as language, logic, and reasoning, showed up for the first time in the universe with the appearance of intelligent species.

Deliberately chosen behavior is executive control. That which gets to choose what happens next is exercising executive control.

This ability to choose what happens next is located within the individual brains of intelligent species, and in no other place in the physical universe.

There was no executive control exercised by the Big Bang. There is no executive control exercised by the universe itself. There was no executive control exercised by evolution. It is only exercised by the individual brains of intelligent species.

Again, nobody is arguing that the BB has a current input into brain activity, information processing, decision making or action initiation.

Good. Then we shouldn't need to bring up the Big Bang or evolution as meaningful or relevant causes of anything we choose to do.

That is determined by the architecture of the brain responding to its environment through its 'avatar' the conscious self: Marvin Edwards choosing Lobster at a dinner party.

Cool, consciousness as an avatar. Gazzaniga's "interpreter" is the part of the brain that speaks for it, explaining to itself and others why it decided to do what it did.

Your character, disposition, proclivities, etc, are a part of your biological makeup and psychological development as you live, experience and learn.

Yes, but keep in mind that it is my character and my personality that decide what I will do.

None of it is run, organized or regulated by 'will' or 'free will.'

Free will is a choice a person makes for themselves, while free of coercion and undue influence.

If my brain chooses to spend time responding to your comment, then what my brain is doing right now was the result of a freely chosen will. That chosen intent then motivates and directs my subsequent actions, including my typing "That chosen intent then motivates and directs my subsequent actions".

So, freely chosen conscious intentions can actually organize and regulate further brain behavior.

On the other hand, there are other inputs that can also affect conscious behavior, like my stomach saying, "when am I going to get some breakfast?!".

''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.

We simply lack the right kind of control to qualify as free will.

Listing the many things that we do not choose never eliminates any of the things that we actually do choose!

(I'm pretty sure Prof Taylor has fallen victim of one of the logical fallacies, but I don't try to keep up with their names. Still, I can know one when I see one. Perhaps we should ask Taylor, he should know, even if he doesn't know better than to step in one.)

So, we do have sufficient control to qualify as free will in all of the choices we actually do make (assuming we are free of coercion and undue influence at the time).

Possible alternate actions exist for other guests, each with their own determined selection, some steak, others Lasagna, some Lobster, Vegetarian, etc. None with the possibility of an alternate action of their own, just what was determined in each instance for each and every guest, each according to their own proclivities/taste.

Each person ordered the dinner that they chose according to their own goals and their own reasons. And they did so voluntarily, of their own free will (that is, each was free to choose for themselves what they would order for dinner).

If an action is determined, how could you choose to do otherwise? How is that possible? How would it work?

When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen, to better prepare for what does happen.

The choosing operation is invoked whenever we face two or more options and we must choose only one before we can continue. At the beginning, we do not know what we will choose. Will I choose the steak or will I choose the lobster? I don't know. Let me think about it.

Both items are on the menu, so both are real possibilities. They are both things that I can choose. How do I know that I have the ability to choose the steak? Because I've chosen the steak before. How do I know that I have the ability to choose the lobster? Because I've chosen the lobster before as well.

In fact, I've been making choices all my life, so I'm confident that I continue to have that ability to choose between things. (David Eagleman, in his "The Brain" television series, had a patient whose ability to choose was impaired, because the emotion that confirmed "this is the right choice" was not working in her brain).

The choosing operation itself logically requires at least two things that you can choose. "I can choose the steak" must be true and "I can choose the lobster" must also be true. Both statements are true by logical necessity, because they are required by the operation.

At the end of the choosing operation I finally knew what I would do. I told the waiter, "I will have the lobster, please." (I did not say to the waiter, "I can have the lobster, please", as that would make no sense to me or the waiter).

After the choosing was finished, there was the single inevitable thing that I would do, and the other inevitable thing that I could have done, but didn't.

And that is the case with every choosing operation. There will always be the single thing that you will do, plus all of the other things that you could have done.

Choosing will always have at least one thing that you could have done instead, but didn't choose to do.

So, while determinism can safely say that you "would not have done otherwise", it will always be false to claim that you "could not have done otherwise".

This is how the logic of the language works. Therefore, if it is determined that I would have the lobster, then it is also determined that I could have had the steak.

(As you recall, I flipped a coin, it came up tails, so I chose the lobster. Even with the coin, there were two things that certainly could happen, heads or tails. I did not know what would happen, so I imagined what could happen, to prepare for what did happen. I was prepared to eat the steak and I was prepared to eat the lobster, both were equally desirable, so I deliberately chose to flip a coin rather than continue agonizing between the two).

Whatever happens must necessarily happen. That's the nature of determinism.

Correct. And what necessarily happened was that I would choose the lobster, even though I could have chosen the steak.

 

[DBT]

Actions proceed as determined by antecedents, not will, not free will.

See this is where you just declare a real property prematurely out of existence

But I don't.

I have described the role of conscious will many times. We have will, will plays a role, just not the right role to qualify for the title of free will. Will is not free will.

To be necessarily anticedent to a demand of the geometry of the system is to have a "will". As in "you will fall towards that massive object". To have that demand of the anticedent blocked by some barrier, so as to have the moment towards that low-point deflected as a vector is to lack "freedom" towards that position which is nonetheless drawing you.

Such that I may say "because of that surface, you will not freely fall beyond that surface, you will fall towards it, but not freely".

Antecedents were the conditions that determined the current state of the system and the current state of the system provides the antecedents for future states. That's determinism.


Jarhyn - ''A deterministic system is a system in which no randomness is involved in the development of future states of the system.'' post-975954

 

[DBT]

... We are composed of the stuff of the Big Bang. The stuff of the Big Bang allows enables chemistry and evolution, animals and plants, brains capable of experiencing the world to emerge, form and evolve.

The key point here is that matter organized differently behaves differently.
1. Inanimate matter, like a bowling ball, responds passively to physical forces. Place a bowling ball on a slope and it will always roll downhill, governed by the force of gravity.
2. Living organisms, like a squirrel, behave purposefully, biologically driven to survive, thrive, and reproduce. Place a squirrel on that same slope and he is free to go uphill or down, or any other direction where he expects to find his next acorn. While still affected by gravity, he is not governed by it.
3. Intelligent species, like us, can behave deliberately. We can imagine alternate ways to satisfy our biological needs and we get to choose when, where, and how we go about meeting them. Our behavior is still affected by physical forces and biological drives, but is governed by our choices.

Behaving differently doesn't automatically equate to free will. Everything within the system - all that is in the whole universe - acts according to its properties or physical makeup.

Intelligence doesn't automatically equate to free will.

Brains, for all their complexity, are not exempt from determinism, and determinism does not allow alternate actions.

Freedom of action, for the given reasons, is not freedom of will.

To qualify as free will, the right kind of regulative control is needed.


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

Purposeful behavior showed up for the first time in the universe with the appearance of living organisms.

Deliberate behavior, as well as language, logic, and reasoning, showed up for the first time in the universe with the appearance of intelligent species.

Deliberately chosen behavior is executive control. That which gets to choose what happens next is exercising executive control.

This ability to choose what happens next is located within the individual brains of intelligent species, and in no other place in the physical universe.

There was no executive control exercised by the Big Bang. There is no executive control exercised by the universe itself. There was no executive control exercised by evolution. It is only exercised by the individual brains of intelligent species.

Executive control is not free will. The action is initiated unconsciously by the PFC on the basis of information exchange between lobes and structures of the brain and brought to conscious attention.

Any creature with a central nervous system has purpose and related actions. Behaviour is determined by the architecture of a brain, imperatives, proclivities, etc, in response to environment the organism functions in.

Cats or dogs have cat or dog thoughts and behaviours, for instance, each according to their makeup, environment and life experiences.

What they do flows from state and condition of the system, their brain, not their will.

Again, nobody is arguing that the BB has a current input into brain activity, information processing, decision making or action initiation.

Good. Then we shouldn't need to bring up the Big Bang or evolution as meaningful or relevant causes of anything we choose to do.

I never have. You brought that up. The point of the BB was nothing more than initial conditions of the universe providing the necessary ingredients for all that followed

That is determined by the architecture of the brain responding to its environment through its 'avatar' the conscious self: Marvin Edwards choosing Lobster at a dinner party.

Cool, consciousness as an avatar. Gazzaniga's "interpreter" is the part of the brain that speaks for it, explaining to itself and others why it decided to do what it did.

But the interpreter does not decide. It just provides a narrative for what has already happened within the system;

''Experiments on split-brain patients reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient’s brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: “I wanted to go get a Coke.” - M Gazzaniga

Your character, disposition, proclivities, etc, are a part of your biological makeup and psychological development as you live, experience and learn.

Yes, but keep in mind that it is my character and my personality that decide what I will do.

It is the brain that creates 'your personality' - an illusion that is exposed when the underlying mechanism fails to perform.

Unconscious activity is not freely willed activity. Unconscious information processing is not willed at all. Will emerges later in the process.

Possible alternate actions exist for other guests, each with their own determined selection, some steak, others Lasagna, some Lobster, Vegetarian, etc. None with the possibility of an alternate action of their own, just what was determined in each instance for each and every guest, each according to their own proclivities/taste.

Each person ordered the dinner that they chose according to their own goals and their own reasons. And they did so voluntarily, of their own free will (that is, each was free to choose for themselves what they would order for dinner).

The goals are not chosen, they are formed. Our makeup is not chosen, it is formed by genetics, circumstances and life experience.

You don't choose your tastes and aversions. They are formed.

Being presented with the option of chocolate or vanilla, I would never choose vanilla. Someone cajoling me into choosing vanilla is external compulsion.

Thus, it comes down to the distinction of inner necessity or external compulsion.

Neither qualify as free will.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

If an action is determined, how could you choose to do otherwise? How is that possible? How would it work?

When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen, to better prepare for what does happen.

Pattern recognition is the essence of intelligence and predictive ability.

'' Neuroscientists have repeatedly pointed out that pattern recognition represents the key to understanding cognition in humans. Pattern recognition also forms the very basis by which we predict future events, i e. we are literally forced to make assumptions concerning outcomes, and we do so by relying on sequences of events experienced in the past.

Huettel et al. point out that their study identifies the role various regions of prefrontal cortex play in moment-to-moment processing of mental events in order to make predictions about future events. Thus implicit predictive models are formed which need to be continuously updated, the disruption of sequence would indicate that the PFC is engaged in a novelty response to pattern changes. As a third possible explanation, Ivry and Knight propose that activation of the prefrontal cortex may reflect the generation of hypotheses, since the formulation of an hypothesis is an essential feature of higher-level cognition.

A monitoring of participants awareness during pattern recognition could provide a test of the PFC’s ability to formulate hypotheses concerning future outcomes.''

Whatever happens must necessarily happen. That's the nature of determinism.

Correct. And what necessarily happened was that I would choose the lobster, even though I could have chosen the steak.

There is no possibility of choosing steak if it is determined that lobster is chosen.

''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.''

 

[Jarhyn]

But I don't.

I have described the role of conscious will many times. We have will, will plays a role, just not the right role to qualify for the title of free will. Will is not free will

I just came from one of the new guy's thread and he says similar. I put as much stock in it as I put in @MrIntelligentDesign and their word salads.

You have described your beliefs many times but you always fail to justify them.

I have explained a number of times that I am, for the sake of these discussions, entirely willing to entertain determinism.

Deterministic systems, given that they may hold locally stochastic systems despite their global property of determinism, so do not forbid free will.

Human game theory is confined necessarily to stochastic strategy development no matter whether the containing environment is deterministic. We can model what that does to some extent, but the inability for *US* to close the system means that it remains stochastic.

That stochastic element to OUR behavior, even if it is living in a determined environment, means that we have to make choices from statistical models. We have to model what we could do, and select what we will do. Then we find out whether that actually happens.

If it happens, our will was free and if it does not our will was constrained: not free.

These are true of our actions even in a deterministic environment.

Even an outside observer could look at the resolution of events in the system and say "this one's will was free, this one's will isn't" even as they make the decisions but before they know the results.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

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.

Behaving differently doesn't automatically equate to free will.
Intelligence doesn't automatically equate to 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.

That is specifically what "equates to free will".

Freedom of action, for the given reasons, is not freedom of will.

But it IS free will when the action happens to be choosing, and we are free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. Not all actions are choosing, of course. But free will is only about the action of choosing.

Everything within the system - all that is in the whole universe - acts according to its properties or physical makeup.

Let's hope so. Otherwise things would be very confusing.

Brains, for all their complexity, are not exempt from determinism,

That's okay. We all hope (and expect) our brains will work reliably. That's generally a good thing.

and determinism does not allow alternate actions.

Apparently determinism DOES allow alternate actions. It was causally necessary from any prior point in time that we would walk into the restaurant and be confronted with a literal menu of alternate actions we could take. We could order the steak, we could order the lobster, we could order the Chef salad, etc. Every item on the menu was something that we actually could order.

Determinism can only assert that there is only one item on the menu that we would inevitably order. It cannot make any claims at to what we can or cannot do. Determinism knows nothing of possibilities, options, alternatives, abilities, etc. So it must remain silent on these things.

To qualify as free will, the right kind of regulative control is needed.

The regulative control was our ability to choose for ourselves what we would order. The ability is empirically indisputable, because we witnessed everyone actually doing it. Choosing inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparison, and outputs a single choice. The input was the menu, the criteria of selection would vary from person to person (health, taste, allergies, etc.), and each resulted in a dinner order with an explicit or implicit "I will", as in "I will have the steak", "I will have the salad", "I will have the seafood", etc.

So, the regulative control necessary for free will was found in each customer at the dinner table.

Executive control is not free will.

Executive control is precisely what free will is about. That-which-decides-what-happens-next obviously has executive control. And free will is when someone decides for themselves what they will do, while free of coercion and other forms of undue influence.

If a guy with a gun is forcing you to order a meal that you do not want, then he has executive control. Got it?

The action is initiated unconsciously by the PFC on the basis of information exchange between lobes and structures of the brain and brought to conscious attention.

I assume you are referring to the brain activity that resulted in everyone consciously deciding to have dinner at the restaurant.

The issue of whether this choice was made unconsciously and then presented to conscious awareness is irrelevant, because it doesn't actually change anything. Everyone was conscious of their choice to eat at the restaurant. Everyone was conscious of the menu. Everyone was conscious of the dinner they chose. Everyone was conscious when they placed their order with the waiter.

Nothing from neuroscience has contradicted the fact that the person chose what they would have for dinner. Nothing from neuroscience has contradicted the fact that each person was held responsible for their deliberate act by the waiter who brought them the bill.

... What they do flows from state and condition of the system, their brain, not their will.

For everyone in the restaurant, choosing was the most important part of that flow, because it causally determined their will.

Choosing works like this:
1. Input: The menu of possible dinners.
2. Evaluation: Which meal is most likely to satisfy my goals and desires?
3. Output: "I will have the steak, please".

If there is no choosing, there will be no dinner.

But the interpreter does not decide. It just provides a narrative for what has already happened within the system;

And that is fine. It does not change the fact that the person made the decision and placed the order. How the person's brain performed this function is irrelevant to the customer and to the waiter who brings him the bill. We know, at the human level, exactly who did what, and who is responsible for the bill.

''Experiments on split-brain patients reveal how readily the left brain interpreter can make up stories and beliefs. In one experiment, for example, when the word walk was presented only to the right side of a patient’s brain, he got up and started walking. When he was asked why he did this, the left brain (where language is stored and where the word walk was not presented) quickly created a reason for the action: “I wanted to go get a Coke.” - M Gazzaniga

Yeah, that's always cool stuff. But it changes nothing. Manipulation, such as presenting the word "walk" to the subject's right hemisphere, while keeping his left hemisphere in the dark, is an undue influence, and is a good example of the opposite of free will.

The goals are not chosen, they are formed. Our makeup is not chosen, it is formed by genetics, circumstances and life experience. You don't choose your tastes and aversions. They are formed.

And that's fine with me. After all, that's how it works for everyone. But listing the things that we do not choose does not eliminate any of the things that we actually do choose. For example, we get to choose what we will order for dinner in the restaurant.

Being presented with the option of chocolate or vanilla, I would never choose vanilla.

Then don't. After all, it is up to you.

Someone cajoling me into choosing vanilla is external compulsion.

Hmm. Had to look up "cajole" to see if it meant what I thought. The definition from OED is "To prevail upon or get one's way with (a person) by delusive flattery, specious promises, or any false means of persuasion."

That seems to fall short of compelling you, as an adult, to try vanilla. I would say you are still free to recognize and dismiss the cajolery for what it is, and choose to have your chocolate.

Thus, it comes down to the distinction of inner necessity or external compulsion.

But if you simply prefer chocolate to vanilla, then you would also lack an inner necessity to avoid vanilla. For example, if the chocolate were gone, and all that was left was the vanilla, then you might not refuse the vanilla, because, after all, it is still ice cream.

A preference is not an inner necessity. You are still free to choose to have vanilla when it is the better of the available options (e.g., given vanilla or strawberry, I would always choose vanilla). If you were allergic to vanilla, then that would be a true inner necessity.

Neither qualify as free will.

Actually, both may qualify as free will, because neither a preference nor cajolery would constitute a coercive or undue influence. You would still be free to choose between chocolate and vanilla, even if you never chose vanilla.

''How could I have a choice about anything that is an inevitable consequence of something I have no choice about? And yet ...the compatibilist must deny the No Choice Principle.” - Van Inwagen

Well, next time you see Van Inwagen, explain to him about how the stuff we don't choose does not eliminate any of the stuff that we do choose. The fact that there are some times when there is no choice does not lead to the conclusion that there are no times when there is a choice.

Pattern recognition is the essence of intelligence and predictive ability.

Cool. But not relevant.

There is no possibility of choosing steak if it is determined that lobster is chosen.

What can happen constrains what will happen. If something cannot happen, then it will not happen.

But what what will happen never constrains what can happen. What can happen is that I can order the steak as easily as I can order the lobster. Determinism does not limit what I can do. It only limits what I will do.

"Can" and "will" are two distinct concepts. For example, to say that "I can" do something does not require me to actually do it. To say that "I will" do something does require me to do it.

Most people make this distinction because that is how the language works and that is how it is taught. But a hard determinist conflates "can" with "will", causing him to make claims that appear absurd, like claiming that I could not have chosen the steak, when clearly I could. Their claim must limit itself to asserting that, given that same circumstances, "I would not have done otherwise" (even though I could have).

 

[Jarhyn]

I don't say physics is an application of math.
I, and most actual theoretical physicists, say physics is an application of math.

If you don't understand why, you don't understand what math is and what physics is.

You don't get to say "physics carries is property of math" without first standing on "physics is described this way by math sufficiently to all observations, and thus this property based on the description via math."

What is Physics and Why is it Important?

Physics is the science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them.

www.universalclass.com

Physics. The science in which matter and energy are studied both separately and in combination with one another.

And a more detailed working definition of physics may be: The science of nature, or that which pertains to natural objects, which deals with the laws and properties of matter and the forces which act upon them. Quite often, physics concentrates upon the forces having an impact upon matter, that is, gravitation, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, and others.

B. Physics. Orientation

Because physics utilizes elements of other branches of sciences, biology and chemistry for example, it has the reputation of being more complicated than other sciences.

Physics, as opposed to natural philosophy (with which it was grouped until the 19th century), relies upon scientific methods in order to describe the natural world.

...

C. Physics and Mathematics

As a whole, physics is closely related to mathematics, for it provides the logical structure in which physical laws may be formulated and their predictions quantified. A great many of physics' definitions, models, and theories are expressed using mathematical symbols and formulas.

The central difference between physics and mathematics is that ultimately physics is concerned with descriptions of the material world whereas mathematics is focused on abstract logical patterns that may extend beyond the real world.

Because physics concentrates on the material world, it tests its theories through the process known as observation or experimentation. In theory, it may seem relatively easier to detect where physics leaves off and mathematics picks up. However, in reality, such a clean-cut distinction does not always exist. Hence, the gray areas in between physics and mathematics tend be called "mathematical physics."

I stand by the above waiting for your chickens to roost.

If YOU wish to claim that "physics is not perfectly describable by melathematics"

THEN, you cannot say "physics is perfectly described as this construct within math re:determinism"

What's this with perfect? Determined is, full stop.

Math is mainly developed by necessity to characterize via hoc ventures by those having need to communicate relationships.

Yes, most math's have been developed by those characterizing the physical world. That does not make math or physics the parent, that makes the curious and experimental the curators. Besides we all know the study of physics is an ongoing process which may have no end as far as humanity is concerned.

Many analogies apply to the process of science as a study ranging from telescope/microscope to existence/beginning.

So, first there's this religion of yours, which is answered in the other thread.

"Determined is, full stop." Is a statement of unwavering, uncritical belief.

The fact is, there is no difference between a deterministic closed system subject to time and a stochastic closed system subject to time, from the perspective of the players in it and their game theory, and this is doubly so due to the virtual particle field resolution pathway problem.

There's no. Fucking. Difference. All systems in math are globally deterministic once they have been just so.

Math can't make random numbers. It's incapable of it. It can make chaotic numbers but it can't make random ones.

The universe contains absolutely random numbers that we can never have seen until we see them. From our perspective and anything subject to a relativity issue.

The universe is a stochastic system as far as we are concerned and as far as you are concerned.

Even if it were globally deterministic, we must exist within a behavioral space where we process information with stochastic game theory.

Every animal on this fucking planet models stochastic game theory, and every model is far from perfect.

It is a part of the actual behavioral geometry of our species. Us existing as survival players in a closed system game make that a demanded fact.

The stochastic game theory is no less real just because the players are hosted by the same stuff as the rest of the game.

Compatibilism doesn't address whether the system globally has more than one resolution pathway. Compatibilism addresses stochastic operation within the game.

I see many possible futures.

If you only see one future, or fewer, that's your problem, and you should fix that by reading The Stranger by Camus, and maybe Candidae if you haven't already.

But regardless, I can see a lot of time unfold in front of me, and I chart a course long before I get there. Sometimes I wonder at how far I see and how I can possibly see it, but it's there, the path under my feet I charted, and all of the side paths that I can see and hope not to be forced down against that will.

I can accept that there are humans, perhaps you, utterly incapable of goal directed behavior.

I'm not such a person, and it's quite silly of you to assume we of the goal directed behaviors do not exist.

Do not try to lock me in your Chinese room because it is cramped in there

 

[fromderinside]

Let's start with "We of the goal directed behaviors ... "

Paychology. Ever hear about that discipline? They have schools of behaviorism dedicated to the study of "goal directed behavior." I actually ran rats, children, possums, apes, insects, in behavioral experimental studies. I studied theories of mind, wrote treatises on it, deconstructed, analyzed, reconstructed, such.

Not much there beyond Thorndike's  Associationism if you get down to it. It reduces to mental states, whatever they are, and there are definitions aplenty, all self-referential, describing them.

It wasn't for me.

I chose psychophysics where at least one could define material bases for whatever one studied. Took a doctorate and post doctorate in search of the bases of behavior in animals, especially, humans. Worked an entire career in Civilian and Military Man-machine systems, Human Factors, Ergonomics, authored guides on Displays, Control Systems, Flight Operations, etc.

And here I am ready to get-er on. Your interest in math models are not sustainable as a basis for expertise in the above areas. But, hey. So what?

Bottom line is we define ourselves as ones of goal directed behaviors more out of conceit than anything else. If one looks for mind one finds a nervous system which is at the base of all behavior, if one ignores that muscles, glands, organs, skeletal systems, also make up the substance of one.

Now if you want we can feast on what we know and come up still not knowing how we work or whether we are driven or directing. If you want to go down that path, "I'm your huckleberry."

 

[DBT]

But I don't.

I have described the role of conscious will many times. We have will, will plays a role, just not the right role to qualify for the title of free will. Will is not free will

I just came from one of the new guy's thread and he says similar. I put as much stock in it as I put in @MrIntelligentDesign and their word salads.

You have described your beliefs many times but you always fail to justify them.

I have explained a number of times that I am, for the sake of these discussions, entirely willing to entertain determinism.

Deterministic systems, given that they may hold locally stochastic systems despite their global property of determinism, so do not forbid free will.

Human game theory is confined necessarily to stochastic strategy development no matter whether the containing environment is deterministic. We can model what that does to some extent, but the inability for *US* to close the system means that it remains stochastic.

That stochastic element to OUR behavior, even if it is living in a determined environment, means that we have to make choices from statistical models. We have to model what we could do, and select what we will do. Then we find out whether that actually happens.

If it happens, our will was free and if it does not our will was constrained: not free.

These are true of our actions even in a deterministic environment.

Even an outside observer could look at the resolution of events in the system and say "this one's will was free, this one's will isn't" even as they make the decisions but before they know the results.

Resorting to insults now? That's poor. Your frustration is on display.

You compare incompatibilism with the new guys nonsense? Really? You are scraping the bottom of your barrel of denial.

You provided the very same definition of determinism, yet dance around the implications.

The undeniable implications of determinism are that no alternative is realizable. That is implicit in the very definition that you gave.

The actions that unfold within a determined system are fixed, no deviation, no alternate action.

That is not me saying it. It's just how determinism is defined.


''Compatibilism is a position that seeks to harmonize Determinism (or Causal Determinism) and Free Will, and posits that they can coexist— typically (i) by watering down the pure form of Free Will to include the illusion of choice that exists prior to the inexorable occurrence of determined activity that is not and cannot be known until after it occurs, or (ii) by watering down Causal Determinism to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence — or by watering down both concepts. Notably, Compatibilism simply stakes out a position respecting the relationship between Determinism and Free Will, and does not take a position as to whether Determinism is true or Free Will exists — or neither. Rather, Compatibilism simply posits that the two concepts can coexist (to the extent that either or both exist).

As explained below, based on my understanding of Determinism and Free Will, I believe that Compatibilism is not supported by sound logic, and results from an emotional resistance to accepting the absence of Free Will. Then, again, if Determinism is true, people who believe in Compatibilism are compelled to have that belief, and are incapable of having any other belief.''

''I could write many pages describing the varied attempts of by Compatibilists to harmonize the irreconcilable concepts of Determinism and Free Will, but it is unnecessary for me to do so, as there is an excellent discussion of this subject on-line within the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It should suffice to say that none of the various arguments for Compatibilism courageously presented on the Stanford website is satisfying, and all suffer from the same flaw identified above — namely, a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' - Bruce Silverstein, B.A. Philosophy

 

[DBT]

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.

The premises are still flawed. It is not 'someone' that chooses, but specifically the unconscious underlying information processing activity of a brain. Without that unconscious activity, 'someone' just sits there with a blank look on their face.

Free will is a case of mislabeling.

Behaving differently doesn't automatically equate to free will.
Intelligence doesn't automatically equate to 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.

That is specifically what "equates to free will".

Still the wrong label. We lack the right kind of regulative control to qualify as free will. We think and act on the principle of information processing. The brain is an information processor. Actions are generated through processing, not will.

Freedom of action, for the given reasons, is not freedom of will.

But it IS free will when the action happens to be choosing, and we are free of coercion and other forms of undue influence. Not all actions are choosing, of course. But free will is only about the action of choosing.

Actions inevitably follow input and processing;

''Wanting to do X is fully determined by these prior causes. Now that the desire to do X is being felt, there are no other constraints that keep the person from doing what he wants, namely X.'' - Cold comfort in Compatibilism.

Everything within the system - all that is in the whole universe - acts according to its properties or physical makeup.

Let's hope so. Otherwise things would be very confusing.

Not to mention the consequences for the idea of free will.

Brains, for all their complexity, are not exempt from determinism,

That's okay. We all hope (and expect) our brains will work reliably. That's generally a good thing.

Not so much when it comes to will and action being necessitated, therefore fixed.


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

We have will, but given necessitation, it is not free.

and determinism does not allow alternate actions.

Apparently determinism DOES allow alternate actions. It was causally necessary from any prior point in time that we would walk into the restaurant and be confronted with a literal menu of alternate actions we could take. We could order the steak, we could order the lobster, we could order the Chef salad, etc. Every item on the menu was something that we actually could order.

There is only one selection possible for any individual diner in any given instance in time. If there are ten diners in the cafe, and ten items on the menu, all items can be selected.

Or you might be challenged by the idea that only one selection is possible, so you order all the items on the menu to prove your free will.

That is inner necessitation at work. the challenge to your 'free will' drives you to order all the items on the menu.....ironically, being determined, that is still your only possible selection in that moment in time based on the very thing that drove you to that action; the challenge to your idea of free will.

“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

Determinism can only assert that there is only one item on the menu that we would inevitably order. It cannot make any claims at to what we can or cannot do. Determinism knows nothing of possibilities, options, alternatives, abilities, etc. So it must remain silent on these things.

Determinism doesn't have to know or understand anything. It's just one action causing another, each action being a cause and an effect in a web of activity that cannot be otherwise. No alternatives, no deviations.

''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.''

 

[Jarhyn]

You compare incompatibilism with the new guys nonsense

Absolutely yes!

It is religious garbage and Voltaire nailed it hardcore in Candide over 250 years ago.

You fully admit that you don't understand systems theory

no alternative is realizable

It does not have to be.

Our will is such that we want specific things, and have priorities.

I see "the river of time" before and after me as a function of my existence. I have personally looked at that course, at least the probabilistics of it, the stochastic uncertainties built on unforseeable chaos, and made plans.

Apparently you don't know how to make plans and as I have said, that's your problem.

Before I ever go to the restaurant, before I ever look at the menu, before the information of that place which is occluded by the horizon of material and sublightspeed interactions as sound and kinetic vibration I say "if the beef is affordable, I want that; otherwise I want the chicken."

Only one of those things will happen. I have set my will, spoken it aloud although that is not necessary, and placed a goal out there in the world.

Later when I go to the restaurant, it is that event and none of the events in the restaurant that impact my decision. It has been held as a will all this time, and when they turn out to be some hipster vegan place, and I can't have either and I have to have the tofu, I realize I did not have free will: my will was constrained.

These are, while not immediately actual events, entirely within the normal way events happen.

This is

As explained below, based on my understanding of Determinism and Free Will, I believe

You absolutely do, just as hardcore as @MrIntelligentDesign

two incompatible concepts.

And I have taken the time to explain for you and FDI very carefully and several times now that your understanding of systems theory and this one philospher's analysis is so fucking wrong it's laughable.

The player based game theory is a property of the system local to the domain of closed system game theory.

I understand that my arguments may be new, and your arguments may be old, but you have repeatedly demonstrated that you don't even understand your arguments well enough to support them and neither does Marvin.

It's incredibly frustrating.

I understand my arguments because I am the one that did the math on them. Believe what you want about whether my math is right or wrong, but you have to actually understand the math to speak to it. You barely even read my posts, let alone the math of them. You are too incredulous, you with your assumed conclusion.

Determinists are often like that, though, sitting in a circularity.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

''Compatibilism is a position that seeks to harmonize Determinism (or Causal Determinism) and Free Will, and posits that they can coexist— typically (i) by watering down the pure form of Free Will to include the illusion of choice that exists prior to the inexorable occurrence of determined activity that is not and cannot be known until after it occurs, or (ii) by watering down Causal Determinism to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence — or by watering down both concepts.

Determinism is derived from our observation that events appear to be reliably caused by prior events.
Free will is derived from our observation that people routinely decide for themselves what they will do.
There is no need to go to any great length to "harmonize" the two, because there they both are, right in front of us, for all to see.

The only way they can be portrayed as combatants, is by altering the definition of determinism to include more than what it naturally is, or to alter the definition of free will to be more than what it naturally is. And that is what the incompatibilists have done, they have altered both definitions to create an illusion of incompatibility.

Notably, Compatibilism simply stakes out a position respecting the relationship between Determinism and Free Will, and does not take a position as to whether Determinism is true or Free Will exists — or neither. Rather, Compatibilism simply posits that the two concepts can coexist (to the extent that either or both exist).

The position of compatibilism is that determinism, correctly defined, is true, and that free will, correctly defined, is also true. However, all of the bull shit "implications" that have been added by the incompatilists are false.

"As explained below, based on my understanding of Determinism and Free Will, I believe that Compatibilism is not supported by sound logic, and results from an emotional resistance to accepting the absence of Free Will. Then, again, if Determinism is true, people who believe in Compatibilism are compelled to have that belief, and are incapable of having any other belief.''

Bruce, your understanding of Determinism and Free Will is flawed. Incompatibilists have hoisted so many false arguments to support their emotional resistance to accepting the presence of free will, that they no longer have any real clue as to what free will is about. Free will is not some magical power that allows us to "escape" our world of reliable causation, as if reliable causation were something that constrained us. And determinism is not some supernatural entity that forces us to do things against our will, robbing us of our own control and our own responsibility for how we exercise that control. The incompatibilist's arguments are a building constructed of metaphors and figurative language. It is an imaginary fortress, easily pierced by pragmatism and empiricism.

''I could write many pages describing the varied attempts of by Compatibilists to harmonize the irreconcilable concepts of Determinism and Free Will, but it is unnecessary for me to do so, as there is an excellent discussion of this subject on-line within the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It should suffice to say that none of the various arguments for Compatibilism courageously presented on the Stanford website is satisfying, and all suffer from the same flaw identified above — namely, a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the true and complete nature of the two incompatible concepts.'' - Bruce Silverstein, B.A. Philosophy

And if anyone cares to see a rebuttal to the SEP's article on Compatibilism, see my post here:
https://marvinedwards.me/2018/10/20/compatibilism-whats-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/